THE ASSIZES COURT WAS ON the south side of the Île de la Cité, housed within the gilded gates and stone walls of the Palais de Justice.

It was only a handful of days after New Year's Day, and as soon as the judiciary returned from their holidays, the trial resumed at full speed.

Ladybug stood in the corner of the gallery, behind the last of the wooden benches as the rest of the judiciary slowly filtered in. The President of the Court came first and took his seat in the centre of the judge's bench. Then his two chosen assessors, the Attorney General, the Advocate General. At the prosecutor and defendant tables respectively sat Adrien's lawyers sans Adrien, Gabriel and Nathalie's lawyers sans their defendants, plus a slew of other legal staff and law enforcement officers in the courtroom gallery.

Ladybug didn't know all of these people by name and title, of course; it was Heloise narrating the familiar players in the legal game in her ear.

"We can sit now," the investigating judge said, and guided Ladybug to sit along one of the wooden benches.

She squished up against Roger Raincomprix, now a detective, who smiled. "Hi, Ladybug."

The pretrial hearing began with a stale introduction read straight from the thick pile of papers in front of the President. Ladybug glanced around the rest of the room while the elderly man droned on, his voice rustling like he needed a hearty cough to clear it up.

The high ceiling was inlaid with gold, chandeliers hanging at even intervals to cast bright yellow light on the wooden benches and chairs below. The juror box hugged the left wall, right in front of where Ladybug sat, just across the guard rail.

On the top half of the left wall, a row of thin rectangular windows let in natural daylight, their wooden shutters folded open. On the top half of the right wall hung an ornate tapestry of a trial from the Middle Ages, all the attendants bar one clad in red robes. A woman, the focus of the scene, wore a voluminous gold dress and rich royal blue cloak. Both walls had doors leading into holding rooms and hallways on the bottom.

"We are here today to consider the Agreste vs. Paris case," the President recited, "hear the charges laid against Gabriel Agreste, accused of being Hawk Moth, and Nathalie Sancoeur, accused of being Mayura."

"Accused?" Ladybug muttered darkly.

"They have to presume innocence until the final judgment," Heloise whispered back. "He doesn't look happy, does he? But Gerard is a professional."

Indeed, Gerard the President looked downright miserable at the judge's bench. The court reporter was clacking away on her stenograph, recording every word of the pretrial.

In the written phase, all documented evidence would be brought up from the Palais office archives and considered by the counsel. Numerous organisational hearings might be called to exchange evidence and clarify arguments—Ladybug had no way to tell right now how long this process would be. When the evidence was deemed to be comprehensive and the case ripe for judging, the real trial would begin.

One of the first moves today would be to request a closed court for the hearings—when Adrien, Gabriel and Nathalie would appear and be questioned before the court. Usually such a right was only granted to sexual assault victims if and only if they requested that level of privacy. But in the case that publicity would endanger the order of the trial, the argument could be made to close the doors to civilians.

Ladybug had called in sick to school this morning to be here. Alya wanted to do the same, but Ladybug reminded her that she would definitely be called on in a later hearing to present the facts and findings of her domain of investigation. It would be concerning if the two girls were sick so often, at the same time.

She could taste the end like expensive liquor, heady and warming. Trials like this could take years, but the speed of the investigation reflected the huge amount of time, money and resources the combined forces of the city's law enforcement, judiciary and superheroes had invested. After the trial, a period of deliberation, then the sentences would be read in open court, and then Adrien would be free.

Ladybug had started thinking about her life post-trial. She realised she would need to lay her crush to rest. There won't be any conflicts of interest in dating, marrying, and adopting a hamster with my witness, because he won't be a witness anymore! Simple. That was what she'd told Alya in November, strolling after school with coffees in hand, scarves wrapped around her wind-bitten noses.

What an idiot she'd been.

This trial had changed her—not just her romantic feelings—her priorities and her limits and her beliefs, down to the very core, the marrow of her bones. It was a lovely thing to have a schoolgirl crush, when words wouldn't come easily and daydreams would come way too frequently.

With a schoolgirl crush, she would never be truly heartbroken, and she would never have to break Adrien's heart, if the demands of heroism became too much—because their relationship only lived in her head. All her avoidance, her extravagant plans, had been defense mechanisms. It felt like saying goodbye to a part of herself, a younger version, the fantastic dreamer, the one lighter than air. Difficult as it was, this was the only right choice.

First and foremost, she was Ladybug, the woman who interviewed Adrien, who steered him through the investigation, who would have used any and all the Miraculous for personal gain just so he wouldn't spend Christmas alone, who knew things he'd told only her under the pretext of justice. He'd confided in her the way he would an authority figure.

A power imbalance like this couldn't easily be smoothed over, if ever.

"—call to the stand the honourable Heloise Hessenpy, juge d'instruction," Gerard droned, snapping Ladybug's reverie in half like brittle dark chocolate, "to give her remarks on the investigation."

Heloise tapped Ladybug's knee twice in a maternal gesture, then rose and walked into the witness box. "Showtime."

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

The second time Chat Noir approached La Santé prison, he didn't have to change his appearance and lie his way in.

The warden greeted him at the entrance with near-open arms, a charmed smile already working its way onto her face before he'd even said bonjour. The Familiar had been unfamiliar to her, drawing her suspicion, but she was clearly a fan of Chat Noir.

Chat Noir noted the oddly geometric design painted on the floor, a six-pointed star in the center of the room, which was circumscribed by a hexagon of metal grates that let people see directly into the floor below, before the floor took over again in radial triangles of tropical blue. Strangely cheerful, for a prison.

A male security guard patted him down, inspected his staff and nearly took his own ear off with it when it extended in a nanosecond, then waved Chat Noir through the checkpoint and into a stairwell. What wonders calling ahead did.

"I hope this isn't an inconvenience," he said, glancing around at the closed office doors on the upper floor. "It's practically still the holidays. Happy New Year, by the way."

"Oh, don't mention it," the warden said, smiling.

Chat Noir was here to confirm a theory. He had wielded his status as an investigator in the city's most high-profile trial to get access to the security footage of the prison, issuing a surveillance request to both their prisons for the night of the twenty-third of December. The Christmas party, the sighting of the amok.

The warden scanned into a room with two long benches on either wall (the third wall being a barred window) that supported countless computers. Security officers monitored camera feeds over cups of dark coffee, the foam long since dissolved.

"Louis," the warden called. "Do you have the footage ready?"

With his feline vision, Chat Noir saw a man close a window of Solitaire before rapidly bringing up a video of his father, taken from the upper corner of a prison cell. "Yes, ma'am. Right here," he coughed.

Gabriel was sleeping. Still, Chat Noir scanned that footage backwards and forwards (with ample time buffers) with a close eye. On that date, at these moments, was when he saw the amok appear on the top deck of the Liberty. But all his father did was sleep. He wasn't even transformed.

The correctional department had not allowed anyone to visit Gabriel unless they were authorised investigators or lawyers. But even if Adrien had been able to see his father, he didn't think he'd be willing. When the Familiar interrogated Gabriel, the outcome was a comprehensive explanation of his actions over the past five years. Not an apology.

In fact, Gabriel was still vindicated, still justified to himself. In terrorising the world and abusing his son, he had been acting from a place of love. He wanted his wife back. He wanted his family united again. This might have been supremely valuable to the various departments working the trial, but to Adrien, a son, a lost boy without his parents—fucking worthless.

Gabriel was willing to go to prison for the chance to have Emelie again, but unwilling to do the internal work to heal himself. Was being a good father not the priority? Was a life imprisoned, away from Adrien—who still loved Gabriel, foolishly—preferable to simply moving on? Why was he not enough?

He remembered watching Titanic with his mother, at a questionably young age, and thinking it was the height of romantic to love someone so much you'd die for them. But now, older and wiser, he knew the more impressive thing was loving so much that you'd live for them, every day refusing to give into pain and violence, every day trying to be a good, whole person.

"Okay," Chat Noir finally resigned himself. "That's all I wanted to see. Thanks for your help." He turned around and strode for the door. "Can I get out by myself or do you have to escort me?"

"Where are you going?" the warden asked.

"The women's prison."

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Nothing.

He'd searched nearly half an hour, both upstream and downstream in time, through the CCTV footage of two different prisons. Not only had Gabriel and Nathalie both been in their civilian forms, they had also been asleep during the period of interest. They were just sallow and sad; Gabriel had been sketching in a pad of paper before he fell asleep, and Nathalie had been reading a novel. They looked so normal, so humane on camera—

Chat Noir dug his claws into his palm until the sting took his mind away from Gabriel and Nathalie. He didn't want to feel anything.

So. It was someone else wielding the Peacock Miraculous on the night of the Christmas party. There had to be at least a third person involved. One fact established. Now, were they in cahoots? Or was this third person a rogue?

If they were in cahoots, the current holder might communicate with Gabriel and Nathalie by amokising them—that was why Adrien had told both security forces to notify Chat Noir if they ever saw an amok in Gabriel or Nathalie's prison cells.

It was worse if they were a rogue. Because then Adrien was truly back to square one; back to fighting a specter, a person behind a mask.

Back in his hotel suite, Adrien considered mining Plagg for information about Duusu. He sat down next to Plagg on the couch. The kwami was playing a role-play soccer game on the PlayStation. "What is the Peacock kwami like?"

Plagg responded without batting his tail. "Duusu is emotional."

"How so?" Adrien asked. Plagg did not answer, jumping across the video game controller like a tiny tap-dancer. "Plagg, this is serious."

When kwamis had judicious wielders like Ladybug and Adrien, they lived a life of comfort and freedom. Tikki herself had even shown up at Adrien's hotel room without Ladybug's knowledge or permission, which implied that she had the liberty to travel as she liked. When the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous were with his father, their kwamis were trapped. Held hostage.

A similar sort of—if not the exact same—personality was now commanding the Peacock Miraculous, otherwise Duusu would have made his way back to the Guardian and his family.

Gabriel's goal had been to use the akumatized civilians and sentimonsters to draw out Ladybug and Chat Noir. He wanted their combined Miraculous to wish for his wife back. But there still had been no supervillain, no sentimonster to battle, no ultimatum about receiving the Miraculous of Creation and Destruction. Why? What was their end?

"Someone is misusing him, keeping him from his family."

Plagg scored a goal just as Adrien rose and flicked the TV off. His kwami hissed with displeasure.

"I know that. What exactly do you want to know?" he said in his high-pitched, scratchy voice. "What is Duusu like? Blue and emotional. Sass is turquoise and likes to meditate, Tikki is pink and a stick-up-the—"

Adrien folded his arms, adopting the firm tone that only came out when it was serious, serious business. "Plagg."

Plagg scrubbed viciously behind his ear with his paw and shook himself to clear his head. "Fine. What I mean to say is that kwamis only have a few constants. It's hard to rifle through billions of years of memories unless you ask a more specific question."

Sitting back on the couch, Adrien held out his palm. Plagg settled down and curled up into a tight ball, shutting his eyes.

"What are Duusu's constants? Outside of being blue and emotional." When his kwami blinked open one puzzled eye, Adrien clarified: "You know how, when you were training me to use my adult powers, you spoke a lot about the philosophy behind Destruction? Destruction can be a force for good. It can lighten burdens and heal people, but it can also ruin someone's life. The lessons I had to learn were rooted in restraint, control, and moderation."

Plagg said, "I vaguely recall," as if those countless lessons were chores. Perhaps they were. Adrien couldn't see his kwami voluntarily teaching anyone anything.

"Is that philosophy the same for all Miraculous wielders to learn? Or does each Miraculous have something different to impart?" When Tikki visited Adrien's hotel suite, what had woken him was her arguing with Plagg. That meant that kwamis disagreed, and therefore they didn't have the same approaches to things. Logically, it seemed like each wielder had to learn something different from their kwami. He asked again, "What's Duusu like?"

"You know, Adrien, I don't even like thinking about my own philosophy let alone the rest of my brethren's. It's like asking you to describe the minutiae of how you breathe. Who does that? No-one. You just breathe. So I expect caloric compensation for all the thinking I'm about to do."

Adrien chuckled. "We can look at the room service menu after."

Satisfied, Plagg uncurled his tail and sat up on Adrien's hand. "I should clarify, what I tell you might not be correct. One thing a kwami can never change is the sentiment they embody. I am Destruction, and I can't see the universe in any other terms. It's a blessing, but it also means I will never understand why some of my brothers and sisters think the way they think." Plagg's stomach growled furiously. The kwami's big green eyes dropped to his tummy and he pouted tearfully. "Oh, can we take a snack break?"

"Come on, Plagg. Please," Adrien pleaded, scratching Plagg underneath the chin to coax him to stay sitting up. "I want to bring Duusu back to his family. To you and Tikki."

In negotiation, Adrien leaned down to the lower panel of the coffee table and put the room service menu on the top. He hated ordering room service when he had three regular meals already scheduled for delivery, but Plagg regarded it as a precious treat.

His kwami sighted the menu and scrunched up his face in thought.

Eventually: "Duusu is the kwami of Emotion. He's attracted to depth of feeling. Where Destruction has to balance between gluttony and moderation, Duusu does not see any value in restraint. He loves unshakability, earnestness, and adamance."

"I don't understand."

"About four thousand years ago, Duusu's wielder strangled his wife to death," Plagg said, neutral as water.

"Oh," Adrien exclaimed, covering his mouth with his other hand.

"Every Miraculous can be used for evil." Plagg continued, "The Black Cat at the time arrived to repossess the Peacock Miraculous and return it to the Guardian to redistribute. Duusu spoke to me for a short time that day. He said, 'I know his emotions are dark, but they are so beautiful.' From that, I assumed that Duusu sees the various emotions like colours. Some darker, some lighter, and they must work together to paint a three-dimensional individual."

Adrien nodded; that made sense to him. Of course, he was operating as a human being with a trillionth of the understanding that Duusu had.

"Personally, I hate murders like the one Duusu's wielder committed. It is the ultimate loss of willpower. A sign of brainless animal instinct," Plagg said, snout wrinkling with disgust. "Tikki hates murder because she is the kwami of Creation, and to her, all life has innate worth. That's why she's vegetarian. But I think the way to control Emotion is to desaturate those colours, remove the origins of his holder's powers."

Interesting. The analogy, and the recommendation. Adrien would think more on the idea of desaturating as he searched. "Thank you, Plagg. This was really helpful."

He tucked Plagg into his breast pocket and unfolded the room service menu for his kwami to peruse.