Warm.
That was the first thought that came to Shirou Emiya's mind, as he awoke from his slumber. The surface beneath his body felt rocky and hard, but also crumbly in a way. The air was very warm but not overly hot at the same time.
It was also very dark. As far as his eyes could see, there were no obvious light sources in the area. Only when reinforcing his eyes was he finally able to make out details in the terrain around him. The entire place seemed to be covered with black rock and stone, and it seemed to stretch on forever, with no end in sight.
Picking himself up from the floor, Shirou tried to recollect his bearings. Where am I? What happened?
The last thing he could remember was the burning sensation as he recreated the crystallization of mankind's wishes and dreams, Excalibur: The Sword of Promised Victory.
The Noble Phantasm of his Servant, Saber, also known as King Arthur.
The Fifth Holy Grail War was a bloody affair that resulted in countless deaths in the city of Fuyuki, where one of his most important companions, Sakura Matou, had become corrupted by the Holy Grail, a wish-granting device that was supposed to be the goal of the entire war. However, it had secretly become tainted in a past war, and everything had gone to hell in the most recent one.
As Sakura rampaged and caused destruction, Shirou was forced into battle with a corrupted Saber, and managed to defeat and release her from the world with the help of Rider. He had proceeded to save both Sakura and her sister, Rin Tohsaka, against all odds.
However, to truly end the war for real, he had to create a miracle. And he had the method right within him.
By recreating the majestic power of Excalibur, the strongest Holy Sword in existence, he was able to destroy the Great Holy Grail, preventing Avenger from ever becoming reborn. Unfortunately, projecting an existence such as Excalibur came at the price of his remaining life. As his body functions failed and his consciousness faded, he had simply felt happiness at being able to save his friends and the rest of Fuyuki from death.
Then, after all of that, shouldn't I be dead? By all means, the life of Shirou Emiya should have finished right then and there. However, as impossible as it might seem to be, Shirou Emiya still felt alive and well. Now, the question was: where was he? And how had he gotten here?
This definitely isn't where the Greater Grail was. And this sure doesn't feel like the afterlife. Deciding that he had nothing else to do but look around, Shirou started to walk forwards in search of anything that would give him some pointers.
After half an hour of rock and more rock, there were still no signs of anything new. Dark rock still stretched as far as he could see, and the air was still warm.
"Should I take a break or something?" Shirou asked himself aloud.
Crack.
Suddenly, he heard the sound of something hitting the ground. "Hm?"
The sound originated from his left. Initially cautious of whether he should go and take a look or not, he decided that, since there did not seem to be anything else for him to do besides look, he would find out what had made that sound.
Crack.
Clink.
Crack.
The sounds continued as Shirou walked in their general direction. Everytime he thought that he had reached where the sound had come from, another sound occurred further away, making him continue his search for the culprit.
After what felt like hours of repeating this cycle, Shirou found the entrance to some sort of cave. It was too dark to see any deeper inside of it, even with his reinforced eyes. The sounds from earlier had finally stopped, meaning that whoever was making them was likely within the cavern. I know that this is probably a stupid idea, but… with nothing else to do, I guess I'll be going in. While making sure to stay on alert for any unknown threats, Shirou took his first steps inside.
Traversing the long corridor took quite a while, but eventually he stepped out into a large cavern.
Narrowing his eyes, Shirou quickly examined the area. From the various signs that he could see, there had been people here recently. Small rocks were more numerous on the edges of the cavern, with the middle of the clearing having few stones lying about. There were also faint traces of grooves in the ground. However, there was nobody inside waiting for him as he was expecting.
Due to being so invested in his examination and still in a state of slight confusion from his situation, Shirou did not notice the sound of something being rolled behind him until it was too late to hide.
"Unyu? Hey, Orin, what's that over there?" A feminine voice spoke up. "It looks like one of these corpses, but it's standing up."
"Huh? That can't be right." Another voice said aloud. "Wait, what? There really is something up ahead!"
Shirou snapped his head around and tensed his muscles in caution. It looks like his suspicions were correct; people did come through here regularly. Now, the question was, who are they, and what kind of people did he just encounter?
Down the pathway were two female figures. One of them had long dark brown hair tied up with a very large green ribbon. She was wearing a white shirt with a green skirt. Unexpectedly, a lush pair of black wings were attached to her upper back. The second figure had fiery red hair tied into twin braids by small black ribbons. She was sporting a frilly black-green dress, and black cat ears sat on the top of her head. She was also in the midst of pushing a wheelbarrow filled with… is that an arm he's seeing?
"I'm sorry about this, but before you take another step forward, I'm going to need to know who you are." Shirou stated as calmly as he could. "I just woke up here and have no clue where I am, so I apologize if I'm a little too careful."
"Hm? Just woke up here without knowing where you are? I think I've heard something like that before." The lady with the wings put a finger under her chin. "Hey, Orin, do you know anything?"
"Me? Why should I… no wait, I think I remember Lady Satori teaching me something like it. Something about, uh, humans being spirited away end ending up in Gensokyo?" The girl with the cat girls stared at Shirou in curiosity. "This isn't exactly a part of Gensokyo, though. I don't even think there normally are supposed to be any other people around here anymore, ever since criminals stopped being banished to this place."
Banished? Criminals? Shirou unconsciously took a single step back. This really doesn't sound good.
"Then who could this be? He doesn't look like a youkai. Is he a ghost?" The green ribbon girl tilted her head to the side.
"Nah, he's definitely not a spirit either. Does that mean... he's a living human who somehow ended up in the Remains of Blazing Hell?"
Shirou's eyes widened in shock. "Hell? Are you telling me this is seriously Hell?"
"Oh, I mean, I guess it's technically Hell." The catgirl waved her hand. "But it's actually the former Hell. The Hell that you're probably thinking of moved to a different area a while ago, so don't worry about that."
"Unyu? I feel lost right now." The winged girl looked at Shirou in confusion. "So are you saying that a normal human somehow made his way here? The Surface is pretty far away though."
"It might be because of that Gap Youkai i've heard Lady Satori mention about a few times in the past. She likes to bring over random humans from the Outside into Gensokyo and see how long they last over there." The catgirl shook her head. "But this is the Underworld, and I've never heard of her ever bringing over someone here. I think we should bring him to see Lady Satori, since this hasn't happened before. Let me first finish doing my job, then we'll head back. But, man, it's unfortunate that he's still alive, he would look really good as a corpse."
Shirou stiffened upon hearing that. "What?" He narrowed his eyes and lowered his posture a little. "What are you trying to say?"
"Oh, me? Oh, you don't have to worry about anything." The catgirl smiled. "My job around here is to carry away corpses, and I really, really, really love doing it! But it's not like you're on the verge of death or anything, so you don't need to be scared of me carrying you away or anything. In fact, I think you ended up being really lucky! If you had woken up somewhere else, you might have gotten eaten instead by a hungry youkai. The oni would probably force you to drink with them, though."
"Eaten? Youkai? Alright, I'm really lost right now." Shirou took another step back. "Just so I know, are you two going to be dangerous to me in any sort of way?"
"Nah, we're fine. Okuu, or Utsuho, over here only eats already dead corpses, while I'm only interested in carrying away corpses. Since you're not close to death or anything, there's no real reason for us to hurt you."
Eating corpses? Shirou continued being cautious. "That info doesn't really help with my situation. What exactly are you two?"
"Oh, me, me!" The winged girl raised her hand in excitement. "I'm Utsuho, a hell raven youkai! And this is Rin, a kasha youkai! And we're both the pets of Lady Satori!"
"Yeah, yeah, as you can sort of see, Okuu over here is sort of a birdbrain." Ignoring Utsuho's sudden 'Hey!', Rin continued. "Anyways, yeah, I'm Rin and that's Utsuho. Utsuho's just here to help me out with my job of collecting corpses since she's got nothing better to do today." Rin pointed to the contents of her wheelbarrow, which Shirou wisely chose to not examine closely. "I go around and collect any human corpses that I find around the Underworld. Even though there haven't been any new condemned here in a long while, there's still enough bodies left over from before to power the Hell of Blazing Fires. And before you ask why we need human corpses to power this place, it's just how everything works around here."
"Anyways, now that you know us, who're you?" Utsuho asked questioningly. "You seem like a really interesting human. Aren't you supposed to hate us or something?"
Taking a deep breath, Shirou forced his muscles to relax as he looked up into the eyes of the ribboned hell raven. Her dark brown eyes were pure and full of curiosity, with little malice to be seen. Then, with a small smile, he spoke the words that would kick off one of the oddest relationships ever seen in the Underworld.
"My name is Shirou Emiya, a human being. Pleased to meet you."
This takes place pre-Subterranean Animism. SA will still happen soon enough (with changes due to Shirou being here of course), but for now this is going to start before the events of the game.
This Shirou is HF Shirou, but there'll probably be some differences in this version as I continue writing. And please remember that this is just fanfiction, so unless someone is hugely out-of-character, the character portrayals should all be alright.