Age: 14
I have a notebook of my own. Unlike Izuku's, which look like the diaries of a fanboy with attention deficit disorder, mine looks like a mad scientist's lab journal.
On the cover, it reads: PROJECT: ARSENAL.
We were back at the quarry. Toga was sitting on a pile of rocks in the distance, filing her nails and complaining that science is boring. Izuku was next to me, wearing safety goggles and holding a stopwatch.
"Target number one: Atmospheric Friction Ignition. Reference: Roy Mustang," I announced, reviewing my notes.
The concept was elegant. Instead of generating the explosion in the palm (which is messy and loud), I wanted to saturate the air in front of me with a fine mist of nitroglycerin and detonate it with a snap. Surgical precision. Directed fire.
"Theory: If I snap my fingers with ignition cloth gloves (which I don't have yet, so I'll use my own calluses), the spark should ignite the aerosol," I explained.
I raised my right hand. Spread my fingers. Released a micro-layer of sweat into the air.
"Snap!"
I snapped my fingers hard.
Pfff.
A tiny wisp of gray smoke curled from my thumb. Nothing else. No fire, no sonic boom, no charred villains. Just a finger slightly burned by friction.
"Attempt 45... failed," Izuku muttered, taking notes. "The aerosol density is too low outdoors, Kacchan. The wind carries the fuel away before you can light it."
"Dammit," I growled, shaking my sore hand. "Mustang made it look easy. I need a way to contain the gas in a straight trajectory."
"Maybe if you change the arm movement," Izuku suggested. "Instead of leaving the gas static, throw it forward while you snap. Like throwing an invisible baseball."
"I'll test that later. On to the next one."
I rubbed my temples. Frustration is part of the scientific method, I reminded myself.
"Target number two: Stationary Flight Stabilization. Reference: Iron Man."
Propulsion flight (big jumps) I had already mastered. But hovering (staying still in the air to aim and shoot) was a nightmare. Iron Man has continuous thrusters. I have a pulse combustion engine. Bang-bang-bang.
"Up!"
I detonated my palms toward the ground. I rose three meters. Now came the hard part. Staying there.
I started releasing rapid micro-explosions.
Boom-boom-boom-boom.
My body started vibrating violently. It was like trying to balance on a jackhammer. My teeth chattered.
"Rear stabilizers!" Izuku shouted.
I tried to use my feet to correct the oscillation. Bad idea. An explosion on the left heel was too strong.
I lost the vertical axis. My body spun to the left, my hands overcompensated to the right, and I entered what pilots call "Pilot Induced Oscillation."
"Shiiiiit!"
I crashed into the ground sideways, rolling in the dust.
Toga clapped from her rock.
"That was an 8 out of 10 for artistic style, Katsuki-kun!"
I stood up, spitting dirt. My ears were ringing.
"Pulse thrust is unstable," I grumbled, ignoring the pain in my ribs. "I need a higher fire rate. If I can detonate ten times per second with lower power, I'll simulate continuous thrust. But that's going to destroy my wrists."
"You'll need wrist supports," Izuku said. "Something to absorb the vibration. Otherwise, you'll have arthritis by twenty."
"Noted. Next."
I went to my backpack and pulled out a bag of cheap glass marbles.
"Target number three: External Kinetic Transfer. Reference: Gambit."
This was my theoretical favorite. My biggest weakness is range. If I can throw objects that explode on impact, I become mobile artillery without spending my body.
I picked up a marble. I rubbed my sweaty hands over it, coating it in a shiny layer of liquid nitroglycerin.
"The problem is the trigger," I said, weighing the marble. "If I throw it too hard, air friction might detonate it in my face. If I throw it too soft, it won't explode upon hitting the target."
"Use a curveball throw," Toga suggested, hopping down from her rock. "Like when you throw knives. Wrist snap."
I nodded. Readied myself. Aimed at a rusty can twenty meters away.
I cocked my arm back.
"Here goes!"
I threw the marble with all my might.
CRACK!
The marble didn't reach the can. It exploded half a meter from my hand, detonated by the sudden acceleration of the throw.
The shockwave hit me in the face, singing my eyebrows and pushing me backward.
"Kacchan!" Izuku ran toward me.
I touched my face. It was hot and red, but my resistant skin had weathered the worst of it. However, my right hand was numb.
"Mental note..." I said, coughing smoke. "Pure sweat is too volatile for projectiles. It detonates with the inertia of the throw itself."
"You need a binding agent," Izuku analyzed quickly, checking my hand. "Something that mixes with the sweat and makes it stable until hard impact. Like... you know that wax surfers use? Or maybe some kind of resin that hardens with air?"
I stared at the pulverized marble on the ground.
"Retarding resin..." My eyes lit up. "If I design gloves that store my sweat and mix it with a polymer before coating the object... I could create time bombs."
I sat on the ground, exhausted, dirty, and with burnt eyebrows.
Roy Mustang: Failed (Lack of atmospheric control). Iron Man: Failed (Excessive vibration). Gambit: Failed (Premature detonation).
A disastrous day for the ego. But an excellent day for science.
"Hey, Kacchan," Izuku said, handing me a towel.
"What?"
"Three years ago, you couldn't even fly without falling on your head." He smiled. "Today you hovered three meters and almost blew your face off with a supersonic marble. That's progress."
I snorted, wiping the soot from my forehead.
"Two years until U.A., Deku."
I took my notebook and wrote in big letters over today's failures: REQUIRES HARDWARE.
I couldn't do it with just my body. I needed equipment. I needed suits. And that meant that when the time came to design my hero costume, I wasn't going to just ask for "something that looks cool." I was going to send the support companies an engineering blueprint that would make them cry.
"Toga," I called out. "Is there any of that liver left? I'm hungry."
"Yes!" She skipped toward us. "Did you blow off your eyebrows, Katsuki-kun? You look funny!"
"Shut up. It's aerodynamic."
Two years. I had two years to make fiction kneel before physics.
Author's note: I need help with attack names; I'm really not very good at it. And chatgpt has terrible taste in names, too.