The Pain Made Me Strong ~ Levi x Reader

Chapter 40

Y/n’s POV-

     Our squad sat, tired and sweaty in a circle on various rocks and pieces of wood, taking off their 3DMG. Eren and I approached and sat down, beginning to take off our own. Levi stood with his arms crossed, watching as we approached.

     “Took you two long enough, how did the brat do, Y/n?” Levi asked.

     “Oh, he’s doing great, he’s great with directions, so I saw a lot of small improvements. I’ll just need to keep working with him on it all,” I said, shooting Eren a proud look.

      Levi gave a slight nod, “Alright, well, work on some of the training techniques we have gone over, Eld be sure to work with Y/n and Jaeger so they know what it is they need to do. I’ll be back in about two hours, until then I expect diligent training to be done.”

     Everyone saluted and Levi left to his office in the main headquarters and Eld came over to Eren and me with a warm grin. We finished removing our gear and stood up, walking with Eld to a section of the training grounds with equipment. 

     Eld began showing us Levi’s drills for strength, speed, and endurance training that the squad did when they were working on their own. Once he showed us, we quietly trained on our own, Eren letting out struggled puffs of air every once in a while. I swiftly moved through the equipment, being sure to get a good workout that would surely leave me sore in the morning.

     I knew I needed to push myself, I knew I needed to be stronger than ever if I was going to stand a chance if the enemy showed up. They were smart to keep themselves hidden and untraceable so far, they just neglected our brilliant commander, but even so, if they show up it will be the fight of our lives. And if it was Eren they wanted, then I would be sure to make it so they never achieved their goal.

     I worked and worked, sweating and gasping for air while my muscles ached for what felt like hours, but couldn’t have been more than an hour and a half. I pushed myself harder than I ever pushed myself, I had one month to be at my peak. 

     Eld called us all over and we began to do that of a cool down, doing light endurance and then moving to stretching out sore muscles for the next fifteen minutes. Once that was done, we just began doing light tasks, waiting for Levi to come back.

     I was moving the equipment I had been using out of the way when I turned to see Petra glaring at me harder than ever before. She huffed and let out a cough that made everyone look over. I set down what I had been carrying as she began to walk up to me.

     “I have been racking my brain all afternoon trying to figure out something Y/n. And you know what that was? Why in the world are you here on this squad? I have put up with you being here this whole time, trying to find the reason why Captain Levi keeps you around, and you know? I just can’t. Everyone here has been so nice to you and I don’t see why, I don’t see why some lousy fresh cadet who has nothing special about her is getting such special treatment,” Petra said, now standing only a few feet from me, arms crossed over her chest. 

     “Petra-” Eld began.

     “No, I have something to say and I am going to say it, because I have kept quiet all this time and I am done with it,” Petra huffed.

     My eyes grew to slits and anger boiled inside of me, was she really about to just tell me off in front of the whole squad. Was she trying to belittle me to them? I saw Eren, who had a look of shock and anger, as if he wanted to run over and punch Petra square in the jaw. I didn’t blame him either, but quite frankly, I wanted to hear what her reasoning for hating me was all this time.