The Miraculous Which Was Never Hers

Levels

For those of you who remember the arc system, I originally planned 8 arcs for this book.

We're currently more than halfway through Arc 6.

*

While playing an RPG game or else, you clear level over level and have, at one point or the other, this unexplained feeling that you're getting closer to the final boss fight?

That was precisely what the team felt right now.

With Iris back on the team, it felt a bit more stable, fast. Their movements weren't stale, they felt like they were actually getting somewhere.

Not that they had anything solid to go on, but the team was starting to have well-grounded doubts over who Shadowbug could be. 

They were especially looking out for olive-eyed brunettes, but ignoring other potential candidates for the 'throne' was impudent.

They formed theories, collected facts, stated points of importance, endeavoured to find a pattern in the way Shadowbug evilized people, their efforts, albeit, leading to nothing but oblivion as the only thing common in the victims emerged to being completely random, being chosen solely for their emotions. Their theories being cancelled on account of either psychological impossibility or unpracticality.

Lady luck was, unironically not on their side as every plausible nominee for the role of the villain seemed to be innocent, with ironclad alibis as to being 'untransformed' or, in much simpler terms, in their civilian forms when an attack was in implementation.

To say the past few weeks have been relaxing would be akin to saying the sun rises in the west. The team, individually, was getting not more than three to four hours of sleep each night, having to spend more than the waking hours in discussion.

Every day and every attack, they felt they were getting closer to knowing who Shadowbug could be, although every attack also rendered them hopeless, making them feel they were straying further from discovering the truth, heightening their presence of knowledge and concomitantly, the lack of it.

They felt closer to and miles away from Shadowbug at the same time. And this oxymoronic, incongruous feeling kept increasing every day.

Marinette chuckled dryly at the irony of the statement.

Her drawing table was currently filled with paperwork, sheets and theories, writing new ones and striking away the unfeasible ones.

Pencil shavings laced the table edges, lying there forgotten by their owner, her dust bin filled to the brim with crumpled papers and, to disguise them, a bit of fabric Marinette carefully threw in.

Her parents were under the impression that Marinette was working on a school project, having confused the sheets of papers containing important clues to be sketches and designs. The 'project' she was working on was long and tedious, leading to nothing in the end.

Marinette bit her lip and chewed on her pencil, scratching her head, eyes tensely scanning the contents of the pages.

"No, this won't work either," She muttered an exhausted expression, along with a quickly stifled curse as she scribbled over the name of another possible holder of the Ladybug miraculous.

"Marinette, working yourself to the bone won't help Paris right now. Taking some rest will. It's well over midnight, what if there's an attack soon? How do you expect a sleep-deprived hero to save the day?" The worried voice of her purple winged kwami fell onto deaf ears, blatantly ignored by their bearer.

"It's fine, Nooroo, I can pull through."

"You need to catch a break, Marinette. I'm being serious. You won't get anywhere with this."