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The last thing Fu expected from what had been a rather quiet day of playing Exotic Guru to exhausted Parisians was to find Sabine Cheng in his waiting room.

"Madame... Cheng, is it still?" he asked, and the woman stood, tension in the set of shoulders that had softened with age and motherhood.  Her hair was far shorter than it had been the last time they'd met, her face starting to line with years of joys instead of grief, apparent even under the polite calm plastered over her expression.  "You look well."

She huffed in very slight amusement. "You look exactly the same," she replied.

... Well.  If he'd ever thought to see Sabine again, he wouldn't have expected compliments anyway.  Fu waved her into his consultation room, letting her have her pick of the antique lacquered chairs scattered about as he poured tea.

She'd liked jasmine as a child.  Hopefully she still did.

Sabine stopped picking at the cuffs of her lavender cardigan when he set the cup before her.  "Thank you," she murmured, lifting the cup, only to blink rapidly at the scent and set it back down without taking a sip.

Fu let that slight to his hospitality go.  Taking the chair across from her, he ignored his own tea as well.  "Now," he said, skipping the extended pleasantries, "what can I do for you today, Madame Cheng?"  Instead of answering, she merely rolled up her sleeves and held out her arms, palms up.  Her bare forearms were streaked with angry, swollen red patches, blisters both clear and blood-black starting to rise on the delicate undersides.  More red was creeping down onto her palms, and up under the elbow sleeves of her qipao.  "... Good gracious ," Fu said, rather than curse in shock as he would've liked.

"Why is there foreign magic on my daughter, Fu?" she asked flatly.

"I have no idea," he answered, ducking to peer-- yes, yes that was more redness under her chin, very faint and powdery from makeup concealing most of it.  No doubt there was stronger makeup on Sabine's face.  "I hope you took some medicine for that before coming.  An epi-pen, possibly.  A magic allergy is nothing to take lightly," he scolded.  Did he even have all the ingredients for a poultice if she hadn't taken Western medicine before coming?  He was running low on ginseng... and he should be paying attention.  "Pardon, could you repeat that?  I was considering the poultice you'll need."

"I said ," Sabine repeated sharply, "haven't you been keeping an eye on her?"

Fu stared.  "... Madame Cheng, I assure you, I haven't been watching you or your family since you returned the ring.  I wouldn't ," he added, as she gaped at him.  "That's just-- Madame , what do you think I am ?"

"... You don't know," Sabine said.  Then she said something quite foul in Chinese.  "You didn't even notice you gave the earrings to my daughter. "

Fu had the sinking feeling he'd screwed up very, very badly here.

Sabine exhaled through her teeth.  "I did not come here for a poultice, Fu.  Though I would greatly appreciate one before I leave."  She folded her hands together, wincing as one of the blisters near her wrist stretched into greater relief.  "I came to ask if and what you are doing about the hostile foreign magic trying to influence Ladybug ."

Oh .  Fu could feel the blood drain from his face.  He looked at the phonograph hiding the Miracle Box, meeting Wayzz' horrified eyes peeping out of the polished horn.

"Master," Wayzz said, his voice tiny even amplified by the horn.

"... I know, Wayzz," Fu replied heavily.  As bluntly as Sabine had put it, there was only one option.  If it could work at all.  The chances were always so low... that was why Fu had gone straight to putting Tikki and Plagg into play.

Maybe he should've tried anyway.

He gently removed the box from its housing, and set it onto the table between their untouched teacups.  The seven compartments in the top hurt, sometimes, seeing the faint, empty imprints on the velvet linings.  The missing Peacock, the missing and suborned Butterfly... the poor Bee, alone again, but Mlle. Bourgeois was just too much of a risk with her ingrained behaviors... and Tikki and Plagg had been pulled from their mourning so early.

Nineteen compartments.  The yin-yang.  The five elements.  The twelve zodiac.

Magic didn't like the higher prime numbers.  Not enough balance.  Not enough foundation.

He pushed at red and white embroidery on black and silvery velvet, and something deep at the base of the box clicked.  The cylinder compartment came loose.  Fu lifted it carefully from the center of the box, tipped it horizontal, and twisted.

The cylinder came apart into three sections.

What had been the bottom section rolled onto its flat base, revealing the inside was clear crystal carved roughly into a cup.  The two top sections, one topped with Ladybug's black velvet and the other with Chat's silver, fell into Fu's hands to show identical little piles of filigree: one silver, and one gold, square panels still threaded onto white silk ribbons.

"What are those?" Sabine asked softly, as he pulled the silver one free.  It dangled from his hand, a length of ribbon and silver far too long to be used as a bracelet or choker.  The center panel came to a sharp point rather than being square, and held a round white cat's-eye stone.

"Diadems," Fu answered, letting the ribbon and metal pool around the cup.  "I had hoped to never need them," he continued.  "Their power is... not particularly compatible with humans."

Sabine's eyebrows rose.  "And the cup?"

Fu sighed.  "We shall see if it's of any use at all.  Excuse me, this won't work with tea."  By the time he returned with a bottle of red wine, Sabine had coaxed Wayzz out of the phonograph.  He'd brought her a roll of bandages and a tube of plain ointment, which she was using liberally on her arms while he drank her tea.  The shine in her eyes as she watched the kwami hurt.

"It's traditional to share the wine if the cup takes any of it," Fu said, putting wine glasses and a thimble down.  "If it doesn't..."

He didn't know.  Surely there had to be something the Guardians had done, if there was no one compatible with the diadems.  If the Miraculous holders were being targeted.  But this was the only option he knew.

Fu uncorked the wine with a little pop, thought a quick prayer that it would work, and poured.

The crystal cup sucked the wine in, slowly turning blood-red.  Sabine and Wayzz's eyes flew wide, and Fu nearly dropped the bottle.  But he kept pouring, and pouring, until the crystal had turned solid garnet and filled to the brim with unnaturally smooth wine.

Hand shaking, Fu poured the rest of the bottle into the glasses.  There was just enough left for each of them to have a mouthful, including three drops for Wayzz' thimble.

"And now... we watch.  And wait," Fu murmured.

-0-0-0

It'd been raining for the last several days, and Marinette was for once running early.  This wasn't by choice: her mother had gotten a nasty burn, or some sort of allergic reaction -- Marinette wasn't too clear on exactly what happened -- and had been laid up and unable to help much in the bakery since Monday.  Her arms couldn't handle the pressure or the heat.  So Marinette set aside her projects, got a homework deferral (she was not looking forward to having to catch up), and was up at 4 am with her father to help carry trays and fill the display cases.

It wasn't the first time it'd had to happen.  It seemed to be hitting harder this year, though: Marinette was so exhausted it hurt .

Worse, though, was hearing Lila at school.  Unlike the usual over-the-top stories that somebody should have bothered to Google weeks ago , this was... quieter.  Worryingly so.  Marinette had caught the word 'contagious' yesterday, in a sickly-sweet whine that almost, if you metaphorically squinted, might sound concerned.

Something about that wasn't right.  Being sick was something people would sympathize with Marinette about, right?  Lila had to be coming up with something much worse.  But what?  And what could she do about it?

Cold rainwater splashed over her shoes as she ran through the puddle blocking the school gate, and a gust of wind knocked her umbrella off-kilter.  Something flashed white on the roof, but when Marinette looked up it was gone.

Marinette's purse clicked, but didn't open after an aborted attempt probably got Tikki rained on.  "What is it, Marinette?" Tikki asked quietly.

"I thought I saw something," she answered, just as quietly.  "It was nothing.  Just a trick of the light."  And she headed into the nice dry school.

Lila was holding court in the locker room.  Marinette promptly changed course and headed for the farthest bathroom from her class, upstairs on the other side of the building and courtyard.  Maybe she could just.  Hide here until the bell.  Sign in at the office once she had her breathing under control again so that she ultimately wasn't marked as late, then hide here til the bell.

This particular bathroom had been some other kind of room when the school was built.  So instead of having the tiny, high windows the other bathrooms had, this one had a set of normal windows overlooking the courtyard, large enough that the farthest stall overlapped the corner of them.  Someone had long since covered the bottom pane of the window with cheap textured plastic for privacy, but only the bottom pane, and the plastic was peeling and chipped anyway.

Marinette locked the stall door, then set her backpack, purse, and wet umbrella on the sill.  She exhaled shakily and let her head fall against the cool glass.

Tiny arms hugged her fingers, curled loosely on the sill.  "Marinette?" Tikki asked.

"I'm so tired , Tikki."

"It's only a few more days," Tikki said encouragingly.  "Your mother will be back to work in no time!"

That really wasn't what Marinette had meant.  But Tikki was trying , at least.

She scratched the little kwami's head and watched the courtyard slowly fill with other students.  Her eyes felt hot, and sometimes her vision wavered with tears that she blinked away.  Little clusters of kids milled around, grouping and dispersing and grouping again.  Students in raincoats, under umbrellas, in ponchos, in hats and jackets... she couldn't identify them without trying, for the most part, and so she didn't.

Slowly, slowly, the courtyard drained.  The sounds of people inside the school increased, shouting and laughter, talking and footsteps and occasional exuberant thumps muffled by the bathroom door.  Marinette tensed, breath hitching, every time the door opened, but the voices were always of girls she didn't know, and they did their business and left without noticing her stall was occupied at all.

One of the last students to run through the courtyard was Adrien.  Even in a perfectly-tailored, long white raincoat that looked like it'd come from the Matrix or a video game, his beautiful hair covered by a matching fedora -- an actual fedora, not the narrower-brimmed trilby that creeps online had appropriated and called a fedora -- she could recognize him.  It was the way her heart warmed at the sight.  His body language.  His stature.  The fact that he was clearly dressed by a style mogul instead of himself.

She wiped her eyes, reminding herself to fix her makeup, and watched Adrien hurry away into the locker room.

Adrien was punctual.  His arrival was basically a five-minute warning.  She should have just enough time to register her attendance at the office and put her things away in her locker--

A second white figure moved in the empty courtyard.

Marinette went very, very still.

The new person was a slim man in a super suit more like Chat's than her own.  Silver glinted as he walked, in accents around the construction and a subtle sheen in the fabric, inlaid in curving lines on a full face mask carved to vaguely resemble a flattened Chinese dragon or lion, and a silver circlet around his hooded head.

Tikki's arms clamped down around Marinette's finger.  " Don't transform! " the kwami all but shrieked.

Marinette choked on the intention that she had yet to voice.

"That's Kirin that's Kirin it's a Miraculous if you transform anyone will be able to identify you ."

" What?! "

-0-0-0

In the locker room, Plagg's tail lashed across Adrien's nose, the kwami snickering from where he was plastered across Adrien's mouth.  "He's not here for me this time!"  The kwami cackled.  "This is gonna be hilarious ."

"Mmph!"

"Just get to the classroom and play dumb," Plagg said gleefully.  "And don't transform."

" Mmrph !"

-0-0-0

Marinette had completely forgotten her plan to go to the office for attendance and show up late to class.  She skidded into the classroom with seconds to spare.  It took two of those seconds to realize that everybody was staring, and another couple to remember her ruined makeup and how utterly frazzled and panicked she must look.

"Marinette?" Lila asked, poisonously sweet.  Marinette flinched, and Lila's eyes glittered behind a painfully fake mask of concern.  "Are you all right?  You seem... twitchy ."

Ugh, now what was Lila trying to-- 

Something heavy knocked into Marinette from behind, sending her stumbling all tangled up with the umbrella and backpack she'd forgotten to put in her locker.  That same something caught her before she could break her nose on the floor, though her tablet went skidding free and under the teacher's desk.

"Whoa!" Adrien said.  Marinette's squeak died a horrible death in her throat.  "Sorry, Marinette," he added as he pulled them both back to their feet.  "Am I late?  I'm not late, I made it--" the bell rang.

Mme. Bustier smiled tiredly at them.  "Take your seats, Marinette, Adrien," she said.  Adrien brushed past Marinette, getting another failed squeak, as Mme. Bustier bent to pick up Marinette's tablet.  "Do consider keeping your backpack fully zipped, Marinette," the teacher said, not unkindly, as she handed it back over.  "Nothing seems to be broken this time, luckily!"

"Yeah," Marinette echoed, taking the tablet.  "Lucky."

One good thing about her seat in the back of the class.  No one, except possibly Mme. Bustier, who was focused on the lecture anyway, could see her tucked in on herself and trembling.

She couldn't transform.

She couldn't transform .

If there was an akuma at all before that Kirin guy left, the city would be toast and everyone would know it was Ladybug's fault .

Why was he here anyway?!

And Chat didn't know , and he would get caught , and he'd blame Ladybug for not warning him and then Chat Blanc would happen and the entire world and the moon would be destroyed and how was Marinette supposed to have prevented this timeline, Bunnyx?!

"Oh," said a deep, unfamiliar voice with a strange accent.  "Now this is interesting."

Marinette's head snapped up to find Kirin, demonic mask grinning, leaning in her classroom doorway.

(She couldn't see his eyes through the depth of the eyeholes.  She knew he was looking straight at her anyway. )

Most of the class bolted for the windows, ignoring the fact that they were on the second story and the windows were safety-locked anyway.

"I'm not here to hurt you," Kirin said hastily, eyeing those few who hadn't gone for the windows.  Marinette herself, Adrien... and Alya, phone up and expression eager.  "Mlle. Cesaire, I presume?  I do hope that's a livestream.  It will be most ideal."

Alya made a soft sound of delight.  "It is now!"  Several phones in the class buzzed, including Marinette's own in her purse.  "For our viewers at home, this is your favorite Ladyblogger, Alya Cesaire, coming to you live from my classroom, where a mysterious man in white has just interrupted my class!  Hello, mystery possibly-a-superhero-or-akuma!"

"Hello, internet," the man replied with slightly confused amusement.  "Allow me to introduce myself."  He bowed shallowly, very like a Westerner attempting a Hollywood-Asian bow.  "I may be called Kirin, current holder of the Miraculous known by far too many names, including qilin, xiezhi, sinyou, and," he sighed, "unicorn."

"A new Miraculous!" Alya crowed, very nearly covering the sound of a horrified gasp from somewhere among their classmates.

"Shall I show you how it works?" Kirin asked.  It turned out to be a rhetorical question: he raised one cupped hand, and " Guiding Light ," formed a ball of softly-glowing white mist.  "This Miraculous lets me see things very differently from normal while I'm transformed."  And he tossed the mist into the room, where it seemed to explode into a vast network of not-quite-webbing.

Marinette jerked away, but there was no escape: the light covered her and formed into a tangled net hovering over her skin.  A thick mat twisted around her wrists and enveloped her hands, stiffening them; more of it actually touched her in a cool, ragged patch over her throat and chin, trailing tendrils across her mouth.

"This is what this class looks like to me," Kirin said softly, somehow cutting under the muted sounds of disgust from the rest of the students.  "Ladybug holds the Miraculous of Creation; Chat Noir that of Destruction.  I have the Miraculous of Truth," he explained, "and all of this?  Is magically-enforced lies ."

"How can we believe that?" Lila managed to say, breathless and shrill.  "You could be anything!  You're just another akuma!"

A strand of mist, hair-thin and only visible by its glow, flung itself at Kirin only to fall short.  It drifted uselessly to the floor and vanished.

"Ah.  There you are."

Marinette couldn't move.  Why couldn't she move?!  Alya could move, twisting slowly so her camera could follow Kirin crossing the room.  (Though Marinette wasn't entirely sure Alya was moving of her own accord.  The faintly glowing strands cocooning her seemed to be buried in her, glints of ember-red near the tips of her fingers and in the lines of tendons across the backs of her hands, branching patterns around her eyes like in that one anime with the orange ninja.)  Adrien... Adrien could move a bit, visibly struggling against the webbing curled around him the same way it covered Marinette: most of it barely touching, wide mats over his hands and wrists, even more on his throat than Marinette could feel on hers.

"Stop," he managed to croak, eyes huge and white with panic.  "You'll akumatize her--!"

"Will I?" Kirin asked mildly, pulling Lila out of the frozen crowd by a deceptively gentle pull on her shoulder.  When she came free, it was obvious that she was the source of the glowing strands.  She was almost entirely web-free, stiff with horror by some other mechanism entirely: the only mist clinging to her dripped from her mouth.  "Will I actually get you akumatized, mademoiselle?  More to the point, would it be at all effective?"  He waited a beat.  "I asked you a question, Volpina.  Do you truly think Papillon will waste his time akumatizing you, a girl whose akuma forms can only cast illusions, against me ?"

Slowly, stricken, Lila shook her head.

"I appreciate your honesty," Kirin told her.  "Let's try another question.  What is your name?"  No answer.  "I have over a dozen people right here to answer if you don't."  Still no answer.

"It's Lila!" Rose gasped from the crowd.  "Lila Rossi!  Please stop, you're scaring her!"

"Sadly, I'm well aware of that," Kirin replied.  "Though I don't think she's afraid for the reasons you think she is."  He studied her pale face for a long moment.  "What is the reason for all these lies, Mlle. Rossi?"

Lila shook her head in denial, tears welling up.

"I don't care if it's petty.  But if it wasn't suspiciously criminal, I wouldn't be here." Kirin's hand tightened on her shoulder.  "You have a chance to get yourself out of a very dangerous position here.  All you have to do is tell me.  What is the reason for telling all these magically-enforced lies?"

Lila trembled for a long moment, whimpered... and lunged for the diadem.

Kirin slammed her backwards onto a desk, one hand pinning her by the throat and the other bruisingly tight on both wrists, pinning them to her chest.  

"Try again.  Perhaps with an answer this time," he told her dryly.

She choked.  Kirin didn't move, letting her cough and gasp, legs kicking uselessly and body curling with the strength of each cough.

"The living embodiment of truth is touching your bare skin, Mlle. Rossi," Kirin said when she was down to tear-streaked wheezing.  "Lying is not going to work ."  Lila began to cry.  "Just tell us why you're casting magic on your classmates and this will all be over."

Nothing.

"You are trying my patience, Mlle. Rossi.  If you did not know you were, just say so.  If you can't control it, just say so.  I have met people who can't control their magic.  It's forgivable."  Still no answer.  Just Lila's suspiciously dramatic sobbing.

Kirin sighed.  He adjusted his stance minutely, and the tension in the room strengthened.

And strengthened.

Within less than a minute, Marinette could feel the urge to say something, anything , squeezing out under the pressure.  Her love for Adrien.  The scarf he thought his father made.  How infuriating Alya's refusal to even Google Lila was.

Not Ladybug not Ladybug not Ladybug

And that was just the splashover .  All of that pressure was focused on Lila, hyperventilating under Kirin's hands.  Screaming under Kirin's hands.

(It may have sounded like terror to the rest of the class.  It sounded like fury to Marinette.)

"Do you think you're going to outlast me?" Kirin asked, tension sharpening his voice.  "I have faced so much worse than a little girl telling stories.  This is a battle of wills you are not going to win."

She kicked at him and completely missed.

The pressure bore down.

"... No," Kirin eventually breathed.  "That's not what you're waiting for, is it?  You know I'm old enough to not have a five-minute time limit.  You're waiting for me to be too hurt to continue."  He shook his head sharply, and a droplet of bright red blood appeared on one of the carved fangs of the mask's grinning mouth hole.  

He's bleeding?!

"Shall I tell you a secret, Mlle. Rossi?" Kirin purred, uncaring of Alya's camera livestreaming to the world.  "The Miraculous of Truth is almost completely incompatible with human life... that, you already know, don't you?"  Her stare was fixed on him, all her dramatics completely stifled.  "However, for the first time in human existence... I'm not the only living person compatible with it."

Compatible?  Miraculous have to be matched to... they can't just work fine with everyone?  But he's still bleeding, does that mean he actually isn't--?

"I'm not even the most compatible with it," Kirin said ruefully.  "I was just the most available.  Unfortunately for you, Mlle. Rossi... this means that I don't have to consider the risk that another soothsayer won't be born for centuries.  I can afford to burn myself out stopping you.

"Now. Why. Are. You. Casting. Magic. Lies. On. This. Class ."

"Bait!" she screamed.  What little sound had been coming from the class stopped.  "The Holders are watching this porca class," Lila added as if the words had been punched out, then she went into a stream of ugly Italian swearing.

"So it would seem," Kirin agreed.  "So, bait, hm?  Bait for the Miraculous holders, who are -- by reasonable deduction -- watching the most akumatized class in Paris?  Do feel free to deny it if any of my deductions are inaccurate," he added calmly, ignoring the swearing and resumed struggling.  "People covet the Miraculous, just as they do any source of power.  It isn't a surprise that someone would try to use this class to trap the Holders."

("Lila...?" Alya whispered.)

(Marinette felt sick.)

"But, Mlle. Rossi... you're fourteen," Kirin continued.  "Even with a silver tongue like yours, it's simply not possible to move to an entirely different country of your own accord.  Passports.  Paperwork.  Money .  Banks and realtors are not allowed to take the signature of a minor alone.  You had to have an adult handling all that.  And from my experience?  Plans of this extent don't come from children .

"Who put you up to this?"

More swearing.

"I suggest you tell me, Mlle. Rossi.  Whoever it is, they knowingly set you, alone , as a middle schooler , against the powers of Creation, and Destruction , and a man who is openly and shamelessly targeting children with no regard for death tolls .  Even if they didn't think I could possibly be a risk, someone set you up to potentially die ."

"No!"  A wisp fell from Lila's mouth.  Lila went very still.  "... No, she wouldn't ..." Lila tried, and two more floated into the air.  "She didn't --"  Another wisp.  "She loves me!"

That strand glowed even more brightly than the others.

"I'm sorry," Kirin said, soft and sincere.

Lila burst into tears.

Kirin eased up cautiously.  Then, when she didn't move except to cry -- messier and uglier and more quiet than her earlier dramatics -- he straightened and stepped back.  The breathless pressure in the room began to fade.  "Madame," he said, looking at a shock-white Mme. Bustier, "I know it's difficult, but I need you to look after your student.  Protect her from retaliation."

"Why should she?!" Alix snapped.

Kirin's mask turned towards the pink-haired girl.  "I've just torn her life and likely her family apart," he said flatly, "and she had less choice in the matter of her cruelties than any of you had with your akumatizations.  If what I suspect is accurate, she would never have learned any other way to be.

"Let her mourn.  I have an embassy to get to."

Bustier blinked.  "An... embassy?"

"How many adult women could be this important to Mlle. Rossi?" Kirin asked, gesturing at the broken girl.  "Please take care of her.  ... And try not to return her to her mother's custody, should the woman show up before I find her."  He looked back at Lila and sighed.  "There is a non-zero chance that Mme. Rossi has already gone to ground and abandoned her daughter, though."

"... Oh."  Mme. Bustier straightened up, raising her chin bravely.  "We'll keep an eye on her... and fact-check everything she says from now on."

"It should be easier to throw off the magic, now that it's been broken once for you," Kirin told her, and the class.  "... I hope to not see any of you again."

"It's mutual!" Kim shouted from the crowd.

Kirin inclined his head, and turned to leave.  Alone on the desk, Lila rolled to her side, glaring.  "I hate you," she managed to choke out at his back.

Kirin paused in the doorway, head bowing.  "I'm not surprised."  And he left.

Three minutes later, all the misty webbing vanished.

Omake:

Hakuba Saguru blinked when a waiter set down a full teapot and a variety platter of small pastries rather than the single tea and palmiers he'd ordered.  Shutting his book, he took out and checked his pocket watch.  "Ah.  5:17 pm," he noted.  Then he clicked the watch shut and glanced back up at the chair across from him.  Unlike ten seconds ago, now it was occupied by a rather sour-looking young lady with a chic asymmetric undercut and black dress.  "Was there traffic?" Saguru asked mildly.

The girl's expression soured further.  " No ."  A tanned hand caught the chair to Saguru's right; a much smaller and paler one, the chair to his left.  Hattori Heiji and Edogawa Conan sat down in a perfectly coordinated flanking maneuver, laser eyes as sharp and almost as sour as Kaitou Kid's.  "There were reinforcements ."

"Hi, Hakuba-no-niisan!" Edogawa chirped in his most terrifyingly perky voice.

"We got a lot to catch up on," Hattori agreed, all teeth.  "Don't we.  Buddy ."

"Let's start with," Kid's girlish voice changed to match Saguru's painfully distinctive accent, " I can afford to burn myself out ."

Saguru knew he'd regret accepting the Miraculous of Truth.