(Part Two)
[Season 4-5]
-Pro Hero Arc-
◇
As soon as she managed to calm down Katsuki, suddenly standing in front of her as a six-year-old toddler, Miyuki picked him up and rushed out of his room, heart racing as she made a beeline for Mezo and Ejirou's rooms.
She hoped, despite knowing that it might not be the case, they both remained as their teenage selves and the toddler holding her shirt as she carried him might turn back to his full height and age soon.
"Miyuki-San!" The young Ejirou cried out, jumping off of his bed. He ran to her and his small hands fisted the cloth of her trousers. Miyuki frowned, heart wrenching when she saw the tears budding in his wide eyes. "W-what's going on? Why do I look like this?!" His eyes darted up to Katsuki and he shrieked. "Waaah! Bakugo?!"
"It's too early for you to talk that loud," Katsuki grumbled. He wriggled out of Miyuki's hold, which she found a bit weird. But a lot of weird things were happening that morning.
It was still all way too bizarre for her. Where did she even begin finding an explanation for a phenomenon like this?
"We're going to get to the bottom of this as soon as we can," Miyuki assured the two boys as they left the redhead's room to head to Mezo's. She sighed, her brows creasing in contemplation. "Although, I think I've got an idea as to what might've caused this..."
When she got downstairs with the three toddlers in tow, Miyuki's eyes widened in shock upon seeing just about all her classmates apart from Izuku and Momo all shrunk down to toddlers, their clothes - now too big for them - trailing behind them on the floor as they cried out and screamed, clearly panicking.
"Kaminari-San, please calm down!" Momo urged, trying to catch the young boy in her insulated blanket, bolts of electricity flying off of him. Miyuki ducked out of one's trajectory as she walked over to her friends.
"I'm tiny!" Mina shrieked, tugging on Izuku's pants.
"I'm cute!~" Toru squealed, jumping excitedly around Ochaco who struggled to get up in her large shirt. She exclaimed in surprise, feet wriggling in the air when Izuku picked her up and set her right on her feet.
"Izuku, Yaoyorozu-Chan." Miyuki came to a stop in front of her two friends - and hurriedly picked up Katsuki seconds before a speeding Tenya barrelled into him. She looked around at her younger classmates, worried. "What's happening with everyone? All their Quirks are behaving weirdly."
"Put me down!" Katsuki shouted, moving violently to get out of her hold. "I'm not a baby, dammit!"
"It sounds even more like him when he's a kid," Izuku commented, which angered Katsuki.
"I'm not a kid! You stupid nerd!" He tried to jump out of Miyuki's arms towards the green-haired boy, but the half-and-half girl pulled him closer to her chest before he could. "Let me at him...!"
Momo's eyes widened when Tenya smacked into a wall. "Oh no - Iida-San!"
"I don't know - Ow! - But it's like... their Quirks destabilised - ouch! - when they turned into - " Izuku yelped when a small burst of fire scorched his pants. He looked down and his face paled when he saw the toddler-sized Shoto's body trapped within his clothes, a small scorch mark in the middle of the material. "Todoroki-Kun?!"
A short arm poked out. "Help me."
"What should we do?" Momo asked, walking back with a sniffling Tenya. She soothingly rubbed his back, brows creased in concern. "This situation has gotten too far out of hand..."
"And their Quirks don't look like they're going to calm down any time soon, either..." Miyuki added. Izuku hummed thoughtfully, a hand on his chin. After a few beats of silence, his eyes brightened up with an idea.
"I know!" He said, causing the two girls to look at him curiously. "Let's call Aizawa-sensei. He'll definitely know what to do!"
Within a few minutes after calling him and informing him about their situation, the Erasure hero stood in the middle of the common area dressed in his dark nightwear, hair tied back in a man bun. His high school students turned children all stopped, almost simultaneously when they realized he was there. Miyuki, Momo, and Izuku shared wary looks with each other before turning to Aizawa -
"Aizawa-sensei!!"
Aizawa stiffened when nearly all the toddlers in baggy clothes rushed up to him and clung to his clothes.
"What the hell is this?" He muttered, baffled as he tried to push back the horde of crying children. "This has got to be some kind of nightmare." He turned over his shoulder to Miyuki, Izuku and Momo. "You three - you said you found them like this early this morning. What happened before that?"
"Everyone seemed to come down with a fever out of nowhere last night," Momo explained first. "I had one as well, but my symptoms weren't as severe as the others."
"Before that, though," Izuku went next, "there was this girl yesterday. She had blue hair and a runny nose with... glowing mucus? I-I'm not sure, but she might've been sick."
"Kaminari-Kun said her name is Suraimeko Mizuka and that her Quirk is Hypotonic," Miyuki added on, yet to notice Ejirou tugging on her pants. "She was in a hurry, too. She said she was going to see Recovery Girl-san then she sneezed and the mucus got on everyone - except for Izuku and myself."
Aizawa nodded, stepping out of the crowd of children. "So the old lady might know how to deal with this," he concluded, pulling out his phone as he rubbed the back of his head. "I'll give her a call. No guarantees she'll answer her phone, though. She doesn't get up as early on the weekends."
While Aizawa left to go speak to Recovery Girl, Miyuki finally realized someone was pulling on her clothes. She looked down and saw Ejirou jumping up and down like the floor was made of lava, an anxious look upon his smoothed face. "Ejirou-Kun? What's wrong? Are you okay?"
"I-I have to pee! Really, really bad!" He squeaked, holding his arms up to her. "Miyuki-San, will you please take me?"
"Go by yourself!" Katsuki said, marching up to the squirming redhead.
Ejirou looked down, cheeks flushing in embarrassment. "I can't... 'cause t-the toilet's too high for me now..."
"Hmmm," Miyuki hummed, crouching down in front of her classmates. "That's no problem. I can help. Is there anyone else who would like to go use the bathroom right now?"
Most of the boys raised their hands except for Shoto, Tenya, and Fumikage. Katsuki averted his gaze to the side, begrudgingly holding his hand up, too. Miyuki nodded, smiling, and stood to her full height. Katsuki looked up at her expectantly as she took Ejirou's hand and he huffed quietly, following behind the others while his friend walked beside Miyuki, laughing and talking with her like they were old friends..
He scoffed under his breath, tugging up the sleeve of his black shirt.
Stupid Hair-for-brains.
Miyuki made a small flight of stairs for the boys to reach the toilet seat and she was careful to set them at just the right height for each one of them. She didn't want anyone to fall in and certainly didn't want to have to fish anyone out of there.
When they were all done and they got back to the common area, Miyuki was surprised to find their teacher had already left the building - but not high and dry, she soon realized, when Momo pulled her and Izuku aside to explain what Recovery Girl told Aizawa, and what he told her before he left to go take care of Eri.
"Recovery Girl told Aizawa-sensei she saw that girl, Suraimeko-San, yesterday and the other day," Momo explained. "She gets very ill during the year because of her Quirk but it becomes especially bad during winter. Her Quirk, Hypotonic, reduces the size, muscle mass, and volume of the living matter it comes into contact with, and how much it reduces to depends on the quantity of mucus that gets onto you."
"So the more mucus you get covered in..." Izuku started.
"... the more you shrink," Miyuki finished with a sigh. Shoulders slumping, she turned to her young classmates as they played with one another. "I never thought such a thing could apply to people in this way, especially not by aging them down so many years."
"Unfortunately, this isn't the first time it has happened with Suraimeko-San. She usually has to wear masks around other people," Momo said. She frowned, putting a hand on her cheek. "It lasts for twenty-four hours from the time it started taking effect, so from now until about midnight -"
"Everyone will be... children," Izuku and Miyuki finished, both their eyes wide in shock upon this realisation.
"W-What?!" Toddler Ochaco exclaimed, pushing herself to stand on her short legs before running up to her normal-sized classmates. "Twenty-four hours...?!"
"Nooo!" Toddler Mina wailed, pouting angrily as she plopped onto the floor in disappointment. "But that means we won't be able to go to the beach!"
"We're not going to the beach anymore, Midoriya-Chan, Sasaki-Chan, Yaoyorozu-Chan?" Toddler Tsuyu questioned. Miyuki, Izuku, and Momo nodded and Tsuyu's wide eyes drooped in sadness. "Ribbit..."
Minoru sniffled as he face-planted onto the couch, touching the mini-purple balls on his head, comical tears soaking the cushions. "My mini-ta... dammit! I was looking forward to making some pretty girls fall in love with me with my cuteness now that I'm so much younger...!"
"Even more reason to cancel it," Miyuki said, picking up Toddler Minoru and setting him with the others. She crouched down to their height, smiling widely. "But the day is still young, everyone. We can still have fun together here in the dorms! First things first, though, we all need to freshen up."
"That's right," Momo said, joining the half-and-half girl. "Hagakure-San, Jiro-San, Asui-San, Uraraka-San, and Ashido-San will bath with Sasaki-San and I. The boys will go with Midoriya-San."
"I'm not going to take a bath with them," the young Katsuki grumbled, starting to walk away with a huff. "I'll clean myself - O-Oi! What do you think you're doing?!"
"Come on, it won't be so bad," Miyuki said, smiling as she held him.
"Yes, it will!" Toddler Katsuki squirmed, trying to get out of her hold. "Put me down right now! I don't like being man-handled!"
"You're not being very manly, though," Miyuki countered and Ejirou nodded in agreement, leaning against her lap. Katsuki grumbled, not enjoying the fact that he was being treated like some kid, especially by her. He wanted to get back to his proper size right now so he could talk with her properly, on the same ground like they always do when they're with each other.
Not this.
"Let's go get cleaned, Ka-Chan!" Young Denki excitedly exclaimed, bouncing on his feet. "If we get clean now, we can do whatever we want later. Miyuki-Chan might even change her mind and let us all go to the beach!"
"You can wash yourself when we get in the water, Ka-Chan, but let's at least go together," Izuku started, reaching out to retrieve his childhood friend from Miyuki -
WHAM!
Only to have his face crushed in by a foot.
"Don't touch me, nerd!" Katsuki yelled, clinging to Miyuki's shirt now as he kept pushing Izuku away with his feet. "Like hell I'm going to go anywhere with you, much less into the bath!"
"You won't make this easy, huh?" Miyuki mumbled. She stood up and Izuku fell back, swirls in his eyes as his best friend carried Katsuki away. Ochaco, Tenya, Shoto, and Tsuyu leaned over his face to check on him. "You're even rowdier as a child, Firecracker. Sorry for this..."
Miyuki pursed her lips, feeling his small hand grip her shirt tighter when she knelt down in a corner by the counter and set him down. Looking at him now, Miyuki felt weird again, not only because she just put one of her closest friends into a corner for a time out, but also because of the way her heart clenched when Katsuki looked up at her in shock of what was going on.
"I'm really sorry to have to do this," she said softly, "but I'm not sure how else to get you to calm down. So, you're on timeout... for five minutes." Using her shadows, she made a little stool for him to sit on. Katsuki huffed angrily as he sat down, his back to her, arms crossed. "Katsuki?"
She didn't get a response and her frown deepened, a sharp stabbing pain going through her heart. A part of her immediately regretted what she was doing, treating him like this - but it was only for the time being. Five minutes would be over soon, too. There wasn't any need to worry, was there?
Miyuki sighed, pushing back her bangs as she turned back to her classmates, Momo, and Izuku. "Let's go, everyone."
"Can we get bubbles, Miyuki-Chan, Yao-Momo?" Mina asked, taking each of the two girls' hands. "Can we? Can we? Please!"
"Please!" Ochaco and Toru exclaimed, too, bouncing excitedly. Momo giggled.
"Yes, yes, we will. I have this lovely lavender blend Oka-Sama recommended for replenishing the youth in one's skin..."
"Yay!"
"Midoriya, I want bubbles, too!" Ejirou demanded as he jumped onto Izuku's back. The green-haired boy's mouth wavered. "Let's get 'em!"
"I want a truck!" Demanded Denki, clinging to the boy's leg as he walked.
"Midoriya," Shoto called, tugging gently on the end of Izuku's shirt. "Let's have soba for breakfast, okay?"
Izuku blew a piece of hair out of his face, pushing open the door of the boys' bathroom, one arm supporting Ejirou. "You guys know you aren't actually kids..."
Katsuki looked over his shoulder upon hearing his classmates' excited chatter. His gaze drifted away from the boys towards his female classmates and managed to see the wisps of white and black hair dancing over the milky white skin of Miyuki's shoulder before the door closed firmly behind her.
◇
After freshening up with the kindergarten-sized girls and Momo, Miyuki went up to her room and changed into a long-sleeved red shirt and denim overalls that brushed past her ankles, tying her hair up with the red polka-dotted ribbons Aizawa got for her from the school festival. She picked up her All Might plushie from her bed before stopping to rouse the sleeping Poncho, who rolled over for belly rubs as soon as he woke up. She chuckled, straightening up and leaving her dorm room with her puppy not too far behind her.
She was glad to see every one of her Toddler-sized classmates changed into their new clothes when she got downstairs, arriving just in time to see Momo produce a small sweater with a flame and a snowman in the middle using her Quirk and pulling it over Shoto's head. He smiled down at the fabric and thanked Momo before getting up with her help to go play with the others.
Miyuki walked over to Momo as she began making toys and toy sets for their classmates to play with, setting her All Might plushie amongst them before going over to the kitchen –
And her eyes widened in shock to see Izuku standing there in a blue apron with All Might's face on it, making breakfast with a sleeping Fumikage strapped to his chest and Dark Shadow next to him in a purple blanket. Ingredients not even she'd seen before lined the kitchen counter and messy bowls sat piled in the sink.
"Do you need any help here, Izuku?" The half-and-half girl asked quietly, brows creasing with concern when she saw him carrying a bag of flour with eggs piled on top of it under one arm and a bottle of chilli and a bag of rice in the other.
"Oh, Yuki-Chan," Izuku acknowledged in a whisper. "No, thank you. I'm fine here. I... just have to, um..." he readjusted his hold on the items when he saw an egg about to fall onto Fumikage – "Oh no!"
Instead, it fell and cracked open on a crawling Koji's head. Miyuki and Izuku's breath hitched in their throats...
Please don't be hurt, Miyuki thought, anxiously watching with Izuku as Koji sat down, casting his gaze to the floor.
Oh no, Izuku thought, eyes wide with tension. Don't tell me he's going to! –
Koji's bottom lip wobbled, eyes shimmering with fresh tears.
"I-It's okay..." Miyuki started, but was quickly cut off when she heard a loud clang. She whipped around and her eyes widened in terror when she came upon –
"Higher! I can't see anything yet!" Toru told Mashirao, who elevated her with his hands and tail to peek into the sizzling pan on the stove. "Put your back into it, Ojiro-Kun!"
"I am...!" He strained, raising her higher, and Miyuki paled in shock when the pan of hot oil swayed – "Do you see anything in there yet? What smells so good –"
And fell off the stove.
A white blur streaked past. In the next instant, Mashirao and Toru were safely seated on the counter, Miyuki breathing a large sigh of relief as she bent over her knees.
Toru giggled, clapping her hands. "Again! That was fun, Miyuki-Chan!"
"Koda-Kun, please stop crying," Izuku begged, gently picking up his crying classmate, the action accidentally stirring Fumikage and Dark Shadow. "I'll... I'll make you something, okay? –"
"I said I'm the one in charge now!"
Miyuki straightened up immediately and her gaze darted to the common area now turned play pen, the floor strewn with toys of all colours and shapes that some of them she couldn't recognize, the most eye-catching of all being the mini-jungle gym in the middle...
Oh, no...
And the one Katsuki currently stood on top of, a fist on his hip and her All Might plushie raised high above his head as he glared down at Tenya, Denki, Kyoka, and Momo below him.
"Someone who's in charge doesn't have to say they're in charge, Bakugou-Kun!" Toddler Tenya reprimanded.
"It's my turn!" Toddler Kyoka insisted, yanking the toy guitar to her side. Denki huffed, pulling on the instrument's neck.
"No fair! You've had it all morning!" He complained, yanking it back. "It's my turn now!"
"No, it isn't!"
"Yeah it is!"
"Is not!"
"Is too!"
"Is not!"
"Is too!"
"Is not!"
"Is too!"
"Is too!"
"Is not!" Denki's eyes widened in shock. "That's not fair...!"
Momo reached out to placate her friends, Kyoka smirking victoriously as she held the guitar to her chest, matching the white one printed on her violet and black dress while Denki tearfully reached for it, sparks of electricity darting from the sleeves of his yellow sweater.
"Oh, dear..." Momo said, eyes filled with worry. "You two, please learn to share your toys with each other..."
"Stop telling me what to do!" Katsuki shouted. Miyuki sweatdropped when he brandished her plushie. "I'm the one with All Might now!"
"That is an unjust jurisdiction of power and leadership none of us agreed to submit to," Tenya said, pointing accusingly up at him while Hanta swung down from one of the jungle gym bars. "And you violated the rules we did agree on by leaving your time out one minute early. If anyone should be in the prison, it's you!"
"A time out from you doesn't mean anything!"
"Prison?" Izuku and Miyuki chorused as they entered the common area. Their gazes drifted towards a cardboard box on the other side of the room, the words 'カンゴク' ('Prison') scribbled in katakana at the top.
"I never thought... the day would arrive so soon when I heard someone tell Ka-Chan go to jail," Izuku thought out loud, astounded at the scene playing out before him.
"More importantly..." Miyuki pointed at the makeshift jail, "why is Shoto-Kun in there?"
"Todoroki-Kun!" Izuku's eyes threatened to burst out of their sockets when he saw the half-and-half toddler sitting quietly in the prison eating a bowl of cold soba. "I took my eyes off of him for one minute...!"
"I will inform Sasaki-Kun about what you're doing," Tenya threatened as he adjusted his glasses, a dutiful look in his eyes. "It is her All Might toy, therefore she should be the one to pass judgement."
Hanta hung upside down, his plain white shirt dangling over his face. "You two keep going in circles. None of this rule stuff makes sense anymore."
"Yeah," Mina agreed as she climbed the bars in her pink tracksuit. She pouted. "It's not fun."
"Sasaki-San, Midoriya-San," Momo said, her eyes softening with relief when she saw the other teenagers reach the play area. "I'm relieved you're both here. Things have gotten more out of hand here than I anticipated they would've."
"I wonder..." Miyuki exhaled, glancing at the ash-blonde toddler. Katsuki noticed her looking at him and blushed, quickly hardening his expression.
"Thank goodness," Ochaco breathed. She floated above them, Tsuyu's tongue wrapped around her in her blue cotton sweater dress. "Everyone can finally calm down. Bakugo-Kun and Iida-Kun have been going back and forth for a while now."
"That just makes Midoriya-Chan and Sasaki-Chan seem like parents, doesn't it?" Tsuyu commented which made Ochaco's eyes widen. She smoothed down her green skirt before sitting down. "It's cute to think about it. They've got a strong chemistry, ribbit."
"A strong chemi – I mean, you're breaking the six hundred and nineteenth rule!" Katsuki shouted at Tsuyu, surprising her – as well as Miyuki and Izuku and Momo and Tenya. "Sero, put her in jail!"
"No way," Hanta replied, clearly enjoying himself too much to be bothered with Katsuki. "Can't you do it yourself?"
"Where did you find the time to make so many rules?" Izuku asked his childhood friend, flabbergasted. "And why is Todoroki-Kun in the jail?!"
"Insubordination," Katsuki declared, glaring at Izuku. He eyed the space between him and Miyuki and his red eyes narrowed in dissatisfaction of the few inches between them. "Your breaking over ten rules at a time calls for execution! Die!"
"W-What?!"
Miyuki put a hand on her cheek, her green eyes twinkling with amusement and slighf fatigue. "Oh, my..."