The suit design form arrived at the worst possible moment.
Mineta was in the middle of a particularly focused quirk session, with sixteen spheres spread across the garden and his attention fragmentation working with a consistency that still gave him a quiet satisfaction each time it happened, when the notification for an email on his computer in the room sounded.
He ignored it for ten minutes. Then another ten. Then he went to see what it was because the notification kept blinking with that particular insistence of things that know you'll have to deal with them eventually.
It was from the school. Not his current school, but the UA-affiliated preparatory academy that handled the pre-exam procedures for registered candidates. He had registered four months earlier, on the first available day, with the calm of someone who had been waiting two years for this specific moment.
The email explained that candidates accepted for the UA exam had the option to submit a preliminary support suit design before admission, which the UA support department would review and provide feedback on during the first year. It was not mandatory. It was an opportunity.
Mineta read the email twice.
Then he closed the computer, returned to the garden, gathered the spheres, and sat on the ground with his notebook on his lap.
The suit.
It was something he had thought about in fragments over the months, in moments when training left space for peripheral considerations. But he had never approached it systematically because there was always something more urgent to work on.
Now, with the form waiting and approximately ten months until the exam, it was time.
He started with the problem.
His combat problem wasn't just one. It was several, interconnected in ways that made solving them in isolation less efficient than solving them as a system.
The first was vertical mobility. On the ground, his advantages were real and he was learning to use them. In the air, or more specifically in environments where combat required reaching heights his legs couldn't directly reach, he was completely dependent on the spheres as bouncing platforms, which was functional but slow and required prior setup.
The second was protection. A 120-centimeter body with no physical protection was a target that, while small, was vulnerable in specific ways. The joints especially—knees and ankles—which in his fast movement and quick direction-change style were high-stress points.
The third was sphere range. Without any support system, range was limited to arm strength and natural throwing trajectory. If there was something that enhanced the throw, his area control range would expand significantly.
The fourth was storage. The spheres regenerated, but slowly. In an intensive-use situation, being able to recover used spheres instead of relying solely on new ones could be the difference between having resources and not.
He wrote them all in a column. Then he started looking for solutions.
Bakugo's grenades gave him the idea for the third and fourth problems.
Well, not exactly Bakugo. More the principle Mineta had extracted from knowing how his equipment worked: compartments that stored the product of his quirk for later use with more power than immediate use.
If that idiot is allowed to carry grenades full of explosive sweat, he thought with a logic he found impeccable, I should be able to carry something equivalent too.
It was a comparison that would have made anyone familiar with both of them laugh, but the logic was sound regardless of how comical the juxtaposition was.
The principle was directly applicable to his situation: his spheres were part of his body, biological material that he could separate and recover. If the suit included a system of compartments designed to store recovered spheres and keep them accessible with a launching mechanism that increased their exit speed, the storage and range problems were solved simultaneously.
He didn't need particularly advanced technology. He needed intelligent design.
He spent four full afternoons on the design process, among discarded sketches, margin notes, and multiple online consultations about protective materials and basic launching mechanics.
The final result was this:
Suit base: full-body mesh in dark purple, high abrasion-resistant but flexible material to not restrict movement. No bulky elements on the torso that could interfere with Wing Chun handwork or level changes in JJB. The purple was a nod to continuity, Mineta's color, but in a significantly darker shade than the bright lilac of canon. More serious. More functional in terms of visibility in combat environments where you don't want to be the brightest point in the space.
Joint protection: reinforcement in knees, ankles, and elbows with high-density impact-absorbing material integrated into the mesh. Added no visible volume but provided real protection for high-stress points in his movement style. Wrists also reinforced due to constant Wing Chun handwork stress.
Shoulder storage system: the most elaborate element. Each contained an internal compartment for eight standard spheres, with a light magnetic retention system keeping them in place without permanent adhesion. The interior was coated with a non-stick material preventing spheres from sticking to the walls. In the front, an adjustable opening allowed directed launching of stored spheres via a low-pressure pneumatic system, roughly tripling arm throw range without adding excessive weight.
Reinforced soles: high-efficiency rebound material in the soles, designed to maximize bounce height on sticky surfaces, i.e., his own spheres. In canon, bouncing on spheres was functional but inefficient in height gained. With optimized soles, the same spheres provided significantly more vertical mobility.
Helmet: closed back and top, open visor in front for full visibility and communication. Protected the head, the quirk's origin, without adding weight affecting balance. Black with a purple stripe connecting visually to the suit. No decoration. No unnecessary elements.
Front collection panel: slightly rigid panel on the chest allowing quick sphere recovery—simply letting used spheres fall onto the torso rather than collecting them manually. Spheres adhered temporarily due to passive stickiness and could be transferred to shoulder compartments with a simple sweeping motion.
He drew everything with the precision his drawing skills allowed—enough to communicate the technical intent. He added approximate measurements, notes on materials, and a separate section explaining the logic of each element in terms of quirk needs and combat style.
He filled the form, attached the scanned sketches, and sent it.
Then he stared at the screen for a moment.
If Bakugo is allowed grenades, he thought again, this is reasonable by comparison.
He closed the computer satisfied and went to train.
Nine months before the exam, Mineta went to Dagobah Beach.
It wasn't a spontaneous decision. He knew, with the certainty of someone who has seen the full story before living it, when Izuku Midoriya's training would start on that beach. Ten months before the exam, with All Might as instructor, dragging trash for months until cleaning the entire coast as physical prep for a body ready to receive One For All.
He knew it all. Every detail, every moment, every consequence.
The reason for going was harder to articulate honestly. Not technical, because Midoriya's training had nothing especially relevant to his own at this point. Not strategic, because there was no justification for the time spent.
Precisely, it was to see with his own eyes the person around whom everything would revolve for the next years.
He arrived at Dagobah Beach on a Saturday morning in normal clothes, hoodie up, found an elevated spot behind an abandoned construction container, and waited.
It didn't take long.
Izuku Midoriya appeared with a rope tied to a refrigerator.
Mineta watched silently.
It was exactly as he remembered from the anime and completely different at the same time. One thing was seeing a character on screen, another was seeing a real person performing physically exhausting work with visible determination from a distance.
The fridge was clearly heavier than Midoriya could move easily. Every step showed effort, feet sinking slightly into the wet sand, back tense, breathing visible in the rhythm from afar.
No All Might visible. Probably observing from out of line of sight.
Mineta watched for twenty minutes without moving.
It wasn't dramatic. No revelatory moment. It was just a boy dragging trash on a cold beach with unglamorous obstinacy and real effort.
But seeing it, the distance between what Midoriya was and what Mineta knew he would become, produced a mixture of feelings hard to categorize.
Recognition. Something like respect. And beneath that, a question he hadn't expected to ask himself:
What would you think if you knew someone here knows every moment of what awaits you?
There was no useful answer. Midoriya didn't know, and he wouldn't. The asymmetry of information was simply the condition under which Mineta existed in this world. Not unfair, not fair. It was what it was.
You're not the only one working, he thought toward the distant figure still dragging the refrigerator with slow, steady steps. And what's coming will require both of you to be ready.
He descended from the boardwalk and left without Midoriya noticing.
Back home he didn't write about Midoriya in the notebook.
It was information he didn't need to record because he wouldn't forget it, and converting it into data felt wrong in an inarticulable way.
What he did write was a final revision of the suit design after two weeks of distance:
The shoulder pneumatic system is the riskiest element. If UA support can't execute it reliably, the alternative is optimized launch angles—less power, more simplicity.
The chest collection panel is the most original element. Nothing like it exists in canon. If it works as expected, it fundamentally changes resource economy in prolonged combat.
The soles are the most underestimated element. Vertical mobility is my most obvious limitation and hardest to compensate. If the soles perform, this limitation is significantly reduced.
On a different page:
The quirk is still on the edge of something without crossing it.
I've stopped trying to force it. I know when it will happen and why. The correct conditions aren't the home garden.
Nine months.
The work is almost done. What remains is not to screw it up.
He closed the notebook.
Outside, the neighborhood went about its Saturday afternoon. The piano in the building across played something recognizable with a fluency nothing like the four clumsy notes nearly three years ago.
120 centimeters.
Three years of work.
A suit designed to compensate for every disadvantage he had.
And a boy on a cold beach dragging a refrigerator who, in ten months, would change the world, even if he didn't know it yet.
Something is something, he thought.
And this time he said it completely convinced.
End of Episode 11.