Alright, as state in the last chapter what's discuss in this chapter can be a bit confusing. I feel sometimes when rereading it I only understand it because I wrote it and I know what I'm trying to explain. It deals a lot with Eri's quirk and the finer details of it. All I can really say while reading this chapter think about how time inversion works in the movie, 'Tenet' I was listening to it in the back ground when I wrote the bulk of this chapter.
If by the end if you're still confused, leave a comment and I'll try to put a explanation in the header of the next chapter. but time to move onto the chapter.
As always I do not own MY HERO ACADEMIA or any of their characters.
With that, let's start off with a bang.
Principal Nezu was not easily spooked. His mind worked too fast for him to become overwhelmed or allow emotions such as surprise to last for too long. And he spent much of his free time thinking up the most ridiculous situations, no matter how unlikely any of them were to occur. It often helped save time planning with a situation arose, but it was also a precaution. As he had been caught off once before and it had nearly broken him, after he escaped from that lab he had vowed never to be caught unaware ever again.
So when Recovery Girl messaged him, even using the signal for a world-ending event. Which coming from Recovery Girl meant at most it had to be a life-ending biohazard or disease, Principal Nezu was sure UA's nurse was most likely overreacting to a certain degree. Yet then as he was walking to Recovery Girl's office, Principal Nezu found himself walking beside the teacher of UA he tolerated the most, Eraserhead. That alone made Principal Nezu question what Recovery Girl had messaged them about. If this world-ending plague was caused by a quirk, it would explain the need for Erasure to stop it.
When they arrived at Recover Girl's office, Mr Aizawa didn't have a chance to knock before the door swung up and the short woman pulled both of them in by grabbing Principal Nezu's vest and Mr Aizawa's leg. Now Principal Nezu knew how it felt when he talked to someone before they had a chance to knock. As he began to smooth out the wrinkle caused by Recovery Girl's grip, Principal Nezu looked at her and said, "Perhaps now you would like to explain this end of the wording biohazard you've come across."
"World ending, possibly, Biohazard, not in the way you think." Recovery Girl said as she hurried over to her desk and her fingers began flying across the keyboard and mouse as she made sure she had everything pulled out on her monitor.
"You only call me in that the epidemic is quirk based. So what are the syndromes? Bloody discharge from the eyes, decayed flesh. " Mr Aizawa said but was interrupted.
"Yeah, it's quirk based, but nothing like that. I've been testing Eri's blood for a quirk factor since Monday but until today the results have been inconclusive. I was unable to find a repeating genetic change that is typically an indicator of a quirk factor. It was almost as if she didn't have a quirk factor, but we've all seen that was impossible. Then I found something when I compared the genetic code of her blood to the sample of her horn that I took." Recovery Girl said, then swung her monitor around, "I found this."
Principal Nezu and Mr Aizawa looked at the monitor. The sequence of genetic code looked very similar to each other except the right had a few breaks in it. Mr Aizawa jumped back and while between the samples, "Okay, which one is supposed to be the horn sample."
"Right there inlays our problem." Recovery Girl said then looked back at her monitor, by quickly back and Eraserheda and saying, "It's the one on the left, by the way." That caused, Mr Aizawa straightened his back while Principal Nezu lifted a paw to his chin, "We thought Eri's quirk was just housed within her horn, but from what I can tell, it seems that majority of her blood's genetic code has been modified to be made of quirk factor."
"But that's impossible. Even Heteromorphic only top out at 50%, any more than then a person would be considered more quirk than human. Who could have…" Mr Aizwa paused as he and Principal Nezu reached the same conclusion.
"Overhaul. Midoriya said bullet with the ability to temporarily erase a person's genetic quirk factor had been showing up in the underground. And these bullets were found to contain human blood, Eri's blood. Overhaul must have studied the genetic sequence of Eri's horn and then using his quirk rewrote her blood genetic sequence to closely match it." Principal Nezu said, starting to pace, showing he was having to really think this through, "So instead of having to use shavings of Eri's horn, he could withdraw her blood, thus giving him a large supply of Eri's quirk factor to put into the bullets."
Principal Nezu paused and pointed a paw at Recovery Girl, "Meaning the energy from Eri's quirk is not held solely in her horn, but through her entire body. Yet, while horrific, does not spell the end of the world."
"I reached the conclusion and that is what makes me so afraid. Eri's quirk would be classified as an emitter, but it is in fact part of a particular subset known as an accumulation quirk. Most emitters quirk that discharges some kind of energy like lightning, their recharge time is quick, as short as an hour to no longer than a day. But Eri's quirk, the time it takes to recharge its reserve, is extremely slow. So instead of filling up a glass with a facelet, it would be more like a slow leak dripping." Recovery Girl said.
"What kind of energy does Eri's accumulate?" Mr Aizawa said.
Recovery Girl felt a shiver go down her spine as she spoke, "Temporary energy. Eri's quirk feeds off an object forward entropy, but she does this so slowly and so little that it is not even noticeable. And from what I could tell, it feeds off everything within a 3 meter radius."
"How much does she absorb?" Principal Nezu asked.
"If her quirk was normal, I would say one second every second. But her quirk hasn't just been expanded, it has been accelerated. Now for every second she lives, she absorbs three, maybe four seconds of objects' entropy around her. Its hard to tell form blood and genetic sequencing alone. But she's slowing down how objects move through time and absorbing that energy." Recovery Girl said.
Mr Aizawa thought over all that information. So Eri's quirk had been modified, so not only was she about to hold more energy, but the time it took her to gather that energy had been improved. It showed as if she had a quirk awakening.
"So what exactly does this have to do with your end of the world text?" Mr Aizawa asked.
"How familiar are you with the quirk doomsday theory?" Recovery Girl asked.
"One day a quirk will achieve the singularity, and the power generated by it will become too powerful for the user to control. The quirk will self-destruct itself, causing the world to collapse on itself. But it's just a conspiracy theory, something only the crazed believe in. Biology would limit a person's quirks. Evidence shows that the rate of quirk power has actually decreased from when quirks first appeared." Mr Aizawa said, recalling all those villains and street preachers who talked about the end of the world from an all-powerful quirk. Evidence from history did not support it.
"Well I think Overhaul didn't just break those biology limits, he fastrack it to the end of the limits. Before Eri's quirk could perhaps accumulate a week's worth of temporary energy, but now she could potentially hold up ten years of temporary energy. What is worse is that Eri's quirk is now like your's, Eraserhead. It's become unstable, even if she had a semblance of control before the change it would be gone now. Maybe before, once Eri's quirk was full it would stop absorbing the energy, but now it won't stop." Recovery Girl said.
"Eri's quirk will continue to absorb temporary energy, and from that there's two possibilities. First is that the temporary energy will slowly leak out of Eri, causing the temporary entropy of objects around her to switch and start moving backwards in time. Not all too unsimilar to how we believe Eri healed her big brother. Or two, Eri's quirk will continue to try to contain the temporary energy. Expanding like an overinflated balloon, until one day she goes off like a bomb. Unleashing all that temporary energy into the world, either causing the entire world's entropy to switch direction. Resulting in time itself collapsing on itself, or accelerating the world to the end of time." Principal Nezu said as he finished pacing.
"And it only gets worse. Eri's blood cells are already saturated with temporary energy. And by my best estimation by 68 percent. Without more testing and seeing her quirk in actions again, I'd say unless we find a way for to she safing expel that energy, or help her control her quirk to stop the absorption. We have until the end of this school year before the ticking time bomb goes off and Eri proves the quirk doomsday theory correctly." Recovery Girl said.
The room was silent for the next minute as principal, nurse and teacher thought it over. Even with Overhaul in prison, he was still creating threats to the world, even inadvertently creating one that could be unstoppable. Mr Aizawa turned to Recovery Girl and Principal Nezu. "We really need to talk to the Midoriyas."
As the conversation ended, the dread about what the group had talked about, hit them. Unless they found a solution that worked, Eri could inadvertently cause the end of the world. Her quirk worked off of time, a force of nature that was never meant to be controlled and it was unstable. At the moment the best-case scenario was option one, where temporary energy leaked out of Eri's quirk, only affecting objects around her. The only other scenario was Eri's quirk went off like a bomb, unleashing all that temporary energy into the world. Time would collapse on itself.
And if it somehow didn't, Eri would most likely not survive the unleash. Her death would break Izuku's psyche, and there was no telling how he would react afterwards. Blaming the world for her death, potentially becoming the cause of the end of the world himself. Becoming the villain who would be sacrificing the world to bring back the one person who he held closest in his heart.
The dread of those thoughts alone was immense, resulting in none of the three getting much sleep that night. And that dread passed over into anxiety the next morning. Recovery Girl and Principal Nezu held themselves in their office. And Mr Aizawa made the homeroom extremely quick, he couldn't make himself look in Izuku's face. None of them could face him, because of fate they might have resigned his little sister too. None of them had the strength to approach him and ask him to stay after school and ask Inko to bring Eri back. The only way the message could be given was a written note left on his desk before last period started.
After the last bell rang, Principal Nezu and Mr Aizawa made their way to Recovery Girl's office. Preparing themselves for the horrible discussion they had been chosen to give. Was this how the doctor felt when they had to tell someone about a terminal illness? When they had to look someone in the eyes and only be able to watch as a person's world crumbled before them. Principal Nezu was going to ask a question and ask if everyone was ready, but he noticed a mug of tea that Recovery Girl was drinking.
It was a blend known to help calm someone down, but what was concerning was that she had five tea bags within it. Mr Aizawa didn't look any better, Principal Nezu hadn't seen him like this since Loud Cloud's death. And as Principal Nezu took a deep breath as he realized he wasn't prepared for this either. The same as Erasrhead, Principal Nezu didn't believe in the doomsday theory, yet it seemed Eri had broken the belief. And if the situation wasn't handled soon, then it could mean the end of the world, either by time or by a bullet.
At the front gate of UA Izuku was waiting for Eri and Inko to arrive. He waved to them as they walked across the street. As they walked through the front gate Inko asked, "Do you know what they found about Eri's quirk?"
"No, the note just said they had found something. And to call you to bring Eri back so we could talk about it in Recovery Girl's office." Izuku said.
"They left you a note?" Inko questioned.
"They were probably too busy to try and track me down, so they just left a note where they knew I'd find it." Izuku said with a shrug of his shoulders.
The family walked across campus and once inside the main building, they headed for Recovery Girl's office. Upon arriving, Izuku gave a quick knock on the door and then pushed the door open. He found Principal Nezu and Recovery Girl waiting but was surprised to see Mr Aizawa there as well.
"Oh, hello Sir." Izuku said as he stepped in, Inko and right behind him.
"Hello, Mrs Midoriya. Midoriya." Mr Aizawa said.
"Thank you for meeting with us, on such short notice. We have some urgent news to share with you." Principal Nezu said as he set down his cup of tea with a slight shake to it.
To Izuku, Principal Nezu sounded concerned about something. He and Inko took their seats, with Eri on Izuku's lap. They looked between the teacher, nurse and principal, waiting for one of them to explain what the situation was.
It was Recovery Girl to begin the explanation, "Midoriya, your theory about Eri's quirk rewinding someone to a previous point was actually quite close to reality. But it deals less with time manipulation, and more with controlling temporary energy."
"What's the difference?" Izuku asked.
"The accumulation of energy and how it is used. Sir Nighteye's foresight can be caused by time manipulation, as his quirk allowed him to peer into the future by fast forwards the time stream around a person. Yet Eri's quirk allows her to accumulate temporary energy and then use it as she fits."
"So what exactly can her quirk do besides heal someone?" Izuku asked, as he hugged Eri who was sitting in his lap.
"Specifically Eri's quirk allows her to use the temporary energy stored within her body then reverse its entropy and then accelerate that backwards direction as she forces those properties on an object, while keeping them in the current time stream. This is how she is able to rewind an individual body back to a previous state, essentially making them young, while healing injuries and undoing bodily modifications. Tattoos and pierces for example." Principal Nezu said, "But it seems that her body takes time to accumulate enough temporary energy to have any effect. This has led us to create a theory that if Eri stored enough temporary energy she could accidentally rewind an object to a point before it existed."
Izuku froze as he remembered the disappearance of Eri's father and how she and her mother were responsible for it. Was it that when Eri gained her quirk, she accidentally rewound her father to a time before he was born?
"How long? You said it took time for Eri to store temporary energy, how long would it have taken her to build up enough energy to heal me?" Izuku asked.
"Before our best guess was for every second she lives, she absorbs one second of temporary energy." Recovery Girl said, "But then I made a discovery that changed that thought. How familiar are you with genetic sequencing, quirk factor and how it affects the person's body?' -Izuku gave a so-so gesture- "At our current time, we are able to read a person's genetic sequence and understand some aspects of a person's quirk before it reveals itself. For now, we can tell what type of quirk it will be, emitter, transformation or mutant. We can do this by seeing how much of a person's genetic sequence is affected or houses a quirk factor. Emitters typically have the least amount of genetic change, while mutants have the most."
Recovery Girl turned around her monitor to show it to Inko and Izuku, on it was two different genetic sequences. She pointed to the one on the left, "This one is from an emitter type quirk. From your own homeroom teacher Shouta Aizawa. The genetic quirk factor is not that noticeable. However if you look at the other one which is from Cementoss the change in genetic quirk factor is noticeable."
Izuku and Inko nodded their understanding, "But what does this have to do with Eri? Are you able to tell what type of quirk she has?"
Recovery Girl shook her head, "We believe it to be an emitter type, more specifically the subset accumulation, as the only noticeable physiological change is her horn. However, from observation from looking at her genetic quirk factor." Recovery Girl paused then typed enter on her keyboard causing the monitor to change to a new set of genetic sequences, "Do you notice any change in the genetic quirk factor."
Using his enhanced eyesight, Izuku quickly looked over the genetic sequence, yet he didn't notice a change to show a quirk factor. By the time he was halfway through Recovery Girl cut him off, "You aren't going to find one."
Izuku looked away from the monitor and at UA's resident nurse. "What are you saying? Eri doesn't have a genetic quirk factor, meaning she's quirkless." Yet she had a horn and had been able to save Izuku from near death. Now Izuku believed there was some kind of god but this didn't seem like his doing.
"It's quite the opposite." Recovery Girl brought up a new genetic sequence, "This is the genetic sequence that I got from Eri's horn. Notice the repeating sequence between the samples."
Izuku looked over the genetic sequence and saw they were very close to matching, with only a few differences. "What does this mean? That Eri has a lot of genetic quirk factor." Izuku could almost laugh, no quirk could be powerful enough to completely overwrite a personal genetic code, it would make their pure quirk.
"Precisely. You might want to cover Eri's ears for this part." Principal Nezu said and Izuku did so, "You told us that Overhaul used Eri's blood to create the quirk destroying bullet. We believe this is how. Overhaul used his quirk to rewrite Eri's genetic sequence, making it match her horn. This made it so her blood held the quirk factor as well, allowing Overhaul access to a bigger source of genetic material that he used within his quirk destroying formula. If Overhaul had further altered Eri's blood, we believe he could have perfected his formula and erased all quirks from existence, making it as if they had never appeared in the first place."
"But now the same could be said about Eri. Her blood is still modified, it still holds the altered genetic quirk factor. It's no longer just her horn holding her quirk, it's her entire body." Recovery girl said.
"So Eri's quirk's energy source just went from a small horn to her entire body. Meaning she had in fact only used a portion of her energy to heal my son" Inko said and Principal Nezu and Recovery Girl nodded.
"But it gets worse. We believe that through the experiment, Overhaul also accelerated Eri's quirk. Best guess now, is for every second, Eri is absorbing 3 to 4 seconds of temporary energy. Not only that, but we believe that her quirk has become unstable. Once Eri's quirk is filled, it may not stop absorbing temporary energy." Recovery Girl said.
"This has led us to believe in different possible outcomes. The first is the better but we believe the energy Eri's quirk absorbs would begin to leak out of her body, reversed temporary energy attacks random objects, causing them to jump back 3 to 4 seconds. Slowly breakdown the timestream over years. Or two, Eri's quirk tries to contain all that energy until it bursts like a balloon, releasing all that temporary energy into the world, potentially causing the world's entropy to become reverse, not allowing it to sustain forward moving objects like ourselves."
Principal Nezu then paused, "Is this these thoughts that has led us to believe that Overhaul has accidentally turned Eri's quirk into a quirk singularity bomb."
Izuku and Inko took in a hallowed breath. They knew Eri's quirk was powerful and dangerous, but now they had learned it had been modified to be even stronger. Maybe even to the point of a singularity. This means that if Eri lost control of her quirk, then there was no telling what damage she could accidentally cause.
"So we train her. Either so Eri can stop the absorption or allow the release of energy without breaking anything. We should have the time." Izuku said.
"Unfortunately you're wrong. Eri's cells are already 68% saturated." Recovery Girl said.
"And based on the information we have on hand we believe she'll reach limit by the end of the school year. And you've explained that Eri has only now got over the fear of her quirk, it could take years for her to learn how to control it due to how unstable it is." Principal Nezu said.
And that was a threat to the world, one that Principal Nezu and UA sounded hellbent on stopping. Then again, why won't they, time was a law of nature that could never be controlled. Yet Eri could cause it to collapse on itself, within a second causing more damage to the world than anyone ever could, even All Might if he was a villain. And it would happen within a second, the effect happening before the cause could be seen.
Or do the complete opposite, accelerate time. Make years pass within seconds, crops die within milliseconds, natural disasters occur simultaneously. Until the universe's sun gave out. Either way, the world ends, didn't matter whether time was reversed or accelerated.
Maybe if Izuku had gotten to Eri earlier, or if her quirk wasn't so heavily modified, then they would have the time to help train Eri. But Fate was rarely ever so kind. Eri's quirk was a ticking time bomb, with its count already halfway done.
And it seemed UA wanted to take that card off the table.
Izuku then looked at Mr Aizawa. Eri's quirk is all about temporary energy; Mr Aizawa could erase her connection to it. That made him the only person who could stop her if she lost control, "That's why you here isn't? Your part in this? Insurance in case Eri loses control, you can use your quirk to stop her from killing people." Eri was only five years old, so she could easily lose control of her quirk, even before doomsday. Yet all she needed was practice and yet UA was already threatening her like a nuclear weapon.
"Midoriya, please calm down. Little is still known about Eri and her quirk. While Overhaul accelerated her quirk, he might have also provided the means to delay the end. If her quirk was still only held within her horn, the deadline would be met sooner. But now her entire body holds the quirk factor, and she's growing. Her growth and capability could outpacer her limit" Recovery Girl said.
"Maybe, but what happens when she stops growing, her limits stop growing? All you seemed to be focused on is the end, her hitting that limit. And I'm sure the thought crossed your mind, when she's older that just means a bigger limit means, there will be more temporary energy to be released. So it doesn't sound like you care if it's five years or 20 years in the future, you want to end the threat before it has a chance to go off. Stop the bomb, so no one ever hears about it going off." Izuku said in a strong voice.
"Midoriya." Mr Aizawa said drawing Izuku's attention, "It was agreed that for the time being my erasure quirk is the best failsafe against Eri in the worst-case scenario. But perhaps there is more we can learn about Eri's quirk, something that can stop doomsday from occurring. But for the time being, we work with what we can and we pick an option. Eri learns to stop the absorption of temporary energy, or she learns how to safely release the energy she absorbs. Uses it to heal injuries, and rewind broken objects. We work as best as we can to delay Eri hitting her limit. And until that day happens, we look for another way.
"Midoriya, Monday, you told me that you were training Eri to be able to protect herself without using her quirk. I am here to offer my assistance in teaching her to control her quirk, so the day never comes. Use the temporary energy she absorbed on an object, to get rid of the energy before she ever reaches her limit. And if it comes to it, use mine in case she loses control." Mr Aizawa said, making Izuku want to jump out of his chair.
"She won't." Izuku said with a stern voice.
"How can you be sure? You told us the first time she had ever used her quirk was when she healed you after the USJ, from what I saw that wasn't much control." Mr Aizawa said in a calm voice.
Izuku handed Eri to his mother then stood up and got in his teacher's face, "She won't lose control, because she's afraid to even use her quirk!"
"It is not a matter of her even using her quirk, it's a matter of her hitting her limit. Even if she never uses her quirk, she is still absorbing temporary energy. And once her body hits its limit it will start to leak, like a balloon filled with too much air until it bursts. If she's trained, then Eri can use her quirk, harmlessly releasing the temporary energy. Making it so she never hits her limit." Mr Aizawa explained. He had seen it in villains and his own students, they thought their quirk's strength was enough until the day they pushed it too far and they could too longer control it.
"And you think she won't be able to control it! I've been trying for the past 4 months to help her move past her past and use her quirk! And she did, to save me! And guess what, she was able to stop, she didn't kill me!" Izuku yelled, staring Mr Aizawa right in his eyes.
"She stopped because you were safe, but what happens the next time she sees you hurt? And with your track record so far, that's bound to happen soon. What happens then, she loses control, but what if that time she can't stop." Mr. Aizawa said, standing up to Izuku. He had seen it a hundred times, villains losing control of their quirk while just trying to run away.
Izuku stared Mr Aizawa in the eyes, ready to attack and use his quirk, but he could tell his teacher was ready to use his. Izuku got a sense that although Mr Aizawa had used Eri's name, he was really talking about Izuku and Izuku knew why. Izuku had proven himself to be reckless and forgo the rules, moreover, he had proven he struggled with certain pressure points. When the short student suggested inappropriate things the other day, Izuku had barely been able to hold himself back.
The homeroom teacher for 1-A wanted to see if Izuku would snap under the right kind of pressure, and Izuku knew why. If lost his humanity, he could cause a lot of death. He was skilled and had a deadly quirk, there weren't that many heroes out there that could stop Izuku if he didn't hold back.
It was Inko who spoke up, "It sounds like the only wrong move we have is to do nothing. If we ignore Eri's quirk then it will continue to accumulate energy in the background, and eventually she won't be able to hold any more. But we can't let Eri release all the energy like a roaring river, it would be too fast and crazy. Izuku, Eri needs to learn how to control her quirk. To learn how to let it flow like a stream, direct and controlled."
"But she's not ready. And we said she didn't have to learn until she was ready. "Izuku said.
"That is something we would have preferred but it seems we no longer have the option of preference." Inko said, then looked at Mr Aizawa," My daughter is a delicate soul. I understand that time is of the essence, but she's not one of your students. Control over power, that's what's important."
Mr Aizawa nodded. As high schoolers, they were already supposed to have an understanding of their quirk and be able to control it without hurting themselves. That meant the main focus was to make their quirk as powerful as possible. To make it so they had no difficulty against any villain they came across. Yet Eri's quirk was already powerful enough and it was bound to grow as she got older. So control was the focus. Less energy fluctuation and only allowing the energy to go in the direction Eri wanted it to go.
Izuku huffed and then stopped back, "Okay, you want to teach Eri how to control her quirk, fine. What's your plan for that?"
"There is a system in the works, one that as Principal of UA I have been working towards for some time. It should be implemented before summer break, this system I believe will provide the means to help teach your sister to control her quirk." Principal Nezu said.
"How so?" Izuku asked.
"It will make it easier for Eri to be at UA. She'll have her own training area, far from anything else. So should an accident occur, damage will be minimal. It was a safe, clear and easy environment for her to train in." Principal Nezu said.
Izuku looked at Principal Nezu, the smartest person in the room, "Fine, but first she needs to overcome her fear of her quirk. If she's pressured too much, then …." Izuku paused as he didn't want to think about that, nor did he really have to explain the rest, "And I want to be there for every training session."
"I believe once the system is in place, you'll find that to be easier than you think." Principal Nezu said. Izuku then walked out of the room with Inko and Eri following him.
Alright that's Quirk Theory. While Eri's quirks plays a part through the manga once she's introduce, it not really explained. So I worked with it a bit to more it work a bit like Time Inversion from Tenet, with the potent that it could also accelerate time. and while I feel like this plot of this chapter could make for an awesome story, the panic and worry got a bit away from me. So while Eri's quirk is a danger, it will be in the back seat compared to the whole spy vs spy between Izuku and Ochaco and everyone questioning Izuku's loyalties.
Beside that next chapter, a big old joke is pulled, as class 1-A need a good laugh after the USJ.
Next Time: Prank Wars.
Review and tell me what you think.