Shorter Than Me (Continued)

31.5 Ecyn

After breakfast, I take my squad to the forest to practice more. You can never have enough practice for this sort of thing.

I told them that we're going to be doing hand-to-hand combat practice starting tomorrow. I'm sort of excited to practice it. I don't really know how good I am, or if I've lost the skills Ackerman helped me gain. I don't even know if what he did to me helped me. That reminds me, I think I passed out at the end of one of our practice sessions, then I woke up in my bed the next morning. I never suspected that Ackerman had brought me in, but I think it would be the only possibility. The thought makes me uncomfortable.

I turn my thoughts back to my squad. They all work pretty well together, though there's always room for improvement. Part of me wants to say that it's my leadership skills that have gotten us to this point, but I know a lot of it is them. Their determination and willingness has helped a lot. There was already some unity between most of them, and being in a squad together has just made them closer.

I didn't realize it before, but the way they have each squad in the same sleeping quarters is a strategy for unity. It brought me closer to Mikasa than I was. It also helped me understand her better.

The two girls in my squad also knew each other before they joined my squad, so that definitely helps. Qui and I both knew Fellip from our training corps. Phodos and Elirah knew each other before as well. Phodos, Elirah, and Jewel have been in the scouting legion for over a year, so they also had a little connection there. Jewel is a year older than them, however. She's the oldest one in my squad, but any hesitation I felt about ordering her around or acting like I'm better than her was dispelled a while ago.

I really love my squad. I can't bear to imagine what I would do if any of them died. That's why we keep practicing and keep geting better. The commander also wants to avoid putting us in the most dangerous locations in the formation because he wants to keep us alive.

Sometimes I realize I'm only seventeen. I've seen so many people die, and I almost feel older than everyone not in the military. I feel like I've aged more in the past year than I have my whole life. I almost wish I was little again. But that feeling seems so foreign, so many years ago. It may even have been a lifetime ago. Is that what the Scouting Legion does to people, ages them so much in so little time? Maybe that's why we die so soon. We're so old, so different, so separate.

But when I see my squad laughing, I can remember the youth and innocence that we're still able to have. It's other people, other Scouts, that make life more normal. Isolation kills, but we're together. Even Ackerman has others.

The Scouting Legion is terrifying and terrible, but somehow it's all I have and all I really need. It's all I really want.

Yes, I know this chapter is shorter than me. Ha.

Okay so I'm sorry I'm updating slowly. It's not my fault. I'm in Japan and I have unreliable WiFi and all that stuff. Sorry <3