Age: 11
Nitroglycerin. It is a fascinating and terrifying molecule. In my previous life, it was an oily, unstable liquid used to manufacture dynamite or treat heart conditions. Here, it is my sweat, the distilled essence of my Quirk, and my doom. My Quirk transforms the byproduct of my metabolism into an explosive agent, a hyper-reactive perspiration that is more of a biological munition than a simple secretion.
I was sitting on the highest branch of an old oak tree, its knotty trunk forming a perfect throne in the heart of the sweltering municipal forest. The morning had given way to the oppressive weight of the midday sun, and the heat filtered through the leaves, creating patterns of light and shadow over my skin. I stared intently at the palm of my right hand: the source, the cannon.
To the rest of the world, my Quirk is a simple, arrogant spectacle. You move your hands, concentrate the energy with a deafening boom, bright lights flash, and the obstacle is pulverized. Cheap comic book magic for the public. But the biological reality behind this force is much more brutal and demands constant respect.
Physics is unforgiving. Newton's third law makes no exceptions for protagonists, and I am nothing more than a human combustion engine: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."
If I trigger an explosion strong enough to tear down a reinforced concrete wall, my shoulders and bone structure must absorb a recoil force equivalent to a shell fired from an anti-tank gun. In my past life, that of a simple, powerless human, the first shot would have dislocated both my shoulders. The second would have ripped my arms right off.
But here, reality rewrites itself.
I clenched my fist tightly, feeling the texture of my palms. The skin wasn't soft and childish; it was thick, almost leathery, like hide cured under extreme pressure. There is a scientific theory about "somatic Quirk adaptation." It postulates that human evolution accelerated drastically, creating secondary mutations to prevent individuals with high-impact Quirks from destroying ourselves with our own powers. My bones are now denser than steel. My ligaments have the tensile strength of industrial cables.
I am, in essence, a human tank camouflaged in the body of an eleven-year-old preteen.
"Kacchan, your heart rate is dropping. You've been analyzing the viscosity for three minutes. Are you ready?" Izuku's voice came from below, an anxious but focused murmur.
I looked down at the forest clearing. Izuku no longer had that round, childish face. He was lean, with a fibrous and sculpted thinness, the result of three relentless years following my calisthenics routines and running across the uneven terrain. He held a digital stopwatch in one hand and his inseparable notebook in the under.
"I'm calculating the saturation point and the viscosity. Today's relative humidity affects performance," I replied, jumping down from the branch, a drop of nearly three meters.
I landed with deceptive softness, bending my knees. Thanks to my bone density, the fall felt like barely stepping off a curb.
The heat is optimal, I thought, opening and closing my hands repeatedly. I felt the dangerous, damp layer accumulating on my palms.
"The goal is aerial mobility, right? I wrote it down as 'Initial Vector Propulsion,'" Izuku asked, methodically stepping back until he was hidden behind a leafy tree. He put on a pair of industrial safety goggles we had bought together at the hardware store.
"Not just mobility. Vector control," I corrected.
I threw my arms back, pointing toward the ground. The exercise wasn't about releasing all my explosive force at once; if I did, I would shoot off uncontrollably. The trick was to create continuous micro-explosions, calculated down to the millisecond.
I took a deep breath, tensing my abdominal muscles until they became a sheet of stone so the force of the thrust wouldn't snap my spine.
BOOM!
The sound was sharp, powerful, deafening. The ground disappeared beneath my feet in an explosion of dirt and smoke. The wind lashed my face, carrying away the smell of scorched earth. For one glorious instant, the feeling of weightlessness, mixed with the raw violence of the explosions beneath my hands, was pure freedom.
But then, physics exacted its price. My right hand reacted a fraction of a second later than my left. The imbalance was catastrophic. I entered an uncontrollable spiral four meters in the air.
I spun through the air, losing my orientation. I had to apply an explosive corrective force with my left hand to stop the rotation, which depleted my upward momentum. Gravity grabbed me and pulled me down.
I fell.
But years of discipline and parkour paid off. Upon impacting the grass, I rolled over my right shoulder to dissipate the kinetic energy. I ended up in a crouch, sliding a few meters across the grass, smoke billowing from my hands.
I sat at the base of the oak tree as the smoke cleared. My arms throbbed with a dull, deep pain that reached the bone. Stress micro-fractures, probably. They would heal by tomorrow, denser than before.
But it wasn't the physical pain that bothered me. It was the anger.
An irrational, hot, and stinging fury began to bubble in my chest simply because I had miscalculated the flight path. I wanted to punch the tree until it splintered. I wanted to scream. I wanted to blow something up until it was reduced to ashes.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, digging my nails into my knees, forcing my adult mind to take the helm before the wild child broke loose.
Control, I ordered myself, exhaling slowly. It's just chemistry.
Society rarely talks about how Quirks affect the mind, but it is an undeniable reality. My body produces nitroglycerin. To synthesize it, my endocrine system remains in an almost constant state of hyperactivity. My blood is always loaded with adrenaline and cortisol, prepping me for "fight or flight" every waking second.
That is the true curse of this Quirk. My body's chemistry instinctively pushes me toward aggression and explosive fury, the same way it affects Mitsuki. The original Katsuki Bakugo never stood a chance. He was a child handed destructive power and a hormonal cocktail that made him irascible, and instead of teaching him to control it, the world applauded his aggression. He was a slave to his own biology. I, at least, have the advantage of an adult mind to recognize the chemical trap and force myself to breathe until the adrenaline spike passes.
Beside me, Izuku dropped onto the grass with a sigh of pure exhaustion. He had been running back and forth, measuring angles and dodging the gusts of wind. His face was red, and his chest heaved violently.
I handed him my water bottle without a word.
"Thanks, Kacchan," he panted, taking a long gulp before handing it back. "T-that last burst was incredible. It almost knocked me over just from the air pressure. You reached 4.5 meters!"
"Don't apologize for being tired, Izuku. You were running at my pace all afternoon," I said, my tone devoid of any mockery. It was a sincere and straightforward acknowledgment. "Your reflexes have improved a lot. You would have tripped over that last root trying to follow my trajectory before."
Izuku smiled, a genuine and exhausted smile. There was no longer fear in his eyes when he looked at me, nor that toxic idolatry from the past. We were two kids breaking our backs in the forest to reach the same goal.
As he wiped his forehead, my clinical gaze evaluated his condition. Despite his three years of hellish training and the fact that his muscles were starting to define themselves, he was still breathing too heavily for the effort exerted. His knees trembled slightly from the repeated impact of running through the forest.
I looked back at my own arms. I had just withstood the recoil equivalent of a missile launch, and though they hurt, my bones were intact. My breathing had already stabilized.
Somatic adaptation...
The theory didn't just explain why I didn't break my arms. It implied an evolutionary leap at the species level. Someone with a Quirk to stretch their fingers or change their hair color didn't need titanium bones for their power, but genetics didn't discriminate. The simple fact of possessing the "Quirk Factor" meant your DNA had crossed the threshold. Humans with Quirks were born with higher muscle and bone density than humans of the past. Their baseline was simply higher.
But Izuku... Izuku didn't have the Quirk Factor.
He was, in the strictest and most biological sense of the word, a classic human. His body had not received the evolutionary "hardware upgrade." It didn't matter how much he trained, it didn't matter how much combat technique I taught him. There was a biological ceiling, an unbreakable physical limit imposed by his ancient genetics.
Aizawa, despite fighting only with martial arts and capture tape, was still an evolved human capable of withstanding blows that would shatter a normal person. The body of a Quirkless human like Izuku could never withstand the tensions, impacts, and speeds that hero society took for granted in real combat.
I looked away, feeling a cold knot in my stomach as I grasped the magnitude of that genetic injustice. Izuku might have the biggest heart in the world and an iron will, but his vessel was made of glass in a world inhabited by monsters of steel.
"Hey, Kacchan," Izuku interrupted my thoughts, closing his notebook. "I was thinking about the dispersion technique for your flight. The delay in the right ignition was minimal. If you open your fingers instead of cupping your palm, you could disperse the force at a wider angle to gain aerodynamic stability. Like the ailerons on an airplane. You could balance the gas output in both hands."
I paused. Izuku's analytical thinking cut through the last vestiges of my chemical frustration. I visualized the fluid mechanics: the nitroglycerin coming out as a fan of high-pressure gas. Less vertical thrust, but much greater rotational control.
"Dispersion for stability..." I repeated softly. I looked at Izuku, at the pure, brilliant concentration on his face. That brain of yours is going to end up being a weapon of mass destruction, I thought with deep pride. "That's a great idea, Izuku."
I stood up, offering him a hand to help him up.
He took it firmly. His knuckles were skinned, but he didn't complain.
"You worked hard today. Let's go home," I told him, adjusting my backpack on my shoulders. "We'll test your aileron theory tomorrow."
We walked together under the orange light of the sunset, in the comfortable silence of two people who mutually respect each other. My mind kept working, analyzing the long and dangerous road ahead of us.
Your brain is your best weapon, I thought, watching him walk beside me. We'll have to sharpen it until it cuts pure diamond.
Author's Notes: Hey everyone! As I mentioned in previous chapters, I'd like to try out a reward system using Power Stones. If we reach the following accumulated stone goals this week, I will add extra bonus chapters to next week's release schedule. Here are the targets!
Stone Goals:
100 PS — 1 Bonus Chapter
150 PS — 2 Bonus Chapters
200 PS — 3 Bonus Chapters
Thank you so much for all the support and comments!
PD: I stole this stone system from S4tus, from his MHA: GAMMA fanfic.
It's one of the best fics written on this site; if you really want to read quality writing, go for it.
PD: I'm leaving it open for discussion to choose Bakugou's love interest :P (Except Uraraka, all the scenes they made with that really messed with my head, seriously wtf)