The air in the stone monument's entrance hung thick with a sudden, charged silence. Riku, jaw throbbing, tasted dust and a faint, coppery tang. He looked up from where he knelt, the rough stone cool beneath his knees, into the hard, grey eyes of Levi Ackerman. The raw concern beneath the anger in those eyes was a language Riku understood perfectly. The punch wasn't malice; it was a brutal, visceral exclamation point on an unspoken sentence of worry and frustration.
Around them, the roughly two hundred villagers who had been sheltering watched, their fear of the Flugel momentarily forgotten, replaced by stunned bewilderment at the sight of their leader being struck by the grim-faced soldier. Normally, a physical strike against Riku would ignite a furious, protective uproar. But they stood frozen, their hands stilling on children's shoulders, their murmurs hushed. They respected Riku, trusted him implicitly. And in the short time Levi had been among them, his quiet competence, his relentless dedication to organizing their frantic evacuation, had earned him a grudging, profound respect. They didn't understand the interaction, but they understood that Levi Ackerman was not a man who acted without reason.
Floating just beside Levi, Serabil watched the scene with wide, golden eyes. Her hand, which had instinctively lifted when Levi's fist flew, slowly lowered. She, too, saw the complex emotion in Levi's expression. She had processed enough of human behavior, both through Anna's memories and her short time in Disboard, to recognize that violence wasn't always hostile. This wasn't a fight. This was… something else. She knew Levi wouldn't punch someone randomly. There was a reason. And her boundless curiosity, her desire to understand these fascinating "hoomans" and the dynamics of her hero, kept her silent, observing, absorbing the data.
Levi's chest rose and fell, his breathing still slightly ragged from the earlier fight and the exertion of his flight. He didn't look at the villagers, didn't look at Serabil. His entire focus was on Riku, still kneeling on the ground, jaw bruised.
"Do you understand," Levi's voice was low, rough, filled with a raw intensity, "why I punched you, Dola?"
Riku, jaw aching, nodded slowly. The pain was a sharp, grounding sensation against the swirling chaos in his mind. He understood. Perfectly. It was for the reckless solo trip. It was for the terrifying encounter with the Flugel. It was for making Levi worry. It was for shouldering everything alone.
"Yes," Riku affirmed, his voice quiet but steady. "I understand."
Levi knelt down, bringing himself closer to Riku's level. His gaze didn't soften, but the raw edge in his voice sharpened, cutting to the core of the issue.
"None of this," Levi gestured back towards the path they had taken, towards the distant sounds of the struggling exodus, towards the unsettling presence of the seraph floating nearby, "none of the shadow creatures, the panic, the impossible deadline… none of it would have happened if you had just ordered me and that shadow knight of yours to kill those fairies the moment we found them."
The words were blunt. Direct. A cold, hard truth presented without adornment. And from a purely pragmatic, survival-driven perspective, Levi was absolutely, undeniably right.
A bitter, ironic twist tightened Riku's gut. Levi was right. If he had simply ordered the immediate extermination of the fairies, the Bloom wouldn't have drawn the shadow creatures here, disrupting the already desperate evacuation. The A-Rank Exodus mission, with its terrifying two-day limit, wouldn't have triggered yet. His original plan – the one conceived after deciphering the fairies' ritual – was to use the ten-day window to calmly, strategically, relocate the village before the Bloom fully awakened and the shadow creatures emerged. Ten days. A difficult but achievable goal. He had already started the preparations, the quiet analysis, the planning for a manageable move.
But the System.
The System had shattered everything. It had seen his successful completion of the 'Whispers of the Fey' quest (understanding the ritual), and in its unpredictable, cruel logic, had immediately triggered the consequences of the fairies' actions by throwing the village into the path of the shadow creatures and slapping an impossible deadline on the relocation. The System hadn't cared about his ten-day plan. It had cared about its own timeline, its own escalating difficulty curve.
"You're absolutely right, Levi," Riku said, the words heavy with unspoken truth. From Levi's perspective, it was a simple failure of tactical decision-making – prioritize immediate threat over potential harm. Riku couldn't explain the System's intervention. Couldn't explain that his original plan, the logical one, had been forcefully overridden by an unseen entity dictating the 'game's' pace. He couldn't explain the A-Rank mission, the penalty, the ticking clock only he could see. He couldn't let the villagers know. He couldn't let Levi, or even Serabil, fully grasp the extent to which his actions were being dictated by an external force. It would cause panic, undermine his authority, and potentially expose the System's existence to dangerous eyes. He had to bear the weight of the secret alone.
Levi held his gaze for a moment longer, seeing the weary resignation in Riku's eyes, perhaps sensing the truth he couldn't articulate. Then, he pushed himself to his feet.
"Alright," Levi said, his voice still low, but a new kind of grim determination entering it. He reached down, grabbed Riku by the arm, and hauled him unceremoniously to his feet.
Before Riku could fully regain his balance, Levi's leg swung out.
Thump.
A solid kick connected with Riku's shin. It wasn't crippling, but it stung fiercely.
Thump.
Another kick, this time to the other shin.
Thump. Thump.
Two more quick kicks, one to each thigh.
Riku stumbled back, his legs protesting, but he didn't fall. He didn't cry out. He simply stood there, absorbing the blows, watching Levi's face.
Levi stood before him, chest heaving slightly, his hard gaze fixed on Riku. He wasn't kicking him to injure. He was kicking him to emphasize. To express. His frustration, his fear, his sheer, unadulterated relief and anger that Riku was alive but had pulled such a reckless stunt.
"That," Levi said, each word clipped, precise, delivered with the same brutal efficiency as his kicks, "is for almost giving me a heartattack when I came back here."
Another kick, harder this time, to the side of Riku's thigh.
Thump.
"And that," Levi continued, his voice rising slightly, "is for manipulating the paths without telling me."
One final, solid kick to Riku's gut. Not hard enough to wind him, but enough to make him grunt.
Thump.
"And that," Levi finished, his voice low and rough, "is for telling me nothing about your plan B for relocation."
He stood there, chest rising and falling, having delivered his message in the only language that felt sufficient. Physical. Unmistakable. A raw expression of concern from a man who rarely showed weakness, especially worry for someone else.
Riku, legs aching, gut protesting, stood there, a faint, weary smile touching his lips. He didn't need words. He understood. Every kick was a testament to Levi's unconventional trust, his fierce protectiveness, his brutal, inverted form of affection.
Off to the side, the villagers still watched, bewildered but no longer panicked.
Levi, finished with his physical communication, ran a hand through his short, dark hair. He looked back at the entrance to the monument, then towards the path the villagers were still following. The clock was still ticking. The impossible task remained.
"Alright, I would've loved to hear about your secret manuering but I'll hear it later." Levi said, his voice returning to its usual pragmatic tone, the storm of emotion having passed, leaving behind only grim resolve. He glanced at Serabil, then back at Riku. "So. The invincible seraph is here. She can warp reality, apparently. The villagers are still moving slower than frozen molasses, and we're on a deadline set by something that apparently likes watching us suffer. What's the plan now, Dola? Besides getting kicked by me for manipulating everything behind the scenes?"
The ache in Riku's legs was a dull thrum against the return of his strategic mind. He had a terrifyingly powerful, unpredictably helpful ally who saw him as a hero. He had a ticking clock. He had two thousand lives depending on him. And he had a partner who expressed concern with his fists and feet.
It wasn't the plan he wanted. It wasn't a situation he would have chosen. But it was the hand he was dealt. And in this game, you played the hand you were dealt. Even if it meant getting kicked by your allies.
"The plan," Riku said, pushing off the monument wall, standing tall despite his aching limbs, his black eyes regaining their unwavering focus, "is working perfectly, and the task would've been completed without you and me doing anything at all." He glanced at Serabil. "But I think... we just got a cheat code we didn't even needed."