The cold had long seeped into his bones. Not even the faint, flickering fire they'd managed to light with scrap wood could drive it away anymore. Satoshi's fingers were stiff, stained with dried blood, and shaking for reasons he didn't want to examine too closely.
Ralts worked beside him—tireless, warm, humming gently as she laid her glowing paws over a man's cracked ribs. The light from her healing pulse lit the shadows around them like soft candlelight.
Satoshi wiped his brow with a blood-stained sleeve and tried not to look at the man's face. It was easier that way. There were over three dozen people here now. Some conscious. Some barely. Some already silent.
He had done what he could. He had bandaged wounds. He had cleaned blood. He had boiled snow for water and shared what little food they'd had. He'd calmed crying children and murmured empty reassurances he wasn't sure he believed himself.
And still—He felt useless as he sat beside Ralts, watching her do what he couldn't—what no human could—and tried not to tremble.
He wanted to stop. He wanted to curl up under the thickest blanket he could find and cook something warm and sweet and safe. Something that would smell like cinnamon and rice, and pretend the world wasn't burning outside.
But he couldn't. He couldn't live with himself if he did.
He glanced at the door again. Still closed. Still no sign of EMIYA.
"Please be safe," he whispered.
Ralts chirped beside him, a soft, comforting note. Her paw touched his side again—just like she had when he first panicked.
He smiled, just a little. Then stood, rolling up his sleeves again.
"Let's check on the old man with the leg wound."
Ralts nodded, and they moved together across the shelter, soft light trailing behind them in the dark.
Even if he couldn't fight. Even if he couldn't save the world. He would stay and help the ones who could still be saved.
.
It didn't take long for the shelter to become quiet.
Too quiet. It was the kind of silence that pressed against your ears just before something awful broke it.
Satoshi was crouched beside a young boy, maybe six, whose hands were scraped raw from running barefoot over gravel. He'd given the child the last of the boiled water, and Ralts had bandaged his palms while softly humming.
"Will the man in red come back?" the boy asked, voice trembling.
Satoshi smiled—small, but steady. "He will," he said. "He's very strong."
The boy clutched a blanket Emiya brought around his shoulders tighter and nodded, eyes shining with brittle hope.
Then he heard it.
A soft, unnatural click from the far side of the shelter. Metal against concrete. A hiss, wet and sharp. Gears, maybe. Or… lungs?
Satoshi's heart dropped as he turned—and saw it. Something wrong was crawling over the edge of the trench. Small, about the size of a dog. Too many legs. Part flesh, part jagged metal. Its face was a cluster of whirring lenses and surgical tubing, and it stared at him with inhuman intent.
One of Bonesaw's creations.
The survivors started screaming as Ralts stepped in front of him, stubby arms raised protectively, but the thing didn't attack. Not yet. It just stared. Satoshi trembled. His hand reached blindly for anything—something—until his fingers closed around a rusty pipe lying against the wall.
He stepped forward, shaking, heart pounding. He wasn't a fighter, he knew, but he couldn't let this thing hurt them. However, as he raised the pipe—The thing screeched. High-pitched and piercing like a dying modem drowning in blood. It echoed off the walls of the shelter, and somewhere in the distance, other machines answered.
Satoshi's breath caught in his throat.
He'd failed.
Then he felt Ralts' paw on his side. She nodded at him—calm, determined. Then her stubby paw tapped his satchel.
The tablet.
He blinked, mind catching up. There was a file about everyone—he remembered now! He hadn't read the details when it appeared, too panicked from waking up in a new world. Hands fumbling, he yanked the tablet from the bag and pulled up the screen. His thumb tapped through menus.
Companions > Ralts (Pet) > Ability Set
He stared when instead of four moves, there was a full sheet, listed in neat little rows:
Heal Pulse. Confusion. Teleport. Light Screen. Disarming Voice.
It wasn't much, but it was enough.
Satoshi exhaled, steadying himself as he looked at Ralts.
"Okay," he whispered. "Let's make a chance."
.
It started with one.
Then three.
Then too many.
The screeching echoed from every corner as Bonesaw's twisted creations poured into the trench. Crawling over broken walls. Skittering through shadows. Climbing from holes like insects erupting from a corpse.
Satoshi stood with Ralts in front of the injured, pipe gripped in both hands. They didn't have walls And the injured didn't have powers, so they only had each other.
"Ralts—Disarming Voice!" he shouted.
Ralts let out a melodic cry, her voice trembling the air with radiant pink energy. The nearest cluster of creatures staggered, metallic limbs twitching as the emotional force of the move disrupted their systems. Several crashed into walls, convulsing.
"Light Screen!" he barked when he saw some of the creatures approaching the injured. A shimmering barrier shimmered into existence in front of the huddled survivors. The glow bent light like a heat mirage—filtering incoming fire, shielding the most vulnerable from harm.
Still, the machines kept coming.
Satoshi stepped forward and swung the pipe as one lunged at Ralts from the side. The blow landed with a crunch—metal and synthetic flesh cracking from the impact. His arms ached. His knuckles burned, but the thing stopped moving.
Another jumped the barricade. Two more followed.
"Confusion!" he shouted.
Ralts took a deep breath and let out a wave of power. The effect rippled across the field. Some of the biomechanical horrors slowed. A few stumbled mid-leap, crashing into each other. One collapsed entirely, twitching as its brain—whatever passed for it—fought the induced confusion effect.
Satoshi's ears rang. His lungs hurt. His arms shook with every swing, but he kept moving. He kicked a twitching crawler aside, then shoved another back with the pipe.
A young woman with a torn coat stood up beside him, clutching a bent crowbar. Her hands trembled, but she swung anyway, striking one of the stunned machines in the head.
Then another survivor stood.
And another.
Until a half-circle of the least injured had formed behind him, weapons improvised, teeth bared in fear and fury.
"Ralts!" Satoshi gasped. "Use Disarming voice for the ones near you, and keep using Confusion to slow them down so we can—"
He didn't have to finish. Ralts was already moving, eyes locked, voice ringing out again and again as she used Confusion in between breaks. Satoshi and the others struck with whatever they had.
The shelter became chaos.
Screams. Clangs. Glowing pink pulses.
And by the time the creatures stopped coming…
By the time the last one twitched its last…
The floor was littered with blood and broken steel.
Satoshi leaned against the wall, breathing hard. The pipe slipped from his fingers with a clatter. His sleeves were soaked, his legs weak. But he didn't fall. Ralts limped to his side, one end of her hair singed, a cut trailing along her side.
She smiled as Satoshi placed a hand on her head, heart still hammering.
"Good girl," he whispered as the last of the wreckage stopped twitching.
The survivors—no longer just huddled bodies but fighters, however shaky—now moved through the shelter with cautious urgency. Some checked the injured, others helped drag the biomechanical husks away from the makeshift sleeping areas. One or two had collapsed entirely, too overwhelmed to do more than breathe.
Satoshi wiped blood from his hands—he wasn't sure whose—and forced himself upright again. Every muscle ached. His arms were lead, and his knuckles stung with every movement.
Then he saw Ralts. She was limping toward one of the children who had gotten a scrap in the crossfire. It wasn't serious but her paws started glowing again.
"No, no—wait." He reached out gently and caught her shoulder. "Ralts… please. You need to rest."
She looked up at him, wide eyes flickering with stubborn determination. Then she opened her mouth to respond—and the sound that came out was raw. Her usually soft hum rasped like sandpaper across glass, breaking halfway through.
Her voice. All that voice attacks—those waves of Disarming Voice—had pushed her far past her limit.
Satoshi's heart clenched.
"Stop," he said softly, squeezing her paw. "You've done enough. You're tired. You're allowed to be tired."
She hesitated, limbs drooping. What he could see of her eyes, welled slightly—not with tears, but with exhaustion. Reluctant. Guilty.
"It's okay," he said gently, guiding her toward a clearer space near the fire. "Come on. Sit. Just for a moment."
She finally nodded, leaning against him as he helped her down. He rummaged through what little they had left, found the cleanest pot, and scooped snow into it with his sleeves. He lit the makeshift burner again and let the snow melt down, steam curling into the air.
He set it beside her and poured the warm water into a tin cup.
"I'm sorry," he whispered as he offered it. "I wish I had something for you to eat. Just… something better."
Ralts shook her head and smiled.
As if to say, Don't worry. You're here.
Satoshi stared at her, throat tight, then bowed his head as she sipped the water slowly, paws trembling slightly.
And for a few precious seconds, the world was quiet.
.
.
This is the last edited chapter I've got, after that there are other 15 more chapters to edit but I've got to admit that after reading all, I realized why I got stuck. Basically, I went too far back into canon, and there weren't enough missions on the catalog at that time (that weren't all lewd), so if people want me to continue this (because I've gotta admit it's a pretty fun story to edit and write), you will have to give me missions to do in the Worm world otherwise I'll go into slice of life category and it'll be really fluffy and wholesome. Which is not bad, but I wanted more solid plans because I suck at planning by my own.