Quirks are physical abilities.
They're nothing but a manifestation of adaptations, mutations in genetic code passed on from one generation to the next.
That seems like a viable explanation, one you can gloss over in a textbook.
No one ever talks about the less acceptable definitions though.
Because to you it didn't feel like something so insignificant as an ability.
To you, it felt alive.
Like it had a mind of its own, its own agenda.
Quirks are adaptations, yes, but like the organisms they inhabit, they evolve.
They become something more if they choose to be.
Nervous systems are their own kind of quirk if you think about it.
They're normal, but at once so mysterious.
We're not sure how the spinal cord can react before the brain can.
We're not even sure how the brain performs even half of what it does or why.
It would only make sense this third one coiled through your body was just as unknown.
It spoke.
At least it felt like it.
It asked for things, it fought.
Like an involuntary reflex.
It was like a parasyte more than an ability.
All it wanted was to protect its host.
You thought about that.
Walking through the corridor of the stadium, so empty your footsteps echoed.
Kirishima and Bakugo had fought, you heard all of it, paid attention to it at the back of your mind, seeing glimpses of it out of the corner of your eye every time you passed an opening.
But you didn't stop walking.
Slowly, without any real intention of ending up anywhere.
Bakugo won.
That was inevitable.
Kirishima didn't have the mental capabilities to outsmart him yet.
And hardening is useful, but like any physical ability it runs out of fuel.
You wondered about how you would fight him.
Or rather... your quirk did.
Kirishima. It said.
What about him?
Fight. It said.
No. Bakugo's going to win.
But just in case?
Quiet. You said.
No. It replied. Fight.
Sighing and shaking your head a few times you gave him, Kirishima can alter his own atomic bonding- tighten the valence and make any exchange between the membranes of his cells and the outside world impossible- almost like a tree hardening its stems for the wind.
Stems break. It said. They snap.
You scoffed.
Yeah they do.
And Kirishima's quirk is just as double-edged in that department.
Hardening is the perfect defense, but it makes you heavy- too dense for a normal playing field.
If he tried to fight with his hardening all it would take was a slight breeze from the upper corner of the stadium to come rushing down for me to manipulate the movement, localize the pressure, and immobilize him.
Not you. It said and you cocked your head.
Us. It clarified.
Yeah. You agreed. Us, I guess.
