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Annie had been watching Eren and Armin make fools of themselves from her porch for at least ten minutes when Mikasa finally wandered outside to frown at them. Annie stiffened immediately when the girl pushed open her front door, the blonde's back straightening before she forced it back into a slouch against her porch steps, elbows against the wood, toes in the grass. It didn’t matter, since Mikasa didn’t even seem to notice her, too intent on staring down the two sweaty, dirty boys sprawled across her front yard.
“You are ridiculous,” Mikasa said, just loud enough that her voice carried across the street, despite the lack of any type of wind. Eren, who was flopped on his back, shirt hook up on his chest so that his lower stomach was visible, laughed. He twitched as he laughed, making the green lightsaber clutched in his right hand thump against the ground faintly.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” the boy chorused at his adopted sister, grinning crookedly. Annie was more so used to seeing that expression on his face when he was a little more bloody, but she wasn’t surprised; Eren, though brash and sometimes uncoordinated, fought like the world would stop spinning if he ever stopped fighting.
“We’re losers,” Eren continued, rolling a little bit. Beside him Armin giggled, reaching up a dirty hand to push his hair away from his face. “You’re so cool, blah, blah, blah.”
“You forgot the part where we’re gonna hurt ourselves,” Armin mumbled. Annie raised an eyebrow, a little impressed. He usually sided with Mikasa about these things, but something about lazy summer days must have made everyone a little bit of a brat, because Armin was giving the dark haired girl a cheeky grin almost as dangerous as Eren’s.
“Right,” Eren cheered, pumping his arm in the air. His lightsaber knocked into his knee, but he didn’t even flinch. “We’re gonna get hurt and shit too!”
Mikasa narrowed her eyes and Annie bit her lip, shoulders hunching as she curled forward against her knees. The other girl whirled to go back in her house, satin-like black skirt swirling behind her as she went.
“Scaredy-cat,” Eren called after her, arching to roll up onto his hands and knees on the grass. Annie rolled her eyes at the sight, though she swallowed a snicker a second later when Armin rose up from his own sprawl with a battle cry that cracked in the middle. The blonde rolled, sloppy but heartfelt, slashing down at his friend with his blue plastic lightsaber. Eren swiped to counter, wobbling on his knees, his green plastic lightsaber smacking loudly against Armin’s before both boys staggered to their feet.
It was a wonder neither idiot had heatstroke, since Annie knew for a fact Eren survived off of anger, Pepsi, and rock candy. Armin was a little better, but you could only hang around the brunette for so long before you started to eat the same junk he did, just to keep up. So honestly Annie was more or less watching out of some twisted kind of curiosity to see if they’d call it quits before they fainted or threw up or if she would have to call an ambulance and probably apologize to Eren’s mother for letting him do this to himself.
The boys got caught up in their battle, squeaking when the lightsabers clashed a little too close to their knuckles for comfort, giving little shin kicks at each other with their sneakers like wimps, so they didn’t notice the front door opening once again. Annie noticed though, eyes snapping up as she tensed again, heart suddenly hammering. Mikasa strode out of the door, bare foot and stunning, ankles peeking out from under the edge of her skirt as she let the door swing closed behind her.
Her red scarf, which was still loose around her neck despite the temperature being nearly a hundred degrees, was pulled off with a careful little tug. The boys finally took notice of her as she draped the scarf over the banister of their porch, flicking her hair out of her eyes with a little shake of her head.
“Well, well, well,” Eren called out, his words barely more than a wheeze for a second as Armin took a cheap shot on him and knocked him in the gut with his lightsaber. Eren swatted at him, leaning back on the balls of his feet like Annie had taught him when they were in middle school. It was nice to know he was using the techniques she taught him for good use, she thought, only partially sarcastic.
“Have you come back to scold us for our childish behavior,” Eren continued, pulling himself up to his full height. He was half challenge and half defensive asshole, which was 70% of his personality since he’d been a little snot nosed brat picking fights he couldn’t win on the playground. Sometimes it was a wonder he hadn’t gotten the shit kicked out of him more, before he’d grown up a little, found some control.
Mikasa bounced on the balls of her feet, right on the edge of the top step of their porch. She was holding one arm at her side, twisted back to hide behind the side of her skirt. She glowed in the sunlight, pale skin, dark hair, dark eyes and dark skirt. She was wearing an old black t-shirt for one of the bands Eren had been into during their freshman year of high school, one that showed off the edge of her collarbone and clung lazily to her curves.
She smiled her slow, molasses smile, the one that promised broken bones and torn flesh, and shook her head side to side. “No,” she whispered, stepping off the stairs, bouncing off the wood and onto the grass with a grace that was stomach swooping, attention grabbing, and all around breath stealing. She flicked her wrist, smile growing, twisting it in a circle as the lightsaber she had been hiding behind her seemed to come alive. Both blades, red as the scarf she had draped so deliberately over the railing, slung out to their full lengths with a rough plastic whoosh that hung in the summer stillness.
Eren and Armin let out twin shrill screams, delight and horror mixed together as they scrambled to face her as the girl darted forward. They tried to flank her, but she spun, dual blades smacking loudly against both of theirs as they foolishly tried to slash at her shoulders, and they screamed again, louder, a little more like a battle cry instead of a scared child this time.
Annie wasn’t sure how they had air in their lungs for such nonsense. Not when Mikasa was-
She was-
If Eren fought like the world would stop spinning if he gave in, Mikasa fought like there was no force in the galaxy that could weigh her down. It was what she was born to do and, if they lived in such societies, it would be how she died, Annie was sure. She didn’t understand how anyone could resist the sight of Mikasa in motion, since she was always mesmerized to the point where her eyes burned from the way she held the open so that not even a blink would interrupt the sight. But Mikasa fighting like this was different from her usual spars and training and it took a few deep, even breaths before Annie was able to pinpoint why.
In training and sparring, Mikasa was rigid perfection, technique upon technique drilled into her head after years of practice. But in the yard, barefoot, with the world’s most impractical skirt tangled between her legs as she charged forward and her hair whipping in her face with every spin, she was loose and playful about her movements. And Annie swore, on everything she’d every held dear, that there was nothing more fascinating or frustratingly gorgeous than Mikasa like this.
A few minutes into the fight Mikasa swept Armin’s legs out from under him, leaving him winded on his back, and turned to advance on Eren. Armin had started babbling a little bit, nervous laughter and words like water in a creek. Eren, however, was all but snarling, sweaty and angry as he fought back against his sister as hard as he could. But Eren had never been a good match for his sister, especially if it wasn’t hand to hand combat, and Annie found herself hunching forward to the point where she was almost tumbling off her front steps, eyes locked on Mikasa as she kicked, skirt rippling to reveal a peek of her pale, strong thigh.
Eren gave a strangled cry, something between a roar and a squeak as the kick connected with his shoulder and tipped him over his heels. He hit the ground hard, head knocking into the ground with enough force to make him see stars, but Annie wasn’t concerned. Eren’s head had taken worse beatings before and he always did seem to fight a little better when he was bordering on furious and maybe-concussed. The blonde girl settled in, to wait for Armin to catch his breath or Eren to get up, eyes gliding over Mikasa’s stance as she stood, ready and waiting, her own chest rising and falling steadily as she too took the moment to caught her breath.
“Annie,” Armin cried, loud and ringing in the still summer air. Annie jerked, eyes jumping to him. He was at the edge of the yard, draped over the curb like he had crawled there, and he was holding out his lightsaber to her, though the blade was hidden in the grey and black plastic hilt. She blinked at him, confused and startled, and he tried to force his face into something drastic and dramatic, but he was grinning too much to really get the expression down.
“You’ve got to help us,” he shouted, voice hoarse. He was still a little bit out of breath. “You’ve got to stop her, Annie; you’re our only hope!”
Annie was dressed in jean shorts, barefoot, and was technically probably supposed to be doing some of reading for one of her summer classes. But there was a feeling that bubbled in her skin, the same feeling she got every time she stepped onto the mat, that itched her down to her bones and buzzed beneath her breast. She rose to her feet in a little push, toes digging into the grass and dirt as she strode forward, pulling off the sleeveless hoddie she had been wearing until she was just in her tank top underneath. She left the hoodie, a present from Reiner and Bertholdt for her birthday, draped on her mailbox, skittering across the road in little hops as the hot black asphalt burned at the soles of her feet.
“Oh god,” Eren said, looking a little queasy as she bent down to accept the plastic laser weapon from Armin's outstretched hand. He grinned at her, pale and sweaty and manic, and Eren, when she looked up at him, looked vaguely green.. She wondered if whatever sugar-rush inducing junk he had crammed his throat prior to this had finally caught up with him. “Armin,” he groaned, “we gotta move or they’re gonna trample us.”
Mikasa glanced over her shoulder at Annie as the boys wobbled to their feet and staggered to slump against the front steps of their porch. Their eyes met and Annie felt electricity echo down her spine as sunshine soaked into her shoulders and burned against the back of her neck. She could already feel herself beginning to sweat, finally out of the relative shade of her front steps.
Mikasa sidestepped around, rolling her wrist, lightsaber spinning like a baton in her palm. Annie stepped forward to meet her, flicking her own wrist, the blue plastic blade slinging out to its full length with a small quiet thud of a noise. Eren might have cursed at her for it, but she wasn’t listening. She was locked on the way Mikasa’s lips moved, curling up into a smile, much smaller than the one she had given the boys earlier. But Annie liked to think, in the quiet little part of her that clawed at hope with a twisted kind of masochism, that this smile held just as much promise as the one before it.
Mikasa lunged and Annie pushed forward to meet her, blue blade knocking off one of the other girl’s red ones as she whirled to meet the second. They were just children’s toys, not meant for such combat, plastic and soft metal brittle beneath her fingers, but for one second, locked together, grey hilt to grey hilt, knuckles brushing, Annie could have sworn she felt something pull tight in her chest, something that felt like it was directly tied to the way Mikasa’s heavy breaths mingled with her own in the moment before the girl kicked out at her, forcing the blonde back a step to avoid losing her footing.
Children’s toys and sci fi imaginary, but like Mikasa’s little smile, they held the promise of so, so much more. Annie grinned and lunged forward, spinning to swipe at Mikasa’s legs as she turned.