When The Levi Breaks [I Have No Where Else To Stay]

Everything was boiled down to emotions. They made things much more complicated than they needed to be. Simple interactions at a coffee shop turned into a flurry of getting banned because you harassed the barista because you thought they were into you, or on the reverse end where they made you more and more uncomfortable with each visit. An interaction, that eventually leads you to go somewhere else, taking your money, and your business to another place. Of course, until it inevitably happens again, though perhaps this time with another regular from that morning purchase because you're just too ashamed to admit it's an addiction. Little emotions made things complicated. And it was just the idea of it happening, that Kasey had steered away from coffee, or any ritualistic means where such a thing might unfold. Even that small infatuations with people on public transportation, be it a bus or a subway, was not to her liking. It was why she preferred her own car, and her own means of travel. Complications, something simplified when your maid was as cold as steel, and your butler was more like your cousin anyways. Everything fit into neat and sorted compartments, buried away deep within her soul, making her as lifeless as stone on the outside. Of course, like statues, you can't hear the screams on the inside. Well, unless you peel the concrete away from the man you buried under it. But, no one was going to miss him. At least, no one beyond her stomach.

A year had passed since then. Not the thief, but the loss of a life. Someone who was not bound to shared blood of birth, but of a bond. They both served and obeyed a man, the woman even going as far to obey his demand for death. A year had passed. But for her, it was every day. It was every night. It was every afternoon. Emotions complicated things. Her life, it was complicated. It was easier without people to cloud your heart. That was why she was so content without him. Yes, peace in loneliness. It surely was what she needed. That was, what she told herself. That was what she continued to tell herself. But she saw that girl's face in everything. She could hear his voice even when the voices in her head had stopped. It didn't matter who killed her, or if she had revenge. That day, was always today.

She leaned back and...

"STUPID!" She cried out, slamming her head onto the gate. The book closed as her fingers tightly held onto it. Her own skull would cause a dent, and her silence punctuated with the slight ringing of the metal gate. She hated emotions. She hated the feeling of-

Oh. So, it was possible still.

Her eyes watered up, as she closed them, lightning tapping her head against the gate. For once in a long while, she was met without a reply. No words from her companion. All this time, and still, the pain of a party of one befell her. It didn't matter how much her suit cost, or how expensive her perfume was. Even if she pretended to have the money she actually did have, she would never belong. Not among the rich, not among the poor. She had inherited a "dead man's" fortune, which was comparable to the money she already had. But all things came to an end. As such, the silence in her mind.

"Perhaps we should start over."

She replied, but not within the safety of their shared mind, but aloud. "I'm so tired of starting over."

"We almost had it all."

". . . All I have now is that stupid family and money. They aren't even my family. . . Cherry is-"

"Gone. But that doesn't matter."

". . . Nothing matters."

The three large gates, all of them painted with graffiti and brought colors from the outside. One of them now had a large dent, in addition to the small holes here and there. If anyone wanted to peek into the building, the large empty shelves would be all tha was seen. The door that remained off to the side, not that much further from her left. She looked over at it, wondering if it was worth a peek.

"Perhaps a new place. This one is full of. . . memories."

"A failure to the public."

"If they knew you were buying children only to free them, they would question the purchase in the first place. And for those unbought, all of the bodies you had left behind... or well, the puddles of blood."

"It doesn't matter what I do, or what I don't do. I'm a freak an outcast." She sighed, "Anything I touch, eventually turns to shit."

"Except for Caitlyn."

"Except for Caitlyn."

Greetings. They were the simple thing that all creatures did when they came across each other. Some where done to show the joy of seeing the other, like a dog with its owner. Some where just to acknowledge another's being, as birds chirped to each other, or people passed on the street. Others, were simply telling each other they were there, sometimes laced with a warning like a lion's roar. Greetings was something someone did to let their presence known to the other. How they greeted, was to set forth their interaction, and what relationship they may have, or in some cases, make it known what relationship they did have. "Hello brother." A simple greeting to one who shared the same parents, and let it known that you two were in fact siblings. "Don't fucking talk to me, brother." One more complex, that reveals the same as the previous, but also reminded both sides of their much more and possibly violent history of interactions. Greetings were important. Though, some would argue, not as important as some say good bye.

The sight of the white fur and horns, was quite different than she remembered. Her gaze falling upon him with her own reddened eyes. The tears fell openly, and she did not dare wipe them away. It had been a time since she had let petty human emotions come over her. For now, they remained, a reminded that she too, was a mortal.

"Chimera." she would say, a shy and awkward smile cracked her lips as she looked over him. His horns, his fur, his attire, his stance. Time had passed, he had changed surely. Seeing him was like walking into the future. Everything was different. But she, was still the same. "Three more years." she would say, resting her head on the metal gate. "You remember that, don't you?"

She was not one that forgot, she had lived in memories of things that were long lost. But right now, she skipped the topic. She really didn't want to be reminded about anything else to do with Seki. So much had happened. All of it, tied to that one man. And lost to her uproar, was the closest thing she had to family, other than the one girl that happened to share the same face.

"Am." she would say. "Was, implies that you are no longer. Are you no longer her friend?" She held the book, lightly tapping it against her leg. The black book with the name written in a silver marker. IT was unmistakable. Even if she tried to brush past it, it was the reason she even came out here.

L e v i a t h a n ♡

Less than a year, and he would become a hero. It was truly something to be proud of, almost like seeing your own little brother go on his own to achieve his dreams. In her eyes, that was what he had become. Levi was a sister, and if he was as close as she imagined, then it wasn't far fetched. But, there wasn't much left to imagine, after all, she had read the written words. She knew how she saw the world. A book wasn't going to change the world, but it was going to change a woman who was going to reshape the world. One year. She had one year to fix Japan before she was at risk of killing the few people she cared about. One year to complete her plan. One year to take over Japan.

She nodded slowly as she looked forward and away from him, down the roads of the district. It was getting late. How would he get home? It wasn't a question, she knew the answer. She would have to take him home. But did he still stay at UA? Would she ever be allowed back? She pulled in her legs close to her chest as she sat there, her arms holding her knees as the book lay in her hands. The cover pressed against her side, hiding the name, only to show the strange torn back. It was like someone had taken a razor blade, which they did, to the back to carve some sort of design. A figure a-

"No one will buy it anyways." she would say, her eyes dry, but her cheeks still wet. "You should apologize only if you do something wrong. Nothing done, was wrong." she stared off into the sky, watching the colors and the clouds. "She wasn't buried here. She was taken back home. She's with her parents now." She spoke, looking down at the notebook she held. It was bound by some thicker card stock. A sketchbook of sorts, the lack of lines on the pages.

"It would be right to have her rest here." she would say, "And it felt wrong to sell this place." She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath.

"Then we will start again."

"I'm so tired of pretending. . . " she would say quietly to herself. Any maybe in a sense, it was a confession. Maybe it was just a bunch of random and meaningless words that poured from her mouth as it had always been. Or perhaps, really after all this time, she was now something, someone different.

The touch of his hand caused her head to slowly turn to face his. Her green eyes stared into his own round red eyes. A sense of familiarity. It felt like she was looking to a version of Setsuna that was covered in flesh and fur. Perhaps that was why she had taken the small liking to the boy. Or maybe it was because he was the only one that saw Levi for who she was. Small moments spent outside. He did not break her heart, not like the boy of ice. She looked at his hands for a moment, before looking back. "No, he also lacks the same . . . bitch hands, as it were." She found him strange. She couldn't help but be curious.

She offered a shy smile, before handing over the book to him, holding it between them. "It was hers." she would say, passing over the suggestion for her tears. She had make promises. And truth be told, she had no idea how to cry, nor how to stop. It was something that happened for small fleeting moments.

"I had read it over so many times, it had become the only reality I knew." She looked down at it. "When I was younger, my parent," Father, it left a sour taste in her mouth. A word she avoided. Calling him a mentor, or master also felt wrong. "Said it was good to record pictures of the things we like. I used to make trinkets from my bones, but Leviathan would draw." She smiled, reaching up to dry her face, before setting a wet hand upon his as he rested it on her shoulder. "About a forth of the way through, the drawings stop, and it's just poems and songs." She looked the boy into his eyes, almost trying to see his soul from behind them.

"The first person from that point on, was you." she would tell him.

Sometimes the only thing you could say, was nothing. It wasn't that it wasn't worth speaking, it was simply that any words would dwarf any feeling that could not be tied to sounds that a mouth could possibly make. Any attempt to fit feelings into this small box would leave others untouched, and unused. To lose the ability to capture the feelings would do a disservice to the one they wanted to express it towards. But silence lingered, not for what they could not say, but wouldn't. Simply put, the silence remained, for the words they wanted to say, was not for each other, but the author who was long lost.



"I will warn you, however." The written passages behind all of the drawings. At one point, it turned from a book of expression to a diary, one that captured feelings and moments. Feelings that could never be felt again. "It will change how you see the world. . . " she would say. "There's no way I can go back now."



Somethings are better left unsaid. Sometimes, writings, even if they were years old would still hold a tight grip on your life. From drawings purely from memory, or from sitting behind a drum set as you called your newest friend Satan, it didn't matter. People were at peace when they accepted who they are, and what they felt. Sometimes running away, taking a break from it all is needed. Sometimes that hiatus ends, and a return is in order. But she could never return to UA. She wasn't able to. Because she was buried underground now.

Kasey sat in silence, a book that did not have any drawings of her, and never mentioned her name, only that she existed. A book that had about a dozen pages missing, the only pages Kasey had never read or seen. Someone had removed them, but there was no way of finding how who, or what they were about. She stared off into the sunset, smiling. Words echoed in her mind. The great teachings of their master, Seki.

And it was teachings she too, would remember until her death. Some lessons are not meant to be forgotten, while other lessons are the reason you choose to forget.

She couldn't explain why she felt the need to unburden herself onto the boy. Maybe it was a sense of knowing he could understand her, or just the fact alone that he was probably the next closest thing to Leviathan. Maybe talking to him, in a sense felt like she was still talking to that girl. A girl, that shared no ties other than a man they both called their father. A man corrupt and bought out by money and corruption, while trying to give girls a better life. Was he truly a good man? Or was he just a bad man trying to do good things for once? It didn't matter, all of them were dead now, and all that remained was two broken souls trying to be whole again. They picked up the pieces, but none of them fit to repair what they used to have. Instead, they traded, hoping that one had the other pieces they needed. And even if they failed, perhaps there was comfort knowing that they were not alone. Comfort in knowing they were not the only ones broken.

"She's the one that buried her." she spoke, words that sent a chill down her spine. For once, a feeling not caused by herself. She flexed a bit, shaking her shoulders as if to move where the feeling was. It was uncomfortable to think about. But the truth rarely was something easy that went down. The truth was complicated.

"Chimera, I'm about to say something I haven't told anyone." She narrowed her eyes as she stared into the distant sky. Tears begun to form at the edges of her eyelids, waiting to fall upon her face. She struggled with the words. Her eyes would turn red, almost from frustration at her feelings. Her lip would quiver for a moment, only to fade away.

"I wasn't the one that identified the body." She closed her eyes, the pressure allowing the pockets of water to begin to stream down her face, but her voice was strong, unwavering and refusing to break up. "I found out when everyone else saw that video." Not everything was about Seki. Even if that man was the only reason she had ties to Levi. Even if that man was the reason Kasey tried so hard to be a hero. She wanted to be a story that was told. But if not by him, the world. But was it worth being a tale passed on to the next generation, or to be forgotten, but leaving a much better legacy. To the unnamed solders of wars they never wanted to fight.

The tears fell, only to be wiped away with her hands. "Sorry." she would say. Shaking her head, disappointed with herself. "I shouldn't have unloaded all of this on you.

"It wasn't fair of me to do that, I'm sorry." Her legs lifted to press her knees against herself, like a child would be. Compared to him she was tiny.

And compared to her feelings, she would be microscopic.