Here it is, the 166th full chapter of Miraculous Quirks released on schedule. There isn't anything to say after the last cliffhanger that I left y'all on so I'll get right into this chapter and as such that is all the administrative stuff that I have for you and as there are no guest reviews to respond to or questions to answer I will end this note here. Do keep the reviews coming as I enjoy hearing from y'all. That is all I have for this pre chapter note so that means that it is time to sit back, relax, and enjoy the 166th full chapter of Miraculous Quirks.

Disclaimer: I do not own either of these great works of fiction.

Chapter 166: Closure

At the question, the speaker just grinned while Adrien and Marinette took her in. The woman was older than them, mid to late 20s if they had to guess, with bright blue eyes and short red hair in a pixie cut that was held back by a pair of goggles on her head. She was dressed in an off pink tank top with a wheel like symbol in the center under a black vest with pink accents, denim short shorts over black leggings, sneakers, and fingerless gloves.

However the most distinctive features were the triplet of gold piercings in the middle of each of her ears, the nose stud, and the vibrant, detailed, full sleeve tattoos of a coil snake that had yellowish green scales and a pink underbelly with several dark pink flowers covering her arms from wrists to shoulders. The look was one that the couple had seen once before when dealing with a villain from the future called Timetagger so they knew at once that it was indeed Alix Kubdel standing before them, well future Alix as they knew her back in the day. Well, technically she was now older past Alix but the couple didn't dwell on that.

"In the flesh mini bug and kitty noir." Alix said as she pulled out a carrot from her vest pocket and handed it to Fluff who the couple just noticed was floating over her shoulder as they had been too shocked by Alix's sudden arrival to realize that she'd deactivated her Miraculous. "And in case you need confirmation, my father was a historian at the Louvre while my older brother was akumatized into a villain called Pharoh. As for myself, while I don't remember it, I was akumatized into a villain called Timebreaker because my watch was broken and the akuma was in my roller skates. That should prove my credentials."

"Th, that it does." Marinette said slowly getting up and off Adrien as she turned to Alix though her old classmate and friend didn't approach. "I, I, don't…"

Marinette couldn't finish as her emotions began to well up now that her shock at the unexpected appearance of Alix was over and she didn't know what to do. She felt the tears welling up in her eyes though and all Alix did was smile and open her arms. Before Marinette knew it, she let out a wail and leapt the remaining distance between them.

Alix caught Marinette as she reached her and embraced her long lost friend, staggering a few paces backwards and barely staying on her feet from the impact as Marinette was noticeably more solid than when Alix had known her but managing to get her feet under her and set herself after a moment as she held her classmate. All Marinette did was sob as she let it all out and held Alix just as tightly and silently marveled at how strong Marinette felt in her arms.

It had been a while since Marinette had cried this hard. Sure she'd shed tears when she'd told first Toru and then the rest of her class about her past and when she'd learned of Aoyama's betrayal, and she still occasionally woke up crying or with tears on her pillow from a bad dream about her past, but not since Momo found out the truth and accepted her had she truly bawled.

However, faced with one of her closest friends from the past, one she thought that she'd never see again, she couldn't stop herself as it all came out at once. The stress of the current situation in Japan and Marinette's fears about the impending war added to it as all the walls she'd erected to keep herself going crumbled as Alix held her.

"There, there, Marinette, let it all out." Alix said as she rubbed Marinette's back and blinked back her own tears at reuniting with Marinette after all her years of searching and failing as a few leaked out and down her cheeks. "I know, we all feel the same way."

"I, I…" Marinette said but she couldn't get words out and just kept sobbing into Alix's chest while Adrien finally got to his feet.

"Don't speak, it's ok to just cry." Alix said before she looked out over Marinette's head and smiled at Adrien. "Well what are you waiting for kitty? Get in here as well."

Adrien hadn't known Alix as well as Marinette had but she was still a friend as far as he was concerned and so he came over as Alix removed her right arm from around Marinette and used it to embrace Adrien and pull him in as he hugged both of them. Unlike Marinette he didn't cry but he was emotional at the reunion with someone from their past life.

The embrace lasted a good few moments before it came to an end and Alix released them. Marinette had cried all her tears out and sniffled as she took a step back and held out her hand so that she could create a handkerchief in the pattern of her pajamas with a flash of pink sparkles and use it to dab her eyes while Adrien kept his arm around her waist reassuring her. Alix raised an eyebrow at that though thanks to the nature of Burrow she did know how Marinette had used Lucky Charm without her Miraculous.

"I've gotta say, you're significantly more muscular than you were back in Paris, Marinette." Alix said looking at her friend, she'd never embraced Adrien before the incident so couldn't assess him there though he was somehow even more solid than Marinette was. "I saw how your power became your Quirk but still, it's strange to see it first hand and not via Burrow."

"Well the duration of Lucky Charm is tied to my personal energy so I need to be strong to wield it for a while, change it during an activation period, or make larger, more complex, items." Marinette said almost reflexively as she blinked and finished dabbing her eyes, her mascara running but she paid it no heed before what Alix had said fully hit her. "Hold up! You know about Quirks?"

"And the Guardians?" Adrien asked as he too processed what Alix had said and what it meant. "If you saw how our powers became Quirks then you'd know exactly who changed them."

"Yup though the latter I only found out about after I finally tracked you two down and rewound to when you arrived in this time period." Alix said. "The former, well it's been a long journey to get here so I've seen how this current age of Quirks came to be."

"About that." Marinette said. "How are you here? Not that we're complaining about it but, well, we didn't see this coming."

"And yet you have a version of Fluff here as well." Alix said before she gestured to the blanket. "But that would only cover the potential of how I got here so let's sit down and chat, there's a lot to catch you guys up on."

"Yeah, after what happened and the changes that we went through, along with starting our new lives at U.A., we, er, didn't think of this possibility." Marinette admitted a little ashamed that she'd not realized that if Alix, or someone, had the Rabbit Miraculous they might have been able to find them in the future if they thought to look there and as such missing Alix's suggestion to sit down. "The kwamis were all out and we had Quirks so we were focused on that while the kwamis were just our friends and having fun themselves in a world that they can live freely in without having to hide themselves."

"They did take full advantage of that." Adrien said. "Especially Plagg."

"That and it wasn't until earlier this year that Lucky Charm started asking for allies and even then it only did so twice." Marinette added. "Though with what we are about to face, however, they're active again and have new holders for the coming war but it's been so distracting that we've not thought much about Fluff's power."

"That and after everything that we've been through we don't want to mess with time." Adrien said. "Neither does the Fluff who's with us for that matter."

"After what happened that's a fair reaction and of course you shouldn't interfere with the past less you change the future." Alix said understanding full well the nature of time travel and the rules regarding it. "It should only be done in extreme circumstances like the world actually ending and what happened to you didn't qualify as such. That and I'm fully aware of what you're up against and how you can't mess that up. Still, I had to find you to make sure that you were safe and happy so let's take a seat and I'll tell you everything."

Marinette nodded at that and the three of them moved over to the blanket and sat down. Alix noted that the pair knelt the way you'd see in Japanese society and were good at it while she just sat cross legged but she didn't comment on it. Instead she waited until they were settled to begin her tale.

"I'll start at the beginning, for me at least." Alix said and sadness came into her voice. "Because it was my fault all this happened in the first place."

"It was?" Marinette asked.

"Yup, I was careless and accidentally activated the pocket watch that my dad gave me." Alix said. "I already knew that it was a Miraculous from that Timetagger fight when I met my future self, er I guess I look like that to you now though."

Adrien and Marinette nodded. All the time stuff was a bit hard to follow but they were managing and even Alix was getting a bit confused by it though she powered on.

"Well she was me from the future at that time period so it's only natural that we'd have the same style." Alix said. "But that's not relevant, what is, is that I messed up and activated the pocket watch one day. Almost as soon as I did and Fluff appeared, Hawk Moth found out. I'm not sure how but he did and the next time I was out he personally attacked me and took it."

"We don't blame you for that though." Adrien said. "That's on Hawk Moth being, well, Hawk Moth."

"I know but instead of using it the moment that I activated it, I foolishly didn't think that Hawk Moth would realize which allowed him to surprise me and steal it." Alix said and they could tell that she blamed herself for what had happened to them but that she needed to let it out for her own sake so didn't say anything as Alix continued. "And that was the day that you two vanished. I didn't connect the dots then, no one did, especially because for a few months afterwards there were still a Ladybug and Cat Noir running around only this time with more help from Rena Rouge and Carapace. However, they didn't appear frequently as from that day one Hawk Moth's attacks became less frequent though a bit more desperate at the same time."

"We don't know much about that time though we do know that there was a magical cover to preserve our identities but even with that Hawk Moth gave up shortly after we vanished." Marinette said. "Though with the cover he shouldn't have realized that we were gone and continued so we don't know why he gave up in the end."

"No one knows why he gave up, he just did so one day when he used his butterflies to make an announcement that Ladybug and Cat Noir had won and was renouncing his powers." Alix said though she was one of only two humans who knew the real reason why Hawk Moth gave up but she knew she couldn't say why as it would reveal who Hawk Moth was and Adrien wasn't ready for that. "People were apprehensive of course and the fake Ladybug and Cat Noir appeared a few more times but there were no akumatizations so after a year victory was declared and Paris celebrated. That was officially it, Hawk Moth was never caught but people were fully safe again and that was all that seemed to matter back then."

"Still, we didn't actually defeat him, he just gave up." Adrien said. "We had hoped to unmask him and bring him to justice. I know this is still a win but it feels hollow because he did get away with it in the end."

"I know and there were a few who complained about that but in the end you were still considered great heroes because Hawk Moth was no more and Paris wasn't no longer being terrorized by akumas." Alix said again keeping the real reason to herself as Adrien's disappearance had broken his father and caused him to give up after the grief of losing both his wife and son became too much for him to bear. "Those of us in the class though, we didn't really notice because we were grieving your disappearances instead. Alya and Nino did their duty but that was just a distraction from things."

"We can't imagine that." Marinette said. "We had our own things to deal with when we returned to the timeline but at least we knew what had happened to everyone as you lived out your lives while we were gone, you didn't know where we were."

"We still had to deal with everyone we knew being dead." Adrien said. "That was hard but the videos that were recorded helped us move on. It was your support and belief that we were safe and happy that motivated us to keep going and make the best of our new lives. The whole hero society and going to a hero school where we made new friends added to that but we were always driven to make our old friend proud of us."

"Recording those videos gave us closure as well because we didn't know what had happened to you but we meant what we said and I for one am proud of how you've overcome what you've been through and thrived in this age, though I always knew you would." Alix said smiling at Adrien before her smile fell a bit. "But I won't lie, it was hard on us for a while. One day you were there with us in class and outside it, the next you'd vanished without a trace and your parents had reported you missing. It took a few days for it to really sink in but with leads it became clear that you wouldn't be found. That was when the reactions started and things, er, got a little ugly at one point."

"Chloe." Marinette said simply.

"Yup, she was devastated that Adrien was gone but mainly because of his wealth and status, which she openly admitted to." Alix said. "But she celebrated your disappearance Marinette. That pissed us off and all of us got akumatized again at different points be it from our grief or Chloe's actions but the fake Ladybug and Cat Noir handled it well, the magic used was really good."

"None of that surprises me." Marinette said with a sigh. "Mage explained what he did to preserve our secret and with us gone you'd all have negative emotions that were ripe for Hawk Moth to exploit. Add in Chloe and how she'd do something like that if it was me who vanished and you've got another angle to target."

"I'd like to think that she wouldn't do something like that but I've come to realize that she's different around others compared to how she was around me." Adrien said resignation and acceptance in his voice at who Chloe truly was. "A shame because she was a friend growing up but I guess I only saw one side of her."

"Yeah she was bad but, well, there was a fight in which even Sabrina turned on Chloe and even though she threatened to have us all expelled, her father said no for once because of what was going on with your disappearance and how she reached to it." Alix said. "We probably would have beaten Chloe up though, that's how bad it got. To avoid issues, her mother took her out of school and enrolled her in a new school in London while her father got her personal counseling from the best he could find to deal with her grief over losing Adrien and her issues with Marinette."

"Did that work?" Marinette asked. "I can't imagine it being successful with who Chloe is."

"Apparently it did because Chloe's back in Paris, at least when I left on this mission, and while she's still bratty she's not as bad as she used to be." Alix said. "In fact, the counselor did so well that the Mayor hired her to work with all of us and she became part of the staff at school. Honestly, without her it would have taken longer to come to terms with things."

"A counselor?" Adrien asked getting a strange feeling. "Do you know who?"

"Someone I think you may have heard of though I couldn't see any evidence that you've actually met her." Alix said. "She's an American called Dolora. She's an expert in pain both physical and mental and helped us all through it."

"Dolora, we've not heard that name before but given everything and you're reference to pain I've got a good idea I know who she is as I've heard of someone like that before." Marinette said. "It's, er, hard to explain."

"Oh don't worry, I'm fully aware of the whole Guardians of the Elements stuff and I've connected the tattoo Dolora has on her right forearm to the one on Mage's as it's the same style." Alix said reminding them that she did know who the Guardians were. "I'll get to how I know about them in a moment though as it's tied to how I ended up finding you."

"Alright then let's focus on that." Adrien said as he wanted answers to that, as did Marinette, so discussing the Guardian of Pain and her role in everything was irrelevant at the moment. "Though with Burrow it shouldn't have been hard to find us though."

"You'd be surprised, the whole being kicked out of the timeline thing made you impossible to find as I didn't know where to look for you both by year and location, though I always presumed Paris not Japan, so I had to do things the hard way." Alix said though part of her knew that she'd done so to see how the world progressed as well. "And I wouldn't have done so without Dolora's subtle suggestion to do so."

"She suggested it?" Marinette asked. "That's a surprise."

"I believe that your legal Guardian was still recovering at the time as he'd used a lot of his power to create a fake Ladybug and Cat Noir so he couldn't do anything." Alix said. "And it wasn't like she told me exactly what happened to you or anything, she just made an observation that was clearly intended to plant a seed in my mind."

"And that was?" Adrien asked.

"That perhaps you two would reappear sometime in the future so I should focus on that and wishing you a happy life rather than trying to find you back then." Alix said. "It was during one of my one on one sessions with her a few years after you disappeared. She'd been working with us for a while then and could tell that all of us still wanted to find you two but there were no leads and we were frustrated so she suggested that we each make a recording, along with some group ones, that could be preserved and given to you two if you showed up. It made sense and helped us move on as it gave us hope that you were ok but the way she made that observation stuck with me in a way that I couldn't shake."

"The recordings did have a future aspect to them." Marinette said as she thought back on what her and Adrien's old friends had said. "They all wished us well, told us what all of you had been up too, and knew that we were safe wherever we were and hoped that we got to live a happy life and to not dwell on what we'd lost. They really helped us adjust to the whole being blasted into the future where they were all dead because we knew that you all supported us."

"Yup, and the more that I think on it in light of all that I've learned, the more certain that I am that all of this was Dolora's way to convince me to search for you properly without overtly telling me that you two had been blasted into the future." Alix said. "She built to the recordings though; it took a good 5 years for all of us to be ready to make them as that was how long it took for us to accept that you were gone and not coming back. Finally we were ready and when I saw her for mine she said that this was for the future in case you reappeared one day when none of us were around to greet you."

"And that got you thinking that we were in the future?" Adrien asked. "And not just going to return to Paris at some point down the line?"

"It did but only me because I understood time travel thanks to Fluff so when Dolora spoke to me about the future I couldn't help but think of it in those terms." Alix said. "So I went straight to Fluff after my recording to discuss it with her. She was still shaken up about what had happened but when I said that I wanted to go and find you, or at least learn what happened, she agreed but on the condition that I don't mess with the past because it could alter the future and the golden rule of time travel is to not do that."

"There are some exceptions and you can make minor incursions or interactions with the past, it's not like it is in the movies where one wrong step changes everything, but you still have to be careful." Fluff said. "You can't mess with events that you know the outcome of and thus change the outcome without there being serious repercussions in the future, repercussions that no one can see coming."

"Correct." Alix said. "I've come to understand that while the future is always changing, so for example the whole Timetagger stuff never happened for you because, well you weren't there, a change like that only occurred because it happened in the present and so while you remember it, it never came to pass."

"Man that's confusing but we do get that the future is never set in stone and that the actions we take now will determine what happens in the future." Marinette said her head hurting a bit. "Our own arrival in the future, well to us the future, has no doubt caused plenty of changes to what would have happened here had we not arrived so we accept that we can't know what will happen in the future. However, we also know that the past is set in stone and so if we messed with it then we could change the present that we are in. It's one of the reasons why we can't go back, along with the very nature of how we ended up in the future playing a role, and we've come to accept that."

"That and we have our new lives now, we'd be letting all of you down if we did try to return to our old time." Adrien said. "As well as our new friends because who knows what that change could bring, especially with the knowledge that we've acquired of what happened during the period we were outside of the timeline."

"I know and I accepted that I couldn't permanently bring you back with me when Fluff told me." Alix said as Fluff nodded from over her shoulder. "But I could still find you and learn what had become of you. So, with that plan in mind I contacted the whole class and revealed my plan, as well as the fact that I had a Miraculous. Turns out that Alya, Nino, Max, Kim, and Juleka's brother had used them as well, well and Chloe but we all know about her, and that the first two had received theirs on a permanent basis after you vanished though they didn't know that you two were Ladybug and Cat Noir."

"Also Kagami." Marinette said. "I lent her the Dragon Miraculous once so she too has used one."

"Her as well then, she left within a year of your disappearance and never got the counseling we received, though as none of us were close with her so we didn't know how hard she'd taken things." Alix said. "She and her mother returned to Japan last I'd heard and it seems like that had some unintended consequences."

"You could say that again." Marinette said and Adrien nodded at that. "And she took it as hard as everyone else did from what I've gathered what with me being one of her few friends and her feelings for Adrien."

"Our friend Momo learned a bit about Kagami's life here after we vanished, it's how Momo found out about that Marinette wasn't from this era, and she took our disappearance hard." Adrien said. "But the emergence of Quirks within her family and her lifetime, Quirks that were tied to the power of the Dragon Miraculous, helped give her a sense of closure that she needed."

"I saw that, it's good to hear that she too found closure." Alix said. "I know that you two were close with her but alas she wasn't around anymore so I didn't tell her what my plan was. I did tell the others of what Fluff could do and my plan to use my Miraculous to go into the future and see if you reappeared at some point and they agreed to it. To them I'll be back in a moment with the news that I'd found you but I knew it would take me a long time, especially after I saw what happened."

"You saw what happened?" Adrien asked. "As in the incident?"

"Yup, with Burrow I can replay events in the pocket dimension that it creates and use that track people so I did that for both of you the day you disappeared." Alix said with a nod. "I can do that so long as I know the person, day, and location that I'm searching for. Same goes for viewing potential futures but I didn't know when and where you'd reappear so that wasn't an option. As such I started with the last known day and location I had for you two and then followed both of you paths that day to see how you vanished and go from there. Of course that's when I learned that you were Ladybug and Cat Noir because Burrow showed me. Don't worry, no one else found out as far as I know."

"Wait does this mean…" Marinette began.

"I never looked." Alix said her tone neutral but she knew what Marinette was going to ask and as much as she hated lying to her friend she had to because the truth wasn't relevant or worth it at the moment. "I was too focused on you two, especially once I learned that you'd been blasted out of the timeline and to a point far in the future."

"I see." Marinette said not pressing Alix and focusing on how she'd found her and Adrien instead as that was what mattered. "How did you realize that that was what happened to us though?"

"Burrow is tied to time and so when I have my Miraculous active I have a natural understanding of it." Alix said. "That and as soon as you two vanished anything pertaining to you two from that moment on vanished as well and no matter what I could do I couldn't find it in Burrow."

"It did?" Adrien asked.

"Yup, it was very confusing and I had no clue what that meant." Alix said. "I couldn't find you anywhere in Paris or France in general and I checked up to the point I'd entered Burrow to find you but you weren't present at all. I was thrown by it and had to actually step out of it to ask Fluff, which I did and I just chose a point at random that I found that was isolated, and she explained it to me."

"I have power over time so I understand it in ways not even the Guardians or my holder do." Fluff explained. "And when my power was used to blast you two out of the timeline and into the future I explained to Alix that that's what happened. I told her that you two were in stasis, frozen outside the timeline as you waited for it to catch up to you, so you'd be unchanged when it did but that Alix wouldn't find you until you returned. Burrow wouldn't show you until then and with all that could change in the future it would take too long to stay in it and search for you within Burrow, it would be easier to do it a bit more manually."

"Manually?" Adrien asked. "That doesn't sound easy though."

"It wasn't but if I was to stay in Burrow and hunt for you there it could take who knows how long as time is different there but if I were to say leave every year and check the news for you then I could track you that way." Alix said. "I had the time to do so and Fluff assured me that once I did I could use Burrow to rewind to when you arrived and get all the information that ways so I went for that option. That and I did want to see how humanity developed over the time so there was a bit more to it."

"Come again?" Marinette asked. "You went year by year until we returned?"

"Yup, it was actually kinda fun." Alix admitted and grinning at her memories. "Makes me wonder what would have happened if I'd been forced to go into hiding with Burrow and just traveled through time until it was safe to return to my own time period, that could have been cool, but this wasn't for fun it was a mission so I stuck to it. My plan was to start one year after I'd initially begun to search for you and spend one week at a time in the real world scouring sources for your return while also learning all that I could about what had happened in the last year as well."

"That sounds like a lot to take in." Adrien said. "And even with the jumps in time it would still take a while to find us given how far into the future we were blasted."

"Oh it was but for the first few decades it wasn't that hard." Alix said with a shrug. "I kept a low profile so as to not reveal myself to the others as I didn't want to interfere with them but during that time period I could just spend the week in Paris and check the usual sources for you two because I know that if you'd reappeared during our lifetimes then short of memory loss you'd have come back short but as you were in costume at the time and fighting Fluff assured me that that wouldn't be the case."

"Correct, you were protected from that short of an akuma's power." Fluff said. "And we know from Burrow that that didn't happen."

"It has before but yeah part of why we couldn't return was because I'd not used Lucky Charm when we were hit." Marinette said sadly. "But if I had then we would have returned right away as we'd not have been stuck here but that's not worth thinking about now."

"I know so it was pretty easy for me to check, well up until the aftermath of the advent that is." Alix said. "Boy was that rough when things kicked off."

"If you're going year by year then you'd have seen the full history of Quirks." Marinette said. "You might be one of the few who did, well few non-immortals that is."

"I like to think I'm the only one, well only pure human that is, but who knows on that front." Alix said. "But yeah, I saw it all. I missed the exact moment that Quirks emerged, I did go back for that so I could watch the golden baby be born after my first week of real time post-advent but that didn't take time from my mission, and saw the changes that the advent of Quirks wrought."

"The Quirk Wars." Marinette said. "We've studied them both in class and in preparation for our new lives at U.A. so we know how they obliterated almost all knowledge before them, it's why our story became legend."

"That and that kinda happens regardless as those who personally knew of you and your deeds die and so the truth dies with them leaving only stories." Alix said. "Course in the digital age there's proof as well but almost all of that was lost during the destruction of the Quirk Wars. I saw them though and some of them occurred during our lifetime but don't worry, everyone we knew fled Paris during it to avoid it. We were lucky though as others weren't. I won't go into details about that but it was bad there, like worse than the Reign of Terror after the Revolution bad especially because in addition to bringing back the guillotine there were other methods used during the various periods of war in Paris."

"We know about what happened, apparently Paris is doomed to repeat itself whenever something like that happens." Adrien said. "It did help us properly start a new life however as there was no evidence to link us to our pre advent days, at least evidence in Paris as we weren't aware that Kagami had managed to preserve a picture of her and Marinette from 2019."

"Yeah I had to be really careful during the wars in Europe, both during what would have been my lifetime and the handful afterwards, but you never appeared during them." Alix said. "It would have been a good time for you two to reappear as you two are natural heroes and would have helped out then, as well as during the subsequent Providence Accords, but you didn't though I did see that Kagami's descendants at that and learned that she'd helped instruct them in being honorable heroes which played a huge role in the early hero codes. That's how I know what she was up to late in life."

"That she was, we've learned of that since then." Adrien said. "She was a driving force in the creation of the early hero codes because of her grandkids having Quirks."

"Well back then they were called Meta Abilities, the word Quirk came from the mother of a terrorist called Destro who was born after our lifetime, but yeah those accords set up the global hero system." Alix said. "From there the schools began and so did the program in Paris that was centered around our old school and what was used as a cover for you. I've gotta say, looking back on it all, the efforts made to cover things up for you two were impressive."

"Helps when dealing with immortal deities." Marinette said. "They've got time and resources that we don't have so they can set it all up."

"That they do but at the time I was unaware of it." Alix said. "I was just searching for you and so while I noted and watched what was going on in the Age of Quirks, I still kept on going with my mission. What started as weeks turned into years for me but I never stopped. Naturally, I gained my tats and piercings along the way, well added to them as I had started before I began my mission, but other than that I didn't find anything."

"Given how far in the future we are and your plan it must have taken a while." Adrien said doing the math in his head. "Based on your search schedule it would have taken you 4 years to catch up to us."

"A little over that but yes, I spend 4 years of real time on this mission and that was because I'd jump forward a year precisely at the end of the week I spent in the real world." Alix said which made her currently 9 years older than they'd been when they vanished from Paris so 24 or 25 physically. "Seeing the changes to the world, both good and bad, made it feel like a trip rather than a mission but I never forgot the reason why I was doing what I was doing even when I was having fun doing it. I kept it up until I finally hit paydirt with my most recent jump 3 weeks ago."

"3 weeks ago?" Marinette asked as she tried to work things out in her head. "So that means…"

"You would have arrived at least once after we returned to the timeline but missed us because we'd not started U.A. yet." Adrien said coming to the conclusion before Marinette did. "So there would have been no records like the Sports Festival to use to find us and as that is a global event in which Marinette came 3rd she'd be a known name and face globally if you searched after our first Sports Festival."

"Yup though it's actually a bit more simple than that." Alix said flushing. "I, er, kinda fell into a routine over a century and a half ago, pretty much once everyone we knew was dead, of basically just using Burrow to move quickly from one year to the next without stopping to check it unless there was a major event to watch like the Providence Accords. If I had I'd have realized you were back last year with Burrow but I didn't so I missed you and came to this year."

"Ah I see, yeah routine can do that." Adrien said. "And after so many years and repetitions it becomes ingrained into you. Same happens in battle."

"That it does but in the end it didn't matter." Alix said. "Because after I arrived a few weeks ago there was a major crisis in Paris over events that had recently occurred in Japan, along with an alarming rise crime all over the world so I ducked into a bar that had the news on to see what was going on and you'd never guess what I saw the moment I looked at the TV."

"What?" Marinette asked.

"A vortex of ladybugs swirling high into the air and around a certain point in a ruined, and that was an understatement as part of it had been utterly disintegrated, city." Alix said grinning. "The distance was too far to make out details and the newscaster was speculating on what Quirk it could be as it had briefly appeared in the city of Jaku in Japan during a major disaster there featuring a villain by the name of Tomura Shigaraki who was considered to be a global threat. The clip was a week or so old at least but as it was one of the many unexplained Quirks that had appeared there it was getting more attention than most. Of course the moment I saw it I knew that it was the Miraculous Cure and that I'd found you."

"About that." Marinette said flushing a bit. "It's actually my awakened power of my Quirk so not a Miraculous power anymore. I, er, awakened it because Adrien was stupid and almost died."

"Yeah sorry about that." Adrien said but Marinette had long forgiven him for almost dying to say Midoriya.

"Oh I know all that now but at the time I didn't realize what had happened to you after you're returned to the timeline." Alix said. "Still, I knew that I'd found you at last but that I couldn't go right to you."

"You couldn't?" Adrien asked.

"No, I needed more information especially because you weren't in Paris or even Europe so I had to do some research." Alix said. "I started by spending the rest of my usual week in Paris getting all I could on the current situation in Japan, Japan's recent history as it was considered the model nation in this age, the history of the conflict that had destroyed hero society there, and all that I could find on you two. Thankfully I was aware of the Sports Festival, I caught it some 40 or 50 years ago though I'm not sure when, and so I looked up the recent one and saw you. I gotta admit, I didn't expect you to be so bold in the semifinals Marinette."

"My shirt was on fire!" Marinette said a note of protest in her voice. "I had to rip it off and if I'd been wearing an undershirt I'd have done so as well. That hurt like hell you know."

"Oh I bet, still a great sight and seeing you with a navel stud was totally unexpected." Alix said grinning. "I never took you for the type but it looks great on."

"Th, thanks." Marinette said. "I, er, had to have it when my Miraculous was changed as that was the better of the two options. Now I'm so used to it that I have bought a tungsten backup for the Sports Festival as I couldn't have my Miraculous in during the event."

"No need to explain but I know all of that as well." Alix said and while Marinette hadn't said what the other option was she could guess and agreed that a navel piercing was the better choice for her. "Once I'd gotten the lowdown on your current situation and the rough history of the conflict in Japan, and why the safest nation in the world had suddenly become a failed state, I went into Burrow and spent a while watching and learning about your new life."

"You did say that you'd do that." Adrien said. "So you know what we've been up to since we arrived then."

"Yup, I had to rewind the windows to the moment that you two arrived but from there I watched everything." Alix said. "So I learned all that you did about the Guardians as well as seeing all your trials and tribulations over the last year and change, along with all your new friends."

"We never forgot you guys." Marinette said. "And hopefully we lived up to what you wanted by moving on and flourishing in our new lives."

"That you have and now that you two are a couple and know each other's secrets things are even better." Alix said smiling. "It's all worked out and I'm proud and happy for you. I know you never forgot us but you also flourished in this life as well, which was great to see because that's all that we wished for you. Personally, this era fits you two better as there is no hiding your identities, no secrets between you, nothing to worry about like you had in Paris, here you two can be who you are."

"We've come to realize that as well." Adrien said. "That has helped us a lot but we'll always miss what we lost. That's a sadness will never truly go away."

"Then allow me to help there." Alix said as she got up and smiled down at them while holding out her right hand as this was what she'd hoped to be able to do when she found them. "I know that I can't take you back to the past, that would mess everything up and you've got a war to win here that I know you will win, but there is one thing that I can do which should help you be fully ready for your coming war."

"Wh, what do you mean?" Marinette asked as she looked up at Alix confusion in her eyes, Adrien doing so as well. "You just being here has helped more than you know Alix."

"I know that but I can also give you the closure that you need to truly move on with your lives, that is why I ventured into the future to find you after all." Alix said still smiling. "So come on, let me take you to a place where you can see everyone who love you from your first life so that you let them all know that you're safe and well."

Back to back cliffhangers! I didn't actually plan to end this chapter on one but when writing it just felt right and adds to the whole Closure Arc as I'm calling the next few chapters so an abrupt ending with a cliffhanger really feels like the way to go with this chapter so in the end I couldn't resist it. There really isn't much to say about this chapter, Alix is present in her mid 20s appearance so just like she was in Timetagger and other appearances and we know how she got there and what her true mission is so all there is now is to move forward towards a long awaited closure that Marinette and Adrien need but never expected to get. That's all that I have for y'all, however, so I will leave this chapter off here. As always, if you like it or have any questions please let me know in reviews or PMs, I will try to answer them as best I could and post any questions asked between uploads at the start of the next chapter and do follow and favorite this, so you are alerted to future uploads. Do keep the reviews coming as I like hearing from y'all as you enjoy my work, it motivates me to keep producing the best work I can for y'all to enjoy. Until next time.

Stringdog