Characters / Fate/strange Fake: True Masters

Fate/strange Fake Character Index
False Masters | False Servants | True Masters | True Servants

Ayaka Sajyou

Voiced by: Kana Hanazawa (Japanese), Anjali Kunapaneni (English)

Known as the Player in the prototype version, she is the Master of Saber. Ayaka was a student who moved to Fuyuki's Shinto in the beginning of spring shortly after turning twenty. She rented room two on the eleventh floor of Semina Apartments. There was a family suicide during the fall, and she went missing a month later. Although the police were asked to start an investigation, it turned up nothing. Tellers of the story claim that person went on a journey of self-discovery and that she will come back when she becomes stronger. Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg decided to observe the incident at Snowfield and he has chosen Ayaka as an outsider to participate in the Holy Grail War.

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• Audience Surrogate: Ayaka takes the place of the "player character" in the original April Fool's pitch.
• Bystander Syndrome: Ayaka was well aware that that the girl next door was being physically abused, but had written it off as someone else's problem and did nothing. It was only after the murder-suicide that she realized how callous she was and thus set off to redeem herself.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: As Saber notes, despite them lacking a formal contract, she is still his source of magical energy and thus a target for the other participants.
• Canon Immigrant: The main character of Fate/Prototype and suddenly in-universe with Fate/stay night (or Fate/hollow ataraxia), what with the reveal that she is the "Person A" in the ghost story of Semina Apartment. And now she appears in this work. Or so we're lead to think.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Is the “Person A” from the Semina Apartment incident, and has been running from her memories of it ever since.
• Delinquent Hair: The clerk at the Snowfield drugstore initially takes Ayaka to be part of the punk scene when he sees her hair.
• The Drifter: Has been randomly going from place to place to avoid the ghost in Semina Apartment.
• Dye Hard: Her blonde hair is apparently dyed rather than natural.
• Expy: She's shaping up to be one to Extra's version of Rin with the reveal that she's not actually the same Ayaka Sajyou from Fate/Prototype. As in, she's not a direct alternate universe counterpart but rather simply someone who resembles Proto-Ayaka greatly in appearance, name, and mannerisms. Much like Extra-Rin, this Ayaka is even blonde though her hair is dyed rather than being natural.
• Face Your Fears: When Saber is injured and sent flying into a building, she runs after him and conquers her fear of elevators and the vision of the girl haunting her in the process.
• Handshake Refusal: Saber declares he will protect her and offers her a handshake, but she slaps his hand away.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Has more than a little self-loathing and feels guilty when Saber goes out of his way to assist her.
• Humanoid Abomination: Moments after Thia awakens, he immediately identifies her as both a "fake" and not being human. This of course puts into question what exactly she really is.
• Humanity Ensues: The ending of Volume 8 heavily implies she is the El-Melloi family's previous Supreme Mystic Code that went missing prior to the creation of Volumen Hydrargyrum and underwent this trope through as of yet unknown means.
• Identical Stranger: Is not the Ayaka of Prototype, who El-Melloi II confirms to be living in Romania when Ronghall mentions her participation in the Grail War.
• Inexplicably Awesome: Even though she seems to be a completely ordinary girl with no Magic Circuits, she is somehow able to fuel Saber with enough Mana to fight at full power and use his Noble Phantasms several times. A few characters note how unusual this is.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: She has noticeable gaps in her memory from visits back to Fuyuki after the Semina Apartment incident, potentially due to the resulting psychological trauma. Notably one of these gaps implies she's met Kotomine and Gilgamesh, the latter of whom she somewhat recognizes when seeing Saber fight with the one summoned as Fake Archer in Snowfield.
• Little Dead Riding Hood: Not herself, but rather the ghost of the girl who haunts her.
• Living Battery: Though no mage, she appears to have an unusual ability to sustain Saber and False Assassin with no external support despite the constant spamming of mana-heavy Noble Phantasms. Though this is because she literally is one.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Ayaka is haunted by the ghost of the little girl from the Semina Apartment incident. No one else seems to be aware of the girl though, leading Ayaka to question whether she's really cursed or simply hallucinating.
• Mistaken for Badass: Since no one knows who she is, and she became Saber's Master after his original summoner was killed, several characters think she is some kind of powerful magus and mastermind.
• Mistaken for Terrorist: Saber accidentally blows up an opera house while defending her from False Assassin. She and Saber are arrested for it, with the media labeling them terrorists.
• Muggle: Unlike the rest of the Masters, Ayaka doesn't come from a magus background and has no apparent ability to perform magecraft.
• My Greatest Failure: Deeply troubled by her part in the Semina Apartment incident, even going as far as to adamantly decline to participate in the Grail War because she doesn't want to be indirectly responsible for another death.
• Naïve Newcomer: Was oblivious to all things magic and magecraft-related until a mysterious woman in white dragged her into the war with little explanation. Whenever anyone discusses anything related to the supernatural, she complains that she can't understand what they are saying.
• Older Than They Look: Described as baby-faced and looking a few years younger than her actual age of about 20.
• Only Sane Man: Tends to find herself in the company of absurd individuals, Saber in particular.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: She doesn't know much about Arthurian Legend and doesn't even know who Merlin is.
• Power Tattoo: Unlike the other Masters, she has five Command Seals, one on each hand, one on each shoulder, and one on her back.
• Protectorate: Ayaka is a normal human with neither the magical ability nor the desire to participate in the Holy Grail War as a proper Master. However, Saber points out that other Masters won't care if she's decided to opt out and he quite literally can't live without her to anchor his soul to the material world. Therefore, he has made her his protectorate whether she likes it or not.
• Purely Aesthetic Glasses: Wears glasses in an attempt to make herself look more mature.
• Refusal of the Call: When her servant is summoned and gives the famous "Are you my master?" speech, she's the first person we ever see to reply "No".
• Straight Man: To Saber as she's a lot more concerned about the dangerous magical war going on around them than he is.
• Token Human: Is the lone Muggle in a battle royale waged by magi and Heroic Spirits.
• Translator Microbes: A flashback shows that she only speaks Japanese, but when Filia ordered her to travel to Snowfield, Filia cast a spell on her to allow her to understand English.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Is very reluctant to enter elevators, as that's when her visions of the little girl's ghost are most likely to appear. Well... before she arrived in Snowfield anyway.

Faldeus Dioland

Voiced by: Jun'ya Enoki (Japanese), Micah Solusod (English)

The Master of True Assassin. Faldeus is a magus belonging to the government organization responsible for starting the False Holy Grail War, and despite seeming to be barely past his mid-twenties, displays knowledge of the events seventy years prior as if having had experienced them personally. He is part of a "certain American organization" that answers to the American government. Rather than being an organization of magi, it instead only has some magi as members. He went undercover within the Mage's Association with the eventual purpose of spreading news of the ritual and a warning to the Association's magi.

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• All According to Plan: When he deduces that the Rohngall he had ordered killed through an ambush was nothing but a remote-controlled puppet and that the latter may have overheard everything, Faldeus calmly states that it doesn't matter if the real magus is dead or not and that the warning to the Association is made clear.
• Bullying a Dragon: As the story progresses, more and more you get the feeling that the only reason he's not freaking out is due to having more manpower than the other masters. This comes to a head when he orders Flat's death, only for something to pop out and KILL his entire surveillance team in Snowfield.
• Combat Pragmatist: One of his main tactics is to have several mooks ambush his opponents with a lot of guns.
• Connected All Along: His ancestor was the Master of Assassin for Fuyuki's Third Holy Grail War, and preserved his memories within one of his puppets for Faldeus to use. The plan to create a Holy Land for a Holy Grail War of America's own came from the partial record carried by the puppet.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He is disgusted by Bazdilot Cordelion and wishes Francesca never involved him in the war.
• Flat "What": When he sees Saber take the heat for destroying the opera house - on live TV.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Non-fatal example, but knowing just how dangerous a Divine Spirit is running amok in Snowfield, he makes the call with True Assassin to send his Servant on basically what amounts to a Suicide Mission to ensure Ishtar is eliminated by any means necessary, even though it costs him his place in the Holy Grail War to sacrifice his Servant in such a manner.
• Just Between You and Me: Parodied. Faldeus is quite aware of his tendency to indulge in villainous monologues and has thus found a workaround — he just talks people's ears off after he's killed them.
• Laser-Guided Karma: A nonfatal example. Mere minutes after one of his sniper teams shoots and kills Flat, Thia takes over and brutally murders every one of his observation teams in Snowfield, leaving him presumably blind and demanding to know what the hell has happened.
• Marionette Master: His family's magecraft involves the use of elaborate puppets.
• The Mole: He's been infiltrating the Mage's Association by way of approaching Rohngall as an aspiring disciple.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Where to begin. Having his servant kill Galvarosso lead to many people in the government (including those that supported his group) dead, and ordering Flat's death causes SOMETHING to appear and kill his entire surveillance team ALL over Snowfield.
• Not So Omniscient After All: He still thinks Cashura completed the ceremony and is the Master of Saber.
• Patriotic Fervor: He claims he dedicates everything he does to the United States.

Francesca

Voiced by: Maaya Uchida (Japanese), Deneen Melody (English)

The Master of True Caster. A woman seemingly allied with the organization behind the False Holy Grail War. Despite this, Orlando Reeve refers to her as an outsider.

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• Beyond the Impossible: She wants the Grail in order to conquer a "certain labyrinth" and obtain the "microcosm of the world". Why is unknown, but somehow this labyrinth and the microcosm within would help her attain her true wish: for Humanity to develop technology that would cause the erasure of True Magic, which is specifically stated to be that which even "sufficiently advanced science" could never replicate.
• Born-Again Immortality: Every time she dies, Francesca resurrects in a new body, which can be either male like her original body, or female.
• Break Them by Talking: She and Francois try to perform a variation of this via showing an edited version the Fourth Holy Grail War to Saber, only for them to get thanked instead.
• Bullying a Dragon: She has the bad habit of mouthing off to far stronger mages and relying on her backup bodies when she inevitably gets brutally killed. Her attempt at confronting Satsuki Kurogiri ended in one of her most memorable defeats, and mocking Touko Aozaki resulted in a brutal massacre that only ended when Francesca desperately bribed the Aozaki elders to make Touko leave her alone. And even then, the irritated Touko killed her one last time for the insult.
• Card-Carrying Villain: As she tells Orlando, it's a whole lot easier than being the good guy.
• Cute and Psycho: A pretty girl that acts cutesy at times, but the things she says about wanting to see a certain female saint suffer says a lot about her sanity.
• Disproportionate Retribution: She was at the receiving end of one when she once made it a point to slam Touko Aozaki's Berserk Button. The infuriated Touko massacred more than two and a half dozens of Francesca's bodies and destroyed several of her safehouses for the insult.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: She wears a white and black dress with elements of gothic lolita fashion.
• For the Evulz: When she learned the King of Knights was summoned in multiple Grail Wars, she wanted to meet her so she could corrupt her and drive her to despair for amusement. When she learns who the Saber in this war is, she decides to try to drive him to despair instead.
• Historical Gender Flip: Her true identity is the female reincarnation of François Prelati, friend and conspirator of Gilles de Rais. Unique among Fate gender flips is that the flip was a voluntary one that occurred much later in her (subsequent) life.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Francesca is openly credited with her last name for anime promotional material, which currently only adapts volume 1.
• My Future Self and Me: Her Servant, Francois, is herself from a past life and body. Despite the centuries of experience she has on him, very little changes between them.
• Mystical White Hair: Francesca looks like a girl with long white hair, but she's really a near immortal-inhuman monster, and has survived and continued to live until the present era since the time of Joan of Arc.
• The Nicknamer: Gives Cordelion the "Massacre Mage" and "Scladio Toxic Shark" on the spur of the moment, to Faldeus' irritation.
• Noodle Incident: When she tried to enter Fuyuki during the Fourth Holy Grail War to reunite with her old friend Gilles, she was confronted by Zouken Matou. What happened is a mystery, besides her complaining after the fact that her illusions don't work on bugs and that she had to give up her current reincarnation during the confrontation.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Even she doesn't want to risk the mere possibility of touching the Grail Mud, and immediately pawns it off to Cordelion.
• Really 700 Years Old: Her current body is that of a young girl, but she's been alive for over 600 years, dating all the way back to the era of the Hundred Years War.
• Reincarnated as the Opposite Sex: She's the female reincarnation of François Prelati.
• Showgirl Skirt: She wears a short skirt that splits at the front to show off her panties.
• Sobriquet Sex Switch: In her first life, she was a man called François. After reincarnating as a girl, she changed her name to Francesca.
• Stocking Filler: She wears a visible garterbelt connected to stockings.
• Villain Takes an Interest: Immediately takes a liking to Saber, deciding he's just the sort of chivalrous cutie she loves to break after watching his arrest. This first idealistic impression is dispelled when her attempt fails, but she then decides he's a fun Wild Card and should be kept in the Grail War for as long as possible to keep things entertaining.
• White Hair, Black Heart: She has very long white hair and her behavior is unhinged in several ways.
• Worthy Opponent: While she has been killed multiple times in the past, the only people who have truly impressed her are her teachers, Zelretch, Van-Fem, Satsuki Kurogiri, "the consoling witch that is eternally alive" (possibly April), le Comte de Saint Germain, and "Scar Red" (aka Touko Aozaki).

Bazdilot Cordelion

The Master of True Archer. A magus who uses the same gem-powered Magecraft as Atrum Galliasta.

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• Assassin Outclassin': A group of 36 mages ambushed him in an attempt to steal his Command Seals. He wiped the floor with the entire squad by himself.
• Body Horror: He keeps the Grail Mud within himself as part of his blood.
• Black Eyes of Crazy: His eyes seem totally black with golden irises.
• The Corrupter: If anyone knows what Grail Mud does to Servants, it's this guy.
• Due to the Dead: Plays Mozart's Lacrimosa for Galvarosso Scladio, as he'd sworn he'd do when he died.
• Dynamic Entry: Crashes through a skylight, slamming two assassins on the floor. Without batting an eye, he growls he just finished killing 30 more mages just outside, and orders his henchmen to begin disposing of the bodies. When they turn to begin, he turns and shoots four of them, revealing them as more killers.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: When he learns that Galvarosso Scladio has been murdered, he becomes uncharacteristically angry and tells True Archer to win the Holy Grail War so that he can get revenge on the killers.
• Evil Sounds Deep: His voice is described as sounding like Hell itself.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Occasionally wears a pair of glasses... and he's a massive sociopath.
• Hidden Depths: He is really skilled at the piano, which surprises both his henchmen and True Archer. He comments he learned how to play because it helped discipline his mind.
• Human Resources: His family uses a vastly improved version of Atrum Galliasta's original prana generation system, using many more sacrifices, to power his Servant.
• Industrialized Evil: He took Atrum Galliasta's Mana Crystal generation techniques and expanded upon them to make use of the thousands of corpses the Scladio Family generates. At one point he shows his Servant his workshop as hundreds of people are brutally killed to make the crystals.
• Insanity Immunity: At first, Faldeus thought he was using his iron will to retain control of the Grail Mud. However, he would later revise this belief and realize he was already insane before acquiring it, and had been possibly from the beginning.
• Invincible Villain: Averted. He's been dealt brutal defeats before and he makes no bones out of it. Kairi Sisigou managed to outwit him, he got a lung torn out by Magalo der Familie, he's almost been killed by Executors, had most of his Circuits burned by Brother Degras, and fought Wu of the Marble Trading Company to a standstill. The really frightening thing about him is that he's never let any of this stop or even slow him down.
• The Mafia: A member of the Scladio Family.
• Magic Music: A rather dark variant. When he plays a requiem for Galvarosso Scladio, the music he plays is tinged with bloodlust, hate and the curse of the Grail Mud, causing several nearby slabs of meat to rot into masses of curses; one of them eats a henchman, while the music badly stuns more. Eventually, the darkness eats even the piano.
• Master of Your Domain: Uses a variant of Reinforcement called Domination, which enforces his control over his body. He uses it to grant himself extra toughness and manipulate his sleep schedule so he never has to dream or undergo REM sleep. It's apparently a simple spell, but mages rarely use the "deconstruction of consciousness" as extensively or frequently as he does since it's similar to a temporary suicide.
• A Million Is a Statistic: Nonchalantly points out that as many as he killed to harvest Mana Crystals, it's only half of the deaths caused by criminal cartels in South America in the last few years.
• Mind Rape: Pulls one on the Servant he summons when he refuses to kill children for him by using Command Spells and dumping the Grail Mud on him so now True Archer will, as far as we know, essentially do anything asked.
• Not Afraid to Die: True Archer's wish is to destroy everything in the world the gods have built until the name "Heracles" is erased from history. Bazdilot says he doesn't mind if the results end up killing him, as long as he achieves his own goals.
• Power at a Price: He remolded his Servant into his ideal killing machine... but doing so used up all three of his Command Spells, meaning that later on he has no means of further helping him when he's stuck Living on Borrowed Time or control him when he is inevitably Driven to Madness.
• The Sleepless: According to his henchmen, he doesn't seem to need to sleep. It's actually a feature of his Domination magecraft, which he uses to keep himself at the edge of extremely light naps, allowing him to wake up with minimal warning.
• The Sociopath: He regularly kills people without blinking an eye and calls the corpses "flies". He keeps a detailed tally of all the people he's killed to generate Mana Crystals for the Scladio Family, feeling it would be irresponsible of him not to.
• The Stoic: No matter what happens, even during fights, he never shows any emotion. It's been mentioned that he didn't flinch when his wife's head was dropped in front of him.
• Super-Strength: He can lift a grand piano with one hand and carry it across a room with no signs of strain.
• Undying Loyalty: To the Scladio crime family.
• Villain with Good Publicity: As far as the public knows, he's the CEO of a waste management corporation.
• Virtue Is Weakness: He is disgusted to learn his Servant is a noble warrior who will not harm innocents, so he uses Command Spells and Grail Mud to turn Heracles into the twisted and hateful Alcides, who has no problem hurting innocents, and says he is now an effective Servant. Later, when he has a dream of True Archer's memories where Jason vowed to create a kingdom without prejudice where everyone will be treated equally, Bazdilot is disgusted and says Jason was a fool.
• We Have Reserves: He doesn't care when his henchmen get killed.
• Would Hurt a Child: He has no problem killing children to win the war. He orders True Archer to attempt to kill Tine and later Tsubaki.

Sigma

A mercenary hired by Francesca to participate in the False Holy Grail War. He attempts to summon True Lancer, but gets something calling themselves the Watcher instead.

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• Ascended Extra: Sigma was nothing more than a backdrop as part of Maiya's backstory but here he's now a character in his own right.
• Born Unlucky: Part of the reason Watcher is confident he's a good match to become True Lancer.
• Child by Rape: Maiya mentions him in a conversation with Irisviel in Fate/Zero's original light novel as the child she conceived as a product of her rape at the hands of unnamed soldiers some time before Kiritsugu took her in.
• The Comically Serious: Sigma's dispassionate, mechanical nature is a stark contrast to his tendency to reference old British comedy, such as claiming his Servant is Charlie Chaplin or indicating that his primary frame of reference for Arthurian Legend is Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: To Shirou Emiya. Shirou left behind his previous identity in the Fuyuki Fire, while Sigma remained an Empty Shell until he named himself. Shirou was never properly trained in Magecraft by Kiritsugu, who genuinely thought of him like family, while Sigma was ruthlessly drilled in Magecraft by military units who only saw him as a weapon. Until he met Saber, Shirou could only find meaning in his existence by helping others, while Sigma is an apathetic bystander who cares only for his mission until he meets Watcher. Shirou fights by Projecting blades, while Sigma prefers modern weaponry to his magecraft. Their Servants are contrasted as well: Saber is a Knight in Shining Armor who fought to protect Shirou, while Watcher is an Intangible Man Trickster Mentor whose main Skill only throws Sigma into even worse danger. Shirou became Archer after death, while Sigma is set to become Lancer while alive.
• Empty Shell: Was actually hired on this basis. Francesca wanted to find out what would happen if someone were to summon a Servant with absolutely no catalyst. Normally, the Grail uses the summoning Master themselves as a catalyst if there isn't one present, so Francesca's solution is to use a Master with absolutely no personality or motivations for the Grail to base its selection on.
• Extreme Doormat: He goes along with whatever command is given to him by his commanders. He slowly begins to break out of this when he meets Watcher.
• Fights Like a Normal: While he knows Magecraft, he prefers to fight with guns, grenades, and other modern weapons.
• Hidden Depths: He turns out to be a fan of Charlie Chaplin's films.
• Hollywood Atheist: Says he doesn't believe in God because of his experiences growing up and struggling to survive.
• I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin: The incomplete spirit the Kuruokas almost summoned gives him Qin Shihuangdi's Godfelling Crossbow before disappearing.
• Kingmaker Scenario: Rapidly realizes that he has very little chance of winning the Grail War with Watcher as his Servant... but that also means they are insanely valuable as support for any of the other Masters, so he'll have to be very careful as to who he chooses to trust.
• Lack of Empathy: He says he honestly doesn't understand why Beautiful Assassin is trying to rescue Tsubaki from being killed because they have never met her and should have no attachment to her, plus she doesn't follow Beautiful Assassin's religion and saving her doesn't really benefit them. When Beautiful Assassin says there is no reason not to save a child, he just gets more confused.
• Loss of Identity: More like Lack of Identity, since he feels he is nothing and nobody. Watcher, on the other hand, views the flipside of the trope: if he's nobody, then he can become anybody...
• Mythology Gag: He's the son of Maiya Hisau.
• "Not So Different" Remark: When he learns about the horrible experiments that Tsubaki's parents subjected her to, he thinks they have something in common, as he was also experimented on.
• Odd Friendship: He, a stoic atheist, starts hanging out a lot and has a bit of Ship Tease with False Assassin, a passionate religious fanatic.
• Older Than They Look: Due to experiments done to him as a child, his aging process has slowed, so he looks like a teen.
• Perpetual Frowner: He doesn't emote much, if at all.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: Sigma's cultural knowledge pool consists almost entirely of decades-old British comedy movies.
• Rage Breaking Point: When he learns how horrible Tsubaki's parents are, he snaps and shoots both of them with the Godfelling Crossbow to cripple them.
• The Resenter: When everybody is trying to save or kill Tsubaki, he at first refuses to help and says it's not fair that people are trying to save her when no one saved him when he was a child.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: At one point, he has a pleasant chat with Beautiful Assassin on the nature of faith and stares at her when she walks away. Watcher asks him if he has a crush on her and he quickly denies it.
• Unpredictable Results: Francesca's intent when hiring him was primarily to see if his unusual nature as a catalyst would bring forth a Ruler, since she was particularly interested in the idea of attempting to corrupt a certain female saint. Watcher's summoning reflects how poorly this system is understood.
• You Are Number 6: He's been designated as Soldier Number 1 by his superiors; upon interacting with Watcher's shadows, he renounces this appellation and gives himself the name Sigma.
• Your Days Are Numbered: According to Francesca, the experiments done to him as a child have shortened his lifespan.

Haruri Borzak

The Master of True Berserker.

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• Cute Witch: She uses Witchcraft and specializes in deflection of curses.
• The Dragon: Becomes this to Ishtar, as her High Priestess.
• Giving the Sword to a Noob: Francesca picked her mostly to fill the quota, and between her Never Hurt an Innocent attitude and the fact she can only vaguely control True Berserker with Filia's help, it's clear she's really struggling to remain in the War.
• I Owe You My Life: Very downplayed, but the reason why she is tagging along with Filia is that she had saved her life, and that motivates Haruri to ignore some eccentric behavior.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: Despite being a revenge-driven character, she is very reluctant about harming others and has to constantly remind herself of her goal to keep herself able to fight. She also never sacrifices animals for her witchcraft and hesitates to even say the word "kill".
• Revenge: Wants one against the "magical society" that took everything from her people.
• To Unmasque the World: Her wish to the Grail is to render all forms of concealing Magecraft useless, destroying the Masquerade.
• You Killed My Father: Kiritsugu Emiya and Natalia Kaminski killed her grandfather Odd Borzak back in Fate/Zero's backstory. Without Odd's protection, her family was slaughtered by their Magus rivals and she was the only survivor. This is the reason why she wants to ruin Magus society by destroying the Masquerade.

True Rider's Master (Spoiler character!)

The Master of True Rider. Because of the nature of their true identity and how it is a Plot Twist, this entry will be divided in sections describing the Master before and after The Reveal.

Doris Lusendra

One of the Masters recruited by Francesca for the War, intended to be the Master of True Rider. She comes from a clan that boasts mastery of Reinforcement magecraft to the point of inhumanity.

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• Ambiguous Situation: Her involvement in the War itself, or if she's in Snowfield at all, is in question. Volume 8 reveals that she managed to do little more than summon her Servant before getting her Command Seals taken.
• Bio-Augmentation: The magical form of it is a pretty apt description of the Lusendra's Reinforcement magecraft.
• Black Blood: Her blood is described as "acidic black" and is able to attack in the form of a water jet.
• Body Horror: During her fight with Rin, her skin is described as being like reinforced steel, her fingers resemble the talons of a bird of prey, and her right arm's bones turn into a blade.
• Cannibalism Superpower: The Lusendra's research lead to them being willing to eat others to evolve further. The previous family head, the most powerful in their history, devoured even vampires, and tried to eat a god before meeting his demise. Doris herself entered the Holy Grail War in the hopes of "incorporating" something from the Age of Gods should it be summoned.
• Graceful Loser: Completely accepts her defeat at the hands of Rin, only asking her to devour her corpse.
• I Work Alone: She refuses to work with or even contact the group behind the war.
• Malevolent Mutilation: The Lusendra repurpose their skeleton, muscles, nerves, lymph ducts, and capillary vessels into makeshift Magic Circuits in order to get closer to their ideal: becoming onis.
• Power Fist: Her Giant Oni Grab, which is her Circuit-converted fleshy arm being coated in an armor of blood, bone, and debris, forming a giant palm.
• Red Herring: The forces behind the True and False Wars (and us by connection) are led to believe she's True Rider's Master.
• Scary Teeth: She has shark-like teeth.
• Super-Strength: The Lusendra's magecraft is a special form of Reinforcement superior to the regular kind most mages use, giving them this power in addition to Super-Toughness and Super-Speed.
• Walking Spoiler: One can't mention her involvement in the War without dealing with her involvement (or rather, the lack of) in it.

The El-Melloi Classroom

The true Master(s) of True Rider, some thirty students and alumni of Lord El-Melloi II, in Snowfield to dismantle the Grail. They share a Command Spell among themselves.

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• Bookworm: Just like his relative, Org is described as a bibliomaniac.
• Canon Immigrant: Mary Lil Fargo, who originated as a one-off character from the Lord El-Melloi II Case Files anime adaptation for a Mystery of the Week episode.
• The Chosen Many: Volume 7 reveals that they (except Flat who became False Berserker's and Yvette who was denied from being one because she'd betray them when she got bored) are all True Rider's real Master, which should be impossible in any normal war. Snowfield's war, however, is clearly anything but normal, and Verner Caesarmund used his family magic to split the Command Spell across the students.
• The Dreaded: The group is feared throughout the Clock Tower as potentially being able to completely upend the entire Association should they be inclined to do so.
• Experienced Protagonist: Most if not all of them. Rin has already lived through a Holy Grail War, and Svin, Yvette, and Caules have gone through the events of Case Files.
• Foreshadowing: Verner Caesarmund, Org Rum, the Pentel twins, Roland Berzinsky, and Fezgram vor Sembren were all mentioned in passing in the first volume as examples of successful students of El-Melloi II who graduated at the highest ranks of Pride or Brand. Later, in the sixth volume, those who would have become Red Masters in the Fate/Apocrypha timeline are said to have been saved by El-Melloi in a Noodle Incident of Mass Hypnosis at an auction, and, in thanks, entrusted their relatives (most of the aforementioned students^note except Verner, who is a relative of Orlocke Caesarmund from the first El-Melloi Case Files novel.) to him.
• Hero of Another Story: Many of them, notably Rin who was one of the three main heroines of Fate/stay night, Svin who was part of the main cast in Lord El-Melloi II Case Files, and Caules who was one of the protagonists in the Alternate Timeline of Fate/Apocrypha.
• Groupie Brigade: Can pretty much be described as Waver's adoring fans, though they also acknowledge his flaws and mock him for it.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: After seeing True Archer's power, they warn True Rider not to attack him unless they can find some kind of advantage. Despite True Rider's hatred of True Archer, she agrees.
• Lovable Traitor: Yvette is the only member of Waver's classroom who wasn't given access to Hippolyta's Command Spells because the feedback caused by betrayal would instantly kill Verner whose magic made it possible. But they still let her come along anyway.
• Magitek: Verner is able to give his cell a signal thanks to the butterflies he controls.
• The Nicknamer: One of them calls their Servant "Polyte".
• Noodle Incident: Apparently, at some point, Svin and Roland lost to a Zemlupus beast hunter due to bad compatibility from facing an anti-beast expert when they embody wolves and snakes respectively.
• She Is All Grown Up: Just like how she appeared in the epilogues of Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] and Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel as well as in The Adventures of El-Melloi II, Rin has grown into a beautiful young woman by the time of Fate/strange Fake.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: With some aspects of Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors to it, this is the core concept behind Fünf Sterne im Unlauf, Rin's power-up from Adventures. Unfortunately, she doesn't get to use it against Doris during their fight because it is useless against physical attacks.
• Tag Team Twins: The Pentel twins, whose magecraft can only be performed by twins.
• Took a Level in Badass: Rin's prowess as both a fighter and a magus has grown immensely since Fate/stay night and this is demonstrated by how she beats Doris through a combination of martial arts and judicious applications of Gandr shots.