Chapter 16
Back at my work study, I could see the inconspicuous glances sent by the other three fellow interns to Melissa. And Melissa did notice it often enough that she seemed bothered. At one point, she even went up to them directly and asked if they needed something, but the three freaked out somewhat and mumbled some excuses before focusing steadily back at the work they had.
Melissa grumbled as she took a place in front of me during lunch time. I looked up from my lunch to her quizzically. "What's up?"
"Is there something weird with me today?" Melissa asked me, her confusion clear on her face.
I stared at her for a good moment, taking in her beauty (obviously) before shaking my head. "Nothing I see. Something wrong?"
"I was just feeling creeped out getting stared at by the other interns," she replied, frowning. "I thought I missed something on me today and they were staring at that."
I shrugged. "Or perhaps, they have never seen such a beautiful woman."
She looked up at me for a moment before a chuckle escaped her. "Yeah, right," she scoffed, trying hard to hide her embarrassment at the unexpected compliment. "If that's the case, they could just say so."
"And risk coming across as creepy?" I asked, an eyebrow raised. "I mean, when you think about it, they barely know you; they don't have a reason to come talk to you. It may come across as creepy."
"I'd hardly take offense at a compliment," she protested.
I could only shrug at her. "So then when are you planning to talk to Izuku?" I asked instead, changing the topic. "I thought you wanted to find out about All Might's quirk."
"Ah, yes," she replied as her focus returned to her food. "I was going to ask yesterday but I had to think over and write my research paper on Permeation. You think he'd be available this weekend?"
"He should be. And you're already done with your research paper?"
"Not quite, but for the most part, I'm done."
I stared at her with mild disbelief. Then again, I supposed I should have excepted her to be that quick in the first place.
"Well, I'll ask Izuku if he'll be free this Sunday. We can meet up at a café or something."
"Alright. Works for me."
There was a slight lull in conversation before Melissa looked up again. "So, how's your research going? You did say it was regarding quirk gene factor but we never got around to discuss in too much detail."
I grimaced a bit. "I feel stuck really," I replied. "Or more like, I'm not sure what my goal should be. I was exploring how to study quirks, so to speak, but with no real guide as to how to do it."
"Despite having a mentor?"
"Nakamura-sensei is more of an offhand type. Unless I stumble often enough, she won't guide me. In her words, 'stumble & experience first, then get help'." I grimaced. "Unfortunately, I'm not good with that style of learning."
"You could always tell her you're stuck."
"Believe me, I have. She thinks it's too soon for me to ask for help. Says if I was asking already, how'll I analyze villain's quirks when I fight them? Couldn't refute her on that one."
"Oh, I see…"
There was another pause as we quickly cleaned up after ourselves and dropped off our lunch plates. Then I continued the conversation. "That said, I could always ask Izuku. He's got a good mind when it comes to quirk analysis. Honestly, if he weren't so blinded by his inordinate need to be a hero, he could be an extremely good quirk analyst and counsellor. He'd be terrifying actually."
"He's that good?" She sounded surprised.
"You should hear him on one of his muttering sprees," I replied with a laugh. "Well, I'll ask him if he's free. We could meet up somewhere and discuss."
"I'd prefer to meet at my room…"
"I'd get bored watching you two nerd it out," I said with a dry chuckle. "At least in a café, I could stuff myself up."
Melissa didn't seem to take offense at my comment. If anything, she simply laughed. "I'd agree normally but considering this is All Might we are talking about and he's absurdly secretive regarding information about his quirk, I think staying at my place would be the better idea. We could order something for you; that won't be an issue."
"Deal!"
"I still can't believe I'm going in a girl's room…"
I stared at Izuku like he had lost his mind. And verbalized that thought. "Have you lost your mind?"
I'd thought that this 'going in a girl's room' thingy was an anime-only exaggeration to showcase a character's nervousness, not a real deal that'd be said in front of me at any point of my life. Obviously, I was very wrong.
"I mean, I have barely talked to girls to begin with…"
"And that gives you a free pass to being creepy?"
"Creepy…"
"What you're saying and doing is plain creepy. Just be yourself like you're with me. There's no need to overthink everything."
"I know but I still can't help…"
"Learn then."
Izuku muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like 'asshole' but I ignored it and headed off towards Melissa's room after informing the reception of the hotel she was staying at. It was a nice little hotel located really close to UA.
Melissa opened the door of her room and ushered us in. She was wearing pyjamas and hadn't particularly dressed up or anything. And she still looked almost unreasonably pretty. I was almost jealous of whoever she'd end up with. If it won't be me, that is. 'Oh wait… I have Momo…'
Izuku was practically a stuttering mess. He barely managed to greet her 'Morning' before stiffly taking a place on the floor at the kotatsu. I joined him after greeting Melissa and soon enough, she too sat with us.
"Glad you guys got here on time," she said as she opened her laptop. "I'd just finished with my report and wanted someone else to look over it."
"Permeation?"
"Yep. Here you go, guys."
As she passed her laptop with the document file open, I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at her. "I thought research was not to be shared with anyone till it was published in a journal or peer-reviewed or something?"
"That's true but not many follow that rule," she chuckled awkwardly. "Besides, you guys are all the way here in Japan so it wouldn't be a concern at all."
"Really?"
"Yes! I really need someone to look at it so I know I didn't miss anything from my end."
While we were talking, Izuku was already skimming through her research paper, his eyes alight with curiosity and excitement. It was the look he had whenever he used to check out or analyze hero quirks for his notebooks.
It was going to be an interesting discussion.
"Melissa-san, I see most of the applications of this quirk that you've noted are more in the line of fighting; which I can see as being focused on the hero aspect of the quirk. But have you considered any other applications as in day-to-day life or even non-heroic ones? Like for instance, if someone gets locked out of their house, they can go through the door and open it from inside."
"Yes, I have, Izuku-kun," Melissa said with a light chuckle that made Izuku blush in embarrassment. "And while that is possible, the applications of the quirk outside fights seems quite limited or situational. Besides, the limitations of the quirk impede it. For example, when the quirk is active, Mirio-san can do absolutely nothing except let gravity take its hold on him. He can't see anything, feel anything, hear anything. It's like a void to him."
"Oh, I didn't realize it was a limitation like that…"
"Y'know," I said, as I went over what Melissa had just said, "how does gravity work on him anyway when his quirk is active? If you remember, we were discussing how Mirio keeps his mass when his quirk is active. And you'd said exactly what I was thinking about. Permeation, on a molecular level, is basically one set of atoms going through another, more solid set. So how do cells of a human body, which are much, much larger than an atom, pass through solid ground? It doesn't make sense, does it?"
"Yeah, I tried working it out based on general quirk research but couldn't get anything solid," Melissa replied with a sigh. "I tried contacting Mirio-san but I guess he's busy or something. I couldn't get hold of him. That is like one of the biggest gaps in my research right now."
"And you claimed it was almost complete and you were done with it," I said, snickering.
She looked slightly embarrassed; she didn't deny it.
I didn't poke fun at her any further, instead returning my attention towards my own question. The fastest way to get an answer was to get Mirio into the lab and observe his quirk under the microscope. If I tried to break down Mirio's quirk based on my general knowledge of conservation of mass and energy, there were quite a few gaps in my understanding of how his quirk worked.
Firstly, permeation as a concept itself didn't make sense in his case. Like I explained to Melissa, cells of a human body can't pass through solid ground so how does his quirk enable that? Does it basically reduce the size of every single atom in his body? That wouldn't work because it'd increase density per atom and if not controlled, might create small black holes of those dense atoms (extremely hypothetically, mind you).
Secondly, assuming that his quirk breaks his cells down further to atomic level to allow clumped clusters of atoms like those in solid ground pass through, how'd he keep his mass and still let gravity affect him? Which means there should be a certain limit past which the quirk can't work because it'd mean gravity would lose its effect on him.
Thirdly, considering the previous case, how did he keep his 'identity'? Surely, breaking down cells to atomic level would mean there was a very high chance that some of the atoms that were originally 'Mirio' would get displaced or replaced during the permeation process. How did his quirk ensure that the original 'Mirio' atoms were the only ones to get repelled when he deactivated his quirk while inside something?
Fourthly, it was the fact that he was still visible when using his quirk. Which quite simply and absolutely didn't make sense. How do humans see things? By light being reflected off said things into their retina. So when light literally passes through Mirio, how can we even see him in the first place? Ideally, Mirio should be an invisible man whenever he activates his quirk. His quirk should be invisibility, not permeation. Because if Mirio was invisible, there'd be no way to determine how he was going invisible.
Since we could see Mirio even when he activated his quirk, it'd mean there was something else at play here that I wasn't able to understand.
"Haru!"
I jumped at the call and turned towards the other two, who were staring at me, bewildered. "What's up?" I asked.
"We should ask you that really," Izuku replied after exchanging a quick glance with Melissa. "You sort of zoned out after poking fun at her."
"Oh I was just thinking about my own question." I went on to explain my thoughts about the quirk.
Melissa looked positively blindsided by the end. "I never thought of that! That's a way better way to go about it."
I stared at her, wondering whether the 'genius' moniker was a canon-only thing. "I had thought you'd have already thought about that given it was a research paper."
"Oh, I'd have but my research paper was focused on support items for a specific quirk. I chose Permeation."
"Ah, that explains why you didn't bother Mirio more about his support items."
"Yeah, I later contacted Power Loader and got the necessary information." She made a face at the last word. "He wasn't willing to part with much though. 'Trade secrets' as he called them."
Izuku and I both chuckled at her words.
"I mean," I said, "you could always hire him and then get his trade secrets. All the information you want is his IP after all."
Melissa sighed at my words. "Believe me, we have tried. SRI always reaches out to promising individuals to hire the best talent as its own. Unfortunately, we've not been able to break Power Loader."
"What does he say?"
"He wants to build his own firm dedicated to Japanese heroes. That is to say, he'll be our rival except only focused on Japan."
"Why Japan-only?"
Melissa could only shrug helplessly. "We even offered him a position specifically for Japan and he turned us down. No idea if there's more to the story than what he's told us."
'Interesting…'
Meanwhile, Izuku had already skimmed through the rest of Melissa's paper. "I think you've covered most of what your focus was here," he stated as he put down her paper. "But your details about the quirk itself are very… vague, I'd say. It doesn't feel like you've tested the quirk much or interviewed Mirio-san in detail."
"I tried to reach out to him but he never picked up my call," she said with a disappointed sigh. "I was planning to reach out to the principal tomorrow anyway to see if I could get something from his own observations."
"Yeah, that'd be a great idea! And like Haru said, you should also put all those conjectures he mentioned in the paper. It should add a bit more weight to the fact that you were trying to analyze the quirk first before discussing anything related to support gear."
"That'd be a good idea, yes," Melissa agreed. "I'll just add it in tonight once we're done with our discussion."
It took me a moment to remind myself why I was there at her room in the first place.
"Ah, yes, Izuku's quirk and All Might's quirk." I could see Izuku stiffening up nervously beside me even as he tried to hide it. "It should be an interesting discussion indeed…"
Whew, another month, another chapter! Again, a chapter focused on quirk discussion. I certainly hope it was interesting. Not many people or fics really break down how quirks work. This and the last chapter were more focused on the quirk itself than the character interactions.
I think there will be one more chapter of this detailed discussion before we return to the usual shenanigans and plot stuff. I just wanted to take some time to focus on SI-OC's quirk analysis bit that I had mentioned in the story summary. It'd be weird for a story to not be focused on it after having it mentioned in the summary.
Happy Wednesday!
Signing off!
