Debt to Pay | AOT

❈ ℂ𝕙𝕚𝕝𝕕 𝕙𝕖 𝕣𝕒𝕚𝕤𝕖𝕕 ❈

"Mom?" a seven-year-old Levi squealed. He tugged at his mother's sleeve with his tiny palms. Something was just off. "Are you still there, mom?"

The only responses to his question were the quivering candlelight, increasing shadows, and muffled talk that was carried away from underneath the wooden door. Levi placed his hand on his mother's pale hollow cheek and shuddered at the coldness of the parched, shriveled skin. Even he knew what it meant. Levi began to sob, his whimper filling the otherwise mute room. "D-don't leave me, mom..."

Time wormed its way forward as sluggishly as his only company, the creepy-crawlies, on the floor. Minutes dragged on slowly. He sat in a dark corner hugging his bony knees choking with his own overwhelming sorrow. Sometimes, it eased a little when a fracture of his pain was cleansed with tears coming from his eyes. His heart had taken the worst blow, even though the spear of pain in his flesh wasn't so sharp anymore.

Soon after, the stream of saltwater stopped. The trails of sadness still remained on his cheeks, he didn't bother to wipe them off. They were the only memory of his mother he got.

Then the man came. The tall, slim man with a hat and a coat. "Whoah, whoah. Ya seem to have lost a lot of weight, Kuchel." Those were the first words he ever said. His voice was hoarse and raspy as if his vocal cords had been shredded with a grater.

Levi had cried so much there were no unwelcome tears left uncried. "She's dead."

With sheer surprise, the man turned his tapered head to clap his narrow eyes on him, suddenly becoming aware of his humble presence. "And you? Are you alive?" he asked in a reserved manner. When Levi couldn't force a wise reply out of his throat, he continued frustration galore: "Gimme a break. Ya understand me? What's yer name?"

"Levi," the boy whispered pulling his spider legs even closer to his starving scrawny body. The bulges of his bones were trying to break free from the paper-thin skin. He hadn't used his voice in a long time. It sounded like he had just found it from somewhere. "Just Levi."

The man rested his back against the wall, smoothly sliding onto the floor with a thump until he was on the same level as him. "I see... Guess ya're right, Kuchel," he muttered turning his eyes to Levi's dead mother. Something unidentified flashed beneath his blank expression. "No point ya telling me yer name. I'm Kenny, just Kenny. Kuchel and I... knew each other. Nice to meet ya."

And that's how Levi encountered with Kenny the Ripper for the first time.

Since that day, Kenny had always kept complaining about the choice he made. Levi wasn't too welcomed by others, either.

"Hey, who's that kid with you, Kenny?" somebody asked. Ravenous Levi was wolfing down everything Kenny had given to him. Many curious eyes were trained on him, a huge grown-up man and a tiny resemblance of a boy.

"Nobody," Kenny muttered and gulped down a mouthful of beer letting out a burp. "Just someone I found and saved from death."

"Saved? It looks already dead."

"Besides, it doesn't look very grateful."

"How come a brat has such an unpleasant mug?"

"I'd just let it die if I were you."

"Yeah." Kenny frowned, a good amount of ale stored safely in his belly.

"Why bother saving it?"

"Who knows..."

That same day, Kenny greeted those people with a knife. "Look closely, Levi. This is how ya come and say hello to yer neighbors." He grabbed them by the collar and let them taste their own blood. Their screams were unforgettable.

Later on, Levi had asked him: "Why did you do that to them?"

"They called ya it, remember?" Kenny had spat and looked at him as if he had grown a third head. "Ya ain't any angry?"

Levi hadn't answered. Bloodshed and gore. He got used to it. He slowly started to realize how right he was. 'All ya need is power. Long as ya got that ya can make it. The most important person in this world is the one who has the most power in it.'

Receiving only the cold silent treatment when he happened to bawl too loudly or being rejected when he was too clingy, Levi learned independence. He stopped crying in front of Kenny. Tearless wail, rubbing eyes out of habit, he lulled himself into sleep only to wake up again.

"That's my boy," Kenny snorted when Levi managed to throw him a punch that actually made him limp for a few minutes. "But ya're still too slow for this old man."

He grabbed his wrists and used force to flatten him against the ground like a pancake. Levi hissed even though he could feel Kenny's sharp knife sliding across his neck - if he added any pressure to it, it would sink into his flesh fatally.

"Never show yer enemy what yer next move is gonna be."

"Let me go!"

"Tch," Kenny said but released him. "Ya have a lot to learn." And he did. Levi learned to vent his frustration by expressing it through violence. Like hot coal that was burning inside him. It was rage and hatred towards this cruel world. Because of this world, he didn't have a mother and he had to live without ever seeing the sun.

All they needed to know was how to stay alive in the underground. And when there was nothing else Kenny could teach him... He left Levi behind. For years he asked himself 'why?' until he came to understand. He had grown strong enough. For a jerk like him, he was just another mission completed.

//And yet another story behind. English isn't my first language so if you noticed any mistakes I'd be grateful to anyone who points them out. My thought on how things could have been between the uncle and the nephew if they weren't enemies. Might be nonsensical at some points and contradict the original story.//