Chapter 5: Weirdness

"What do you mean he smelled weird?" asked the boy.

"I mean what I said, the angry boy smelled weird, but not a smell I get with my nose, one I got from my instincts" replied the girl.

"You mean he felt weird, right?" he was already exasperated by the not pertinent words of his friend.

"Nah, it was smelly, like corpses" she answered, using a word that left the boy greatly confused, he didn't really smell anything wrong from the boy, except the usual bad smell, they didn't really have the means to bathe anymore.

The two were currently on their way back to the place they were assigned as living quarters, but the girl stopped suddenly once again, prompting the boy to stop too.

He said to the girl with a really annoyed face once he saw what the girl was looking at, it was another trio of children who were hiding in an alley, almost completely hidden from view from a wall, it was a coincidence that Lie managed to notice them "Oh my God, Lie! Are you gonna bother another group of children?"

"Oh, no. It's just that the smell the same way the angry boy smelled, what was his name again? Aran Lager?" she had already forgotten everything about the two boys, the only reason she approached them in the first place was that Mikasa girl and that too only because she looked similar to her companion.

"Eren Yeager, and what is wrong with you all of a sudden, calling people smelly?" the boy was starting to get concerned, her instincts had never failed before and if they told her they were weird, then they were weird.

That was how much they both trusted in their abilities, they had a ludicrous level of accuracy too and combined they could do things that were normally impossible.

He could throw a coin and the answer would be correct most of the time, but only for small things, like, for example, the times were he threw a coin while saying various possible meals they could have at dinner and most of the time the answer would be accurate.

She, on the other hand, could put a bandage on her eyes and earplugs and she still would be able to anticipate an attack during her training, this got even more terrifying after years of daily training and games she would drag her friend to play with her.

For example, throwing balls of mud at her while she had her arms tied behind her back and a blindfold on, she would manage to evade almost everything, except when he threw them while anticipating how she would react and throw accordingly, and when he randomly threw them in the air, in that case his luck would pop in and usually land a hit.

'She has the best ability and I'm supposed to be the lucky one, it's unfair' following that line of thought pissed the boy off, what was the use of being lucky when it failed when it really mattered.

'Where was my luck when they attacked the village, why didn't a message arrive by pure luck?' those were the thoughts that kept clouding his mind since the fall of the wall.

His luck was something he had always relied heavily on, be it for small things or big ones, if he was unsure he would flip a coin and follow the outcome, but if he couldn't rely on the thing that differentiated him from everyone else, even from Liesl, what could he rely on.

His companion felt that something was wrong with him as she looked at his face that had stiffened up "What's wrong Kle? Are you alright?" she asked worriedly.

"No, nothing, I'm alright, by the way, you haven't answered, do you wanna go to bother those three kids too? For what we could know they could have lost their parents too and seeing you stupid face may make things worse for their mental state" he needed to change the subject.

His stupid companion was everything but imperceptive after all, if the conversation went on she would find out about his worries, letting her worry about him too was the last thing he wanted in their situation.

"Oh, yeah, that girl also seems cute, but that blond boy seems to have something wrong, but I don't know what and that bothers me.

Meh, I'll know after we talk to them, let's go Kle" it seems that her attention was diverted successfully, at great relief of the boy who now could offer condolences to the group of three after purposefully unleashing his friend on them.

It's not that she was unpleasant to be around, she was just really annoying if you didn't know her, her barrage of questions and iperactivity really distracted people from her monstrous ability to read people, she could understand people better than they knew themselves.

As the unleashed beast was going on a metaphorical rampage, the boy took a good look to the second trio of children they met in a single day, which he felt to be weird, two groups of people that Lie perceived as unusual, both really near each other.

He didn't know what the weirdness stemmed from, but he had to be on guard against these weird people.

The group was made up of a blond, well built girl, a blond and broad shouldered boy and a tall brown haired boy with freckles.

He could see that the three were very well built, almost as if they were trained militarily like him and his friend were, that was indeed a possibility, after all the two of them were trained and the three were of the same age.

But the one thing that let him feel a sense of relief was that he could feel that the three were less trained than the two of them, except for maybe the girl, he was fairly sure he could take the other two out pretty easily.

'I wonder what the weirdness in them is, and it should be in common with that Eren'

The crazy girl started talking, startling the three people who never expected someone to appear from nowhere and start talking to them "Hello! I'm Liesl Stark, and this is my companion Klemens Ackerman" she introduced them, while hinting at her friend to follow her example.

But she was bound to be disappointed, because a "Hi" was all he said instead of a proper introduction.

The three children in front of them seemed slightly concerned about the intentions of the two who came so suddenly, it was easy to read as much even for Kle as he could see the slightly twitching muscles of the three who were now alerted.

But the tension of the three was defused by Liesl "Now, now, there is no need to be on guard, we come in good faith, why don't you guys introduce yourselves and we all start as friends"

"Why should we?" said the blond girl.

"Come on Annie, there is no need to antagonize people this soon" said the blond boy to defuse the situation, but both Kle and Lie could see that he was even stiffer and more on guard than the girl.

His muscles were twitching, his eyes contracting and his heartbeat had greatly accelerated since the beginning of the conversation, almost as if he were terrified of something.

'What is he scared of?' but after thinking about it for a bit it made sense, they were children that had probably seen a lot of death, he could see it in their eyes, maybe they were mistreated and now two suspicious people start talking to them from nowhere, he would probably be on guard too.

Adding the possible mistreatment could explain the fear the blond boy seemed to feel too, so Kle stopped thinking about it.

"I'm Reiner Braun" said the blond boy, indicating then his companions "these are Bertholdt Hoover and Annie Leonhart" he was stiff in both words and movements, as if he were forcing himself to act like that.

"May I ask why you two came to talk to us" asked the same boy to the two.

"Oh nothing" started Lie "You three just seemed weird, and two boys surrounding a girl in an alley seemed pretty weird to me"

She didn't trust them, she could read better than Kle could, she knew that their nerves were completely tense and that they would attack if given a reason to do so, but she could see one of the things she liked the least in all of their eyes.

She saw weakness, she saw that one push and they would completely break down, this was less with that Bertholdt guy, but Reiner in front of her was probably too far gone to reach a sane state of mind.

From the girl, Annie she could feel coldness, but a coldness that was masking something she didn't know.

'How could three frail children like these emit such a smell, I could understand that Eren guy, he wasn't right in the head, like that Mikasa and Armin they were all substantially different from others, but these three are maybe even more broken than anyone else I saw up to now' reflected the girl that liked seeming harmless while reading people like a book.

"If you don't mind we were in the middle of a private talk, so we would leave" said Reiner, who seemed to be the leader in the group while still being probably the most broken of the three.

"Oh sure" replied Lie "I made sure that the girl is safe, she seems to trust the both of you a great deal so I'll let you guys be, let's go Kle" she said as she dragged her annoyed friend with her.

Once they reached a fair distance away from the three and then some to make sure that they couldn't be heard he asked the girl "Do you understand what the weird smell is now?"

"Not at all, but it felt a bit different from that Eren guy, he felt more complete while these guys felt lacking" explained the girl.

"I have no idea what you're talking about" said the boy who was pretty tired of hearing her nonsense about smells, how could a smell feel complete?

He didn't understand, but let it be, he knew that if she said it then he should trust her words.

"Anyway, let's reached the gathering point, we probably won't meet any of them again anyway so there is no meaning to bothering with them" said the girl interrupting the boy's line of thought.

"Yeah, we also have to find a quiet place to keep our training going, I thought that we were pretty powerful already, but that Annie girl felt slightly dangerous so that means we still have vast room of improvement" continued the boy starting to plan for their future.

The two then kept walking down the road silently, none of the two spoke as a weird atmosphere emerged, both immersed in their own worries.

That kept going until the girl stated her plan "My plan hasn't changed, I'll join the military in two years to get stronger and eventually erase any and all titans so that there will be no longer a need for those walls"

She then started fidgeting stealing a couple of glances at the boy by her side, but eventually continued "What... are you going to do?"

She had her plan, but that didn't mean he would follow her, she couldn't ask him that, to put his life on the line for her dream of finally destroying their cage, even if he was her last family she had no right to make him follow her.

"What a stupid question, I'll do as I've done for years" he answered as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"I'll follow you, we are family and there is no way I'll let you die alone on some random battlefield outside the walls" this touched her greatly, she would have hugged him tightly is not for the next words to leave his mouth.

"I need to witness the way you're inevitably going to get eaten because of your stupidity and overconfidence"

The two kept walking to their camp, leaving behind a cry of pain after the sound of a punch in their wake.