Chapter Text
Mirai combed every inch of the temple… that she could. There had been a lot of damage but so far all she'd been able to find was one miraculous, the peacock. She was not thrilled when she'd found that one and refused to open it again. The kwami had a flair for the over- dramatic and was whining about what he'd done to the temple and she just was not in the mood to deal with it. She'd tried to tell him it wasn't his fault but he wouldn't listen to her. Eventually, she ended up putting him back in his box. Then, hid the box in the pillar next to her "bed".
Every morning she would wake up, wash and gather snow to melt for the day. Then she'd come back and make her way west, clearing the temple to the best of her ability.
Last night she realized the pillars in the hall she made her home were some kind of retreat for the kwamis. There were 25 pillars but the box she'd been the guardian of had only had 20 kwamis. She looked carefully and realized that some boxes must have had more kwamis in them. Finally, she let Duusu go but she couldn't understand anything he said while he sobbed so she just stroked him until he calmed down.
"If I leave you out are you going to be safe?" Mirai asked him.
Duusu looked around not quite sure if she was asking him, "Me?"
Mirai nodded, "yes, you. There is no one else here."
"Can I come with you?"
She would prefer if he didn't but, replied, "I suppose."
Together they made their way down some stairs she'd found the day before and she began clearing rubble away. Every day for the past two weeks she’d done the same. She carried the rubble to a room that was destroyed but seemed safe enough to walk in. So far she had become very well versed in old Madonna (or was it young Madonna?) as that CD was playing on her CD player as she walked back and forth with her bucket.
“Mirai?”
“Hm?” she said, dumping the bucket into the empty room and walking back.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m a guardian-”
“A guardian! Why didn’t you say anything!” Duusu yelled flying around her.
“I did. I don't think you've heard anything I've said to you until now,” she told him patiently.
Duusu tried to see her logic but couldn’t, “so what are you doing?”
“I’m looking for…” she really didn’t want to use the term ‘survivors’ after all that would remind Duusu all his friends were gone because of Master Fu using his powers. Which was what he had spent all the previous night crying about. She cleared her throat, “ anything that needs a guardian to guard it,” she came up with.
Duusu looked at her rather dubiously then shot directly through all the rubble she was clearing.
Mirai looked at the boulders she’d never clear alone and frowned. She could use Duusu, but look where that had gotten Master Fu, and Duusu didn’t seem like he was ready to be utilized after that experience. She let out a huff of breath puffing her bangs out of her eyes. Why hadn’t she packed scissors?
“ Miraaaaaaai! ” Duusu yelled from the other side of the boulder.
“Shh!” Mirai responded, “I don't know if loud noises could make this place collapse or not!
“Oh!” Duusu spoke in a ridiculously loud stage whisper, then he came back through the boulders, “I can look for you so you don’t have to hurt yourself.”
Mirai wanted to rest but she needed to focus on the task at hand, “I’m fine, but I think that’s a really great idea, Duusu. If you scout ahead it would save a lot of time.”
“Or you could just make an amok to clear the rubble away.”
Mirai shook her head. No. She would not become Mayura, she would not become Nathalie. She was Mirai Chime, that was all. Using Duusu was a bad idea, "I don't think that's a good idea, especially after what you've been through Duusu. This way is better."
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The next day when she had yet to clear even one-third of the path she decided maybe she had been hasty in telling Duusu no. He was quite companionable, friendly and helpful.
Seeing Mirai's hair sticking to her forehead with sweat Duusu slipped back through the rubble down a corridor then through more rubble where he found the library.
Although "library" was perhaps a generous term. The books were all the same, a textbook of recipes and forms for powers. Rules for raising effective guardians and psychologically "sound heroes. The pseudo-library also didn't have many books but what was most exciting was on the small table next to a long-ago forgotten teacup was a box from a miraculous set. It looked like it belonged to Duusu's set. He desperately wanted to know who was in there but he couldn't fly through. It looked like wood but it was actually something else, a magical material that with words could even change its shape. Unfortunately one of its magical properties was kwamis could not pass through it. Duusu blew a raspberry at the box, flared his tail and shook it at the unhelpful box then flew back to Mirai deciding whether he should tell her what he'd found… or not.
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Mirai wiped her head as she hauled another bucket full of stones to the spare room. Her triceps felt like they were on fire, in all the years as Ladybug she'd gotten full-body exercise but her arms and abs had always done the hardest work, but for some reason, this seemed so much heavier and harder than carrying people ever had.
"It's muscle exhaustion," she said out loud, "you're just tired, push through it, you'll get to the euphoria stage."
She dumped the stones and rocks and realized she'd been speaking out loud and groaned. "Great, now I'm talking to myself. Am I going crazy? No, everyone talks to themselves, I think it's healthy, yeah. It's probably time for a break anyway," Mirai reasoned, walking back with her bucket.
"Duusu?" She said softly when she got back to the large pile of rubble she'd been working on. A frigid draft ran through the hall chilling Mirai, she rubbed her arms for warmth, "Duusu, I'm going back, it's getting cold, I'm going to start making lunch,” she called again and headed back to what she had begun to convince herself was her apartment. The large room was warm from the huge fires. Thankfully the room was built in a way that made it safe to leave them unwatched. She set about making soup, she really missed Maman’s cooking and Papa’s bread. She heard her sniffing echo in the room and coughed to cover it up. She wasn’t going to do it, she told herself, she was not giving in to self-pity.
“Mirai!” Duusu said a few minutes later after the soup had begun boiling.
“Hmm?” she said.
“I found another box!”
Mirai stirred the soup and carefully took the pot off the fire then turned to him with a smile. She’d been right, she was meant to stay, she was not going to be Nathalie, she would not be part of Hawk Moth terrorizing Paris for nearly 10 years, “Where? Who is it? How many are in it?”
Duusu smiled, glad he’d told her, “On the other side of the rubble you’re using, there is a hall then, more rubble then, a library. That’s where the box is.”
Mirai’s smile faded, “Oh, well, we’ll get there,” then she brightened, “Do you know how many are in it?”
Duusu looked confused, “It’s just a box, not a case,” then his lower lip began to tremble, “All the cases were destroyed.”
“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay now, don’t cry, Duusu, look you found someone, a friend!”
Duusu looked at her with huge tear-filled eyes and nodded.
“Alright?”
Duusu nodded.
“Okay, so who’s in the box?”
Duusu blinked away his tears, “I don’t know.”
Without thinking, Mirai spoke, “Then how do you know it isn’t empty?”
Duusu looked at her as if the idea had never occurred to him and as that idea worked its way through his mind she realized her mistake before his eyes filled with tears and the saddest words poured from his mouth.
“I killed them all!”
Mirai gasped, pulled the kwami to her chest and rocked him shushing him. “Shh, shh, come on, we’ll eat later, let’s go check the box okay?” but Duusu was miserably inconsolable and deeply committed to his emotions. Mirai sighed and stood up carrying the sad kwami she walked over to her pallet. She reached under the pillar for the box she’d hidden and pulled out the peacock brooch and pinned it with some difficulty to her Starter jacket and simply called out, “Duusu, Transform Me.” She looked down at the little kwami before he was swept away to power his amulet, his face looked delighted and it helped her own feelings of doom. She sighed in relief, then giggled, then began laughing happily somehow she registered as an adult because it was December the Miraculous must consider her 18 she assumed. She'd learned about this when she'd studied. She didn't have a 5-minute limiter. Or a basic super-suit, as she or her team had worn when she'd been Ladybug. In her hand was the feathered fan she’d need to create the amok to clear the way. She walked toward the rubble she’d been working on for the better part of the week and picked up a small but distinct piece of stone, then pulled a feather from her fan and began creating an amok that would be able to easily clear the rubble, she added a few features, like lights and a stabilizing pole in case the roof caved while it was clearing, then began clearing the rubble quickly. The huge pile was cleared in less than an hour but like Duusu had said there was another huge pile of rubble before they got to the library. It took two hours for everything to be cleared. Mirai figured if she had done the work without using Duusu’s amok it would have taken a month to get to this room. She wondered what time it was, she didn’t know how to work the fan the way she used to work her yoyo. She looked around the library and picked up the box on the table and turned to go back to her room, even though transformed she was getting cold. Once in her room, she detransformed.
Duusu looked at her then to the box in her hand. “You did it!”
She smiled and said what he needed to hear, “I couldn’t have done it without you. You did a lot of the work and your sentimonster moved all the rubble.”
“Sentimonster?”
"Avatar?" She remembered she'd seen that word on Duusu's page when Master Fu had been her teacher.
Duusu smiled understanding, "Really?"
Mirai put the small pot back on the fire then with Duusu floating at her shoulder she walked over to where she kept most of her gear. She sat down and opened the box and felt her heart fall when she saw the purple stone with four beautiful wings resting on the red fabric. Then suddenly Nooroo manifested.
"Master Liu?" he looked around confused, seeing Duusu he turned to him for answers, "Duusu, what happened? Where is everyone? Who is she?"
Mirai felt near tears, everything was falling perfectly into place against her will. "Duusu, I'm going to go to sleep okay?" Mirai said and took the pot off the fire and went to bed without changing or eating, only removing her boots.
Duusu looked at the girl confused, "Okay." Then turned to his friend and hugged him, "Nooroo! You're alive!"
Nooroo narrowed his eyes, "of course I'm alive, what's going on?"
Duusuu threw himself at his old friend and burst into noisy tears and explained that a new guardian had found him and together the two friends talked.
Mirai turned away from the duo and felt hot tears slide across her nose, cheek and into her hair. How could she fall so low? From Paris' Hero to Paris' Nemesis she almost laughed hysterically. It was like Chloe used to say, ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous! She looked at her Baby-G December 24. She hoped Marinette realized how lucky she was, suddenly Mirai missed her parents and the idea of not being home for Christmas was unbearable. She cried herself into a miserable fitful sleep, not for the first time in the past 2 weeks.
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The next morning she woke up and skipped all her regular chores and instead took a bowl meant to hold a small fire and went back to the library. Once there she looked at the books. They seemed to all be the same, well sort of, They contained multiple copies of the M. Agreste's book, but it looked like there were multiple copies of books about the other miraculous boxes. She wanted so badly to look at them but she couldn't. She knew she would end up Mayura and the information between the covers of those books was too precious. As a guardian, she would not read it. Her job was to protect miraculouses and kwamis, and she would do it. She left the room. She dropped off the little coal holder and picked up her bucket and started her morning errands and ablutions. She met Nooroo, he was a polite butterfly who was missing the guardian he usually worked with. The three of them ate breakfast and enjoyed a conversation about earth animals' similarities to kwamis. She went outside and cut more wood, she'd had a horrible realization earlier. She was a guardian, Master Fu might not have been able to train her completely and the once the monks had tried to take her miracle box she'd escaped and never went back and had to figure things out on her own but that didn't change the fact. She was a guardian. One of the most important parts of being a guardian was their willingness to sacrifice. She chopped at the wood, everything seemed harder without her miraculous, she would not touch her ears, she thought to herself. She brought the hatchet down forcefully.
Breathing roughly through her nose, forcing herself to look ahead and not feel anything she took the wood past the room she slept in and into the library and piled it overfilling it into the five fire pits.
She walked back to her room and shrugged out of her coat and picked up a notebook and pen. Then walked over to the cook fire and picked up the bowl and using tongs placed as many coals into it that would fit safely. Then walked to the library.
She swallowed, she needed to do this. She took a pair of tong hanging over the fireplace amazed they hadn't been disturbed from when Feast had torn through, then again, this whole library seemed to have been saved. With tongs in hand, she placed a few coals in all of the fireplaces in the room. Then she took a steadying breath. In, out, in, out, she thought to herself. She couldn't do this. Her heart was racing, and she felt bile in the back of her throat. She put down the small fire and ran to the corner and threw up over the woodpile there avoiding the smoldering coal. She wiped her mouth but heard gasping and crying and knew it was her. She'd come here to be a guardian. She needed to do this. If she was going to become a villain she needed to do this to protect these books from herself and M. Agreste. They could not have so much knowledge. With a sob, she went to the bookshelf furthest from the information about the miracle box containing the Ladybug and Black Cat and took a book and held it over the flames but as it's leather began to dry and crack she let out a sob and threw it across the room. She couldn't, she just didn't have the strength to do it. She sobbed running from the room.
Before she entered the room she shared with the kwamis she wiped her face and tried to calm her nerves. She would do it in the morning.
That night she woke, smelling the delicious barbeque her father made when they went to the beach. It took her a moment to realize what she was really smelling was the library burning, the books had been covered in yak skin and they were burning.
She bolted up, "Duusu! Transform Me!"
Duusu flew over quickly, "I can't! You're not wearing my pin!"
"Shit! Where is it?" Mirai thrust her hand into the space under the pillar and grabbed the plumed brooch and stuck in onto her shirt, "Duusu transform me now!" she said picking up the closest thing to her and as soon as her fan appeared in her hand she plucked a feather from it and began creating an avatar to rescue the books, she'd been stupid, it was a bad choice, what had she been-
"Mirai? If there's a fire you need something that will cause the tunnel to collapse so it doesn't come this way."
Mirai listened to him and gave the avatar a huge scoop as well as the agile human hand, it was a rushed job and she hoped it would be able to make it easily over the terrain then she realized she'd need to go with it. She urged it over the stone path she shouldn't have made it so industrial it was slow-moving, finally, they reached the library, it was an inferno. She sent the avatar to the bookshelf containing Duusu and Nooroo's information and ran back out of the room then told it to come out. She took the book from it then ran back to her room after giving instructions on how to collapse the ceiling. With Nooroo at her side, they waited and waited and waited until the heat no longer carried their way. She looked at her watch, it was 8:38. She called the amok back and released her transformation and held Duusu close in tears.
"I'm sure this is the place, Emilie," came a male voice down the corridor.
"Hide!" Mirai said to Duusu and Nooroo. "And don't come out of your Miraculous until I tell you," She quickly ripped the brooch from her shirt and thrust it into the flannel's chest pocket.
"Shh!" replied a feminine voice, "I swear I heard something."
Mirai was shaking, there was no point in hiding, the entire room was obviously occupied.
"Oh, la, la! Gabriel! Look what we have here, a squatter, can you imagine? In a cave?" Emilie giggled seeing the room.
Gabriel looked around, it actually looked pretty nice. Private. A place where people would leave him alone. "It's a temple, Emie, you should be a little more respectful," he said gently.
She's here. Argus warned
Gabriel stopped and grabbed Emilie's arm to prevent her from going further. Who? He replied.
"Gabriel! It's just a girl!" Emilie brushed off his hand irritated with his correcting her and ran to Mirai.
Remember what I said about women Gabriel, Argus warned, they can be dangerous when they're scared . I should probably warn him about jealousy, Argus thought to himself.
Gabriel knew women could be warriors he wasn't a fool, but this girl obviously wasn't then he saw soot on clothes. He ran over to her when he noticed her hands were burned. "She's hurt, Emilie, get your first aid kit."
Emilie rushed to get the kit out.
Gabriel gently took the girl's hands, but she jerked them away with a hiss of pain.
Careful Gabriele!
I am! Can't you do something?
One, she's not wearing me and two, she's already hurt.
Gabriel took her hands surprised that the girl really wasn't a child, she was actually older than Emilie had been when they'd met, but she seemed so small, "I know you can't understand me but I'm trying to help you."
Mirai looked up at him then jerked back at what she saw. He was so young, his hair was shaved in the popular bowl cut of the 90's, and he looked so worried about her, and… kind. This wasn't Adrien's mean father, and he definitely was not Hawk Moth, he was so warm, she felt her face warm and she looked away as her heart pounded and she stuttered out a response, "I understand you."
He smiled, not that she saw it, "Your French is very good."
Emilie was suddenly at his side, "Oh, darling, you must be in such pain. Gabriel, ask her if she's in pain."
"She speaks French," he replied.
Emilie looked at the girl curiously, "Oh?"
"Yes."
"They teach that here?"
"I don't know I'm French," Mirai replied
"How fortunate, we are too!" Emilie said as Gabriel gently applied a salve to Mirai's hands.
Gabriel leaned into Mirai's visual field making her turn red. "What's your name Petite Flamme?" he teased.
Suddenly all the pieces fell together in a puzzle with the perfect fit. It gave answers to questions that hadn't made sense before. Mirai knew then everything she'd known about Nathalie Sancoeur was true, and everything she'd learned about her future was too.
It was Christmas, her hands were burned, and now that all the adrenaline had worn off immense pain was starting to set in, she felt her eyes fill, she just wanted to go home, to her city of lights. She suddenly realized why Nathalie's name was "Heartless". It wasn't chosen because she didn't have one, she chose it because he had it. Gabriel Agreste had her heart but his heart belonged to his wife, so Nathalie had none. She was indeed heartless but still filled with love.
How could she be in love with him? It was beyond ridiculous. But there was no denying it any longer,
"I'm Nathalie, uh, Nathalie Sancoeur."
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Fin