Spiraling back to You

Chapter 5 - Uncertain Future

Being woken up at an ungodly early hour in the morning wasn't a great feeling, definitely not because it had happened twice now. There was a lot less destruction this time around, although it did involve a lot more screaming. Katsuki was instantly wide awake, his eyes getting bigger when he saw Izuku's trembling form pushed against the closet next to their bed. He looked so tiny, so weak... There was barely any muscle mass and the shirt he was wearing looked even bigger than before.

"Izuku?" Katsuki asked softly. He was afraid that if he talked any louder, his voice would crack and break. Keep it together, Katsuki. Don't fucking scare him, don't mess this up. Even if he's... "Hey, it's okay, it's me. It's Katsuki. Kacchan."

"Kacchan?"

He tried not to cringe at the sound of Izuku's voice, at the squeakiness of it as it wavered. He was scared. He woke up in bed with an older man with no memory of how he ended up there, of fucking course he was scared. Katsuki needed to put him at ease, needed to be a comforting presence. But how the hell was he supposed to do that when he was mentally freaking out, too? Guess that's what those years of hero training were for...

"Yes, Kacchan," Katsuki whispered, slowly getting up out of bed. "I know this is scary, but I need you to listen to me, okay? You were hit by a quirk during a villain attack. You were de-aged, in both body and mind. Do you understand?"

"I... I got younger?" Izuku asked, his voice still a little off, still too high. Katsuki wasn't used to this part of him anymore.

"That's right," Katsuki said, carefully reaching out to the wall, flinching a little when the light turned on. "Look. It's me, see? I'm just older."

"How much older?" Izuku asked, staring at the ground, as if he was afraid to look Katsuki in the eye. It wouldn't surprise him if that was the truth. Izuku's last memories were most likely of Katsuki bullying him, pushing him around and calling him names. It was a period in their lives he'd rather forget about.

"We're 20," Katsuki said, opening up his part of the closet, making Izuku flinch. "Or, well, you're what? 14 now?"

"Yeah," Izuku squeaked, flinching again when Katsuki closed the door. "What- What are you doing?"

"Getting dressed," Katsuki sighed, pulling on a shirt. "We need to go to the hospital."

...

"This is very concerning."

"You don't say!" Katsuki yelled, explosions popping from his palms. He was stressed out, okay?! Izuku had regressed again! He'd gotten even younger!

"Please calm down, Mr Bakugou. You're still in a hospital," Isha pointed out. They were standing outside of Izuku's room, where several doctors had ran tests and taken samples to be examined, but so far nothing seemed off except for the fact he was 14 years old again. "All we know for sure is that this isn't how the quirk is supposed to manifest itself. We're dealing with side effects of emotional distress, which doesn't make its course easy to predict."

"So the report finally came in?" Katsuki asked. He should be happy about that, but the fact Izuku was showing deviant behavior wasn't exactly good news. "What does it say?"

"The quirk is supposed to de-age the person up until a certain set point in one go, which is different for each individual, and should end within a couple of days," Isha explained. "My hypothesis is that Mr Midoriya hasn't reached that set point yet, and that he's experiencing delayed effects due to the way it was applied."

"But you're not certain," Katsuki said. "You don't know whether Izuku is gonna reach that point, right? You don't know whether there's an actual end to this or if he's going to-"