Helba

"There's an order that The World desires, then there's the order that you desire. Which one should it take, Balmung?"

- Helba

Helba (ヘルバ, Heruba) is a mysterious and infamous hacker that appears throughout the parts of the .hack series in The World R:1.

Appearance
Helba is a surprisingly tall female character that wears revealing clothing. She dons head-wear similar to a priest's cap, with a visor that covers her eyes. Her normally masked face is revealed in the second volume of XXXX.

Personality
Helba is always calm, collected, and confident in what she does. She also puts on a mysterious persona and acts suspiciously around her so-called allies. Her elusive demeanor implies that she always seems to know more than she's revealing.

Basic Info
Nothing is known about Helba except for the fact that she is a professional hacker who takes her work very seriously. Though she uses a female persona, it is not known whether she is actually female, or even whether she is just one person. She is very active on the Japanese servers of The World however, leading many to believe that she is Japanese.

Hobbies
She enjoys playing mind games and hacking, and finds such things as deleted data particularly interesting. She also has some knowledge of the Epitaph of the Twilight.

.hack//SIGN
In SIGN, Helba gave information to the main characters by giving them hints to get into The Inverted Castle where AI Harald was located. At the later stage, Helba opened a Helba Gate, which gave them access to Net Slum. In Net Slum, they encountered copies of Tsukasa's data as well as Morganna's Guardians. After Aura was awakened by Tsukasa and the party encountered Skeith, Helba ordered them to retreat and deleted the field they were on.

.hack//Games
Helba plays a much larger role in the .hack//Games. She interrupts Skeith's attack, preventing him from Data Draining Kite. She later informs Kite about his Data Drain and Gate Hack abilities. Her role consisted of sending subtle hints as well as retrieving deleted data. As Kite defeated more Phases and the true enemy began to reveal itself, Helba would become more actively involved by developing a program to counter the enemy and creating a server in which the final battle would be fought.

.hack//Another Birth
Helba's role in Another Birth is the same as in the games. Near the end, when they're planning a .hackers get-together, she mentions the possibility of appearing.

.hack//XXXX
Helba makes several appearances throughout XXXX to aid Kite and Cubia in their quest. During a fight with Kite and Balmung against Corbenik, she is attacked and her mask is knocked off.

.hack//Unison
In celebration of the victory and the resulting rebirth of Aura, Helba programmed a fireworks celebration in Net Slum, showing a more fun side of herself. She invites characters from SIGN as well as a few of Kite's party. There, she turned down Lios's offer to turn Net Slum into an official Root Town. According to Analysis however, she later reconsiders and Net Slum becomes an official Root Town.

.hack//GIFT
In the opening, the "dancing lady" turns into Helba for reasons unknown. In the end of the special episode, she comes out naked and soothes Orca's and Bear's feelings, as well as tells everyone that she was the one who PKed BT, in order to make the plot more interesting.

.hack//Legend of the Twilight (manga)
Helba's role is significantly smaller in Legend of the Twilight. She only appears in the prologue chapter, in a single panel. Afterward, she never appears in person, only references to her are made. Kazu provides Shugo with a Helba Key to Net Slum, where he would meet with Balmung. Balmung would provide Shugo with the Virus Cores necessary to access the field Aura was in.

.hack//G.U. Games
While Helba doesn't make a physical appearance in the series, she briefly is mentioned in a message board post during Redemption, referring to her past role as Queen of Net Slum.

If Natsume is recruited through the Chaotic PK sidequest, she will mention Helba if Haseo sends her the Challenge greeting card.

In Reconnection, it is heavily implied that Helba was the creator of the original Net Slum, as in a conversation with Zelkova he will say that the Net Slum was created by a lone super-hacker over ten years ago.

.hack//Link
See Helba (LINK)

Trivia

 * Helba joins Kite's party at level 99 with a hacked level 93 weapon called "8 Wise Men" after Quarantine has been cleared.
 * Helba is the only player that joins Kite with maxed out stats.
 * Helba is the only character that moves by hovering.
 * According to .hack//Archives_03 LIGHT EDITION her character model stands at 185cm, or roughly 6'0, the same as Orca and Marlo.
 * Both the English and the Japanese voice actress for Helba also voiced Kaoru Asaba from Liminality and Emma Wielant in .hack//Games.
 * Helba shares her English voice actress with Bordeaux in .hack//G.U.
 * In the .hack//Game Music Best Collection, a member of the sound team explains that their director told them to think of Helba and Lios as if they were married and to make their music themes work together.