The letter arrived on a Tuesday morning.
Mineta saw it in the mailbox before going inside for breakfast, with the UA logo in the upper-left corner and his name written in that formal typeface used by institutions that know perfectly well that what they send matters. He picked it up, carried it inside, set it on the table, and finished preparing breakfast before opening it.
It wasn't that he didn't want to know. He had waited three years; he could wait ten more minutes.
He sat down, ate half his breakfast, and opened the envelope.
Inside were two sheets of paper and a small holographic device. He read the sheets first.
The first was the formal notification of admission to UA's Hero Course, Class 1-A. He read it once, confirmed it said what he expected it to say, and set it aside.
The second was the score breakdown.
Written Exam: 91/100
Villain Points: 13
Hero Points: 28
Practical Total: 41
Total Score: 132 points
Admission Ranking: 13th
Mineta looked at that last line for a moment.
Thirteenth. Functional without being outstanding. Without the hero points for rescuing Midoriya, he wouldn't have made it, and that was information worth remembering.
I'm not fooling myself. Thirteenth is thirteenth.
He activated the holographic device.
All Might's image appeared above the table, with that presence of his that doesn't fully fit in any format.
— Young Mineta! I am pleased to inform you that you have been admitted to UA's Hero Course, Class 1-A! At the most difficult moment of the practical exam, when another candidate was in danger, you chose to act without hesitation! That is exactly what it means to be a hero! Welcome to UA! PLUS ULTRA!
The hologram powered down.
Mineta stared at the inactive device for a moment.
Thirteenth, he thought again.
Then he finished his breakfast.
UA's first day arrived with that particular punctuality of days one has waited a long time for, yet somehow always surprises when they finally come.
Mineta woke at 5:30, his usual routine, and left with enough time to arrive unhurried. UA's uniform fit the particular proportions of a body one hundred twenty-three centimeters tall, but it was functional and well-made.
He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror before leaving.
Mineta Minoru. Class 1-A. Thirteenth.
A pause.
Could be worse.
He grabbed his backpack and left.
The first thing Mineta saw upon reaching the 1-A classroom hallway was the door.
The 1-A classroom door was large. Not large like any high school door, but large in the sense that someone in UA's design department had deliberately decided this door would communicate its importance before anyone said a word. Tall, wide, with "1-A" engraved with unambiguous clarity.
Mineta looked at it for a second.
Three years, he thought.
Then he opened it and stepped inside.
The classroom had five rows of four desks. What it also had, when Mineta entered, was a tall boy with glasses and engines on his calves staring at a blond boy with a scowling expression, feet on the desk with the ease of someone who considers the world his living room.
— Excuse me — the glasses-wearing boy said, posture of someone reciting a fully memorized rulebook. — Putting your feet on the desk the first day of class shows disrespect toward the institution, which clearly —
— And what are you telling me — the blond replied, without moving his feet.
— My name is Iida Tenya, from Somei Secondary Academy, and I am pointing out that —
— I don't care.
— The fact that you don't care is precisely part of the —
— Then we have a problem.
Mineta found his seat in the fourth row, last on the right, and sat with the calm of someone seeing exactly what he expected and finding it just as entertaining in person as in the animation.
To his left was a boy with a bird-like head, already seated with that particular presence of someone whose way of existing doesn't change depending on context. A dark shadow peeked from behind him, assessed Mineta with direct curiosity, and vanished again.
— I'm Mineta Minoru — said Mineta.
— Tokoyami Fumikage — replied the other, with the same economy.
Enough for the moment.
At the entrance, a round-faced girl with pink cheeks arrived with the open expression of someone genuinely interested in the world and greeted a curly-haired green boy right behind her. The two watched the Iida-feet-on-desk situation with fascination, seeing something not on their first-day expectations list.
Mineta observed everyone with his usual peripheral awareness, noting faces, postures, the way each occupied space.
Then the last person for the fifth row arrived.
A tall girl with black hair tied in a high ponytail, entering with the natural composure of someone trained to maintain it even when no one is watching. She found her seat in the fifth row with a calm that was presence, not distance, sat down, and drew out a notebook with the fluid motion of someone for whom preparing to learn is as automatic as breathing.
Mineta heard the click of a pen, the rustle of a page.
He filed it away and looked forward.
The door opened differently than the students had entered.
Slower. More deliberate.
And then something yellow slid across the threshold along the floor.
Mineta recognized it, obviously. But there was a difference between remembering it from the anime and seeing it in real time: Aizawa Shouta, homeroom teacher of UA Class 1-A, entering the first day of class literally dragging himself inside a yellow sleeping bag across the classroom floor.
The ensuing silence had a very specific quality. It was the silence of twenty people simultaneously processing whether what they were seeing was really what they thought they were seeing.
Aizawa half-emerged from the sleeping bag, looked at them with the expression of someone who has been sleep-deprived long enough for it to stop being relevant, and said:
— Good morning.
No one responded for roughly two seconds.
Then Iida, with the discipline of someone deciding the situation requires a formal reply regardless of circumstances, said:
— Good morning, sir.
Which broke the silence enough for several others to murmur something similar with varying degrees of conviction.
Mineta said nothing. He was too busy processing the difference between recalling the anime scene and physically being in the same room as it.
Exactly the same, he thought, not with surprise but the confirmation of an expectation that still hits when realized. Exactly the same in every possible way.
Aizawa partially stood, tossed the PE uniforms with the efficiency of someone seeing no reason to elaborate, and said:
— Put them on. Yard. Four minutes.
And waited.
There was a general pause while the class processed the instruction.
Then Kaminari Denki, in the second row, raised his hand with the energy of someone with an urgent question.
— Sir?
— Four minutes — Aizawa repeated, not looking at him.
Kaminari lowered his hand.
In the yard, wearing the PE uniform, Aizawa looked at them with that expression Mineta already knew was simply his baseline state.
— Quirk Aptitude Test. Eight physical trials. Use your quirks to maximize results. The one in last place will be expelled immediately.
The impact of that last phrase was exactly what Mineta remembered from canon: visible, immediate, and distributed unevenly among the twenty students according to their confidence levels.
Uraraka Ochaco whispered "expelled?"—technically a whisper, but in the yard's silence, loud enough for several classmates to hear clearly.
Midoriya Izuku looked like someone reaching a conclusion he didn't like but couldn't refute.
Bakugo, somewhere in formation, had the expression of someone for whom the threat of finishing last was so remote it wasn't worth considering.
It's not entirely a lie, Mineta thought calmly. It's a lie with conditions. Aizawa would really have expelled someone if he hadn't seen enough potential.
Which means the goal isn't to just complete the trials. It's to complete them so Aizawa sees something he considers sufficiently valuable.
Good. That slightly changes the approach.
50-Meter Dash.
Iida ran first in his group. His calf engines turned the fifty-meter dash into something technically still a run but visually more like a human-sized rocket crossing the yard. The result appeared on the scoreboard, and several students recalibrated in real time what "running fast" meant in this context.
When it was Mineta's turn, he used the spheres on the ground as propulsion points for the last twenty meters, the rebound of his reinforced soles converting each contact into additional forward thrust. The technique wasn't elegant and required precise coordination between throw and step.
Works. Still works outside the dojo.
Result: 5.71 seconds.
Not the fastest in class, not even close. But Aizawa recorded it with a specific look before writing it down.
Somewhere behind him came the sound of pen on paper.
He didn't turn.
Continuing the English translation of Episode 14:
Grip Strength.
Shoji Mezo recorded the highest result in the class with the calm of someone for whom having six functional arms was just reality. The scoreboard showed a number that made several students look at their own hands with newfound resignation.
Mineta used the adhesion of his spheres to create extra friction between his hand and the apparatus, improving force transfer without increasing brute strength.
Result: 47 kg with the right hand.
Next to him during the test was Jirou Kyoka. She looked at Mineta's result, then at her own hands, then at Shoji's result on the screen.
— That's not fair — she said, with entirely reasonable resignation.
— Six arms have their advantages — said Mineta.
Jirou looked at him.
— Hey, how did you do the friction thing? I saw you put something on the instrument before grabbing it.
— Spheres. They're sticky. They increase contact between the palm and the surface.
— That's pretty clever for a strength test.
— Grip strength doesn't measure just muscle. It measures force transfer. Improve the transfer, and you improve the result without changing the muscle.
Jirou looked at him for a second, with an expression hard to categorize but not negative.
— Okay. I like that reasoning.
Long Jump.
Mineta placed spheres at the edge of the takeoff zone as rebound points, used the reinforced soles to maximize leverage, and jumped with a combination of his own strength plus assisted impulse.
Result: 5.12 meters.
It was the first trial where the difference between his result and what his body size suggested was possible was noticeable enough that several classmates paid attention.
Asui Tsuyu, who jumped just before him, looked at him afterward with her big, direct eyes.
— That was more than I expected. Kero.
— I'm Mineta Minoru.
— Asui Tsuyu. You can call me Tsu. — A pause. — Were the spheres on the ground for the rebound?
— Yes.
— Kero. Smart.
Repeated Lateral Jumps.
With his quirk, he placed spheres as visual markers at direction-change points, reducing the processing time for each turn.
Result: 52 repetitions.
Aizawa recorded the result without comment, but with the same specific gaze as before.
Ball Throw.
Uraraka threw hers with her quirk active. The scoreboard showed the infinity symbol, and she did a small victory dance lasting about a second and a half before the awareness of the class watching returned her to a more contained expression.
Bakugo went next. The explosion accompanying his throw was strong enough that several students at the edges of the formation stepped back involuntarily. The scoreboard showed 705.2 meters. Bakugo looked at it with the expression of someone considering it a reasonable starting point and nothing more.
Disastrous comparisons for everyone but him, Mineta thought without special bitterness. Focus.
When it was his turn, he stuck a sphere to the ball at the point maximizing aerodynamic resistance in the desired direction, threw it along a calculated trajectory, and at maximum height used active spatial awareness on the adhered sphere to apply rotational impulse, modifying the final trajectory.
Result: 142 meters.
Not the highest in class. But the trajectory adjustment at peak height was something no standard Pop Off description included, and Aizawa looked at him for a second with the silence of someone updating a prior expectation.
Behind him, the sound of pen on paper lasted longer than in previous tests.
Then it was Midoriya's turn.
Mineta observed him with the attention of someone who knows exactly what's going to happen and still can't look away.
Midoriya, arm in a sling, stood in front of the throwing area, with an intense internal conversation visible on his expression. The pressure of the whole class watching. Aizawa observing with his particular attention.
Then Aizawa activated Erasure.
The change in Midoriya was visible even from Mineta's position: something tensed in his posture in a way that wasn't muscular tension but internal, the kind produced when realizing the resource you were relying on is no longer available.
— Your quirk incapacitates you every time you use it — said Aizawa, in the flat tone of stating a fact. — A quirk you cannot control is not a quirk. It's a burden.
Midoriya stared at the ball in his hand.
The class watched Midoriya.
And then Midoriya threw.
The flash of light on his fingertip was small compared to Bakugo's explosion. But the ball shot out with a speed that didn't match any normal throw.
705.3 meters.
The silence that followed had a different quality than previous tests. It was the silence of twenty people simultaneously recalibrating what they were seeing.
Bakugo turned to Midoriya with an expression mixing anger and something more complicated in proportions he probably couldn't articulate.
Aizawa looked at the scoreboard. Then at Midoriya. Then recorded the result.
705.3, thought Mineta. Exactly as I remembered.
Endurance Run, Push-ups, and Finger Touches.
The remaining three trials continued at the established pace. Mineta completed them with results reflecting three years of sustained physical work: functional in everything, exceptional in nothing.
During breaks between trials, small interactions naturally arose from the day's format.
Kirishima Eijiro, the red-haired boy who had been cheering everyone on with seemingly endless energy, introduced himself to Mineta between the run and push-ups.
— Hey, I'm Kirishima Eijiro. That jump earlier was really good!
— Mineta Minoru. Thanks.
— Are those balls your quirk?
— Pop Off. Yes.
— Cool! Mine's Hardening. — Kirishima hit his own arm with the other hand, making a sound like someone hitting a rock. — No technique yet, but I've got the toughness!
— Toughness has its uses — said Mineta.
— Exactly! That's what I'm saying!
Kirishima moved on to the next trial with the same energy he arrived with. Mineta watched him go with something he recognized as genuine affection, though he hadn't fully processed it yet.
Exactly as I remembered. If anything, more in person.
At the end of the eight trials, Aizawa showed the ranking table.
Final Ranking — Quirk Aptitude Test — Class 1-A:
1st — Bakugo Katsuki
2nd — Todoroki Shoto
3rd — Iida Tenya
4th — Yaoyorozu Momo
5th — Asui Tsuyu
6th — Shoji Mezo
7th — Uraraka Ochaco
8th — Tokoyami Fumikage
9th — Kirishima Eijiro
10th — Mineta Minoru
11th — Jirou Kyoka
12th — Sero Hanta
13th — Ojiro Mashirao
14th — Ashido Mina
15th — Kaminari Denki
16th — Sato Rikido
17th — Aoyama Yuuga
18th — Kouda Kouji
19th — Hagakure Toru
20th — Midoriya Izuku
The class processed the table in silence for a few seconds. Midoriya in last place—which given the context was the logical conclusion, though not a fair one.
Mineta looked at the tenth place next to his name.
Tenth. Exactly in the middle. Enough for today. Not enough for what's coming.
From the fifth row came the sound of someone turning a page. Probably recording the ranking. Probably adding notes in the margins.
Then Aizawa said:
— No one is expelled.
Pause.
— The threat of expulsion was a rational lie to force you to give your maximum. Today's results are the baseline. Everything that comes afterward will be measured against this.
Uraraka exhaled the contained sound of someone releasing breath held for an hour and a half.
Kaminari, with the expression of someone realizing the magician pulled the rabbit out of the hat rather than performing real magic, raised his hand.
— Wait. Rational lie?
— Rational — confirmed Aizawa.
— So it's a lie but with logic?
— It means the result justifies the method.
— What if someone had had a heart attack from stress?
— No one had a heart attack.
— But hypothetically —
— Hypothetically is irrelevant because it didn't happen. — Aizawa closed the conversation with the tone of someone who's had enough. — Return to the classroom. The year begins.
Kaminari opened his mouth.
— Return to the classroom — Aizawa repeated.
Kaminari closed it.
Sero Hanta patted him on the shoulder with the energy of someone offering consolation for an intellectual defeat that in retrospect was predictable.
— Dude — said Sero — you don't win against Eraserhead in logic.
— I didn't know that before — said Kaminari.
— Now you do.
— Now I do.
Back in the classroom, while Aizawa distributed materials for the first day, Mineta sat in his fourth-row seat and reviewed the day mentally.
Tenth in the physical trials. Better than he would have been without three years of training. Worse than he could be with the work of the year starting today.
What was interesting was the gap between his position and some of the higher spots. Yaoyorozu fourth, with technical precision afforded by recommendation. That six-place gap was useful information about where the work lay ahead.
From the seat behind him came the sound of pages turning, someone reviewing results with the same methodology Mineta had used for preparation notes.
He didn't turn. No reason yet.
Somewhere in the outer hallway, All Might's low, serious voice was audible, speaking to Aizawa about something they both knew mattered, though neither spoke it aloud.
Observing from the shadows, thought Mineta, knowing exactly what that conversation was about. Exactly like canon.
He opened the new notebook, wrote the date on the first page, and paid attention to Aizawa explaining the year's evaluation system.
Tenth in the physical trials, he thought one last time.
Next year, not.
That night, first entry in the new notebook:
First day. Quirk Aptitude Test. No one expelled.
Final Ranking: 10th of 20. Exactly in the middle. Three years of work produce this result against a class with physically dominant quirks. Honest.
Aizawa: exactly as I remembered. The rational lie worked. Midoriya: 705.3 meters in last place for specific reasons. Exactly as I remembered, too.
Day interactions: Tokoyami, brief and sufficient. Jirou Kyoka, on grip mechanics, smarter than the conversation format suggested. Asui Tsuyu, direct, no filters, told me to call her Tsu. Kirishima Eijiro, genuine, no trickery or artifice.
A pause in writing. Then, more carefully:
The girl in the fifth row. Yaoyorozu Momo, admitted by recommendation, fourth in ranking. During the tests, the sound of her pen came several times. She wasn't taking notes on what she saw in the moment. She was consulting prepared notes and reviewing results as they came in.
There is a difference between recording and preparing. One is passive. The other is active. She does the latter.
We haven't introduced ourselves yet. No reason.
There is time.
He closed the notebook, turned off the light, and slept.
End of Episode 14.