A/N: It has been a year and I have returned lol. Thank you all for the feedbacks. :)

"Come meet me at the park. I will be waiting for you at 10 pm"

When he came across people, he simply walked away. When the couple of their evening tryst gave him a nod of acknowledgement, he didn't nod back. When an elderly pair walking their jackshund waved and smiled at him, he didn't wave or smile back. A part of him felt undeserving of their attention and he was too afraid to look them in the eye.

Finally, he stopped by the lake and stared into the watery surface. Reflected upon it were the crescent moon, the canopy of trees, the brilliance of stars, and of course him—a freckled loser.

"Young Midoriya!"

His head spun at the sound of the familiar voice, a feeble, but familiar one nonetheless.

The voice belonged to his idol, who was waving at him while drawing closer to him from the distance. His signature golden locks swayed in the air.

"All Migh-!" He called out. But quickly covered his mouth once he caught the look of panic that streaked across his hero's face.

He had made a huge mistake.

"Ah!" He tried to cover up for his slip up by turning his eyes to his phone, a fist punching enthusiastically in the air as he donned the guise of a zealous All Might fanboy— not that he had to do much pretending. "Get them, All Might! Get them! Show the villains what you got!"

The people in the park seemed to have stared even harder, and Izuku blushed at the judgment in their gaze. Luckily, they quickly looked away and resumed their business.

Operation Pretending-to-Watch-An-All-Might-Video appeared to be a success.

But if there were a hole in the ground, he would still hide in it from the embarrassment of it all.

When All Might caught up to him, he patted him on the shoulder. "Let's move this somewhere else."

Izuku was almost too glad to move away from the place where he humiliated himself.

They found their spot on a bench at the fringe of the park, where the only thing looking over them were the gleams of street lights.

All Might produced two sticks of cotton candy from his black duffle bag and handed one over to him. "Here."

Izuku accepted them with a lingering sense of unworthiness."...Thank you." He proceeded to stare straight ahead of him, too nervous and a bit too ashamed to look at his mentor. When he realized that he had been merely holding his stick of cotton candy, he took a lick to not appear weird.

His flavor was one of strawberry.

"Young Midoriya…" All Might began. And Izuku could already tell the words that would follow. " The reason why I called you here today is because I wanted to talk to you about your performance in the U.A. entrance exam."

The boy felt his heart sink. At the same time, his mind had already started to make excuses.

He had hoped that something had gone wrong in the transferring process, or that perhaps he needed a larger sample of All Might's DNA.

But even with all the excuses and possible explanations in his head, his guilt only allowed him to say one thing—the one consistent phrase that had crept itself between each item of his mind's list.

"I'm so sorry."

To All Might's credit, he sounded calm.

"What are you apologizing for?"

Izuku wasn't sure how to proceed. Was this going to lead up to a "I'm not angry, I'm only disappointed" moment with All Might?

For the second time in the night, Izuku found himself wanting to dig a hole and lay in it.

He hesitated for a second, before blurting out a phrase. The words came out of him like diarrhea. One could barely tell which words the sentence began and which word it ended on. "ImsorrythatIwasntabletousethepowerthatyougaveme."

All Might merely smiled. "Relax, Young Midoriya. I'm not here to berate you. I simply wanted to know why you didn't utilize the power of One for All during the entrance exam. That would have been a perfect opportunity to show everyone what you got! Did you forget to squeeze your buttocks?"

Izuku looked at him with wide eyes. Was that a joke?

The boy gesticulated defensively. "No! I did! I squeeze my buttocks as tight as I could!"

Never in his life did he think he would be saying this sentence.

Then he stopped flailing his arms around and turned pensive, his eye digging straight into the floor, as if pinned onto it. "It is just, for some reason, the power just...didn't come out."

"That is strange…" All Might trailed off, his head tilted towards the sky above them, and a hand placed over his heart. The darkness of his eyes seemed to have gotten larger. "I am sure that One for All got passed off successively. Even now I can feel the embers of One for All waning within me."

Izuku didn't like where this conversation was going. Cold sweat started to pour down his face. "I'm so sorry." He repeated. "I don't know what's wrong with my body…"

That wasn't the truth. He was always aware of the faults of his body. He had known since his mother brought him to the doctor. Others around him didn't allow him to forget, either.

His body was one that failed to evolve. The one that was too weak to defend himself. The one that failed to manifest a quirk.

And now, it very well could be the one that wasted the legacy of the world's greatest hero.

If only All Might had run into someone else that day…

"If you will excuse me, young Midoriya."

He was snapped out of his thoughts by the voice of All Might. But before he could process what was happening, the man had already plucked three strands of hair off of his head. Then, the hero who had shone with so much dignity, even in his emaciated state, opened his mouth and swallowed them whole.

It was like watching a pretty girl pick her nose and eat her boogers.

"A-all Might?" He fumbled over his words. "What are you doing?"

When his beloved idol made a disgusted face, the boy's self-esteem only plummeted further.

"Say, young Midoriya..." The blonde choked out in between pained coughs. "Did you wash your hair this morning?"

Izuku flushed a deep red. If he had higher self-worth, he might have been offended. "O-of course, I did! It is probably just the dirt and sweat...you know...from running around and fighting the robots…"

All Might cleared his throat to bring the conversation back on course. "Anyways, strangely enough, I did not taste the power of One for All when I ate your hair just now."

Of course you didn't! All I tasted was lice when I ate your hair!

But All Might's next words brought his short-lived indignance to a speedy halt.

"It is almost as if you have never received it at all..."

"I'm so sorry." The boy apologized once more. "What should we do?"

This time, even All Might had to take a moment to pick his words. "You said you don't have a quirk, correct?"

"...Yes. My doctor said that because I have two joints in my pinky toe, I will never have a quirk."

Ah yes… All Might nodded silently. The death sentence for children's dreams...

Still, things bothered him.

If One for All was no longer in his possession or the young boy's possession, then whose possession did it rest in?

Then there was the other thing…

Something about the boy felt odd to him. Something aside from his maniacal zeal for heroics.

All Might closed his eyes and his mind raced back to the events that took place months prior. To the time where the boy latched on to him after the defeat of the sludge villain.

He remembered it well...the drowning sensation that preluded the deflating of his body. It wasn't a sensation that he was familiar with. His body had failed him countless times when it came to his quirk, but that cold, nauseating, disorientating sensation was something that was completely foreign.

In one moment, the warmth and power of One for All was coursing through his blood, through his veins. Then, in the span of a breath, he felt absolutely nothing.

It was strange, the abruptness of it all.

He was certain that he could have held on to the power for a few more while.

The man's mind continued to move, moving towards the moment that he felt his power slip away. Oh right...it was…

All Might's eyes landed on the boy's hands.

It was just a hunch. An almost completely baseless hunch. But when nothing else made sense, he thought that even the most asinine of guesses were worth testing out. "Young Midoriya…" All Might stood up from his spot on the bench, his muscle mass expanding rapidly and snapping into the statuesque physique that had become his trademark.

Beside him, the boy shriveled, his body moving closer to each other, as if wanting to curl up into a ball. "All Might?" Izuku asked, eyes filled and brimming with awe and confusion.

But when the hero drew his fist back, the boy shut his eyes and braced for a certain death.

Only, nothing of consequence came of it. No pain, no agony. Just nudges on his hands that he barely felt.

Izuku opened his eyes to see All Might next to him. The man's body was shrouded in a blanket of vapors, and a bony hand was tapped lightly against his right one.

"Like I thought, boy. I think I might have gotten a good idea on what your quirk is."

Izuku blinked dumbly. My quirk?

"How can I have a quirk? The doctor said…"

All Might sighed and tousled his hair in frustration. He took his seat again. "I know what the doctor said and none of this makes any sense to me either. But at this point, we have no choice but to accept the facts presented to us."

The blonde man looked at his hand, the very same one that he used to make contact with the boy just a moment ago. "When I touched your right hand earlier, the power of One for All left me immediately. The same thing happened to me when we first met. But when I touched your left hand, nothing happened..."

Izuku didn't know how to add to the conversation. Everything he was hearing now was completely new to him. Would All Might even believe him if he told him that he didn't know? Or would All Might think of him as a liar who conned him out of his powers?

Instead of speaking, he just gulped nervously and waited for All Might to continue.

"It is possible that you have the ability to negate the quirks of others. At the very least, it is the ability of your right hand. The rest of your body could have a similar effect, and somehow One for All became lost in the midst of all that."

All Might cupped his chin with his thumb and index finger as he became lost in thought once more. There were still some things that didn't make sense, but at this time, this was the best guess that he could reach.

He set his hand down and peered into his protege's eyes. "And you are not aware of any of this before today?"

Izuku shook his head furiously, without him being aware, he started to gesture wildly again. He had a habit of doing so when flustered. "No. I really did not! I swear I did not! If I did…"

"Relax." All Might held out a pair of placating hands. "I believe you."

There was nothing that he could do except to trust at this point.

"In any case, I think it is best to assume that One for All is gone for now."

Gone. Izuku didn't like the sound of that. And it was all my fault...

All Might placed both of his hands on the boy's shoulder, and for the first time this night, he smiled—a warm one that eased the self-loathing in Izuku's heart.

"It is not your fault, you didn't know." He soothed. "On the bright side, it turns out you have a pretty nifty quirk yourself. But without the power of One for All, you are going to have to work even harder than before."

"I don't regret running into you all those months ago. Even if you couldn't be the successor of my power, fate has lead me to a fine young man."

Izuku felt tears well up in his eyes.

"You're going to be a great hero one day. This much, I know for certain."

The boy started bawling after that. The floodgates had been opened and he couldn't shut it off.

Even at his ugliest, his most pathetic, All Might sat next to him, rubbing his back comfortingly while he buried his eyes into his sleeves.

"But I failed, All Might! I failed! I didn't accomplish anything even after you gave me everything!" He garbled out between his sobs. "To top it all off, I have lost your quirk! It is all because of me!"

All Might's comforting touches never stopped. "Defeating enemies is not all there is to being a hero. I'm sure the people at U.A. know that better than anyone. Like they always say, if there is a will, then there's a way. Everything is going to be just fine."

Izuku chose to believe in All Might's words. He forced himself to. He had to in order to move on.

When the boy managed to calm himself down a bit, All Might promptly excused himself by claiming that he had work to do.

With All Might gone, a heaviness settled itself in his heart once more.

But he knew that he couldn't let it weigh him down. If All Might couldn't defend the citizens of Japan with his powers anymore, then as the person responsible, he had to pick up the workload.

He clenched his fist with resolve. This time, he wouldn't let All Might down again.