[20:Thermodynamics, Chemistry, Biology, and Semper Paratus. What?]
(A/N: I don't know why I have such a scientific urge for this stuff. Like the math in previous chapters, it's so fun writing this stuff.)
It was the noon break, which is what I've been looking forward to. I am hungry.
As soon as Midnight gave us the clear, I ran off to get food.
I went to the stalls outside the arena and bought a bunch of stuff. Oh yeah, this Japanese food is good.
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about the upcoming tournament and results. Well, Toru is going to be different. Sucks to be her because she's a first-round exit guaranteed, depending on who she faces. If she faces Shinso, then she might have a chance, but I don't see much else. And that's assuming the "randomness" of the placements holds up. Anyway, she's going to be like that one soccer team that always gets eliminated early in the knock-out stages.
"Hey, Eleanor."
Great. Can't I eat in peace? I turned around to see who it was, and it was Shoto.
"What is it?"
"That was quite the trick you pulled."
"Are you going to say it was a cheap move?"
"No, there's nothing wrong, you did what you had to do to win. That's fair.
"Okay? So, why do you want to meet me?"
"You weren't there at the beginning during the opening ceremony, but I think you're the strongest here. I saw what you did when the villains attacked the USJ.
"And what about it?"
"What exactly is your quirk? Your physicality is clearly above almost everyone in the class; you can summon those drones, and you even have a bow and arrow that you pull out at will. People can only have one quirk, yet you exhibit signs of having at least three if you look at them separately. Your quirk all seems to be one and related, though. We're a bit similar. I have one quirk, but it has two powers."
"What are you getting at?
"Do you also come from a quirk marriage?"
Woah. Whoa, how did I not think of this before? He actually has a reason for wanting to come after me. And quirk marriages? Isn't that just eugenics? Holy moly, Endeavor might be worse than I thought, because this would make him a believer in eugenics. Well, here's the thing: let me play devil's advocate for a moment. So, eugenics aims to raise the genetic quality of the human population by encouraging favorable traits and discouraging unfavorable traits. That's it, that's all eugenics is at its core. Now, that seems…a bit…understandable(?) in theory. However, what people deem "favorable" and "unfavorable" traits will very easily lead to things like controlling who can breed or not, racism, and more.
Now, does it work? Well, in my time, it was discredited. Is it ethical? There's no clear answer to that; it's debatable. But if based solely on using Shoto as an example…yes, eugenics in this world could work, but look at how Shoto grew up. Damn, there's way too much nuance and stuff to cover this.
"No, I don't come from a quirk marriage, Shoto. I guess I was…lucky. But what about you? What is your quirk?" I responded to Shoto after rambling to myself.
"I have two sides. I can make ice and fire, but I never use my fire side." He clenched his fist on the fire side as he looked at it in contemplation.
Geez, he has such a cold shoulder. Pun intended.
Now, this would be the part where I tell him stuff like you're not your father, you're your own person, you control your destiny, not some stupid genetics, but that would be counterintuitive, and against my self-interests, so I'm not going to go around helping him overcome his thoughts. That would be hurting myself if I went against him in the battle tournament. I need to keep him weak.
"Fire and ice, right?"
"Yeah, but I prefer only ice."
"Can we talk about that for a moment? How exactly do you…make your ice?"
"I make it from my body. Mostly from my hands."
Countless thoughts were starting to form in my mind. NO! I have to resist! I can't go another…damn it, I can't help myself.
"Shoto, you know what ice is, right?"
"Yeah, it's solid water. What's with the question?"
"Where does the water come from?"
"I don't know? My body?"
"No, it doesn't. The most probable way is using the water in the air, but air humidity is way too low for that. But that isn't even the worst problem; it's thermodynamics and energy." I looked at Shoto. "Shoto, do you know how much energy you use for your ice?"
"No, I've never considered that."
"Shoto, freezing 1 kilogram of water would require about 334 kilojoules of energy, and you freeze a lot more than 1 kilogram of water every time you use your ice. And creating ice means moving massive amounts of thermal energy, but there's no heat when you make your ice, not that I felt when you surrounded me in the cavalry battle. So, you're not putting the heat anywhere. You should be melting everything around you from the heat you output when you make your ice. Your ice side would be better at heat and melting rather than your fire side. So, you violate energy conservation. And you also violate the first law of thermodynamics, because you extract heat out of the air, but seem to do no work."
"What?"
"Jusgin from what I saw in the cavalry battle, you froze the air around me in a parts, which would mean the most plausible way is freezing the moisture in the air, but air humidity is way too low for that. But even if you could, you should be freezing the oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere, because the freezing point for those is lower than water, so they should condense and liquify and form a pool on the ground, therefore suffocating everyone around you and making explosions, it should make fog as well as extreme pressure changes."
"Eleanor."
"Then there's entropy; when you make ice, you turn water into an ice crystal, giving it more order, but you don't compensate for the increase in entropy anywhere else, so you violate the second law of thermodynamics. And then there's the third law of thermodynamics; you freeze things instantly, which would mean a borderline violation of the third law of thermodynamics. But you know what? Fine, let's put in some miracle factor that solves all this, and it's not quirks, that alone doesn't explain it. Shoto, every time you cover yourself in ice, your arms, for example, I saw some of that in the cavalry battle, your body is frozen. Your enzymes should stop functioning, your metabolism should stop or at least slow down, your blood turns to sludge and crystallizes, which would tear your blood vessels apart from the inside, your nerves stop working, your muscles paralyze, and your skin cells die in minutes. You are actively killing yourself every time you cover yourself in ice, Shoto! And your fire side isn't any better, your own organs would liquefy from catastrophic overheating."
"Are…you okay?"
I let out a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm fine. So, what were we doing?" Oh, yeah, I was eating. I started eating again.
"I…kind of forgot after everything you just said. You're a bit like Midoriya."
"Toru said the exact same thing to me. This feels like deja vu, actually. Is this a coincidence?"
He sat in front of me. "Can I join you?"
"Yeah, sure, I don't mind. And don't ask me out again."
"That was a misinterpretation. And you didn't help much with it either."
"It was a bit funny, though, I can't deny it."
"ELEANOR!" I heard Bakugo's scream, but not explosions for some reason. Gods almighty, does he ever stop? He came over and slammed his hands on the table as he glared at me.
"The next one! I'm beating you in the next one!" Bakugo shouted before storming off again.
"What's his problem?"
"You've made him look bad. Of course, he would feel humiliated. Such a hot head."
"This is another one where I wished his powers would fully work based on the implications of it."
"Again?"
"You see, he sweats nitroglycerin to make his explosions, but nitroglycerin is a highly nitrated organic compound made from nitric acid, sulfuric acid, and glycerol, but it's also very unstable and shock-sensitive. This means his body must synthesize those three substances to make nitroglycerin, which means he already violates basic biochemistry. Everyone knows that human cells operate in water, and making the acids at the concentrations needed to make nitroglycerin would destroy his tissue instantly. And then there are the other issues with nitroglycerin; it's unstable and shock-sensitive. Since Bakugo sweats out nitroglycerin, and combined with natural body heat, his own heartbeat should cause micro-detonations, and movements like walking should also detonate it. Then there's the toxic byproducts, like carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and a bunch of other combustion gases. There's also pressure and thermal effects, which should rupture eardrums, cause burn damage, generate shockwaves, produce thousands of degrees Celsius, and more. Then there's the detonation mechanism. Nitroglycerin doesn't explode on its own; it needs heat, rapid compression, or shock, and Bakugo explodes it with his hands, which means his hands have to generate high heat on demand, or generate a shock to explode it, which means he has the power to generate shockwaves, which means he has mechanical wave manipulation."
I let out a massive sigh. "It's all so troublesome, Shoto, and that isn't even all of it. I didn't cover thermodynamics or the violation of conservation of mass."
"Your mind works…differently. I was expecting something else."
"The more you know, the more you don't know. Anyway, how do you feel about the next event?"
"I don't know, Midnight hasn't announced it. What about you?"
"I'm always ready, Shoto. The next event is going to be a bit of fun."
"You know?"
"I won't ruin anything. I'm going to finish eating now."
(1 hour later)
"I hope you all had fun during the break, because it's time for the next event! It's the battle tournament! Match-ups will be randomized based on the teams that moved ahead in the cavalry battle, along with filling in a few spots due to certain teams having different numbers of people." Midnight said, but before she could move on, the moment I expected to arrive…well, arrived.
"I would like to give up my spot! I don't feel like I deserve it! It wasn't my own actions that got me here." Yup, there it is. Mashirao gave up. Where's the other one?
"I also want to give up my spot! I feel that I do not deserve it!" Another one down. I forgot their name, but less competition for me.
"I see. I accept your proposals! We'll have to fill in more spots!" Midnight said.
Alright, it doesn't matter who I face; I just hope I go first, so I can make a good impression. I waited a bit while the spots were filled out, but then the randomizing was finally finished. I looked through all the match-ups. Some things were the same, but some were different. For example, Toru. She's in it, but as I said, she's a first-round exit, unless she unlocks what I think is the true potential of her quirk. But I didn't care about that, I just wanted to see who I was fighting.
Huh. Now, that's interesting. I'm fighting the guy with the same name twice. Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu. At least, I won't have trouble trying to figure out which name to say, but, yeah, this is an easy matchup. I know exactly what to do.
"We'll get started right away! Let's draw for the first match!" The screen started randomizing again through all the match-ups. And lo and behold. "The first is match Eleanor Hayes and Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu! Those two stay on the field while the others go to the viewing stands!"
Everyone else started to wander off, while we stayed.
After a few minutes, we were standing on opposite sides of the concrete square. The cheers of the crowd were intense; I think they expected a good opening match, but unfortunately—or fortunately—depending on personal preference, they won't get their match.
"Begin!"
As soon as Midnight gave the signal, I started to unleash a drone swarm from my carrier rigging, launching it at him from all sides.
"Huh?! This can't be fair! They're just tiny machines! What can they do to me?! I'll run through them all!" He said as he locked onto me and started running. To my drones. Hmm…maybe this guy needs his head checked out.
"You can try, but from North and South and East and West, I'll always be in the fight!" I responded, before the drones surrounding him started to emit blue sparks as projectiles shot out at him. Multiple nodes hit him before he froze up as yellow sparks lit up.
Yup, it's electricity. And since he turns his body into steel, which is a metal, which in turn is conductive, electricity is a perfect attack. He was moving erratically, as my drones kept up the amps. I waited a bit longer before the drones stopped. He dropped to the floor, and I quickly ran to him, picked him up, and threw him out of bounds of the concrete square.
"Eleanor Hayes wins and advances to the next round!" Midnight said.
Oh yeah, not a bad start. And like I told Shoto, I'll always be ready.