Spacetime Anomaly: MHA Fanfic

Chapter 12.4: Gravitational Arrays And Romantic Advice

Walking over to Uraraka with body language that practically screamed "excitement," Izuku began their conversation by stating, "I'll be honest, I've not yet had the chance to take a good look at your Zero Gravity Quirk closely despite seeing your Battle Trial and fight at USJ. I know that the foundation for your Quirk working is you making physical contact with the object you want without gravity, but if I don't see what happens at the point of contact, I can't very well tell what you're doing."

"Ok? So, would you like an example?"

"If you would," he teleported one of his bottles of water over to his hand before offering it to Uraraka, "please."

As Uraraka took the bottle of water, Izuku let his eyes wash over with the prominent golden color of spatial energy. He gave Uraraka the go-ahead to activate her Quirk and under his intense gaze, he watched the miracle of anti-gravity. Now, to a normal person, it simply looked like Uraraka's finger pads had slightly depressed into the bottle before returning to normal. However, from Izuku's perspective, it was like he was watching magic from a fantasy RPG.

In the world of unravelled spacetime where reality only existed as constructs connected of vertices and nodes, Izuku could see how the pads on Uraraka's fingers appeared to have defied physics. In essence, the process of gravity negation couldn't really be called that as the gravity didn't suddenly vanish. Rather, by manipulating the nodes of the water bottle into an array of sorts, Uraraka took in ALL the spatial nodes that made it up into her own body.

Yet the array of spatial nodes wasn't as simple as it first seemed. If Izuku only took a superficial glance and saw that Uraraka took in the nodes of other objects into her body, she wouldn't be eliminating the gravity of said object, rather than taking it for herself. Clearly, that wasn't all there was to it, as Uraraka's weight limit of three tons would all be shifted to her and she would collapse almost instantly.

The truth behind her ability went much deeper than even Izuku could breakdown relatively quickly. In fact, it took several dozen viewings under several more conditions for him to just barely feel like he was making headway understanding the Zero Gravity Quirk's mechanism for functioning.

Like Hagakure's Quirk, Uraraka's Quirk functioned naturally and with the current level of spatial understanding and technology in the world, Uraraka would probably first die of old age before learning the scientific reason behind the activation, process, and release of her Quirk. Fortunately, Izuku just so happened to be a walking, talking, decoder for all things Space and Time related, so eventually, he felt confident in giving her some advice.

First came the explanation, which Izuku struggled to convey without overwhelming his gravity-defying friend. She wasn't exactly well off in her level of high school academics, let alone competent enough for Izuku to give her dissertation on the properties of spacetime.

In the end he went with an analogy to hopefully steer her in the right direction, saying, "Ok, so I want you to imagine that your Quirk is a barrier." Seeing the look of utter confusion on her face, he sighed before continuing, "Without touching something with all the fingers in your hand your barrier fails to activate, but you should be able to get around that by better understanding your Quirk. So, I mean you might be able to activate it in the future by just touching something with four or less fingers."

"Now, onto how your barrier of a Quirk works. To put it simply, when your barrier successfully activates on something, through your finger pads you sort of take in all that of that 'something's' mass into your own body. But, because your barrier is constantly manipulating that mass with your body, you don't feel extra heavy."

"I think I understood all that, but then why is it that I feel nauseous and off balance the more weight I eliminate, er… take in with my Quirk?" Uraraka asked.

"Mhmm… I'd imagine that has to do with the fact that neither you nor practically anyone understood what I just told you about how your Quirk works. Your Quirk has probably slowly improved as you grew up, right? Allowing your weight limit and the time it takes before you feel nauseous to increase?"

After receiving a short nod, Izuku added, "Well that will probably continue on for a while longer until your body stops growing up. You see, your Quirk hasn't really been the thing that's been improving, or if it has, it's barely noticeable. Instead, it's been your body's increasing volume and mass that have allowed your Quirk to better function as you grew up."

"However," Izuku said before she could get too depressed, "That only means that now you'll be able to make insane amounts of progress after you start better learning the intricacies of your Quirk. Your nausea could be eliminated the old fashioned way, by training your gag reflex and constantly exposing yourself to your limits. Or..." Izuku paused, revealing a face that would frighten anyone familiar with his training antics, "You could try to manipulate your 'barrier' of a Quirk within your body to get better control."

As Uraraka felt chills run down her spine and sweat cascade down her face, Izuku concluded, "Moreover, since your Quirk involves the absorption of mass and its manipulation inside your body, who's to say you can only negate gravity? I'm more interested in seeing if you can later use that mass to your advantage; maybe offensively?"

In any case, as Uraraka's Quirk was arguably one of the most complex he had seen up to date — and she belonged to the same camp of people as Izuku; Space Manipulators — Izuku spent virtually the rest of Saturday's training by Uraraka's side. If he wasn't attempting to explain her Quirk in less figurative ways, he was practising the very same application of Space Manipulation as her Zero Gravity Quirk to better understand it himself and later give her better advice.

Unfortunately, despite today's fruitful gains from learning with Uraraka, Izuku couldn't help but walk home on a sour note. He had been keeping track of everyone's progress, if only to see if anyone needed his help, and though nothing bad came up, Izuku could tell Hagakure was distraught over something.

Walking home, Izuku couldn't help but ponder, 'It can't be that she's jealous, right?' Recalling how periodically, Hagakure would flinch or scowl in his direction as he talked or touched Uraraka while they trained, Izuku shivered.

'Perhaps I should be a bit more reserved even if a bit of physical contact is inevitable while training...' He thought, before pausing, "Wait! We aren't even a couple… Should I even care? No, no, that would probably upset Hagakure… Ah! But again, it's not like upsetting her is all bad. Not unless I want to get her to keep liking me… Wait, what?"

Izuku remained absentminded until he reached his home. There, through means unknown to the boy, his mother somehow managed to deduce the source of his troubles as she woke him from his stupor, asking, "Thinking about the cute girl who likes you?" She smirked at his fl.u.s.tered response.

"What?! Am I that easy to read? And how do you know the girl that likes me is cute? I already told you she's invisible!"

"Hahaha, I was just teasing you~" She beamed, "You only have yourself to play for telling me after the fact that I was right!"

Speechless and embarrassed, Izuku went over to his room to set his things before returning to cook dinner for himself and his mother. He got halfway through his cooking prep before Inko sat by their kitchen counter and began to chastise him, asking, "Soooo, have you made a decision regarding the mystery girl who likes you?"

"Mhmm..." Izuku's eyes glazed over as he chopped down vegetables on his cutting board, "Not really. I mean, we get along great at school and during after school training, but… Aside from her confession, nothing even remotely romantic has happened between us."

Shaking her head, Inko snickered at her son. Deriving joy from his confused and slightly offended expression, she said, "Izuku, darling… Let's be serious for a second. You haven't even tried to stimulate your relationship with her, have you?"

As the look on Izuku's face intensified, Inko elaborated, "Son, before entering U.A. the closest thing to a romantic relationship you've experienced was when you were four years old! I've seen you train, shop, wander about, and everything in between. With all the confidence in the world I can say that you are very impressive, but chasing skirts? Let's not kid ourselves here..."

'Did she just insult me?' Izuku cringed.

Apparently, his thoughts were bleeding through his expression as Inko quickly clarified, "But that's not a bad thing at all, Izuku! I'm glad you're not some playboy flaunting yourself. I'm just saying, you don't have the experience to make stimulate romance in the first place."

Again, Izuku felt like the offhand comments his mother tossed his way were low-key insults, yet he couldn't find any faults with what she said. After all, it was as she said; he has as close to no experience as a boy his age could possibly possess.

"So your saying I should try to make things work out? It's on me?" Izuku asked.

"Not explicitly. Just… you know, try to not be so serious all the time," she sighed. "It's not hard for me to imagine that your overblown serious attitude towards everything is what's probably disallowing for any potential romance."

As he thought about it, Izuku responded before he could properly recollect himself, "Yeah, that sounds about right. I'll try to keep that in mind."