User blog:Archereye45/Theory: How Aizawa's Quirk Works.

This is my first serious theory, where I generally try to make it plausible. So if it can be instantly debunked - Oh Well! Anyway, onto the theory:

As we all know, Aizawa's Quirk has the ability to temporarily disable his opponent's Quirks when they're within his eyeshot. While he can't physically remove mutant type Quirks, he can limit their function such Ojiro being unable to move his tail. Then the question becomes, how? What are the scientific technicalities of the Eraser Quirk? First, I'll address the most popular theory and then explain my own later on.

Popular Theory:

Due to his eyes glowing red, it's believed Aizawa's Quirk involves the Light spectrum. According to this theory, he projects rays outside visible light from his pupils, so the reader or characters are never able to see them. When those rays enter someone else's eyes, it sends a false message to their brain to numb the part responsible for activating their Quirk.

With the specifics presented by the light theory; the target making eye contact with Aizawa must be a requirement to be affected by his eraser quirk. This is due to Aizawa's supposed rays being blocked by his eyelids whenever he blinks. If his rays can't get past eyelids, it would be impossible for them to get past human bone/skin and implant a false message directly into the nerve system. Only eyes could be affected by Aizawa's rays, as the only organ that detects light.

Despite Aizawa's rays not being visible light, they still must be fairly close on the light spectrum. They're unable to be something stronger such as Gamma Rays or Broadcast bands. This is due to Aizawa's eyelids being able to block his powers when he blinks. Eyelids are a narrow barrier made from skin, so powerful rays such as Broadcast bands wouldn't be stopped by them. Meaning Aizawa's rays would either be ultraviolet or infrared, so they can't be seen with the Human eye however will still be blocked by thin barriers like eyelids.

However. There are several issues with the light theory.

1) Aizawa was shown to erase Shigaraki's decay quirk before he almost killed Tsuyu. According to the light theory, this should be impossible as Shigaraki's back is turned and the supposed rays wouldn't reach his eyes.

2) It doesn't explain how Aizawa's quirk makes his hair rise in the air. Therefore, it's usually dismissed as an unexplained side effect.

My theory:

I find the statistical likelihood of a quirk specially designed to erase other quirks unbelievable - As Quirks are a biological phenomena from random chance. There's a reason so many people have useless Quirks such as pulling your eyes out of your sockets (Real One). Natural selection hasn't had time to settle in yet as they've only existed for roughly a century. Quirks aren't sentient or aware of each other's existence, so its borderline impossible one would develop to counteract its brethren so soon after the rise of Quirks. That's why I believe Aizawa's ability to erase other's superpowers is not a Quirk in of itself, but simply a super move. Specifically I believe his Quirk: is a small-scale form of telepathic levitation that can solely affect living creatures, including DNA.

The activation of the Quirk is dependent on Aizawa's eyes and its strength weakens the further away an object is. It's like a heavily washed-down version of Inko Midoriya's Quirk.

The reason I specially say DNA, is due to this quote from Season 4, spoken by Aizawa himself: "What we call a Quirk is an extraordinary addition to an ordinary human body. Those additions are collectively referred to as Quirk Genes. I can shield those genes and temporality block their expression but I don't actually damage them."

To put into context how weak I believe Aizaka's levitation is; one of the select organic materials he's strong enough to float are hair strands - Which is why his hair floats whenever he erases someone's Quirk. This is an involuntary action, as Aizawa has never bothered to gain conscious control over this aspect of his Quirk. But, who could blame him? As a young child experimenting with his Quirk, literally all he could is make extremely light-weight organic materials levitate near his eyes.

If Aizawa hadn't discovered a unique/precise way to use his quirk, he would have deemed it useless and never tried to be a Hero. Due to his Quirk being so small scale, it would be waste of time to train to lift heavier objects, as at most, he might upgrade from a hair strand to a mouse. Instead, he shifted focus to the cellular level. Cells are so miniscule, his limitation of his telepathic powers weakening over distance hardly mattered. Even Aizawa's extremely weak Quirk was capable of levitating/moving cells from several metres away.

So how could the manipulation/levitation of cells inside the human body be used in Hero combat? As decisions need to be made within seconds during life-and-death situations,  Aizawa doesn't have the luxury of analysing each individual's body for specific weaknesses. He needs a method that can be used on as many people as possible. Blood clotting is a possibility, but blood is even heavier than hair strands and can cause unnecessary health issues for villains.

However, then there's DNA. Due to Quirks only existing from 3-4 generations, they haven't had time to fully integrate into Human DNA, so they can be tracked down to a select few genes. If Aizawa used his levitation to temporality disjoin those genes from his target's DNA strands - He could potentially stop his target using their Quirks. Which he achieved by dedicating his years-long training solely to achieve this one feat.

It would make sense if Aizawa doesn't want to reveal to people that his quirk is technically a small-scale levitation. As he would have worked hard to give a useless quirk utility by developing this super move, he'd rather people assume erasing Quirk is his sole power. Publicly exposure of how useless his base power is, could somewhat effect his social life, which as a loner, he wouldn't want to deal with. Also, he could lose a tactical advantage on his hero missions, as villains would fear him less, when fear factor is important for stealth.

In conclusion, that's how I believe Aizawa's Quirk works, small-scale levitation, that he developed an incredibly specialised super-move for, before entering High School.

Bonus:

Even if this "bonus" can be discredited, it still wouldn't effect the main theory. Which is an explanation for Aizama's support item strange ability to levitate, eerily similar to his hair. Despite it being a support item, its ability to float and be seemingly mentally controlled at times, is too advanced compared to other technology within the MHA world. In order to fly, they still have to use mechanical jetpacks the size of a backpack. If the scarf could float via technology, shouldn't it have a device attached to it? Yet it doesn't. It's a plain piece of material.

In the Manga, Hitoshi Shinso was shown to have the same support item as Aizama. Though one key difference is that Shinso can only use it by physically using his arms, he is never able to make the scarf float. If Aizama has a levitation quirk, this could explain why. The scarf is made from carbon fibers and a special metal alloy - Those materials are notoriously light-weight. So even his weak quirk, if pushed, could levitate this light-weight scarf, similar to his hair.

Just like Mirio, Aizama could have had his scarf costumed made, by having his hair woven in. Therefore, the DNA inside it would allow him to control it with his quirk. This would give Aizawa the needed boost to keep up with other students attempting become heros, allowing him to join UA School.