36 – Not Just the Fun Girl
The acid was eating through the training dummy when I walked into Ground Beta.
Mina was alone. The outdoor training area was empty except for her and a row of reinforced practice targets along the east wall. Three of the dummies were melted down to their waist posts. The fourth was dissolving as I watched, the synthetic material bubbling and hissing as the acid ate through the polymer. The smell hit me ten meters out. Chemical, sharp, the same base note as Mina's skin chemistry but concentrated and harsh enough to sting my eyes.
She was standing with her arms out and her gym shirt soaked with sweat and her horns catching the late-afternoon light. Her hands were bare. Her training gloves were on the ground, the fingers eaten through, the rubber dissolved into a fused lump of material that was still smoking.
The acid was coating her forearms. A thin layer of corrosive liquid running from her palms to her elbows, shimmering slightly in the sun, and the liquid was eating her skin too. Red welts formed along the inside of her left wrist. Raw patches on her right forearm where the acid had burned through the top layer. She was trying to push her output, extending the coverage area past her hands, and the concentration was too high for her own body to handle.
She didn't see me. Her jaw was set. Her eyes were focused on the acid layer covering her arms and she was adjusting the output, dialing the solubility down, trying to find the threshold where the acid would coat without burning. The welts got worse. A thin line of blood appeared on her left wrist where the burn had gone deep.
She didn't stop.
I walked across the training ground. She still didn't see me. Her gold-and-black eyes were locked on her arms and her breathing was through her teeth and the acid hissed against her skin.
I grabbed her wrist.
"Stop."
She yanked free. The acid on her skin touched my hand and the pH was low enough to sting but my durability ate it. Her eyes found me and the surprise lasted half a second before the grin came up, automatic.
"Hey! I'm just training, no big deal-"
I grabbed her wrist again. Held it. The acid was still running down her forearm and the blood was mixing with it and the welts were red and raw and some of them were blistering.
"You're burning yourself, Ashido."
The grin stayed. Her mouth was smiling and her eyes were flat and the acid kept running. "I said I'm fine. Let go."
"No."
The acid on her arm sputtered. The output dropped. She looked down at my hand around her wrist and my fingers were wet with her acid and her blood and the burn marks ran from her palm to her elbow in uneven streaks.
The grin died.
"I didn't make the bracket. The Sports Festival. I lost in the cavalry battle and sat in the stands and watched you fight Todoroki on national television."
"Mina-"
"I sat there and cheered because that's what I do. I cheer. I make jokes. I keep the energy up." She looked at her burned arms. The acid had stopped flowing. "I'm the fun girl. The one who makes everyone laugh and keeps things light. I watched you fight three people in one day and I realized I'm not-" She stopped. Swallowed. Her throat moved. "I'm not enough."
I held her wrist. The blood was drying. The welts were red and raised and some of them would scar if she didn't get them treated.
"You're not just the fun girl."
Her eyes went wide. The gold irises expanded and her mouth opened and closed.
"How did you-"
"Because I've been watching you since the day you showed up at my door with chips and a horror movie. You came to check on a guy you barely knew because you couldn't stand the idea of someone being alone. That's not comedy. That's who you are."
Her face crumpled. Three seconds. Her mouth pulled down and her eyes squeezed shut and her jaw shook and then she fixed it. Straightened her mouth. Opened her eyes. The gold irises were wet but she wasn't crying. Three seconds of the real thing and then the repair.
That was tougher than anything Bakugo could do with his explosions.
I pulled her against me. Her face pressed into my shirt. Her burned arms hung at her sides because she couldn't grip anything with the welts on her palms. The acid smell was sharp and the blood from her wrist soaked into the fabric and her horns pressed against my collarbone and she was shaking. Small tremors through her shoulders.
"I want to be a hero people respect," she said into my chest. Her voice was muffled. "Not just a hero people like."
I held her. The training ground was empty. The melted dummies were smoking in the afternoon sun. A bird landed on the fence behind the target row and sat there watching us.
"Then train smarter," I said. "Your Acid isn't just corrosive. You can control the viscosity independently from the solubility. Thick and harmless or thin and lethal, any combination you want. You've been training like Bakugo. Maximum output, maximum damage, blow everything up. That's not your Quirk."
She pulled back an inch. Looked up at me. Her eyes were still wet. "What do you mean?"
"Bakugo's Quirk is a weapon. It does one thing and he does it harder than anyone. Your Quirk is a toolkit. You can adjust the pH, the thickness, the coverage area, the adhesion. You could coat a surface with harmless slime to make someone slip. You could spray a thin acid mist to disrupt visibility. You could create a barrier of corrosive gel that nobody can walk through without dissolving their shoes."
I was talking too much. The foreknowledge was leaking. I'd watched her awaken Acidman in the anime, seen her coat her entire body in protective acid armor and grow her horns and fight Gigantomachia. She could do things with this Quirk that nobody in 1-A was imagining yet. I was supposed to be a first-year Enhancement student with no reason to know any of this.
"Stop training to burn things," I said. "Start training to control things. The burns happen because you're pushing output when you should be pushing precision."
She was staring at me. Her gold eyes were wide and her mouth was open and the tears were drying on her cheeks.
"You know a lot about Quirks for a guy who just punches things."
"I read."
She didn't buy it. Her mouth pulled sideways and one eyebrow went up and the grin that came back was smaller than usual.
"You read." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, flinching when the welts on her wrist brushed her face. "About acid chemistry."
"I read about everything."
"You're lying." She poked my chest with one burned finger. "But I like you anyway so I'm going to let it go."
I looked at her arms. The welts were bad. Some of them were oozing. She needed Recovery Girl or at minimum some proper burn treatment. The Acid was dried on her skin in thin trails, the spent liquid flaking off in translucent patches.
"Recovery Girl," I said.
"In a minute."
"Now."
She looked at me. Then at her arms. Then at the melted training dummies. Her jaw set again but differently this time. Less desperation. More decision.
"I'll go to Recovery Girl," she said. "But tomorrow I'm coming back. And I'm training precision. Viscosity first, then coverage control." She poked me again. "And you're coming with me. If you know so much about Acid Quirks."
"I just punch things."
"Shut up." She grinned. The full one. Wide, too many teeth, pink cheeks and gold eyes and the horns catching the light. "You're my trainer now. Congratulations. The position comes with no pay, no benefits, and I'm going to complain the entire time."
"So nothing changes."
She punched my arm. Lightly, because her hands were burned, and she winced when her knuckles hit my sleeve but she didn't take the punch back.
"Walk me to Recovery Girl," she said. "My hands hurt."
I walked her. She leaned against my arm while we crossed the training ground and her horn pressed into my shoulder and she smelled like acid and sweat and the strawberry shampoo that was still there under all of it. The bird on the fence watched us leave.
"Hey," she said, halfway across the courtyard.
"Yeah."
"When you said I wasn't just the fun girl." She was looking at the ground. Her voice was quiet. "Did you mean that or were you just being nice because my arms are burned?"
"I meant it."
"Okay." She pressed her face against my sleeve for a second. Her horns dug into my shoulder. "Okay."
We walked to the main building. Her burned hands were at her sides and her arms were red and raw and she was already talking about viscosity training and precision drills, her voice coming back louder, faster. But she kept her shoulder against my arm the whole way. Recovery Girl tutted about reckless training and burn depths and young heroes with no sense. Mina sat on the treatment table and her legs swung and she complained about the ointment stinging and she was Mina again, full volume.
But when Recovery Girl turned away to get bandages, Mina looked at me. The gold eyes were steady. Her mouth didn't grin.
"Tomorrow," she said. Quiet. "Precision training."
"Tomorrow."
She held my gaze for two seconds. Then the grin came back and she yelped about the ointment and kicked her legs and the moment was over and the fun girl was back.