No More Heroes

[Levi DAmico]

A lot of good came from standing your ground, from digging your heels in so firmly into the earth that you’re basically buried in place. It made people remember what a stubborn ******** you could be. It reminded people never to **** with the kind of guy that would never back away from his ideals. It reminded them that somethings were never relinquished. But no good ever came from sticking your head in the sand and pretending that the world – and the people in it – would never change.

The Italian saw it more often than he cared to remember: change. He saw it in people’s loyalties, he saw it affections, he even saw it in ideology - he saw it all as cleanly as the warm months of summer relax into golden beds before slumbering in frozen tombs. Worst still, he had seen it in the eyes of his second in command. Shiro just didn’t care anymore. Not about Levi, not about fighting for a cause, not about anything. There were times when the Vampiro questioned Shiro’s loyalty to life itself. Did the Japanese man want to die? Because it sure as hell looked like it. Sure, they always argued and were even known to take things too far with their fists, but Shiro always knew when to quit. Shiro always knew just how far he could push the Italian’s buttons before the dragon’s fury boiled over and he no longer held his punches. This had been the case even after Shiro had learned the truth about Levi’s condition. Lately, though, their spats had changed in the way vino sours into vinegar, but Levi was convinced that he could still work with that.

“Well, this is fun,” Levi growled between his teeth and a well-poised cigarette.

The smoke that coiled into the air and over his shoulder slithered away like a tiny silver dragon. Shiro ignored him as they walked, keeping his pace a strict half metre in front of Levi. The Italian watched the back of the man’s head bob, his neck-length black hair twitching, as they marched through Gullsborough. It shouldn’t have been weird that Shiro’s hair was short, but for the seven years that Levi had known the Shark, more than half of those years had been while Shiro had been connected to the Yamaguchi-gumi. As a result, the young man’s hair had flowed to the tip of his tailbone like a waterfall of ink. Levi – like countless others before him – had mocked Shiro for the length of his hair and the fact that Levi was one of few who lived past the mocking to see the change, made the difference all the more extreme. Weirdly, Shiro seemed to somehow look more… pretty… now that his ebony locks framed his striking cheekbones and jawline. In fact, he looked like he was just five minutes away from being signed up as the next J-Pop sensation.

“I know I generally complain that you’re a noisy ********,” Levi added after a little while. “But, the silent treatment is kinda… odd.” A pause. He waited for a reaction, but he didn’t get one. “Fine. You win, Shiro. You may continue to be a loud, obnoxious, pain in the *** and I promise not to complain… for at least twenty minutes.”

Still nothing, but he could sense that the Japanese man was rolling his eyes at him predominantly because it was the only silent reaction that Shiro was capable of beyond drawing his sword. Umber eyes drifted to the man’s katana at the thought, seeing it still strung to his side, before he smirked to himself.

“Eventually I’m going to lose my patience with you and throw you in the river,” Levi warned. “Then we’ll see just how well a squalo can swim in freshwater.”