In a world—can't believe she's making me open with that—where evil is always the main course and justice is merely the appetizer the host forgot to defrost, people have abandoned hope as easily as a teenage mother abandons their infant child in a dumpster. A narrator shouldn't have been forced to say something so terrible, so I think it'd be best to quickly introduce the Hero of our story.
Her name is Eri, and despite being a child, she's a magical girl who protects the weak with the power of the gentle darkness. Standing next to her is mentor Mikuru Asahina, a time travelling waitress from the future. If you're wondering how and why a time travelling waitress ended up mentoring a magical girl, well, it's pointless to explain, so I won't. You might also be wondering why Mikuru is dressed like a playboy bunny—if you're wondering why Eri isn't also dressed as a playboy bunny, then this is not the movie for you, so please leave. Anyway, Mikuru wasn't allowed to take any money with her from the future, so she has to work part-time at the Kiyashi Ward Shopping Mall to make ends meet, and the cliched fetish outfit is supposed to help draw in customers to whatever store she's working at. Today, she's advertising a cabbage sale at the local vegetable stand—Sadara's Yummy Vegetables—and little Eri is doing her best to help out, even going with her to her next job with the local butcher. You'd think that Mikuru being Eri's advisor would result in more than using loopholes to work around child labor laws, but here we are.
Also, it just occurred to me that I shouldn't have brought up that last part, so let's cut away and try to get back to the plot.
We succeeded in getting back to the plot, but at the moment, it has nothing to do with Eri or Mikuru. No, right now, the focus is on a handsome young man named Itsuki Koizumi. Sure, he might be innocently walking through town underneath the setting sun, but unbeknownst to even Itsuki, he's a powerful Esper whose psychic powers could very well decide the fate of the world. Normally, something like that would be important enough to at least be detailed within the story, but I guess some people thought that there wasn't enough time for something like that. Somehow.
Anyway, like I said, Itsuki's psychic powers can decide the fate of the world, and it's for that reason that Eri and Mikuru have been tasked to protect him—again, this probably should have been discussed in-universe, but fine. What isn't fine, however, is the fact that someone wants to use Itsuki's powers for their own dastardly purposes.
Wait, "dastardly?" Who says that anymore? Whatever, let's just cut to the next scene.
Standing on top of a completely random building that—for legal reasons—is most assuredly not U.A., is an expressionless girl wearing a witch hat. The wind blew her cape back dramatically, but her lack of expression contrasted it in a way that made it feel like the director was trying to force dramatics out of the scene, even though it didn't work. Either way, this girl is Yuki Nagato, an alien witch who wants Itsuki to fulfill her own contemptible—who left a thesaurus lying around?—purposes. You probably think it's weird that Yuki is both an alien and a witch, just like you probably think it's weird that she's standing here for no reason in addition to how it's clearly daytime, even though the last scene depicted everything at sunset. Well, editing is hard, especially when the director cares more about putting scenes in where they'll be "the coolest" as opposed to putting them where they'll actually make sense, so that's something we all just have to live with.
You, however, can do a lot better than that by picking up your own editing software at Toshi Electronics! Computers, batteries, video games, even refrigerators! They've got gadgets and gizmos aplenty, so come on down for whatever you might need!
Anyway, let's just cut away and move past this.
We're back to Itsuki walking about without a care through town; it's sunset again for some reason, but his clothes are different, so I guess it's a new day? And nothing important happened until then? Well, something important is definitely happening now, as Itsuki's random walking came to a halt when he found himself confronted with none other than Yuki, herself.
"Who are you?" Itsuki asked in a very stilted tone of voice.
"My name is Yuki Nagato," said Yuki. "I am an alien witch from another planet, and I have come here to kidnap you so I may lay waste to your civilization and begin my conquest of your entire galaxy."
"No way!"
"Yes way." Yuki pulled out a wand and pointed it at Itsuki. It was undoubtedly a shoddy-looking wand that looked like a child's arts and crafts project, but please accept the fact that it's supposed to be a powerful weapon constructed from the cosmic energy of a quasar, meaning that it's not at all the kind of thing you want someone to point at you. "Now, come with me quietly, or I will be forced to use force to force you to forcibly come with me."
"N-N-Not so fast!" Stammered speech boldy interrupted redundant speech as the camera shakily pans over to the left to reveal that Eri and Mikuru apparently arrived at some point. Eri was wearing the same magical girl outfit and holding the same staff from earlier—if you've seen literally any magical girl show, you've probably seen it—but Mikuru was now dressed in an orange waitress outfit as opposed to the playboy bunny outfit from earlier. Thank God for that.
"Who are you?" Itsuki asked, his delivery not getting any better any time soon.
"I-I am, um, I am the…" Eri brought a hand to her face; I don't know why, but it sure wasn't to read lines sloppily written on her palm, I'll tell you that. "I-I am the Burning Soldier of Lovely Chaos, Eri! I am an avatar for the… the Gentle Darkness? What? Nee-san, what does that mean?"
"I-It means that it's up to you to defeat her, a-and it's up to me to help you do that! I-I think," Mikuru said. "N-No! I'm your advisor, so I say th-that that's right! N-Now, Yuki! P-Prepare to be vanquished! G-Get her, Eri!"
"Bring it, bitch." Yes, Yuki was the one who said that, and yes, it did sound terrible, but please try to ignore it. Just focus on the absolutely riveting battle, which had Yuki and Itsuki just standing there while Eri stared them down and shook like a leaf. Mikuru, who wasn't fairing much better, gave her a pat on the back, and after some more standing around that absolutely had to be captured on film for some reason, Eri started running at Yuki with her eyes closed and while swinging her staff around at random.
Naturally, she ran headfirst into a telephone pole.
"So this is the extent of your power, then?" Yuki asked. "If that is the case, then I do not need to worry about dealing with you. We shall continue this at a later date." Yuki turned away from them and walked away for reasons I just do not understand. If Eri is really so beneath her, why not kill her on the spot? That would save her a lot of trouble, wouldn't it? I don't think I'm crazy for thinking that.
"Are you all right?" Itsuki asked Eri, his dialogue still incredibly stilted. Eri just nodded her head as tears began to well. "By the way, who are you two, anyway?"
"O-Oh, we're nobody important! Just some good samaritans looking to do good samaritan-type things!" Mikuru said. Before Itsuki could pry further with poorly-delivered lines, Mikuru picked up the crying Eri and carried her off towards the sunset. What a girl.
You know what could have really helped Eri out back there? A gun. Wait, what? She's a little kid, why am I—I mean, why am I not talking about all the great deals going on right now at Gunther's Model Guns? From pistols to assault rifles, they've got everything at half off for a limited time, and all products are so realistic that anyone can feel like an action star while holding one!
That was very painful. Let's just move past this.
Move past it, we did. We now find our heroes—very loose usage of the term—confronting Yuki once more in a park; it's clearly early daytime, so it must be the day after the previous scene, and somehow there was nothing important happening until now. Fine.
"So you have come to face me again, Eri?" Yuki asked. "Very well. This time, I shall defeat you so thoroughly that not even an atom is left over." If she could really do that, then it doesn't make sense that she didn't do it last time. Are we ever going to get an explanation for that, or is it just something that'll forever be ignored? Probably the latter.
"Th-This won't be like last time, you evildoer, you!" Eri said.
"Right, because you'll be fighting me!" Mikuru said. "You are clearly too strong for my disciple to handle, s-so for the sake of the world, I will take you on in her place."
"Wait, she's too strong for me?"
"I think so?" It really is hard to tell. "A-Anyway, prepare for your ultimate reckoning!"
"No," said Yuki, because of course she did. Regardless, Mikuru threw her hands out and fired beams of light at Yuki. To the untrained eye, those beams of light might look like poorly rendered digital effects, but I assure you that they are quite the deadly force. Of course, their deadliness was ruined by how easily Yuki blocked them with her wand, but Mikuru deserves points for trying, right?
"M-My current tactics aren't working!" Mikuru said. "I have no choice but to, um, but to use my secret technique!" This is the kind of moment that's normally oozing with tension, but that's kind of impossible when Mikuru fought Yuki for all of three seconds before deciding to use her "secret technique". Regardless, Mikuru closed one eye, put a sideways "V" around the other, and stammered out the phrase, "Mikuru Beam!"
As the Mikuru Beam was fired, Yuki ran over to Mikuru and tackled her to the ground. Eri flew into a panic, a certain director started giving very audible commentary while we were rolling; it became a lot, so I'm going to take this time to talk about the Mikuru Beam. The Mikuru Beam is an incredibly powerful attack, but it's important to remember that it's incredibly fictional. While we do live in a world where people can shoot lasers out of their eyes, that's not something you can do if your Quirk has long since been established to give you a completely different power. So even if Mikuru does something like that here, the real Mikuru—assuming there even is a real Mikuru—won't be able to do that because the Mikuru Beam isn't real.
You probably all think no one's dumb enough to need an explanation like that, but you'd be surprised. Think about that as we cut away from all of this?
I'm as surprised by the scene change as you are. The fight had barely even started, yet we're apparently done with it now. As for the current scene, the three of them are by what appears to be a lake, and I guess we're just supposed to accept that this is where they're fighting now instead of the park.
Whatever. What's probably more important is the fact that Eri and Mikuru are being attacked by what appears to be a quartet of what appears to be zombies. Yuki is waving her wand around like a conductor, so it's safe to assume that she's controlling these people with her alien magic.
"Brains… brains… brains…" mumbled one of the zombies, a blonde-haired young man with eyes that looked straight out of an old school American cartoon. He was doing that, even though literally none of the other zombies were doing it, and another zombie—a young girl dressed in some sort of elaborate outfit—even broke character to reprimand him about it—I mean, resisted Yuki's spell enough to try and snap him out of it.
"Hahahaha! Oh my God, you're all just too much, nyoron!" Just assume that that person is also able to resist the zombification, to a degree. It really shows that underneath it all, there's still a bit of humanity inside these people, which is why Eri and Mikuru are doing nothing to oppose them. The fact that they are so unwilling to hurt innocents is truly commendable, even if it might come at the detriment of their own lives.
And come at the detriment of their own lives, it did, or at least for one of them. The zombified people grabbed Mikuru as she put herself in front of Eri and threw her into the lake's murky depths; please ignore that two of the zombies also fell in with her and how Nodoka—I mean a person whose name I don't know—started yelling about her outfit getting ruined, this is supposed to be a sad moment. I mean, just look at Eri. Her alleged teacher sacrificed herself to try and protect her, and she was helpless to do anything about it. It really tugs on the heartstrings, doesn't it?
"We can't stay here. We need to get her medical attention," was the stilted statement of Itsuki, who's apparently here now, I guess. Where did he even come from? He wasn't mentioned at all in the last few scenes, so it's weird that he just shows up out of nowhere to fish Mikuru out of the lake. Speaking of weird, Yuki and the zombified people appear to just be gone. Did they leave? They had the advantage, so why are they the ones who had to leave?
Well, when in doubt, cut to the next scene, I guess.
A feeling of dread permeates the air—oh my God. Despite saying that Mikuru needed medical attention, Itsuki seems to have brought her and Eri to what would logically be his house. With a dour expression, he lays her down on a mat; it's at this time that a person can see that Mikuru is now dressed in nothing but an oversized dress shirt, but please assume that Eri was the one to dress in that instead of anything not age appropriate happening.
"Is Nee-san g-going to b-be all right?" Eri asked.
"No. I've done all I can do, but it seems like the damage was too much to be fixed," Itsuki said, his delivery still being terrible.
"E-Eri…" Mikuru's haggard voice cut through the artificial tension.
"Nee-san!" Eri cried.
"R-Remember… everything I taught you… about justice…" We never saw anything of the sort. "I know that… things are bad right now… but just… just believe in the power of friendship. Just… do that and… and you'll find the light… just like I'm about to… Cough. Cough. Womanly fainting noises."
Mikuru closed her eyes and went lifeless. On the side, Eri started crying as much as one would expect a person to cry in this kind of situation, almost as if she was legitimately getting caught up in the intended emotion of the scene.
"Dammit!" Itsuki said, softly banging his fist against the floor a second later. "Why did this happen? What is even going on?" I want to know, too.
"I will explain it for you." Out of nowhere, Yuki appeared in Itsuki's windowsill. Is that because of magic or because of bad pacing? You decide. "Itsuki, you are in possession of dormant psychic powers capable of deciding the fate of the entire universe. I came to this planet to both awaken those abilities and convince you to side with me instead of this girl. I understand that you have a strong emotional attachment to her, but the fact of the matter is that she and the people she sides with are far too reckless. Allowing them to be in charge of the destiny of all living things is a mistake, and it will be much more beneficial to all if you allied yourself with a person who is able to think logically more often than not."
There it is, Yuki's raison d'être. That… Those are just her lines, right? I don't mean to go off script here, but she's not saying anything that's meant to have any bearing on real life, specifically a certain narrator's relationship with a certain director, right? No, I'm probably overthinking it. I have to be.
"I see. So what you are saying is that I am a key capable of opening a door to something bigger than myself," Itsuki said. "But a door is useless without a key, so if the key—by which I mean me—does nothing, than the door will forever remain closed. I understand your point, but as it currently stands, I do not see anything wrong with my current way of doing things. Is that because I think it's all for the best, or am I simply being selfish and not allowing myself to be open to other methods of operation? Hard to say, really. However, what I do know is that I am not currently in a position that would allow me to try something new, so for the time being, I must stick to the path I have laid out for myself."
Okay, that had to be metaphorical in some way.
"If that is your answer, then so be it. I will return to finish things, once and for all." It still doesn't make sense that she doesn't do it right now, but whatever. She's being dramatic or something, fine. The point is that Yuki left the building, and when she was gone, Eri—who was weirdly silent through all of that—gained a determined look on her face.
"I guess you have your work cut out for you, Eri," Itsuki said. "Do you think you can handle her?"
"I don't think I can handle her, I know I can handle her," Eri said.
Glad someone believes that.
What follows is a truly bizarre sequence of events. In spite of everything that just happened, Eri wasn't doing anything to prepare for her fight with Yuki. Rather, all she's doing is goofing off around town in a variety of ways: she's eating apple pie from a pastry shop; she's going shopping with an older man who looks like an insomniac; she's playing with another little girl and a cat; etcetera, etcetera. What happened to fighting Yuki? Is it just me, or is all of this a bunch of B-roll footage that's been thrown in to pad out the run time? That's what it feels like, at least.
Eventually, all of that came to an end, and Eri somehow ended up at a school that—for legal reasons—is most assuredly not U.A. While standing in a classroom that definitely wasn't Class 1-A, Eri found an envelope addressed to her. Upon opening it, she discovered that there was a letter inside that read, "It's time to end this."
"What's the matter, Eri? You have a pretty serious face on your look there," said the blonde man from earlier in the story. I guess he's not a zombie anymore. "I have never seen you look like this. Did you see a right winged news report or have your first period, or something?" Why was he made to say that to a child?
"The ultimate time of ultimate judgement has come, Mirio," Eri said. "For the sake of justice, I must do what I can to meet it and effortlessly crush evil, just like how nee-san taught me!"
Mirio laughed at that; very inappropriate, but not as inappropriate as his presence, in general. The two of them appear to be friends, but how and why? It seemed like the incident at the lake was their first time seeing each other, but there's nothing to indicate that they ever talked after that. Are we supposed to believe that they just became friends offscreen? The guy was partially responsible for Mikuru's death, so Eri shouldn't want to get along with him.
In spite of all of that, I guess we're just cutting to the next scene and moving on? Well, at least we're almost done.
While the letter gave no indication of where Eri needed to go, she miraculously found Yuki waiting for her on the roof. The wind was blowing her cape back as dramatically as it did when she first appeared, and for some reason, there was a cat on her shoulder. Probably not important.
"It's time to end this, Yuki!" Eri said. "For the safety of all mankind, and for the honor of my master, I will defeat you!"
"Square the fuck up, thot," Yuki said for some reason. Seriously, did no one think about how this kind of scene would look to an outsider? Whatever, the main takeaway is that their fight finally got underway. Eri fired off the same cheap-looking—but definitely powerful—energy blasts that Mikuru used, but Yuki effortlessly blocked them all. Yuki walked to Eri and tried to hit her with her wand, but Eri managed to block every strike, even though it looked like she was just flailing about at random. The two of them kept at it without end, even at the part where it seemed like a teacher came to reprimand certain people for using fireworks, and it was clear to everyone involved that the two were at a standstill. Not bad for someone who'd never done any fighting up until this point.
"This is just pathetic. Why are you dragging this fight out so much? You should have more than enough power to defeat a small child like this. Stop holding back and finish her off." All of that dialogue came from—of all people—the cat. Which, of course, has a perfectly logical explanation for it, one that will present itself at any moment.
"I am also a ventriloquist," Yuki said. There. That's the answer for that. Why else would a cat that previously exhibited no special abilities be able to talk if not because of something like that? Thinking anything else would be ludicrous, you know. "The cat who is actually me has a point. It is time for me to use deadly force."
Yuki held up her wand and pointed it at Eri. A soft ringing sound, coupled with an inexpensive flash effect, filled the area as Eri started to writhe with pain. I know that it doesn't really look like much, but trust me when I say that this is some truly deadly magic right here.
"N-No! I-I will not give up!" Eri said, slowly standing up off the ground. "N-No matter what kind of trouble comes my way, I-I will never give in, for I am the Burning Soldier of Lovely Chaos, Eri!" With the power of friendship probably, Eri resisted Yuki's attack and charged at her, her staff being swung around with reckless abandon. She tripped over a shoelace and fell flat on her face, but not before her staff grazed Yuki's leg. I say grazed, but in actuality, Eri had poured all of her power into that attack, and when the staff made contact with Yuki, that power was released in the form of a fiery explosion matching that of a nuclear bomb; that was displayed with a cheap, cartoonish effect, but please assume that the explosion was really that powerful.
"You did it, Eri! You defeated Yuki and saved the world!" With that kind of poor line delivery, it could only be Itsuki showing up out of nowhere. You'd think that he would have been involved in the climax in some way, but he wasn't even mentioned. Feels like this whole story could have happened without him.
"I knew you could do it, Eri!" Believe it or not, Mikuru was the one who said that. She's in a wheelchair, so despite what her last scene implied, it seems like she didn't actually die, but ended up crippled? How did that happen? And why did everyone act like she was dead if that wasn't the case?
The smile on Eri's face showed that she was going to ignore all of that—along with the bloody nose she got from her fall—so probably best for this narrator to do the same. The real takeaway was that the day was saved thanks to Eri.
Thank you Eri. You're a real Hero, and you're such a good girl.
"This story is a work of fiction. All character names, organizations, incidents and any other names and phenomena and such are fictional, as well; it's all made up. Even if it resembles someone, it's probably just a coincidence. Except for the commercials. Please shop at Sadara's Yummy Vegetables, Toshi Electronics, and Gunther's Guns for great deals! Stop by and buy!
"Wait, what? Again? This story is a work of fiction. All character names, organizations, incidents and any other blah blah blah, yada yada yada. Izuku, why am I saying all of this stuff? Who'd be dumb enough to think that any of this could happen in real life?"
With that, the projector sputtered out and the movie came to an end. Midoriya maintained the same mixture of emotion he had from the very beginning of the feature: shock, surprise, and indigestion. Going off of the faces of everyone in the room, it seemed like everyone was feeling something along those lines as well, Nagato and Koizumi being two exceptions.
"That was incredible, right?!" Naturally, Haruhi was a third exception. "I told you all we could it! When the SOS Brigade puts their mind to it, nothing is impossible! I can't wait to see the looks on everyone's faces at the culture festival!"
"So we're really going to show this to people?" Midoriya asked.
"Of course! How else is everyone going to see Eri-chan be both the Hero we need and the Hero we deserve? Come to think of it, the whole town's gonna want to see her in action, so we might as well start charging admission. I mean, every showing is definitely going to sell out, so I think it'd be plenty justified."
"Like anyone's gonna pay to see this crap," Bakugou said.
"Ha! You're just saying that because you're not in it."
"And why the hell is that? I spent ten hours helping you and Deku with this garbage, and you just cut out all my scenes!"
"A lot of stuff gets cut out in editing, that's how movies work, Bakugou. I don't know what to tell you other than be a better actor next time. Then again, considering the performance you gave, you'd probably have to wait for your next life to make that come to fruition."
"The fuck I will! Get the camera! I'm gonna act the shit outta you! Right here, right now!" The two of them kept at that, and it took all Midoriya had to just sit there and not try and laugh at it all.
Either way, the two of them were committed to helping out someone other than themselves, so at least that made it all worthwhile.
Hopefully.