The Demon Takes Two Chairs, ch3: The Dragon (Ao3)
Here's the next installment of my @mlbigbang2024 @mlbigbang longfic, written with the support of @uptoolateart as an editor, beta reader, and the rootin'est, tootin'est, lasso-loopin'est, popgun-shootin' chickenhawk in the west. (I'm going to give her new, fraudulent titles from now on. TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE.)
Preview
Weeks ago, Ladybug had come to her, Longg’s choker dangling from her fingers as if she were gently delivering Kagami’s fate back to her. The heroine had been direct. “I don’t trust Felix, so I want you to have the Dragon, just in case. And if he hurts you…”
She had drawn her into a fierce embrace, and then quickly released her, apologizing as she drew back out of Kagami’s personal space. “I’m sorry… I know you don’t…” She’d gesticulated awkwardly. It was cute.
It seemed Ladybug could read her like a street sign. To her, Kagami was unambiguous and direct, designed to give her precise information. How, when not even Adrien, the boy she’d been created to serve, had been able to?
Only Marinette had seemed to understand, and that was through mutual trial and error. For the heroine of Paris to immediately divine Kagami’s secrets.
* * *
Since that night, Kagami had taken to diving off high places and transforming at the last second. As the wind whipped across her ears like breath across the opening of a flute, whistling as she plummeted—as the air shoved itself against her closed eyelids—the adrenaline brought her clarity of purpose. She could pick her target.
She needed to pick her target.