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Fate/Helltaker

She was unabashedly beautiful, with snow-white skin and hair the color of moonlight. Her eyes shone like rubies. Her dress was pure white trimmed with gold. An easy smile sat on soft, noble features. She sort of reminded Emiya Shirou of the girl that summoned Berserker…but grown.

She waved happily towards the boy, yet against all common sense a wave of disgust rolled through Shirou. Everywhere around them was a void. Pitch black but swimming with viscous, oily clouds that repeatedly shimmered with an unnatural light that tinted the surroundings with a repulsive off-red sheen. It all pushed Shirou to flee, to run, to get as far away as possible before the broken essence of this world consumed him in its never ending spiral of negativity.

The woman was somehow the worst of the lot.

Swallowing heavily, Shirou's arms were tense at his side seconds away from Tracing new blades even with his magical power at an astonishing low. His Circuits burned something fierce beneath his flesh and the link between himself and Rin had vanished. A bit of blood dribbled down his right arm, the tattered remains of his sleeve slowly turning crimson from when he tried to remove the limb to free himself from the Servant's chains, dripping from stained fingertips to the dark floor below.

He hadn't been fast enough before the King of Kings, amplified by the gravitational force of the Grail's last ditch effort to keep itself anchored, dragged Shirou into the void attempting to free himself. Before the razor sharp blade had barely sliced beyond the surface of his flesh he was ripped off his feet and…wound up here.

Wherever here was, but Shirou assumed it had something to do with Grail.

"Hello Shirou," the stranger said with a gentle voice that paradoxically grated at the redhead's ears.

"Who are you?" Shirou shot back. "Where is Gilgamesh?"

"Oh you don't have to worry about him anymore. He wasted the gift he was given and so he's no longer around." Shirou continued to stare and she sighed demurely, placing a slender hand against her cheek while she tilted her head. "Kiri never told you, did he? That silly man. How rude of him to never bring up your mother. We fought together in the Fourth Holy Grail War, had a wonderful daughter together, and then he tossed me away for his own goals like everything else in his life. I mean really, taking in another child after abandoning Illyasveil, only for him to turn you into a broken excuse for a human being just like him?"

She began to walk with slow and measured steps, not once taking her eyes off of Shirou. The woman circled him like a shark as her bare feet padded against the odd flooring. Shirou never allowed her into a blind spot before she eventually returned to her original position.

Despite his outward expression the words had rattled the magus somewhat. He knew basically nothing about Kiritsugu's past besides the fact he was a magus…nothing about family, certainly. So that poor girl that called him brother out of the blue and threatened to kill him. That was Illyasveil? She certainly resembled this woman but…shouldn't she have been older? The physical age didn't add up.

And…

"It doesn't matter."

Because she was gone at the hands of the King of Kings.

Instead of any sort of negative reaction, her teasing grin sharpened at Shirou's dismissal. "Oh? You're just as cruel as your father I see. How can you say such a thing?"

With a bit of effort and a small jump in the heat beneath his skin, a simple nameless longsword appeared in his hand. "I was dragged inside the hole made by the Holy Grail and before that Gilgamesh couldn't help but gloat about how it's been overtaken by a curse. Gilgamesh was a lot of things but he was no liar. Maybe you are this woman you say you are, but just being near you makes my skin crawl in ways I can't describe. I've never met her before but your acting skills could use a bit of work, Angra Mainyu."

…

…

And then she threw back her head and laughed. The area around them pulsed grotesquely with every breath, until she finally managed to get herself back under control, cheeks red from the unrestrained laughter. Then she began to clap as inky black liquid began to drip down her cheeks like tears. It was like day and night as her mannerisms abandoned acting 'dainty and womanly' for something far less refined.

"You really do have a brain in there despite being a robot. Ol' Kiri managed to figure it out too when I took the face of his wife after she was dragged into the Grail and tried to corrupt him, even snapped my thin little neck and then destroyed the physical representation of the Grail once he was free. I mean, I destroyed everything around him as thanks but you know how it is. Anyways…congratulations! Since you're here means you're the winner of the Fifth Holy Grail War! So what's your wish? Fame? Fortune? You want daddy back?" Angra Mainyu rapped her knuckles against her head. "Oh duh! You wanna be a hero!"

"Just send me back! I don't want anything to do with you!"

"Ugh…fine."

She snapped her fingers, and Shirou felt his consciousness split before folding in on itself and winking out of existence. The shock on his face was a wonderful parting gift as she did exactly as he wished.

Angra Mainyu visibly wilted at the massive drop in mana before heaving a sigh. There went all the remaining energy she had gathered before that blasted Servant destroyed her physical representation…but it was worth it. Since the Grail was destroyed — again!—but a 'wish' was granted, it'd be another half-century before things kicked off once more. The boy was gone for good, and the technical winner of the Fifth Holy Grail War would either be an old crone or dead by the time things started rolling, hopefully unable to interfere again.

It was only a matter of time before Angra Mainyu, the most pitiful Avenger, was finally free to corrupt the world with All The World's Evils…

Before the tainted facsimile of Irisveil von Einzbern faded away to hibernate, she vaguely wondered exactly where the Grail had sent Emiya Shirou. All she knew was that he likely got a good look at Akasha before continuing on his way.

After all…she did send him back as requested…but it was back to where all souls tainted by sin are expected to go. He was, after all, a human with a Reality Marble. A mortal entertaining the awesome power of a god creating a world. And what was more sacrilegious than a mere mortal believing themself amongst the true divine?

An agonizing scream ripped through the air. Two women, locked in battle, had finally reached its long-awaited climax. The one in red grinned maliciously as her foe fell clutching at the wounded and bloody expanse of her eyes amongst the red soot, smokey atmosphere, and tangible taint of iron on the tongue around the River Phlegethon. The heat of the boiling, burning liquid made the air shimmer and cloud over while the screams of the demonic refuse flooding the area erupted unceasingly…yet Beelzebub, Lord of Flies, could see only the trembling form of her most audacious enemy as though it were as clear as the skies of Heaven itself.

"This is what you get! To rebel against your leader! To take the side of that usurping Fallen bitch!" The demon in the guise of a shapely woman laughed uproariously, her maniacal humor filling the air like the buzzing of a million flies. "Now this is what I truly call justice!"

Her laughter continued as Beelzebub lorded her apparent victory over her enemy. This had been a long time coming given their…prior relationship. Lucifer Morningstar, freshly corrupted by the induction of Sin to the world, had been like a lost little lamb when she came tumbling into Hell…only for this Greater Demon, stronger and more conscious than all the other meandering splinters of darkness that crawled from within the fiery cracks of Hell itself, had shown an emotion otherwise unknown in such a terrible place that even surprised herself: compassion.

But there was no more compassion to be found in Beelzebub, not anymore. Not when Lucifer became too greedy and spit in the face of everything Beelzebub had ever granted her. Not when that foul woman had whispered her honeyed words into the ears of countless other demons and turned them against their master.

Multiple magical circles spun into existence, glowing with a neon fluorescence of humming energy. All mana in the immediate area vanished, drawn into the spellcraft so quickly it left behind an explosive decompression as air tried to fill the infinitesimally small spaces left behind by the errant flecks of mana. It was why Beelzebub failed to hear the incoming attack. So sure of herself, so high on the idea that Lucifer's last remaining enforcer was on her knees and unable to fight back, the arrogance of the Lord of Flies saw her lower her guard.

It sliced through the miasmic cloud of dark energy with unnatural grace, like an Olympic diver piercing the surface of the pool with nary a wave. A strange blade, as of yet unfamiliar to this world's Root, though radically altered to appear more like an arrow than a sword, was milliseconds from piercing Beelzebub's heart when the woman finally reacted to a disturbance and only just managed to raise a hand to halt its trajectory. It slid through reinforced, demonic flesh and bone with an ease Beelzebub could not comprehend even as she flexed her palm and deflected the projectile's momentum enough to stop it dead.

Yet her confusion mounted as the sword immediately burned her. Not enough to eradicate her essence like the Light of the Lord, but akin to a spark drawn from the inferno. The Holy energy within ate away at her body from where it touched like acid…but as she reached up to pull it free, her arm began to list backwards. Her entire body was pushed back, and away, and as her senses readjusted to the enhanced perception she drew upon to stop the arrow to realize she never actually stopped the arrow.

All the force behind it was still pushing into her with an ungodly effort.

Time returned to normal, and Beelzebub shrieked as she was violently thrown backwards and through the nearest hill of burning skeletons and demonic rejects to parts unknown.

The other woman, still clutching at her damaged face, could do nothing but stagger to her feet in confusion after a few moments of (for the area) relatively dead silence. No more cackling of the despot as Beelzebub believed it was her victory. Just…nothing. So what now? Even horribly blinded, the woman was ready to keep fighting. But this?...had Lucifer finally caught up? Or had another demon finally stepped out of their hidey-holes to throw down? She could hear a heavy 'thump' followed by the hiss of something dragging through the sandy soil, over and over, like a body limping its way forward.

Her mysterious savior's breathing was heavy. There was a deeper quality to it, unlike when one of the few Greater Demons still around would shed the human-like form they all had taken to using while in Hell and return to the avatar of Sin they conceptualized.

"H-hey," she managed to call out, finally opening her pain-ridden eye sockets only to see nothing but the black void.

Emiya Shirou's lips twisted in quiet anger at seeing the blank stare and glassy pupils beyond the bloodridden sheen dripping down the woman's face. He had no idea where he was or what was going on, though his new surroundings seemed weirdly familiar, like something he had never witnessed personally but once described to him. The air was incredibly thin but the mana was staggering! It felt like his circuits were ready to burst just from breathing normally!

He heard a scream on the foul wind and reacted immediately. Reinforcing his own eyes he managed to hone in on a sight nearly a mile away. Two people, one looming over the other, drawing upon magical circles that reminded Shirou far too much of Caster's techniques. Without a second thought he Traced the most powerful bow he could think—that damn bow, something he never could have created before but sat within UBW all the same—and Traced an equally impossible sword to Alter and fire with his inexperience in utilizing a reality Marble outside his own soul.

"I am the bone of my sword: Ascalon!"

The moment the bowstring scraped at his finger and the arrow-blade released, Shirou was off and running. But the closer he drew the more his sudden fit of stamina disappeared and all the aches and wounds of the day returned in full force. His legs were like lead. His right arm now hung at his side, effectively useless after one fired projectile. Archer's abnormal bow was now an oddly shaped walking stick, but the magus dragged himself forward all the same.

The fallen woman managed to rise as he eventually drew closer. She spoke, but Shirou could barely catch his own breath. He licked at his dry lips and tried to form a word only to topple forward.

She caught him in her arms despite the apparent disability and all the space still between them. Shirou grimaced as the boy felt her hands trail against his body with far too familiarity, but she chuckled weakly as if sensing his discomfort.

"Sorry, sorry! Was trying to see if you felt like anyone I know!" Her face drew towards his, squinting as if she was trying to force through the blindness. "Anyways, you saved my life but I have no idea who you are. What's your name? You have to be working under Lucy if it was Beel you sent packing. I know I weakened her already but…wow."

"Emiya…Shirou," he managed to say after a moment. "You were in…trouble."

"That's a strange name. Well, I'm not complaining. You have my thanks. Beel is the last obstacle in our way. If she goes down, this war will finally come to an end."

"I don't know…what's going on…but if it ends the…fighting…I'll help."

"I can't even see and I can tell you're worse off than me." The poor demon that stepped in to save her life must have been put through the ringer. His magical might was low, but to have sent Beelzebub flying…more questions for later. "Catch your breath first, you sound like you're about to fall over there, hero."

Shirou blue screened for a moment as her words rolled around in his skull. "A…hero?"

"Well of course. There was enough energy in that last spell to erase me and half the Phlegethon if Beel let it loose. My fault really; I kept her from utilizing any higher magic until she pulled a fast one on me. If you hadn't done…whatever it was you did, I wouldn't be here anymore and Beel'd have a straight shot at Lucy."

"A hero?"

She chuckled and poked Shirou in the cheek with a bloody hand encased in fingerless padded gloves. "Can't get over that, huh? I suppose it's not every day a lesser demon saves the High Prosecutor of Hell."

That certainly broke Shirou from his trance. "What?"

"Wow. You must really be new. I'm Justice, High Prosecutor."

She waited for the surprised intake of breath or even a few stuttering sentences kowtowing to her position. Even the freshly born demons instinctively knew nowadays just what it meant to be the High Prosecutor, even if it had taken millennia for such a thing to be needed and ingrained into the essence of Hell itself. And to her utter surprise the boy in her arms began to shake, trembling with half-choked laughter.

…

"Are…you okay?"

Oh. Shirou was just fine…

Damn the Grail for twisting his greatest desire on its head.

A hero of Justice indeed.

Merry late Xmas and all the other holiday thingies. Between the shitty weather messing up my sinuses, general malaise, and a lack of an urge to write it took awhile to finally make something to put out there. Bad excuses, I know. But I kinda got stuck on this one even though the first half came out with relative ease.

The idea rather intrigues me. Helltaker was a fun game even though I failed to beat the final level of Examtaker, and the way it took off in popularity was rather surprising for a free indie game, but kudos to vanripper for coming up with something both simplistic yet difficult that certainly seemed to reverberate with the masses.

I mean 3 years old and it's already got several Nendoroids out and a fighting fan game in the works. Not bad.

Anyways…Shirou accidentally gets his wish from the Grail and reaches his dream, even if it's more about twisting the meaning of the thing. That's about it. The story from this point on I haven't thought through, although I would certainly think about returning to it one day if I ever got the urge.

I only thought of the idea because of a play on words about Shirou's dream…but inspiration has come from odder places.