*claps hands*

Y'all seem to be on board for this remake, so let us start the story proper!

Mild notes for the actual pre-story intro.

Although it is based off the older version of this fic, Striving For Eden will be a lot different from Hell's Iron Blooded Assistant, more so how it's much less serious, with shorter chapters and more crack-esc, faster paced writing. Personally I just thought the old one took itself too seriously, and thanks to some new info, courtesy of the actual episodes themselves, the story beats will be very different from the older version.

There will be official stuff from the show mixed in with Headcanons by yours truly to spice things up.

Helluva Boss stuff will appear on occasion, though it won't be frequent. This is a Hazbin/IBO fic, after all.

Oh and Renn isn't proofreading any of this. All this madness comes from me and me alone. This means that chapters will be pushed out at a faster rate, albeit at a lower quality than, say, Tekketsu No Kyojin, if that means anything.

Aaaaaaad that's all, really. Do enjoy this awkward revival, I guess?

Mikazuki Augus didn't know what had awaited him upon his death.

He never did believe in the concept of an afterlife, after all, and by all accounts, Tekkadan had always believed that upon dying, they would be reincarnated once more. They believed as such… and as a result, he believed so as well.

And so, now, as he floated within the confines of what could only charitably be described as an infinite void of darkness, the Ace Pilot of Tekkadan could only look around, confused, at where he was. The Hell was going on…? His body had an oddly misty feel to it, with there being a bright green glow emitting from beneath his skin, and strangely enough, he could not speak.

'What's going-'

That thought from Mikazuki was almost immediately cut short, however, as he felt something constricting his body. Widening his eyes in surprise at this, the boy scowled as he struggled to free himself from this invisible grasp, albeit to little avail, and as he did so, his pupils dilated as the darkness around him suddenly gave way to a multitude of otherworldly eyes that quite literally emerged out of nowhere to glare down at him.

Eyes devoid of love… eyes devoid of care, they judged him with cold, harsh fury as they closed in on him from all directions, and moments later, the voices came.

He is but a sinful child. He deserves not the gates of Heaven.

The blood he has spilled could dye the sea red once more. It is unfathomable…

A child though he may be, his sinfulness cannot be understated. Were it up to me, his soul would not even be allowed into the afterlife.

Cast him down.

Let him burn.

A child though he may be.

He is one that the depths yearn.

Mikazuki didn't understand any of what was being said. So many were speaking, voices overlapped with one another, and the echo… it hurt his ears, but even so, one by one, the eyes began to shut, and before long, only he remained in the void… with there being a strange, cracking sound echoing through its vast expense as the seconds ticked by.

And moments later…

… he was cast out of purgatory, with the judgement of his sinful soul having come to its end.

The judgement of souls was rarely ever a grand spectacle, but his was a sole exception to this rule. Mikazuki Augus was young, very young, and yet… the sins… the atrocities committed by him and the amount of lives he had taken in the name of a selfish cause, it had caught the eye of a few higher ranking angels of Heaven, and although they had pitied him at first, they knew that he held no remorse for what he had done, and as such, as with so many others in the past they made the decision to bar him from the gates of their realm and sentence him to the brimstone below.

Even the Exterminators would not require someone so sinful amidst their ranks, regardless of how efficient he could be.

Whatever the case, however, Mikazuki ultimately awoke, with him finding himself within the very bowels of Hell, groaning softly to himself as he did so. His body felt heavy, and movement felt odd and sluggish. His eyes required a lot of effort to simply open, or so it would seem, as Mika's gaze eventually lit up and focused in on his surroundings, and when it had done so, the first thing that he saw, aside from the weirdly rocky terrain and the shockingly red scenery around him, was a giant neon sign that read…

WELCOME TO HELL

And upon seeing it, the boy realized that reincarnation wasn't as much of a possibility as he had initially thought.

His body was different. It took him all but five seconds to realize this, but when he did, Mikazuki had paused momentarily to process the new form he had taken.

To put it bluntly… Mikazuki was now… a machine. Gears and pistons sat in place of what used to be flesh and bone, and what was once unmovable could be moved about once more. It was a miracle in the strangest of ways, though to be made out of metal… it was an odd thing to experience, to say the least.

No wonder everything felt heavier than it used to, Mikazuki thought. Lifting his arms up as they creaked heavily against the newly formed joints of his form, the boy looked at them slowly as he flexed the new set of fingers he had been cursed with. Sharpened to cruel points and almost as flexible as his old hands, they were adequate enough, he supposed. Beyond that, his arm greatly resembled the innermost frame of his old Mobile Suit, Barbatos, albeit prior to its reformatting into its Lupus state.

Exposed pipes and joints could be seen on his arm, all of which were meant to replicate the muscles and tendons of a human's body. Gundams were made to be as close to a human's form as possible, after all, which was a plus… especially when one was forced to have them as literal limbs whilst down in the bowels of Hell.

Rather faintly, Mikazuki could see his reflection staring right back at him via the factory fresh metal of his arm, and in truth, it surprised him. His head in particular looked mostly like how it was prior to his death, though a small part of him knew that it was nothing more than a facade. A layer of fake flesh covered what was no doubt a humanoid endoskeleton that was hidden beneath it, and his eyes glowed a neutral blue hue that reflected brilliantly off the metal surface. Atop his head was a mop of fake hair, composed of a massive bundle of extra thin wires, all of which were positioned to look like his old hairstyle from back when he was still a mortal.

Bringing a hand up to his face, Mikazuki felt surprised to know that he could still feel through the fake skin atop it, though he wasn't about to complain. If he really was in Hell, then to keep anyone of his senses was a miracle all onto itself!

His body and legs, like his arms, were all but carbon copies of his Gundam's inner frame. His torso in particular was a hunk of metal with surprising flexibility with a waist that consisted of a curved rod of metal that connected it to Mikazuki's waist. Twin auxiliary pipes helped keep his waist stable, very much like the waist of his Gundam.

A small part of Mikazuki felt… bummed that his toned abs had been replaced in favour of his Gundam's abdomen, though he didn't think much of it as he lifted his new legs up for examination.

Exposed gunmetal thighs with matching shins, with pistons on the back of his shins that provided circulation to the boy's new joints… it was all quite intriguing, to say the least. His feet looked… odd, though that was just the nature of a Gundam's foot, he supposed, and with a soft sigh, Mikazuki made an attempt to stand up…

… only to immediately fall flat on his face as the sensation of standing as a whole still felt completely foreign to him. Grumbling softly to himself, the former pilot pushed himself off the ground with his arms, an act that took more time than he wanted to admit thanks to his inexperience with all this, and attempted to stand once more, and although he did manage to remain upright for a few moments this time, Mikazuki ended up falling flat onto his back moments later, much to his chagrin.

'Dammit,' thought Mikazuki, with him scowling lightly to himself as he rolled over onto his stomach, and thereafter, he began to awkwardly drag himself along the dirt. The sharpened digits of his new hands made it easy for him to grab ahold of the ground beneath him as he dragged himself forwards, and although he had no real destination in mind, he ended up dragging himself towards the massive WELCOME TO HELL sign.

That in itself turned out to be a good idea, even if it did take some time, as the former pilot found a board situated near the base of the sign. There were various words and some pamphlets stuck onto it, things that he couldn't see or read from his spot on the ground, so with some effort, he gripped onto the side of the board and lifted himself up that way.

After falling back down a few times, Mikazuki was finally able to stand upright with some effort, and as he leaned against the board for support, the former pilot reached for one of the pamphlets and read its contents. There wasn't much of note to be read on it, though it did welcome Mikazuki to Hell and asked for him to enjoy his stay. It had also stated that Mika was currently in an area known as Damnation Peak, which was, allegedly, where all Sinners arrived at when barred from the pearly white gates.

'What's a Sinner?' thought Mikazuki absentmindedly before shrugging and moving on.

From what he could gather, the stronger a new Sinner's soul was when they had arrived, the higher up upon Damnation Peak they would be upon arriving in Hell. Mikazuki himself would've wondered about just how high he currently was if he cared, though as things were now, he remained focused on figuring out how he could get out of here. Maybe escape Hell? Was that possible? He'd like to see Atra and Kudelia again, honestly, and if he could break some rules about the afterlife just to do so, he'd be fine with it.

According to the pamphlet, which didn't say anything about escaping Hell… bummer, Damnation Peak was but a day's walk from Pentagram City, the capital of Hell's Pride Ring, and there were directions that were scribbled upon the map that would lead Mikazuki there. The details all boiled down to him just heading north, which was confusing as there wasn't a compass to be seen, though he was able to bypass that issue when he heard an explosion go off nearby, prompting him to turn towards its general direction all the while.

Of course, he released the board upon doing this, which, in turn, caused him to fall forwards and flat onto his face, much to his chagrin, though moments later, he began dragging himself towards the direction of the explosion and peered over one of Damnation Peak's many edges, where he saw…

'Ah.'

So that's why they called it Pentagram City, huh? In the shape of a Pentagram with various districts divided up between its surface, the Capital of the Pride Ring was very difficult to miss, and considering the multitude of explosions marring its surface, he reckoned that it was a rambunctious place indeed.

Truthfully, Mikazuki didn't know if it was the safest place to reside in, especially considering how, if he focused, he could hear some of the screams from even here, but all the same, he had, admittedly, lived in horrible conditions prior, and by all accounts, he could probably do so again.

Now then, he just needed to find a way to get down from Damnation Peak and over to Pentagram City to begin with… peering down the edge of the cliff he was laying on, Mikazuki shuddered at the long tumble he'd have to endure if he fell; he'd have to find an alternate way down there, he reckoned, and so, with a soft sigh, he moved on to do just that.

Along the way, Mikazuki continued to try and walk on his own two feet.

He would fail, of course. But failure was always the greatest of teachers, and even if he were many things, a quitter, Mikazuki was not.

And so, he tried and tried and tried again to stand upon his own two feet, with him sometimes falling off a cliff or even rolling down the side of one whenever he fell, though his metal skeleton was a sturdy one that kept him from feeling most of the injuries, and no matter how many times he failed, Mikazuki himself outright refused to give up until he could learn how to do something so basic in his new body.

By the time he had reached the base of Damnation Peak, annoyed and with a multitude of scratches on his initially pristine body, Mikazuki Augus was finally standing atop his new pair of legs, and with that small victory, the young Sinner began to make his way over to Pentagram City.