"Let's save everyone, even who doesn't deserve it... what? I don't write the rules!"

NAME : Ankoku Yami ( 闇暗黒, Yami Ankoku)

NAME MEANING: Both Yami (闇) and Ankoku (暗黒) mean ‘darkness’ (with Ankoku being composed of the kanji 暗, kuro (black) and 黒, kurai (darkness). Put together, his name would roughly mean ‘Dark Blackness’

TITLE: Heroic Hopeful (主人公の志望者, Shujinko no shibō-sha, “Aspiring Hero”)

RACE: Human (not an Earthling)

ORIGIN: Chantico, an island from the faraway world of Glass Heart

AGE: Young Adult.

HAIR COLOR: Black

EYE COLOR: Naturally dark red, uses contact lenses to look bright hazel

HEIGHT: 160 cm (5’3’’)

PARTICULAR TRAITS: Heavily scarred body under his clothes

PERSONAL SIGIIL:

Personality

Ankoku’s main desire is to become a HERO, and when allowed to, he suits the part like a glove, as a humble and competent adventurer with some insight on common wisdom, ethics and ancient history. However, as long as you don’t challenge his worth as a hero, or worse, the worth of heroes themselves, the cracks begin to show: he is an insecure youth seeking meaning in his own existence, resenting the world for not giving him overly flashy talents to shrine and steamroll his adversities, only flaws that constantly hinder him.

When distressed, Ankoku hides his insecurities by acting loud and confident: he sees all as sacred, even the one of his enemies, but his own may be a possible exception.

Ankoku Yami was born on the warrior island of Chantico (from the far away planet of Glass Heart) from a couple of loving but inexperienced and affective parents: the merchant Kage Yami and the mercenary Shini Goroshi. Following Chantican traditions, they began raising him as an assassin, with his mother repurposing her fighting style to teach him combat, while also explaining him human anatomy by dissecting corpses together, while his father began educating him in both letters and math.

The small child developed poor social skills but a highly analytical mind, eventually wondering about his own upbringing...

"Why should I kill when life gears towards death in the first place?"

Ankoku grew dissatisfied, and lashed out against others. Such an existential crisis found a solution when Ankoku grew to admire a legendary figure of his world who had single handedly shaped the course of history centuries ago: Zaffiro Re’Shelia Baranastre, also known as the Hero. In awe at her influence she still held even centuries after her disappearance, he decided he would become like her. His parents decided to support him although they believed ìsuch an endeavor was an unachievable childish fantasy that would pass with time.

Ever since he began following his dream, Ankoku's ambitions grew, to the point he tried to prove himself most prestigious academy of Glass Heart: the Science Institute of Nequit

By barely passing an extremely hard entrance test, he would be allowed to join the Quetzal, an elité class consisting in a worldwide journey on an airship. Alongside him were the Sultan Prince Lucardi Stellamante and the young Serena Tlipoca, daughter of the highest military officer in charge a the Royal Palace.

Because of his low entrance score and his coarse nature, Ankoku's teachers forced suggested him to learn more from his classmate under threat of expulsion. The Chantican began bonding with Lucardi over their common interest in chess and dated Serena, but their relationship would grow sour by the end of the year because of his own anaffectivity and her insecurities, as well as her growing feeling from the Prince. Eventually, Lucardi and Serena would end up together.

The school year was fatiguing between relationship developments and the difficult studies, as well as a literal ghost of the past sought to disrupt balance, Ankoku would learn to appreciate the beauty of the world, and through hard work and intelligence, he made what was considered the best written essay of the year for the final exam. Alas, such an achievement would be unsung because of the teachers deciding to favor the noble offsprings over him, therefore he was still given the lowest score.

"And thus I thought... wouldn't it be great if I were the hero?"

Unperturbed by the first hardship of life, he would resume his journey to become a hero at the age of seventeen, now with a renewed determination and optimistic approach. However, his ignorance of the more cynical side of the world and its more complex history beyond the books, as well as the unexpected power ceiling of his tasks would make his adventures far more difficult than he would have ever expected… some mistakes forever marked his skin with a series of scars forever ruining his looks...

In most universes, I keep ambiguous if he is a human or an alien coming to Earth to still try to be a hero, unless said verse doesn't clash with the rules or I find repurposing his backstory to the verse's need more interesting

Ankoku’s physical prowess is considerably above average for a human but unimpressive by superhuman standards. Intelligence and willpower are his sharpest traits and, although the latter can cloud the former’s judgement, he has grown impressive durability and endurance, taking even what should be fatal damage while still standing.

However, Ankoku is downright gifted when it comes to vehicle combat, having learnt to pilot and mastered several kinds of vehicle in minutes, even those counter-intuitive to humans.

Piloting Skills

By far Ankoku’s greatest talent bar none: he is very quick at mastering any kind of vehicles , including some with interfaces made to be intentionally counter-intuitive to humans, in a matter of minutes. In his world, even despite the expansion of a galactic federation and 300 years later with the respective technological advancements, no talent has come close to match Ankoku in sheer piloting skills

Combat

He has learnt how to fight thanks to his mother’s harsh training, and has been constantly sharpening his combat skills by dealing with otherworldly threats. Ankoku can fight both armed and unarmed, his fighting style is focused on counters and knowledge of the battlefield. Despite his small physique, he effortlessly takes down common thugs and has handled small groups of trained soldiers on his own.

"Mind Without Mind -Sign-"

In Japanese, 無心の心 -兆-, Mushin no Shin, a zen mental state Ankoku has been trained for ever since his birth by many martial artist masters (none of whom achieved it but the most spiritually enligthned ones), it describes the freedom from mind-attachment that has inspired many other techniques across fiction. Ankoku can only achieve such when completely focused in combat currently only to perform an optimal dodge for what would be an otherwise deadly attack. His mind works at a very high speed, but with no intention, plan or direction, to the point it cannot be interfered with.

Denizens of Glass Heart have unique souls whose transcendental nature has driven some of the greatest wisemen to madness. While Ankoku’s physiology is human, his aura holds boundless potential to be ‘anything’, only limited by his body and his mind. The only current breakthrough he made is the capacity to use biomancy.

Buomancy is a form of contact induced magical control over organic tissue that requires the user to compute specific chemical and physical formulas in their mind. Ankoku mostly uses it to reinforce his clothes or to heal small injuries, otherwise he might end up killed by getting mathematical equations wrong.