Before we start this chapter I wanted to share my old sketches and designs for characters in this part of the monster fic:

^from left to right: Uncanny Valley, Magestia, Eagle, and Neptune

^Doorman, Victory, and Knightowl

Lastly, Sandboy both in his child form and adult form. I LOVE HIM OKAY FIGHT ME

Alright now we begin.

Nino Lahiffe had been "interning" at Master Fu's sanctuary for three weeks now. At least, he told his family it was an internship. They were so happy for him, exclaiming and gushing about how this would help shape his future and career. This supposed "internship" was for "computer programming" because that sounded time consuming and important. Unfortunately, what was really going on was actually more likely to destroy Nino's future. He was training up to be the imminent next guardian. He wasn't going to have time to pursue much of his big dreams. He didn't think he was going big places anyways, and considered this a good selfless act for the better of the world.

"Would you like some tea?" Master Fu asked Nino as he greeted him in the garden. Nino shook his head no so Master Fu joined him and the other kwamis, without the tea.

"The kwamis are worried about Trixx," Nino confessed.

"Ah, well, worry doesn't get us very far, does it?" Master Fu said, taking a seat in a white lawn chair next to Nino. "I am afraid we are in a complicated position."

"That is very clear," Sass, the snake kwami of intuition, mumbled irritably. Master Fu did not hear him.

"My time is slowly running out, and sooner or later, I will have to leave the sanctuary in your hands," Master Fu said to Nino gently, "Trixx is missing, and without Volpina coming out to play, we have absolutely no chances of getting him back. However, there is a bright side."

"Which is...?" Sass rose a curated brow.

"Dusuu doesn't have a wielder," Master Fu said, "if we could communicate with him, we would have an ally working for us under Hawkmoth's wing. Our best bet is through Daizzi."

"It is rare for kwamis to dream," Daizzi said, lifting their chin.

"True, but we only need patience for this to work."

"We can't just wait another twenty years," Sass said, curling his lip.

"True. I am only asking you to wait one."

"And what if you pass before that time?" Daizzi asked.

"Then it is up to Carapace to lead your way," Master Fu said confidently. Nino shrunk in his seat.

"I-I I think I'll have that tea now," Nino said. Before Master Fu could respond, a strange aura came about the clouds about and the sky became very red and dark.

"Speaking of Dusuu..." Sass groaned.

Towering over distant buildings emerged a four armed lanky monster. Its fingers were like talons and its face was one large mouth filled with thousands of teeth, presumably. It had several types of horns on its head, ranging from that of a moose or common deer to impalas or gazelles. It had a tail made of spinal cord which curled at its long legs with hooved feet. Though it had no eyes and was several miles away, everyone at the sanctuary could feel it was staring right at them.

"Someone needs to revoke Dusuu of his creativity," Barkk said jokingly as if it would soothe the terror in the air.

"That is definitely a monster," Sass said as if annoyed.

"I need to find Neptune!" Nino blurted out, "we need Ladybug and Chat Noir!"

"Isn't it nighttime in New York?" Daizzi asked.

"Shit! Hopefully they're not asleep then," Nino said and slipped on his bracelet. He transformed into Carapace, said a few very brief goodbyes, and quickly left the sanctuary.

"He is not ready," Sass said as soon as Nino left.

"I know," Master Fu sighed, "but what choice do we have?"

"We have at least a year, right? A year before you..." Barkk's voice faded away when Master Fu shook his head.

"That is what I want the boy to believe. I fear if I exert myself too much, I will not live much longer than a month."

Carapace found Tigre Rouge when he had shortened the distance between him and Dusuu's monster. He had the little remote that would buzz the bracelets he gave the three heroes in New York. He had no idea if it would actually signal them from such a long distance, and now he could only hope. The monster Dusuu had created appeared to be waiting for them, smiling oddly, lacking lips to actually close its mouth. Carapace thought, for a moment, that this must have meant Dusuu had escaped. This monster was how he got away from Hawkmoth... except it very clearly wasn't.

"There you two are!" Neptune said as she planted her feet on a building, opposite to the sentimonster. "How do we kill it?"

"I signaled the three in New York. You should portal over there and get them before too much destruction happens," Carapace said. Neptune nodded humbly.

"I've always wanted to visit America," she said with a smile before exclaiming, "voyage!" which formed a portal at her side. "I'll be back as quickly as possible."

"What now?" Tigre Rouge asked.

"I don't know, it's not exactly moving...." Carapace said, eying the monster fearfully.

"How do we even get rid of it? I mean, we've never had to handle a sentimonster before."

"Sentimonsters are created by an amuk, which is similar to an akuma. Similarly, there will be an object we have to release it from, I hope."

"Yeah, but Dusuu created this. He may not need an object to craft such a thing. And speaking of which, kwamis using their powers usually have a side effect."

"Maybe the side effect of this one is that it's unresponsive..." Carapace said as the sentimonster still hadn't moved an inch.

"Do you know how the peacock miraculous works?" Rena asked.

Carapace thought about it for a moment. "Yeah, actually. The wearer uses feathers called amuks to create monsters, sort of like the akuma. Problem is, Dusuu doesn't need an amuk to create a monster, which means theres nothing for us to destroy to get rid of it."

"Hm.. Then why create something that cannot be defeated if you're not going to move it?" Rena wondered out loud."

"That makes me think he's done this to get our attention. Hawkmoth doesn't know."

"So he escaped?"

"Perhaps only temporarily," Carapace said, his eyes fixating on the monster. "He wants us to find him."

"But how will we cover a whole city to find him when he's been missing for twenty years?!"

Just as Rena said this, the sentimonster moved. Its freakishly large crooked arms lifted to point in a direction opposite of Paris's historic district. It was way down south, but directly on a lonesome old building Carapace knew was speaking to them.

"Looks like we were right," Carapace said, and quickly leapt off the building he stood on to follow the direction the beast had pointed.

After scouring the area miles away, the two were coming up empty handed. The sentimonster was now moving, but it carefully stepped around structures and ensured its hooves didn't crush any cars or people beneath it. Despite its horrible appearance, it really was just a gentle giant.

"Dusuu?" Carapace called out after several minutes of searching, "What's going on."

"Stay where you are!" A voice came from the sentimonster which served as Dusuu's messenger.

"Dusuu?!" Carapace took a step back.

"I said stay still!" The sentimonster demanded. Rena and Carapace froze in there tracks. After a few moments, the voice spoke up again from the throat of that monster. "Where are Ladybug and Chat Noir?"

"They left the country," Rena replied with a quiver in her voice. The sentimonster stopped speaking. It took them a while to realize the sentimonster had become just as vacant as it had been before. The creaking of a door on a nearby balcony alerted their attention, and by the time their eyes found it, Dusuu was stepping through the door of an apartment across the street. Rena and Carapace immediately sucked in a breath of disbelief.

"Stay put," Dusuu demanded. It was his voice that he was using to speak through the sentimonster, and it truly fit him perfectly. Carapace couldn't tear his eyes away from him in absolute awe. The kwami that had gone long missing, ailed by illness and misfortune, was standing there, right across the street in an apartment complex.

Dusuu tentatively approached the railing of the balcony and stood on it. His eyes were studying the two heroes earnestly. Carapace didn't know whether to speak or hold his breath. Dusuu was absolutely beautiful. Having dealt with nearly all of the kwamis, Carapace could easily say that out of all of them, Dusuu was the most divine. He was tall–as were all the kwmais except for Mullo–and that's to say he was taller than any of the kwamis he'd ever seen. He truly was a tower of a man yet slender and elegant like a woman. His purple and blue robes which billowed around him gracefully, almost animating the entirely still man. His hair was also longer than any other kwami's he'd seen before, heald up in a high pony tail and still nearly reaching his ankles.

Dusuu took a step forward and suddenly he had crossed the street and was standing over Carapace with fire in his eyes. Oh his eyes! They were blue where they should have been white, and pink for the iris. Even his pupils were discolored! Dusuu was, perhaps, one of the most unique kwamis, and that was a lot to say given that Longg was covered in horns and scales. Beneath his eyes were two scars shaped like tear drops. Carapace had heard that Dusuu cried tears of glass, and so he knew that was the cause of these scars.

"Why have Ladybug and Chat Noir abandoned Paris?" Dusuu asked with a sharp tongue.

"Queen Bee is gone too, it was a complete coincidence!" Rena outburst. Carapace was still to frightened to speak.

"I need them," Dusuu said with a tremble in his voice. Carapace realized he'd mistaken Dusuu's anxiousness as venom.

"How did you escape," Carapace ushered with a barely audible voice.

Dusuu's eyes looked down on him in horror as he said, "I haven't."

"Then-"

"I don't have time here!" Dusuu said, that tremor in his voice still clinging to his tongue. "I created that monster for the sake of seeing them! When will they be back?"

"Neptune– er- our newest member just went to-"

"How are you here?!" Rena interrupted, "Who is Hawkmoth?! Where is he?! You can help us right?!"

"I-" Dusuu's breath hitched, "I cannot."

"How on earth can that be?!" Rena said. Carapace realized there were tears in her eyes. All this anxiousness, all this death and waiting, just to save Dusuu... and here he was, standing before them and telling them no.

"Because there is someone close to Hawkmoth that I love. Two people, actually. And I fear exposing him would get them hurt," Dusuu admitted.

"But you're here," Rena said, grasping his robes and nearly collapsing, prepared to see him just vanish right under her fingertips if she didn't hold onto him.

"Dusuu, people are dying. We can save those people, I promise," carapace said.

"Can you?" Dusuu said, looking down on Carapace with eyes that told him, no, you absolutely have no power to. You will fail.

"Dusuu, what is going on?" Rena said, tightening her grip.

"I thought if I came out here for just a moment, I might get Ladybug and Chat Noir's miraculous so that I could free Nooroo..."

"You want their miraculous?" Rena immediately let him go and stepped away, "who's side are you on?!"

"I wish to cure myself. I believe only the ladybug and chat miraculous can do that. Once I am cured, Nooroo has no obligation to stay with Hawkmoth, and we can escape."

"What?!" Carapace and Rena said in unison.

"Listen," Dusuu sighed, "any minute now, Hawkmoth will send someone for me, or even worse, put on my miraculous to force me back, so I must make this brief-"

"Just stay," Rena pleaded, "we'll take you to the sanctuary-"

"Twenty years ago in london he came into my chamber," Dusuu interrupted.

"Who?"

"The man you now know as Hawkmoth," Dusuu said. "I was barely conscious. I'd been slipping in and out of a coma for years, and Nooroo was helping me with a fever. He saw the state we were in, and dropped to his knees to beg me for help."

"Help?"

"He had found a grimoire of the chinese box and spent years tracking us down just so that he could meet me. He did not want the miraculous for himself, and he did not care about the ladybug and black cat. It was the first time in centuries any mortal had sought out me. And what a shape I was in... He asked me how it is that I create life. I explained to him that I was broken. I don't create life, I create monsters. But he pushed further, and he asked how I give life to thin air. I didn't understand at the time, but he truly was magnificently desperate and so in love with his wife he would do anything for her."

"Was she dying???"

"No. She wanted to create life herself. A child." Dusuu closed his eyes. "But I told him I could not create human life. I created only monsters. But he insisted that there was a way. He promised me I don't have to only make monsters, I can create... anything. And his words were just so beautiful but I was so sick... I'm rambling."

"So you... left willingly?"

"Yes. He promised he could cure me, and in exchange, I would create a child for him. It was supposed to be a quick arrangement but we found that creating a living thing that could grow and develop was harder than we thought, and his theories about mending a miraculous were all wrong. Nooroo was, of course, with me. He never goes anywhere without me, and there was no way he'd let me run off while I was under such circumstances. I fell ill and slept again, Nooroo stayed for years to try and work on a cure, and here we are. Hawkmoth, in order to keep us anchored, tied himself to Nooroo with his miraculous. He was too afraid to use mine, and that really showed me how cold of a man he is. All this time, I slept, thinking that surely Nooroo must have returned home with my miraculous and I would wake up in the new sanctuary."

"Then just leave. Take your miraculous, and leave," Rena said with a harsh tone.

"I can't. Even if I could, I'm leaving Nooroo, and I'm leaving the child," Dusuu said, "and Nooroo is only obedient to Hawkmoth because he has been promised my freedom."

The sentimonster behind them vanished and Dusuu suddenly collapsed onto his knees. He had to hold himself up with his hands, but it was clear he was shaking and his breath was becoming uneasy. Before they could even ask if he was alright, he began violently coughing. They offered him a helping hand but he dismissed them.

Once he was done with his coughing fit, he looked up at them wearily. "Pass this on to the others. Tell Ladybug and Chat Noir that if they just heal me... All of this will be over. Have Chat Noir wear the earrings, he should be able to handle their power..."

"Dusuu-"

"I am so sorry for all that has happened. And I fear that soon... a new villain will emerge with the power of the peacock... Once that happens... I will no longer have control."

Before either could get a word in, Dusuu vanished.

"Have you relayed the message?" said a voice as Dusuu had been summoned back into the Agreste mansion. Dusuu's eyes were flat, and his gaze was fixated on the glossy tiles of Gabriel Agreste's office.

"Yes," Dusuu said with a sharp tongue.

"Good," said Gabriel, putting a hand on Dusuu's back. "This will be good. For you, Nooroo, Emily, and of course, Adrien."

"Yes, Adrien," Dusuu said, his eyes unmoving.

"We are all a family, you know," Gabriel ushered. "Families will always be here for each other."

Dusuu wanted to say something like, I will live a thousand years longer than you, where will you be then? But he really couldn't. At the rate his health was rapidly declining, he was destined to enter an eternal slumber. One that he'd never wake from–he'd be better off considered dead before Gabriel.

"You are a pitiful man," Dusuu said, finally allowing his eyes to meet Gabriel at his side. Gabriel looked like shit. His eyes were puffy and sleepless, and his cheeks hollower than usual. Stress had been eating away at his hair, and he looked about twenty years older than he really was. Truthfully, Dusuu cared about him.

"Nooroo is in Adrien's room."

"Thank you," Dusuu said, sharply turning and leaving that wretched office.

He quickly found himself climbing up the stairs and rushing down the hall to Adrien's room. With Adrien in New York, he and Nooroo were more free to roam about the place. Of course, they both had disguises when they were in front of the mansion workers, and that was still too much of a hassle, so they both preferred to stay behind closed doors where no one could walk in on them. It was all the more easier with Adrien gone.

"You're back?" came Nooroo's voice as Dusuu opened the door. "Did he..."

Immediately, Dusuu was tackling Nooroo with a hug, suspending both of them in the air weightlessly. "I don't think much good can come from this," Dusuu said, burying his face in Nooroo's shoulder. It was rare moments where Gabriel took off his brooch that Dusuu got to cherish Nooroo like this.

"It'll work out," Nooroo assured. Dusuu kissed him on the neck.

"I hope you're right."

"What all did you say to them?"

"It was just Carapace and Rena Rouge... well, I suppose she's called Tigre Rouge now," he chuckled a little bit, "I can't believe Fu let Roaar out onto that playing field. She's such a wild card... I miss her... I miss everyone."

"I do too," Nooroo said, cupping Dusuu's face in his hand and giving him a peck on the forehead, right on the pint marked dot that lay above his brows.

"I may or may not have manipulated what Agreste wanted me to say," Dusuu admitted.

"What?" Nooroo's eyes widened, "if he finds out-"

"Then he should punish me. You had nothing to do with it, it was all on my own accord. And if he does decide to punish you two, I will destroy this house."

"Would you though?"

"If he pushed my limits with you..."

"What did you tell them then?"

"I did tell them at first to give me the ladybug and black cat. I also told them everything Agreste wanted me to. But at the end... I may have suggested they could use the power of the ring and earrings together on their own accord to... help us."

"How and why would they do that?"

"Chat Noir! He can wield any of the jewels, I'm sure of it. Well, I didn't think any of them could even touch him, but Plagg proved us wrong. And if they wish for something as simple as mending my miraculous, we have no reason to stay here. I can save us!"

"And leave Adrien?"

"Don't you see that Adrien is a part of this plan?"

"..." Nooroo hugged onto Dusuu, this time being the one to plant his head on his lover's shoulder. "How do you feel about Plagg leaving right here under this roof with us... while having no idea we're here?"

"It's upsetting."

"It feels like lying, though we really haven't lied at all if he hasn't even seen us."

"He's smarter than he seems. I'm sure he can figure it out eventually."

"And when he does? He has to face the sting of our betrayal?"

"It'll be hard. But we can get through it," Dusuu assured, resting his temple against Nooroo's head. "I love you."

"I love you too."

A/N "This Chapter is about Nino because he's one of the protagonists of this part of the fic" 🤡
This chapter is dedicated to Dusuu. My beloved. I love him so much I'm writing a whole new cast of characters so I can have my own story and rewrite this version of him into a god and no one can stop me. I literally obsess over this.
Rip Nino.
-Peter