Humanity's Hope || Levi Ackerman

CUT OFF

Since the trial, Marta's mind had been gushing with the thought of the cruel smile on her mother's face that very day. So many little things had been reminding her of her Elsa's cruel ways, like cleaning with Captain Levi, for example.

First it had been when Marta was kneeling on the hard stone floors of the abandoned building soon after the Special Operations Squad arrived there, scrubbing the floors until her hands, once delicate but not hardened by years of training, began to chafe. It reminded her of when she'd be forced to clean by Elsa over and over again, each time she would finish it would never be good enough.

So if she was going to do it for the Captain, someone she had come to respect in the short time they knew each other despite not speaking to very much at all, she just had a feeling about him, she was going to do a proper job. Hence why the skin on her hand was peeling from the amount of bleach covering them and her knees were bruised.

Levi had been happy, if that was possible due to his constant calm and collected exterior, "good job, Marta." It was the first words he had spoken to her since the trial, "if only your brother was as good at cleaning as you are, follow me."

Levi led her back to a room with Eren and Petra already in it, but not before she heard snippets of their conversation. The Captain used to be a thug in the capital's underground? Not everything was nearly as black and white as the world seemed to stand to her brother and Marta hoped Eren were learn that soon. To him, the world consisted of good and bad, black and white, but to Marta, it was grey.

Good people could do bad things. For example, she thought of their dad as a good person but he left her with an abusive mother and turned her into a Titan. Before the abuse started, she had also thought Elsa was a good person.

Marta wanted to cut off all thoughts of Elsa but the scars from her betrayal still burned into her body and soul after all these years, she had been taught a lesson in more ways than one. The world was morally ambiguous, not just black and white, Marta hoped Eren would learn this soon, but not through any major betrayals like she had been through.

Her tangent was cut off by Eren nearly having a heart attack as he was caught by Levi, "sir!" Marta had a cheeky grin on her face due to the look on Eren's face but followed in behind Levi nonetheless.

"Your cleaning is lamentable, back upstairs. Now."

The second thing that reminded Marta of Elsa was when she was riding with Eren and the rest of the Squad. Her long orange locks had been floating through the air like seaweed in a current when it caught the boys teal eyes that so strongly resembled hers. "You know, you should really think about cutting your hair. It's getting so long putting it in a ponytail doesn't make much of a difference to its length."

Eren was right, Marta had been growing her hair out for the past 6 years, and it had been pretty long when she was still living with her mother as well. It now nearly reached her angles and if she did keep it down like many of the short haired girls in the training camp did, it would be a handicap on the field. Now it was a handicap regardless.

She twisted a thick piece of hair on her finger and nodded but stayed quiet, letting Oluo drone on about the old Scouts headquarters, where they would be staying, it truly was an 'architectural marvel' as Oluo had called it before biting his tongue when his horse went over a bump. It would be the place where the Special Operations Squad would be staying for the next two months, then eventually the new recruits and the rest of the Survey Corps.

It would also be the place where her hair had been cut later that night, by none other than the Captain himself. It began to remind her of her mother again as it hurt when he slipped a brush through her tangled knots, despite him trying his hardest in his mind to be gentle. Elsa never tried to be gentle when she fixed her daughters hair, almost ripping her hair out with the vigor she brushed it at. Sometimes she purposely hurt Marta, the flat iron Elsa used to straighten her seemingly untameable hair being pressed into the delicate skin of her neck and back only for the girl to scream out in pain.

Elsa never lifted it off until she felt like it.

After she left her abusive home and met Marco and Jean, her hair hadn't been as straight as a ruler since. It sort of became her symbol of freedom. Her hair flowing long and free in the wind made her feel free, she loved the feeling of the wind brushing its soft hands through the ginger locks when she rode on horseback with it down around her shoulders, the delicate whips pelting on her back as her horse bounced up and down.

Now that symbol of freedom was the very thing she could hear being snipped and falling to the stone floor below her. Maybe it didn't matter now because she finally had her 'Wings of Freedom.'

"How come you know how to cut hair, Heichou?" Marta had been trying to start a conversation with the stoic man, but when she did ask him about his experience as a 'hairdresser' she felt her curiousness growing.

"I've been cutting my own hair for years." He answered plainly.

Marta thought back to Eren and Petra's conversation from earlier and asked another question, this one bolder than the last. "Is that because there are no hairdressers in the underground?"

Levi went rigid at the question, his eyes widening, but Marta didn't realise this as she was turned with her back facing him. Nonetheless, she knew she had fucked up when he made his way towards the door of the room and before slamming it shut said, "don't push your luck, cadet."

She reached up to grab her hair, it now reached just below her shoulders and felt thicker than usual, Marta felt a little nervous about having to cut her hair but she was glad it was shorter now. She also felt the same about her joining the Survey Corps, anyone would be nervous about joining the regiment with the highest death toll. But she was glad to have met Levi because slowly and surely over the day she had began to forget about Elsa, replacing memories of abuse with new memories of Levi.

It gave Marta hope that she could cut Elsa off from her mind.