Light in the Night Sky [Levi/Rivaille x OC] (Heavy Editing)

Chapter 18: Cognito

“Can I have a reason why it’s a negative?”

I hatefully glared at the blonde commander seated behind his desk, his big hands entwined together as he requested for the response sitting at the back of my dry throat. Those blue eyes of his glanced into my dark flat ones dauntingly while my vile ones glowered back with no hint of fear.

“Because it’s suicidal as hell.”

A sudden uproar was expected from Erwin, but instead, he chuckled lightly at the answer I rashly spat out into the open.

“Weren’t you just as suicidal back then, street rogue?”

My mouth dropped when my eyes dawdled after the piece of item thrown out of the commander’s hand, sliding across the wooden table. The coldness latched onto my finally mended skin again, my mind completely numb with shock as my pupils traced over the fine details of the time worn satchel flung before me.

“H-How…” The words of query couldn’t climb their way out, leaving my tough facade utterly crumbling as my mind denied everything before my eyes. The commander struck to the point before my mind could untangle itself.

“This was once your comrade’s, Ruth Vogel, was it not?”

The silence captured me, my structure completely frozen on the wooden chair as I helplessly outlined again and again over the little sketchy worn-out patterns of the vintage bag.  

"Before the execution of your colleague, these were the items extracted from her."

His big rough hand gently slid another old photograph onto the table within my range of vision. My dark pupils shifted, scanning over the young youthful faces of the picture. The image imprinted on the card was faded due to cheap ink, but the memory in my head would never wash away in this lifetime.

It was a photograph of me, and Ruth, and Clara, and Diablo all together, leaning against a filthy brick wall back in the Klorva district when we were on one of those smuggling jobs together. I was younger back then, but I was happy.

“That was different, I had no other choice.” I finally spat out, defeated.  

“So stealing was one? Emerging into the dark side of society was one? You refuse to show up at the orphanage you were designated to, but you turned to the dimmer corners?”

“Pfftt, what do you fucking know about me, commander?” My voice retorted back harshly, raising my tone slightly when I addressed him sarcastically.

“What a shame the child of the wealthy Lord Clemens Adler was raised with such tongue.”

My hands declawed from the wooden seat as I instinctively crossed my arms, huffing in an annoyed attitude whilst staring past the commander at nothing in particular. Pain started to allocate a position in my head, their throbbing growing and spreading like an internal apocalypse.

“Hazel, I know you’re better than this.” The man in front of me sighed, relacing his hands together as he sat up, facing me directly.

“Do you not trust us anymore?”

“What kind of a question is that?  Bella died. Stefan died. I came close. And then I found out I was just another ‘observation object’ under a bet of a 50-50 wheel, soldier or traitor. What am I to you all? Another titan experiment or some shit?!”

Erwin’s face grimaced up as he grasped onto my words of reasoning.

Yes, the moment I braced onto the collected pieces that built up to why everything turned out so shitty during the mission, I’ve lost my trust bond with everyone completely.