It's Not Just the Color

Prologue

The color red; I never would have thought this color could have such a big impact on my life. I don't think I thought my life would ever turn out the way it did. It's not red specifically that entrances me about it. What I like about it, is how it looks while spilling out of a cut, the way it looks splattered on walls and objects; the way blood looks.

People turn into complete and utter idiots when someone even mentions murder. They act as if the person was so innocent and pure, like a newborn child. Everyone has some dark cloud hanging over them through their life that they have to drag along everywhere; sometimes it wasn't in their control, other times, it's their fault that it's there. I like to think of a quote I once heard in those kinds of situations:

Or it went something like that, I don't really remember. The point is, if people go along in life believing what they did was bad, then that's all it's ever going to be: bad. So I prefer to go around in life believing that I might as well do it if nobody else will. Plus, it's not like I'm killing people who don't deserve it. I highly doubt anyone wants rapists and murderers to run about whether they had a trial or not.

I used to work alone, but I messed up once and ended up arrested and waiting to be put on trial that would no doubt not be in my favor. I was sitting in one of the soundproof rooms police use to interrogate suspects, when a man had walked in, seemingly no older then possibly twenty-five. At first look, I thought he was a lawyer with his beige suit, white colored shirt, black shoes, and brown bolo tie with a green gem in the center. His blonde hair was slicked back and sharp blue eyes scanned every inch of the room. He held himself with confidence and stood at a 6'2 stature with a dark brown briefcase in his hand. Not to mention those big ass eyebrows, they looked like blonde caterpillars had crawled on his face and made a home there.

It wasn't until he looked straight at me that I realized that his intentions were elsewhere. My face remained uncaring and emotionless as I stared him down, yet all he did was walk up and take a seat in the chair across from mine at the metal interrogation table. He quickly took in the black combat boots, leather jeans, and Pierce the Veil top that I was clad in. Several piercings adorned my ears while a cigarette hung from my lips. My black hair fell a little above my chin, hiding the undercut, and my steel grey eyes remained neutral or annoyed at all times. I stood at 5'3 which bothered me to no end, especially when people tried to make a comment about it, which usually ended with them in a hospital. My feet were kicked up on the table with my arms crossed behind my head, balancing on the two back feet of the chair.

The man set his briefcase on the table and slid it to the side after grabbing a file from inside. He opened it and started to scan the pages quickly, and without looking up started to speak, "Levi Ackerman, age seventeen?"

"What's it to you, Eyebrows?" I replied with a glare as I took a puff of smoke from the cigarette. I held it between two fingers before bringing it back to my lips and looking from the wall, back to the blonde.

"No need to be snarky, Mr. Ackerman," the man replied while putting the folder down and looking up at me with his hands folded in front of him. I cringed at 'Mr. Ackerman' which I knew he took immediate notice of, but luckily didn't mention it. "My name is Erwin Smith; I will be the one in charge of your case-,"

I abruptly cut him off with an annoyed wave of my hand. I looked at him with an aggravated expression as I leaned forward to tap out my cigarette in the ash tray that was on the table. "Look Blondie, I'm going to jail and there is no way to get out of it with the solid evidence they have against me. But," I slowly leaned back into my chair and crossed my arms over my chest, "I don't think your even here about the case."

The man, Erwin, didn't even flinch at the fact I found him out; all he did was stare at me a couple seconds. A minute later he let out a soft smile and a deep chuckle arose from his throat, "You have good intuition and a keen eye, Mr. Ackerman." He slid the briefcase back in front of me and folded his hands on top of it instead of opening it like I thought he would. "You are right Mr. Ackerman-," I cut him off again.

"Levi," I told him stiffly. He looked at me confused for a second before I explained, "Just, call me Levi."

"Well, okay, Levi. As I was saying, you are right about my intention of being here; the case, however, does play a somewhat important role in all this." I gave him a skeptical look as he described the real reason of his presence in the situation. "Let me be blunt and say, I am the vice president of a secret organization called, Survey Core. The company president and I have been surveying you for the past few weeks, and we want you to join."

I don't think he could have been any more direct in what he wanted. I gave him a dubious stare before replying, "I'm going to need some more information on your little organization before I even think about joining."

Erwin sighed and answered with a smile "Of course." He then opened the suitcase and brought out a white packet before sliding it over the table towards me. I looked at the packet and slowly picked it up while Erwin explained what it was, "That's the contract you need to sign if you do end up joining Survey Core; it has all the information you may need to know about the organization along with what the company will provide you and rules you need to follow."

I looked at him with a raised eyebrow after reading one of the guidelines that come with joining. "My death will be faked and all personal records erased?"

"Well, yes, we can't have people out looking when you all of a sudden disappear," I continued to read the contract as I listened to what he was saying. "Plus, we can't have anyone looking through your files; the information will be changed, of course, so no one gets suspicious of an empty file."

"Wait a second," I told him while a certain paragraph caught my eye on the contract. "I'll be given a house in Wall Rose? Isn't that one of the fancy neighborhoods where they say a whole bunch of nobodies become rich?" I remembered reading a newspaper article about the district.

Erwin nodded and answered, "Indeed it is; and believe it or not, all those 'nobodies' actually work for Survey Core. The company owns the district along with Wall Maria and Wall Sina. We house the people of our company in those neighborhoods, but not everyone living there is a part of it." He seemed amused that I actually seemed a little interested in his proposition. But then again, who wouldn't be when the only other option was-

"Death?" I exclaimed with wide eyes, letting my surprise show through my usual uninterested mask. Erwin raised an eyebrow at me, a sign to clarify what I was stunned about. I started to explain my sudden shock after taking in a slow breath, "The contract says that, if I happen to deny your offer, you have to kill me."

He smirked and nodded with understanding. He opened his briefcase and brought out a sharp dagger before setting it down under his hand. "I'm afraid so; since you now know about Survey Core, I can't have you going around and blabbing it to anyone and everyone." Just by looking at him, I knew that he would slice my neck easily without a second thought and walk out of here with a clear conscience; I have a feeling that he's done it before.

I huffed out a breath and gave him back the contract after I read it through. "I'll join, but I just have one condition," he nodded to prove he was listening. "When you erase all my personal records, I want you to get rid of my last name. I want it not only erased from records but from minds, too." The memories rushed through my mind and I ended up glaring at the table as if it was responsible for my past.

Erwin opened the contract and started circling next to places I would need to sign and fill out. "You've got yourself a deal, Levi," he said with a small smile as he handed me back the contract and a pen.

I proceeded to fill out the required spaces before handing the contract back to Erwin and leaning back in my chair again. He smiled at me as he put the contract and pen back in the briefcase. Erwin then stood up, "A man named Mike will be by to get you tomorrow a couple hours before the trial. He will escort you to your new home in Wall Rose where you will have to stay for a month, or at least until your death blows over." I gave a slight nod to show I understood; with a last smile, Erwin walked out of the room.

The next day, as Erwin had said, a man named Mike came and got me out of the cell the police had kept me in while waiting for the trial to begin. He had snuck me into a sleek black Porsche and drove me to the gated community I would live in, Wall Rose. The houses were all pretty similar, and if I had to take a guess, each house was probably around three-thousand square feet.

When Mike drove into the driveway of the house I was going to live in, I could barely contain my awe. Even though I had been informed that I would be living in the neighborhood, while driving into the community, I seemed to forget about it. Each and every house looked so perfect and pristine that I don't think my mind accepted the fact that these people were going to give me one of these houses to live in.

The house seemed to be two stories with a basement and pool in the back. The house is a dark white, possibly eggshell or some stupid color name like that; the roof is a dark grey and the doors a dark oak and windows outlined by wood. I looked at the gate on the left side of the house that led to the backyard and saw a secure lock on it; the key was most likely inside.

I got out and strode to the front door where Mike had stood as I gawked at the house. He had unlocked the door and ushered me inside before following and closing the door behind him. He walked around me for a second and seemed to… sniff me? He then gave himself a satisfied smirk before dropping the key in my hand along with a small packet and striding back out of the house.

I didn't know whether to think that he was rude, or that I liked him for staying quiet; no, I think he was just weird. Although I don't like talking to people much, it was kind of odd how he never said one word the entire hour we spent together, not even mentioning his name; all he did was show me his Survey Core ID upon meeting. Maybe he's mute. It seemed like the best explanation at that moment in time.

As Erwin had instructed, I stayed inside that house for a full month, which was mostly spent getting accustomed to my new surroundings and finding my way around the large house. The packet had another copy of the rules in it, with a few more added, and where some things were located along with the passwords to locks and a map of the house. Every week, someone would come and restock the food and asked if I needed anything else, which they would bring if I did happen to ask for something. The last couple days were spent with Erwin, discussing everything I would need to know before coming to work inside the company.

I was put to train for three years in order to improve agility, stealth, speed, and muscle that I would need in order to make sure every job was done right so I wouldn't get caught. Yet, I ended up finishing the training in under a year and was immediately after put on Erwin's squad. A squad is a group of four or more assassins plus a leader that go on missions too rough or hard for a single person to handle. Erwin was the leader and along with me there was Hange Zoe, Mike Zacharius, who I had met when first coming here, and Keith Shadis who had all also excelled at their performances in training. I also found out that Mike can speak, he just rarely does, and the weird sniffing thing, is just his way of judging character.

The long hair eventually got annoying to me after two years of being with the company. Plus, there was no way in hell I was putting it in a ponytail or a man bun; those things are both unattractive and gross. So I cut to above my ears and decided to keep the undercut.

During that year, I also learned a very valuable lesson about cleanliness. Squad Erwin was sent on a serious mission on some stupid train that involved a gang of about thirty murderers, rapists, and robbers. They had kidnapped ten high school girls and were planning to sell them in the state over; so they hijacked a train and booked it before the police came. They were travelling from Nevada to California which was a nine hour ride without any stops, since they were obviously going to skip them.

The route they were taking had a lot of open land and the area between towns was far apart, so Erwin opted to use horses to catch up. Long story short, we were able to kill twenty-four of the idiot thugs, the rest had jumped out the train. Sadly, three of the girls had been killed for putting up a struggle while getting in the train, but the rest were only slightly injured, which Hange was able to take care of easily.

Yet none of that was the problem. The problem was that there was the hour ride to the next town and most all of the windows were broken with blood and dead bodies scattered everywhere; not to mention it seemed to be bug season in Nevada. The blood smelt horrible enough but the decaying bodies with flies buzzing all around them was even worse; I threw up several times that day. Plus, I can't forget that the blood also happened to be splashed on everyone; I must have taken ten showers the second I found one.

Ever since that day, I have devoted myself to keeping everything and anything as clean as can be; I never want to live through something like that again. Hange had also taken the liberty to repeatedly call me a clean freak every time she saw me complaining about how unsanitary something was.

A year after that disaster, the founder of Survey Core, Dot Pixis, died. After the funeral, Erwin was immediately appointed to commander and I became captain. I still remember Hange that day when Erwin told me that I would take his captain role after he became commander.

"Oh, I see. So you're Captain Clean Freak now?" Hange had rhetorically asked me before falling on the floor, laughing hysterically like the nut she is. I only proceeded to kick her from her spot on the ground, which, for some crazy reason of her own, made her laugh even more.

After two weeks of getting settled as commander, Erwin then reassigned the people in his squad to officials, making all of us capable of creating a squad of our own. Hange instead chose to work as Survey Cores' doctor, but said that if she was ever needed on an assignment, Erwin should feel no hesitance to ask. Mike chose to keep working as an assassin, but usually stays working in the tech room along with creating and guiding people through missions. Keith liked the idea of having a squad, and for a year worked with one, but after a hard mission ending with them all dead, he decided to become an instructor for training in hope to give the trainees an increased chance of survival; and boy did he work them hard.

As for me, I did end up getting a squad of four trainees that I found had a slight spark to them. Petra Ral, Oluo Bozado, Erd Gin, and Gunther Schultz have continued to impress me even four years later. With quick movements, decisive minds, and flawless teamwork, these four are able to get the job done fast and easy without much blood splatter… most of the time.

"Uhg, I feel like a French fry!" Petra complained as she roughly scrubbed at the blood staining her skin.

At the moment, all of Squad Levi was preoccupied with the washing of blood off our skin from the latest mission we completed. In only our undergarments under the hot showers of the washroom, even past the soup, the stench of blood as it leaked down the drain was still evident in the air. Meanwhile, our clothes were taken by two secretaries, Hannes and Rico, to be washed and a fresh uniform lain out on the counter where several towels and blow-dryers rested.

The light blue walls of the room held four showers on each of three walls while the other had a door that led to, as we like to call it, the drying room. The white and blue tiled floor was slightly stained with red and looked slightly shadowed with dirt and grime that happened to stain the floor after a shower. The back wall held curtains for cases in which a person needed a full body wash while the side walls held open showers with simple walls in between made to be used while wearing undergarments with the simple washing of hair plus stomach, arms, and legs.

"You look as tasty as one, too," Oluo stated as he looked over the wall at Petra with a grin. Ever since the first day of having him on my squad, he claimed to be in love with Petra, but he sure has a perverted way of showing it.

Of course no one forgets to remind him of that fact which is once again proven as Gunther gives him a side glance and his lip quirked downwards, "You sound like a pervert, Oluo. Even if you did have a chance with Petra in the first place, any idea of that was most likely erased from her mind the second you opened your loud mouth."

Petra giggles at that comment while Oluo proceeds to fire back an angry retort. "You know what Gunther?! How about you-," but, like usually, Oluo ends up getting cut off midsentence with the sudden bite of his tongue, causing even more blood to spill from him and down the drain.

"I hope you manage to bite your tongue off next time," Petra admonishes him before rolling her eyes at the disbelieving look that is sent her way.

"Oi! Hurry and finish washing up. The meeting on the new operation is in under an hour and we still need to have lunch. Don't be late for it," I ordered over my shoulder as I wrapped the towel around my neck and headed out of the washroom. I quickly changed into the white button up with black suit and shoes before tucking my cravat into my collar and heading to Erwin's office to let him know I would be heading out for lunch.

Upon entering the room I find Mike standing in front of Erwin's desk while Erwin reviewed what looked to be a folder on someone.

Erwin averted his eyes towards me when he heard the door open and gave a slight smile of greeting before speaking, "Ah, Levi, perfect timing." Erwin got up from his chair and walked around his desk to give me the folder.

I looked down at it with slight confusion as I opened it up. "Someone's moving into Wall Rose? What does this have to do with me? It's not like I give a shit about it," I stated with slight annoyance at the fact this was wasting my lunch period.

Erwin smirked and calmly answered, "Eren Jaeger is his name, age nineteen, as you can see in the folder. He's an art and English major over at Shinganshina University and, since the school is close to The Wall district, he's hoping to move in. We have accepted him and he will live in the house across from yours. He seems to be perfectly harmless if you go by the application and is very nice and loyal to his friends. Although, he was recorded to develop slight anger issues after his mother died, but other than that, his record is clean."

Erwin was right, his record showed hours of community service along with impressive grades in classes; it's no wonder he got into such an amazing university. Around the age of ten, the report said that Eren showed signs of violence and lashed out at many people with only his adopted sister, Mikasa, there to calm him down. He eventually got better and started focusing on his studies, which obviously paid out in the end. The folder hadn't included a picture, but I didn't dwell on that subject.

"Still, I don't get why this concerns me." I set the folder back on the desk and raised an eyebrow at Erwin, annoyed with the time restraints.

With a sigh, Erwin leaned forward in his chair, which he must have sat in sometime while I was reviewing the folder, and set his elbows on the desk before entwining his fingers and setting his chin on top.

"Levi, the last person who lived in the house in front of you ended up nearly running to the police because you barged into his house and threatened him with a chainsaw," Erwin explained simply with a neutral expression.

"Tch, his goddamn rat dog kept shitting on my lawn and digging holes everywhere," I claimed as if that would perfectly make up for what I did; and although I would have taken it; Erwin didn't.

"Still, it is your fault that innocent man had to be killed before he could have you arrested." He gave me a pointed look before sighing again. "Just take your lunch Levi, I can tell you're dying to get out of here. Just be sure to be back by the meeting."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," I stated sarcastically as I walked out of the office and through the front doors of the building.

The air outside was slightly humid, which wasn't a surprise since it was almost spring. I could only thank god that winter was almost over, the cold air always made clean up a hassle after a mission because the blood froze to the sidewalk. Not to mention the stupid heating bill and glacial air that always had me freezing to death. Yet today, the air was a nice seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit and the wind was soft as it flowed through the leaves and flowers that were sprouting on the trees.

With so little time for lunch, I knew I would have to go somewhere I could just pay and leave; stupid Erwin and his stupid meetings.

As I continued to walk, I saw a small café come into view, nothing grand or spectacular, just giving off a charming and quaint appeal. It was nudged between a four story office building and a small clothing store; smart place to put it with all the work buildings around and a place for shopping next to it, plus the Wall districts are near it, too.

"Kyojin Café," I read aloud the words that hung from the second story of the café. If my Japanese wasn't wrong, the name in English says 'Giant Café'; I smirked and gave a small chuckle, cute.

I approached the café and opened the doors, hearing a small bell chime above me. I looked up and the first thing I saw… was green.

-Chapter End-

AN- Hello, hello all you amazing people, my name is Commander_of_Anime and I am here to lead you on an adventure of feels. If you were a fan of me from my earlier work in the Mortal Instruments fandom, I bet you can tell how far my writing has come :p Unfortunately I have wandered away from the path of that fandom. Don't get me wrong, I still love it, but I'm not as crazy about it as before; I hope you understand. I have also started another story called True Intents and have posted it on here, too; go and check it out when you can. Although, I will probably keep going with this story and later on continue with True Intents. I will post this story on Archive of Our Own later on where you will be able to download it once finished. I might update this once every two weeks, or, knowing me, once a month since I make the chapters so long. I am also writing a private story where my friend and I travel into Attack on Titan and I have written 3 chapters of over 10,000 words compared to this with one chapter and 4,000 words. I might post that one day too so if you want me to just leave a comment. Plus, a review on what you think wouldn't hurt and I would love to hear any ideas you have for the story.

Fangirl On,

Commander_of_Anime