FIVE HUNDRED YEARS EARLIER

A thick, black darkness permeated the battlefield. In fact, darkness permeated everything. The ground? Darkness. Trees? Darkness. Chairs? Darkness. Cows? Also darkness. You name it, darkness permeates it. This is why, hundreds of years in the future, scholars would refer to this period as The Age Of Darkness. While this name is not a very creative, it is pretty accurate.

Everything was so enveloped in darkness that no one had any hopes otherwise. They were pretty content, more or less. Except for one warrior. One warrior who, in a blaze of heroic passion and fury, stood against the darkness.

"I WILL STAND AGAINST YOU!" cried the mighty hero, ALL BRIGHT.

"You will break beneath the shadow like a twig, puny mortal!" returned the hero's enemy, the vile Lord of Darkness. His title isn't super creative, but again, it's pretty accurate.

The Lord of Darkness had never been opposed before. It was his first time, and historians generally agree that he might have been a little nervous. Given that his reign was unchallenged for thousands of years, it was probably pretty odd that someone was finally standing up to him.

"You pollute a beautiful realm with your vile darkness, fiend!" ALL BRIGHT declared as he stood alone against the villainous lord. "So long have you sit on your throne, growing arrogant in your rule!"

The Lord of Darkness was pretty tired of ALL BRIGHT's monologuing. He decided to totally vivisect the annoying hero. Hoisting his titanic blade, the Sword of Darkness (humor the name), he brought a woeful blow down upon ALL BRIGHT.

"Die, worm!" screeched the Lord of Darkness.

The earth around the lord and the hero rumbled and cracked, molten rock and vicious fumes erupting from the scars and raining down upon them. The wind howled and whipped into a whirling storm, buffeting them. The skies ruptured and let loose a downpour that flooded around them. It was not an enjoyable experience.

And yet, as the Lord of Darkness brought his blade down, he peered through the cataclysm his wrath had awoken and saw that the hero still stood, meeting the Blade of Darkness with his own burning, shining sword.

The Lord of Darkness felt a mixture of emotions he had never before felt. Shock, confusion, surprise. But most distasteful and alarming of them all was, the Lord of Darkness realized, something he never would have believed that any force of man or nature would elicit in him. Yet, here he stood, before a warrior of light, feeling that very thing.

The Lord of Darkness felt, deep in his belly, a twinge of fear.

The hero of light, ALL BRIGHT, struggled as he held off the weight of the Blade of Darkness. But his conviction and strength did not falter. Indeed, they only grew as he stared his adversary down. His own sword grew brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter and, like, really it got like REALLY bright. Like they call him ALL BRIGHT mostly because of this one moment.

The Lord of Darkness began to stagger backwards. Somehow this tiny, puny human was defying him! (It should be mentioned that the Lord of Darkness is like fifty feet tall or something like that). His Blade of Darkness, a monstrous and unwieldy tower of a sword, was choked by the shining light as if a timber log set aflame.

"N-no!" cried the Lord of Darkness. "HOW CAN THIS EVEN BE?!"

"I will tell you why!" called ALL BRIGHT. "There have always been those that fought against your tyranny! I am not the first… I am merely the last!"

"You lie, worm!" the Lord of Darkness accused.

"I speak the truth!" ALL BRIGHT countered. "All of their collective efforts, all of their planning and bravery! It all comes to this one last, final moment!"

"DIEEEEEE!" demanded the Lord of Darkness.

"No!"

ALL BRIGHT thrust his sword upward, the Blade of Darkness shattering into a thousand tiny little dark pieces. Thunder and lightning raged in the skies above, even as all that lava and flooding from before still ripped the battlefield asunder.

ALL BRIGHT made his own demand as he prepared for one final attack. "Remember these words, villain!" he cried. "For they are the sacred promise that foretells this moment! And I will teach you what they mean!"

The Lord of Darkness had no words. The brightness was too bright. Right in his freaking eyes, it didn't even matter if he closed them. It was ALL BRIGHT (get it?).

ALL BRIGHT looked up to the swirling heavens and called out in a voice that rang across all the realm. "GO BEYOND!"

Bringing his sword back even as it shined brighter and hotter every moment, ALL BRIGHT decreed "PLUS… ULTRA!"

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT EVEN MEANS?!" the Lord of Darkness cried.

"DETROIT… SLAAAAASSSHHH!"

"WHAT'S A DETROIT?!"

In one final stroke of the blade, the Lord of Darkness was obliterated completely. If you play the official Boko no Hiro Akademia soundtrack song "You Say Run", this part would happen right around the 2:28 mark in order to punctuate the epic feel of the scene.

The earth shook. The sky shook. There's nothing else left after that to shake, so pretty much everything shook. The Lord of Darkness was defeated completely. He could never come back, ever. Never. Well, maybe he could. Or, well, probably not. Or maybe. No one was entirely sure at the time.

ALL BRIGHT stood at the top of a mountain peak, watching the darkness fade away. Lakes and oceans were blue. Grass was green. Shadows and dark stuff were still dark, but that was okay because it's only natural and it's not all that much so no one minded.

Everything ALL BRIGHT and his predecessors had worked for had come to fruition. The realm was free of its cruel and immortal ruler. Thus ended the Age of Darkness. ALL BRIGHT hoisted his glowing blade into the shining rays of the sun, his crazy hair waving in the wind.

He shouted the first words to grace the newly freed realm of Academeos.

"PLUS ULTRA!"

No one knew what it was supposed to mean.

FIVE HUNDRED YEARS LATER

(Present day)

PRESENT NARRATOR: Yo, and hello Ladies and Gorgons! I'm your pumped up and totally omnipotent dungeon master and narrator! The legend of the hero ALL BRIGHT has been recorded and passed down from generation to generation! It's something that totally inspires all of the adventurers of Academeos to go out there and make their own kind of noise! Everyone is trying to top those XP charts and move on to the next highest level! Who will become the next legendary hero of Academeos? Who will prove that their Class is the most viable for high level content?! Probably not the kid we're about to look in on, but let's drop that needle and see what he's got anyways!

Izuku Midoriya traced the letters inscribed on the weathered parchment scroll with his eyes. He'd read them countless times before, but he always took his time to appreciate them as fully as if it were once again his first time.

He also had a horrible habit of muttering along with the dialogue as he read them, which made him more than a little weird to everyone he unknowingly did it around.

"Remember these words, villain!" he muttered.

This was his favorite part. The stage play adaptation was pretty good, but nothing beat the vivid and live scenes he created in his own mind as he read. He pictured ALL BRIGHT, a towering and muscular figure of blazing light as he heroically stood before the fiendish Lord of Darkness.

Hanging on to each word of the tale, Izuku couldn't help but sometimes picture that it was not ALL BRIGHT defying the Lord of Darkness, but he himself- Izuku Midoriya- that was the legendary hero. His belly always stirred and he felt heat behind his eyes when he got to this part.

"PLUS...!" he muttered at a volume fairly louder than he'd previously been using.

"ULTRA!" he cried, almost at a yell.

There he was! Izuku, the class-less boy from a tiny village in Academeos, cutting down the Lord of Darkness and ushering in a new age of peace and prosperity to all the realm! His muscles rippling in the freed sunlight, his glorious and luxurious hair flipping in the righteous breeze. Held aloft in his mighty grip was the now legendary blade SUN FOR ALL. He was the hero! Everyone loved him! Tears welled in his eyes, as they always tended to do when his fantasy hit such a fever pitch.

"Yes…" he exalted. "I will protect everyone! The legendary hero, Izuku Midoriya…!"

The door to Izuku's room creaked open. Like a knife in the back, Izuku scrunched up on himself, nearly dropping his scroll to the floor.

"Izuku?" his mother, Inko, quietly spoke. "Are you reading your scroll again?"

"N-no, mom!" Izuku lied. "I was just… I…"

"Oh, honey." his mother entered the room. "What does 'plus ultra' even mean?"

Izuku, his face red and his eyes wet with passionate tears, was at a loss for words. At this point he was hoping either his mother spoke quickly and left the room, or that his head exploded. He'd prefer the latter.

"I'm glad you're practicing reading and everything but I still wish you'd go out and play with the other kids sometime!" Inko paced across the room and opened the wooden flaps of window, letting in the sunlight.

"You're always holed up in here wasting candle wax!"

"M-mom…" mumbled Izuku.

"There's low level monsters all over the woods outside!" Inko offered. "You could even take your father's old blade! It's only 1+ to Might, but it would be a good starter weapon for you!"

"Yeah, but…" Izuku began to protest.

Inko flinched, her chubby cheeks widening as she realized her mistake. "N-no!" she deflated.

"I didn't mean- I mean, it's… plenty of adventurers don't ever pick a class!" she attempted to fix the moment, her own eyes tearing up.

"It's okay…" Izuku muttered, defeated. He peered out the doorway of his room, where his father's old sword hung above their clay fireplace. The noon light reflected off of its blade with a dull sheen.

"Um-" his mother began. "Why don't you go out and chop some firewood?!"

Izuku broke away from the sword and glanced to his mother. "Hm?"

"Yeah, some firewood!" she asserted. "We need firewood and it'll give you a little bit of XP and…"

Izuku sighed. "Yeah, okay."

"Oh honey…" Inko whined as Izuku walked out of his room and went to retrieve the woodcutting axe.

Izuku opened the storage chest and equipped the woodcutting axe. He'd been inside all day, and he figured his mom was right. Maybe he needed to get out a little bit.

Inko watched from the window and Izuku walked out to the chopping stump and began splitting timber.

PRESENT NARRATOR: Oh, boy! Looks like this guy doesn't even have a class! Let's turn up those dials and get a closer look at his stats!

IZUKU MIDORIYA

Age: 14

Race: Human

Class: Adventurer (Classless)

Level: 4

Gear: Peasant Garb (+100 Defense against Nudity), Woodcutting Axe (+5 damage to Wood)

PRESENT NARRATOR: Wooooww! He sucks!

"Kids my age are usually at least in the early teen levels," Izuku thought to himself as he brought the axe down on a hunk of wood. The log splintered and cracked cleanly down the middle. +5 XP. A drop in the bucket, but it was something.

"But it's not like I have any Class Talents to help me…" another swing of the axe. +5 XP.

He'd tried fighting monsters before, but it always took so long to defeat them and no one ever wanted to invite someone without a class to their parties. What good was it, anyways? Another log gave way to the blow of the axe. +5 XP.

They were right to not invite him. He'd just soak XP… and for what purpose? To level up? What good was it?

He didn't have a class…

The axe fell. +5 XP.

So what good was it?

The axe fell again, but this time it lacked the force to split through the log.

"Oh, Izuku…" Inko spoke from through the window.

He would never be a hero. He'd never be ALL BRIGHT. The familiar feeling of self-loathing and guilt began to pick at the back of his mind. He felt embarrassed on a deep, spiritual level that he even bothered to fantasize about being a hero. He may or may not have been mentally aware of the fact that he was crying while feebly attempting to split another log.

Snot and spittle cascaded down his face as passerbys gave awkward stares. From the window, Inko attempted to cover her own tears.

"Oh, Izuku! I know!" she cried. "W-why don't you go into the village square and buy some apples! I'll make a pie tonight! Doesn't that sound nice?!"

"A- a pie s-sounds like it would be r-really…" Izuku stammered on his words as a disgusting myriad of oral and optical fluids combined in a visible puddle at his feet.

"Just go!" Inko called. "You have coins in your pouch from yesterday's shopping!"

"R-right!" Izuku nodded, trying to wipe away the incessant flow of flagrant fluid from his forlorn face. "Okay!"

Izuku set the woodcutting axe down and marched off into town, his mother trembling in her own bout of teary-eyed sadness as she watched her son attempt to march into the house to prepare for a trek into the village, attempting to put his melancholy behind him.

PRESENT NARRATOR: This kid is one sorry sonata! Yeesh! But at least he has dear old mom to help him through his days! Speaking of which, let's play peeksy on what momma's got under the hood!

INKO MIDORIYA

Age: 41

Race: Human

Class: Mage

Sub-Class: Gravity Mage

Level: 17

Gear: Tasteful Peasant Blouse (+20 to Housewifing, -1 to Fire Resistance)

Izuku trudged down the dirt path into town. His father's old blade hung at his back and in a pouch at his side he carried a minor healing potion. Monsters very rarely wandered onto the roads, and even when they did they were of little threat, but it was still good to always be prepared.

Their village was a sleepy one, not many young people stuck around for very long after they selected their class. It was mostly normal folk or retired adventerors. They didn't have much in the way of merchants, either, so rarely did anyone have a reason to stop by their humble community.

Across the grassy fields, off to the edge of the forests beyond, Izuku watched a gang of children rush to the trees. They couldn't be any older than six or seven, but they were all touting beginner gear and weapons. No doubt they'd all recently selected a class and were eager to grind out their first levels of XP.

What good was it, anyways? Good luck to them, he hoped they'd all become splendid adventurers. Meanwhile, Izuku could stick to his stories…

The village square came into view as Izuku rounded the bend of a small hilltop.

There was never much to observe when looking down at the village square. Just the same old shops with the same old brown or red shingles sitting in the beaten dust of the well-worn square.

Or, at least, that was how it was on every day except today.

Izuku's jaw actually dropped. There was a crowd- a pretty big one, too- gathered in the square. That would be unusual enough by itself, yet it was made even more outstanding by the fact that most of the people in the crowd (far from Izuku as they were) were visibly dressed in hard shining armor or flowing enchanted robes. These weren't ordinary townspeople, these were adventurers! There were so many of them!

Izuku felt the immediate urge to rush down and find out what the abnormality was all about. Why were so many adventurers here?! Some of them looked pretty high level, too. He held out a foot forward, but stopped.

What good would it do? Why did it matter? It wasn't for him, and he had no business bothering whatever quest or objective they were all after.

Izuku stopped in the dirt. He should just go home. He frowned, and felt more tears. He didn't want them to see him cry, anyways…

He lowered his head. Yeah, home was where he belonged. Go back to reading stories of real heroes that he could never be. He turned…

And bumped directly into someone.

Izuku fell on his butt, taking 1 damage.

"Ow!" Izuku groaned, rubbing his damaged booty. He snapped to attention, however, as he realized he had obviously bumped someone else to the ground as well.

He looked up, and beheld an incredibly cute girl rubbing her own booty. Her auburn hair spilled from her billowing hood, and in one gloved hand she kept a firm hold of a knotted cane.

Izuku stared, bewildered. It was an adventurer! And she was really pretty!

"Ow, I think I landed on my manabuns!" the adventurer complained. Suddenly, she seemed to notice Izuku. In a shocked gasp, she jumped to her feet.

"I'm so sorry!" she apologized. She offered a hand, though Izuku was too flustered and stupefied to take it.

Izuku tried to manage words, but all he got out were choked gasps and a couple of weird noises akin to sick hiccups. He pulled himself to his feet.

"You must be a villager?" the adventurer asked. Izuku nodded, sweating bullets.

"Oh," the adventurer spoke back, clearly picking up on the awkward vibes. "I'm sorry I bumped you over!"

"..." Izuku attempted to croak.

"The village square is right down this way, right?"

Izuku nodded like limp daisy in a rainstorm.

"Well, thanks!" the adventurer said, giving a smile.

She rushed past Izuku, who was left gawking.

"Did… did I really just talk to that girl?" Izuku thought as he stiffly waved to the departing adventurer.

He did not talk to that girl.

Oh well. It would be nice to follow her, but… No, there was no point…

Izuku frowned and sighed again. How he wished…

He quietly turned to head back home. Looking at the path ahead, his eyes perked up. A small leather pouch was left in the dust before him!

Izuku bent down and examined the pouch. Did it come from that girl adventurer?

"I mean, it wasn't here before when I walked by. And then the girl bumped into me and she fell, so by simple process of elimination it's obviously not like it belongs to anyone else, as no one other than her had been on the road… and it makes sense that she dropped it during the fall, and…"

"Hey, Izuku!" a passing farm boy called out as he lead a herd of goats across the road. "Quit muttering to yourself, you weirdo!"

Izuku practically fell to the ground. "Uh, right…" he squeaked back.

The farm boy passed and left Izuku to worry about the precarious pouch. It didn't belong to him, but he figured he'd at least get a better look at it to determine if it really did belong to the girl.

Plucking it from the ground, Izuku gave it a looking. It was, by all accounts, pretty unassuming at first glance, but there was a slight heat to be felt from whatever was inside. Izuku slid a thumb under the flap of the pouch and flipped it open.

He gave a quiet gasp as he looked at the contents. Faintly glowing blue crystals. Mana gems! The girl was obviously a mage or wizard class of some kind… so these were obviously pretty important resources for her.

He couldn't just let her run off without them! He turned, but the girl was already nearly out of sight. All to be seen of her was her bobbing hood as she drew into the village square. Izuku's wits and nerves steeled. He wouldn't let her lose these! She was an adventurer! She needed them!

He didn't think. He didn't debate with himself. He ran after her. Maybe he didn't have a class, maybe he would never be an adventurer. But it didn't mean he'd let someone down. He clutched the pouch of mana gems. He'd return them to the adventurer, class or no class!