Chapter Text
Marinette Dupain-Cheng
September, Year One
Marinette Dupain-Cheng's mind stirred into consciousness. Her limbs felt heavy, staleness lingered on the back of her throat.
Memories from the night before come to her in flashes. Each one brought with it dread that sat in her stomach like a stone.
Stepping away to grab water during a sleep over at Kagami's. A prick of pain on her neck. A woman draped in shadows at her back. Grabbing a katana on a side table's mantel, one she didn't even know how to hold, let alone use. Falling as her legs gave out from under her. Emerald eyes that tracked the undrawn blade. Seven playful words that followed her into darkness.
"Even now? I'd expect no less, Tsurugi."
Marinette opened her eyes to a dimly lit room, one illuminated only by faint candlelight. Her knees were folded under her, placing her at the head of a sitting table. The weight of the miraculous on her ears was missing. She had taken them off, wanting just one night to relax with friends without their responsibility weighing on her shoulders.
She dragged her eyes upwards, catching plated meals and the sword she failed to use positioned in front of her. Sat across from her at the opposite head of the table was a small boy, one no older than seven. Her gaze settled away from the child and on the face of the woman standing behind him, her hair the same rich tone as the boy, her eyes just as piercingly green. The woman that kidnapped her.
She smiles and bows, short words in what can only be Japanese spill from her lips. Marinette recognized nothing but honorifics of respect and the name 'Tsurugi'. No ounce of it was mocking.
'She thinks I'm Kagami.'
Panic grew in Marinette's chest as her mind began to spiral.
'I don't know what she just said. If she says something I can't react to, she will know I don't know Japanese. If she knows I don't know Japanese she will know I'm not Kagami. If she knows I'm not Kagami she may hurt me, or worse, she would hurt Kagami instead.'
Marinette muttered a lie, a jumble of half thought words forged out of panic and instinct, "Do not taint my mothers language with your tongue, captor."
The woman's head tilted down. "I see. Apologies. French it is."
Marinette didn't let her shoulders settle in relief. 'Oh my god, she bought it.'
It was too close of a call. She couldn't keep flying blind, Marinette needed to know who this was, how they ticked. And through that, how she could survive until someone came for her.
She cleared her thoughts, a blank mindscape folded out into her mind's eyes. A figure began to coalesce. She started with what she knew. Marinette and Kagamai look nothing alike, not to mention she's not even Japanese.
Point one: The woman was clearly racist.
Marinette jotted that down.
"Shall we begin, Damian?" The woman's calm voice cut through Marinette's analysis before it could bear fruit. Her hand rested on the boy's shoulder. He glanced up and nodded shallowly in response. Two identical pairs of eyes returned to the girl across from them.
"Tsurugi Kagami, greatest swordsman of this generation. I am Talia al Ghul. It pains me to have met a peer in such a way. No hard feelings I assure."
"Hm," Marinette voiced noncommittally, "Why have you-" she clicked her tongue in displeasure, "-summoned me?"
"You are a gift for my son. He has reached the age of apprenticeship and he needs a master to train him in various arts," Talia al Ghul began to stalk around the room, "Who better to teach him to wield a blade, than one trained personally by the likes of Lady Shiva, Katana, Cheshire, Deathstroke, and the late Tsurugi Tomoe herself. To name a few, that is."
'Holy hell Kagami.' Marinette vowed that if even half of this is true then once she returned home she would force her to get a hobby that doesn't involve violence.
Marinette narrowed her eyes and doubled down. "Don't attempt to flatter me. If you want any of their training, then fetch them instead. I was rather busy, you know."
"Why chase a dozen masters when I only need one? You know very well that none of them are humble enough to bow their heads and learn. Their skills remain distant icebergs, never brushing, never growing. I will not let my son be taught by the narrow." Talia al Ghul disappeared behind Marinette’s back. Marinette's eyes where unable to follow her without turning her body, and in doing so, showing weakness.
The thought of teaching was absurd. Marinette's mind had sped down another tree of cause and effect. Raising the sword left on the table, to harm or to placate, meant discovery.
Talia stepped out from behind her, taking Marinette’s other side. She could spy some kind of straight sword sheathed on her waist hidden beneath the folds of her dress.
Discovery meant harm to Kagami.
“I see you’re not convinced, Tsurugi. I can assure you this is worth your time. The League of Assassins has connections more vast than any nation in the world. Any boon, any artifact, any sum of money or power you wish to wield, all are one ‘Yes Talia’ away,“ Talia al Ghul leaned in closer to whisper playfully hesitant words, “Perhaps... would you like to speak to your mother again?”
Marinette looked away from the growing wet eyes of the far too small boy sat across from her. "You cannot buy me. I refuse to teach him. I see a great darkness in those eyes," She lied.
Talia's passive grin grew insidious. "Ah, there it is. A true master's conviction. I knew you were perfect."