This chapter starts in a normal yet dimly lit apartment as a new character prepares for his first day of school. This includes affixing new buttons to his shirt collar. His mother offers to take him, but he says he'll walk. She asks if he'll be okay, if he's worried or stressed about his first day at a new school. He denies it, but it is implied he is getting stressed about the school transfer as well as moving to another country.
In school, the cast is milling about. Marinette can't bring herself to talk to Adrien Agreste. Giselle Winters-Blanchet is going through a dozen options as to how she transformed; she's scared. She then meets with her friends, Meera Pugliese and Raissa Deschamps, and pushes things from her mind. Marc Anciel and Nathaniel Kurtzberg are working on their comic; Nathaniel is beginning to wonder if he invented Firefly after all since he's no closer learning how (or even if) he transformed in the first place. Chloe's being a brat. Max Kante and Le Chien Kim are talking video games. Ivan Bruel and Mylene Haprele are hanging out. Alix Kubdel is taking off her roller blades while chatting with Stella Tenebrae (another background character from Mr. Haprele's class). Jakeel Aristide is watching the result of the locker prank he set up against Cameran Tyler (also background characters). Marie Chauveau and Suzette Rault are talking about a yaoi manga and genuinely creeping out Pierre Lefevre and Jean Duparc (more background characters although Jean is canon but very minor. If you need to put a face to a name, remember there's a class photo (( photos . app . goo . gl / cgLSrNi71rxfep9e8 ))(remove the spaces)). So it's actually an average morning.
The bell rings, and the students disperse to class (Miss Bustier, Ms. Mendeleiev, and Mr. Haprele's). It switches to Mr. Haprele's class, which includes Kagami, Marc, Giselle, and Tsuyu Asui. He announces they have a student who is transferring to their school today, and introduced Fumikage Tokoyami to the class (both he and Tsuyu are borrowed from My Hero Academia). In this version, Fumikage has a fully human face. However, he is very serious, not smiling much, and his hair is anime-style straight back, so he looks very intense.
Mr. Haprele asks for a volunteer who will show Fumikage around today. Much to his surprise, Giselle does not volunteer as she is very mentally distracted by her prior transformation. Tsuyu volunteers instead.
She shows him around during breaks and lunch. Fumikage does reveal himself to be a bit taciturn, but when he does speak, it tends to be a bit poetic or archaic. Tsuyu is surprised to hear this, and Fumikage is a bit embarrassed but falls silent. Tsuyu, however, says she likes how he talks. She gets him to open up by saying her family is from Japan too (so she understands where he's coming from with the nuances of formal versus informal language). They also both like the same manga: Crow by Eiji Nizuma.
At lunch, they have a bit of a nerd conversation with Marc and Nathaniel, who are both fans of Muto Ashirogi's mangas. No one misses the irony since Eiji Nizuma is a rival to Muto Ashirogi. (Yay to all the Bakuman fans out there who got the references.)
The day goes smoothly until school lets out, which includes a rather hard assignment from Mr. Haprele, which Fumikage is nervous about his abilities to complete due to the deadline and his more limited French skills. Chloe Bourgeois and Sabrina Raincomprix cross paths Fumikage when Tsuyu isn't around and begin to mock his accent/manner of speaking and hair style. Fumikage, very eloquently, tells them to get lost and outwardly doesn't appear to lose his cool at all. That's when Tsuyu shows up, so Chloe changes topics and begins to mock Tsuyu's croaky voice and fashion choice. This angers Fumikage, who pulls Tsuyu away from them and out to the school steps.
Tsuyu says those two don't bother her, but Fumikage states he doesn't want to see Tsuyu insulted because she was kind to him all day. He'll leave her alone if that means they won't insult her. Tsuyu again repeats she doesn't mind and that no one listens to Chloe anyway. However, Marie and Suzette interrupt them. They see Tsuyu and Fumikage standing together and instantly erupt into "leave him alone, he'd look so much cuter with a boyfriend!"
This frustrates Fumikage even more as he sees it as more people mocking them—as well as the fact he isn't gay. It's starting to get late. The light bulbs around them burst. Marie and Suzette hurry away before they get glass in their hair. Tsuyu and Fumikage move back inside the building to avoid the glass. Tsuyu, however, can tell there's something wrong with Fumikage as he's getting more and more stressed out.
She asks him if he's okay and points out that she can see he's stressed—probably from starting a new school, being a French as a second language student, and having to cope with all these people who won't stop commenting about him. However, Tsuyu points out that most people at this school are friendly, and she gives examples. Fumikage is about to calm down a bit as they re-enter the foyer area. However, it's still dimly lit as it's a cloudy day and the light bulbs outside are busted.
Tsuyu jinxes things by telling him it can't get any worse. They approach the bus to head home, but it pulls away without them. The clouds turn into a cold drizzle, and both forgot their umbrellas. Both their phone batteries are dead, so Fumikage needs to return to the school to call his mother to get a ride home. They re-enter the building only to find the door into the main area, including the pay phone, locked. Fumikage bangs his head on the wall in frustration.
Once again, Fumikage's latent power causes all the nearby light bulbs to burst. This sends the entire foyer into darkness. He calls out to Tsuyu and tries to find the door, but his emotions and stress are already running pretty rampant. The darkness further augments his miraculous without a kwami's natural powers.
His buttons react to the dark element and his negative emotion of stress, transforming him into a crow themed hero. Instead of a mask, his entire face turns into that of a crow's. The power of the buttons wash over his collar, stretching into a body concealing cloak under which a living shadow lurks. Underneath the cloak is a pair of black pants and boots and a black shirt as well as a pair of talon-like gauntlets. Although he doesn't get a chance to use them this chapter, his weapons are feather darts made of shadow. Tsuyu jumps backward, seeing his shadow transform in the darkness, surprised.
Fumikage is stunned by his new appearance and very unnerved by his genuine animal face. Tsuyu barely sees him in the dim light, but she keeps her composure like a champ as she can see Fumikage is inches away from a full emotional freak out. She tells him to breathe and promises she'll help him figure things out. At this point, she's thinking an akuma. However, when she mentions that aloud, it does nothing to help Fumikage's emotional state and only causes him to stress and panic more.
At that moment, it gets even darker as the celestial flood gates open and it begins to pour rain; the remaining bulbs break. There's a very loud crack of thunder, and Fumikage jumps. His powers go berserk. The shadows wrap around him and break the windows in the foyer, allowing Tsuyu to see more clearly what he's become. His eyes glow, narrowing on Tsuyu before dismissing her. Then he takes off, seemingly after Marie and Suzette. Tsuyu calls after him, telling him to calm down, telling him it's an akuma and that he can't let it control him. She then sets off her Akuma Alert (as she has the app too); this warns people to evacuate and also serves to notify Ladybug and Cat Noir. But where did the akuma come from? I didn't see one! wonders Tsuyu.
Fumikage darts down the street, sticking to the shadows and alleys but still terrifying anyone who sees him. He's clearly in some type of blind berserk panic or rage. Marie and Suzette only have a moment to check their own apps before Fumikage is upon them. They scream and run in terror.
Hawk Moth watches on from his lair. He's thrilled such a powerful antagonist appeared to challenge Ladybug and Cat Noir. Nathalie asks about how he akumatized this one—but Hawk Moth admits this is not his doing at all. He's not really sure what's going on, but he's going to find out. Meanwhile, he's desperately seeking someone else nearby to akumatize—someone else who can grab the ring and earring miraculous once "this Crow abomination" defeats Ladybug and Cat Noir.
Meanwhile, Crow has cornered Marie and Suzette in a darkened doorway when Ladybug and Cat Noir appear. At this point, Fumikage is pretty much in full-blown berserk mode (as seen during the forest camp training arc of My Hero Academia). They fight against him, allowing Marie and Suzette to escape, but every blow only enrages and confuses Crow even more. Furthermore, as it gets later into the evening and darker and his powers break more bulbs, Crow's powers only grow. In the background, Tsuyu is desperately trying to catch up with everyone on foot.
The fighting spills down the streets of Paris. Not only does this make it harder for Tsuyu to catch up, but it also attracts Nathaniel Kurtzberg's attention. Since Crow is being pretty indiscriminate, there's a real danger of innocent people getting caught up in the fight and hurt—and Ladybug and Cat Noir have their hands full. It also attracts the attention of Alya Cesaire, who is able to film snippets of the fight on the sly.
It's the intensity of the situation as well as seeing Ladybug struggle that encourages Nathaniel to mentally retrace his steps the night he became Firefly. He taps into the deep loneliness he felt then combined with a nearby flood light. This time, it is also augmented with his desire to help the people in danger as well as protect Ladybug. Nathaniel is able to re-transform into Firefly. He helps rescue some people (including Alya, who loses track of the fight at this point), the joins the fight against Crow. Ladybug and Cat Noir are completely baffled by the appearance of another superhero, and one whose miraculous isn't among those in Master Fu's care. Nathaniel geeks out a bit, thrilled to be by their side. He fusses over Ladybug, making sure she's okay, and largely ignores Cat Noir.
Ladybug isn't all that impressed with Firefly's advances as she still loves Adrien; however, Cat Noir does prickle some signs of jealousy. Firefly's timing is perfect as his light-based powers have a clear advantage over Crow's dark-based powers. Between the three of them, they're able to reduce the size of Crow's shadow and contain him. With Ladybug binding him with her yo-yo, Cat Noir goes in to find the akuma. And finds nothing.
Tsuyu Asui finally catches up at that point, winded. She tells them not to hurt him. She doesn't know what happened, but she figured out her friend was not akumatized during the time it took her to catch up. She's able to talk to him and defuse the situation. This calms Fumikage down enough that he transforms back (meaning Adrien, Marinette, Tsuyu and Nathaniel know his identity).
Cat Noir asks what's going on. Fumikage admits he doesn't know either, but he's upset that he was attacked without provocation. Ladybug says he attacked "those girls" first. However, we re-see the scene through Fumikage's PoV where he was basically trying to flee from himself, to find somewhere dark to hide, and happened in the same direction as Marie and Suzette who reacted at terror (though to be fair, he did look very scary). That's when Ladybug and Cat Noir arrived and attacked first. Fumikage's powers reacted defensively, and the rest of it is all a blur to him. However, one thing IS clear. He is definitely not a fan of Ladybug or Cat Noir and does not consider them heroes like the rest of Paris.
He turns to leave. Tsuyu does thank the three heroes on his behalf and goes to join him, trying to see if he's okay. Ladybug insists he stay, that he let them help, as there's no knowing when whatever it is will happen again. Fumikage flat-out says he doesn't trust them now nor wants their help. With the countdown on their transformations ticking, Ladybug and Cat Noir have to leave at that. However, since Marinette and Adrien know Crow is Fumikage, they plan on getting real answers from him later at school (though independently of each other).
The scene flips to Hawk Moth. Nathalie Sancoeur asks if he's disappointed that Crow lost and that Hawk Moth could find no one to akumatize in the chaos. Hawk Moth isn't disappointed—he's elated. He tells her that he knows exactly what is going on and that he can use it to his full advantage. He also says that there's "seven" of them.
The scene cuts to school where Tsuyu is talking to Fumikage, wondering if this will happen again and urges him to trust Ladybug. He still refuses. He says he'll handle it and that he already has some ideas of things he can do to control himself should there be a next time. Tsuyu asks him about it, but he doesn't elaborate. Tsuyu offers to help him anyway. Marinette Dupin-Cheng and Adrien Agreste try to approach him, but they can't say much without revealing their identities, so those conversations go nowhere either.
Meanwhile, Nathaniel Kurtzberg is ecstatic that he can transform and thinks he can figure out how. He decides he needs to practice. He also debates if he should tell anyone. His first instinct is Ladybug, but he decides the secret identity and fighting crime together bit is romantic and that he doesn't want to tell her in case she rejects them or tells him to stop. He considers Marc Anciel, but then Marinette pops into his head. Why would I tell Marinette? I like Ladybug! His heart is torn between both Ladybug and Marinette.
Many people are also watching Alya Cesaire's footage of the "akuma attack from last night" from her Ladyblog (since Alya didn't learn it's not a real akuma). She christens the new villain "Crow-man," and the name is quite popular among the students and Parisians. Fumikage grumbles. He doesn't like that as an alias (though he is a bit flattered that he was named after his favorite comic character, Crow, by Eiji Nizuma). Tsuyu asks him what he'd like to be called, and he answers with "Tsukuyomi."
To be continued in Chapter 5: Tempest…