The Forget-Me-Not Chapter 10: TRUE

What if I were to tell you that even after this world ends, life would still continue on eternally?

When you had to watch the lives of those you love, and all you could do was wait for them to disappear.

"...All alone?"

If the world were to come to an end, they were to ascertain the trail of the stars.

"Stop it, you're driving me insane!"

That's the fate of immortality, the truth of miraculous.

"It's a nonexistent fairy-tale!"

"And if I were to believe in it?"

"There must be something wrong with you!"

"...What exactly is it that you know?"

Such is the truth of miraculous, the life that knows no end.

Marinette raced up the stairs, determined to reach Nino and finally get some answers. The prefect, who had been walking at a normal pace beforehand, quickened his pace upon hearing Marinette following him.

Just as Nino was about to throw open the door to the third floor, Marinette shouted, her voice echoing in the stairwell, "Nino, c'mon, I just want to know the truth."

Nino groaned in frustration, and turned away from the door so he could yell down at Marinette, "Dude, that's exactly why I'm not spilling. Nothing good will happen if you find out, trust me." He then whirled back around and opened up the door to the third floor, leaving the stairwell and Marinette's line of vision.

Marinette huffed and sprinted up the stairs, following Nino onto the third floor. She didn't see him upon entering the hallway, and so began checking the rooms on the third floor to see if Nino was around. She even checked the rooms her sewing team used to customize clothes, but Nino wasn't in any of them.

Just as Marinette was about to give up, however, she checked the final room on the third floor, a conference room that had fallen into disuse. In it, she spotted Nino lounging on a folding chair listening to music from headphones that he'd borrowed from the tech room. His back was to the door.

Marinette breathed a sigh of relief that she'd managed to track down the prefect, and ripped the headphones off his head to get his attention. Nino flinched and turned around in his seat on reflex. Upon seeing Marinette holding his headphones, he let out an exasperated sigh, "You just don't give up."

Marinette, stern and not willing to back down, tossed Nino's headphones back to him as she said, "What's wrong with asking about what happened to Mylene? Why won't anyone give me a straight answer? Just tell me what happened to Mylene, and I'll back off."

Nino turned off his music and let the headphones rest around his neck as he shook his head gravely and replied, "It doesn't work that way. Once you know the truth, you won't back off. I know what you're like, Marinette. As soon as you know, you're going to jump to conclusions and then everything is going to fall apart. You won't understand until it's too late, and then where will we be?"

"I don't know!" Marinette exclaimed, frustrated. "I don't know, that's why you have to tell me. I'm already jumping to conclusions! What if she's dead? What if she ran off to join the humans? I have no idea, because you won't tell me. I know you know something, and I know she existed, you can't deny that."

Nino's face was uncharacteristically dead to any emotion, instead carrying a strange serious haunted quality to it, "Trust me, I wish I didn't know. It'd be so much easier for me to just forget. But once I found out, there was no going back." He paused before adding, "I've been trying to play it cool, but you're not like me. You won't deflate if you find out, you'll pop and break. You're better off staying innocent to it all."

Marinette crossed her arms, and ignored the grave look in Nino's face as she retorted, a little too headstrong, "I don't care. Just tell me what happened to Mylene!"

Nino scowled and looked away for a moment, before standing up from sitting in the folded chair and moving to stand by the blackboard on the other side of the room. He wasn't looking Marinette in the eyes as he finally gave in, saying in a low voice, "Do you know about the Miraculous?"

Marinette did a double take, "The miraculous what?"

Nino said in a serious voice, as if he were revealing the secret to the destruction of reality as they knew it, "The Miraculous: the one true eternally-living being. Akuma were supposedly created by him."

She was even more confused. What did this have to do with Mylene? Was it somehow related to the story about the gardener from Mylene's journal and the question he'd asked before about eternally living flowers?

Marinette was firm as she said, "It's just a myth." This was real life, not a fairy-tale. The Miraculous had always been just a rumor. If one lived forever, they'd be alone in the end no matter what, because everything else that existed would just die. It was a sad life, one that couldn't possibly exist.

And one that Marinette didn't believe in.

Nino shook his head, "No, it's not. It's real. There's a real holder of the Miraculous out there."

He grabbed a piece of purple chalk and drew something on the blackboard that vaguely resembled a butterfly, "He was just a normal man, a well-known tailor. But then things got tragic, he became obsessed with finding a hidden piece of treasure. He died when he found it, but, instead of staying dead like any other normal thing, he came back. From then on, he remained alive for all of eternity."

Marinette bit her lip. The story was tragic, but, just that, a story. Immortality was science fiction, and this didn't have anything to do with Mylene... right? But then, Marinette remembered Mylene's story about the gardener, and how he'd tried to make the flowers live as long as he did.

...Was it a different version of the story that Nino was telling her now?

And, if so, then, why would the Miraculous freak Mylene out enough for her to want to include it in her journal?

Marinette blurted out, "What does this have to do with Mylene?"

Nino ignored the question and continued on. Marinette had gotten him started, and he couldn't stop now, "That man became the one true guardian of the Miraculous. However, he got lonely as everything else died. But when he gave a few others the Miraculous, most of them went mad, and he was forced to take the Miraculous back.

Nino added, "He had to try to give others the power to live as long as he could without the Miraculous. The Miraculous had given him the powers to do it, but his plan failed, and akuma were born as a result."

Marinette opened her mouth to interrupt Nino again, but found that she couldn't find anything to say. The story was interesting, but, so what? It couldn't be real. The cycle of life was that everything lived to make the most of their existence before death. If one lived eternally, there would be no more purpose to live. There would be no reason to make the most of their existence, since they'd be existing forever.

Nino continued, "He swore off of trying to do anything like that again, but the damage was already done. He'd created a whole new species of butterfly and people that were too corrupt with power and negativity to be actual butterflies or people."

Nino sat down in another folding chair to continue his story, and Marinette watched from the other side of the room, "After centuries of loneliness, he broke his promise, and fell in love. By the time he realized, it was too late, and his love was pregnant. He disappeared, not wanting to corrupt his son, and he didn't, the son was born mortal. But his love couldn't bear to raise a son without him, and disappeared, abandoning the baby."

Marinette stared as the story spewed out of Nino, wondering just how much of it could actually be true. Someone else was watching them both, and was shaking with a complex combination of rage and despair.

Nino was sitting with his hands clasped and resting on the table, staring at his hands as he continued, "The poor kid was neglected during his childhood. And, when he was akumatized, he was shipped off to an asylum just like this one, where he was isolated by his peers. When someone finally reached out to him, it just so happened to be someone obsessed with the legend of the Miraculous. They both perished in their quest to find the treasure, but the treasure came to them."

Nino looked up as he explained, "The true guardian of the Miraculous had done the one thing he had vowed to never do again: he gave the poor kid the gift of Miraculous. But, the true guardian of the Miraculous abandoned his son again. Why? Because he's a shitty dad."

Marinette frowned at that comment. Silently agreeing, but not sure where Nino was going with the story.

Nino continued, "But, the kid was a false Miraculous, since he got it secondhand from the true guardian of the Miraculous. So when the kid went crazy from loneliness, he couldn't give others the Miraculous, because he was false. So, he tried to kill himself for good or search for daddy to get him to take it back instead. None of it worked, and so the poor neglected kid was left alone like always."

Marinette interrupted Nino then, "Ok, I'm going to stop you there. If any of this is true, what's the point? What does this have to do with Mylene?" Marinette was still skeptical of the idea of eternal life, but Nino's story had, admittedly, felt very real.

But, Marinette didn't care. She just wanted to know where Mylene was, and, even if eternal life was real, Marinette wouldn't want to get involved with it.

She would die one day, because you lived to make the most out of your life. And you wouldn't feel the need to make the most out of your life if you lived forever. You'd be living forever, so what was the point of living each day to the fullest, if you lived an endless amount of days?

It was ironic, those who lived eternally would struggle the most with finding a purpose for themselves.

Marinette was not about that struggle.

Nino blinked, and looked up from the table to make eye contact with Marinette. He'd been so caught up in telling the story, that he'd forgotten where he was going with it. So, instead, he asked, "Are you scared of dying?"

Marinette shook her head and stated with no hesitation, "No, everyone has to die eventually."

Nino nodded and leaned back in his chair, sounding distant as he remarked, "Yeah, some people have accepted that, I guess."

Marinette sighed in exasperation. While the story was interesting, and it seemed emotionally taxing for Nino to tell, and he appreciated him for sharing it, she just couldn't comprehend what it had to do with Mylene. Had she been so freaked out by the Miraculous that she'd committed suicide?

No, that was absurd.

So, Marinette asked, frustrated with how Nino was avoiding direct explanations, "What about Mylene?"

Nino heard the question, but ignored it, instead drumming his fingers on the table as he asked slowly, "What if... the Miraculous is in this very asylum?"

Just then, an anguished and tortured voice broke through their air of the unused conference room, "That's enough! Stop, please!"

Marinette whirled around to face the door, and Nino snapped his head around to look towards the door. It had been left open during their conversation, and one of the only people who had come across them had entered the room, not able to take Nino's story anymore.

It was Nathanael, the akumatized half-breed.

He had taken but two steps into the room before stopping, shaking and trembling from an urgent despair.

Nino's story had hit too close to home.

A child having been abandoned by his family and peers just for being the way he was?

That was the story of his life.

It was his akuma father with his horrible reputation that had gotten Nathanael bullied by his childhood peers in the first place. He'd been too depressed to help his son.

It was his human mother who gave in to public opinion and began pushing his son away, just because he was a half-breed. Even though he was more human-like, he'd still been bullied.

And then he'd gotten akumatized. Anything he drew could come to life and it had disastrous results. None of it was intentional, but he had to face the consequences anyway.

He'd been bullied and isolated even more.

So, hearing Nino's story, and how there was a possibility that there was someone like him out there, living his life, but having to live it forever, was appalling.

Nathanael simply couldn't comprehend it.

While Marinette was just denying it out of ignorance and her beliefs, Nathanael was denying it out of experience.

He knew what such emotional torture was like, and if it was impossible to bear in a temporary life span like his own, how could one live eternally with that kind of burden?

It was unfathomable.

Besides, what could Nino, a normal akuma, ever know about the abuse an akumatized half-breed had to take? For all he knew, the laid-back prefect had been appropriating the experience to lure Marinette in, using her quest to find Mylene for his own ends.

These weren't Nino's actual intentions at all, of course. And deep inside, Nathanael knew that.

But the fact of the matter was that Nino knew something important, something that would let Marinette loose and destroy everything.

Yet, Marinette couldn't see that. She was on the cusp of giving in and listening to Nino, it was obvious. Her curiosity would get the better of her, and Nathanael would lose her if that happened. He'd lose the only person to stand up for him.

Nathanael couldn't deal with that possibility.

The contents of the vial he'd received in the mail, the "antidote," spurred his problematic thoughts, encouraged them, and clawed at the restraints that would have normally held them at bay. But these thoughts were purely his own. The antidote didn't change them, only magnified them.

Nino blinked incredulously at Nathanael's interruption, surprised at his arrival, and but knew something was up with how much the redhead was trembling. But, Nino was aware of the redhead's fondness for Marinette, and so he asked warily, not wanting to set half-breed off on a rampage, "Uh, you ok, dude?"

Marinette had been annoyed that Nathanael had prevented her from finally getting a straight answer out of Nino, but, when Nino asked the question, she'd finally noticed how upset the redhead looked. She was genuinely concerned for his well-being, and not just worried that he'd go on a rampage,

She asked in concern, "Did you need something?"

Nathanael slowly shook his head and stuttered, "N-no, just, stop, Nino, please, with the story."

Nino stared at Nathanael, surprised. He'd assumed that Nathanael was jealous of him for being so close to Marinette, who was obviously the subject of Nathanael's crush. But, it was apparent now that he was partially wrong.

Nino then ignorantly asked, clueless to the story's similarities to Nathanael's past, and the pain it caused half-breed, "Uh, what do you mean?"

And then Nathanael raised his voice. It wasn't loud compared to how Nino and Marinette were shouting in the stairwell, but it was the loudest Marinette had ever heard from Nathanael, "Stop! That story of yours, it's-it's poison! It's myth! You're poisoning Marinette with your words!"

Nino was taken aback. He really didn't know Nathanael that well personally, the other prefects were the ones that handled the redhead more, all Nino ever did was wordlessly escort him to his room. But he knew nevertheless that the half-breed had never raised his voice before.

Though with Nathanael's anxiety, Nino supposed it was only a matter of time.

Despite Nathanael's strange behavior, Nino agreed with Nathanael in the sense that Marinette was better off not knowing the truth.

But, hey, he'd gotten this far, and what he'd said was no myth, it was the truth. So, why not?

Nino then drawled in a sarcastic tone, "What? That Miraculous holders, true guardian or not, will live eternally even if the world ended? Imagine having to watch everyone you love die before your eyes, and then having to live on. Imagine going through this cycle over and over again, and all you could do was watch, and wait."

Thinking about such suffering, and for all of eternity no less, was painful for Nathanael. It dug up old wounds, horrible memories that he himself had hidden. Nathanael shook his head, not wanting to think about it, and also driven by his desire to prevent Marinette from going back to Nino, "No! Stop, please!"

Marinette was torn. With how Nino kept pressing the story, she knew now that it hadn't just been a random story to throw her off of her search for Mylene, especially with how it had been in Mylene's journal. It was important and had to do with Mylene's disappearance somehow, even if it was only a myth.

She wanted to know more, but she was also concerned for Nathanael's well-being.

Marinette guessed that the story was a trigger for Nathanael's anxiety, but what she missed was the part that Nino got: the part that had to do with Nathanael's feelings for Marinette.

Marinette compromised. She walked over to Nathanael, and placed a hand on his shoulder to try and placate him as she whispered to Nathanael, "Shh, it's ok. It's just a story." She turned over to look at Nino and asked, "What does this myth specifically have to do with Mylene's disappearance?"

Nathanael was shaking as he grabbed the hand that rested his shoulder with both of his and pulled Marinette away from Nino and said, "No, Marinette, please, stop asking. Nino's crazy, this story is bad. Let's go, please."

Marinette protested, "But, he knows something about Mylene!"

Nathanael shook his head, and pulled Marinette away, begging, "Please." He then said to Nino, "Don't talk about this stuff with Marinette anymore." With that, he pulled Marinette out of the conference room.

They hadn't taken two steps out of the room before Marinette impulsively ripped her hand away from Nathanael's, angry that she was losing her chance to find out more about where Mylene was. The redhead whipped around in shock, petrified by fear. Had he angered Marinette? No, he couldn't live with himself if he'd done so, Marinette deserved to be happy. And she sure won't be happy if she pursued Nino's story.

He stood there shaking, and Marinette's anger dissolved upon seeing just how much Nathanael was freaked out. He was in panic, in despair. Why? Marinette could only guess.

She sighed, and looked back at Nino, who looked gloomy as he remained sitting at the table, but not otherwise protesting Marinette's departure.

Nino hadn't told her anything except the stupid story, and now she was losing her chance to find out more.

But, as long as Nathanael was so freaked out by the story, she would never be able to find out more. But if she could get Nathanael out of this, she could continue her search for Mylene.

What Marinette was clueless to was the half-breed's fixation on her, and just how much he had latched onto the only person who showed him kindness, and how the antidote had augmented those feelings into something problematic.

Marinette sighed, and walked towards the stairwell, beckoning for Nathanael to follow, the story still on her mind.

She'd go along with Nathanael, for now.

But finding out the truth would always be her priority.