Angel With A Shotgun [Levi Ackerman x OC] / Attack on Titan / Shingeki no Kyojin

Code XI: The Theory of Da Vinci

Barely a week had crawled by in the mansion before the temporary peacefulness of the Parisian house disturbed by a very, very disheveled Hange.

Xora was in the library—as usual—practicing her French, but she was alone this time. Eren was busy inspecting the security of the museum after the incident with Alan's secret cameras with some of the French IE personnel.

"Archangel!" Hange called, bursting into the library. She rushed forward and slammed down a rolled up piece of parchment on the large table Xora occupied, an annoyed Levi following with a vexed glare.

"I simply can't figure out where you find the need to yell everything," he scorned with a click of his tongue, glowering. Eren followed the two of them inside.

"I've made a discovery!" Hange announced, her fingers fumbling to unfurl the coffee-tinged paper. "Well, it's only a theory, but it's a very strong theory... in my opinion."

"Hange, please," Xora said. She noticed the dark circles under Hange's worn eyes, her hair fraying from her messy ponytail. It looked as if she hadn't had any sleep for days—which, in fact, seemed to be the case. "When's the last time you had any rest?"

"Maybe few days ago! It's all thanks to caffeine. Now, now, let's get going on this project, shall we?!" Spreading her fingers, Hanji smoothed out the wrinkled paper against the table, the four of them huddled around it. In the very center was a photo of their main objective; the Mona Lisa. The image was surrounded in scrawled graphite writing, arrows leading off into several different directions. Across the margins of the poster sheet, there were many notes dictating tiny sketches, bullet points of information, notes, and more.

"It's said that Da Vinci was a generous person," Hange said. "During his life, he was known to be quite sociable. According to biographers, he was a very handsome man with incredible strength, along with being known as a very, very persuasive and influential person. In the most basic terms, he was a popular man."

"I don't... see what this has to do with our mission," Xora interjected, her icy eyes darting across the details.

"But wait!" Hange pointed to an image of a very, very ancient document near the Mona Lisa's picture, the document containing several unrecognizable characters. "After a long period of research, I stumbled upon this. It was one of his last works. Now, it looks like complete gibberish, doesn't it? It seems like nothing more than characters he drew up abstractly and jumbled together. As it turns out, it's so much more than that."

"It's still worth nothing to our objective," Levi snorted, crossing his arms. "If you keep on discussing irrelevant things such as this, I'll make sure to—"

"No, no!" Hange sighed exasperatedly, tugging a loose strand of hair out of her ponytail. "Let me finish, please." The pad of her fingertip slid over the paper to the bottom right corner, circling around a large block of information. "I was actually able to decipher a part of what he wrote and I was surprised to find that Da Vinci may not have been, in fact, a very happy man. As some of you may know, he suffered from partial paralysis on the right side of his body for a couple of years until his death. This may have played some part in his mental health, but what I translated from this small message is, 'The truth of both my melancholy and greatest treasure lies in my greatest piece.'"

"And that was only a portion of the entire message you know has been translated for sure?" Xora asked, her eyebrows knitted together.

"Yes! Yes, yes! I have much, much more to go through, but I think this alone may be one of the reasons there are so many people competing for Mona Lisa. It very well may be that there is a secret hidden in the painting. I have no idea how or what or why or whatever, but this means that we have to get our hands on the original as soon as possible."