The French-American Friendship week is coming up and Marinette’s class will be traveling to New York to attend. While she’s gone, Marinette leaves Paris and the rest of the Kwamis in Centi’s capable hands. A big responsibility but thankfully she’ll at least have Cat Noir to help her...right? However, when Hawkmoth sets his sights on New York and the mysterious thief of the Dragon Miraculous resurfaces in Paris, things quickly go out of control for all our heroes.
Kintsugi - Breaking Point
is a Miraculous Ladybug by and the sequel to Kintsugi The Beauty In Broken Things.
This story contains examples of:
- 10-Minute Retirement: Subverted; when Adrien renounces Plagg, he makes it clear that intends for it to be permanent. This forces Alix to take up the ring.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Zoé Lee and Vesperia both appear in New York, even if they aren’t named in story yet.
- Anti-Villain: Guillotine. Despite stealing the Dragon Miraculous and attacking Bluebird, she actively avoids harming civilians and isn’t actually trying to kill him, just "train" her. And when her attempts to push Bluebird lead her to create an out-of-control Sentimonster, she stays to fight it after realizing it’ll pose a threat to civilians if left unchecked despite clearly being outmatched by it. Ultimately her main goal is to prevent the Bad Future she came from by preventing Hawkmoth from becoming Monarch, and someone important to Kagami from dying.
- Bad Future: Guillotine and her onboard AI come from one, where they were Kagami Tsurugi and Aeon Hill, respectively. In their timeline, Hawkmoth became known as Monarch and someone important to Kagami died. Guillotine intends to avert both.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Helen of Troy was a wielder of the Peacock Miraculous who went by Taos. When Centi summons her with Reunion, Helena is rather annoyed about how the details of her involvement in the war have been lost, such as how she’s become known as a Damsel in Distress when she was really the "Scourge of Troy" who tore down the city gates with a horse Sentimonster. She does admit that the modern story about the Trojan Horse is amusing. She also offhandedly mentions that several unspecified mythical creatures were some of her creations that got loose.
- Bland-Name Product: A language learning app named Triolingo is mentioned.
- The Bus Came Back: Camille, the costume shop owner from the first story, returns when Centi goes to her house to find a safe place to detransform while she recovers from her Heroic BSoD.
- Canon Character All Along: The AI for Guillotine’s suit is revealed to be Aeon's future self.
- Dramatic Unmask: Kagami ends up breaking Guillotine’s helmet to reveal her own face underneath.
- First-Episode Twist: At first this story’s version of the New York Special starts out mostly the same as in canon. Then Cat Noir accidentally Cataclysms Ladybug, and it all spirals from there.
- Heroic BSoD: Fittingly for a story titled "Breaking Point", this occurs multiple throughout the story:
- Adrien loses it after he accidentally Cataclysms Ladybug. He’d already been emotionally worn down from discovering Nathalie was Mayura, but this completely pushes him over the edge, viewing his actions as unforgivable and seeing himself as a liability. This causes him to renounce Plagg with the intent of permanently giving up being Cat Noir. And unlike the other examples below, there isn’t anybody to immediately snap him out of it.
- After the battle in New York is finished, the realization that she’s just lost her first teammate and one of her closest friends finally sinks in, causing Ladybug to break down into tears. Thankfully Bunnyx and a future version of Rena Rouge are there to help talk her down.
- When Bluebird is forced to release the out-of-control Avenger from existence, she breaks down into tears, horrified that she was forced to use the one command she vowed to never use and disgusted that she let herself lose control. A talk with Camille helps snap her out of it.
- I Need You Stronger: Guillotine considers the entire "battle" between her and Bluebird to be training for the latter, making it clear she could have easily ended her life multiple times during the fight and constantly goading her opponent to keep pushing herself.
- Incompatible Orientation: An American girl named Izzy quickly develops a crush on Alix, unaware the French girl is Aro.
- Lost in Transmission: Centi is unable to remember the Lady in Gold’s true name, due to the fact that it was revealed in a dream and she can’t remember the dream clearly enough.
- Mini-Mecha: Bluebird gives Kagami a Sentimal called Ryūmecha that functions as one of these for her.
- My Future Self and Me: Kagami battles Guillotine and manages to unmask them, revealing her own face. Guillotine later reveals that she's Kagami from a Bad Future and her suit's onboard AI is Aeon's future self.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Duusu is extremely insistent that her creations be referred to as Sentimals. So when she claims that Centi is about to create a Sentimonster, it's a very serious moment. She later clarifies that a Sentimonster refers to a creature created with solely negative emotions.
- Powered Armor: Guillotine wears a particularly advanced one of these.
- Rage Breaking Point: The titular "Breaking Point" finally occurs after Bluebird spends hours fighting Guillotine and the latter injures Kagami while nearly killing Ryūmecha. At her wit's end, Bluebird creates a Sentimonster formed from her own desire for retribution, despite Duusu and Helena begging her not to.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: Rose reveals that she figured out Juleka was Purple Tigress some time ago.
- Stable Time Loop: The Bunnyx that appears here is from an earlier point in the future than the one that appeared in the previous story and receives the idea to give Alix the Black Cat Ring in the previous story from her younger self. Present Alix is understandably confused.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: The story is split between this story’s version of the New York Special and Centi’s battle in Paris.
