The Shackles of Uraraka Shige's Quirk

A bunch of seven- and eight-year-old children noisily made it through class, then just as noisily welcomed the break.

When the bell rang, Uraraka Shige finally realized he had wasted an entire class period. He hurriedly tore out a sheet of paper and took it up the stairs to the landing outside the rooftop terrace.

The next class was physical education. After resting for a period, his body felt a little better, but it was still terribly sore and aching, so he intended to take the opportunity to train his Quirk.

"Rise!"

He spread the sheet he had torn from his exercise book on his palm, then reduced some of the Heavy Shackles he maintained on himself at all times. He brought the gravity freed up by that reduction, which he could manipulate through his Quirk, into play, sending the paper in his palm soaring into the air.

Although this was the landing outside the rooftop terrace, no wind could blow in once the door leading outside was shut. It was also very dark, and few people came here to hang around during breaks, so he could clearly tell that the sheet of paper rising under the effect of his Quirk was not being affected by any outside factors.

But...

"Why still won't it work?!"

The gravity brought into play by his Quirk did not exist solely at his palm. It was distributed evenly within a one-meter radius around Uraraka Shige.

Uraraka Shige wanted to gather the gravity brought into play by his Quirk at a single point, concentrating it within a certain area to exert a stronger, more focused influence.

But accomplishing that was extremely difficult for him.

This called for a closer explanation of Uraraka Shige's Quirk.

He could see pitch-black lines all around him that only he could see. They had no beginning or end, no ends at all... as though they were floating directly in the empty space, in the air.

By touching these "lines" with his body and directing them with his will, Uraraka Shige could influence or alter them, thereby adjusting and manipulating gravity within a certain range around him.

That was the truth previously mentioned about Uraraka Shige's Quirk, Gravity.

In fact, however, that was only a crude explanation.

To explain it in more detail:

Uraraka Shige could adjust the direction, state, form, position, and orientation of the "lines" he saw, among other things. By adjusting these properties, he could indirectly affect gravity within a certain range around him.

For example, if he changed the direction of the "lines" to vertically upward, he would use "Rise." If he adjusted them horizontally forward, backward, left, or right, he would use "Level." If he bent the "lines," then the closer the two ends of the same "line" came to each other as it bent, the heavier the corresponding portion of gravity would become. This was equivalent to using "Pressure," Heavy Burden, or, when the "lines" were bent 180 degrees and overlapped, Heavy Shackles.

Those were all the techniques he currently knew for using his Quirk.

What he wanted to do-gather gravity together, reducing the area it affected while increasing its force-essentially meant folding the "lines" while making both ends point in the same direction.

To use a more vivid analogy, a "line" was like an electrical wire, with the current inside flowing in a fixed direction. To accomplish what he now wanted, he would have to fold the wire while keeping the current flowing in the same direction in the two sections near the input and output ports. In other words, it would have to form a Z shape, rather than the shape of a normally folded wire.

But his current limit was to fold a "line" once and overlap it, making one section shorter than the other. That made the gravity pointing in one direction stronger than the gravity pointing in the other.

Folding a "line" three times and overlapping it was beyond what he could currently do.

In other words, he simply could not accomplish what he wanted right now.

And when he summed it up, there was only one conclusion he could draw.

"I'm still too young... This body is still too young. It's already affecting my control over my Quirk and my ability to draw out its potential."

Uraraka Shige canceled the portion of gravity he had brought into play with his Quirk, returning it to Heavy Shackles. As the paper fluttered back into his palm, his open hand snapped shut, gripping the sheet hard and crumpling it, the center forming a tight ball.

He understood perfectly well why this was happening, why he was already feeling the restrictions of his young body so keenly when everyone else's bodies were old enough to support their exploration of their own Quirks.

"Am I too impatient...?"

Impatience, born of anxiety and a sense of crisis, was what had caused him to feel the limitations this seven-year-old body placed on his Quirk after only two short weeks of training.

Of course, it also had to do with how exceptional Uraraka Shige's Quirk was.

But even knowing those two things, Uraraka Shige could not help feeling a surge of worry and anxiety.

"Sigh... There isn't much time, after all..."

He sighed and murmured to himself.

The truth was just as he said. Driven by his sense of crisis, he always felt that time was running out. Tomorrow, or perhaps even the very next second, the fugitive "villain" might strike back at him, yet the power he possessed now was nowhere near enough to give him a sufficient sense of security. He even felt a chill on the back of his head...

"Sigh..."

After experiencing this illusion, Uraraka Shige reached up and rubbed the back of his head, seemingly trying to warm his frightened heart that way.

But the moment he covered the back of his head with his hand, he suddenly realized something was wrong.

"Where's this wind coming from?!"

It was just like a ghost story. The door to the rooftop terrace was shut, and tightly at that, yet when he put his hand on the back of his head, he could clearly feel a chilly breeze blowing silently back and forth against it.

"Wait..."

Uraraka Shige spun around and looked at the door leading to the rooftop terrace. A faint crack was visible there, letting a tiny, almost imperceptible sliver of light into the dark landing.

"So the chill on the back of my head wasn't an illusion?"

After he muttered this to himself in confusion, a childish roar rang out through the stairwell.

"Which bastard opened the door?!!!"