A Hero's Strength Is Measured By His Heart

Crime And Punishment.

Could it be?

      You're mine!

Could...

      Don't touch her!

Adrien...

      I don't know what came over me.

Be...

      What's happening?

Her Chat Noir?

      I swear if you so much as look at her I'll break your arm!

Could...

      You're too weak!

The sun kissed boy she used to love...

      Forgive me.

Possibly be...

      You're nothing compared to me!

The silly kitten she loved now?

      You're nothing to me!

Marinette was filled with perplexing thoughts. They were screaming at her to acknowledge what should have been obvious all along: Adrien Agreste was Chat Noir.

Pushing her frail form up from the floor, the shattered girl forced herself to regain her composure. If what she had just realized was true then she would need to save the two people she loved most.

"Why didn't I see it before Tikki? How could I have been so blind?"

"Let's find him." was the only answer she received.

~~~

Monster; the only word running through Chat Noir's brain: monster. He leaped across rooftops, so many tears threatening to spill from his masked eyes. Eyes that he could see out of but gain no control over. He was at the mercy of whatever dark power had sunk its claws into him. It had dug deep.

'I just need to scream.' The words were no longer being said through Chat's lips, but rather in the mind of the shadows that consumed him.

"Shhh." The entity held a finger to the fallen hero's smirking lips.

He had caved. Adrien could no longer put up the fight for dominance over his mind and body.

Suddenly, a whirring of wings pricked at the sensitivity of feline ears. Adrien urged his possessor to investigate the noise, to turn its head in a different direction. But the being remained stationary. So motionless that the evil didn't even appear to be breathing.

All at once the two souls were surrounded by a mass of jet black wicked.

'Akuma.'

Hundreds of the winged evil fluttered to form a layering wall of destruction. One so thorough that it seemed to block out any light shining from the Parisian streets.

A ripple of sinister laughter erupted from the chest of the dark being. His chaotic lips were turned upward into a joker's smile. Extending both palms from its body, the essence whispered one word: "Cataclysm."

All at once, the chaos of raven was crushed and absorbed within the palms of Chat's clenched fists. Again, he who had moved so fast, almost appeared to have not moved at all.

He was no longer surrounded by the fury of dark, yet Adrien felt as if the world was still losing its light. Every thought he had seemed to flicker out, like fireflies extinguishing their shine, as they knew the sun would soon rise. But there was no longer any illumination in Adrien's world. He knew he'd lost his sun, frozen her in his icy rage.

'Marinette, I love you.' Everything turned dark.