Chat was bleeding.

Blood seeped from large gashes in his arms and torso from where glass had sliced and pierced his skin. The thick leather of his suit took the brunt of a lot of damage, an apparent magical layer saving him from many fatal blows, but a direct hit was just that.

Ladybug screamed for him every time he got hurt. Chat didn't care. Nothing could change the fact that he was hurt.

And why?

Because Marinette just couldn't listen.

Ladybug stayed and tried to help, despite the fact that this fight was what Chat considered way out of her league. Ladybug could jump out of the way, and get a few weak hits in, but that was it. She couldn't do this one.

And somehow Chat knew.

He knew that Ladybug couldn't help much. He knew this akuma was spawned from his luck. He knew he had to do this one.

Seriously, the villains LB was used to fighting were ones that he could make no sense of, yet somehow she could understand how to save them. Come on, cell phones, bubbles? Perfume? Just her luck.

Psychopathic sculptors with a passion for really still life's? Just his luck.

But he knew, as some unlucky turn of fate had LB trapped under a thick dome of black glass, he knew. This one was his.

This akuma belonged to him. This overly dark nature could only be attuned to him, from his moment of weakness. It was supposed to be him, and an innocent had gotten caught by an akuma aiming for the worst possible target.

He had to redeem himself. Solve the problem. Fix it.

As his body was pierced and slashed, he could only talk. To the akuma, and to its victim.

But mostly to himself.

"You have no reason to hurt others because of your problems! All that has happened is not because of them!" He yelled.

A blade of glass met his upper arm.

As it continued, the victim's glee turned to confusion as he took blow after blow.

"What has been taken from you can be found, but not with the way you are doing things!"

He barely dodged the flying shard meant to pierce his abdomen. Only dodging and getting closer, dodging, moving nearer, getting hurt, moving nearer...

The Jeweler's confusion transformed into panic, then desperation as he threw blade after blade.

Chat barely felt it as the glass dug into his stomach, only watching as cold glass like eyes widened in horror. Chat stood barely two feet in front of him, not even slightly worried as blood slowly dripped onto the concrete below.

"You're only hurting yourself more... by hurting others..." Chat said.

"I..." The Jeweler breathed, eyes unseeing as the teen bled inches away from him. Chat spoke softly, pained green eyes never wavering.

"Stop it. Let me help you."

The Jeweler was at a loss of words, seeing what damages he had caused to the boy.

"I..." he said. "She... She took my gem. My beautiful Ruby. All she ever wanted was things of valuable non-value. Nothing of true worth." He stated dully, robotically, glass eyes locked with green.

"I couldn't give them to her. So she took my Ruby."

Chat only watched with blank eyes.

The Jeweler's mask crumbled away like dust, revealing a pale face painted with pain.

"I wanted true worth. Nothing can compare to my Ruby."

He reached forward, his white gloved hand trembling. The surrender was clear.

"My Ruby..... my daughter..." He whispered.

Chat grabbed the hand with his own, staining the white glove red.

"Cataclysm."

The glove blackened and crumbled away, and in his open palm lay a purple butterfly that twitched burnt and broken wings.

Chat didn't watch as Hawkmoth's victim collasped to the ground, turning away as the black miasma reverted him to his original form.

Chat instead looked down at the fragile akuma, then pressed it against his bruised and bleeding chest, mumbling the words he knew were his and his alone.

"Miraculous curse..."

>××××<

Ladybug stuttered futilely as the press surrounded her and her partner. Chat had sat down a few feet away from her on the edge of the park fountain. The duo were now at a scheduled mass conference in the middle of the park, their Miraculous (regretfully) fully charged and activated. Unfortunately, Alya was at the front of the group and led most of the questions, with her phone pushed forward to Ladybug's face.

Ladybug hastily answered some of the many questions as her worry for her strangely silent partner grew. Chat had been silent for the most part since what happened yesterday with the akumatized man who dubbed himself as 'The Jeweler'.

Ladybug wasn't so sure, but she suspected that her partner had been severely affected by the akuma, but then again it could've been something in his personal life bleeding over. There was no way to be sure.

Ladybug really didn't understand the last attack, she was blocked and threw away at every move, and then she was trapped and isolated from her partner. She had then tried in vain to get from under the glass dome that had sprung up from the ground around her. After a few minutes of trying to break through, the dome suddenly flickered and vanished in a swirl of black.

Ladybug didn't stick around to ask questions, running down the street towards her partner who stood facing away from the confused akuma victim.

Ladybug was speechless, seeing as the bloody slashes all over her partner's body were gone. The suit was in pristine condition, and Chat looked fine. This only fueled her confusion.

A while ago Chat was bleeding everywhere, and now he was just.... fine? Ladybug then began to notice the other oddities.

The streets were clean, the buildings were fixed, and there was no signs of glass anywhere. The people who were caught by the akuma were free and in shock. Ladybug was shocked, seeing as she did not use her miraculous power to fix the damage.

She hadn't even used her lucky charm.

So where did all the destruction go?

The press threw many questions their way, and Ladybug shot vague answers back just as fast.

Question. "What will happen to our citizens?"

Answer. "The citizens of Paris will be safe as long as they stay away during attacks-"

Question. "Why are attacks getting more violent??"

Answer. "The victims of Hawkmoth seem to be taken at random, so there could be personal reasons that certain people are-"

Question. "What will you do now that akumas are getting more and more dangerous??" Alya asked.

Many questions were thrown at her and she started to feel slightly overwhelmed.

"Ladybug!" They called. "Ladybug!"

Ladybug turned nervously to her partner to suggest that maybe they should leave, when she stopped at the look on his face.

"Kitty?" She asked.

Chat was perched on the edge of the fountain, staring down at his palm as he traced the lining of the glove with a clawed fingertip. His face was blank, a cold and hard look in his slightly feline eyes.

Alya lowered the camera that was shoved in Ladybug's face, a worried look on her face as she glanced away from the heroine and at the quiet boy. "Um.. Chat Noir, are you okay?"

The boy seemed not to notice his name being called as he stared at his gloved hands. "....Chat Noir?..." she asked timidly.

He looked up daze, green eyes dark and full. He laughed in response.

"What? I'm fine! As always." he spoke looking her in the eyes. Alya frowned. The faded green didn't look right to her.

Chat stood, then turned to Ladybug and bowed.

"Until next time, right My Lady?" he then jumped over the fountain and disappeared.