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The paper rustled loudly in the quiet of the room as Hange crumpled the letter in her fist, her teeth sinking hard into her lower lip until she tasted copper.
It was bad, even worse than last month.
Moblit, her bridge, his message was brief, written in his precise, unshakeable script, but the reality behind his words was grim. More refugees were pouring in through the southern gates every single day: families displaced by the border wars, mothers clutching feverish infants, men with hollow eyes and nowhere left to go. The sanctuary she had built in secret at the edge of the lower district was already bursting at the seams. Soup cauldrons were scraping bottom, bandages were being washed and re-washed until they were threadbare, and the apothecary was refusing to extend any more credit.
She couldn't turn them away. She wouldn't.
Hange spun around and marched over to her heavy mahogany vanity, yanking open the velvet-lined drawers. She dumped the contents onto the embroidered bedspread which imcòuded a pathetic handful of silver brooches, a couple of pearl hairpins, and a single thin gold chain.
She let out a harsh, dry laugh, running a hand through her unkempt brown hair. It was practically worthless. She had already quietly auctioned off every piece of genuine heirloom jewelry she possessed over the last two years to keep the sanctuary’s doors open. What remained was cheap decorative trinkets, nowhere near enough to buy food and medicine for another hundred souls.
Her eyes drifted to the window, where the grand courtyard of the Zoë estate was being decorated with silk banners, crystal lanterns, and silver arches. The Annual Solstice Gala was tomorrow night.
Her father had spent weeks boasting about it. The estate’s vaulted lower treasury was currently overflowing with thousands of gold coins where half of it were squeezed straight out of the starving villages in taxes, the other half brought in by the wealthy, corrupt aristocrats eager to curry favor with her father.
It was a sick joke. Millions of gold pieces sitting in the dark beneath her feet while people froze to death three miles away. It made her sick.
Hange paced the floor, her mind spinning wildly. She couldn't ask Erwin to raid it. Even if he was her loyal personal knight and knew about the sanctuary, if he were caught, her father would have him drawn and quartered for treason. She couldn't endanger the sanctuary's volunteers, either.
If it’s going to be done, I have to do it myself.
She knew the stakes. Lord Zoë was not a man driven by paternal love; he was driven by status and power. If he caught his own daughter slipping into the vault to rob him, there would be no quiet reprimand. He would lock her in the highest tower, strip her of everything, and ship her off in marriage as a packaged deal to the highest bidder, most likely Lord Fritz, a wretched, sixty-year-old tyrant whose third wife had mysteriously perished last winter, she wagered.
Hange stopped pacing. Her jaw set, a dangerous, familiar spark igniting behind her glasses. "A package, huh?" she muttered to the empty room, a sharp, bitter smile touching her lips. "He better secure the ties tight, then."
She marched over to her wardrobe, pushed aside the suffocating silk gowns and lace corsets, and reached for the false back panel. Hidden inside was a bundle of dark, boiled leather armor, a pair of custom-forged steel daggers, and a heavy black cloak.
She had twenty-four hours to map the guard rotations, bypass her father's state-of-the-art lockwork, and pull off the heist of the century under her own roof.
***
The fitted leather armor clung tight to Hange’s frame, a practical ensemble of dark, supple hide reinforced with blackened steel rivets at the shoulders and ribs. It was light enough for absolute silence, yet thick enough to stop a stray blade. Over her chest went the leather harness, the straps crossing tightly over her sternum to secure the sheaths for her twin daggers at her back.
As she pulled on her fingerless gloves, Erwin stood by the armoire, his towering frame casting a long shadow, his arms folded tight over his chest. His usual calm facade was cracked with deep, worried lines.
"Lady Hange, you cannot serious—"
"Erwin," Hange warned, not looking up as she pulled the leather laces tightly around her boots.
Erwin let out a heavy, defeated sigh. "Hange... you have to let me do this. Stealing from the vault is a death sentence. If your father catches a guard, it's execution. If he catches you, it's a life sentence in a gilded cage."
"Erwin, you trained me yourself, and I trust your training," Hange said, standing up and fixing him with a look so sharp it left no room for argument. "I need you where you're most useful. Reassign the night duty rotations. Put the guards on the subterranean corridor who you know do a lazy job—the ones who take long liquid lunches and sleep on their pikes. And most of all I can’t risk you to an execution. Even if I am married off I will survive but not you. I cannot live with that reality. You know that."
She stepped closer, tapping a finger against his leather-armored chest. "And most importantly, I need you standing right outside my bedchamber door all night. If my father comes looking, my loyal knight is dutifully guarding my room while I 'rest up for the gala.' He won't suspect his own daughter. He’ll think it’s those notorious vigilantes operating in the lower district, the ones the city watch has been chasing for months. It works perfectly. And I won't be married off to that rich old pig, right. In my opinion, a solid plan."
Erwin pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes in resignation. He knew better than anyone that once Hange set her mind to something, not even a battalion of cavalry could turn her around.
Without another word, he stepped behind her. He reached for the loose leather straps of her harness, pulling them taut and buckling them securely across her shoulder blades so her weapons wouldn't shift or rattle when she moved.
"Be careful, Hange," Erwin said softly, his voice thick with a fatherly, protective weight. He reached into his coat and slipped a small, silver whistle into her palm. "If anything goes wrong… anything…blow this. I don't care about the cover story. I will tear that vault door off its hinges and come to you."
Hange looked down at the whistle, then beamed up at him, her dark eyes flashing with brilliant, unyielding light beneath her messy bangs.
"Yes, sir! I will," she chuckled, slipping the whistle into a pocket near her collar. "But don't worry so much, Erwin. I'm a big girl now."
Erwin’s severe expression softened just a fraction. He reached out and gently patted her head, rustling her brown hair just as he had done when she was a headstrong child sneaking out to study wild beasts in the estate gardens.
"That you are," he murmured gently. "Now go. Before I regain my sanity and lock you in this room myself."
***
Every silent step Hange took down the cold, flagstone corridors carried the weight of five years of quiet rebellion. Pressed flat against the shadow of a stone archway, her heart thumped in a slow, steady rhythm as two oblivious guards ambled past, their torchlight flickering off the damp walls. She waited until their footsteps faded into the silence before slipping out from the shadows, moving like a phantom in her fitted leather.
Moving in the dark came naturally to her now, but it had taken years of discipline to make her tall frame move so weightlessly.
She remembered when it all began. Two years ago, when she was seventeen, she had officially laid the foundation for the sanctuary, the underground organization that would become a lifeline for hundreds. But the seeds of that decision had been planted long before.
Growing up, Hange had been trapped behind the towering, pristine walls of the Zoë estate. Because she was a girl, her father had locked her out of everything that mattered to her. While her older brothers were handed swords, land, riding lessons, and private tutors to study grand sciences and politics, Hange was expected to sit quietly, embroider lace, and prepare herself to be a decorative wife for some high-born stranger.
She had hated it. She had hated the suffocating walls, and most of all, she had resented her father. So, she had rebelled in the only way she could back then. In the dead of night, she would slip past her nanny and break into her father’s grand library, devouring forbidden texts on medicine, alchemy, mechanics, and military tactics, books no woman in the realm was permitted to read.
Then came her fifteenth birthday, the first time her father permitted her to leave the castle grounds under heavy guard to attend a royal procession.
That single day blew her entire world wide open. Stepping outside the gilded gates, she didn't see the glorious kingdom her father bragged about over dinner. She saw the brutal reality of the world: starving children huddled in icy alleyways, sick mothers begging for a scrap of stale bread, and soldiers beating commoners for missing their exorbitant tax payments. She saw the blood and dirt that bought her father’s velvet cloaks and silver goblets.
The hypocrisy sickened her. The deep, burning resentment for her father morphed into a ruthless sense of purpose. She couldn't unsee the cruelty, and she refused to sit idly by while her family fed on the suffering of the poor.
Her plan had taken root that very night. Erwin, her personal guard assigned to her by her father to keep her in line, had been her savior. Instead of reporting her midnight escapades, the stoic knight had seen the fierce, blazing brilliance in the young noble girl's eyes. He had quietly taken her under his wing, recognizing that her sharp mind and compassionate heart were meant for something far greater than high-society teas.
In secret, Erwin had trained her. He taught her how to mask her footfalls, how to blend into the shadows, how to handle daggers with deadly efficiency, and how to slip in and out of the heavily guarded castle undetected. He had watched her grow from a frustrated, angry girl sneaking into a library into a brilliant, formidable woman leading an underground movement. He had backed her noble cause every step of the way, becoming her anchor, her mentor, and her accomplice.
Hange paused near the heavy archway leading directly into the treasury corridor, a soft, fond smile touching her lips at the thought of Erwin standing guard outside her empty bedroom right now.
I won't let you down, Erwin, she thought, her smile turning into a sharp, lethal smirk as she reached for her lockpicks. And I certainly won't let my father win.
She rounded the corner, dropped to her knees in front of the massive iron vault door, and slid her steel picks into the keyhole.
Click. Click.
Her fingers worked with practiced, flawless speed. The life she had built out of the ashes of her father’s tyranny was waiting on the other side of this lock.
Click. Click. Snap.
The heavy iron bolt slid back with a quiet thud. Hange grinned, pushing the thick oak door open just enough to slip into the dim room completely unaware of the shadow poised in the vaulted ceiling above, waiting to drop.
***
It was almost too easy. Levi had spent three agonizing days studying the vault’s intricate, six-tumbler lock from the shadow of the ceiling rafters, trying to crack its pattern. Then this shadow in a dark hood had walked right up to the heavy oak door and picked the damn thing in under a minute.
Handy, Levi thought, dropping silently from the rafters like a cat, his soft leather boots making zero sound on the damp flagstones. I’ll let the amateur carry the gold out, then take it. He wasn’t one to snatch up like that but he was in dire need.
He slipped behind the intruder, moving in for a quick, silent chokehold to put them to sleep. But before his hand could make contact, the figure’s head snapped toward him as if they possessed some uncanny sixth sense.
Swish.
A fast, lethal fist whistled straight past Levi’s nose, missing his cheekbone by a hair’s breadth only because he jerked his head back in time.
Levi’s gray eyes widened slightly. Fast. This one actually knows how to fight.
The figure didn't hesitate. Leveraging the momentum of the missed punch, the intruder spun, sweeping a leg low across the floor. Levi leaped over the kick seamlessly, unsheathing his short blade with a metallic shhhk. The stranger drew twin daggers in response, the steel catching the dim orange glow of the single wall sconce.
They moved together in a terrifyingly synchronized dance of violence. Levi attacked with cold, mechanical efficiency, vicious, razor-sharp thrusts designed to end a fight in seconds. But the intruder didn't break under his pressure. Instead, they adapted instantly, fluidly ducking beneath his slashes and using unpredictable, chaotic footwork to bounce off stone walls and vault chests.
Impressive, Levi found himself thinking, blocking a lightning-fast double-dagger strike that nearly caught his ribs. No rigid military training. It’s dirty, wild, and incredibly smart. They're using the environment against me.
Hange, meanwhile, was equally breathless with admiration. Every time she threw a strike she was certain would land, the man moved with impossible, terrifying grace, parrying her blades as if he were reading her mind. He was shorter than her, but he moved with the power and speed of a storm. He's brilliant, she thought, a wild spark of excitement blazing in her chest despite the danger. Absolute perfection in motion.
Levi decided he had played around enough. Stepping inside her guard, he parried her right dagger upward, bypassed her left, and drove his shoulder straight into her center of gravity.
Hange stumbled backward, her back slamming against the damp wall of the vault. Before she could reset her stance, Levi closed the distance, slamming his palm against the stone right next to her head and hooking his left arm tightly around her midsection to trap her arms.
The moment his hand gripped her waist, Levi froze. Through the thick leather armor, his palm registered the distinct, undeniable curve of a woman’s waist which was slender, firm, and breathing heavily beneath his touch.
A woman?
The sudden realization sent a sharp, unbidden jolt straight through his chest. Taking advantage of his split-second hesitation, Hange tried to twist out of his hold, but Levi reacted instantly. He pinned her wrist above her head with one hand, his fingers locking tight around her skin, and used his free hand to catch the edge of her dark cloth mask.
With one swift tug, he pulled the fabric down. The dark hood fell back, revealing a pale face framed by dark, messy brown hair, flushed red from the heat of battle. But what made Levi’s breath catch completely in his throat were her eyes.
Even in the dingy, shadowed vault, her eyes burned like molten amber behind a pair of slightly askew glasses, fierce, impossibly bright, and overflowing with an wild, terrifying intelligence that seemed to pierce right through him. There was no terror in them, only an intoxicating, defiant fire.
Levi stood there, his hand still firmly resting on the warm curve of her waist, his body flushed flush against hers, completely struck speechless by the wild beauty staring back at him. For a fraction of a second, Levi was entirely anchored by those wild, fiery eyes.
Hange didn't waste the moment. Capitalizing on his split-second distraction, she drove her knee upward with ruthless, uncompromising precision, landing a sharp blow straight between his legs.
Levi let out a choked, ragged exhale, his jaw tightening so hard a muscle twitched in his neck. But if she thought that would drop him, she severely underestimated the man’s terrifying pain tolerance. Instead of crumpling, his grip on her wrist tightened like an iron vise.
Before Hange could use her momentum to shove him off, Levi twisted his weight, using her own leverage against her. In a blur of dark leather, he spun her around, slamming her back against his chest and locking his thick, muscular arms around her torso like steel bands. He trapped her daggers uselessly against her own ribs, completely immobilizing her.
He leaned down, his chin brushing the side of her temple, his deep, raspy voice breathing directly into her ear, hot and dangerously low. "Who sent you?" he rasped, his chest heaving heavily against her back as he fought through the dull throbbing pain.
Hange’s head snapped back, her cheek practically grazing his cheekbone. "Well, who sent you?" she spat back, her voice laced with sharp, unyielding defiance. "Don't tell me you're one of those little boys that's running around stealing rich men's coffers."
The vault fell dead silent. Levi didn't answer. He just held her locked tight against him, his cold gray eyes glaring into the gloom, his silence heavy and thick in the air.
Hange’s breath hitched. The lack of a denial was a confession in itself.
"Wait..."
The sharp hostility in her posture instantly vanished, replaced by a sudden, electric jolt of pure fascination. Her brain, always lightning-fast, connected the dots in an instant. The vigilantes. The ruthless, ghost-like outlaws who had been raiding corrupt noble estates across the northern wall and slipping back into the slums like shadows.
It was him.
Forget the fact that she was currently trapped in a lethal lock by a dangerous intruder, Hange’s inner scholar and hopeless idealist burst wide open. To her, these vigilantes were the only people in this rotten city actually fighting back against the noble class. They were legends. Heroes.
Driven by a sudden wave of frantic excitement, Hange wriggled and pushed back hard against his chest, using her heels to force just enough space between them to turn around in his arms.
Levi, thrown off by her complete lack of fear, let his grip loosen just an inch and Hange immediately spun in his hold to face him directly. She leaned in, her face inches from his, her dark brown hair falling wild around her shoulders. Her hazel eyes, magnified behind her askew glasses, were wide and practically glowing with awe.
"It is you!" she whispered excitedly, her voice buzzing with uncontrolled energy, completely ignoring the fact that his dagger was still resting uncomfortably close to her side. "The vigilantes! Oh, this is incredible! I've been reading about your raids for months! The way you bypassed the Lord Mayor's perimeter guard was that a grappling rig? How many of you are there? Who designs your gear?!"
Levi stared at her, completely flabbergasted. The lethal, terrifying outlaw was staring at a noble's daughter who was looking at him not with terror or disgust, but like he was the most fascinating scientific discovery on the planet.
The heavy thud of leather boots echoed down the stone corridor, accompanied by the bright, dangerous orange glow of approaching torches.
"Who goes there?" a harsh guard's voice barked from the hallway, the sound metallic and fast approaching.
"Shit," Hange murmured under her breath, all her breathless excitement evaporating into pure adrenaline.
Levi’s gray eyes flicked sharply toward the arched doorway, watching the shadows dance as the firelight grew closer. Without missing a beat, he shifted his weight, his large hand reaching up to grab the dark cloth hanging around Hange's neck. He pulled it back up over her nose and mouth, gently tucking her wild hair behind her ears to ensure her identity remained completely hidden.
His touch was surprisingly gentle for a man with such lethal hands, his knuckles brushing the warm skin of her cheek. He leaned down, his face inches from hers in the gloom. "Truce?" he whispered, his raspy voice barely a breath against her ear.
Hange looked straight into his steel-gray eyes and gave a sharp, resolute nod. "Truce."
Levi lingered for a fraction of a second, his gaze tracing the fiery, unyielding amber of her eyes one last time, cataloging the depth and brilliance in them as if trying to etch it into his memory. Then, with smooth, practiced lethality, he spun around, pressing his spine firmly against hers.
They stood back-to-back in the center of the vault; a disgraced noblewoman in secret armor and a feared street vigilante, their shoulder blades locked, their breathing synchronized, daggers drawn and pointed at the entrance as five armed guards burst through the doorway with swords unsheathed.
Hange’s blood ran cold the moment the guards stepped fully into the torchlight. These weren’t the lazy, sleepy castle sentries Erwin had reassigned for the night.
They wore the heavy, mismatched iron plate of her eldest brother’s personal retinue, former mercenaries hired from the borderlands. Ruthless, bloodthirsty men who took pleasure in cruel violence and didn't answer to standard military protocols. Her brother’s personal guards were unpredictable and liked to make rounds meaning they overrode Erwin’s plans.
"Hah! Look what we got here," sneered the lead mercenary, a mountain of a man sized like a boulder, swinging a broad, spiked mace in his scarred right hand. "The famous street rats playing dress-up in the vault. The Master will pay a fortune for your heads."
"They play dirty," Hange whispered out the side of her mouth, her back pressed flush against Levi’s spine. "They won't try to arrest us. They'll kill us on sight."
"I play even dirtier," Levi whispered back, his voice disturbingly calm. His body relaxed into a low, predatory stance, every muscle coiled like a spring. "Ready?"
Hange gripped her daggers tighter, a fierce grin hiding beneath her cloth mask. "Born ready."
"Move!" the boulder of a man roared.
The mercenaries charged. The vault erupted into a chaos of ringing steel and sparks.
Levi launched forward first, blurring into action. He ducked beneath the first mercenary's wild broadsword swing, stepped inside his guard, and slit the man's hamstring with terrifying speed. But the mercenaries were seasoned killers. A second man lunged from Levi's flank, his war-pick tearing a jagged, bloody line across Levi’s left forearm. Levi barely grunted, twisting his blade backward and driving it into the attacker's shoulder to clear his line.
Meanwhile, Hange was fighting for her life against the hulking leader. The giant swung his heavy mace downward; Hange rolled across the damp flagstones just as the iron head pulverized the stone where her head had been milliseconds before.
She leaped to her feet, flinging a small glass vial from her belt pouch directly at the floor. The vial shattered, releasing a blinding, acrid smoke that filled the narrow corridor.
The mercenaries coughed, swinging blindly. "Witch!" the leader growled.
Through the haze, Hange and Levi moved like a single, devastating unit. Levi used Hange’s shoulder as a springboard, launching himself into the air to drive a flying knee into a mercenary’s jaw. Hange swept beneath Levi’s airborne shadow, tripping another soldier and driving her dagger hilt hard into his temple to knock him cold.
Clang! Heavy metal slammed into meat.
The mercenary leader, swinging his mace wildly through the smoke, caught Hange across her ribs with a brutal backhand. The heavy iron pauldrons tore through her leather harness. Hange let out a choked gasp as the impact slammed her against the vault chest, pain blinding her vision.
"Hey!" Levi snapped.
A dark, terrifying rage flared in Levi's eyes. In a fraction of a second, he abandoned all defensive posture, rushing the hulking leader like an unleashed demon. He parried the heavy mace with his short sword, spun inside the giant's massive reach, and delivered a blinding series of brutal, precise strikes to the man's neck, liver, and knees.
The giant collapsed like a felled oak, crashing to the stone floor, unconscious and bleeding. Silence fell over the treasury, heavy and suffocating, broken only by the sound of ragged breathing.
Levi stood amidst the groaning, unconscious men, his left arm dripping dark blood onto the stone floor. He immediately turned to Hange, who was slumping against a wooden crate, clutching her left side and gasping for air. For good measure he hit the men’s head to make sure they were not waking up anytime sooner although he knew that the ones that got away would soon alert the rest. So they had to get out.
He dropped to his knee beside her, his hand instantly hovering over her injured ribs, his gray eyes tight with an emotion he couldn't quite name. "Can you move?"
"Broken rib, maybe... just bruised," Hange wheezed, forcing a faint, defiant chuckle as she pulled her mask down to breathe. "That... was incredible, shorty."
"Shut up and save your breath," Levi grunted, though his touch was surprisingly gentle as he helped her sit up.
They couldn't stay. The alarm bells were beginning to toll high up in the castle towers. Working rapidly despite their injuries, Levi scooped several massive sacks of gold coins from the central chest, tying them securely to his belt and shoulders. Hange grabbed a smaller pouch of high-value gems and her own leather satchel.
"This way," Hange panted, pointing toward a small, rust-eaten iron grate near the floor, a drainage tunnel she had mapped out months ago. "It leads out past the moat into the old forest."
Twenty minutes later, they dragged themselves out of the damp, muddy drainage pipe at the edge of the estate grounds, soaked in rain, sweat, and blood.
Hange led Levi through the pitch-black woods, using familiar markers carved into the trees until they reached a secluded, dilapidated wooden chapel tucked away behind overgrown ivy and weeping willows. It looked completely abandoned from the outside, but as Hange pushed open a hidden side door, a soft, warm amber light spilled out into the rainy night.
Inside, the chapel had been converted into a immaculate, hidden sanctuary. Rows of clean cots lined the wooden hall, stocked with neatly folded blankets, shelves of home-brewed medicines, and sacks of grain.
"Welcome," Hange panted, leaning heavily against the wooden doorframe as she stripped off her bloodied leather shoulder guard. "To my sanctuary."
Levi stood in the doorway, the heavy gold sacks weighing down his hands, his steel-gray eyes taking in the sight of the hidden haven with quiet, stunned surprise.
***
Meanwhile, back in the quiet, candlelit wing of the estate, the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense.
Erwin stood tall beside Lady Hange’s heavy oak bedchamber door, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. To any passing servant or guard, he was simply the picture of unflinching, stoic duty, a loyal knight guarding his young mistress while she rested up for tomorrow’s grand gala.
In reality, his jaw was clamped so tight his teeth hurt. Every thirty minutes like clockwork, Erwin would quietly turn the brass knob, open the door just a sliver, and peer inside. The bed was artfully stuffed with extra pillows beneath the heavy goose-down duvet, shaped to mimic a sleeping form in the dim light.
He closed the door again with a faint, frustrated click, letting out a long, heavy sigh. He checked the grand grandfather clock at the end of the hall.
Three hours.
It had been three full hours since she had slipped into the shadows of the subterranean tunnels. With his keen, highly trained ears, Erwin could hear almost everything that happened in this wing of the castle. He heard the faint creak of the floorboards upstairs, the muffled chatter of drunken nobles down in the grand parlor, and the rain beginning to lash against the tall glass windows. But from the treasury shaft beneath the floors, there was only a agonizing, heavy silence.
His hand drifted down to the hilt of his broadsword, his knuckles turning white.
What is taking her so long? he thought, his blue eyes darkening with mounting anxiety. The lock shouldn't have taken her more than ten minutes. Even with loading the heavy gold sacks, she should have been back in her room by now, changing out of that damp leather and laughing about her victory.
He reached into his breast pocket and felt the cool, polished metal of his own backup whistle.
If she didn't blow her whistle or show her face in the next fifteen minutes, Erwin decided he was done waiting. Cover story be damned, he was going to drag her out of whatever trouble her wildly curious, stubborn mind had gotten her into.
***
"I'm Hange," she introduced herself softly, the sharp tip of her small apothecary shears making a precise slice down the side of his blood-soaked leather vest.
Levi sat cross-legged on the edge of a wooden cot, silent as a stone. He offered no resistance as she carefully peeled the stiff, ruined leather away from his left shoulder and arm. As the dark, bloodied fabric peeled back, Hange’s breath caught slightly in her throat and for a reason completely unrelated to the jagged gash on his forearm.
He was built like a weapon. Beneath the thick leather and dark wool lay a canvas of broad, dense shoulders, a tightly sculpted chest, and sharp, corded muscle carved from years of ruthless survival. Every line of his upper body radiated sheer, quiet power, his pale skin stark against the dark, drying blood.
Hange felt a sudden, traitorous flush of heat climb up her neck. She pressed her lips together, forcing her eyes back to the wound, desperately trying to brace herself against admiring the ridiculously well-endowed cut of his shoulders and abs.
Focus, Hange, she scolded herself mentally, shaking her head. He’s a street vigilante bleeding on your cot, not an anatomical model.
"Levi," he rasped quietly, his voice low and gravelly in the quiet chapel.
Hange blinked, looking up from her work. "Hmm?"
"Levi," he repeated, his sharp gray eyes tracking her every movement. "That's my name."
A soft, genuine smile broke through Hange's flustered expression. "Levi," she murmured, testing the sound of it on her tongue. "Well, Levi, hold still. This is going to sting."
She dipped a clean white cloth into a basin of boiled water mixed with crushed disinfectant herbs, pressing it firmly against the gash on his arm to stop the bleeding. Levi didn't even flinch. His gray eyes remained locked entirely on her face watching the way her brown hair fell loose around her flushed cheeks, the gentle precision of her calloused hands, and the quiet, fierce warmth radiating from her very presence.
The silence between them stretched, thick with an electric, simmering tension that made both of their hearts beat just a little too fast.
"Who are you?" Levi finally asked as she tied off the white linen bandage with a neat, precise knot.
Hange bit her lower lip, lost in thought, and the small, unconscious gesture drew Levi's eyes directly to her mouth—a sudden, deep distraction that made his throat feel tight.
"I... well, you wouldn't believe me if I told you," she admitted softly.
Levi’s sharp mind began connecting the scattered dots. She knew the floor plan of the estate by heart. She recognized those mercenary soldiers on sight, and she moved through the subterranean tunnels like someone who had spent years memorizing them. Was she a castle servant? A maid sneaking around in the dark?
"Are you a servant?" Levi guessed, his voice low.
Hange let out a bright, melodic laugh that echoed softly against the high wooden rafters of the chapel. "Well, it wouldn't be so hard to believe that! But no... I am actually the youngest daughter of the corrupted nobleman we just robbed."
Levi’s gray eyes widened; a rare, genuine crack in his usual stoic mask. It was an utterly absurd revelation. "Hange Zoë..." he murmured, the realization settling in. "Stealing from her own father. Now that would be an interesting story for the taverns."
Hange sighed, sliding down to sit on the edge of the cot beside him. But as her feet touched the floor, a sudden, sharp spike of pain from her ribs made her wince, her hand flying to her side as her breath hitched.
Levi noticed instantly. "Stay still," he ordered, his voice shifting from curious to sharp concern. He urged her to keep talking, his eyes scanning the wooden shelves around the chapel until he spotted a small clay jar of anti-inflammatory salve and a roll of clean linen.
"I was a sheltered daughter," Hange began softly, her voice carrying a rare, vulnerable weight as Levi returned to her side. "Deprived of everything my brothers were given freely. I was meant to be a decorative doll... but I didn't want to be."
Levi sat down next to her, setting the salve on the wooden cot. He reached out, gently taking her hand in his rough, calloused palm. She looked up, meeting his gaze.
"Can I?" Levi asked quietly.
Hange looked into his gray eyes and nodded. She didn't care about propriety or noble modesty as she allowed him to help her unbuckle the rest of her leather harness. With practiced, careful movements, Levi peeled back her blood-stained blouse, exposing the pale skin over her ribs, which was already blooming with a deep, angry purple bruise.
"So I trained..." Hange continued, encouraged by the silent, steady grounding of his touch. "I trained in secret to fight so I could defend myself. And then, when I managed to save enough money, I invested in buying this building in secret... so I could house those who had lost their homes to the war."
Levi felt something inside his chest swell, a violent, overwhelming surge of respect and affection. She wasn't just some bored aristocrat playing at rebellion. She was a noblewoman who risked execution, dishonor, and her own father's wrath just to keep desperate people alive. He admired her so deeply it almost burned.
Gently, Levi dipped his fingers into the cool herbal salve, smoothing it over the dark bruise on her ribs. His touch was remarkably tender, his thumb tracing the curve of her waist with agonizing care.
When he finished, he looked up at her face. They were breathlessly close now. Levi found himself mesmerized by her features, the wild, fierce intelligence in her amber eyes, the unique, elegant bridge of her hooked nose, the heat of her skin against his. Hange, equally captivated, stared back at his sharp jaw, his dark fringe, and the intense, quiet intensity radiating from him.
Their faces drifted closer, the romantic tension pulling them together like an inescapable tide—
BANG!
The wooden chapel doors burst open, and before Levi could even draw a breath, the cold, heavy steel of a broadsword was pressed firmly against his throat.
"Erwin!" Hange gasped, her voice desperate as she tried to sit up. "Erwin, stop! He’s fine! He’s with me!"
Erwin stood towering over them, his broad frame blocking the doorway, his face pale with a mix of fury, panic, and sheer relief. But at the sight of Hange partially undressed, sitting flush against a strange man in the dark, the stoic commander momentarily lost his composure. His eyes flared with protective anger before he caught himself, quickly sheathing his sword and stripping off his heavy woolen coat to drape it over Hange’s bare shoulders.
"Are you okay?" Erwin asked, his voice thick with worried exhaustion. "I went down to the vaults when I heard the alarm bells. I saw Borin and Lorin unconscious on the floor, and I knew you’d come here. Why did you not blow the whistle, Hange?"
"Because he was there," Hange explained quickly, clutching Erwin's coat around her chest and pointing to the silent outlaw beside her. "Erwin, meet—"
"—Levi," Erwin finished for her, his sharp blue eyes cutting directly to the short, lethal man on the cot. "So... you are the vigilante."
Levi didn't flinch. He casually wiped the leftover salve from his fingers on a rag. "Erwin... it’s nice to see you here."
"Not that I can say likewise," Erwin replied coolly, his posture rigid. "You abandoned your post in the knighthood years ago."
Levi let out a soft, bitter huff, crossing his arms over his chest. "How could anyone serve the knighthood after knowing everything that goes on in those high walls?"
Erwin looked down at Hange, his expression softening with immense warmth and pride as he adjusted the coat over her shoulders.
"Because," Erwin said quietly, "I was protecting the right person."
Levi stared at the commander, then looked back at Hange, whose hazel eyes were shining in the soft candlelight.
"Yeah," Levi murmured, his raspy voice filled with an undeniable, fierce certainty. "I can see that now."
"We have to go now, Hange," Erwin urged, his voice tight as the distant, rhythmic tolling of the estate's alarm bells echoed faintly through the rainy night. "They've rung the bells, which means they will soon search the wing and check the rooms. You have to be in your bed."
Hange nodded, the urgency of the situation snapping her back into action. She quickly crossed the chapel and pulled a plain white silk nightgown from a supply closet. "I'll change here to save time—just turn around!" she instructed, waving her hand dismissively.
The two men shared a tense look before turning their backs to her.
"Don't even think about doing anything to her," Erwin warned in a low, dangerous tone, his blue eyes cutting sideways toward the outlaw.
Levi scoffed, folding his arms across his chest. "What do you think I want to do with her, eyebrows?"
"I can see it in your eyes, Levi," Erwin replied, his voice dripping with protective certainty. "I know that look."
Before Levi could come up with a sharp retort, Hange called out, "Ready!"
They turned back to see her clad in the loose nightgown, her messy hair falling around her shoulders. Erwin immediately stepped forward, scooping her up into his arms without hesitation.
"Erwin—what are you doing?" Hange blinked in surprise.
"If you walk back through the rain, the muddy hem of your gown will give you away the moment my lord father steps into your room," Erwin explained smoothly.
Hange nodded at the flawless logic. "Ah, brilliant as always, Erwin!"
Standing nearby, Levi felt an ugly, sharp jab of jealousy flare up in his chest at the sight of her wrapped up so comfortably in the Erwin's arms. He gritted his teeth, slinging his heavy gold sacks over his shoulder, and fell into step right behind them as Erwin carried her toward the door.
Erwin stopped abruptly in the doorway, turning his head to glare at Levi. "Where do you think you're going?"
"With you guys, of course," Levi snapped naturally.
"That's the point," Erwin said, his brow furrowed. "Why?"
Levi paused, the question hanging heavy in the cool air. Yeah, why? he asked himself. He was an outlaw; his job was done, his pockets were full of gold, and he should be slipping back into the dark underbelly of the city. But the thought of letting her out of his sight, of not knowing if she made it back safely into her room, made his stomach twist into knots.
Before Levi could figure out how to answer, Hange leaned over Erwin's shoulder and beckoned to him with a soft, urgent smile.
"Levi, I assume you have people to take care of tonight," she said gently, her hazel eyes warm in the dim light. "Come to the location at the tavern on the far end of the lower district tomorrow. I will send Erwin with a secure address where you can bring your orphans. They will have a roof, warm food, and my full protection. Go now. Protect yourself, and protect the people you have to."
Levi stared up at her, the sheer warmth and unyielding kindness in her words striking him straight in the chest. His breath hitched, his heart swelling with a chaotic mixture of intense attraction and deep affection for this crazy, brilliant noblewoman.
He took a slow step back into the chapel shadows, keeping his gray eyes locked on hers until the very last second.
"Don't die on me tonight, Lady Hange," Levi rasped, his voice rough. "I'm holding you to that offer."
***
Two months had passed since the night of the vault heist, and the sanctuary had transformed into something remarkable.
What began as a hidden basement beneath an abandoned chapel had expanded into a thriving, self-sustained refuge at the edge of the lower district. With the gold stolen from Lord Zoë’s treasury, Hange had quietly purchased plots of surrounding farmland, allowing the refugees to cultivate their own crops, rebuild their dignity, and establish a real community. Many of the older commoners had already found work in the city and moved into their own homes, making room for new families arriving daily.
Whenever Hange managed to slip away from her suffocating high-society duties at the estate, she spent her free hours at the haven.
Today was no different. Sunlight filtered through the trees onto the dusty yard, where Hange sat on a wooden crate surrounded by a dozen eager orphans, holding up a chalk slate to teach them their letters.
A few yards away, Levi stood leaning against a timber post, ostensibly overseeing a group of older kids practicing basic evasive footwork. But he wasn't looking at the kids. His sharp gray eyes were hopelessly, shamelessly glued to Hange, watching the way her brown hair caught the sunlight, the animated way her hands moved as she explained a word, and the radiant, unfiltered smile that lit up her face every time a child got an answer right.
Over by the outdoor kitchen, Furlan was leaning against a wooden table, squinting through tears as he chopped vegetables for the afternoon stew. Beside him, Isabel was sharpening a hunting knife, while Erwin stood stoically nearby, keeping a watchful eye over the grounds.
"Do you think Levi will ever stop eye-fucking her?" Furlan asked casually, tossing a chunk of onion into the pot.
Smack.
Erwin’s hand descended onto the back of Furlan’s head with swift, disciplinary force.
"Language," Erwin growled smoothly, adjusting his collar. "And My Lady will certainly not end up with a man like him."
Isabel giggled, pointing her sharpening stone at the tall knight. "And here I thought you actually admired Levi, Eyebrow Guy!"
"I respect his skill," Erwin corrected, his stoic face unreadable, though his blue eyes narrowed slightly as he watched Levi’s gaze linger on Hange’s neck. "I respect his lethality. But I also believe Lady Hange deserves a peaceful life, not a rogue."
"Yeah, right," Furlan muttered, rubbing the back of his sore head. "Keep telling yourself that, Eyebrows. Look at them."
"The sexual tension around here is uncomfortably high," Mike grunted as he strolled over, his nose twitching twice as he took a sharp sniff of the autumn air.
Nanaba walked up beside him, a sharp smirk playing on her lips. She casually stepped up, hooked a finger into Mike's collar, and pulled him down to plant a sweet, lingering kiss directly on his lips.
She pulled back, her eyes sparkling with mischief as she gestured toward the far fence line. "Is it ours... or theirs?"
Erwin, Isabel, Furlan, and Mike all turned to look.
The children had been dismissed for lunch, and Hange was currently standing by the weapons rack, putting away the wooden practice daggers. Levi had crossed the yard and was standing entirely too close to her, his hand resting on the wooden rack right beside her head, trapping her against it.
Hange was laughing, leaning in to whisper something directly against Levi’s ear that made the dangerous outlaw's jaw tighten. Before anyone could blink, Levi grabbed her by the hip, pulled her flush against his chest, and slammed his mouth onto hers.
Hange didn't pull back. She let out a soft, breathless gasp against his lips, her fingers instantly threading through his dark, silky hair as she pulled him deeper into the kiss, her body melting completely against his hard frame.
Over by the kitchen, complete silence fell.
Furlan slowly dropped his knife onto the cutting board, staring in utter shock. Isabel burst into loud, victorious laughter, clapping her hands together. Mike simply took another sniff of the air and shrugged.
Erwin closed his eyes, let out a long, heavy, defeated sigh, and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"I'm going to need a stronger drink," Erwin muttered, turning his back on the couple.
Out in the yard, Levi finally broke the kiss for air, his forehead resting against Hange’s, his breath coming in hot, ragged gasps as his thumb traced the soft line of her jawline.
"You're a terrible distraction, Lady Hange," Levi rasped, his gray eyes dark with intense, unyielding affection.
Hange beamed up at him, her hazel eyes sparkling behind her askew glasses, her hands still resting over his heart. "And yet, shorty... you haven't looked away all day."