Chapter Text
Dirt, blood and sweat.
Everywhere, everything was covered in dirt, blood or sweat.
That was how life was here. It was the disgusting world Levi had chosen to live in. Why he had chosen such a disgusting occupation sometimes escaped him.
He hated it. He hated how dirty everything and everyone was. He hated how dirty he’d get himself. Sometimes he felt the need to scrub his body clean for hours to feel even slightly clean. He’d never really get clean though, he knew that, he’d always known that, and that was why he didn’t leave. This was the kind of life he was meant for: A life littered with dirt, blood and sweat. However much he graved cleanliness, it wasn’t for him. However much he cleaned or washed, it was never enough. It didn’t remove the fact of the matter – that he was what was unclean. He tried to deny it at times, pushed the thought to some distant, dark place in his mind, and convinced himself that everyone else were the problem – that they were the unclean ones. Projecting it all onto them was easy. So he’d sneer at people for being smelly and dirty. He’d kick whatever pathetic recruit was cleaning the barracks for doing a piss poor job. He’d wrinkle his nose at their surroundings and pretend he hadn’t put himself there voluntarily.
However much he told himself that he hated the place, he wasn’t sure he could live without it. He wasn’t sure there was any better place in the world for him. The truth was that he needed to be here. He needed to live in a world like this – in a dirty, disgusting world. He had always lived in that type of place, and at least here he had a purpose. Here he had some semblance of a life worth living. Some grander meaning in the world, which might actually have some sort of positive outcome. Here he could make sense of all the lives that were extinguished. Here he could take them without needing to feel anything, without anyone questioning why he’d killed them, without himself having to question why he’d killed them.
A war was a war. People died in a war. He killed the enemy, because that was what soldiers were meant to do. It was simple. Easy. Straightforward. The blood spilled made sense, even as the sight disgusted him. Even as his hairs would stand on end when it’d spill over him. He didn’t have to feel sorry for the enemies that they killed. People even cheered him on for it. Admired his skills as a killer. Because really, that was what he was, wasn’t it? A highly skilled killer. But as long as he did it for his country, as long as he was employed by someone else telling him who to kill, it was okay to be a killer, wasn’t it? Like this, he never had to be ashamed of what he was. He could be proud, revel in another successful assassination of some foreign threat to their country.
The loud pang of his riffle rang in his ears as he watched the target, on the level below him, fall to the ground, eyes empty, blood gushing from the headshot. He felt nothing at the sight of the kid’s dead body, and he couldn’t be said to be anything but a kid. 14 or 15 years old maybe. It didn’t matter. An enemy was an enemy, and he couldn’t be bothered by the fact that they had kids do their dirty business. Everyone died eventually anyway.
His men gave the boy’s body a tentative glance as they went past it to clear the rest of the block out. The weapon he’d held in his hand, hidden under his limp body.
Levi knew many of the others had issues killing these kids, he knew they hesitated and wanted to be more than sure that they were a threat before even aiming at them. It was their weakness, and the main reason these kids were even on the streets. The enemy was smarter than they were. They knew that in war, there was no moral code. You exploited the enemy’s weakness, whatever it was. You killed them, however innocent they might look. You couldn't ever hesitate. You hesitate, you die. That was the only rule. The only rule he had ever learned: Kill or be killed. Make them suffer, before they make you suffer. His men didn’t understand this the way he did. They hadn’t learned it the hard way yet. Chance was many of them would die before learning it. Many already had. These kid soldiers didn’t hesitate. These kids with guns and grenades didn’t stop to worry about their enemy, they killed them in that moment of hesitation.
He had gotten many a hard stare or muttered disapproval from his fellow soldiers because he never shied away from killing said kids. He didn’t care about that either. He didn’t need them to like him. He didn’t need them to understand. In the end, chances were he’d outlive the ones who disapproved. He didn’t really want their approval either way.
He cared little about socializing with anyone. Being a captain, he couldn’t completely avoid being around people, he needed to know their names and skills and at least the major aspects of their personality in order to lead them somewhat effectively, but he always tried to figure these things out through blunt interrogations or silent observations from a distance.
He never tried to become friendly with anyone. He kept his own cards close and quickly chased away anyone trying to cozy up to him. It didn’t take much. His commander, Erwin, had told him that he had a discouraging aura about him. Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. Erwin didn’t seem to be discouraged however. He was probably the only one who kept trying to get closer to Levi, for some unknown reason. Levi wasn’t sure how to feel about it. He didn’t want to be friends with the commander, and yet he couldn’t outright go against it if he wanted to keep his position. So he tried to be civil around him. Acted as friendly as he could possibly bear to be with someone as annoying as him, which wasn’t very friendly at all. Erwin never seemed to mind however, which even after almost 9 years under his command still surprised Levi.
All in all, however much Levi hated the dirt and the blood and the sweat, he supposed he was content with this life he led. Content with this distanced, friendless, but purposeful existence.
Until, in a flash of bright light and a loud bang, it all ended.
He hadn’t seen it coming. He hadn’t noticed the bomb strapped around that dead kids chest under his clothes, and as he fell along with the rubble of the floor on which he had stood, the only thought running through his head was that in the end, even he had been fooled by the enemies kid soldiers.