(A/N)- Someone on Tumblr asked for "An AU where Shirou, a normal teenager, plays a F/SN-styled videogame and gets a massive fanboy crush on Saber (because he totally would *grins*)" and it sounded absolutely hilarious so of course I had to do it it.
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Ha ha, nope.
Bad End
The screen changed to a new picture and Shirou leaned forward to read the text.
"Okay… Her lips curl in a sneer. She raises her golden sword to point it at me," he read. "'What will you do to stop me?' she asks. I…"
The options appeared with a button push and Shirou scanned them quickly.
"Lay down my sword of course," he declared confidently, clicking that option. "I would never hurt Saber."
The screen went black and the game whirred a moment as it loaded. Shirou leaned back in his seat, relaxing.
A red slash sliced the picture, accompanied by a loud scare chord.
Shirou yelped, almost dropping his console, and peered at the text now appearing on the screen. As he read, his eyes widened more and more.
"Wait, no!" he cried. "What?! What is going—?"
Ominous eerie music piped in, accompanying the nightmarish still of a rather dramatic bloodbath, as Saber's voice continued in a cruel monotone, berating him for being weak. There was one final shot looking up at her from below.
Then the screen went dark and the GAME OVER text took her place.
"Whaaaaat?" Shirou blurted in disbelief. "BAD END?! How could that be a Bad End?! You didn't even let me talk to her!"
The tutorial piped in then, with the game's cheerful mascots sighing in disappointment at his choices and explaining what he'd done wrong.
"Oh my! Silly hero. Saber can not be reasoned with in this state."
Shirou scowled. He hugged the tiny plush Saber doll at his side a little closer. "Don't listen to them, Saber," he told her. He stroked her braided yarn hair comfortingly. "I know your heart is still good."
The tutorial sent him back to the main menu, to pick up from his last save point, but Shirou was rather burned out and still stinging from hitting the (completely nonsensical, he thought) Bad End, so he just sighed and put down the console.
"Man," he groaned. "Why is this route so hard?"
-FSN-
"Hey, Emiya!"
Emiya glanced over his shoulder, to see his classmate Issei trotting up to meet him. "Oh. Hey Issei," he replied, glumly.
"Something got you down?" Issei asked, falling into step next to the boy.
"It's nothing," he dismissed.
"Say, are you finished with that game I let you borrow yet?" Issei asked. He flicked a piece of lint off his uniform as he continued, "Shinji said he wanted to play it next." He added in a grumble, "Although I can't imagine why."
"Ah…" Shirou felt a twinge of embarassment. "Not… not yet."
"Seriously?" Issei peered at him from behind his glasses. "You've had it a month. I would've thought for sure you'd finished it by now."
Shirou rubbed a hand on the back of his head. "Well… I'm kind of stuck on the part where the magician brainwashes Saber into attacking you. I can't get past that point."
"Really? That's an easy one to get past. You have to say yes to Rin's asking you on a date that morning. Then she comes to your rescue during the battle and manages to break the spell on Saber."
"But I don't wanna do that!" Shirou whined.
Issei stopped walking a moment, tilting his head at Shirou and staring at him like his skin had turned green. "W…hyyy not?" he asked, drawing out the slyables in confusion.
Shirou looked away uncomfortably. "Well… Saber'd be mad if I did that. It'd be like I was cheating on her!"
Issei bawked at him. "But the B Route is Rin's arc," he said, thouroughly bewildered. "You have to spend at least a little time building up your relationship stats with her in order to get through the story."
"But I don't want to hurt Saber's feelings!" Shirou protested.
"Oy, Shirou…" Issei moaned, smacking a hand to his face. "It's just a game. She's not real. You can't really hurt her feelings."
"Yes you can! In the scene before the first battle it says she looks disappointed when I have to leave her to talk to Rin! And she's upset when that older classmate starts flirting with me!" Shirou was gesturing passionately, his voice getting animated and his expression unusually distressed. "I mean, I like Rin—a lot!—She's nice and she's funny and all but… Saber's just… I mean she's so…" He trailed off with a dreamy look in his eyes.
Issei was rubbing his temples now, with both hands. "I'd hate to see your reaction to the C and D Routes…" he mumbled.
"Who do I have to romance in the D Route?" Shirou asked, befuddled. "The classmate? My teacher?"
Issei muttered under his breath before finally confessing, "Rider."
"But she tried to kill me!"
"And Saber didn't?"
Shirou's face twisted in disgust. "She was brainwashed! That's different!"
Issei shook his head, starting to walk again as the first notes of the warning bell sounded. "I think you're a little too into this game, Emiya."
-FSN-
Shirou obsessively checked for replies, twitching and tapping his foot nervously. It had been twenty-four hours ago that he'd posted his plea for help with his… dilemma. Surely, someone had an answer by now.
There were three new posts on the thread. One of them was a rather detailed strategy guide for raising and lowering the relationship stats, though it warned him of the inevitable bad ends that would result from keeping certain ones too low during the invididual routes. It didn't look like he could stay with Saber without eventually gathering the rest of the harem in one way or another. Shirou could feel the awkwardness and confusion rising up in him even as he sat there. He barely knew how to handle one fictional girlfriend, how was he supposed to keep an entire bevy of them happy?
And why should I even have to? he groused to himself.
The two other posts were sympathetic apologies and admissions of zero knowledge of how to help him. Shirou sighed and closed out of the browser, gazing wistfully at his desktop picture of Saber, in her full armor dress, her hair glowing under the light of a large moon behind her.
A chat window suddenly popped up in the corner of his screen. Shirou clicked on it, curiously. It was Issei.
No luck?
Shirou put his hands to the keyboard to type out, No.
And you're sure you can't just play the game like a normal person?
Shirou sent him an angry frowny face in response.
An emoticon with a sighing animation came in reply. Fine. Issei typed. A download link appeared in the chat window.Here's a mod to artificially inflate the other girls' relationship stats. I found it deep in one of the cheats threads. You're welcome.
Shirou stared at the link a long moment and then typed,You are my favorite person right now, Issei.
I'm sure. Issei replied.Now hurry up and finish the game. Shinji's getting whiny about the wait.
