VI - The Bloody Face of The Akuma

Chapter VI : The Bloody Face of The Akuma

This morning, Eren woke up before everyone else. Indeed, since he had been exhausted by the training to which Amos had subjected him, the native of Shinganshina had gone to bed earlier than usual, and had slept surprisingly well.

He straightened up from his bed, and noticed Amos' absence in the space he shared with Reiner and Bertholdt.

From what Christa had told him yesterday, the sedative she had poured into her brother's canteen wasn't very potent, so Nox must have woken up in the infirmary and opted to spend the night there rather than returning to the dorm. At least that's what Eren deduced.

He went down to the entrance to equip himself with his toiletry kit and went out towards the common bathroom. Outside, the sun had just begun to rise, and its few rays reflected off the morning dew and illuminated the ground. That same dew, Amos was watching pensively as he sat on the steps of the infirmary porch, smoking what looked like his eighteenth cigarette judging by the pile of ashes and cigarette butts that sat next to him.

Eren frowned at this surprising scene, and walked over to his new mentor.

"Uh…" he hesitated before catching Nox's attention, he cleared his throat. "You alright, Amos?"

The latter shrugged and titrated on his cigarette.

"To be honest...I don't know...I don't think so...it's a strange feeling, that one."

Jaeger had no idea what to do with that kind of response.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked worriedly. "The stuff Christa made you drink really freaked me out…"

"Oh… right… that…" the tall blond sighed as he swept this event away with a gesture. "Don't worry about that, she just wanted to give me a lesson in her own way. And the effects have been gone for hours."

Eren was still not satisfied and still very troubled by the emotionless state of his friend.

He cast a disgusted look at the pile of cigarette butts lying around near the Adviser.

"Why are you smoking that shit?"

For the first time, Amos seemed to snap out of his thoughts to stare at the crackling ember of his cigarette.

"I find it relaxing," he replied without looking away, "it stimulates my brain."

He chuckled slightly, inhaled another cloud of grey smoke, and said:

"However, you are right to worry; I'm addicted to this shit and I don't want to stop."

Indeed, Jaeger did not know it but Nox had arranged to have two dozen packs delivered per month.

"Shadis will slaughter you if he sees this."

"I'll clean it," the blond said before smiling, "you got up early, I did not intend to take my shower for a good ten minutes."

"How long have you been here?"

'Five hours, I'd say."

Eren couldn't believe his ears.

"What the hell have you been doing all this time?"

"I was wondering what was terrifying enough to force someone to give up on happiness."

This time Jaeger felt his own arms fall to the ground as he didn't know what to do with this answer. Amos seemed to be traveling in a parallel world ruled by an incomprehensible philosophy. But the tall blond understood himself very well, and while the native of Shinganshina fixed him with a circumspect look, he kept thinking about Mikasa:

"Maybe it's love, it makes sense but...it's not altruism anymore at this point, it's a sad despair. She has no other hope than to see those she loves… live better and longer than her… It's… awful… she's so scared…"

Soon, Nox realized he was going around in circles, the puzzle he had been trying to solve since Mikasa had gone to bed was unsolvable at present. He was missing pieces.

He stubbed out his cigarette and sat up.

"Go take a shower while I'll get a brush to clean this, I won't be long."

Eren hesitated for a second.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"I already told you that I didn't know," Amos sighed, shaking his head, "but I'm not going to stop breathing just yet."

That being said, the tall blond knew that this problem was going to be eating his brains out for a while, and the events of that day were not going to calm things down.

(-)(-)(-)

Only the fatigue caused by the violent emotions she had felt had allowed Mikasa to close her eyes that night. However, her sleep was far from restful and her shower only washed away the weight of her eyelids. Her uneasiness was still present once she walked out of the common bathroom.

The events of the day before had turned her world upside down, so much so that she no longer knew what to think today.

Ironically, it was the boy responsible for all these changes that occupied her thoughts. And as she came out of the building, the oriental girl spotted Amos and Eren practicing their morning warm-ups and stretching exercises.

The words of her adoptive brother the day before had deeply destabilized the young girl. Somehow, she was happy that he decided to take his future in hand, decided to grow and improve, it could only increase his chances of survival.

But hearing him say to her face that he didn't want her anymore… it tore her heart to shreds. And a dull anger seized her when she realized that Amos was responsible for her misfortune. However, she was not a petty idiot, she knew perfectly well that she had nothing to reproach the tall blond since what he was doing was helping Eren to grow. Perhaps the possibility that her adoptive brother might one day achieve independence terrified her more than she cared to admit. Maybe she was afraid that he would become arrogant to the point of letting his guard down... But anyway, she couldn't blame Nox, it was petty. That's why she'd held back to thank him instead. Unfortunately, the Adviser saw right through her mask and confronted her. Then he shattered her defenses by ripping her mask off and exposing her weaknesses and her pain. Now that she thought about it, she realized she was still shaken by his words. His way of complimenting her while pushing her to reveal her greatest fear had left a mark. And now, the half-blood didn't really know what to do. She spent the day alone, thinking about the events of the previous day. Eren wanted her to live for herself, which she couldn't do since all she cared about was her family. Amos had gone even further, he had realized that she might not have everything she wanted. That she could ask for more and that she deserved more. And that beyond the fact that she couldn't live for it, she also didn't want to do it out of fear. Instantly, the terror and traumas of the past had caught up with her, and overcome her to the point of causing her to burst into tears against Nox's chest.

It was during a lesson in military strategy that she thought back of this particular event, the memory of which forced her to hide her blush behind her scarf as she took her eyes off the classroom window to look at the tall blond's back. He was sitting in the front row, as usual, however he had also forced Eren to sit next to him. Despite all of his goodwill, Jaeger was unable to concentrate in class when the subject didn't interest him, and in this case, he couldn't care less if he knew how to properly clean a cannon. He would certainly have fallen asleep had Amos not cuffed him behind the head when the professor's back was turned, a cuff that elicited a few brief bursts of laughter.

Mikasa smiled behind her scarf, happy to see Eren growing with a new role model to follow. But Amos' words still echoed in her head, and soon sadden her mood.

Why?

Why was he so concerned about her condition? She was not feeling bad. She… refused to ask for more than she already had. Nox had envied her for that.

This inconsistency made her remember the exchange they had after their first fight, and realized her mistake.

Amos had envied the fact that she expected nothing more from life, but now he understood that she simply refused to ask for more because she was afraid of losing what she had. In that case… well the Adviser had nothing to envy anymore… but that still didn't explain why he was so concerned about how she felt. Nor why he wanted to see her happy… Why did he refuse to see her unhappy?

(-)(-)(-)

Somehow, Amos had expected Mikasa to come and talk to him once she'd thought about their last conversation. However, he hadn't expected it to happen so soon. Indeed, when he had isolated himself to smoke away from Shadis, behind the boys' dormitory, he was surprised to find the oriental girl waiting for him there.

The relaxed muscles and the relatively calm gaze of the young girl were enough to make him understand that this conversation would be less violent than the others. He put away his pack of cigarettes.

"You know," she began without bothering to say 'hello', "I'm really grateful for what you're doing."

Amos shook his head gently.

"To be honest, I'm not even sure what I'm doing..."

"You are trying to help us."

"Am I getting somewhere?" the tall blond sighed without much conviction.

Mikasa was very surprised to hear him express himself like this, he was usually so sure of himself. His question, however, was legitimate.

"I…" she hesitated as she probed her feelings. "I don't know but…"

She pulled her scarf up over her nose.

"I think I finally realize how scared I am."

Amos understood very well how she felt given his similar experience, however…

"How does this relate to your refusal to be happy?" Nox asked, keeping his tone relatively soft, but that make his question less harsh.

Mikasa flinched ever so slightly at hearing it and looked away.

"This world is cruel," she said wistfully, "life here is shorter than we care to admit. Without Eren… I would have died four years ago…"

She met the Adviser's emerald eyes.

"Without you, we would probably all have died during the survival exercise."

When he did not answer, she continued:

"Our lives won't be long. In less than two years, we will join the Survey Corps. Eren will never give up on his dream of freedom, and I must watch over him."

"Because you promised Carla," Amos said, remembering the oriental girl's words when she was drunk.

She nodded softly, her sadness heightened at the mention of her adoptive mother.

"You and Eren are right; I am not made to be a soldier, I will not be happy being a soldier. But that doesn't matter. Because all I care about is my family. If I don't join the Scouts, Eren and Armin will die prematurely."

This time, everything fit perfectly in Amos' eyes. Mikasa refused to be happy because she knew she was doomed to lose everything she had and didn't want to lose more. Dying while allowing those she loved to live longer was the best she could aspire to, given her situation. She refused to stand back and watch them die. Even though that was surely what Eren wanted, so that she could live a happy life. But Mikasa simply refused to be alone, she'd rather die with the ones she loves than live without them, Amos could understand that.

"Amos?" she called when she noticed he was in deep thoughts. "Why don't you want to see me unhappy?"

The tall blond looked at her in the eyes for a brief moment.

"You are the most lovable person I know," he said sincerely, "I admire you very much Mikasa."

The oriental girl smiled under her scarf, a deep feeling of comfort invaded her chest.

"To see someone like you unhappy... It's sad in my eyes... It's a blow to make me lose faith in the future."

At these words, the young girl lowered her scarf and observed him with a wary expression, she was as touched as she was intrigued.

A violent pain caused by the bite of a dog seized the ankle of the tall blond who hissed through his teeth. Then came the lashes on his back and the knife to his torso. He was rummaging through his syringe case when the hot iron made contact with the flesh of his posterior.

He quickly grabbed a dose of methadone and injected it into his neck under the astonished gaze of the oriental girl. A long sigh of relief escaped his lips when he felt his pain fade away, he mechanically put the empty syringe back in its box, and was about to put away the box itself, but Mikasa grabbed him by the wrist.

"What is that?" she asked without masking her concern.

"An opiate," the tall blond replied before realizing she might not have known that term, "a painkiller."

The Oriental observed the rubber syringe with a wary gaze, before meeting the emerald eyes of the young man.

"Do you take a lot?"

"When I'm in pain," Amos sighed, knowing full well that questions like that were better answered honestly than defensively.

He now had to change the subject to avoid the real questions, but the subject had to interest his interlocutor enough to prevent her from sticking her nose where she shouldn't.

"I don't want to lose faith in the future," he said, putting away his syringe box, "otherwise my past would become meaningless."

A long silence followed this statement, silence during which, Mikasa remembered all the good times she had spent with all those who had been part of her family. She pulled her scarf up over her nose and tried somehow to contain her sadness.

"I can't have faith in the future," she replied apologetically, "when I know it only takes one moment, one mistake, for everything to fall apart."

Amos was perfectly able to understand this.

"This world is cruel," she finally repeated, raising her head, "and no matter what I do, I can't stop it."

Her jet-black eyes filled with melancholy met Nox's sad gaze, a faint smile emerged under the scarf.

"You know… Eren told me you wanted to change the world…"

An embarrassed growl instantly echoed in the tall blond's throat.

"What a snitch," he grumbled for the girl's amusement.

"Don't blame him, I was suspicious of you and he wanted to defend you. He also told me why you wanted to do it."

Unfortunately for the oriental, these revelations only accentuated the embarrassment of the Adviser who grimaced and blushed.

"Amos?" she called to force him to refocus on their conversation. "Don't you think... that you have too much ambition?"

It wasn't the question that surprised Nox, it was the worried tone in which she asked it. Usually, Mikasa only let her worry known when Eren or Armin got into perilous situations.

"Our world isn't that big, you know?" he reasoned calmly. "It's just two walls, a third full of titans and a human society full of parasites. I didn't say I was going to build a paradise, but I still intend to make things better."

His explanations exasperated the half-blood who began to look at him as if he had just told her that the Sun was a balloon. The intensity in her raven eyes slightly intimidated Amos, it was the first time that Mikasa had had this effect on him, yet he had angered her before.

"Do you think I'm getting carried away?" he guessed, embarrassed.

"Yes," the girl growled firmly.

"Yet I intend to go through with it," he said simply to cut short an interminable debate.

The oriental opened her mouth to answer, but no sound crossed her lips, the frustration was more and more visible on her face. She swallowed to calm herself and took a deep breath.

"Mikasa…" Amos continued with a measured tone, "I am not stupid. I know how dangerous my path will be, I am perfectly aware of the fact that I could die every day following a banal stroke of bad luck. But do you want to know why you can't stop me? Because just knowing that someone like you can't be happy in this world finally convinced me that it had to change."

These words disarmed the oriental girl who widened her eyes in confusion. She wanted to say something, but what could she say? She had ended up doing the exact opposite of what she had in mind.

Amos flicked her forehead when he realized she was about to get depressed.

"Don't start feeling guilty for nothing," he said with an amused and tender smile on his face. "I would have done it even if I hadn't met you, you just gave me one more reason to do it."

With these words, he accentuated his smile slightly to say goodbye, and turned on his heels to disappear into the forest in order to finally smoke his cigarette.

Mikasa stood behind the boys' dormitory for a few minutes, trying to figure out what had just happened. Her heart was beating very fast, her breathing intensified and she felt her cheeks burn.

A sudden sound of footsteps brought her back to reality, and she quickly pulled her scarf up over her nose before Armin came running from the corner of the building.

"Ah Mikasa..." gasped the little blond all out of breath, "have you seen Amos?"

The oriental pointed the forest.

"He went that way, why?"

Her friend's horrified expression immediately snapped the girl out of her confused state.

"Recruits from the barracks of Krolva, Utopia and Karanes have been kidnapped by human traffickers."

(-)(-)(-)

The news had spread like wildfire and had made its way around the training ground before the Sun had even finished setting. It was Sasha who had spread it, indeed, after sneaking into the pantry to stuff her stomach with stolen bread. The native of Dauper had overheard Shadis and his officers talking about the kidnappings when they thought they were out of hearing. Because of this, the exaggerations of the facts took on such a magnitude that the Sergeant-Instructor had been forced to make an announcement at dinner to put an end to the rumors and clearly explain the situation to the young recruits:

Several groups of cadets from each training barracks had been kidnapped during recent summer survival exercises. Only they, the rookies of Trost, had managed to get rid of the kidnappers during their own exercise. Despite the seriousness of the events, Shadis chose to reveal to his recruits that several cadets had been found dead at the scene of the kidnappings. He also added that the increase in crime was the result of Maria's fall and the inaction and inability of the Military Police to do its duty, to the surprise of the most politically experienced teenagers, who did not think him capable of taking such a risk.

His words had their intended effect, however, Connie, Sasha and Marco lowered their heads in shame when they realized that their dream of taking it easy behind Wall Sina allowed criminals and traffickers to swarm through the territory. Jean on the other side, contented himself with gritting his teeth without letting anything show through. The Sergeant-Instructor ended his tirade by stating that measures had been taken to find the culprits and the cadets. But that in the meantime, exercises outside the training camp were suspended.

Once Shadis' speech was over, the cadets spent the rest of dinner staring at their plates without much appetite. The whole 104th looked like it was in mourning.

Christa was really saddened to see her comrades in such a state. She turned to her brother to quietly ask for his opinion on the matter, but restrained herself when she saw the look on his face.

Amos had his hands clasped over his mouth, looking sheepish… and weary.

She glanced in Mikasa's direction, and much to the little blonde's surprise, the Oriental had an expression similar to the Adviser's. The latter stood up, which drew all attention to him, and left the building without looking back.

Contrary to his habit, Amos did not go behind the boys' dormitory to smoke, this time he went behind the stable.

Unfortunately, his strategy failed after his third cigarette; Mikasa found him.

"Can you go talk to Eren please?" she asked politely.

"Tell him that since he made the decision to join the scouts, the MPs' business does not concern him, even if they don't do their job.

Amos had spoken in a dull voice, very similar to the one the oriental girl used normally, which surprised her slightly.

"I'm afraid that won't be enough..."

"If you want me to tell him that we don't know who is behind these kidnappings, how many there are, where they are, what advantages they have and that chasing after them would not only be a waste of time, but an unnecessary risk, you can now do it yourself."

Amos heaved a smoky sigh without looking at his interlocutor:

"Pull his ears if he doesn't listen to you, continue until he abdicates and you will get results."

"Amos?"

The tall blond turned his head with his cigarette in his mouth to face the oriental girl who had come close enough to observe his emerald eyes with concern.

"Why are you so frustrated?" she asked confused. "It's not your fault, you protected us from this kind of person."

"But that wasn't enough!" the Adviser spat angrily as predation flashed in his gaze. "These parasites are destroying lives for pleasure and profit! And as long as they keep swarming, I..."

He gulped in rage without noticing the worry in the oriental girl's jet black eyes, and heaved another sigh.

"When I see that, I understand why you refuse to have more," he said, not meeting her gaze. "It's hard enough to protect yourself from these horrors, so to protect your offspring..."

A shiver ran down Mikasa's back, his interlocutor did not notice it, because he had just come to a conclusion that made him speak without thinking.

"Is that why you're so motherly with Eren and Armin?"

He immediately regretted his words when he saw that the oriental girl had opened her eyes wide with sadness, a sadness so deep and so intense that it instantly broke the tall blond's heart. He struck his forehead for his cruel lack of delicacy.

"Oh god...I'm so sorry..."

"No," Mikasa replied, pulling her scarf up over her nose, "maybe you're right."

Unfortunately for her, her scarf didn't hide the tear that formed in the corner of her left eye. Amos felt lower than dirt as it grew.

"I should not have…"

"It's a cruel world," the girl cut, swallowing her grief, "the only way to survive is to fight. The only way to protect those you love is to fight."

She let out a long sigh to soothe her emotions and wiped away her tear before it flowed.

"The world is like that," she finally said in a monotonous voice, "we can't help it."

With these words, she turned her back on him and headed for her dormitory while Nox pinched the corners of his eyes, furious with himself for his crude behavior.

"Amos?"

He turned around with surprise on his face when he saw that the oriental had stopped, she had not hidden her smile behind her scarf nor had she wiped away her tear.

"Your dream is wonderful."

She turned on her heels and left for good this time, leaving the tall blond confused and lost as his cigarette burned itself out.

It wasn't until the embers reached his fingers that he snapped out of his trance. Predation flashed in his eyes and rage seized his muscles. He threw away his cigarette butt and pulled out his pocket watch, it was only half-past seven pm. He had eleven hours ahead of him.

Without wasting a second, he headed for his superiors' building.

He crossed the corridors, evaded the assistant instructors, and entered Shadis' office without bothering to knock.

The veins of the latter's eyes almost exploded when he discovered the identity of the ill-mannered boy who had granted himself the right to disturb him in a moment as difficult as this one.

"Do you want to save all the recruits who have been kidnapped?" he asked without giving the Instructor a chance to say something. "So please provide me with a horse, the fastest you have."

Shadis froze for a brief moment to give the young man a look of dismay, then he let out a long and deep sigh.

"Why did you bother to come and see me?"

"Because I need an accomplice to take the horse outside the camp, the stable is too close to the dormitories, and I don't want to be seen leaving."

The former Commander of the Scouts hesitated for a moment, then he got up with a sigh:

"I can't stop you from leaving anyway."

"No you can't."

(-)(-)(-)

One hundred and fifty kilometers separated Wall Rose from Wall Sina, a distance which Amos negotiated by galloping for two hours on the mount provided by Shadis, a young and beautiful mare, black as soot, bred in the scouts' stables. Nox had to admit that he had never ridden a horse of Lilith's caliber before.

When the shadow of Wall Sina appeared in the distance, the tall blond took out his spyglass, spotted the various garrison guard posts marked with torches, and headed for the opening closest to his position. Once close enough, he left Lilith beside a stream, and activated his ODM gear to climb Humanity's last Wall.

Ehrmich had not changed since his last visit; it was ten o'clock and yet the city was as lively as it was at noon. He would have to wait a bit before putting his plan into motion, but a year of imprisonment had taught him patience.

"Sina," he said aloud with a nostalgic voice, "my favorit playground."

He jumped from the top of Wall Sina after putting a cape on, and used his gear to land at the foot of the rampart. Then he opened a manhole to sink in and circulate through the sewers without risking being recognized or even seen. He came out in the middle of an alley where a barrel was waiting for him. A barrel that all the inhabitants of the area ignored without asking a question, to them it was part of the urban setting. He pulled out of it, a battered hat, a tangled red wig, a fake beard, brown contact lenses, make-up, a fake nose, a fake back hump and a gray raincoat. He put it all on, then liberally doused his face and clothes with whiskey, hid his omni-dimensional-maneuver gear and cadet uniform in the barrel, and strode out of the alley to quietly infiltrate Ehrmich's population without arousing the slightest suspicion. As usual, he mingled with the bums and small-time criminals, impersonating one of them with his drunken, wobbly gait. He went on like this until he reached his destination; "The Geisha", a relatively modest bar that he entered.

The bartender, a young man in his twenties with dark hair, glared at him.

"No bums here!" he announced with authority and aggressiveness.

Said bum ignored him, glanced right and left, noticed that the establishment was devoid of customers, and settled down at the bar under the bewildered gaze of the bartender. The latter plunged his hand under the counter to seize the rifle which was hidden there.

"William, if you touch that gun I'll have to break your hand."

At these words, said William froze on the spot and his eyes widened in terror. He asked in a trembling voice:

"Akuma-sama?"

"The bar is closed for the evening," Amos said, taking out his pack of cigarettes, "go close the door and bring me an ashtray."

William didn't need to be told twice, and his employer's orders were followed within fifteen seconds. "I didn't expect to see you anytime soon," the bartender apologized anxiously once back behind the counter, "what can I do for you?"

"Serve me a peach tea and get the key to the armory, I have a lot of work to do."

If William had any questions, he kept them to himself and disappeared into the back shop as soon as the drink was served.

Amos sipped it as he smoked quietly, then pulled out his pocket watch to see that it was almost eleven o'clock. He had five hours to act. It was more than enough.

William reappeared as his employer stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.

"Here you go, boss," he announced like a soldier, giving him the key, "what should I prepare for the arrival of the others?"

"No one else is coming tonight, William," the tall blond man in the red wig said, finishing his drink. "I will act alone."

This time, the bartender seemed sincerely surprised, nevertheless, he nodded respectfully and cleared the counter while his boss headed towards the back shop.

There, the latter went to a large wooden box, inserted the key in a gap between two boards and turned it. Immediately, the crate swung to the side, and revealed a wooden staircase that the young man descended after recovering the key.

The armory looked like the changing rooms of a military barracks with its benches, lockers and showers. But the cabinets for rifles and pistols, as well as the displays for all kinds of equipment and armor, easily allowed this place to be credited with as an armory.

Without wasting a second, Amos got rid of his tramp disguise, went to take a shower to get rid of the smell of whiskey, and headed to his personal locker to get dressed, armed, and masked. Tonight he was going to shed blood, a lot of blood.

And the only thing he noticed when he put on one of his old masks was the fact that he had lost none of his habits, and that he felt surprisingly eager to get back to work.

(-)(-)(-)

Hitch Dreyse, as well as all the other female cadets of the Eastern barracks, had been bound, blinded and gagged from the moment they were removed until they reached their cells. There, they had been stripped naked, hosed down like animals, and locked up in common cells while waiting for the other girls and the few boys from the West and North barracks to join them. But they never heard from those in the South. The place they had been locked in was the former Garrison Headquarters, a building that had been bought out and refurbished since the highest-ranking wall guards had moved directly to Mitras. The new owner was Satoshi Akira, an Oriental man of almost fifty, who had spent the first forty-five years of his life in the underground city under the capital. Where he had amassed a fortune working for his mother; who herself had worked for Seto Nakamura.

Satoshi Akira was the last male of the Akira clan, he was six foot six, with a waist circumference of four feet, in other words, he was massive, rich, and to top it off, had a powerful organization under his orders.

The former Garrison Headquarters was his fortress, his business center, and soon… his breeding farm.

Most of the people who worked for Akira were from the slums, and aspired to a better life than their social status allowed them. Such was the case of Daniel, a young man of fifteen who had grown up in the slums of Ehrmich. He had been unable to resist greed when a recruiter from Akira had offered him to join the organization. And now that all the human merchandise was gathered, it was necessary to ensure its quality. Thus Daniel had been instructed to examine the prisoners one by one with a colleague in his forties who answered to the name of Aslo. For this task, they took the girls out of the cell one by one, and brought them to an isolated room to examine their bodies from all angles in order to assess the quality of their grip. Unfortunately for Hitch, she was the first to pass, and as she tried in vain to maintain a semblance of modesty by curling up to hide her breasts and genitals by covering her chest with her arms and squeezing her thighs, Aslo grabbed her by the hair and dragged her down to the room under the lustful gaze of Daniel who couldn't help but admire her buttocks.

"All right," the forty-year-old man said, forcing the teenager to stand in front of a table where various measuring tools were lying around, "I'll explain to you how it works. We need to know everything about this bitch: her chest, ass and hip measurements, her weight, her age, if she is a virgin and if she is not too stupid. You write it all down, and don't forget to add her eye and hair color."

"Okay," Daniel answered as he grabbed a tape measure and kept looking at the chest of the prisoner in tears, "and what will all this be for?"

Aslo snorted loudly.

"The boss is some sort of noble, he basically wants sons to inherit all his money and his name. But since he is oriental, he only wants brunettes to lay his brats, the others will either be made into broodmares or sold to nobles or slave merchants."

Hitch's body was paralyzed in terror while her heart was being consumed by shame and despair. These human flesh traffickers spoke of her as if she were nothing more than a cow, never, during her short life, had she believed that she would end up like this. She wanted to scream, but she had been punished harshly every time she tried to protest or call for help. She was scared, she was so scared, she didn't know what to do or even how to react to what her captors were saying. She shuddered in disgust every time they touched her skin.

"Why does the boss want them with dark hair?" Daniel asked, measuring the girl's chest circumference while biting his lower lip to contain his lust. "Because he's Oriental and wants his sons to look like Orientals, and all Orientals have dark hair."

A soft sigh of relief escaped the brown blonde's nostrils, but Aslo slapped her buttocks. She screamed through her gag.

"Don't rejoice too soon, you slut," he sneered, kneading the flesh of her ass with both hands as Hitch let out a sickened, muffled scream.

Hornied by the scene, Daniel approached his own hand to grab the other buttock.

"Keep doing the fucking measurements, you horny brat," Aslo bellowed when he saw him coming, "we have other girls to see."

The teenager scowled, but complied and measured the younger girl's hip circumference.

"So what are we going to do with this one?" he asked naively.

"She's an attractive slut, so we'll probably be able to fetch a good price for her on the market. But after that, we have to see if the customers will like her. We're lucky that she is still young."

Daniel nodded once more, measured the buttocks of the girl while making sure he got to touch as much skin as possible, and wrote down the results on the notebook lying on the table.

Aslo then took over, he pulled out a chair, forced Hitch to sit down and removed the gag from her. Immediately, the young girl gasped in great puffs and turned her gaze filled with tears to her oldest captor.

"Please…"

"For fuck's sake…" Aslo complained, grabbing her cheeks. "No 'please' will do, cutie. You're a whore-slave now, it's done and you can't do anything about it, so you shut your mouth and spread your legs so we can see what kind of whore you will be or I'll have your asshole here and now."

Those words shattered Hitch in a split second. She, who had dreamed of joining the MPs to live a peaceful life in the shelter of Wall Sina, had her life taken away. She was now… a bedslave.

Her eyes went blank, and her tensed body was relaxed by despair. She barely heard Aslo ask her:

"Hey, how old are you?"

"Thirteen…" she muttered under her breath. Daniel faithfully transcribed this information

"Spread your legs."

She let out a sob, and did as ordered. But she was too slow for the liking of the trafficker who grabbed her by the knees and spread her limbs while ignoring the humiliated and sickened moan that escaped the young girl's lips as he examined her genitals longly. Hitch was so repelled that she felt nauseous, but she had nothing to vomit in her stomach.

"What the fuck is this?!" Aslo suddenly roared angrily.

Without warning, he straightened up and grabbed the girl by the throat.

"You fucking whore! You really are a bitch! You are thirteen years old and you already lost your virginity! Fuck... what a waste!"

Hitch was both confused and terrified by the trafficker's reaction. Admittedly… she had slept with her instructor to bribe him into adding a few points to her grades… She had just wanted to secure a place for her in the MPs! She thought it could only be beneficial, but in the end it was going to backfire in this hell that was her new life.

"You slut!" Aslo railed. "There's no way we can sell her now! A rich man will never want to dip his cock in an already worn hole."

"What do we do now?" Daniel asked, confused.

Instead of answering, Aslo stormed harder and finished filling out Hitch's form in the notebook himself. Then he put the gag back on the girl and squeezed it cruelly, before grabbing her by the hair and forcing her to face him.

"Listen to me very carefully, little slut," he spat with sadistic pleasure mixed with dark anger. "Since you're not worth anything, we're going to use you as a layer. Do you know what a layer is, you dirty whore?! A cow whose brats she lays and the milk she produces are sold until she is no longer able to conceive a kid! After you're done being fertile, you're going straight to the slaughterhouse!"

Hitch's pupils had widened as Aslo had described the fate he had in store for her, and after a moment of silence during which she suffered the shock, she began to struggle like a devil, screaming through her gag and ignoring the burns her restraints were inflicting on her wrists. Aslo burst out laughing and dragged her through the hallway by her hair back to the common cell, despite the teenage girl kicking her legs and vainly clumsy fidgeting. Meanwhile, Daniel kept admiring her forms with his lustful gaze.

That unbearable stare that disgusted Hitch like everything around him in that place…

A series of explosions shook the entire building, Aslo lost his balance and fell to the ground.

"Fucking hell!" he roared, drawing a pistol. "What the fuck was that?!"

(-)(-)(-) (Five minutes earlier)

The Old Garrison Headquarters was simply four walls surrounding a courtyard that had a stable and workshop, as well as a thirty-meter-tall tower. All of the most illegal activity took place in the building, but most criminals made rounds of the ramparts or played cards while drinking in the courtyard. In total, there were forty-two men outside the tower, and a forty-third lurking in the shadows for whom time had suddenly slowed down.

A torch suddenly went out on the eastern rampart, leaving a dark gap on the wall that narrowed as a guard moved forward to relight it with his own torch.

But before he could illuminated the heart of the dark gap, the guard in question very distinctly heard three metallic objects bouncing on the floor of the courtyard until they each hit one of the campfires around which men were gathered. They barely had time to realize that they were fragmentation grenades when they exploded simultaneously and shredded almost twenty victims in the space of a single second. The explosions suddenly lit up the ramparts and startled the guards who pointed their weapons at the remains of their colleagues out of reflex. Their colleagues had been turned into disjointed and chopped corpses, or cripples with holes and dismemberments, who were screaming in pain and horror.

The eight guards on the eastern rampart had made the mistake of lining up and looking in the wrong direction, ten ultrahard steel bullets pierced them just before a deafening gunshot rang out in the ears of their colleagues on the South and West ramparts. Said colleagues pointed their weapons towards the East, to see eight corpses filled with holes collapsing, a smoke bomb was deployed and a shadow flew away in less than a second to disappear behind the tower.

"Fuck! What the fuck is happening?!" one of them shouted.

The next second, the fifteen guards still standing barked contradictory orders and exchanged insults about their respective intelligence, all while the few survivors of the first explosions continued to agonize, moan and scream.

None of the mercenaries noticed the two frag grenades that fell from the sky towards the south wall and went off in the air. Two additional explosions decimated the seven men who were there and some fragments even lodged in the thorax and the skull of the guard of the nearest western rampart.

The final seven were in such a state of shock and panic that they all went into mass hysteria and threw down their weapons to rush for the stairs. Unfortunately for them, in their flight, they made the mistake of lining up and turning their backs on the person responsible for this carnage. Said person only had to propel himself perpendicularly to the line they were forming and fire a single shot to take them all down while he was upside down. Amos let out a burst of gas from his anti-personnel gear to perform a twist jump, he righted himself and landed in the middle of the yard, making two long furrows in the dust.

Those who had survived his grenades could be counted on the fingers of a half-severed hand. And as the life slowly faded from their eyes, the last thing they saw was a one meter and seventy-two centimeters tall person, wearing a long black hooded coat, covered by a omni-dimensional backpack gear with two pistols and an armor covering his torso. However, the most terrifying thing was his mask. The red-skinned creature he represented had knife-long teeth and sharp black horns. In Eastern mythology, this thing was the product of Hell, the remnant of a tormented human soul. An Akuma.

He unpinned a new grenade, activated his equipment towards the tower, and flew away while dropping his explosive projectile on the front door.

The next second, a dozen of traffickers burst into the yard. The grenade ricocheted off the skull of one of them before falling to the ground and decimating them just after the intruder propelled himself through a window.

(-)(-)(-)

As gunfire and explosions raged outside, Aslo forgot about Hitch to straighten up, gun in hand.

"What is happening?!" Daniel exclaimed.

His lust had been swapped for terror in a second.

The forty-year-old did not answer him, and rushed to the window to find out where all this noise had come from.

However, all he saw were lint corpses and panicked mercenaries pointing their guns randomly.

He cursed as Hitch crawled back to lean against the wall. The next second a dozen men stormed down the hallway with pistols in their belts and rifles in their hands.

"We're under attack!" one of them bellowed before glaring at Daniel. "Where the fuck is your gun, you bastard?!"

"I-I don't…" the teenager muttered. The trafficker cursed, drew one of his pistols and thrusted it into the young man's hands.

Two explosions were heard as well as new cries of agony. Aslo cursed again.

"Move your asses!" he called, leading the group. "Let's go get these motherfuckers!"

With these words, the traffickers raced down the stairs with their guns drawn. And as he ran after them, Daniel felt his body shake with excitement as they approached their destination. The weapon he had in his hands made him shiver with pleasure, at this precise moment, he was no longer the orphan of the streets, dirty and afraid. He had become a real man who was going to live the grand life, and he couldn't wait to prove himself by killing his first man.

When they arrived at the armored front door, Aslo peered through the peephole, and he swore once more upon discovering that a lone man with a ridiculous mask on, was standing amidst the remains of his colleagues.

"Men! We go on three!"

Daniel couldn't stand still.

"One, two, three!"

Immediately, the mercenaries burst into the enclosure of the courtyard, and scanned it with the barrels of their weapons.

Then, Daniel saw a grenade fall on Aslo's head who started cursing one last time until he saw what was rolling at his feet. A second later, Daniel's grand life was over.

(-)(-)(-)

Driven by her survival instincts, Hitch leaned against the wall to get up. She hesitated for a few moments about deciding where to go, but the sound of a deafening gunshot finally convinced her that right now, it was better to go up than down.

Despite her nudity and her fists still tied, she entered the stairwell and climbed the steps as fast as her stiff legs and bruised feet would allow her. When she reached the top floor, she took a moment to catch her breath. It was then that another explosion was heard and an infernal creature passed through the window to land in front of the girl. The latter gave a howl of terror when she saw the newcomer's mask and ran as fast as she could. Never looking back, she ran down a long hallway lit only by light from abandoned campfires streaming through the windows, and was caught in her tracks by a tall guy with a big beard and a pistol in his hand.

"How many are there?!" he barked furiously as he shook the tearful teenager who had urinated on herself in her escape.

When she didn't answer, he gave her a slap that split her lip.

"Answer me, you fucking whore! How many are…?!"

A kunai-chain pierced his chest, splashing the face of the kidnapped cadet in the process. The bearded man lowered his eyes to contemplate the blade which had deployed like a grappling hook in his chest. The chain reeled in and dragged him into the shadows. A sound of flesh sliced echoed through the hallway to Hitch's ears, who was shaking from head to toe.

She barely saw the reddish reflection of the creature's head before she ran away again, howling as if she was possessed.

Unfortunately, she was intercepted again after half a minute of frantic running, from a varnished wooden door which suddenly opened. Two pairs of hands had seized the hysterical teenager, and had dragged her into a huge room with a freshly vaulted ceiling and oriental tapestries. Hitch was thrown unceremoniously on the floor, and a gun was pointed at her temple.

"Tell us everything you saw right now, you fucking bitch!" another trafficker among at least fifteen others barked.

But Hitch was no longer afraid of guns, she was afraid of demons, real demons.

"He has red skin," she whispered in shock, "and horns…"

Instantly, the most imposing man the teenage girl had ever seen stood up from behind his large desk and frowned very broadly.

"Akuma…" he growled with a very strong accent.

His men widened their eyes in terror and exchanged panicked looks.

"Yarckel's Monster?!"

"Fuck! That bastard is real?!"

"What does he want with us?! We're not in his fucking territory!"

The door was thrown open by a headless corpse that had been thrown over it. The corpse in question landed at Hitch's feet, who screamed again as she crawled backwards. At the same time, a grenade rolled into the center of the room and exploded, covering the men into a cloud of smoke.

Chaos broke out. Possessed by panic, the criminals all shot at the door, that, if they were able to remember in which direction the door was.

For her part, Hitch did the only thing she was able to do to survive the firefight, she crawled back as far as she could. Until her head hit the bars of a small cage, which prevented her from going any further.

The shootout lasted barely twenty seconds, as the slavers' guns only had a three-shot cylinder. But while the shooting was already over, the carnage continued. And once the last shot was fired, Hitch gasped in horror as she recognized the sound of flesh being sliced.

Satoshi Akira couldn't do anything with his huge build, his fingers were too large for a gun. He could only curse behind his desk, be on his guard in case his enemy approached unwisely, and wait for the smoke to clear.

Which happened in barely a minute…and the last person standing was the Akuma, a half-short, bloody blade protruding from each of his sleeves.

All of Akira's henchmen were bathed in a pool of blood that had ruined a splendid carpet.

The large-statured Oriental blushed with anger at this disaster. He, who had worked so hard to escape the yoke of Seto Nakamura, to get out of the Underground City, to rebuild his family fortune, and who was about to revive his clan. His ambition was like his men; in lint.

"You wretched runt!" bellowed the giant. "Do you even know who I am?!

"You are a gigantic pile of excrement with legs," Akuma replied in a perfect oriental that shocked the slaver.

"Who are you?! And how do you know this language?!"

Yarckel's monster cocked its head to the side and chuckled coldly.

"I am a brother, a friend and a comrade. And for all of these reasons, I'm going to rip out all the flesh you stuck on your skeleton."

At these words, Akira's instinct for survival and his terror pushed him to react, he grabbed his desk and lifted it above his head, roaring like a beast.

A kunai-chain was immediately shot from Akuma's sleeve and stroke the giant's knee, turning his animal roar into a moan of pain and causing the desk he had been lifting to fall back. The piece of furniture shattered on the floor, and its owner ended up destroying it by crashing into it. The demon did not wait for his victim to get up, he unrolled his second kunai-chain and began to dance with his weapons like a gymnast dances his ribbons. The blades swirled faster and faster until they cut into the giant again and again, ripping his clothes and slashing his flesh. He struggled, he squealed like a pig. He tried to straighten up, but his joints were severed and his arms became as useless as his belt.

Akira tried to use his only good leg to get up, but Akuma slashed his face, gouging out his right eye in the process. The giant squeaked louder, lost his balance and fell onto his back. Yarckel's monster reeled in his kunais and jumped on his foe's massive belly. He redeployed the blades attached to the backs of his wrists and placed one knee on Akira's greasy chest to stare into his last eye.

He took advantage of the fact that Hitch was behind him and that he was wearing a hood to remove his mask, eying the black pupil of the oriental with his emerald pupils.

"Look at me," Amos commanded, "look at me!"

It took a few seconds for Akira to recognize his attacker's face, his eye almost popping out of its socket.

"Y-you…?"

The tall blond took a gold tooth from his pocket, and displayed it in front of his victim's face.

"You sent your gang of pigs after my sister, my friends and my comrades," Akuma growled angrily. "Did you sincerely believe that your perversion would go unpunished?!"

Since the giant's neck was too wide for his hand, he rested the tip of his blade against his Adam's apple to apply the desired pressure.

"I slaughtered the twenty-two mutts you sent south, then I decimated the sixty you kept here to get to you. You… the pathetic descendant of a prestigious line. The loathsome creature who thought he could build a human farm within my Walls."

Akira slowly felt the tip of Amos' blade slicing thinly into his skin, the humiliation and pain he felt following his crushing defeat made him cry with rage.

"All of this… you did all of this for a bunch of fucking commoners?!" he complained outraged. "These insignificant bitches should be honored to receive my seed..."

Mikasa's blank gaze that she wore when Golden tooth was about to abuse her suddenly invaded Amos' mind and predation flashed in his emerald eyes.

In a flash, he put his mask back on and did a backflip to get to the level of the oriental's crotch, which he emasculated without the slightest mercy, ignoring his pig howls.

"You're right, they're a bunch of fucking commoners. But they're my bunch of fucking commoners!" Akuma roared, butchering his prey like a lion butchered a cow.

Akira squealed and howled like a slaughtered pig at the slaughterhouse. Hitch remained paralyzed before the entire scene, eyes wide, stomach knotted, and as Amos tore the giant to pieces, the girl's face was covered in blood.

When the tall blonde had rid the giant of at least thirty pounds of flesh, he ignored his moans of agony to focus on his head. Then he grabbed him by the hair and reveled in the horrified glint of his victim's single eye as he used his blade to cut his neck.

He spat with sadistic pleasure:

"Go to Hell, and face the judgment of your ancestors."

Finally, he chopped off his head off, and heaved a long, deep sigh of relief. His tense muscles finally relaxed and he swallowed the predation as he lifted his mask to wipe away the blood that had flowed from his nostrils.

"There's nothing more satisfying than exterminating parasites," he mused, allowing himself a moment's respite.

Moment that was immediately interrupted by the vomiting of Hitch, whose empty stomach only managed to regurgitate a trickle of bile.

Amos sighed again, then he went to tear down a curtain and threw it at the kidnapped cadet. She hastened to regain a semblance of modesty by covering her body.

"Hi Lola, Akuma said in the girl's direction.

Hitch had to muster the little courage he had left to succeed in answering:

"I-my name is not Lola."

"It's the kid's name."

At these words, the blonde jumped and turned to face the cage against which she had pressed while waiting for the end of hostilities. Inside, she saw a little dark-haired girl who couldn't be more than ten years old. She was handcuffed to the bars and blinded by a blindfold, the clothes she wore were sticky and damaged. The child did not answer, she did not move, only the heaving of her chest due to her breathing indicated to the two other people present that she was alive.

Yarckel's monster went to search his giant victim's desk and found a bunch of keys. He then approached the cage, but in doing so, he also approached Hitch, and the latter took a step back, gasping in terror.

"Calm down," Akuma said softly, "I won't hurt you. And I'm sorry if this mask frightens you, it is made to terrorize cowardly and superstitious minds such as those of criminals."

The young girl frowned, she opened her mouth to speak but no sound crossed her lips, her masked interlocutor came to kneel at a respectable distance.

"What's your name?" he asked, keeping his voice soft.

She swallowed.

"Hitch..."

"Hitch, I'm going to need your help."

The teenager barely had the strength to frown, this guy, who had slaughtered sixty men in the space of fifteen minutes, needed help?

"Lola, here, needs a comforting presence by her side. And since she must not see my face, I have to keep my mask on. So I need you to come with me while I return her to her family. In exchange, I'll offer you a good hot meal with meat, a shower, a good bed, clean clothes and a speedy return to the training camp from which you were taken. What do you say?"

Hitch had nothing to say, because when she finally realized that this nightmare was over, she burst into tears with relief.

(-)(-)(-)

There were no words to describe the feeling of ecstasy that gripped Hitch, as the hot water from her shower ran over her skin and the grime that covered her washed away as she scrubbed. Her washcloth soaked in sweet almond milk soap. Once she had accepted Akuma's proposal, he had dragged little Lola out of her cage and brought them both to the stables, where he had stolen a horse and had taken them to a bar where a dark-haired young man in his twenties had hastened to lead them to the staff changing rooms. Hitch had rushed into the shower, and had been enjoying it for almost twenty minutes.

"Hitch!" Akuma called in front of the curtain she had put up between her and the rest of the locker room. "Lola needs to wash too!"

The young girl's head sticked out of the curtain, and she looked at the little brunette with a blank stare. She held out her hand to her.

"Come on, let's both wash up," she said in playful tone that surprised the kid. "The water is hot."

The little one seemed to hesitate for a moment, and Hitch quickly realized that it had to do with the tall demon behind her. Said demon had traded his mask for a simple hood, and had gotten rid of his armor and his equipment for a much more elegant outfit. Which made him much less scary in the eyes of the teenager.

"Get out of here," she said, sticking her tongue out at him, "girls need privacy."

The hooded man laughed, before turning on his heels to join the great hall.

"I left you clothes in your size, do not wait too long, dinner will be served in about twenty minutes."

Hitch watched her savior leave before returning to Lola, the little brunette had, like the teenager, burn marks on her wrists. The smell of sweat emanating from her body meant that she hadn't cleaned herself in a while.

She kept smiling as she helped the child to undress and led her gently into the shower. The latter almost jumped on contact with the hot water and widened her eyes.

"It feels good, huh?" the cadet laughed with a dripping face.

The little one nodded as her face contorted into an expression that showed intense relief. Satisfied, Hitch rubbed the bar of soap against her washcloth, and vigorously scrubbed Lola's body to rid her of all the grime. She didn't have time to go very far, however, when the little one threw herself into his arms to cry against his shoulder. Hitch sighed and rubbed her back to wash her up as well as comfort her.

"I would have liked to be consoled," the young girl thought, remembering all the horrors of the evening. "Growing up sucks."

Once they were done cleaning, Lola's pretty white complexion was now free of dirt, but it also revealed a scary thinness. Hitch then hastened to dress her in the pretty little black dress left by the monster of Yarckel, and led her by the hand to the dining room, where a delicious smell awaited them.

The teenager and the little girl couldn't believe their eyes when they saw Akuma quietly sitting at a table, his chin resting on his joined hands.

"Would you like a pepper steak with sweet potatoes cooked with olive oil? he asked with an amused tone.

His two guests nodded before sitting down to eat, but the hooded man turned to the youngest.

"Lola? I know you are very hungry, but if you eat too fast you will get sick and vomit. Resist what your body is crying out for, and take your time chewing your food, okay?"

The girl hesitated, and to Hitch's surprise turned to her to ask for confirmation. Not knowing what else to do, the teenager nodded, Lola gave her a little smile before she went back to her food.

Her benefactress glanced in the direction of the hooded man who had just pulled up his hood to the middle of his face to enjoy the meal as well.

Dinner passed in a comfortable silence, where everyone seemed too busy with their food to start a conversation. Once her dish was finished, Hitch took a deep sigh to relieve his full belly and turned once more to their host.

"So… Are you 'Yarckel's Monster'?"

"Yes," he replied, wiping his plate with a piece of bread planted on his fork.

"My daddy told me you're dangerous," Lola said, looking him up and down with half-terrified, half-cautious eyes. Akuma laughed politely, but it startled the girl.

"Hitch can confirm what your dad said," he said, nodding at her.

The latter frowned, and then remembered that the little brunette had been blindfolded. She nodded in the direction of the child who continued to stare intently at the stranger.

"Finish your plate," he said in a soft voice, "then go to sleep. Tomorrow, your dad will pick you up."

The little one's hazel eyes lit up for the first time.

"Really?"

"Yes," Akuma replied, dabbing his lips with his napkin, "so finish your plate, slowly, and go to bed."

Lola nodded quickly, and finished her meal as quickly as she could while still following her host's rules. When she was done, the hooded man motioned for Hitch to put her down on the padded bench at the back of the bar, where William had placed a blanket and a pillow earlier that evening.

The thirteen-year-old girl temporarily abandoned her food, to accompany Lola to her makeshift bed. The latter took off her ballerinas and threw herself at the neck of her benefactress.

"Thanks Hitch," she whispered, hugging her tightly.

The blonde would be lying if she said that hug and thanks weren't incredibly comforting and gratifying, after the awful night she had had.

"No problem, kid." she replied, stroking the back of her head.

Exhausted, Lola quickly fell asleep, which allowed the cadet to backtrack and refocus on her food. But she noticed the surprisingly sad look Yarckel's monster was giving the sleeping little girl.

"It's not a world to have children..." he muttered under his breath.

"Eh?"

"Do not mind me," he replied, shaking his head, "you should finish your plate too."

Hitch was only too happy to obey him, but as a relatively comfortable silence settled, a flood of questions assailed the girl. And she became desperate for answers after everything she had been through tonight.

"Where did the handsome bartender go?"

"He went to send messages. My men will descend from Yarckel and be there in an hour. My guest and his men will be there a little later. You better be in a bed in one of the upstairs bedrooms by then. A stagecoach will take you back to your training camp tomorrow. If you're worried about your friends, know that the Military Police have found them. Do you need anything else?"

Hitch bit her tongue, she had lots of questions and the person in front of her was her best source of information. But he was also a criminal who was famously known for his cruelty, and a guy who had massacred sixty people and cut up a sixty-first before his eyes. Despite his apparent kindness once the carnage was over, she wasn't comfortable with him now that Lola was asleep.

"Why was she blindfolded?"

"To keep her from seeing the faces of her captors."

"But why was she in a cage in plain sight?"

"Because she is the daughter of a powerful and feared man," Akuma sighed, lighting a cigarette, "he must have shown her off like a trophy."

A sickened shiver ran down the girl's spine, a shiver that set off a chain reaction and brought forth the sickening memories of her captivity. She suddenly felt Aslo and Daniel's hands on her skin and covered her private parts and chest in reflex. Lola had allowed her to delay the effects of her trauma, but it was now coming back at full speed. Seeing this, Yarckel's monster headed to the bar to serve the girl a glass of the finest whiskey he had in store.

"It will help," he said, handing it to her, "bottoms up."

Hitch didn't need to be asked twice, and downed the liquid which burned her throat in the process. She coughed, but gladly welcomed the warmth that enveloped her almost instantly.

She held out her glass for another shot, but the hooded man refused.

"If I give you more, you'll spend the rest of your life drinking, you might as well kill yourself right away." Hitch gulped, set his drink back on the bar, and sat back down to cup her head in her hands and let her tears fall.

"Why?" she asked between sobs. "Why did they do this to us?"

Akuma took a long puff from his cigarette and heaved a long, smoky sigh.

"Do you really want me to explain this to you? You might not like the very long answer to this question."

Hitch looked up, her face flooded with tears, she grabbed her towel and blew her nose in it.

"I need to know..."

Yarckel's monster stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, and sat down, lighting another. He offered one to her guest who accepted.

"This is how our society works," he said, raising a finger. "The most obvious point is the war against the titans. A war that interests only a handful of people despite the obvious stakes. So much so that our military system, despite being based on the development of the fight against the titans, rewards our most promising soldiers by sending them to hide as far as possible from the war they should be fighting on the front line. And how do they do that? By offering them a comfortable salary and a lazy life. But because of this, the Military Police supposed to enforce the law does not give a damn, and crime abounds. Which brings us to our second point; the war against the mob, which only interests the various gangs.

A feeling of embarrassment invaded Hitch's chest, a feeling that must have been easily read on his face.

"You also wanted to join the Military Police to take it easy," Akuma gritted his teeth, drawing on his cigarette. The blonde nodded in shame.

"Then you can only blame yourself for what happened to you, it is because of people like you that criminals abound."

The curt tone he had used hit the girl like a punch in the stomach.

"Which brings us to our last war," he continued to smoke as if nothing had happened, "the war between the nobles, which only concerns the Nobility. This whole shitty system is set up to make sure that the nobles can go about their business without anyone bothering them. You want to know why that big swine Akira went after the cadets? Because in the eyes of the nobles, you are replaceable because you are useless. They don't care if you disappear, the life of a farmer is much more valuable to them, because a farmer produces food while you eat it."

Hitch then noticed that the fist of Yarckel's monster had clenched, this one continued without managing to hide his frustration:

"This is the vicious circle of our society; the nobles only meddle in their own petty quarrels. They sabotage military training, to sabotage the war against the titans so they don't have to step out of their comfort zone. This sabotage allows crime to thrive. And since Maria, it literally imploded because a bunch of parasites that swarmed in the underground city for a century managed to get out, people like Akira. They sought to impose their law without pissing off the nobles. By abusing lives that do not matter to them, like the one of a female cadet who only wanted to be part of this vile system."

Akuma plunged his hand into his pocket, took out a metal box from which he pulled out a small syringe which he injected into his neck under the bewildered gaze of his guest.

"That's why they came after you," the hooded man finished, stubbing out his cigarette to cover his mouth, "because it's easy since nobody cares. And you didn't care either. Our society is no longer human since it allows animals to do what they want, and by doing nothing, you are complicit in their actions."

"Fuck you..." she whispered, broken. "You are a criminal...you too..."

Yarckel's monster chuckled, and raised three fingers under the teenager's nose.

"Three wars," he repeated, "one against the nobility, one against the underworld, one against the titans. I have the ambition to win on more than one board. While you have the sole ambition of doing nothing."

He let out a short burst of laughter, before stretching and getting up to clear the table.

"Go to bed, first door on the left in the corridor of the first floor. And think carefully about what you want to do with your life, because if you choose to do nothing, someone else will choose for you. And you might not like that choice."

Hitch watched him cleaning with blank eyes, she got up mechanically and staggered back to her room from the shock she had received mixed with the glass of whiskey she had swallowed. She collapsed on the bed the second she saw it and fell asleep crying.

(-)(-)(-)

Amos spent the next hour watching Lola sleep, this poor child of not even ten name days, skinny like a stray cat, had been kidnapped by a slave trafficker, locked in a cage and exhibited like a trophy. It didn't take much imagination for the tall blond to imagine another little girl in his position, a little girl with blond hair and emerald or sapphire eyes. Or a little boy, like he used to be.

"You are a grotesque aberration of nature! I forbid you to use this language which is not yours!"

The shrill female voice that echoed in his skull took him by surprise, he clapped his hands on his head to relieve a tad of the pain that emanated from it.

"It's a cruel world, the only way to survive is to fight. The only way to protect those you love is to fight. The world is like that, she finally let go in a monotonous voice, there is nothing we can do about it."

"Yes, we can," Yarckel's Monster muttered through his teeth, "three wars, three fucking wars to be won. The children…"

He lifted his head to gaze at Lola's sleeping face, and choked back tears of pain and despair.

"You're dream is wonderful."

"It will be more than a dream," he said aloud, injecting himself with a dose of methadone and lighting another cigarette. "No child deserves to grow up in such a disgusting world."

A few minutes later, about thirty heavily armed men burst into the room and greeted Amos, calling him "Akuma-sama." Then they positioned themselves all around the room, without waking Lola. At the same time, thirty others were stationed at strategic locations with an unobstructed view of "The Geisha" and its surroundings. Meanwhile, William was doing the dishes, cleaning the table and setting up two glasses on either side of it.

Amos looked at his watch and saw that it was two o'clock in the morning. His last guest arrived half an hour later.

Indeed, a stagecoach escorted by about fifty men on horseback armed with rifles stopped in front of the bar, and a forty-four-year-old man with a bushy beard and a large belly got out, with a woman of the same age on his arm, wrapped up in a fur coat, who obviously hadn't had time to put makeup on.

Their entry into the establishment accompanied by a dozen of their men tensed the thirty already present, but a gesture on the part of Akuma calmed the spirits. The woman then saw Lola and would have rushed towards her had her husband not held her back. The latter stared warily at the hooded figure of Yarckel's Monster.

But to everyone's surprise he said:

"Let her bring her child home, she is not my hostage."

At these words, the mother begged her husband with a look, and he consented to let her go. She immediately rushed to the padded seat and gently caressed the sleeping face of her little girl. The latter half woke up, and felt her mom's lips on her forehead. One of the father's henchmen came to gently take the little one in his arms, and led her outside with the matriarch on her heels. Leaving the two businessmen face to face with their respective soldiers.

With a gesture, Akuma invited the forty-four-year-old to sit down in front of him, which he did.

"Which drink would suit you?" the owner of the place offered.

"A double whiskey," the guest gritted, "without ice."

William quickly filled the guest's glass as the host put a new cigarette to his lips.

"I spent three years trying to locate you," the bearded man sneered bitterly, "you've been acting in the shadows for a bloody year and a half, and then you reappear... with a bunch of fireworks... blowing a whole district upside down below. Then you fucking wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me to come get my daughter who's been missing for a month… What are you playing at, you fucking demon?"

"First of all," said demon cut, blowing a cloud of smoke, "I'm neither your son, nor your whore, don't talk to me like that, Pirlo."

A vein pulsed on the forehead of the fat man but the owner of the bar ignored it.

"Secondly, if I exterminated Akira and his band of mutts, it was because this swine made a colossal mistake; he attacked my people. I didn't know he had kidnapped Lola, but I took the opportunity to get her out of the cage he had locked her in."

A cathedral-like silence fell on the room, the forty-four old man was boiling with anger and seemed ready to explode, but instead, he finished his drink in one go and sketched an evil smile.

"Your whiskey is always the best there is," he said, motioning for William to pour more, "I always have a bottle of it for the bad evenings, I've had a lot of bad evenings lately… This one started badly."

"Glad I could cheer you up," Akuma said, stubbing out his cigarette.

He instantly lit another one.

"You didn't bring me here just to give me my daughter back."

"Actually, I did. But since you were coming, I thought that was the perfect opportunity to negotiate new trade agreements between West and East. What do you say, Pirlo?"

Said Pirlo pensively scratched his beard, and fixed the hooded man with his murderous gaze, the latter replied by making predation appear.

"Has my daughter eaten?"

"I made her a pepper steak with sweet potatoes, a female friend of mine made her take a shower."

At these words, Pirlo slammed his hand against the table, which tensed all the men present, except Yarckel's Monster.

"Then I'm in a business mood," he said loudly. Akuma nodded, before turning to his men.

"Everybody out."

"You heard him" the bearded man snarled at his own employees. "Everybody out!"

"And no fucking fighting!" the two crime lords commanded simultaneously. Once alone, the hooded one unfolded a map of Sina and spread it on the table.

"Ermich is mine," he said simply, "I conquered it by the sheer force of my arms and my men are already securing the territory; it is mine."

This sentence immediately earned him the glare of Pirlo, nevertheless he continued.

"However, I am willing to sell you a piece of land large enough to store your goods and develop your snow traffic in the South."

This time, the forty-something was so surprised by this offer that he raised his eyebrows.

"And what do you want in return?"

"I want all the brothels in the East," Akuma demanded without beating around the bush, "all of them, without exception."

"That's not possible," Pirlo replied, sipping his drink, "my men gotta fuck."

"They will fuck, but in establishments that follow strict protocol to protect their workers. No rape, no violence, no disease, no children, and girls and boys alike retain the right to refuse a client. If a single guy goes to hookers with pimples on his dick or a tit chopper in his pocket, he'll come out with no balls. Prices will be very competitive."

The fat man stroked his beard with the tips of his stubby fingers as he considered the proposal of his Western counterpart.

"You want to put men of your own, in my yard, if I understood correctly..."

"You will have men of your own in my yard too…"

"No," Pirlo snapped, showing his white teeth, "Ermich is your villa, you just bought it… I want access to Yarckel."

Immediately, the predation intensified in the monster's emerald gaze.

"You better make me one hell of an offer if you want me to accept this," he gritted, letting his smoke lick his lips.

The bearded man took a moment to look at the brownish liquid bathing in his glass, before lowering it to declare:

"I will offer free and unlimited access to all your whiskey shipments from the eastern suburbs of Mitras to Karanes. Moreover, if one of my men ever fucks up in your brothels or on your territories, I'll pay the damages."

"It's not bad," Akuma agreed, stubbing out his cigarette, "but if you want to sell your snow on my territory, it must be pure."

A silence floated for a few seconds, the young man calmly waited for his counterpart to calculate what it was going to cost him.

"Fuck you..."

"I'll pay a tax to guarantee the quality of your merchandise," the hooded man cut in, "but there's no way I'll allow you to spread your half-shit snow from the Stohess slums in the streets of Ehrmich, and certainly not Yarckel. If I see one of your guys trying to sell it, I'll consider the contract terminated."

This time the silence was tense, not floating. Pirlo's and Akuma's gazes met.

"How much is your tax?" asked the pot-bellied man.

"Forty-two percent for Erhmich, twenty-five percent for Yarckel."

At these words, the bearded man's eyes popped out of their sockets.

"Twenty… are you fucking kidding me, you bastard?!

"You're the one who wants to come to my place," replied the monster, "I don't see why I would pay for you to come."

"There's no way we'll do business if you make me such a shitty offer, you asshole," Pirlo spat angrily. The hooded man clicked his tongue, he considered his offer to be more than honest, but he supposed that asking a drug dealer for quality was too much.

So he looked at the map and began to think.

"I'll sell you an ideal location at a good price so that you can sell your goods at my place," he said, pointing to a vacant spot.

Pirlo leaned forward to check the spot, but shook his head.

"That's not enough."

"Very well," Akuma sighed, standing up.

He went behind the counter while his guest followed him with a puzzled look, took out a canvas bag and returned to the table. There, he reached into the bag to grab Akira's head, and placed it in front of Pirlo.

"If I add that, how much do you charge me?"

The paunchy man didn't answer right away, his eyes were caught by the scarred face of the giant oriental. It took a few tens of seconds before he managed to get away from it.

"Thirty three."

"Thirty one."

"Thirty-three, damn it."

"I know how badly you want it," the hooded sneered, "thirty-one and not one percent more."

Pirlo growled in displeasure, stared once more, and grabbed the bottle of whiskey that William had abandoned on the table. "You give me this for my trip back home?"

"Very well."

"Then done deal," he said, holding out his hand.

Akuma grabbed it, but the bearded man put his other one on it.

"I won't forget what you did for my daughter, you little shit," he said with a hint of respect and another of gratitude, "but that doesn't give you every rights."

"I'm well aware of that,"Yarckel's Monster smiled under his hood, "but it gives you an idea of what I'm capable of."

Pirlo nodded, deep down he was genuinely impressed. And when he got back into his stagecoach, he smelled the breath of his sleeping daughter, and identified pepper and olive oil.

"What a fucking little shit," he smiled, caressing his child's cheek and taking another sip of whiskey.

(-)(-)(-)

Inside the bar, Akuma gave his final instructions to his henchmen:

"Raphael, you're going to criss-cross the city for me, I don't want to see a single minion of Akira on the loose. If you find any of them, castrate them and crucify them into scarecrows. No rapists and slavers in Ehrmich."

"Yes, Akuma-sama," agreed the leader of the mercenaries.

"William? You'll wake Hitch up at seven sharp, cook her a good breakfast, and put her on a stagecoach to the destination of her choice. At eight o'clock she must no longer be there and you can have your day off."

"Yes, Akuma-sama."

"You will receive my instructions for future transactions at the beginning of the next week, do not fight with Pirlo's men. If they sell low quality snow you immediately send me a message. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Akuma-sama."

"Good," he sighed, checking his watch.

It was quarter past three in the morning.

"I have to go," he announced, suppressing a yawn. "I will only come out of the shadows in case of extreme necessity, or when the time comes."

With that, Akuma descended into the armory to put on his bum disguise, and made the exact opposite route he had taken four hours earlier. His ODM gear, cloak, and cadet uniform were still in the barrel, he covered himself with his cloak to remove his disguise, and finished changing in the sewers. After which, he crossed the network of galleries until arriving at the foot of the southern rampart. He activated his gear to scale the Sina wall once more, and arrived at the other side without any difficulty. To his surprise, Lilith had fallen asleep against a tree waiting for him.

"You're one hell of a mare," Amos smiled as he straddled her. "I'll give you a ton of sweet apples as soon as I've slept."

With these words, he launched his horse into a gallop, and crossed once more, the distance which separated Sina from Rose.

When he finally arrived at the training camp, it was five-thirty in the morning, he was exhausted. Eren was going to be disappointed, but he couldn't train with him in the morning, he was way too tired.

He took Lilith back to her box, unsaddled her and gave her a caress of thanks for her hard work. He then headed for the armory to leave his ODM equipment there. Then he went to the infirmary with the aim of collapsing on the first free bed he could find, but Shadis was waiting for him first, halfway between the two buildings. The sergeant-instructor had obviously not slept more than his recruit.

Amos stopped when their shoulders were aligned, and didn't even bother to turn his head.

"At breakfast, you can announce that the kidnapped cadets have been found and that the kidnappers are dead. Use this event to be even more demanding with those who want to join the MPs. I'm going to sleep in the infirmary, tell Christa I'm sick, the others will believe her. Lilith is an incredible mare."

Without waiting for an answer, "Nox" continued his way to the infirmary, saw the open door of an empty room, and dived into it, yawning until his jaw dropped.

He closed the door and took off his jacket while watching the Sun rise with a distracted eye, his head ached, as well as his shoulders and thighs. It wasn't a good sign, the methadone was slowly wearing off.

As he loosened the collar of his shirt, he spotted Mikasa through his window, coming out of the girls' dormitory with clean clothes in hand as well as her towel. He frowned and looked at his pocket watch. It was still early, usually the half-blood got up at the same time as everyone else.

The few worried glances she cast around her, gave the young man his explanation. The oriental had probably come to observe Eren's training, but since there wouldn't be any this morning, she was worried about where the two boys were. The native of Shinganshina left his dormitory and crossed paths with his adoptive sister. However, the latter did not rush at him, contrary to what Amos had anticipated. She simply called out to him, and judging by Jaeger's face, she had asked him something that had nothing to do with his health.

"I shouldn't…" Amos commented to himself in an exasperated voice.

But he pulled out his spyglass nonetheless, and examined Eren's lips to decipher his words.

"Sorry Mikasa, but I don't know where he is. Reiner and Bertholdt haven't seen him since dinner either. You asked Christa?"

The tall blond slowly lowered his instrument, stunned.

"Is she worried about me?" he whispered in shock. "I…"

It was then that a chilling shiver vibrated through his entire skeleton and made his eyes widen in horror. A woman's clawed hands grabbed him roughly by the shoulders, before moving delicately under his shirt while reopening his old scars.

"Poor little Momo," the ghost that haunted his mind whispered. "So much work, so many projects, so much energy, what a waste."

In a flash, Amos reached into his jacket pocket to grab his stash of methadone, but the tall, naked blonde woman grabbed his wrist.

At the same instant, Mikasa turned around after thanking Eren and continued to scan the surroundings with a worried look.

Amos felt the witch's chest go through his shirt and press against the skin of his back. "We both know you gave up hope years ago, that your demented business is doomed. That you will never have the happiness you desire. So, just like with your bastard sister, you want to dedicate yourself to someone else's happiness. Do you know why you care so much about her happiness, Momo? That's because if you can give her hope, you might find yourself dreaming that you'll find yours again."

At the cost of an inhuman psychic effort, Amos managed to escape from the grip of his torturer to recover his medicine. Without thinking, he injected three doses instead of one, and put away his syringes as he felt himself fainting.

"You will forever be… an abomination of nature," the Witch sneered in a whisper.

"Go back…to Hell… and fuck yourself," the young man replied before fading into unconsciousness.