𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐙𝐀𝐖𝐀

20

Y/N was tired as hell when her and Shouta made their way to the police station the next morning. It wasn't just because they had a really taxing day yesterday, but also because Shouta had gotten the zoomies during the night (apparently he could barely wait to get turned back into a human) and the bell on his collar kept Y/N awake until the early morning hours when Shouta had finally run out of energy again. Not that that state lasted for very long.

It couldn't have been more than a few hours when Shouta was ready to wake Y/N by jumping on the bed and meowing loudly and making more noise than ever. Y/N was full on awak, but she refused to get up, until Shouta actually bit her hand out of frustration. Y/N hated giving in to terrorists like that, but what other choice did she really have? She had to get up and head over there, because this time people were actually expecting her to show up on time. And people having expectations kind of sucked, but what sucked even more was dealing with not meeting those expectations.

So Y/N somehow dragged herself out of bed and got ready and made her way to the police station with Shouta beside her. She honestly could barely remember the way there, because she was just so damn tired while getting there she might as well have been sleepwalking. Plus, Y/N was very aware that she looked like absolute shit - pale, messy hair, scratch marks all over her hands and eyebags for days. She looked like she had been up all night doing God knows what. Judging from her hands she might as well have been crawling through some bushes for whatever reason.

Shouta didn't seem to care. He was quite happy that they finally got going and Y/N couldn't blame him. It really had to suck to be stuck in the body of a cat and then have an old student take care of you. Y/N couldn't really imagine how she would feel in that same situation, if she was honest. For some reason Tsukauchi and Shouta had really trusted her to take care of another human being for an indefinite period of time, which was... Y/N wouldn't even trust herself with that.

But it didn't matter anymore now. They were sitting in the interrogation room of the police station, waiting for Tsukauchi and their villain. Y/N was resting her head on the table, glancing at Shouta from time to time who was sitting in his own little chair, upright, glaring at the wall in front of him. He looked a little as if he was practicing an intimidating stare for later or something. Y/N would like to say that it was convincing, but Shouta as a cat was just so adorable that no one would be that intimidated by his glare. Still, it did give him quite a presence.

After what felt like hours, the door to the interrogation room finally opened and Tsukauchi came in, followed by two police officers who were sitting the young man that had turned Shouta into a cat down at the table opposite them. He looked pretty terrified, especially when he saw Shouta sitting there as well. Y/N could see the guilt in his face and she felt a little sorry for him.

"Alright, let's get this over with. I think we all know why we're here?" Tsukauchi asked, as he closed the door and sat down next to Shouta. Y/N nodded slowly and saw the guy on the other side of the table gulping. He looked so damn nervous. Y/N wondered whether reversing the Quirk was something he had ever done before... maybe he wasn't even sure whether it would work. He sure looked like he had no idea how exactly his Quirk worked. He probably never really had to think about it, anyway. Regular people never really used their Quirks for much.

"I... I am sorry. I am so, so sorry." he said, his voice sounding thin and tired. Y/N raised an eyebrow. He was sorry? Why was he saying that? All he had to do was turn Shouta back into a regular human being. That couldn't be so hard, right? Y/N was starting to get a pretty bad feeling from all of this. What if she was right and he really couldn't turn Shouta back? That would be a disaster.

"What are you talking about? You used your Quirk, can't you just unuse it?" Y/N wanted to know. She saw him gulping again. He glanced at Tsukauchi who sat there with his arms crossed. He was not impressed.

"Well, in theory I can do that, yeah." he answered. Y/N took a deep breath. In theory. In theory. What the hell was that even supposed to mean? Could he do it or could he not do it? Why had he even done it in the first place, if he wasn't sure whether it was reversible or not? This was getting annoying.

"What the hell do you mean, in theory?" Y/N asked. Shouta looked like he was about to scratch this man's eyes out. She couldn't really blame him. He sighed and rubbed his eyes before looking at her, his eyes conveying that he was at a complete loss as to how to explain himself.

"Means I've never tried reversing it. I haven't really tried using it, to be honest, because... well, it's a bit of an odd one. And I honestly wasn't even aware that I had actually hit anyone with my Quirk and... in theory, I can reverse it, but I have never done it before, so I don't really know if it works and how it works, is what I'm trying to say." he muttered and gave her an apologetic look. He didn't even dare look at Shouta, which was probably good. Y/N would have felt very uncomfortable under Shouta's glare right now. He was really pissed at this guy.

"Well, I guess today is your lucky chance to reverse that Quirk. Man, why did you even use it in the first place, if you had no idea if you could reverse it? You didn't seem like a bad guy, to be honest. You seemed like a guy that was in some sort of trouble and that just made a stupid mistake, so what's the story here?" Y/N asked. She felt like they weren't going to get anywhere like this.

"I just kind of panicked! I mean, I knew that I really fucked up with this whole thing and I really should not have done that robbery, but I needed the money and... well, I did get caught, didn't I? So the thing is that I panicked and it was just like a knee jerk reaction. I don't know why I did that, honestly. It was stupid. It was really, really stupid and I'm sorry, okay?" he answered. Poor kid. He looked like he actually really regretted what had happened.

"Alright, well... do you know anything about how this Quirk reversal is supposed to work? Or will we just have to... you know. Fuck around and find out." Y/N wanted to know. The guy shrugged and glanced back at Tsukauchi, who seemed like he was just about to lose his patience with him. Y/N had never really seen him this angry before and it was kind of terrifying.

"Well, I don't really know much about it, but in theory, if I use my Quirk on him again he should turn back into a human. I don't know if that's going to happen immediately or over a longer time, but I reckon... since it took a while to take effect the first time around, it'll take a while to be reversed, too. So we might not see immediate results, unfortunately." he explained. Y/N nodded. Well, that at least made some sense. She looked down at Shouta who had been pawing her for the last thirty seconds already.

"What do you want?" Y/N asked. He tried to get rid of the collar. Right. She had promised to take it off as soon as they had the guy and could reverse the Quirk. And it was probably a good idea to take that off, in case he immediately turned back into a human. That would be uncomfortable otherwise.

"Right, hold still and I'll take it off. And then we can get all of this over with." she muttered, opening the collar and taking it off. Shouta immediately went to clean his neck, as if he had fallen into a pile of dirt.

"Alright, work your magic, cat man." Y/N sighed and looked at the villain. The kid nodded and his eyes flashed green for just a second. Nothing changed. Shouta was still a cat. Y/N raised her eyebrows at him, but he just shrugged.

"I told you it might take a while to get reversed."