Chapter Text
“Argh! One more time!” Akko brandished her wand with a determined huff and pointed it at a rat like she was challenging it to a duel. Behind her stood Lotte and Sucy, both of whom wore expressions varying from exhaustion to amusement.
She had been practicing metamorphosis magic for the last two hours, with her friends acting as damage control and emotional support. She was determined to get used to her new wand before the new semester, though at the rate she was going at, it was less relearning and more learning.
Akko sucked in a long breath through clenched teeth. She missed the Shiny Rod, goddamnit!
“Picture the animal clearly,” Sucy reminded her for the umpteenth time. “Lotte and I are getting tired.”
“I know! I’ve done this before, if you’d remember,” Akko groaned, annoyed. She knew Sucy was just trying to get under her skin, and under any other circumstances she’d find it hilarious but after two hours of unsuccessful practice, she was feeling pretty riled up. “How am I supposed to picture anything if you keep distracting me?”
She wouldn’t wish this torture on anyone. Relearning how to do magic was hard enough, but relearning magic with Sucy buzzing around her ear was horrific.
Sucy raised her hands and conceded before Akko could lose her temper. With a sigh, Akko returned her focus onto the rat. The poor thing had gone through two hours worth of metamorphosis magic, which actually wasn’t that bad if not for the fact that the caster was Akko wielding a new wand. She had seen many, many bad partial transformations (some on the rat but most on herself), and God she was thankful that Lotte was great at undoing metamorphosis magic.
Akko inhaled deeply, letting the air fill her lungs to the brim as she concentrated on her mental image. The image of a cat was practically burned behind her eyelids from how long she was at it. Her head hurt and she was sore all over but she knew this was the one!
Alright. She could do this!
“Metamorphie focie—”
“I bet five bucks she misfires and hits herself.”
“—sseaugh!”
A flash of green light shot out from her wand, which would be a good sign if the light travelled in a straight line towards the target. Instead, the light glowed brighter and brighter without exiting the wand, before eventually blowing up in Akko’s face.
Green smog covered the clearing with a sharp bang. Sucy and Lotte were nearly blown away from the force and barely managed to stay on their feet with the quick use of a magical barrier spell. A translucent purple barrier shielded the two girls as they stood still in silence, watching green powder fill their vision. Lotte looked positively panicked, her hands holding her head like she was about to faint from stress. Sucy on the other hand, looked like she was a few seconds away from cackling.
“What the hell just—Sucy stop casting the spell damn it—” she snapped as her friend dismissed the spell with a roll of her eyes. “Akko, are you okay? Holler if you can!”
Lotte marched forward with the intensity of a soldier marching into war, using her arm to wave the green smog away. She kept calling out for Akko, fearing that she was injured or unconscious.
“Akko! Akko, are you oka— oh.”
Lotte’s face, which was twisted in worry, suddenly dropped into an expression of abject horror as she stared down at Akko. Her eyes were as wide as saucers, staring unblinkingly at Akko. A moment later, Sucy waved through the cloud of green dust and stopped right beside Lotte, looking amused and bewildered in equal measures.
“...Oh, shit.”
Everything looked larger than usual, which could have been explained by the fact that Akko was sprawled on the ground if not for the long, brown tail curled between her legs.
No, Akko realized with a blink. Not legs, paws. Small, furry paws.
In front of her, the rat that should have transformed into a cat scampered off of the stool it previously sat on and escaped into the woods nearby. She was in too much shock to catch it.
Slowly, Akko turned her head up to stare at Lotte. For whatever reason—maybe she was in denial or her brain was damaged from the explosion—Akko opened her mouth.
Lotte?
At least she tried to say that. What came out of her mouth, no, muzzle was a small, pathetic “meow?”
For the second time in the last five minutes, both Lotte and Sucy swore.
“Lotte, just reverse it!” Sucy remembered, snapping her fingers as the metaphorical lightbulb went off in her head. “Knowing Akko—no shade by the way—the spell probably isn't very strong anyway.”
Akko took full offense, by the way.
Lotte whipped out her wand with a practiced motion and nodded seriously. “You’re right. Let me just…”
Lotte recited the incantation and tapped the tip of her wand against Akko’s forehead. A smaller, more controlled cloud popped from Akko. Lotte sat back on her heels and waited expectantly.
“Whew, that was a close one huh! Maybe we should end practice here today. You managed to get a full body transformation after all, Akko! It’s a great improvement. How about we—”
“Lotte?”
Lotte turned to Sucy too eagerly. The introvert had been pushed too far for the day, and was desperate to curl up in her bed and not talk to anyone. “Yes?”
Wordlessly, Sucy pointed in front of her, towards Akko. Her usual smirk was nowhere to be found, replaced by a grimace.
Suddenly, Lotte had a very, very bad feeling.
Slowly, she turned back around. Akko was sitting, her head was dipped slightly, her ears wilted and her expression could only be described as defeated. To everyone’s dismay, she was still, fully, a cat.
Lotte shut her eyes and breathed in deeply to calm herself. Beside her, Sucy rocked on her heels nervously, because technically she did cause this by messing with Akko. Akko was slowly curling into a shrimp position, her hind legs extended straight out and she looked like her soul was evaporating by the second.
Finally, Lotte clapped her hands and stood up. “We are taking this to the headmistress.” She announced, her tone leaving no room for further suggestions. Sucy’s hand that was in the process of being raised slowly lowered. “Akko, get in the hat.”
Lotte held out her witch’s hat brim-first towards Akko. Akko, who seemed to have snapped out of her comatose-like state, shook her head vehemently.
“Akko. Get in. I have no idea if we have a rule against pets and I am not about to risk getting you tossed out of school so get in.”
That seemed to work. With great reluctance, Akko rose to her feet and after regaining her ability to walk, slowly slunk into the hat. She made sure to glare at Sucy, who looked to have lost all remorse and was silently pointing at Akko and laughing.
Akko vowed to have her revenge.
Not now though.
Akko’s shrimp posture seemed to have been translated straight from her actual, human form. She was bent in an impossible position—the pointed hat was a very uncomfortable version of a cat carrier and she would not recommend—and was bouncing in time with Lotte’s jogging.
A small plus in her more than problematic situation was her newfound discovery of nightvision. She had no idea why she didn’t know that cats could basically see in the dark, but with Lotte accidentally smothering her and cutting off a great deal of her light supply, Akko could entertain herself by exploring her new body.
(She prayed that the headmistress could reverse the spell, but she was aware of her infamous luck and was preparing for the worst.)
Her fur looked to be a rich dark brown, like her hair colour. Following this theme, Akko guessed her eyes would be red. It was an unusual colour for a cat, but maybe with a bit of help from her friends, people could be convinced that it was a genetic condition or something.
Her tail was long and covered in brown fur that darkened as it got closer to the end. Her fur in itself wasn’t the longest in the world, but she was by no means bald.
Akko shuddered slightly. She hoped the bad haircut she gave herself hadn't translated over to her cat form.
Her inner musings were interrupted when Lotte tipped over her hat and shook, clearly expecting Akko to not crash and embarrass herself.
Of course, Akko crashed to the floor with a yelp, landing in a pile of limbs and brown fur. She cursed to herself as she scrambled to stand on her unfamiliar legs. As she wobbled in place, she shot a mournful look at Lotte, who whispered frantic sorrys to her.
It had only been like five minutes, give her a break! She was still the equivalent to a baby learning how to walk, and even babies take ages to stand!
Standing in front of her were the headmistress and Professor Finnelan. The headmistress wore a slightly amused expression, but the professor was stony faced as usual.
“Oh, Akko.” The headmistress was covering her mouth with her hand as she looked at Akko with pity. “Another accident? Oh dear, I’ll reverse this immediately…”
Headmistress Holbrooke tapped her wand against Akko’s forehead and whispered the reversal spell’s incantation. Like before, Akko was enveloped in a cloud. A tingling sensation that made Akko’s hackles rise spread over her entire body. That was a good sign, right?
Seconds passed, and slowly, the cloud dissipated into the air. Akko sneezed.
When she opened her eyes, to her dismay, she was still much smaller than the people surrounding her. And judging from the worried expressions the adults and her friends wore, Akko had a feeling that this was going to be a much bigger problem than she initially expected.
“Oh dear,” Headmistress Holbrooke sighed. She exchanged worried looks with Professor Finnelan. For some reason, the professor seemed to be more irritated than anything.
“Here, let me try,” Professor Finnelan said as she stepped towards Akko. “Maybe it was just a fluke?”
“No, I am certain the spell should have worked,” the headmistress mused as the professor tapped her wand on Akko’s head. Once again, a cloud popped up around Akko, and the crowd waited with bated breath.
Akko stepped out of the cloud, looking pretty ruffled. She was still, undoubtedly, a cat.
Now the panic was settling in.
Finnelan looked like she just lost ten years off her lifespan. Holbrooke was probably calculating the lawsuit. Lotte and Sucy were muttering to each other on the cover story they’d need to swear by until Akko could return to being a human.
Akko was listening to all this with her newly obtained cat-hearing. Looking at the people around her, Akko snorted. For some reason, she was the least worried out of everyone in the room. Sure, being a cat was inconvenient, and she wouldn’t be able to practice her magic, and she was pretty sure the school had a no-pets policy, but it could always be worse, right?
For example, she could have completely lost her memories or something and actually become a cat. Or instead of being physically fine in a functioning body, she could’ve been trapped in a mutated and “incomplete” body.
So, for the sake of her own sanity, Akko chose to be optimistic. She had learned in her past accidents that she—for lack of better way of describing it—was pretty resilient.
Like that one time Diana and herself went to space to stop an evil missile and saved the world. Compared to that, being stuck in a cat’s body was nothing!
Now if only she could make everyone around her stop panicking…
Akko looked around the headmistress’s office. Surely, there could be something she could use to communicate.
As she mourned her ability to speak, she spotted an open container of ink sitting precariously on the edge of the headmistress’s desk. A sudden idea popped in her head.
Surely, she’d get away with more stuff now that she was a cat, right?
Akko walked around in circles for a few seconds to get herself used to her new reality. Once she was fairly confident in her ability to walk without teetering, she approached Holbrooke’s desk and began to hop up.
By the time Holbrooke and Finnelan noticed anything, Akko was perched beside the bottle of ink, her tail thumping rhythmically beside her.
Holbrooke’s gaze travelled from Akko, to the open container of ink beside her, then back at her. A weak smile touched her face. “Akko, dear. What are you doing?”
Akko opened her mouth to speak before closing it with a scowl. Her inability to communicate was more frustrating than she’d expected. Her ears were flattened outward and her tail thumping grew heavier.
Surprisingly, it was Sucy who piped up. “She obviously wants to tell us something,” she pointed out. Beside her, Lotte snapped her fingers.
“Of course! Hold on, I think I know how she can talk to us,” Lotte scrambled towards Holbrooke’s desk and snatched a piece of blank paper. Holbrooke seemed to have given up trying to maintain any semblance of order in the room, so she just sat back and watched Lotte scribble furiously on the paper.
After a minute, Lotte smacked the paper on the table with a victorious grin. The alphabet was printed on the paper. Akko blinked at Lotte, who adjusted her glasses. “I got this idea in volume 366 of Nightfall.”
Sucy smacked her face. Akko’s stare transformed into a look of horror. Lotte took the hint.
“A–Anyways! Akko can communicate with us by tapping the letters to spell out words!”
Finnelan shook her head with amusement, though she looked at Lotte with a little more wariness. “Good thinking Ms. Jansson. It is a smart idea. Akko, tell us what you want to say.”
Akko’s ears perked up. She stared at the paper for a few seconds, thinking of what to say first. Finally, she tapped the paper with immense focus, eventually forming two sentences.
Don’t worry about me. Need cover story first.
***
A little over an hour later, Lotte, Sucy and Akko all collapsed through the door to their dorm. Lotte was the first one up, and thus she claimed the washroom first. Out of the trio, she was surprisingly the dustiest. Akko felt a little bad for kicking up a dust storm earlier, but she was just as much of a victim as Lotte was, so…
Sucy had dragged herself to her bed and began to work on her latest passion project. Before long, she was hunched over her desk and mumbling to herself about ratios and stuff.
Akko was the last to get on her feet. All the letter tapping took the energy out of her, and there was absolutely nothing she’d love more than to hibernate for the foreseeable future. Alas, time was of the essence. While she didn’t mind being a cat—in fact, Akko was starting to find it cool—she had much to do as a human.
She stretched her back and flexed her paws to revitalize herself. With a glance to her roommates, Akko slipped out of the room and began her long trek to the library.
During their meeting with the headmistress and professor Finnelan, they figured out a few things to make sure this little mishap didn’t get bigger than it needed to be. First, the official cover story that they agreed upon to explain Akko’s absence was a family emergency. It was simple and no one would probe for more answers without looking nosy and inconsiderate.
Thankfully, Luna Nova didn’t have a no-pets policy like Akko had feared so she was free to roam as she pleased. The teachers were notified of the incident so they wouldn’t try to toss Akko out.
In the meantime, the headmistress said she would contact Croix to see if she could come up with a solution. Akko felt a little bad that her former professor’s workload would be doubled, but at the same time she was relieved that one of the most intelligent witches of the era was going to help her. Surely with her help she’d return to being human quickly!
Regardless, even if Croix would be working on her case that was no excuse for Akko to slack off. If she couldn't practice her magic due to bodily constraints then she’d get started with researching her issue. Hence why she was trotting happily to the library.
Akko managed to slink into the library without anyone noticing her despite knowing that she was technically allowed to be there.
Luna Nova’s library looked more impressive now that Akko was in a smaller body. When she first explored the place in her first year, she had marvelled at its multiple stories and bookshelves that touched the ceiling. Now, even if she stretched her neck the farthest it could reach, the tip of her nose barely grazed the seat of a chair, let alone the table. Once again, Akko was reminded of the limitations of her body.
A trilling sound left Akko’s throat as she shook her head, dispelling any negative thoughts from her head. She was on a mission after all.
She made her way up the stairs with surprising speed—cats were agile animals after all—and quickly found herself staring at the metamorphosis magic section. While the headmistress wasn't able to reverse her back, it couldn’t hurt to do a little more research on the topic. She had no other leads anyway.
Akko flexed her paws a few times, watching as her claws popped out and retracted. She couldn't bring a ladder over because she was a cat, nor could she use a spell to bring a book down because again, she was a cat. This left Akko with only one option.
Thankfully, she had no problem getting behind it.
Akko crouched down, tensed her muscles and lasered her eyes on the goal: a book on how metamorphosis magic worked. She faintly remembered Diana pulling an explanation from that specific book when giving her tips to improve her magic. She herself never read it, but that would change today! Her future depended on it!
With a fierce cry, Akko leapt and latched her claws onto the shelves and a few books. She panted while dangling ungracefully from her precarious perch. The only thing preventing her from falling were her claws that dug into the spines of the books. She looked down and grimaced when she realized she was barely off the ground. She looked up and wanted to cry when she saw that the book she was aiming for was two shelves above her.
‘...cats are climbers, my ass.’
Akko cursed herself for a few seconds before she gritted her teeth and began to slowly shimmy her way up, using all four paws to propel her upwards. She knew she looked goofy as hell, all four limbs splayed out in a permanent starfish position as she hopped up the shelf. It was only until she reached the final shelf did she relax.
Which was a grave mistake, all things considered. Akko should have known that her control over her limbs was below average at best, and that it was only a matter of time until her human consciousness and nervous system and her cat body mixed something up.
Something in her anatomy got messed up, and suddenly Akko found herself scrambling for a hold on the shelf after her claws retreated into her paws without her permission. With a shriek, Akko tumbled down and landed unceremoniously on her back. She laid there for a few seconds, stunned into a rare silence.
Of course Akko would end up in a cat body that didn’t have the signature function of always landing on their feet. Like many things, she should have expected this, but then again her name was Akko and when had she even slowed down to think things through?
Her friends could give her an earful later, but she had research to get to. Akko made a frustrated noise and tried to twist her body to stand up and try again, hopefully more successfully this time. To her frustration, her right paw ached when she tried to flex it.
To make matters worse, her sharp hearing picked up the sound of shoes clicking on the ground far too late. Right as Akko turned her head towards the main area, a blonde figure stopped in her tracks.
“...A cat?”
Diana’s brow furrowed in confusion as she stared at Akko, who had frozen in place and was staring right back at her friend. For a few seconds, she thought Diana might grab her and toss her right out. Teachers might know now to kick Akko out, but the students didn't.
But she was wrong.
Diana’s sharp gaze honed in on the paw that Akko was holding in the air awkwardly. Before Akko knew what was happening, Diana was kneeling in front of her, beckoning to Akko with a soft voice. Her stern expression—the one that Akko previously thought was permanently engraved on her face—was nowhere to be found. Instead, Diana was gentle. Everything from her voice to her expression and even to her arms that were outstretched to Akko was gentle.
Akko remembered when she and Diana flew up to space together to destroy the missile. Even when her heart was pounding fiercely and when adrenaline ran through her veins, she could feel the warmth of Diana’s hands as she grasped the Claiomh Solais together with her.
Akko pulled herself back to the present.
Then she walked right into her arms.