Chapter 10

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"Petir!" Tanah screamed, barging into the class. The teacher stopped instantly, and heads were turned. "You're being akumatized! Snap out of it!"

Everyone turned to the boy who sat in the back, believing every word that their school prefect said. However, as soon as they turned, the white outline fizzled out like a TV that lost its connection, and a black bird was expelled from the writing utensil in his hand.

Petir looked up, grunting. "I'm fine," he groans, looking upwards to see the akuma circling the class, searching for its next victim.

What?

Did he just break control so easily?

The presence of the akuma sent the class into hysterics. Many began to evacuate, but braver ones stayed behind, wielding chairs and brooms and even rulers as weapons.

"I-I'll go tell the principal!" Tanah left the class.

When he left, however, he couldn't tear his eyes away from the boy who sat at the back of the class.

Petir, someone who was almost akumatized, seemed almost too calm throughout all of this. In fact, he seemed almost irritated rather than distressed, as if he hadn't been lured in for a trap in the first place.

What if he wasn't a victim?

What if Petir was Nightsong all along? The villain that sought out negative emotions and enslaves them to capture Miraculouses. Even if they were mainly searching for Minte and Athena's Miraculous, every other one was also targeted.

Was that why he was seen at every villain attack?

That couldn't be! Tanah thought, locking the bathroom stall. A kwami floated out from his pocket, shaped like a lion. His fur was black and its eyes were gold. Petir wasn't a malicious person. He was just a victim.

Victim of what?

"Tanah, you're hesitating," Gempa said, his voice calming his nerves. "There's an akuma on the loose. You need to contact Minte to purify it before it akumatizes someone else."

Tanah nodded at his kwami, smiling gratefully at his partner. He was always here to calm him down.

"You're right." He adjusted his watch, the regular red plastic turning to black and gold, seeping with magic. "GEMPA, SHIELD RISE!"

Seconds later, Tanah burst back into the classroom, where a riot was happening. Word had spread through the other classes, where students that either are an idiot or are just that brave began to rally up, pushing one another towards the circling akuma, holding buckets and water sprays.

When he walked through, shouts erupted. "Terre's here!" "Ohmygod, sign my forehead!" "Squeallll!" (passes out)

He kindly ignored the fans and walked in the room, where the tables have been pushed away from the centre. His eyes glanced towards the back of the classroom, where Petir was nowhere to be seen.

He couldn't get the suspicion from his mind. Instead, he turned his focus upon the akuma, eyes narrowing. As he held out his hands, a yellow sphere appeared around the black, willowy bird, trapping it.

Realizing that it had nowhere to go, it stopped flying, and stood perched in the sphere instead. The small, spherical trap descended into Terre's hands, and the people around him backed away.

"Thanks for alerting the heroes as soon as possible," he told the students near him. It was his friend in the basketball club. "I'll call Minte to purify this akuma as soon as I can-"

"Hi, Terre!"

Tanah turned around to the window, and he saw a green and black figure dangling outside. It was Minte, sitting on the strings he'd created.

"Minte!" Tanah rushed over, holding out the akuma. "I need your help for this. Can you purify it?"

"Of course!" Minte beamed. "You did great! Minimal damage-there's none, actually. Just a little mess that I don't even need my Miraculous powers to fix. I knew I could trust you, Terre! Can you take this shield apart?"

Tanah nodded. Like honeycomb stacked on each other, each part turned small and eventually the akuma was free. Before it could flee, however, a white, blossoming flower ensnared it, trapping it in its petals.

When the flower bloomed once more, the akuma had turned white, fading to air. Thousands of snow-white petals burst from the flower like a flood, but it didn't go anywhere, just creating a rain of mirage petals in the classroom.

"That's settled!" Minte smiled. "I got here as soon as I heard chaos. It's fortunate that it couldn't find anyone to akumatize."

"It did try to akumatize a student here, but he broke free," Tanah admitted, biting his tongue as he noted his slip-up. "A student told me before I arrived. I think he was the prefect."

Minte nodded, still swinging on his strings as if he was on a swing in a playground. "That's interesting," he agreed. "There's been cases, but they always get more uncontrollable after resisting more attempts. When they finally give in, it's game over. Keep an eye on them, okay?"

Tanah mirrored Minte's nod. "I will."

Minte gave him a thumbs-up, and the strings pulled him back up. Tanah glanced at the growing student body gathering behind him, and decided that it would take more effort to find a place to transform back.

He leapt out of the window and landed on the ground with no damage inflicted to his body. He looked around, recognizing that he'd landed near the cafeteria, where it was still vacant because of class time.

Except that there was still one person there.

It was Petir, sitting on the field alone. The cafeteria had an open field next to it, where it used to be a racetrack, but was abandoned from time. The weeds were overgrown, but the teen didn't seem to mind one bit.

Now that Tanah thought about it, Petir is weird.

"Aren't you supposed to be in class?" Tanah walked over to him, standing a few metres behind him.

Petir didn't turn. "Aren't you supposed to leave after the akuma is taken care of?" he countered. "To protect your identities, I mean."

"You were nearly akumatized. That boy Tanah told me so," Tanah said. "What made you cut off connection with Nightsong? Not many people have the mentality to resist power."

"I..." Petir looked up to the sky. His voice was hoarse, a mixture of exhaustion and boredom. "Don't know. Don't ask me."

"I'm a hero. Anything you tell me is going to help in our search to defeat Nightsong. You'll be great help, since you're the first victim able to resist akumatization in decades."

He was pushing it, of course.

But Tanah wanted to know more about Petir. Petir knew who he was, and what he stood for; but to Tanah, Petir was still a mystery. He wanted to know how the boy's mind worked.

Still, Petir shrugged, and heaved a sigh.

"I just said no." He looked down to the ground he sat on, the grass pressed down to form a natural cushion that stopped him from sitting on dirt. "Nightsong doesn't take rejection kindly."

"I see." Tanah began to turn. "Thanks for the information. Stay safe, keep an eye out for any akumas."

Petir didn't respond, which made Tanah feel ignored and unimportant. Unlike the others, the boy wasn't interested in meeting their iconic heroes, either. In fact, nothing seemed to pique his attention.

Tanah ran to the closest toilet, where there weren't any people nearby and transformed back. His kwami fell to his hand, drained of energy.

"Thanks for the help," Tanah said, holding out a gummy bear for his kwami. It was half his size, but he downed it in one gulp.

Replenished with energy, Gempa hovered around Tanah, nodding at him. "You handled it correctly. I'm proud to call you my owner," he praised him, then returned to his pockets to hide.

When he returned, his friends were telling him how he'd missed out on two heroes.

Yet no one told him about the frightened kwami hidden in the bag behind the class.

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