𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐙𝐀𝐖𝐀

11

Y/N wasn't really sure why Tsukauchi had called her into the police station, but she didn't really mind, if she was honest. She kind of needed a bit of a break. The last few weeks had been stressful as hell and she was glad to get a bit of a break from all of that, even if she wasn't getting paid for this. It wasn't like she could afford not getting paid either, but she also couldn't afford working anymore than she already did, because she was operating at her absolute limit at the moment.

At least there was always some free coffee at the police station, which was something she really needed right now. Her coffee machine had broken just a few days earlier and she was barely scraping by without falling asleep standing. She had always thought that if someone like her teacher back in UA could pull it off, she'd be well able to do this whole independent hero thing, but damn. Mr. Aizawa had to be much tougher than she had ever given him credit for. She was struggling a lot out here.

Also, now that she was a little older, Mr. Aizawa was always a lot hotter than she had given him credit for. She always remembered him as being actually kind of cool once you saw past his grumpy behaviour, but she never thought that he was hot. But after running into him a few weeks ago... well, she couldn't say that she hadn't been thinking of him. In a lot of different ways. She'd feel guilty, if he was still her teacher, but thankfully he wasn't anymore and she could just go and do her thing and they would probably never meet each other again and things wouldn't be awkward for her. Working without anyone else was great, Y/N basically didn't have an existing social life.

She was really wondering what the hell Tsukauchi wanted from her, though. It had to be something really important if he was calling her in. He usually worked with a lot of high profile heroes and she... well, she really wasn't. Something big must have happened, because he had also sounded a little weird on the phone, but Y/N couldn't come up with a reason why that should be involving her. But now she was already here, at the police station, and she would probably find out pretty soon what the hell was going on. That was if she ever got in.

She was currently standing at the reception and was waiting for the reception guy to get off the phone and let her in. Y/N was almost certain that that man was talking about some private shit on the phone and was not doing his job at all, but maybe he just didn't want to deal with her. If she was honest with herself, she did kind of look like a homeless woman getting ready to make it through a rough winter on the streets. But she didn't have money to pay the heating bill this month, if she wanted to eat at least one meal a day. Especially since the prices had gone up.

"Alright, what can I do for you, sweetie?" he finally greeted her and Y/N already was in a good mood to chew him out here and there. Why the hell would he go and call her sweetie? She hated it when people did that. She hated it when old ladies called her sweetie and she especially hated men calling her sweetie. It was dumb and Y/N had an almost visceral reaction to it.

"You could let me in." she growled. Probably not the best strategy to get him to let her in, but she was just pissed off at this point. She had been standing her and waiting for ages until he finished his damn call and now he was calling her sweetie? The cheek on this man, seriously.

"Oh yeah? And why should I do that? This isn't just a public building anyone can wander into, you know?" he mumbled.

"Yeah, no shit. Good thing that it was Detective Tsukauchi who asked me to come here and I'm not just someone wandering around then, isn't it?" Y/N snapped back. She was already fed up with this. This was supposed to be a break from her busy life and now she had to deal with this. Hassle.

"Tsukauchi asked you to...? Okay, what's your name then, so I can let him know?" he asked, his tone suddenly changed. It was somewhere between mildly amused and a little shocked. Good. At least he knew that he fucked up and Y/N could easily use him as an excuse why she was late. She would have been a few minutes late anyway, but this guy had just made her extra late.

"F/N L/N. Hero. Do you wanna see my license, too, or do you believe me?" she wanted to know. He shook his head and dialled a number on his phone, waiting for someone to pick up.

"Mr. Tsukauchi? Yeah, there's someone here for you. Yeah, it's L/N. Sure, I'll send her up. Thank you, Sir."

He hung up again and looked back at her, mustering her and grinning triumphantly. He leaned back in his chair.

"Tsukauchi says to make your way up to the conference room as quickly as possible. Looks like you're pretty late." he said. Y/N rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, well, guess who's fault that was?" she replied, as he opened the door for her. She quickly walked away, unwilling to deal with this guy any longer. She was feeling a little bad, because she had been kind of rude, but he had been annoying her and now she was having a bad day. On her day off. On which she was making no money whatsoever. She had her reasons.

She hurried over to the elevator and thankfully that was there pretty much right away and she could get in and make her way upstairs without having to exhaust herself. And she had more time to wonder what the hell this might be about. Why was Tsukauchi so worried that she was late? Did this involve other people by any chance?

It probably did, because she knew how busy Tsukauchi was and if it was just her that he wanted to see about something he wouldn't worry about her being late, he'd just work on something else in the meantime. And he also wouldn't book the whole conference room, that thing was actually huge.

Once she got out of the elevator, the conference room was right in front of her and it looked pretty... empty. She could see Tsukauchi through the glass doors, but she couldn't see whether there was anyone else there. There probably was, because she could see Tsukauchi talking. Taking another deep breath, she walked up to the door and opened it, giving the detective an apologetic smile.

"Sorry about being so late, someone downstairs was keeping me waiting, because they were on some call. Seemed kind of important, so I didn't want to interrupt them and-"

Y/N stopped talking when her eyes fell on the other person in the room. It was Shouta Aizawa. Mr. Aizawa, her old teacher. But he looked... different. He looked like a cat. Or rather, he had cat ears and his eyes looked like cat eyes and he was basically curled up in one of the chairs and... were there whiskers on his face? What the actual hell was going on here?

"What are you looking at?" Aizawa growled at her. Y/N cleared her throat and looked away, raising her eyebrows at Tsukauchi.

"Sir, what am I looking at?" she wanted to know. Tsukauchi just sighed and gestured for her to sit down in one of the empty chairs next to Mr. Aizawa. Y/N wasn't really sure whether she should give him some space or not right now, but there wasn't that much choice. Space was probably a good option.

"L/N... do you remember the incident involving you, Eraserhead and that villain a few weeks ago?" he asked. Y/N nodded slowly.

"Well, here is the thing. The guy paid his fine and we let him go and it is only now that we're finding out that Eraserhead was hit by his Quirk. It's a slow Quirk, showing its effect over a long, long time and what it does is... it basically turns him into a cat." Tsukauchi explained. Y/N glanced back at Aizawa and tried her best not to burst out laughing. It really wasn't something to laugh about, but Aizawa looked so annoyed about it and at the same time so... cute.

Y/N ended up chuckling quietly and earning a hiss from Aizawa, which only made her laugh more. She took another deep breath and cleared her throat, before looking back at Tsukauchi.

"Okay... and what do you want me to do?"

"Well, you were there fighting that villain. We need to find him again and we need someone... we need someone to take care of Eraserhead, in case we can't reverse the Quirk before he turns fully into a cat." Tsukauchi answered. Y/N raised her eyebrows. Surely, they were messing with her, right?

"You... you want me to take care of Mr. Aizawa - my old teacher - if he turns fully into a cat? For real?"