"A medium-sized meat shield... you'll do." Hearing another voice was enough to shake Izuku from his stupor. He darted his head around, searching for the owner of said voice, before feeling something slimy on his ankles. He looked down and saw that, to his horror, there was a thick, goopy substance pooling around his legs and snaking up his body. He tried to move on instinct, but his feet were already trapped.

Idiot, idiot, idiot! Just after he'd talked about never letting himself be caught off guard, and he'd screwed up like this?! He had relaxed, gotten distracted- a rookie mistake. One he should have known better than to make, and that could very easily get him killed. How could he mess up so badly? Was he really this stupid?! But he didn't have time to admonish himself. Right now he had to get himself out of this situation.

His arms were still free, but he had a few seconds at best. He swung his schoolbag at what he thought must have been the villain's head. It flinched- barely- as the bag passed through its body, but its hold had loosened for a split second, and that's all Izuku needed. He leaped forward and out of the sludge's grasp. Now what? He wasn't given any time to think as a tentacle of sludge shot at him. He ducked and quickly scanned the area for anything useful.

Think, Izuku. It has to have a weak point. The eyes, probably. And... there, got it! While dodging two other tentacles, he kicked up a rock with his foot and sent it flying at the villain in one smooth motion. At the same time, he scooped up an empty bottle from the ground, but before he could do anything else a huge gust of wind sent his head knocking against the pavement. The last thing he saw before everything going dark was a large, smiling figure...

"AH, THOUGHT WE LOST YOU THERE!" Izuku's eyes cracked open. There was something big blocking his vision, but everything was blurry and he couldn't make out what it was. Brown, blue, yellow, white, and...

"A-All M-M-Might?!" he yelped, jumping a foot back in surprise. He'd had to get rid of all his merchandise long ago, but he'd never stopped being a fan. His next reaction was to mentally kick himself, stuttering in front of his idol like an idiot. Although he'd never had a problem with it when he was Petit Lion, he couldn't seem to kick the habit as Izuku Midoriya.

"YOU'RE OKAY! EXCELLENT!" All Might backed away from him to give him some space and continued, "I'M VERY SORRY YOU GOT CAUGHT UP IN MY LITTLE FIGHT. THESE STREETS ARE UNFAMILIAR TO ME. BUT THANKS TO YOU, I'VE CONTAINED THE VILLAIN!" The hero held up Izuku's dropped soda bottle, which was now filled with a slimy substance that he recognized as the villain. Caught in an instant... that was the Number 1 Hero for you. Compared to that kind of power, he was still so lacking. It was frustrating. Had all his hard work amounted to so little that he still needed to be saved?

He was cut off from this line of thought by All Might's rumbling voice. "AND NOW I MUST BRING THIS FELLOW TO THE AUTHORITIES. TAKE CARE AND THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!" With that, he flashed his signature smile and began preparing to take off. He was already going to leave? No. He couldn't, not yet, not before Izuku could ask what he needed to ask. He needed to know if anything he was doing would ever amount to something. So he did the first thing he could think of: grab on to All Might's leg.

In seconds they were already above the rooftops, and the wind resistance was almost enough to tear Izuku's cheeks off. Cold air attacked every inch of skin not covered by his uniform, aggravating his old bruises painfully. He clung on for dear life.

"Hey now, I love my fans but this is too much! Please let go!"

"N-n-no way, I'll d-die!" He made his voice as loud as possible in an effort to be heard over the roaring wind.

"GOOD POINT! JUST CLOSE YOUR EYES AND MOUTH FOR A WHILE," All Might boomed and slowed his speed in order to land on a nearby rooftop. He touched down with a thump, and Izuku's vision shook before he tumbled onto the surface, arms sore and sputtering for breath. Adrenaline was still coursing through his system. He was used to parkour from his vigilante work, but this was on a different level entirely...

The hero turned once again to leave, clearly exasperated. "NOT A SMART IDEA. I REALLY NEED TO GO NOW. IF YOU KNOCK ON THE DOOR, SOMEONE SHOULD LET YOU I-"

"W-wait, p-p-please! I'm sorry t-to keep you l-like t-this, but I-I need to k-know! C-can a Quirkless p-person become a Hero…... oh. U-u-um... A-All... Might? Are y-you, uh... A-are you o-okay?" Through a plume of smoke, Izuku could see that the muscular figure of All Might was no longer there. He had been replaced by a skeletal man with gangly limbs and a bony face, electric blue eyes regarding him from sunken sockets. But his outfit was the same, and so were the tufts of hair, so the only explanation he could think of was that this was the #1 Hero's civilian form. Not quite what he was expecting.

"Yes, I'm- cough- fine." He certainly didn't look fine, considering he was in the middle of hacking up a shower of blood.

"Uh, you h-have a little..." Izuku motioned to his face before pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and handing it to the hero, who dabbed the blood from his mouth. The two stood there staring at each other in silence for a minute before Izuku worked up the courage to say, "I-is there a reason y-you l-look like that?" All Might responded with a resigned sigh.

"Too late to hide it now, I guess." He lifted up his shirt to reveal a gaping scar that had caved in his stomach and chest covering most of his left side. It was a gruesome sight. "Five years ago I got into a fight with a villain who did this to me. Because of that, my true form looks like this and I'm only able to use my muscle form for about three hours now. My time as a hero is running out. But you can't tell anyone, okay? Don't go posting about this on the Internet."

"I-I won't," Izuku immediately replied. He'd been surprised that All Might of all people had something like that, but he was no stranger to ugly scars- though thinking of a being capable of inflicting such a serious wound on All Might made him shudder. The news about his limited hero time also had some interesting implications, and his inner analyst was having a field day with the influx of new information. Rubbing his chin, he muttered to himself, "B-but criminal activity w-would probably g-go through the r-roof the s-second you stopped b-being able to do h-h-hero work... y-you must h-have thought about that already, s-so you probably have a plan...someone to t-take over the title of Symbol of Peace, maybe... but if you took a protege, people w-would know unless you really went out of your way to hide it, but you'd have no reason to hide the fact that youhaveanapprenticeunlessthere'ssomethingmoretobecomingyoursuccessorthatI'mmissing,butwhat...ah,ifyourmuscleformisyourquirkandyoucan'tuseyourquirkforlongperiodsoftimeanymore,thenwhatif..."

A light bulb went off, and Izuku's head snapped up. "Aha! This is just a guess, but do you have some sort of transferrable quirk and you're looking for someone worthy of holding it and becoming the next symbol of peace?" All Might stared at him in shock.

"Yes. How did you figure that out?"

"W-w-well, i-it was j-just an e-educated guess..."

"You've got an incredible intellect. I'm sure you'd do well in the support or gen ed courses of UA." But not the hero course, Izuku noted. His heart skipped a beat. He could take a guess as to what that meant. Yet some part of him still wanted to hold on. He hadn't been directly rejected; there was still hope, however little, however fragile. That little fragment had gotten him this far. As long as it wasn't crushed here, he thought he could manage to pick himself up and go on somehow. He always did. But All Might hadn't finished talking.

"But to answer your question... I cannot simply say one can become a hero without power. Hero work is incredibly dangerous, and you need strength to protect yourself and others. I'm sorry."

...

I'm... sorry?

...

...

...I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Those two words trickled through his ears, a mantra, each repetition burning like acid. Coldness was worming into his core and encasing his being in ice. A headache came onto him but he briefly ignored the unknown flashes of images in his mind. No. He didn't want to accept that. He wouldn't. He couldn't.

"If you want to help people, you could always..." The man continued to speak, but his voice had drowned out to a low buzz In Izuku's ears, as if being heard from underwater. Shut up. Shut up. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He couldn't see. He couldn't hear. He wasn't sure he wanted to. At one point All Might left. Izuku neither noticed nor cared.

He didn't care about anything right now. He had lost all strength in his body, gone catatonic. His arms and head hung limp like a marionette with cut strings, and all he could feel was a crushing sense of nothing, blocking his vision and constricting his airways, flowing ice through his bloodstream. Somehow nothing felt quite real- as if his soul had left his body a vacant shell and entered a dark void, detached from the rest of the world. He knew he shouldn't be here, but he knew there was no point trying to get out. No point.

He was unable to find the will to make himself move, do anything, and so he didn't, just stood there for hours that felt like eternities and stared at the floor with dull eyes and tears that wouldn't come, until the sky bled red across the city and the sun sank into oblivion, leaving him alone. Always alone. There was no point. No point. The ache in his head continued and he struggled to block the images that seemed more like memories but… They weren't his.

Everything he'd done, endured, all the times he'd gritted his teeth and persevered, all the patched-up wounds and pretending and prejudice and the times he'd watched everything he'd worked towards be thrown away while he was left to pick up the pieces and start over again, it was all worth absolutely nothing. There was no point. There were no such things as superheroes. Not for people like him.

Oh. At that realization, he felt something snap deep inside him. A flipped switch, a crack formed in something meant to be whole. Something was seeping out of that crack, draining out of his body and wringing him dry, leaving him pale and frail and numb. Something told him that this was wrong. That he'd never be able to regain what he'd just lost. His head flooded and the pain forced itself to the front of his thoughts, his breathing picked up. Then, he lost consciousness.

When he woke, he struggled to process the memories of what he had been shoving away. They weren't memories from when he was younger, no, that's not what it was. It was memories belonging to a whole different lifetime. He realized that... That he was Alexander Hamilton. That, and he had been reincarnated. With renewed vigor, he set to work, happy to finally remember why he had chosen the name Petit Lion. It's what Lafayette used to call him. He decided he wouldn't try to see if anyone else was reincarnated, if they were then he should stay far, far away from them after all he had done in his previous life.

At this very moment in time, in some other, happier reality, Izuku Midoriya would meet All Might for the third time that day. He'd be told the words he'd most wanted to hear from the person he'd most wanted to hear them from, and with those five words, the course of his life- and the world- would be changed forever. But this was not that reality. The world was cruel, and so the boy's path would be a little longer, a little thornier. He would receive his hope from a different place. He would preserve alone and beat the impossible odds. And he would save the world that had refused to save him, no matter the cost to himself. Whether this path would lead to a better outcome, or a worse one- that was still unknown. But one thing was certain:

The story of the world's first Quirkless hero was about to begin. Little did Izuku know that ripples of his influence had already begun to spread. Several miles away, a certain underground hero was receiving a briefing.

Petit Lion: A mysterious vigilante who'd appeared in the poorer districts of Eastern Musutafu two years ago and single handedly caused a significant drop in crime rates of several of those districts. His name, age, appearance, and Quirk were all unknown. Possible connections and aliases were also unknown. Basically, the guy was a walking wild card.

Aizawa had seen him a few times whenever he went particularly far on his patrols, but even he, the stealth hero, hadn't been able to tail him. Petit Lion had always realized he was being watched after a few seconds and made off into the night before Aizawa even had the chance to erase his quirk. And while the vigilante knew the streets like the back of his hand, it was unfamiliar territory for Aizawa. It was frustrating. He'd never met anyone who could evade him so easily before; being in an uncharted area was no excuse. So catching this guy was somewhat a matter of pride for him.

That was the only reason that he'd agreed to join the Petit Lion case when it was so out of his way. He'd wanted to go after the vigilante sooner- Aizawa was surprisingly petty sometimes- but the police force in eastern Musutafu was stretched thin enough as it was. They simply didn't have the resources to put towards catching someone who was such a big help to them. But now that he'd put a noticeable dent in the area's criminal activity, he was giving the police the chance to put real effort into catching him.

His own overachievement would be his downfall. Aizawa felt a shit-eating grin grow on his face at the thought. Okay, so maybe he had a little grudge. Petit Lion escaping him like it was nothing (several times!) bothered him more than he'd like to admit.

"Okay, everyone ready to begin the meeting?" Detective Tsukauchi called the room to order. Aizawa sipped his coffee and resisted the urge to yawn. "Then let's begin by getting us all on the same page about Petit Lion. Here's everything we know about him:

"Petit Lion first debuted two years ago in eastern Musutafu. His activity was sporadic at first, but over time he became more and more active until he eventually started turning in several criminals a night. His patrol route covers the Sakaimachi, Hatsukoku, Tahayaken, and Higashikaku Districts. Eyewitness testimonies have him placed at around 5 feet, and he uses a voice changer whenever he talks. No one has seen his real face, or for that matter even seen him for more than a few seconds, besides the criminals and victims he saves.

"He is incredibly agile and elusive, and he's only getting more active over time. His fights are quick and bloodless, without casualties. He also seems to have amazing information-gathering abilities, because he provides the name, quirk, and method of elimination of every criminal he turns in, and has been known to ask for lighter sentences for criminals with extenuating circumstances. Because of this, it's suspected that he has some type of analyzing quirk. However, this is just speculation. We currently have very little knowledge about him, so he is not to be underestimated. If you see him, aim to neutralize and arrest, not kill. Any questions?"

"No, sir," everyone in the room chorused sans Aizawa, who grunted.

"Then you're dismissed," Tsukauchi said and walked out of the room. Aizawa moved to leave too, but was stopped by the detective.

"Is there something you need?" He was tired. He wanted to take a nap before looking for Petit Lion; he had a feeling he'd need all the energy he could get.

"Aizawa-san. I didn't want to say this to everyone, but we suspect that Petit Lion may be very... young. Still in his teens, even. Everyone who's seen him has said he's abnormally short, and we have one victim report from his appearance two years ago saying he had a young-sounding voice. She doesn't remember very well, so it's impossible to be sure, but there's a fair chance that Petit Lion is still a kid. I thought you would want to take that into account when you go after him. Good luck out there," he finished and walked away. Aizawa gulped down the rest of his coffee in one go. Still a kid, huh? No kid should be doing something that dangerous. That was a hero's job. And if he really did turn out to be that young, he would have to be the one who sat down with the parents to explain everything and deal with the fallout, and of course there would be the paperwork too... He'd need a lot of coffee for that. What a problem child… Aizawa sighed. He had to find Petit Lion before he got himself killed.