Undying Light (MHA x Dark Souls)

Prologue - The Bonfire

"The First Flame quickly fades.
Darkness will shortly settle.
But one day, tiny flames will dance across the darkness.
Like embers, linked by lords past."

As the sun shines through his window, young Izuku Midoriya opens his eyes to a bright new day. He's as excited as he'll ever be: tomorrow will be the best day of his life, the day that he will find out what his quirk is, and use it to become the best hero to ever live.

"Izuku, come downstairs, breakfast is ready!"

"Coming mom!"

As he gets out of bed, he sees a small orange glint in the distance, deep in the forest behind his apartment complex. He decides that he'll check it out after he eats breakfast. He would do anything for those pancakes.

"I'm going to go play in the forest, bye mom!"

"Ok honey, be back in an hour, katsuki's coming over!"

"Yay!"

As he runs through the forest, stick-sword in hand, he travels through an ancient kingdom, fighting knights and dragons alongside the great hero All Might, so he can save the princess and the world. As he saves the princess from the evil king, he remembers the glint he saw earlier. He decides that now would be the best time to go check it out.

Izuku's POV

Ok, so that glint didn't look too far away, I should be able to get there soon. I wonder what it is? It could be gold, or a message in a bottle, ooh, or another All Might figure!

I should be getting close, I really want to see this thing! I'll show kaachan, he'll think I'm so coo-

"Huh?"

Narrator's POV

A lone bonfire was alone in a clearing, softly burning as it's flames danced mesmerizingly around the sword sticking out of the ash. Izuku couldn't help but be entranced, as he crept closer to the bonfire, he felt an overwhelming peacefulness surround him, with a tinge of a looming, unidentifiable feeling in the background.

"When did this get here? I don't remember this being here yesterday... or this clearing..."

As he walked around it, he noticed a small, orange wisp of flame lying on the ground, away from the bonfire. Despite this, it didn't seem to be fading, and danced around as if it were trying to reach for something. As he was drawn to the fire, he noticed something strange about the fire: Even when he came closer and closer, Izuku felt no heat coming from either the bonfire or the wisp, just the tranquil warmth of a summer day.

"That's weird... why isn't it hot? Fire should be hot... I wonder what would happen if I touch it..."

Izuku reached out towards the wisp, slowly moving closer to it, nervously waiting for the burning feeling that fire always gives. But it never came. Instead, the small flame floated into his waiting hand.

"What..." Was all Izuku could say, before the world around him began to fade, as visions of another where shown to him by the wisp. Stone dragons, an old king, a knight, and the dark and the fire mixing over and over again. As the cycle continued, with new knights and beasts each time, the world began to break. The fire faded evermore, until it was nothing but embers, as a burned knight and a woman put out the fire for the final time.

As the fire faded away, and the world faded to darkness, a ring started forming, with small flames coming off of it. And as this ring grew in intensity, the vision disappeared, and Izuku once again was in the real world. He looked back down to the wisp, just to see it missing from his hands, and that same ring from the vision painlessly burned into his chest, emitting a soft glow through his shirt.

As he sat in shock and awe, unable to fully process what happened, he heard something from far behind him.

"Izuku, come on back! Katsuki will be here any minute!"

And with that, the young Izuku Midoriya got up and ran back to his home, the darksign now branded on his chest, slowly fading as he got farther away from the bonfire, until it was no longer visible.

And so it begins.

I figured it was time to rewrite and remaster some of the older chapters, as back then, I had far less of an outline for what I wanted this story to be. I think the difference between the original chapters and these ones is proof enough of that.

When I first started this story, I only had Dark Souls 1, and wasn't nearly as knowledgeable of the lore as I am now. I wanted Izuku to be the chosen undead, but Souls Hero Academia had already filled the Isekai niche for that, so I decided to essentially reverse-isekai it and build from there.

As the story progressed, and I played more games and learned more lore, I started building this story into something that didn't really line up with that original view, and honestly, the story is better that way. I'm going to save and post the original chapters in another book so they'll still be readable, so don't worry about losing those.

Praise the sun \[T]/