Maribug Split

Chapter 32: Sacrifice

Marinette sailed past the upper windows of a Paris apartment building. She felt the re-accustomed thrill of swinging on a yoyo string a few stories above street level. It was a mixture of excitement, fear, confusion, and relief - overloading her already overflowing emotions. Her memories felt like a pileup on the highway beginning with a head-on collision of two distinct sets of memories of the last six months, colliding with years of knowledge that she, Marinette, was and always has been Ladybug.

The resulting mental breakdown threatening to consume her mind was only slightly shifted aside by her distress over the safety of her lifelong partner, Chat Noir, who, by the way, was also the love of her life, Adrien. It took almost thirty seconds from the moment she regained her memories until that frightening realization drove through consciousness. She struggled to accept that she lived two separate lives for the last few months. Did her relationships become more complicated or simpler, knowing Chat and Adrien were one and the same? She no longer needed to push Chat away. Adrien must really love her since Chat had always been very vocal about that. Of course, Chat did not know she was Marinette and Adrien might prefer Ladybug. That explains why the Ladybug costume had such an effect on Adrien, although he said it wasn’t because of the costume and he loves Marinette. At least if her jumble of memories is painting the correct picture, since there are sections in her recent past she cannot quite figure out. Such as talking to herself as if she were two different people, which she wasn’t, but she thought she was. She remembered looking at Marinette and she also remembered looking at Ladybug. She remembered both sides of the conversation while talking to herself and seeing herself as two people and … 

The Eiffel Tower coming into an unobstructed view brought an abrupt halt to her attempt at mental suicide. Chat was fighting Hawkmoth and The Protestor all by himself. Adrien was in danger. Nothing else mattered.

Ladybug ran across the buildings, approaching the tower, ignoring the calls from the crowds. She still had some lingering feelings of betrayal remaining from her unbalanced Ladybug persona. She knew with complete clarity that Ladybug was her this whole time. Ladybug’s thoughts, feelings, and decisions were all hers and she had brought on the current crisis. Her only defense, that at the time, she was not all there. 

The grounds around the tower were a junkyard of crashed cars and fallen trees. The fight with the akuma was a mess, leaving much to be fixed by the Miraculous power of Ladybug. With so much devastation all over Paris, Ladybug wondered if her power could fix it all. Some things, she thought of her relationship with Chat Noir, will never be the same.  

Near the tower, she noticed a peculiar sight. A blond Ladybug leaning on a redhead who looked suspiciously like Alya, limping their way down some stairs towards the river. The blond tucked her head in Alya’s shoulder as Alya half carried her along. Marinette wondered how that odd occurrence came about, but did not have time to dawdle.

She hooked her yoyo to the top of the Eiffel Tower and pulled herself to the second floor where she saw the men standing. Adrien stood between Hawkmoth and the akuma. Adrien, not Chat Noir. Why wasn’t he transformed? She was meters away when Adrien, in one fluid motion, pulled back his arm and shot it forward. A small object, glistening in the sunlight, disappeared from sight on its way to the Seine river. Ladybug was almost at the tower as a chill shiver passed through her whole body. The following seconds ripped out her heart in slow motion, her entire world stopped as the akuma shouted and turned towards Adrien. She knew what would happen before it began. No, No, No! Not Adrien. Stay away from her love.

The thumping in her ears drowned the words the akuma shouted. The pulses of power left his sign and hammered into Adrien as the scream left Ladybug’s lips. Adrien’s body, weakened by the fighting and no longer protected by any Miraculous powers, crashed to the floor by the force of the attack. The akuma did not relent, pummeling the helpless hero from no distance at all, where the strength of his power was at its max.