"Tch. Don't tell me you're tired already, Eren," Levi drones. He's leaning back against the tree to my right, watching me with that cold, steely expression that makes me want to try harder and harder until…

Until I die, maybe, I don't know. I've never gone that far, he's never let me. He makes it seem like he will. He stands there staring until my legs are shaking so badly that I'm ready to fall over, until the sweat dripping into my eyes burns so much that I can hardly keep them open anymore, but then he always tells me to stop.

And sometimes when he walks past me on the way back to headquarters, he gives me a sharp pat on the back. That makes it all worth it.

But today his eyes are colder than ever and I'm well past the shaking and burning stage. I'm waiting for him to tell me to stop, waiting for that, "Oi, Eren, that's enough. You did okay," but it doesn't come.

A tremor runs through me and I bend to clutch my knees out of pure desperation, because I feel like I might fall over at any second. If my face wasn't already scalding red from the exertion then I would have been blushing from embarrassment. I hate to look this weak in front of the captain. I flick a glance up and accidently catch his eyes. Completely expressionless. Is he mad at me? Did I do something wrong today?

I've been partially transforming all day long, trying to gain better control of my titan shifting powers, but it's too much. I'm about ready to collapse—

"Again." His order catches me off guard. Again? Really? I glance up once more, wheezing terribly. I almost want to ask for mercy but I just can't bring myself to do it. If he wants me to try again then I have to try.

"Yes, sir," I hiss out, tensing up to rise into a standing position again. Every inch of my body is trembling like gelatin. Come on, Eren, you can do it. Just one more time and then Levi Heichou will let you stop for the day. Only one more time…

I try to focus on a specific task. Earlier today I use 'reach the top branch of that tree,' 'yank the tree from the ground with my bare hands,' and 'look above the trees to see the castle from here,' as a few of my tasks, but I have done this so many times by now that I've run out of ideas. The only thing I can come up with is, 'don't disappoint him.'

I don't really want to bite myself again. Some of the other marks from today still haven't healed. I know for a fact that I'm running out of juice and the doubts start swirling through my mind. Can I really do this even one more time? I can feel my heart beating in my temples, I'm on the verge of fainting…

But the thought is there, strong and clear through the haze: Don't disappoint him.

It's such a real desire that during that first split second when my teeth sink into my hand, I am absolutely positive that it will work. Even when the world closes in on me like a black fog, I still believe for a moment that I will not let him down….

The captain's semi-surprised, "Oi! Eren!" is the last thing I remember.

Everything is black and slippery for a long time, like oil roiling over my eyes. Its luke warm and it drips slowly like thick, slimy rain, and I can't see anything through the darkness. I'm too tired to even attempt moving, but I have the feeling that if I try I won't been able to. The oil cools slowly, and it starts to chill my skin, especially around my eyes.

Then the thought comes to me softly—not in a panic as I had always assumed it would. It is a still, small voice similar to mine, whispering against my temple, There you go, Eren, you're dying now. That's all it is. Just relax and enjoy it.

It does feel rather nice, or at least it had before the black ooze had started cooling. But now it's getting uncomfortably cold.

I don't really want to die, and the more I think about it the more I chose to believe that that isn't what's happening. There was no way that I could seriously be dying. Heichou would never have allowed it. Never. Especially not when I was following his orders so nicely.

There is a smell in the distance. It's something rotten, like old food, or old feet, or old blood, and I can imagine it wafting toward me in thin yellow wisps that bounce off of the oil coating my face. I crinkle my nose without really trying, which is when I realize that movement isn't quite as impossible as I thought. But when I try to open my eyes the goo is too thick.

There is a sound far away, like tiny feet running and big feet walking, thumping slowly on cobble stone. Cobblestone?

I'm so cold! Shit! I sit up all on one motion, like leaping out of a puddle of ice and I can hear myself gasping for breath as if I've been under for an impossibly long time. The cold drips off of me rather quickly. The sounds are closer now and so is that awful, god-forsaken smell. The black fades from my eyes drip by drip and they open to see a similar dimness, not so different from before.

What the—?

I have to blink a few times, purely out of habit—because there is nothing on my eyes—no oil—and nothing on my face or on my body at all actually. That comes as a shock.

"Fuck! He's not dead!"

"I already told you that, dumbass."

I try to look around in the darkness to figure out where those little voices are coming from—and I do mean little, they must be kids talking—but that's when the fact that there's nothing on my body finally makes its way into my muddled brain. I'm naked, or at least mostly naked, and that's enough to make me freeze the motion entirely.

"Shit!" comes the little voice again. "C'mon, let's get outta here."

"H—hey!" I stammer. My voice comes out pathetically unsure and it makes me a little angry.

"Let's go!" yells the other, and the little footsteps go bounding away.

Finally my legs come back to life and I push myself up, determined to stumble after them. Someone knows where the hell I am and where my clothes ran off to. As I start fumbling through the darkness, it occurs to me that my underwear have remained intact at least.

"Come back here!" I cry, hurrying to follow the pitter patter of small feet that are growing quieter and quieter by the second. I can hear them nervously barking things at one another as they flee. "Come on, come back!"

A wall hits me square in the face and I'm suddenly on my back. I stare up at nothing for a few moments, listening to the footsteps vanish, and then the oil finds me again.

When I wake again it's not because the ice became too much to handle, it's because my brain is pulsating so hard that it must be trying to break through my skull. I find myself laying in what appears to be a small alleyway.

I sit up—it hurts like hell, but I fight through it—and I try to get a sense of things. It must be morning now because there is some more light to work with than the last time I woke up, but honestly it's still pretty dark here.

Here? Where is here? Where the hell am I and how did I get here?!

I'm sitting on the cobblestone ground of a small alleyway, and from the lack of light and the fact that there are rocks and dirt where the sky should be, I decide that I'm underground somehow. As my eyes wander back downward, I notice the spatter of blood from where I must have run directly into the wall. Raising a hand to my face, I clarify—yup, definitely from that. My nose is throbbing almost as hard as my head, and the smears of blood trail all the way down onto my chest.

Oh yeah, and I'm still basically naked.

I grit my teeth in frustration. Being lost and confused and injured are bad enough, but being naked adds something especially unpleasant to the mix because I sure as hell hadn't taken my own clothes off in the middle of town like this.

I remember the little voice from above, hovering over me, gasping, "Fuck! He's not dead!"

And that's when it clicks. Those little bastards stole all my stuff! My gear, my boots, my jacket…the small amount of money that I had had on me…and still it wasn't enough until they'd stripped me like this. I can't help but wonder if I'd interrupted them just in time to save me from total nudity. The thought makes me a little sick.

Once again, I find myself asking, where in God's name am I?

I lie down again, suddenly exhausted inside and out. I feel like shit. My body is in an unexplainable amount of pain—although one little broken nose shouldn't be enough to put me down like this. I just can't remember why I'm so sore and the frustration from that unexplainable weakness mixed with everything else is enough to make we wish that the oblivion of the oil will come and take me away again.

But no such luck. Not three minutes after having closed my eyes, I feel something flicking around my head. I consider waving my hand at it to make it go away. Damn fly. I'm too tired right now.

Suddenly, something is grabbing a fistful of my hair and yanking on it. I give a yelp of surprise and jump up. "What the hell?!" I practically shriek. What is wrong with this place?! "Seriously, what the fuh—" But the words die on my tongue and I'm left open mouthed and staring.

It's not a fly, not even close. It's a person. And not just any person, either, it's him.

The pale skin, the tiny build, the silent, motionless expression, the straight black hair falling in that certain way down the sides of his head—God! He even has the same hair? I mean, it's a hell of a lot messier and there's a little more of it, but it's the same. It has to be him.

"Levi Heichou?" I croak out, barely breathing.

He had let go of my hair when I'd jumped back up into a seated position, and now his hand hovers slightly above his right thigh. He is crouching down in front of me, staring coldly just like always.

"Heichou?" he repeats blankly. "Fuck off." And then he's getting up and walking away from me.

"Wait!" I gasp, lunging out without thinking and snagging him by the ankle. I don't even know how exactly he hit me, all I know is that it made me let go. "Wait, please!" I shout through the pain, crawling blindly after him as my nose starts leaking red once again. "Levi!"

He stops, much to my relief, but when he turns back toward me the angry glint in his eyes is enough to make me have to hold back a whimper. "How do you know my name?" he snarls.

The blood from my nose is thick and it makes it hard to talk, so I just stare up at him. That's when it hits me. He's so small. I mean, he's always been pretty tiny, but now he's practically miniscule. Even laying on the ground, I don't have to look up that far to meet his angry silver eyes. I really want to stand up and see if I'm right about this, but I can't find the strength yet.

And it's not just the height. He's usually short but now he's not just vertically challenged, he's also scrawny. Like, starving to death scrawny.

"Hey, dumbass. I asked you a question," he snaps. He may be smaller but apparently he's the same old Levi.

I struggle to remember what the original question was. "I…uh…" Oh yes, his name. "I think we've met before," I stammer pathetically. I can tell that he's not satisfied with my answer by the way that his small, soft jaw clamps a little tighter.

"We haven't," he says.

"Are you sure?" I prop myself up on my elbow and spit some of the blood out onto the cobblestone. "I could swear—"

"We haven't," he says again, very firmly this time, making a face like I've done something repulsive, and somehow it's too adorable to make me believe that he's actually getting angry. The way his eyes seem too big for his pale little head, the fact that the adam's apple is missing from his throat…yes, definitely. No matter how insane it may seem, I can't shake the thought. Levi is younger, drastically younger than before.

I can't help it, I have to know. "How old are you?" I ask, trying to make my voice as calm and unthreatening as possible.

This seems to throw him off guard a little, though not much. "Tch, what kind of question is that?" he says once the flicker of surprise has vanished from his face. He may have refused to answer, but at least he's talking to me, I realize.

"What were you doing before?" I ask, switching trains of thought to how he had grabbed my hair so roughly.

He shrugs. "Thought you were dead."

"So?"

"Laying around naked in the street."

"Yeah, so? Somebody took my clothes," I admit, blushing a little. He may be young but he's still Levi Heichou to me.

"So I was gonna take your hair…maybe."

"My hair?" What could he possibly want with my hair?

He hesitates to answer and his gaze dips away from mine for a second. Why? I wonder. Guilt? Shame? No, it couldn't be. Not from Levi…

"I…was gonna try to sell it," he admits, and his voice is quiet. "Sorry. Didn't think you'd be needing it. Like I said, I—"

"You thought I was dead," I gently finish for him, far too amazed by the fact that Humanity's Strongest had just apologized to me. His eyes dart back up into mine, no longer hesitant or guilt ridden now that I don't seem angry with him.

"Yeah I did. And you have a fucking mop up there." I can't help but laugh at that.

Pressing my palms solidly against the cobblestone for support, I slowly push myself up to my feet. My legs are a little shaky so I have to focus on steadying them. Small Levi's ever-staring eyes are looking up at me. And I do mean looking up. I've always been taller, but now I am practically towering over him. He barely comes up to my chest.

"How old are you?" I ask again.

He makes an annoyed little noise and says, "Fifteen."

"No you're not," I say matter-of-factly, because there's no possible way that we're the same age. He looks about eight.

Now he's ticked off and he's leaving again. I know better than to grab him this time. "Hey wait," I say, sounding more like a diplomat than I have ever managed before in my life. "I'm sorry, you just look young that's all. It's a good thing. Probably get's you spoiled."

He stops moving very abruptly, as if my words have struck him somehow, but he doesn't turn back from the mouth of the alley.

"I'm in kind of a tough spot," I continue, a little less confidently. I take a step toward his back. "I hit my head and now I have no idea where I am or how I got here—honestly. And, as you can see, I'm not doing so well on my own so far. Do you live around here?"

"Sort of," he says after a long silence, and his voice is cold again.

"Do you think you can help me out? I can't go out onto the main road looking like this, can I?" I try to make my voice attractive and amusing. Anything to get him to stay awhile longer.

Sure enough he turns back around and appraises me with that steady gaze. His eyes wander over my disheveled form without flinching. The broken nose, the bloodied upper body, the messy mop of hair…When he won't stop staring, I start to blush again and I have to mentally argue with my hands to stay at my sides instead of covering my front like they want too.

Of all the things I had envisioned about Levi Heichou, having his fifteen-year-old self stare at me in my underwear was never on the list.

"You're right," he says after what feels like lifetimes, "you need some clothes."

"Yeah, for sure," I say brightly, thrilled to keep him around even if only for a while longer. I want to know everything that I possibly can about this Levi. Like why is he so small? And why does he act exactly as the same as the Levi Heichou in my head? And still, the biggest question of all: where am I?

I'm so lost in the possibilities that I almost miss him add, "—but even a retard like you should know, I don't do shit for free."

"Huh?"

He flashes me a glare that's almost more frightening that Big Levi's is, "After I get you some clothes, you owe me. Got it?"

I feel the words leave my mouth, but I don't hear them. "G-got it."