Nightmare Fuel / Fate/stay night

Warning! Spoilers Off applies to Nightmare Fuel pages.

She's clearly enjoying this. ^note The person in the picture is Dark Sakura, holding what's left of Zouken Matou.

Ah, Fate/stay night. Kinoko Nasu comes close to H. P. Lovecraft in creating both Humanoid Abominations and Body Horror in his settings. The bad endings that you can get range from depressing and squicky to pure, undiluted Nightmare Fuel. Have fun sitting through forty bad endings to get 100% Completion...

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Fate

• The first bad end you can get, "Forest of No Return", is a doozy: simply put, you're reduced to a head and torso by Illya's Servant Berserker, cursed by Illya so that you can't die or lose consciousness unless your head is destroyed, and then taken captive to be tortured by her for eternity. And all because you chose not to be Saber's Master and fight in the Holy Grail War. Well, so much for free will. It happens because you don't have Saber to defend you, but as Illya cheerfully explains, she really just felt like doing it. The fact that poor Shirou is being reduced to a disembodied head doomed to eternal suffering for what is, essentially, Illya's vague whim just makes it a million times worse...
  • A few scenes before after you make this choice, Kotomine assures you that no sane Master will attack you if you bow out of the Holy Grail War. But what he neglects to mention is that few Masters in this war are sane, and Illya is anything but sane.
• According to the narrative, Shirou is only connected to his lower body by his half-snapped spine after jumping in front of Berserker's attack.
  • While doing this is very much an insane and suicidal move, not doing this gets you Bad End 2, "Girl Rhapsody". In this Bad End, Shirou gets the hell away from Berserker, only to lose Rin to the rampaging beast, head to the church, and then get run down and severely wounded by Berserker, whereas Illya decides to torture him in place of his father Kiritsugu.
• Bad End 9 "Rafflesia Umbrella" involves Rider kicking Shirou out the window. If Shirou doesn't use a Command Spell to summon Saber to save himself, he lands on the ground and dies due to multiple swords bursting out from his body.
• The final confrontation with Illya on Day 11 starts off with her kidnapping Shirou, knocking him out with her Hypnotic Eyes. When he wakes up, he finds he's tied to a chair in Illya's castle and she tells Shirou to "be mine." While she is sitting on his lap enthusiastically, with the implication she's going to rape him, and in fact there was a sex scene planned that was thankfully dropped. The player has the option of saying no or giving an insincere "yes", while Shirou is scarred out of his wits, knowing that Illya is likely to kill him if she doesn't like his answer. Saying no continues the route, where Illya gets jealous and leaves to kill Rin and Saber. If Shirou says "yes" just to buy time to weasel his way out of danger, Illya's reaction is cute at first, until she realizes that Shirou was lying. Shirou learns the hard way that question was a magic where agreeing to Illya's request gave her control over him, and despite not meaning his answer, she got enough control over him to force him to agree to be hers and actually mean it. After this she has his soul taken from his body and is implied to have been used as either Illya's boytoy or a disposable pawn to win the Grail War with.
• Caster has three Bad Ends in this route alone, two of which involve the use of Rule Breaker. Rule Breaker acts to destroy and nullify any kind of Magecraft, and in particular allows Caster to sever the contract between Servant and Master, essentially allowing Caster to steal control of a Servant from said Master, which Caster uses to turn Saber against Shirou. The other Bad End involves Caster cutting off Shirou's arm for his Command Spells after transporting him into her clutches with a transference spell.
• Caster's death by Gilgamesh. The King of Heroes rains a storm of Noble Phantasms upon her, one of which is an axe lodged into her head, until she's a "mountain of red meat" as Shirou describes. Worse yet, she survives this. And Gilgamesh doesn't let up from there, firing more of his arsenal into her. Caster is in so much pain that she attempts to beg for mercy and starts Laughing Mad until she finally dies. Even as sadistic as Caster can be, that is not a good way to go.
  • Caster's screams and whimpering, along with the blood-red image of her being skewered by Gilgamesh's hail of swords.
• Day 15 Church Basement. Shirou finds the orphaned children from the fire ten years ago still alive, but having undergone severe Body Horror for the sake of providing Gilgamesh with mana.
  • Which is worse when considering Shirou was also one of the orphaned children from the fire and should have been taken with the rest to be handled by the church except that Kiritsugu offered to adopt him. Had Kiritsugu not made the offer or had Shirou turned him down, he could very well have ended up as one of those poor souls in the basement. Which only serves to signify just how evil Kotomine Kirei truly is.
• The final episode of the anime starts off with a blue screen, then turns into a black screen with a red kanji for die with an inhuman screech leading to a red screen filled with distorted humans in horrifically Deranged Animation.
• Some soundtracks of the anime series are pretty chilling by themselves. Especially Yami Ugomeku sounds eerily serene.
  • The worst in the 2006 soundtrack however is easily Mahjutsu. It has the sounds of what you would usually hear in a music box, combined with an eerie disturbing tone, which ramps the tension and suspension up even more so than Yami Ugomeku.

Unlimited Blade Works

• Bad End 18, "Hypnos": A completely out of nowhere bad ending (caused by just asking too much about Caster) where Issei, under Caster's control, stabs Emiya and then slits his own throat.
• Bad End 19, "Killer": The humorless, High School teacher, Kuzuki Souichirou happens to be an assassin trained since he was a child who specializes in killing with his bare hands. He's supposed to be retired, but he kills Shirou and Rin in a swift and brutal manner, without the slightest hint of remorse.
• Bad End 20, "Hazy": Shirou agrees to join up with Caster and gets put under her control.
• Bad End 21 "Artificial Noble Phantasm": Caster turns Shirou into a living wand for projection magic and Rin ends up mercy-killing him.
• Bad End 24 "Heavens Fall": Both Shirou and Gilgamesh are absorbed and melted by the Holy Grail.
• The way Gilgamesh kills Illya after killing Berserker has him piercing her through her chest with his hand and gouging out her heart, and just before that he also slashes out the poor girl's eyes as well! And as if that's not scary enough, he seems to enjoy the sight of her blood as well.
  • See below entry about Berserker? Gilgamesh pretty much effortlessly chains him up with Enkidu. What's the catch of that? See, Enkidu is a chain that gets stronger and stronger the higher the divinity stat of the person caught is. Now, Berserker is 1, the son of the top god of his mythology and 2, the great-grandson of said top god (it's... complicated), who 3, became a god himself after his death as reward for his extremely shitty life and as a second chance. Yeeeeeah. He had pretty much no way of winning that one.
• Most of the Nightmare Fuel in this series comes from the sheer amount of Body Horror inflicted on people. For example, we have Smug Snake Shinji Matou getting horribly transformed into a living mass of flesh that's barely conscious, eventually becoming a vessel for The Corruption...
• BERSERKER!!!! from the Unlimited Blade Works anime is horrifying. His power, speed and skill makes him seem invincible, and it doesn't help he's under the control of Illya.
• In episode 8 of the anime, Shirou and Rin find the body of Rider (killed by Caster) mangled and crushed into a wall. If this wasn't bad enough, the body falls forward slightly, and Rider's head rotates a full 360 degrees.
  • To add an extra layer of horror, Rider's body fades away and the barrier she created disappears soon after this, implying she was still alive with her body in that state.
• In Episode 9 (through we get a brief glimpse in episode 8), we get to see at the very beginning Shirou's body exploding into blades. Yes there's a reason for this, but still. The way it's animated is absolutely horrifying.

Heaven's Feel

• The Makiri parasitic worms. Don't think about how, if you've had the comparative good fortune to be born male, they'll simply kill and eat you as that is exactly what happened to Kariya at the end of Fate/Zero . And especially don't think about how, if you're unlucky enough to be female, they'll eat you alive (ovaries first) while essentially raping you at the same time. Even more, don't think about how poor Sakura has had to spend practically every night for the last eleven years stuck in a room full of these horrible things.... And this is JUST the backstory! These worms are PENISES with More Teeth than the Osmond Family.
  Once swarmed by these lust worms, men will have their spine crushed, brain sucked, and will be made into a cripple. The worms will transform when attacking a woman, so that they are only able to violate her nerves. They will spread their tentacles all over her body and devour her spirit. The lust worms will wet the woman's skin with their mucus, excite and destroy her central nerves of pleasure, and satisfy their hunger. It must be their instincts, as the worms seem to love the woman's womb. They do not eat female flesh, but seek the organs within them. They give the woman huge enough orgasms to fry her brain, and they go into her body to devour her placenta. Unwilling to eat human flesh, the worms have only one way to get what they desire. As a result, the woman's mind and body are completely violated and destroyed.
  • Realta Nua's version of the worms are just as bad. While not looking like penises anymore, they now look like armored Alien chestbursters with a long thin horn on the tips of their heads.
• The most disgusting scene with Zouken is where he sends worms after the tipsy woman who has no idea what is going on while they devour her alive, and all the while there are these chewing noises.
• Shirou's Dream Sequence. Initially it's probably the most attractive sex scene in the game featuring a Loveable Sex Maniac'd Rin, until the end of the dream where she opens her eyes, and her eyes are entirely grey with a square pupil and she's talking about devouring Shirou. The eyes turn out to be a Foreshadowing of Rider.
• The fact that 16 of the 40 possible Bad Ends are in Heaven's Feel alone.
  • Bad End 25 "Ocean Depths": On Day 7, if Shirou does not earn the required affection points for Sakura, he gets captured by the shadow and absorbed by the mud.
  • Bad End 26 "Battle of the Holy Grail": On Day 8, if Shirou does not earn the required affection points for Illya, his body gets destroyed inside the Emiya Residence by Illya and his consciousness kept inside a doll.
  • Bad End 27 "Die Together": If Shirou tries to attack Zouken at the Ryuudou Temple, his weapon rots from Zouken, and he ends up stomping on the horrible worms and trying to escape to the lake, which turns out to be a really bad move as he suddenly falls over and discovers that trying to stomp on the worms has made them quite literally eat his feet to the point where he can no longer walk. He is then horrifically Eaten Alive by the worms.
  • Bad End 28 "Miserable Lone Force": Shirou, not realising that Saber is gone, tries to go after Sakura at school. Rider appears behind him and snaps his neck.
  • Bad End 29 "Geas": If Shirou decides to accept Rin's deal and signs the geas of total obedience, he is unable to stop Rin from killing Sakura.
  • Bad End 30 "Stone Coffin": On Day 9, if Shirou decides to attack Rider and close his eyes to avoid her infamous petrifying Mystic Eyes, he finds out that this doesn't work — he gets petrified by looking at Rider's eyes in his imagination. His stone body falls and breaks into pieces.
  • Bad End 31 "Superhero": It involves neither a gruesome Cruel and Unusual Death nor an And I Must Scream scenario. It's often referred to as the "Mind of Steel" ending, and you reach it by choosing to kill your Love Interest rather than fighting to protect her thus becoming Kiritsugu 2.0. The last words are: "There's no need to talk about the obvious outcome. Emiya Shirou will turn his mind to steel, and become a superhero." The implications are... unsettling.
    • For extra Fridge Horror, the ending implies that Shirou has become an Implacable Man, much like Kiritsugu in his prime and that he now has no qualms about killing any master standing in his way of destroying the Holy Grail, least of all Rin and Illya. Years later, TYPE-MOON would build on this plot point in Fate/Grand Order—claiming that this very same Shirou would a) become a particularly ruthless Counter-Guardian, b) conduct a massacre against a cult led by Kiara Sesshouin, and turn into EMIYA Alter, a version of him which makes the original Archer and even Kiritsugu himself look sunny by comparison.
    • Even the implication that Shirou has to kill both Ilya and Rin makes this ending even worse, for both girls, but possibly more horrible for Rin.
    • Illya is Kiritsugu Emiya's daughter, and therefore his sister, making his decision gut-wrenchingly brutal. And unlike the Unlimited Blade Works route, this time he knows this.
    • What makes this possibly even worse for Rin is that it's canon in all three routes that Rin not only gives up on the Grail, but later goes on to take the Grail apart with Lord El-Melloi II later on to end the Grail Wars completely. With Ilya, there's at least the small hope that if Berserker is killed first, Ilya probably won't fight for the Grail anymore (implied in other routes). With the sad prospect of Sakura being killed in this ending however, Shirou now knows that Rin will now endlessly try to win the Grail instead, to resurrect Sakura. Meaning Shirou will ultimately have to kill her. Even though Rin isn't the love interest in this route, her attraction to both Shirou and love for her sister are later revealed in this route.
  • Bad End 32 "Layered Curse of the Womb Realm Mandala": Choose to stay behind in the forest while Zouken and Assassin are fighting Berserker. The Shadow will eat you from behind and make it seem to Shirou that he has only been temporarily blinded by something as he is bumping into things.
  • Bad End 33 "World Purge, Meltdown": On Day 10, if Shirou decides to bring back Rin, he runs over to her but is too late as the shadow explodes and devours Shirou, Illya, Rin and Archer.
  • Bad End 34 "Horror Show": If Shirou dones't accept Assassin's offer to meet with Zouken, he gets stabbed by the Shadow's tentacle an absorbed.
  • Bad End 35 "Happy End": If Shirou decides to kill Sakura, he gets killed by Rider when attempting to kill Sakura. If Shirou doesn't have enough affection points with Sakura, this ending is unavoidable.
  • Bad End 38 "Sparks Liner High": Choose the wrong option during the fight with Saber and Shirou's mind gets overloaded, leaving him braindead.
  • The final bad ending, Bad End 40 "Femme Fatale". If Shirou doesn't finish off Saber Alter, she escapes and helps Sakura defeat Rin. After Rin is absorbed by Sakura, she is subjected to everything that Sakura went through at the hands of the Matous for eleven years... and when Shirou confronts Sakura, she describes to him how Rin is screaming "I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." all over and over again... And even worse, Sakura gleefully inflicts the same fate on Shirou himself!
• The concept of The Shadow, in that it is a Living Shadow that looks vaguely human and violently devours anything it comes into contact with, including Servants or even spells. Even worse is that it is a manifestation of Angra Mainyu, a Servant trying to be reincarnated as an eldritch abomination.
  • It's all the more scarier in the Nightmare interludes, with the interlude transition text is dyed blood red as a strong indication that they're no ordinary interlude, as Sakura gets a first-hand look at the Shadow attracting people before smashing and eating the unwary victims.
  • What is it like to be consumed by the Shadow? Well, it feels like being washed by a sea of boiling hot tar. And then you see the embryo of Angra Mainyu and the description of being sick and being forced to eat rotten rabbit's flesh, though thankfully it ends there for Shirou. In the "Ocean Depths" bad end (and presumably for everyone else), the Shadow's curse would've completely melted the victim's body, mind and soul before being absorbed into the Shadow as blackened flesh. The description was absent in the movie, being replaced with a rapid slideshow of pictures depicting the origin of Aŋra Mainiiu instead.
• The worst Body Horror? Shirou during Heaven's Feel. Shirou, or rather Archer's reality marble, protects his body by creating blades in the place of bones and muscles. As a result of the issues that come with having Archer's arm grafted onto his body, Shirou's body is slowly invaded by Archer's reality marble until the blades start bursting out of his skin and making it difficult for him to even move. This◊ should give you an idea how bad it really is. "I am the bone of my sword" indeed.
  Shirou: I am the bone of my sword... but I already knew that.
  • Years later, EMIYA Alter has weaponized this horror in his "Unlimited Lost Works" Noble Phantasm in Fate/Grand Order, combining Unlimited Blade Works with his father's Origin Bullets, resulting in all those blades tearing apart whatever poor soul is on the receiving end from the inside. OUCH.
    • Doubly so with the terrifying implication that EMIYA Alter is implied to be the Shirou of the "Mind of Steel" Bad Ending of this very route. A Shirou who, chillingly and coldly rationalized Sakura being murdered to save people, ending up no better than his father.

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