I drown. The water enters my lungs. I sink. Everything's black.
They shake my shoulder.
Goodness. It was a nightmare about what happened with Princess Fragrance. Almost dead that day. Did this also happen to Kagami? Or since she was frozen she doesn't remember?
"You fell asleep again in class, Alix. Wake up."
It's her voice. Normally, her tone is very cold, that hasn't changed, but she can be a bit softer when she wants to.
It's hard for me to open my eyes. My eyelids are heavy.
Sleep paralysis? It happens to me sometimes.
"Kubdel!" Oh shit. That's the teacher. My eyes snap open and my head snaps up. "To the director's office."
I get up and it makes me dizzy. Kagami holds me so I don't fall.
"Do I help you?" she whispers.
"No need, calm down."
I leave the class greeting the teacher with joy. I don't like being taken to the principal's office again, but why not pimp the professor? Since it's his fault.
Since Princess Fragrance I'm exhausted all the time. That day I made about ten portals in a row, of considerable size, to rescue people who fell from the bridge.
Fluff drained a lot of energy from me and I'm still recovering. After one month.
I won't do that again.
There hasn't been attack yet. Hawk Moth is taking a long time to make the next akuma and now that I know the victim could be me, I'm screwed.
Christmas has been quiet. Could he be on vacation? Will my schedule be based on his? Son of bitch.
On vacation I've been with my friends a lot, more than with my family. I've hung out with Kim and Max, doing challenges and playing video games; Marinette's group, making scarves (even though I didn't make any); and chatting on the phone with Kagami, since her grandparents came to visit her.
My father and brother have had no rest. They say they're studying the social function of magic and human sacrifice in Ancient Egypt in a "comparative manner" with Mesopotamian because Jalil wanna formulate a "nomothetic theory based on diffusionism," whatever that is.
My father has a master's degree in Forensic Anthropology and a Ph.D. in Archaeology, and my brother is doing his Master's in Egyptology internship with my father.
They're obsessed. They're very tiresome.
I've seen little of them, although at least we've had Christmas dinner and New Year's Eve.
And back from vacation, I realized that Kagami and Chloe are close? Something had to happen.
Now all that remains is for me to become friends with Chloe. But I don't want to. I'm just curious as to why the fuck she's so fucking rude.
But knowing that Hawk Moth could attack any of the three, we have to become friends and tell each other our identities. We have to protect each other.
Oh what a headache.
How calm I was without being Bunnyx.
I arrive at Principal Damocles' office and knock on the door.
"Ahead." I enter to the office. The director looks up from his computer and frowns. "Again you?"
"I'm sorry, principal, the teachers have a grudge against me." I joke.
I've been here more times than would be considered normal. I don't get to talk formally with him anymore and he doesn't get to be polite with me. We're pretty fed up with each other.
I sit in one of the armchairs in front of his table, with the light from the window hitting me directly in the eyes in a very uncomfortable way.
"What happened this time?" He says passing his hand over his face.
"I fell asleep in class. Maths are boring."
Mr. Damocles throws his head back, staring at the ceiling.
"I don't care if you find mathematics boring. You can't keep coming here. Last time you painted graffiti on the gym wall." He says with exasperation.
"And it's much prettier that way. Before it was a white, ugly and dirty wall."
I decorated the school to make it more beautiful. And I did it for free.
"You always wear that cap and now, fingerless gloves. Is prohibited."
I need these items to cover evidence that I'm Bunnyx. Obviously, I can't tell the director that.
"I'm not the only one. And you never punish others." This is the best answer I can think of.
The man regains his posture and becomes serious.
"You should at least take off your hat and gloves, to show that you want to change your bad habits." He suggests.
I know his intention is good, but that would be a disaster.
"I'm not gonna do that." I shake my head. I look at him defiantly. I'm not going to back down. "Expel me out if you want."
The director sighs. He looks at me for a few seconds.
"Then you're going to see the school psychologist." He decrees.
That surprises me a lot. What is he coming for?
"What? But..."
"No buts. You are going now."
The director makes a gesture with his hand, ending the conversation.
I go out into the hallway annoyed. There's no one here. Sure, everyone is in class.
"I don't need a psychologist. I'm fucking fine." I tell Fluff, that she is the only one here. "Do you know who does need a psychologist? Chloe. She's obsessed with how she looks."
Fluff stirs over my head, I can feel it.
"Alix... Do you remember the conversation with Kagami and Chloe about changes you have had after being holders?"
Yes, I remember. Why does she ask?
"Where do you wanna go?"
"Well, actually you are going to need a psychologist." She says with an apologetic tone. "Longg and Polen have powers that can be controlled by people without problem, but mine... it's not made for human minds." She murmurs the last part.
That means something. That it could hurt me, for example.
"If that is so, why do you have a holder?"
It's a logical question, right?
Another student who goes to the director's office prevents her from answering. I can't keep talking to Fluff at school.
When I get to the school psychologist's office, the door is open.
The room is very small and the woman is writing something in a file.
"Hello." I greet "The director told me that I have to come here."
The woman smiles pleasantly, though she doesn't look up from what she's doing.
"Come in and close the door, please. I will finish this in a moment."
I do what she tells me and sit in one of the armchairs there.
I look around the room. There is only area for a window behind her, a bookcase on one side and a painting on the other. The main thing here is the table full of papers from her.
The woman finishes typing and looks at the computer on her desk. She takes off her glasses, which leave a mark on her nose, and she looks at me. She smiles warmly again.
"Hi, Alix."
"Damocles sent you my information?"
I point to the monitor.
"Yes, he did. That also means that your absence from class is justified, if that's what you're worried about."
I lie quietly on the couch.
"It doesn't."
She pinches the bridge of her nose before putting her glasses back on to glance at the screen again.
"Can you tell me something about yourself?" she orders passively.
"Doesn't it says it all there?"
"Here there is only what people who are not me have seen of you." She explains patiently "I prefer to know everything first hand."
I snort. Why drag this out? Anyway, the director'll force me to come until I finish my problem: having a personality that he doesn't like.
'Alright. I fell asleep again. The class is very boring. No matter how hard I try to pay attention, it's hard for me." It's partly true. Part of it is that I've been recovering for a month from overusing my powers. "It's not difficult for me to understand teachers, but I get bored. That made me repeat last year. Since I didn't want to make it worse I managed to pass it. This is the second year I've been in a class with people a year younger. I won't do it again, I swear."
I tell her the whole truth about academics.
She nods and looks at the screen again.
"According to your record, you had good grades in elementary school." She affirms, although it's really a question.
I laugh. Sure, primary.
"Yes, primary school was very easy. But it's primary, it's easy for everyone."
"That is not true." Is she scolding me? From her tone I'd say yes. "All the courses are adapted to the age of the students, so primary school is as difficult as high school, for the people who must study it." She writes something on a piece of paper in front of her. I can't see what he puts. "Regarding your current grades, you continue to get good grades in art and gymnastics."
My two great passions.
"They are the only subjects in which I don't have to memorize something and throw it up in an exam. And besides, I have fun making them."
"I understand you. Studying like this is not pleasant, it cannot even be called study. After two days, everyone has forgotten. That's why gymnastics and art are better. Everything is spontaneous and free, complying with certain rules, but generally like that."
Is she trying to make me believe we're friends or something to manipulate me? Sorry lady psychologist whose name I don't know, I'm too smart for it to work.
"When you were little, did you like to learn?"
"That if I liked getting a's without doing shit? Well yes. Who doesn't?"
She points to something else on the page and looks at it for a while. Her own notes of what I have said in these five minutes are going to give her the answers of the universe.
"Let's do a test, okay?"
The woman searches her drawers and she gives me a booklet whose cover says 'IQ Test.'
Hey, okay. I don't know what this is about, but this woman seems to have forgotten that I know how to read.
"I will notify the principal that you will not attend the next two classes. Start it."
The test is long, very long. The psychologist wasn't kidding when she said that I'd be there by mid-morning.
In answering all these questions on a wide variety of topics, I follow my instincts. There are things I didn't even know I knew. Although it is true that sometimes I'm left with random facts that I've seen or read.
Useless facts that don't serve to get good grades. Like sunlight is formed by fusion of helium, but I can't say where on the periodic table helium is.
After finishing, the psychologist reviews the answers for a few minutes.
She drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair. I don't know what to think. Am I within the average? Am I dumber? That would be the logical thing, taking into account how much I fail and that I have repeated the course.
The psychologist finishes evaluating the test and looks at me.
"You are gifted." Announces the woman with a smile.
"My girl is gifted!" my father is happy on the phone. The director called him the moment I walked out the door.
I'm still trying to figure it out, thank you very much.
The psychologist has explained to me that if I have bad grades and I fall asleep in class it's because the educational system isn't made for me.
Really shitty.
Is there any solution? Change the educational system. That's, no.
If before it was quite clear, now it's decided: I'll dedicate myself to sports.
Or art, whatever the teachers say I'm best at.
"Dad. Right now I'm in gym class. Can we talk later?" My father called me on my digital watch. "So that Mr. D'Argencourt doesn't take my superwatch away from me?"
Which isn't this, the ultra-modern watch with a lot of functions, but the pocket watch from the 18th century, but I still don't want it to be taken away from me.
Also, I have to behave myself if I wanna convince the teacher not to do anything that involves using our hands.
During the holidays I've been training a lot to know how to fight with my magic umbrella. And stupidly, it has reopened the points of the palms of my hands.
Damn, these cuts don't seem like they're ever going to heal. It hurts like hell.
I can handle writing, eating, and other tasks that can be done delicately. But I can't throw and catch balls.
I take one last sip from my can of Red Bull. I finish it just before I start the exercise or else I'll pass out from exhaustion.
I leave the locker room. I'm the last of the girls. I address the teacher before class starts.
"Mr. D'Argencourt."
The man raises an eyebrow.
"What's the matter?"
"Could we not do a sport that involves using the hands?"
"Why?"
Any excuse I use will be absurd. Better tell the truth. Anyway, no one except Queen Bee knows that Bunnyx cut her hands off. And Chloe doesn't give a shit about me.
I take off one of the fingerless gloves I'm wearing and show the teacher my bandaged hand, careful not to let anyone in my class see it.
He takes my hand and lifts the bandage a little to see what's underneath.
"How did you do that?" He asks with concern.
"I cut myself with a glass."
The teacher looks at me alarmed.
"Okay. I'm going to think of an alternative to basketball, what were you going to do today. Go with the others."
Yes! I just got rid of a sport of tall people.
My class has been put into a warm-up circle. You know, everyone in a circle stretching so they don't get yanked or worse. After that, it's time to go around the schoolyard several times.
"Today we will do athletics." announces D'Argencourt.
The class is divided into groups of three. I finish with Kagami and Chloe. We're going to do relay races in five groups.
The first round pits Chloe against Marinette, Mylene, Nino, and Max. The groups are only for boys or only for girls, so that the teacher can evaluate us better.
"You better run well." I warn her.
Chloe raises an eyebrow.
"It's not a race, he just wants to see how fast we are."
"The group of girls and the group of boys that are left first will get rid of collecting the material for this and the football game that we will have later." decrees the teacher.
I look at Chloe. She raises her hands.
"Okay. But only because I don't want to pick up. Anyway, beating those six is a piece of cake."
"Don't believe that, Alya is quite competitive." I say.
"And she chases the Triple Supers quite a bit." Kagami adds.
I point to her to emphasize what she has said.
"And Juleka has very long legs."
"How lucky that they are not my problem. I go against Dupain-Cheng, who trips on the air. Don't worry, even a worm would beat her in a race."
It's true that we can use that to our advantage, but the way she says it's too dismissive, even for me.
They get into position (each one in the one they want, since none of them do athletics) and Mr. D'Argencourt stands at the starting line, which in turn is the finish line, since they have to return, with a stopwatch very modern to which he does several things. The return point is marked with cones.
The teacher blows the whistle and the five of them run.
I watch carefully.
At first, Chloe is last, but she gains strength and starts to overtake. Marinette has a spectacular fall in the middle of the track and takes a few seconds to recover. Nino is doing well, the first. Mylene suffocates before arrive to the cones and Max runs pretty slow.
Chloe overtakes these last two. And she comes to us the second. The teacher presses the button five times and the marks are saved. He quickly points them out.
The timer doesn't stop and Kagami leaves just as Chloe enters. She goes against Adrien, Alya, Sabrina and Ivan.
Alya tries to overtake her, but Kagami is much faster. So much so that she almost catches up with Adrien.
"My group will win." Kim brags.
"In the boys. We'll win in the girls." I point.
He smiles the way I hate. With that bullshit.
"But my group will be the fastest in the whole class. *I'm* going to beat *you*."
I'm aware of the advantage he has, although, damn it, I don't like him saying such things to me.
I get into position. Kagami and Adrien walk over. A boy has skipped classes and tries to escape from the school without being seen.
Think fast.
"Hey, Chloe! Isn't that your boyfriend?"
"What?" she asks very confused.
"Boyfriend?!" Kim is alarmed.
Kagami and Adrien arrive. I run out and Kim stands there looking for the boy.
"Kim!" Adrien and Nino shout.
Whoops! My momentary confusion distracted him.
I keep increasing my speed. Now I have quite an advantage.
His weakness is useful. He likes Chloe. It annoys me though, like everything about him.
In the end, I came first and Kim second.
I go to where Kagami talks to Chloe when he gets in the way.
"You cheated." he accuses.
Yes. It's not my fault that he likes Chloe and I like no one.
"No, I just had the wrong person."
I try to pass, but he moves to stop me.
"Chloe doesn't have a boyfriend."
"Well, look how good." I smile a little fake. What do I care?
"You've won with cheats."
"Whatever you say. Anyway, you've come before Nathanael. You get rid of picking up."
Kim looks at me with a frown. And after that, his eyes go to my hands.
"What did you tell the teacher before?"
"That I pay him one hundred euros if he gives me an honors degree."
Let's see if you take the hint, Kim. I wanna finish this conversation the fuck up.
"You took off a glove." he affirms. "You haven't taken off those gloves in a month."
Does he really think I'm going to tell him?
"I didn't know you liked it so much look at my hands! I'm going to have to start charging you." I joke.
Kim smiles. That teasing that means trouble. He grabs my forearm hard. I struggle, but he won't let go.
He himself takes the glove from me in a very crude way. It hurts.
I search for the teacher with my eyes. He's in the material room. Never mind, he'd make too much of a racket.
"Son of bitch, let me go." I demand with a low volume. I don't want Chloe to see me.
Kim drops the smile and opens his mouth.
"What's this?"
His surprise makes him go limp, so I kick him in the shin and get free.
He cringes and rubs his leg.
I look at the others: each one is on their own. I'm glad I'm not the center of the world.
"Nothing that matters to you."
"You're bleeding."
"Oh, and whose fault is it?"
He hands me the glove, which I put on again. Luckily it's black, so the blood won't show.
Kim goes to Max, who is talking to Adrien and Nino, and pulls him aside to say something to him. Max looks between Kim and me with a frown.
Kim comes back.
"We're going to the infirmary. Max will tell the professor" That's even worse than Alya with the secrets! "and I haven't told him why."
When we arrive, the nurse is not there. Marvelous.
I spread out on a chair and take off my glove and bandage to give air to the stitches. It looks like I'm not going to give a class today.
I don't complain.
"Aren't you going to clean the blood?"
"Nope. The nurse will do it."
Kim stands there, looking at me. Before I told him that if he was going to look at me so much I would charge him.
"Five euros." I extend my hand that isn't bloody.
He blinks a couple of times.
"Sorry." he apologizes "I made you bleed."
"Well, you know for the next one. When I tell you not to do something, don't do it." Since we're apologizing, I should do it too, right? "I'm sorry too. For my birthday." Certainly not for cheating. "I shouldn't have treated you like this. You are the only one who remembered."
"A lot of that has already happened. No matter."
The atmosphere changes. Like there's not so much tension anymore.
Kim brings a bottle of alcohol and a cotton. He wipes my blood. That hurts even more.
"This has to be done by the nurse."
"But it's my fault." He tries to clean carefully, but his hands are too big to be gentle. "I'm sure I have more scars than you, even if you always wear band-aids on your knees."
"Of course. You're much more stupid than me."
"Do we do a bet?" He asks hopefully.
"There's nothing to bet. We agree that you have more scars than me."
He deflates. That makes me laugh. Since my birthday he hasn't been able to challenge anyone and he's desperate.
Maybe I can use that desperation for something good.
"Well, we can bet: I'm sure that I'll akumatize after you."
He stops cleaning my hand.
"I don't understand you."
"In the deal it wasn't that I couldn't challenge you. Only, that you couldn't the others."
Kim blinks several times and then smiles very happily. There's no arrogance, there's no mockery. Just happiness.
When he smiles like that I don't feel like hitting him.
It make me want to smile too.
But then I remember it's Kim. The 'we're supposed to be half friends but I wanna punch him every time I see him.'
"If you akumatize first, I'll keep your skates."
What an obsession! If they don't even fit him.
"And if you do it... I'll see."
I catch it by the handle. That typical curved handle with awkward grip and too much traction. I make a move to hit the side of my imaginary enemy.
My umbrella slips and flies, ending up dangerously close to the television.
I pick it up and start over. This time, away from the most important appliance in the house.
"Why don't you transform to train?" Fluff asks.
She's been playing with the buttons on the controller for a while. The TV has been off all the time.
She's a bit rare.
"How why?" I look at her and point at her. "Well, so you can teach me how to use an umbrella as a weapon. Kagami couldn't."
She shakes her head smiling.
"I don't know how to use an umbrella as a weapon."
"How can you not know how to use your weapon?" I'm surprised.
"Because it's not my weapon. It is the weapon of my holders."
Her holders. Those who apparently need a psychologist. Holders like me. And all Kubdel.
She reminds me that we have a pending conversion.
"I wanna talk about it."
"About what?"
"You know what I mean." I leave the normal umbrella resting on the sofa and sit down. "Your holders. Why do you have us if your power isn't made for the human mind?"
Fluff turns upside down.
"Without you, my clock would stop."
That metaphor sounds terrifying.
"Why?"
Fluff turns her back to me and sits on the little I-don't-know-where figurine my father put on the coffee table.
"All kwamis need a human soul to live. Over time we have become too weak or uncontrollably strong. Those changes can kill us."
"And what do we have to do?"
She looks at me with both of them narrowed, as if I had interrupted her. I wave my hand for her to continue.
"We control aspects of nature. We are necessary for those aspects to exist, but we are also affected by how they change over time. Since humans have existed, everything has been altered in an extreme way. Those alterations also affect us, therefore, when a kwami looked weaker or stronger than they should, they would anchor to a human object, since it is you who caused it. That balanced the power and the kwami survived."
"Those objects to which they were anchored belonged to a specific human, so they were actually anchored to that person. The object acted as a channel. Union of a kwami with a human soul. One that cannot be broken except by death. Yours, of course. We do not age and we hardly get sick."
That means being a holder is like being married. The old marriage, of course, today's is weak. Although the magical connection is real and Fluff says it's unbreakable.
"Over time, the objects that the kwamis had attached to, which were, in short, the objects that they were actually attached to, ended up being collected in a box. Whoever possesses the miracle can use our power whenever they wants, even against our will. Although that does not mean that whoever uses it is the rightful owner."
They're slaves.
"Does that mean that I'm your 'rightful owner'?"
Fluff nods.
"Being all in the same place, controlled by a single person, a problem was created: What if the guardian, chosen by the previous one, were wrong? Who would fix it if they were locked in the same box?"
"How is it that the kwamis, if they're so old, didn't see the error before?" I ask.
Fluff rubs the top of the figurine.
"They saw it, but they couldn't help it. They needed a human to possess the miracles. Even if they are not the rightful owner, that is, the most suitable, a miracle cannot be abandoned."
"Every kwami had been through that, latching onto a human and ending up in the box, except me. Time is the strongest. The human invasion hadn't affected me yet. So when something catastrophic happened in the 18th century, I was forced to choose a holder before it was my turn. I had to bond despite the fact that my power had not yet been modified by humans and that meant that it was not adapted to your mind. I chose an ancestor of yours."
I remove. What could an ancestor of mine have that the last free kwami would choose her? It doesn't matter, whatever I do, I'll never measure up to her.
I hope Fluff doesn't make comparisons.
"After I fixed it, I stayed out of the box in case it happened again something like that. I would be the emergency kwami and I would always have a human from your family, since the object I chose was hers and became an inheritance. That is why the rest of the kwamis choose unrelated holders while I only have Kubdels. They inherit the guardian and I directly the holders."
A great responsibility was placed upon her. And since it's my kwami, I have it too.
"Then you don't need a holder."
"I didn't, now I do. I'm always connected to someone in your family, but I don't tell them to transform unless there's something to fight and the guardian's miracles can't handle it. My power doesn't affect that much if you look at it that way."
"But could you free yourself and choose someone you like more than me?"
"If we separate from our miracle we die."
Her voice changes from calm to sad. Extremely sad. A kwami had to die that way.
I hold my hand out for Fluff to perch. I'd like to hug her, but she's too small.
"Each kwami controls an aspect of nature. If the kwami disappears, so will that aspect. If I die, you would freeze. Everything would be paralyzed forever." Her tone tries to be less sad.
I caress her head with a finger.
"But there's also Pollen."
She opens her eyes and smiles wistfully.
"Pollen is my opposite. The most powerful aspects of nature have one. For example, creation and destruction." she explains. "Both are contrary but also necessary. They are actually the same. What for something is its end, for another is its beginning. The difference between one idea and another is the point of view: negativity or positivity. The powers belonging to these two kwamis represent two sides of the same coin. That is why by getting together they can fulfill any wish."
Is that what Hawk Moth is looking for? Why is he attacking us? Is his target really me?
"And how they are?" I say instead of all the other questions in my head. Since Fluff can't answer them.
My gaze passes by the clock on the wall. Five minutes to nine. I have an hour to try to learn how to use an umbrella.
"Well, Tikki prefers to focus on the regenerative aspect of creation."
Fluff begins. I get up and she floats around me. "After something is destroyed, with the remains, something new is created. And Plagg is simple." She compares. "His power is the strict word of destruction: take something that exists and separate it, break it, make it impossible for it to be the same again."
I take the umbrella above the handle. I think I'm going to ignore what Kagami said and I'm going to hold it with both hands, even with the wound. I wish Tikki was here, with so much that she likes to regenerate.
But just a moment, I don't feel like having two crazy partners who put mayonnaise on the ice cream and don't tell me. Although, I suppose the kwamis will also have their own personalities.
"We, as ace in the hole, have the role of protecting the rest of the miracles. But above all, protect those two." She continues.
Well that, too much responsibility to give it to a girl who risks an exam for a dare.
I hit the imaginary enemy. This time it doesn't slip.
"If we have that role, why has the guardian assigned me two partners?"
A question I have had since day one. I'd like to know what the people above me think.
"It is true that he has risked a lot," she excuses him "but he was not able to leave you alone fighting Hawk Moth. He is not heartless. Also, he chose very well. He knew who were the most prepared to be your partners."
I guess that's a good answer.
I think of my imaginary enemy. Until now, Kagami as Ryuko has trained me and I have tried to fight following very strict rules.
Now I try to move a little more freely and I think I'm doing better.
"Did you hear what the psychologist said today?"
Fluffy nods.
"And do you think that being gifted will help me in all this being Bunnyx?"
"No. All of you in the Kubdel family are. Compared to your ancestors, you are one of the worst holders. At least, with the little you've done so far."
Did she just call me lazy? She just called me lazy.
"Thanks. That's how the mood rises!" I exclaim sarcastically.
She circles around my head.
"Thanks!" Surround sound is what they call it, right? "Can I bite the TV remote? Its buttons are very soft."
"No."