A/N: Thanks to Katherine.
People look at me. Wait for my reaction. I am aware of it. I am aware that anger is born in my chest. An emotion that I must know how to control, because my mother has taught me to do so. Alix and Chloe hold my hands, giving me the only support I have right now.
What I can do? Telling the teachers will make me look like a coward and they will get even more cruel to me. Answering for myself will show me as a violent person, agreeing with them.
A legion of onlookers approaches to see what is on the table better. Some walk away in fear of reprisals, but others stay, mocking me.
A girl's laugh catches my eye as it sounds like she is related.
"How well done! It looks like something out of an anime. Do you get it?"
Because I am Japanese they have noticed the animes. Of course, if they believe her it is because they are simple as few things. Or her intention was to laugh at me because of my origin.
"She deserves it, for hurting Marinette." answers a boy.
If I deserve this for telling her I do not want anything to do with her, what does she deserve for making Rose lock me in a dark basement?
After that we had to make a protection in the form of a bracelet. It will work?
"Do you have something to do with it?" Alix asks.
"Where do you get that from? Your hate blinds you."
Her tone makes me look at her. She is smiling. It has been her. I have no proof, but I know.
I pull my friends to sit down and do the same. I let go of their hands. It is written with a marker, so I have to check if it is indelible or can be erased.
But running a finger over the words does not stain it. I will need to bring some cleaning product tomorrow.
I take a deep breath once. It will be enough. If I get angry at the slightest provocation, I am not a Tsurugi.
They all start talking about me, criticizing me, I can hear them. They completely believe that we are blinded by hate. Someone has put that stupid idea into their heads.
I take out my books and put them on top. That is it. Out of sight, out of mind. That is what they say. I grab my planner and start writing anything, the first thing that comes to my mind. And before I know it, Iam in the middle of a response plan. A vengeful and violent plan.
I am not so. Why have I written it?
"What's that?"
Adrien's voice pulls me out of my internal fight.
I look up and meet his worried eyes. That look does something to my heart.
"It is no big deal. Nothing worth my attention."
I realize he is not the only one watching me. My friends do it, and so does Kim.
"I'll talk to Marinette. I don't know what's going on between you, but..." His eyes stop pointing at me for a moment and go to Chloe. "Or better I don't. I shouldn't get in." He says without taking his eyes off her.
He sits in front of the girl. He has changed seats.
He is right. He should not interfere. The problem they have with me is with me and I should be the one to take care of it.
"What?" exclaims Kim. "That's a lie. If that were true, she would have threatened Alya. Or she would have hit me."
Alix tries to shut him up and they start to murmur. About me I think.
I wait to see Marinette enter, her reaction, if she scolds the girl, even if it is just for putting on an appearance, but she arrives when class has already started, which makes it difficult for me to observe her reaction. I cannlt tell if she is involved.
She sits two seats down from Adrien, now that they have both swapped places with their friends. She keeps looking at both of us throughout the class, just like he does with me. I stay focused on the lesson all the time, in order to avoid thinking about what is under my books.
At lunchtime, the blonde decides to come with the three of us, so any conversation about Hawk Moth is strictly prohibited.
We sit on a bench near the stairs. People watch me.
The rumors must have spread throughout the school.
Once again, I try to stay cool. What others think should not affect me.
A hand grabs mine. The girls have done it before, so it would not be strange if they did it again. But it is not the girls, it is Adrien.
He looks at everyone with his head held high, as if to show that he does not regret choosing my side. He does not let go of my hand as he looks in his bag of groceries and winces.
"What is happening?" I ask. I try to open my bento with one hand, but it is impossible. I just drop it.
"You know I'm a model, right?"
The whole school knows it. It is hard not to when his face is on huge billboards.
"The fall collection comes out this month, so I have to be "in shape". Which means I'm only going to eat vegetables this week."
Chloe nods happily.
"Lucky! My father forces me to eat a lot."
It is not possible that her father forces her to eat a lot if she is so skinny.
"Chloe..." he says in a strange tone.
"I'm in my recommended weight, I swear."
Is it okay for her to say those things in front of Alix? She is…eating her sandwich in silence and staring at Kim and her girlfriend. Well.
"I do not understand why your father wants you to do this diet to be fit, you already are."
Adrien smiles at me in a way similar to how Kim does.
"So you think?"
But the feeling he gives is very different from any of the other boy's smiles.
"Of course. You practice various sports on a regular basis. Fencing, karate, and at home you have sports facilities. To be able to perform that amount of exercise, you need a complete diet. Your father is wrong."
The boy puts on a very fake smile. I can recognize it.
"It would not be the first time."
He has changed his tone when he speaks, although I do not understand exactly what he means.
It may be the awareness that his own father is exploiting him. I do not like that man, since the first time I saw him. I had that feeling, and now it is confirmed. He does not care that his son may have health problems.
I see him look at my food. Maybe he wants me to give him something, so I grab a piece of meat with my chopsticks and holds it up to his face. The boy's eyes widen and his cheeks turn red. Why?
Oh! It is because I im feeding it. I had not thought of it. Once again, I have acted on impulse.
I am about to take it back when he eats it. I am going to have to keep eating with these same chopsticks. I curse myself and my habit of not thinking. This is too embarrassing.
"That uncomfortable!" The voice that spoke is Alix's.
She has snapped out of her observation trance only to make an inappropriate and completely true comment.
She is right. It is awkward and I avoid looking at Adrien as much as possible.
While eating, I have the feeling that someone is watching me. But I do not see anyone.
It must be because of this morning. People like to judge a lot.
Chloe breaks the silence, ignoring what has happened earlier.
"You know what? The day before yesterday I bought myself a new bag..."
She makes a presentation about designer handbags that I do not quite listen to and she starts a debate with Adrien.
I have to answer to bullies. They should know that a Tsurugi is not one to mess with. I need to think about how to do it.
"Whatever it is, don't think about it anymore. You'll fix it later. It's my personal philosophy: put it aside until you can't longer avoid it. Let it be your future self's problem."
The comment makes me look directly at her. Alix is very observant and she is able to understand people without saying anything. I should ask for her advice, though also keep in mind that she might cross the line. Her ideas can become too aggressive.
She says not to think about it anymore. I will ot listen to her, if I pretend it does not exist, It will get worse.
"Try to calm down, Kagami-san. You need to focus to get more control over your powers."
I think of my whole body, I have to think of each and every part.
"Would not it be better to do it transformed?"
I usually practice my control over dragons like Ryuko. Being just Kagami is of no use.
"I do not want you to do it now. Transforming with strong negative emotions deals damage to the holder."
What? He had not told me that. It is something really important that he should have explained to me on the first day.
I am annoyed.
"Yes, better not transform now. Besides, Mr. D'Argencourt will be here soon."
Longg does not seem to realize what I mean.
We have decided, or at least my mother, that the classes will be at home. I think she wants to keep an eye on me or insure me like she was not last year.
I hear a knock on the door and my mother receives the teacher.
I tell Longg to stay in my room and we have the class in another one that my mother has prepared.
I am a little tired when we finish and I sweat more than usual.
"You've fallen a bit, Tsurugi." points out D'Argencourt, suddenly.
It is possible. In summer there have been very few akumas. If Alix's theory is true, the reason is to have time for planning it. Either way, the results are that I have not practiced as much as I should have, focusing more on my dragons.
"When is the next lesson?"
If I have declined I have to return to how I was as soon as possible.
"On Friday. You should have time to study, rest,... As much as last year, even if your mother didn't know it."
What? What does that mean? Does he know that I used his classes as a cover to spend time with my friends?
"What does you mean?"
"Don't play innocent. Your mother told me that we had class every day. Lucky for you, I don't want to lose you as a student, or the money your mom is going to pay me, so I've got you covered."
Wow, how kind is Mr. D'Argencourt. I knew that there were still selfless people out there who help others for the sake of helping. Well, partially disinterested.
"But you owe me one and I'm going to collect it now."
Or not. He is completely interested. His akuma's lack of honor must reflect the true person of him.
"The vacancy that I have left has already been covered. It hasn't been easy, because who is going to want to work at the akuma school? Those of us who were already there have gotten used to it, but what about the rest? If the professor who has replaced me is dismissed, I will be able to return, since I am the only candidate."
How low! I did not expect something like that from him. Being willing to take someone else's job... A seemingly very desperate person.
"I want you to uncover it."
One moment. What does that mean? Uncover what?
"You don't know what I'm talking about, do you? You will find out soon. There's a reason he's so desperate to be a teacher, and it's not a lack of money."
D'Argencourt leaves without commenting further on the subject. Talk to my mother says the payment very calmly, as if this conversation had not existed.
I take a shower and decide to search the Internet. It is possible that I will find some information of him.
First I locate the teacher's name on the school page. Being the akuma school, there is a lot of information and much more detailed than any other.
His name is Charles Raymond Martin and searching for his name on the Internet does not turn up anything particularly striking. It seems strange to me considering what my teacher has said.
If it is something they could throw you out for, it must be very serious.
I go back to look for his name and add "crime" to it. Nothing new.
"And if you look for his employment history?" suggests Longg.
He has kept something important from me and I am upset about it, but I cannot be a little girl.
"I had not thought about it, but do you think it will be within the reach of..."
"Is that an akuma?" interrupts the kwami.
I look up from my computer and lean out the window, as does he. There in the distance there is a person flying, a person in black and white.
"It is an akuma."
Longg looks at me suspiciously.
"How do you feel?"
"That does not matter, I will do my duty."
Locating it has not been difficult, I could see it from my house.
I see Bunnyx dodging what the akuma throws at her, apparently paper planes.
"What do you know?" I ask, getting into the fight and dividing the boy's attention in two.
"That is Marc, that quiet boy who sits at the back of the class and who was Nath. I was talking on the phone with him when it came on TV."
The boy flies very high and we cannot reach him like this. But if I turn into a wind dragon, I could defeat him even before Queen Bee arrives.
"Anything else?"
"His powers or weaknesses, no."
I call the dragon. I have already managed to barely need a little voice to do it.
In this form I only have the sense of touch. I feel the ground that was under my feet, so I only move away to ascend and get closer to it. Something passes through me, but I do not pay attention to it, it will be just a bird, and I keep going up, but I do not reach him. He has left.
I go down and return to my human form. One less dragon.
"Oh!" Bunnyx shouts.
I look at her, she seems fine. I look around me, nothing particularly alarming is happening.
"What is happening?"
"Where did you come from?"
What? Has she Lost her memory? Is that what the akuma does?
"I have become a wind dragon in front of you. You do not remember?"
"No, just that you disappeared."
This is very strange.
"Do you know who I am?"
I take a step towards her and the next thing I see is the ground. I fell.
"There it goes! Are you alright Ka..."
I hiss at her. What does she do?
She comes to my aid to get up and I lean on her.
"No "Ka". I am Ryuko."
She stares at me for a few seconds, blinking.
"Ah, right, right."
A series of footsteps rush towards us. Hopefully, it is Queen Bee and she has not been affected by the akuma yet.
"What's going on here? Why are you still? And the akuma?"
Her eyes flick from one to the other.
"Seriously, what's up?"
I look at Bunnyx completely blank and see that I have to be the one to explain it to her.
"The akuma has affected us, I think. I am clumsy and she is a little... distracted."
"So only I am useful right now. It won't be easy to reach him, but I'll have to use the poison. By the way, do you know who he is?" She says, getting closer to us.
"Marc, he sits at the back of the class." I whisper. There are some people sheltering in a nearby cafeteria.
Her expression of annoyance changes to one of anger, I think.
"I know who he is. He spends his time looking at Nathanael. I alone will take care of him."
Or she is jealous.
"Where did he go? I can't let you two drag me down."
I point in the direction. Bunnyx could not even if she wanted to, now she looks at us as if she does not know what we are talking about.
"Are you sure you will be able to?"
"Of course I do, I'm Queen Bee."
She leaves in a hurry.
"Let's follow her, in case she needs our help."
I let go of her. Maybe I just fell and it is not an akuma thing. But I only take two steps before I stagger. Luckily Bunnyx reacts quickly and grabs me again.
"Follow who?" She asks.
I sigh. This is not going to be easy.
"Queen Bee."
She nods as if she understands. I hope so.
With difficulty, we follow the path that our partner did before.
The place where they are fighting is empty of civilians, as usual every time there is an akuma nearby. The people who decided not to move from the city have already gotten used to it.
We see her try to catch the giant paper plane that he flies around with, to no avail.
She jumps from the rooftops, also to no avail.
She insults him, so that he gets offended and goes down. It does not work.
We cannot reach it, it is a flying akuma. The last time we had one, I launched Bunnyx at it using the sword as a catapult. Now I would not be able to do something like that.
But Queen Bee does.
I call out to her because I cannot move, which is a mistake, because she gets distracted from and the akuma hits her.
I do not know what the effect on her is, however, she stops fighting right then and there and runs in our direction. She may want to know what I am going to tell her.
To my surprise, she opens her arms and gives each of us a hug.
"Oh, and the akuma?"
"I don't want to fight him." She says with a smile.
"What?" I ask, stunned.
"We have to love each other more and hate each other less."
This cannot be happening. The only one of the three who can confront him does not want to. A moment ago, she was wanting it and now I have to convince her. Nevertheless, I intend to try the plan I have thought of.
"Love. Surely you want to give it to the akuma too."
"Yes. If he had love he would not have become akumatized."
That way of thinking is very unlike Chloe. The akuma is half white and half black, which are opposite colors. It is possible that what this akuma does is choose one of our characteristics and change it for its opposite.
I am going to follow the flow. Maybe that is how I will get her to carry out my plan.
"Well, let's go for him!"
He is right there, he has not moved.
The bee nods, while Bunnyx remains confused.
"Are we going to play tag?"
She is completely stupid!
"No. Have not you heard anything I have said?"
"Let's give him love!" sings Queen Bee.
Even though it is hard to deal with, I would love to see her edge personality come back.
"Sex? But he's not my type."
Agh damn it! My patience has run out with this sea bream conversation. I cannot anymore.
"Shut up both of you and do what I tell you!"
Today has done everything possible to push me to the limit and it has succeeded.
"But…" Queen Bee begins to protest.
"No buts! You shut up or you lose my friendship forever."
It is just a threat, yet it works on her and she obeys me.
"Good. Take my sword." I order.
The girl holding me lets go for a moment and reaches for the sword.
"You not."
The bee grabs the sword and, with my indications, she is placed in the position that I remember from Dark Cupid.
"Now you." I point at her. "You put yourself in the lead. She is going to throw you, and you are going to pull the akuma to the ground, so we can catch up, okay?"
The akuma has moved closer to us and now he smirks. He has disabled us and revels in his victory.
It will not happen.
Queen Bee catapults Bunnyx in his direction. As she is getting closer, the akuma rises higher and Bunnyx passes below.
I had not thought of it.
I have to make him want to come down. And I think I know how.
"Where is Nathanael?" I ask in a low enough voice so that the akuma cannot hear me but my partners do.
"At the Louvre." Bunnyx answers almost instantly.
I order them to go to the museum, one of them very confused and the other extremely excited.
"What work was hecopying?"
Because I am sure he was copying one. He is a illustrator, he would not come here just to see.
"The love of Psyche."
The Louvre is impressive. I have been here before, although that does not prevent me from being amazed by the beauty of the works.
The museum is very empty, because of the Hawk Moth attacks. He has caused many people to flee the city and far fewer tourists to come.
Being so empty, we found the room quickly.
The moment we set foot in the room, Queen Bee runs towards the young painter. I know what she is going to do and it is a horrible idea she will regret later.
"Bunnyx, stop her." I order.
The rabbit ceases to be my support, leaving me standing in the room unable to move, and she stands between the crazy love girl and her love interst.
"Oh! What are you doing?"
"I don't know. Ryuko has sent it."
I try to take a step again, falling to the ground as a consequence, so instead of walking, I crawl towards them.
"It is for your own good." I answer my partner.
Nathanael runs his eyes over each of us in complete bewilderment.
"What's happening here?"
"I wanted to kiss you." answers Queen Bee calmly.
That does not help.
The boy blushes profusely. He is now distracted.
"Do not listen to her, she is not right in the head. Listen to me, I need your help."
The boy hesitates for a moment before kneeling in front of me.
"An akuma has done this to us. I cannot move without falling to the ground, Bunnyx has become a fool and Queen Bee is much more affectionate than usual. So I cannot fight the akuma, Bunnyx cannot think of a strategy and Queen Bee does not want to. Bunnyx told me earlier that you caused the akuma and I thought you could bait it ashore. We will take care of the rest."
Nathanael thinks for a moment before nodding.
As the young man and I leave the building, I have the girls lure the akuma.
"You have to provoke him, that he wants to get closer to you. Dodge the paper planes, we do not know who you could become. When you have him close you have to grab him, so he does not run away. He is shorter and skinnier than you, you should not have a problem."
"But the akumas have supernatural strength."
Is right. He could not hold him. Although Queen Bee does.
"It is true. Do not do that part, just everything else."
We are outside the building, where the other three are already.
Nathanael yells something about tearing up notebooks, causing Marc to send him a paper airplane, hitting him squarely. I look around to make sure no one can testify that we have let an akuma affect a civilian and relax a bit when I see we are alone.
The result of the black magic on the redhead is that he becomes more confident, to the point of challenging him to a fight, thinking that he will win. That way he gets what he wants and Marc goes down to the street.
At this moment, my two partnets land next to me, waiting for further directions.
I order Queen Bee to activate the poison in her spinning top and give it to Bunnyx. Then I tell her that I am allowing her to hug the akuma and she does so enthusiastically. Finally, I command the rabbit to hit him with the top, which paralyzes him and allows me to think about what the akumatized object is.
Taking into account that he does not have any accessories and that the paper planes appear out of nowhere, the butterfly is in the giant plane. And I am right.
On the way back home I pass near the school and an idea occurs to me. It is more of an impulse than an idea, and not a particularly good one, but I am angry and I think it is the response I am going to give to what Marinette and her supporters are doing to me.
It is completely dark now, so sneaking into the building is relatively easy for me.
I sm not going to continue the vengeful and violent plan I thought of this morning, instead I will make another plan just as vengeful and violent, although less revealing than the original.
I go into the locker room and look for the locker that I saw the girl who made fun of me open earlier.
I place a hand on the metal door and mutter:
"Lightning Dragon."
My whole body turns into lightning and as it touches metal, it is attracted by the material, allowing my lightning to enter the small space where Mariè has indeed kept things. I touch it all, making sure to burn it, exit and return to my human form.
A small fire has started inside the locker, with smoke coming out of it. Before it reaches the fire detectors, I climb onto the object and summon my water dragon. I make sure to get in through the cracks.
Despite being an electrical fire, I am able to put it out, since it was not caused by an electrical object, but by lightning, and things that are burning are not difficult for water to penetrate.
I head out again, a little tired and knowing that I only have five minutes to get home, but satisfied.
I get home just in time. Longg looks at me with disappointment.
"How could you do something like that?"
A/N: 1 This name is invented and is not intended to reflect any real person in particular.
2 I do not know to what extent what I have put here is real. I have searched a bit and I have not found a case similar to this on the Internet. The fire is supposed to be able to use the oxygen in the water, but it's not clear to me if that depends on the object that's burning.