Characters / Fate/Zero: Humans

This page is for the human characters of Fate/Zero, the prequel to Fate/stay night.

• For the Servants, see this page.
• For their appearances in Fate/stay night, go here.
• For their appearances in Fate/hollow ataraxia, go here.

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WARNING: This character sheet will assume that you have read Fate/stay night. Major spoilers will be found ahead for both Fate/stay night and Fate/Zero.

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Masters

Kiritsugu Emiya

See Kiritsugu Emiya here.

Tokiomi Tohsaka

(Master of Archer)

Voiced by: Show Hayami (Japanese), Marc Diraison (English)

"From the moment a mage is born, he is someone that has 'power'. And some day, he will achieve a 'greater power'. This responsibility was already flowing in his 'blood' before he realized this destiny. That is what it means to be born into this world as the child of a mage."

Tokiomi Tohsaka is the father of Rin and Sakura, the husband of Aoi and the head of the Tohsaka family. Of the three families that founded the Grail War system, he is the only one that is still pursuing the original goal of reaching the Root. To give himself an advantage, he conspires with his close friend and Grail Overseer Risei Kotomine.

Though he loves his daughters, he allowed his younger daughter Sakura to be adopted by the Matou family because he felt it would give her a better life, earning the hatred of Kariya Matou, who feels that Tokiomi has sold his own daughter to a monster. Tokiomi also works with Risei's son Kirei, who he has taken as his apprentice. Kirei is the Master of Assassin and uses them as an information network while Tokiomi uses the immensely powerful Archer class Servant Gilgamesh. The arrogant Gilgamesh is highly independent, making him very difficult for Tokiomi to control, but he does seem to accept Tokiomi as a subordinate that will occasionally be listened to.

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• '90s Hair: Wears his hair with middle-parted bangs and a soul patch-esque goatee, like a member of a 1990s boy band.
• The Ace: Reconstruction. He's not an inherently strong mage due to only decent magic circuitry and being from a family that's pretty unremarkable, their only involvement in the creation of the Holy Grail being owning the land. Instead of this hindering him, Tokiomi spent his whole life training and honing his skills as a Mage, even though he was at a major disadvantage. By the time of the story, he's an excellent, though not quite amazing Mage only outdone by Kayneth.
• Adaptational Jerkass: The anime leaves out a crucial inner monologue when he visits Rin, that fully explains the reason why he gave Sakura up for adoption. In the anime, it looks like Tokiomi is an ambitious mage who only follows tradition. Tokiomi reveals to Kariya that he gave Sakura up because both her and Rin were born with unnatural talent and he couldn't protect both. Finding a distinguished mage family that is willing to adopt and train a child to make them their heir is nigh impossible, which is why he immediately accepted when Zouken promised protection and education for Sakura, so she wouldn't be robbed of her future and fall into "mediocrity". The light novel reveals that robbing Sakura of her potential future is technically true, but was interpreted in the most negative way by Kariya. Sakura receiving a Sealing Designation would rob her of her future, so Tokiomi didn't see another choice for her but to become a mage. His belief in the mage institutions and their practices made him fear for Sakura's safety, as Sakura was born with a non-conventional Elemental Trait, which would make her a target for rare specimen-seeking mages.
• Adapted Out: He does not appear at all in the Fate/Grand Order Crossover.
• All There in the Manual: Important plot points are left out in the anime and only revealed in the light novel, material books and interviews. For instance, one of the reasons he married Aoi is because she can bear her partner a Superior Successor. Word of God revealed Tokiomi didn't intend to have a second child, knowing the second one couldn't receive the Magic Crest of the family. Sakura was conceived because Rin was in serious danger of dying and he needed an heir. As Rin obviously didn't die, he was left with a dilemma, as both daughters were born equally talented and with rare Elemental Traits. Both of them would be in danger of attracting supernatural events and receiving Sealing Designations, but only one could become the Tohsaka family's heir and receive their protection, so he had to find a family that would take in Sakura and protect her.
• Anti-Villain: Tokiomi is actually decent enough for a mage - but mage values are strict, conservative, elitist and can lead to unpleasant outcomes, and his judge of character is deeply flawed. Pet the Dog below shows some good examples of how. Urobuchi was hesitant to kill him, since Rin apparently inherited her kindness from her father, so he made Tokiomi look like a villain.
• Arch-Enemy: Kariya utterly hates him because he believes that Tokiomi values his daughters' potential as mages more than them being happy. Tokiomi thinks that they are equivalent and in turn despises Kariya for quitting being a mage. They are incapable of understanding each other.
• Badass Bookworm: Mediocre in terms of talent, but very hardworking. Also together with his father the first Tohsaka who made a profit out of maintaining Fuyuki's leylines, which would bring economic success to the tenants on the lands above said leylines. In one of the few actual Master to Master conflicts in the War, he utterly dominates his opponent.
• Beneath the Mask: Tokiomi gives the impression of a perfect mage, who is elegant and absolutely confident in every decision he makes and never loses composure. Which also fooled Kariya. Tokiomi lost his confidence after Risei's death and was deeply conflicted about Sakura and Rin's lives. He felt very guilty about not being able to give them the choice to walk the path of the mage themselves, a choice his father gave him. Rin would later on put on a similar "perfect" mask in stay night, but beneath that mask would be a far more warm-hearted person compared to her father.
• Blessed with Suck: Like Kiritsugu, Tokiomi has summoned an immensely broken Servant, that being Gilgamesh who's powerful enough to win if he actually wanted to. Unfortunately, due to Gilgamesh's lack of respect coupled with Tokiomi trying to rein him in and playing it safe instead of letting the King of Heroes loose on the opposition has strained his relationship with his Servant, albeit not to the degree of Artoria and Kiritsugu. Well, at least not until his Servant and student tried to off him.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality:
  • His mage morality is really strange to muggles. For instance, when Kariya claims that his family has brought him great happiness, Tokiomi agrees; however, where Kariya sees two adoring daughters, Tokiomi sees two talented successors to his legacy. However, since mage tradition demands that only the firstborn child can be cultivated as another mage, Sakura is given to the Matou family. Tokiomi sees this as the best possible life for Sakura, since Sakura would be doomed to mediocrity if she continued living with the Tohsakas. Like his daughter, though, he has some more conventional morals, and prefers to conceal them behind the rhetorical mask of a mage. For instance, the light novel explains that the real reason he wanted Rin and Sakura to be raised in separate mage families was so that both of them would be spared from a sealing designation. And even in the anime, which doesn't spell this out, there is no indication that he knew of the horrific abuse Sakura was suffering at the hands of the Matous, as Kariya doesn't bother to explain this to him during their face-off.
  • His dislike about Kiritsugu's methods and Ryuunosuke's killing spree isn't about the victims of said actions so much as how much they threaten the masquerade of the Mages association.
  • Word of god notes that if he learned of the horrors Zouken subjected Sakura to, he'd be more upset about Zouken not training his daughter as a Mage like he promised more than anything else.
• Blunt "Yes": When Kariya confronts him about his belief that giving Sakura away to the Matou family is best for her.
  Kariya: You bastard... you want them to fight each other?! Sister against sister?
  Tokiomi: Even if such a development were to come to pass, it is still best for the future of my descendants.
• But Not Too Foreign: Apparently one of Tokiomi's parents was a foreigner, possibly one of the Edelfelt sisters who took part in the 3rd Holy Grail War (as the Tohsaka family somehow acquired the Edelfelt's magic crest).
• Charm Point: According to supplementary materials, his goatee, which he spends a long time daily carefully grooming.
• The Chessmaster: Tokiomi fancies himself as one in the 4th Holy Grail War. Of course, he stacked the deck in his favor before the battle actually started. Over the course of the battle though, it becomes obvious that he's not good at coming up with new strategies on the fly as the spanners pop up. Gilgamesh's lack of loyalty and Kirei being the actual brains is what does him in.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Kariya brings out a massive swarm of giant insects. Tokiomi simply roasts them all as well as Kariya himself.
• Death by Irony: On many levels:
  • Tokiomi starts in the most advantageous position. His house is such a well-fortified stronghold that had Caster not gone super Ax-Crazy he would not have to step outside even once. He successfully summons the strongest Servant in the war and, if all else fails, has another Master working for him undercover. He even exclaims "We have won this war!" with full confidence right after the successful Summoning Ritual. His Servant and his student grow unsatisfied with him and he gets killed in his house.
  • One of his first actions in the War is ordering Kirei to stage an assassination attempt on him. Kirei's second attempt is not staged.
  • He entrusts Kirei with an Azoth Dagger. Kirei kills him with that same dagger less than a minute later.
  • His ultimate plan for Gilgamesh was to force him to commit suicide via Command Seals once the War was over. Guess who convinced Kirei to kill him?
  • You'd think that by playing it safe and staying inside his house, Tokiomi would've outlasted everyone in the war. Unfortunately, Gilgamesh being constantly reined in instead of letting him go ham on the other Servants caused him to be dissatisfied with his Master, and along with Kirei, plotted his death.
• Didn't See That Coming: He is killed by his own apprentice, Kotomine, because he made the false assumption that his pupil was as loyal as he appeared.
• Divided We Fall: A major cause of his downfall was his inability to form a bond with Gilgamesh.
• Doomed by Canon: It's mentioned early on in the prologue of Fate/stay night that he died while taking part in the 4th Holy Grail War, so it's only a matter of finding out how he dies. Visual novel readers also knew from the beginning that it was Kirei who ambushed and killed Tokiomi, as Kirei joyfully confesses to Rin in Unlimited Blade Works right before he tries to kill her.
• Dramatic Irony: While he wouldn't live to see it, he'd likely be shocked to see his daughters having feelings for the adoptive son of the Mage Killer Kiritsugu Emiya.
• Et Tu, Brute?: He appears very shocked when Kotomine stabs him In the Back. In the novel it was over before he knew what was going on.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: He summoned Gilgamesh, thinking he could force the king to self-destruct with the Command Seals once the War was over. Gilgamesh simply arranges his death instead.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Although he is in many ways the perfect mage, his downfall is that he has too much faith in the institutions of the mages and is a Horrible Judge of Character.
  • Pride. Tokiomi is full of himself due to being the strongest mage in the Holy Grail War, and this arrogance blinds him to a lot of the scheming Kirei, Zouken and Gilgamesh are doing behind his back. Zouken only accepted Sakura to use her as a meat suit, years later. Gilgamesh and Kirei both plan to betray him and kill him.
  • He suffers from a massive case of tunnel vision. His obsession with being the perfect mage and reaching The Root makes him ignorant of all the scheming going on around him and how naive he truly is about the world at large.
• Gentleman Wizard: Very much so. In the anime, he discusses the importance of fusing power and elegance.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Totally averted. He became such an outstanding mage through sheer determination and hard work.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: He gives Kirei an Azoth dagger as a gift right before he leaves to finally join the fighting. Guess what Kirei uses to kill him ten seconds later?
• Horrible Judge of Character:
  • Tokiomi hands off his daughter to Zouken under the belief that she would be targeted by the Mage Association or other corrupt magi if he didn't. While certainly true, he fails to realize that Zouken is worse.
  • Tokiomi underestimates just how large of an Awesome Ego Gilgamesh has.
  • Kotomine is an aversion, however, because despite what the audience knows, Kotomine was originally loyal to Tokiomi. Still, not noticing Kirei's obvious ennui was his own fault.
  • In general, he seems to be unable to consider the possibility that someone who he considers an ally might betray him.
• Hypocrite: He claims that his motivation for giving Sakura away was to protect her from evil magi, yet he willfully ignores the signs that Kariya ran away was because of such practices, because doing would be admitting he screwed up trusting Zouken, which his pride won't allow.
• Irony:
  • He ostensibly gave Sakura up to protect her from supernatural events and abuse from the monsters of the Mage's Association. Ironically, he didn't see that the man who adopted Sakura is himself a monster who would abuse her for the next ten years. She also would play an important role in a supernatural event, the Fifth Holy Grail War.
  • His ultimate goal was to ensure what he believes to be the happiest possible outcome for his family, he managed to create the worst possible outcome by blindly giving Sakura to Zouken. His blind trust in Gilgamesh and Kirei gets him killed by his apprentice, his wife crippled by Kariya, Sakura being mentally broken by Zouken's Crest Worms and Rin growing up without her parents.
• Magic Staff: His ruby-topped cane is one.
• Manipulative Bastard: He acts servile to Gilgamesh in an attempt to manipulate him. It works occasionally. Gilgamesh thinks he's pathetic and boring, but since he knows his place he will occasionally deign to do as asked. However, since Gilgamesh has no true respect for Tohsaka, he is quite likely to do whatever he pleases. It turns out that Tokiomi was planning to use his Command Seals to order Gilgamesh to commit suicide since opening the pathway to the Root requires all seven Servants to be sacrificed to the Grail. Gilgamesh didn't have the slightest hint about this, and if Kotomine hadn't clued him in, it likely would have succeeded.
• Orcus on His Throne: Tokiomi's strategy for winning the war amounts to hiding in his fortified house while everyone else kills each other, then emerging to kill the survivors. Aside from a quick skirmish during the truce to kill Caster, he never makes it out of the house.
• Pet the Dog: The story likes to show us that he is well-meaning, but misguided and rather stuck in the traditional mage ways. His last meeting with Rin shows his true concern for her. He's also visibly upset when innocents are caught in magical accidents and along with Waver he is one of the only Masters disturbed by the actions of Caster and Ryuunosuke.
• Playing with Fire: Tokiomi's elemental attribute.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He gives one to Kariya, expressing his disgust to Kariya for running away from his responsibilities as a mage.
• Sadistic Choice: The light novel reveals through a retcon that no matter which daughter he would have chosen as his successor, the other one was from Tokiomi's point of view in constant danger of getting a Fate Worse than Death, namely in the form of Sealing Designations given out by the Association. The heir of a distinguished mage family is "protected" from such a fate and also receives the magic crest of the family for further protection from outsiders and supernatural events. Zouken's offer was basically a godsend that instantly solved Tokiomi's dilemma of leaving one daughter in danger. Too bad he didn't see what a monster Zouken is. So Tokiomi either would put one of his daughters in danger for the rest of her life, without any way to protect her (especially because as a Tohsaka he had to participate in the upcoming Grail War and could possibly die), or even if he did find a family for her, he would separate her from her family and she also would have to go through the harsh, bloodstained life of a mage. The latter would mean a better chance at survival.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: He makes a point of being "elegant" even in difficult situations.
• Skilled, but Naive: The guy is a pretty good mage but he is a woefully poor at reading people. He ignores the signs that Zouken can't be trusted since their families are supposed to be allies and underestimates how much of an egomaniac Gilgamesh is. It is easy to see him make the same mistakes fighting someone like Kiritsugu Kayneth did under the assumption he would fight with a code of honor instead of pragmatism like an assassin would.
• Smug Snake: Oh, he's a very clever man, but he's not nearly as clever as he thinks. Much of his problem comes from the fact that he is so certain that his plans will work out and everything is under control that he doesn't really bother to check, only going into the field once, and he doesn't make much effort to investigate the things that would interfere with them. The two most pivotal things that would lead to his undoing were Gilgamesh's rebellious nature and Kirei's growing ennui, which were both evident very early on.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Because Gilgamesh was defeated at the banquet of kings in the FGO crossover, he did not get an opportunity to corrupt Kirei, and thus Tokiomi is not murdered by his apprentice.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He summoned Gilgamesh into the modern world, which led Kirei to embrace his inner malevolence, and gave Sakura over to Zouken. These two events are the source of pretty much every bad thing that's happened in Fate/stay night, save for the corruption of the Grail itself.
• Weapon Specialization: His Mystic Code is a staff with a ruby embedded in the top.
• Wine Is Classy: Like Servant, like Master.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: As soon as the other Masters and Servants were defeated, he was planning to use a Command Seal to make Gilgamesh commit suicide. Kirei warns Gilgamesh, so he retaliates by convincing Kirei to kill Tokiomi first.

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Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald

(Master of Lancer)

Voiced by: Takumi Yamazaki (Japanese), Doug Erholtz (English)

"In the world of mages, bloodline is everything. The secrets of magic cannot be discovered in a single generation."

Kayneth is a renowned mage and lecturer at the Department of Euryphis in the Mage's Association. Apart from this, Kayneth is the head of the noble Archibald family and the El-Melloi faction, and engaged to the department head's daughter, Sola-Ui, though she is less than thrilled about the idea. He is Waver Velvet's teacher and tore his whole controversial thesis to pieces without examining the ideas it contained. In retaliation, Waver stole the catalyst that Kayneth intended to use in the war and entered himself. Upon discovering what Waver had done, an enraged Kayneth uses a second artifact to enter the War, summoning the Lancer class Diarmuid.

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• Alchemy Is Magic: A very skilled alchemist, and creator of Volumen Hydragyrum through his talent.
• All Love Is Unrequited: He does legitimately love his fiancée Sola-Ui, and part of his beef with his Servant Lancer is that he's well aware that she's infatuated with him instead. Even before Diarmund entered the picture, Sola-Ui is too much of an Empty Shell to return Kayneth's feelings anyway.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • He is this to Waver, by virtue of being the only Master with any real antagonism towards him. When they met for the first time in the war, Kayneth makes it clear he intends to torture Waver to death for stealing his catalyst, and would've done so if Kiritsugu hadn't become the focus of his attention.
  • His greatest enemy, bar none, is Kiritsugu Emiya. Kayneth sees Kiritsugu as a massive insult to everything he values as a Mage and the Mage Killer regards as Kayneth as his greatest threat after Kirei. Kiritsugu would destroy all of Kayneth's Mystic Codes, cripple him with an Anti-Magic bullet and have him and his fiance shot, after forcing them to quit the war and promising not to hurt them.
• The Archmage: Kayneth is ranked Brand, the second highest rank a mage of the Clock Tower can receive and he is the youngest person to reach that rank, thanks to being born with magical talent rarely seen in humans. It is believed he would have made the rank of Grand, if he wasn't killed by Kiritsugu when he was.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Or at least they're jerks.
• Arranged Marriage: He's engaged to Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri as a result of her family pressuring her to marry Lord El-Melloi. Kayneth makes it clear he does have feelings for her, but she couldn't care less about him and soon becomes obsessed with his Servant Lancer.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Able to decipher Kiritsugu's Time Alter after seeing it just once.
• Badass Bookworm: In sheer magical talent, Kayneth is far and away the single most powerful human mage in the Grail War. Sadly, his first opponent happens to have an extremely powerful countermeasure to such a trait.
• Bad Boss: He treats Diarmuid like shit from the start, since he doesn't see Heroic Spirits as living creatures.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Kayneth entered the war with hopes that winning the war would increase his already impressive standing. Thanks to Kiritsugu, he loses his powers, his ability to walk and eventually his life.
• Blessed with Suck: He summons a powerful and loyal servant in the form of Diarmuid. Unfortunately, his fiance fell in love with said servant, causing friction between them and costing him a major advantage in the war.
• Blood from the Mouth: Vomits a torrent of blood at the end of his duel with Kiritsugu as the Origin Bullet tears then stitches his internal organs and Magic Circuits.
• Break the Haughty: The most blatant case in Fate/Zero, going from someone who has everything but the love of his fiancée to a powerless victim who just wants to leave with his life and is denied even that. After a Hope Spot, no less.
• Broken Pedestal: Waver does look up to him as his mentor and wants his approval by presenting his thesis regarding new aspects of magic, which Kayneth dismisses, tearing it up to humiliate him publicly. Waver, angry at Kayneth's arrogance, steals Iskander's mantle to summon and enter the fourth Holy War.
• Bullying a Dragon: He mocks Lancer despite being wheelchair bound and no longer possessing his magic powers to defend himself. The only thing that saved him is Lancer's sense of honor.
• Butt-Monkey: In the FGO crossover, he gets royally played by an adult Waver who through cunning trickery and personal experience with how arrogant Kayneth is, thoroughly fools him into believing that the Grail War is a sham to ridicule him, causing him to voluntarily abandon the Holy Grail War. However, see Spared by the Adaptation below.
• Con Man: Lord El-Melloi II Case Files reveals his fancy fortress at the top of the hotel was made with resources "borrowed" from the Mage's Association. Presumably he expected to win and settle his accounts without a fuss but then all the embezzled goods are buried by Kiritsugu under several thousands tons of rubble, his campaign goes down in flames, and angry debt collectors start knocking on his family's door... Ruh roh.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Kayneth in general is a Jerkass, but part of the reason he treats Lancer badly is because he knows Lancer ran away with someone else's fiancée, and (correctly) suspects Sola-Ui is infatuated with him.
• Crazy-Prepared: There's no discernible reason he should have brought a gun all the way from Britain, yet he was shown in possession of a customized Webley .38 Mk IV, a gun that he could not have procured anywhere else.
• Dead Person Conversation: His cameo in the anime adaptation of Lord El-Melloi II Case Files has him back at his classroom with Waver, serving to taunt the latter (who was in a coma due to battle injuries at the time). Admittedly, he is less malicious and more reasonably-stern, representing Waver's own self-challenges and daring him to strike back at them.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • He alters the rules of the summoning ritual so Sola-Ui will be Lancer's Prana supplier instead of him, so he can fight at full power. He doesn't appear to realize that this puts a massive target on her back, which is especially erroneous since knows full well she isn't even a trained Mage. It ultimately gets her kidnapped by Maiya and them both killed by Kiritsugu.
  • In his desperation to still somehow win and not have his rivals gain another Command Seal, he kills Risei after being given a Command Seal. In doing so, he inadvertently allowed Kotomine to inherit them and use them down the road. He is fortunate he died before having to deal with the fallout of said choice.
  • He then willingly accepts a contract with Emiya to put the latter under a geas that prevents Emiya from harming him or Sola-Ui, as long as he uses his final Command Seal to force Lancer to commit suicide. Seconds later, Maiya guns both of them down, on orders Emiya gave her before said geas was placed.
• Dirty Coward: Iskander and Sola-Ui consider him this for staying on the sidelines during Lancer's first battle. Iskander says that unlike Waver, he doesn't accompany his Servant to the battlefield, and so is unworthy to be Iskander's master. Sola-Ui chides him for making use of a loophole to have her provide Lancer with mana to save his own, only for him to not actually fight, thereby wasting his advantage.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Part of the reason he tried to kill Kiritsugu is because he didn't want Saber's master to have one more command seal than him, from defeating Caster, which is his own fault anyway for wasting one trying to beat Kiritsugu in the first place.
  • He killed Risei, just so he couldn't give anyone another command seal.
• Divided We Fall: The authors note that a major reason he keeps losing is his inability to work with Lancer as a team.
• Doomed by Canon: Seemingly loses his position as Lord El-Melloi in every timeline, even those where he's not involved in a Holy Grail War of any kind.
• Elemental Baggage: He still needs to be around mercury to use Volumen Hydrargyrum. He carries around a test tube of mercury to compensate for this.
• Elemental Powers: Possesses wind and water affinities, which is what allows him to make use of his Volumen Hydrargyrum, which is also metal due to being made of mercury.
• Emasculated Cuckold: A lot of Kayneth's antagonism towards his servant Lancer is that his fiancee Sola-Ui does not hide her attraction towards Lancer. And then after Kayneth's magic circuits are destroyed, Sola-Ui more or less calls him useless and steals his Command Seals to carry on the battle without him.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
  • Kayneth is too selfish and/or paranoid, albeit not without reason, to believe that Lancer really does just want to serve with honor, and thus doesn't trust Lancer due to him not having a wish he needs the Grail to fulfill.
  • A variation. Kayneth fails to understand why Lancer would be willing to fight honorably with Saber during the Grail War. He makes it clear he sees it as silly, unable to understand why a fundamentally good Servant like Lancer would value honor, chivalry, and pride over just flat out winning.
• Evil Counterpart: His negative relation to Lancer, and the friction due to their beliefs, is much like a more antagonistic reflection of Shirou and Saber's relationship. The difference here is that Shirou and Saber eventually patch things up between themselves and come to an understanding through communication, even falling in love with one another in the Fate Route. Here? Despite Lancer's attempts to try and reach his Master as respectfully as he can, Kayneth is far too cruel and arrogant to even try and see his Servant's point of view, leading to their deaths.
• Evil Cripple: After having being crippled by Kiritsugu, he initially seems pitiful, but quickly proves he is still the same by murdering Risei Kotomine after getting an extra command seal from him.
• Fatal Flaw: Pride. Kayneth assumes that he's such an amazing Magus that nobody has a way of defeating him, to the point of willingly showing up to fight Kiritsugu despite having knowledge that he is the infamous Magus Killer. He's so prideful that when Kiritsugu lands a hit on him during their fight, he refuses to accept the idea that Kiritsugu might have tools that he has to worry about, but instead rationalizes it as him letting his guard down. Predictably, he ends up nearly dying when his pride has him use his full power to stop the next time he gets attacked, which was what Kiritsugu was wanting him to do. Even after this, he is too prideful to abandon the war even after Sola takes his Command Seals and he loses the use of his Magic Circuits, and when he finally seems to realize how bad things got for him, he gets killed before he can make amends.
• Faux Affably Evil: Acts polite, but is a selfish and egotistical man.
• Foil: To his Servant, Lancer. Both are capable, skilled men at the top of their fields who are looked up to by others and are considered elites at what they do - but neither has a chance of achieving what they want the most. In both cases, it's not due to incompetence, but for circumstances that are, for the most part, completely out of their control. There's also the fact that both adamantly refuse to give up on their ideals and honour codes in a setting where this is not an advantage, but a requirement. It spells doom for them both. Finally, the fact that the world refuses to play along with their wishes does a number on them psychologically.
• Frame-Up: He used a gun to kill Risei because he thought that would make everyone believe that Kiritsugu was the culprit.
• Gentleman Wizard: Presents himself as such, with the pedigree to match.
• Glory Seeker: He entered the Grail War to add a martial feather to his cap.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Part of the friction between him and Lancer is that Sola-Ui doesn't even bother hiding her attraction to Lancer. As a bonus, he even has green eyes.
• Guns Are Worthless: Like all Mages, he views guns as inferior to Magecraft. This comes back to bite him when Kiritsugu uses his lack of knowledge about guns against him, since he doesn't know how much stopping power one gun has compared to the other.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Kayneth sneers at modern muggle weaponry, but Kiritsugu's Mystic Code is a gun that shoots anti-mage bullets that destroy the target by shorting out their magic circuits and blowing out their bodies with their own overloaded mana. When Kayneth, a powerful mage, pours all his power into his already-powerful Mystic Code, Kiritsugu's bullet nearly tears Kayneth apart from the backlash.
  • Kayneth scams his way into getting a Command Seal from Risei after Sola-Ui stole his first set in order to reclaim ownership of Lancer. Kiritsugu promptly blackmails Kayneth into forcing Lancer to commit suicide, which was only possible because Kayneth had the Command Seal.
• Hypocrite:
  • Kayneth is a firm believer in the superiority of magecraft over modern weapons. He also carries a Webley .38 Mk IV, an extremely improbable gun to find in Japan. That said, his primary objection to modern weaponry seems to be their use in what he had expected to be a test of magical firepower.
  • He also rages at Kiritsugu for using cheap tricks in a prestigious battle like the Grail Wars, but himself used a loophole in the summoning contract to have his fiancee supply Lancer's mana, allowing Kayneth his full magical might in battle. Once again, the distinction seems to be that Kayneth's loophole is an example of magical finesse, while Kiritsugu's "cheap tricks" are mundane things like explosives.
  • He clearly derides Lancer's code of honor, desire for an honorable duel with Saber, and Chivalry and knightly honor in general as foolish, yet at the same time he clearly enjoys the proposition of honorably dueling another mage and is extremely disdainful of Kiritsugu for his "Dishonorable" un-mage-like tactics. This seems to be because he sees Lancer as merely a tool and not as a living being, which is also extremely shallow of him still.
  • He refuses to believe that Lancer doesn't have a wish for the Grail, but he doesn't even have a wish for the Grail himself, he just thinks winning the war would be good for his reputation.
• Identical Stranger: Grand Order would reveal that Kayneth actually looks a lot like Diarmuids' previous master, Fionn. They also have prideful attitudes and poor luck with women. This implies that at least part of their issues is due to Kayneth being too similar to Fionn for them to work as well as they could.
• Immune to Bullets: His Mystic Code automatically shields him from damage, even explosions. That said, the level of protection is dependent on how much mana Kayneth is pouring into it at the moment, so one can breach the Mystic Code by packing enough firepower when Kayneth isn't expecting it.
• Improbable Weapon User: Volumen Hydragyrum, his Mystic Code, is 140 kg of weaponized liquid mercury. He can shape it according to his will, creating anything from Combat Tentacles to Razor Floss. He can even use it to scout out his environment, locating enemies through their heat signatures and vibration.
• Insufferable Genius: He really is talented, but Kayneth's arrogant nature makes him rather unsympathetic for the majority of the war.
• It's All About Me: He's a pathological narcissist and like most narcissists, doesn't realize it. He eventually realizes his mistakes, but he is killed before he can reconcile them.
• Invisibility with Drawbacks: He casts a spell to hide his presence during the first duel with team Saber, but neglected to cover his body heat, allowing Kiritsugu to find him with a heat scope.
• Jerkass: Kayneth is a massive asshole and he uses every chance he can to demonstrate this. He treats Lancer as a tool, is needlessly harsh to his students, and more or less just treats everyone around him like crap.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Kayneth dismisses Waver's theory to increase one's potential through effort and experience which would allow a new mage to overcome the handicap of being generations behind. Well, Waver would later concede that Kayneth was right. Even after becoming a great and respected lecturer, as a mage, Waver is nothing more than mediocre. More delicate control does make one better, but not better than a mage who has the knowledge of decades of work and a bloodline that continuously brings out children with more and better circuits. However, while he does make a good point which Waver does acknowledge later in life, the issue is that he uses this to belittle Waver and support his own elitist attitude instead of encouraging him. It also doesn't change the fact that one reason this is the case is the bloodline families tend to be extremely stingy with what they learn and refuse to share it, thus forcing other families who came later to learn from the ground up. So he had a good point, but he still is an asshole for said point.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Also his Establishing Character Moment: In his arrogance and his beliefs in tradition, he not only dismisses Waver's paper, he denounces and ridicules Waver in front of the whole class, making him a laughing stock.
  • He murders Risei Kotomine (in his own church, no less) to ensure none of the other Masters can get extra Command Seals. Very unfortunately, by doing so he unwittingly cleared the way for Kirei to do just that.
• Let's You and Him Fight: The authors note that, had he let Berserker deal with the others, he could have had Lancer finish him off when the battle was over and won the war by having Lancer finish the job.
• Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: He is praised by Tokiomi for how well he abides by the rules of the Holy Grail War... though his challenge to Kiritsugu for a proper duel doesn't end well for him.
• A Lighter Shade of Grey: While he's certainly not a good person, his niece Reines admits he's still a kinder person than people like her. That he genuinely loved his fiancee Sola-Ui is somewhat unusual among magi, for whom marriage and reproduction is a cold and pragmatic task.
  • In a more meta sense, as the Nasuverse progresses, more and more mages have begun to make an appearance who have done far worse to gain far smaller advantages in a Holy Grail War than anything Kayneth has ever did^noteFor example, the unnamed would-be master of Gilgamesh in Fate/strange Fake who murders his wife and child in order to burn bridges before participating in the Holy Grail War — in other words, for no logical reason at all. For all of his stuck-up assholishness, in the greater scheme of things, he's actually one of the more decent people that can be be found in the Mage's Association, especially for someone of his status.
• Loophole Abuse: Kayneth modifies and exploits the contract system so that while he carries the Command Seals and serves as Lancer's anchor in the present world, Sola-Ui is the one supplying Lancer with the mana he needs. This allows Kayneth to fight at full strength without needing to worry about sharing his mana with his Servant. It's a double-edged sword though, as it means that taking out Kayneth or Sola-Ui would make Lancer disappear.
• Love Hurts: He really does love Sola-Ui, but she isn't too happy about the Arranged Marriage, and nothing he does wins her over. The fact that Sola seems enamored with Lancer means that he not only has to worry about the Grail War, but also worry that his own fiancee might leave him for a Servant of all people.
• Love Martyr: Zigzagged. He tries to save Sola-Ui even though she betrayed and tortured him. However, he acknowledges his ambitions were at fault for their relationship falling apart.
• Morph Weapon: His mercury is capable of forming whips, spears, blades, and even shields for attack and defense.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The one time Kayneth performs an act motivated for the sake of someone else over his own pride and well-being, it ultimately costs him his life.
• Pet the Dog: Despite Sola-Ui threatening to break his fingers in order to make him give her his Command Seals after he's crippled, he still cares enough about her that when Kiritsugu has both of them at gunpoint with a one way for her to survive, he takes it, though it means he's removed from the War and potentially shames the Archibald family in the process.
• Powers Do the Fighting: He fights using his Mystic Code, the Volumen Hydragyem. Kiritsugu uses this against him, as his Origin Bullets do more damage the more power Kayneth puts into his Mystic Code.
• Power Stereotype Flip: For a man with water powers, Kayneth is very inflexible as a Mage and stubborn to a fault.
• The Proud Elite: The head of the fourth highest ranked magic family in the Mage Association and a very haughty man.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives one to Waver, calling him weak and inexperienced. Iskander responds that Kayneth is far too cowardly to ever be his master.
• Redemption Equals Death: Much of his bad relationship with his fiancee is due to prioritizing his career as a mage over his marriage. When Kiritsugu offers the trade of Sola-Ui life for his backing out of the tournament, Kayneth ultimately accepts. Considering that the Grail was the only thing that could possibly restore his magic circuits, he was essentially choosing his marriage over his lifelong dream.
• Rules Lawyer: How he obtains one of the Command Seals after the defeat of Caster in Season Two - he rightly points out that it's his name on the paperwork, rather than his fiancée's.
• Sadist Teacher: He cruelly mocks and humiliates Waver in front of the class by tearing up his thesis, and later graduates to Evil Teacher by threatening to very painfully kill Waver for stealing his first summoning artifact, though he largely leaves Waver alone after the threat, mainly due to killing Kiritsugu becoming his primary goal, intending to kill Waver once he's done with Emiya.
• Skilled, but Naive: He's the best Mage, but more used to politics than actual fighting. When it comes to actual warfare and playing dirty to win, Kiritsugu is way, way ahead of him.
• Smug Snake: He's utterly convinced of his own invulnerability, and believes that his victory is nearly a foregone conclusion. He's also an extremely elitist, self-absorbed narcissist. If the War was actually a test of magic, he may well have been right. Of course, it's not.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Because he abandons the Holy Grail War in the FGO crossover upon being made to believe it’s a scam to ridicule him, he and Sola-Ui manage to avoid their brutal deaths by Kiritsugu.
• Too Dumb to Live: Sure Kayneth, just march right into your enemy's booby-trapped castle, shout out that you want a duel, and expect him to play by the rules even after you saw how ruthless he is when he destroyed your first hideout. If it weren't for Saber's sense of chivalry and Lancer's intervention, Kiritsugu would've killed him right then and there.
• Tragic Villain: Over the course of the War, Kayneth goes from a mostly unsympathetic Jerkass who lacks only the love of Sola-Ui to have everything he could imagine, to a crippled, saddened wreck torn apart by trust issues with his fiancee and Servant before he is offed without mercy. By the time he finally bites the bullet, it's almost impossible to not feel at least some sympathy.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Even after Lancer saves him from Kiritsugu, he still treats his Servant like gutter trash.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Him mocking Waver's paper would lead to his student stealing his catalyst, forcing him to summon a different servant instead. Unfortunately his fiance would develop a crush on Lancer, thanks to his cursed beauty mark and the two having a falling that results in Kayneth and Sola's death and the El-Mellois falling into debt after Kiritsugu destroyed the Mystic Codes he scammed the Association out of.
  • Kayneth killing Risei would cause Kirei to realize he wanted to kill his father, leading him to kill Tokiomi to compensate for that.
• Villainous Breakdown: His composure quickly deteriorates once Kiritsugu manages to hit him during their battle, complete with disappearance of his usual Gentleman Wizard façade.
• Weapon Specialization: His Mystic Code, Volumen Hydragyrum, is a mass of weaponized mercury.
• The Worf Effect: He's the most skilled Mage of all the Masters in the Holy Grail War and the most stiff-necked and haughty about their methods and traditions, so he's the one that Kiritsugu beats several times by using his pragmatic and destructive methods, cementing his title as the Mage Killer.

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Waver Velvet

(Master of Rider)

Voiced by: Daisuke Namikawa (Japanese), Lucien Dodge (English)

^{Click here to see Waver's appearance post-Zero}

"What I wish for is only to be judged equitably. To renew the impression of my colleagues at the Clock Tower, who never acknowledged my talent..."

Waver Velvet is a non-traditional student at the Clock Tower of the Mage's Association. He put forward the notion of increasing magical potential with methods that go against the ancient tradition of bloodline inheritance, which not-coincidentally sneers at the potential of his own unremarkable bloodline. His teacher, Kayneth, openly mocked his work and humiliated him in front of his class for questioning tradition and "basic rules". In retaliation, Waver steals Kayneth's summoning artifact and enters the War, intending to win the Grail to prove his worthiness.

While Waver is young and neither particularly strong nor talented, he tends to favor simple but effective methods that his enemies in the war frequently overlook. This along with his humility leads to Waver having the closest Master and Servant bond in the war with the mighty Iskander of the Rider class.

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• Action Survivor: Waver wasn't directly involved in any fights (leaving the fighting to Rider and only supporting him with his mana and investigative skills) and is the only Master that makes it out of the Grail War unscathed.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Commented on by Takeuchi, who mentions that he was originally designed to look Nobita-esque but that his appearance in the anime was made a lot cuter and had the air of a heroine.
• Ambiguously Gay: He is stated to have nearly ejaculated upon summoning Iskandar, and notes his scent. He eventually grows extremely close with Iskandar, and displays a general lack of interest in women despite their interest.
• Badass Bookworm: He found Uryuu's lair using what amounts to magic-based Forensic Science.
• Blue-Collar Warlock: Only the third generation of his family to study magecraft, and the first to take it seriously. This fact gets him looked down upon by most of the aristocratic faction of the Clock Tower, including Kayneth. However his mundane upbringing and experience with modern technology means he has a different worldview on magic that allows him to solve problems in ways old-fashioned mages would not, and is what makes him so effective as a teacher.
• Boring, but Practical: His method to find Caster's hideout is basically forensic chemistry, just with magical residue instead of blood or skin cells, and would be considered novice-level among magi. Waver is disappointed that he can't do anything flashier, but Rider considers his clever use of limited tools more worthy of praise than raw talent.
• Breakout Character: Though he's one of the less plot-crucial masters, he's appeared in multiple series after this; even in adaptations where he didn't appear in the original. Like Aoko and Touko before him; many of these series are Alternate Universe but he is depicted as roughly the same character. He's The Cameo in the anime adaptation of Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works], a minor supporting role in Fate/Apocrypha, and a cameo in Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA, he has a more major role in Fate/strange Fake, he is the main character in Lord El-Melloi II Case Files, and is a major Caster Servant himself (although fused with Zhuge Lang) in Fate/Grand Order. He was also mentioned in passing in the short story "Clock Tower 2015" written by Nasu himself, meaning that he becomes Lord El-Melloi II even in Tsukihime. (Yes, despite Servants not existing in Tsukihime.) Melty Blood Type Lumina also confirms his existence in Tsukihime timelines (in Aoko's ending)
• British Accents: Fate/Grand Order mentions that he has the hint of a working-class accent, likely Cockney.
• Butt-Monkey: Waver gets to be the butt of a lot of jokes involving himself and Rider, due to his teenaged ego and small stature contrasting with Rider's boisterous confidence and enormous build but this just leads to his growth as a character, making him the only good character to end up better off at the end of the war than before it. The All Around TYPE-MOON Drama CD really plays it up as well.
• Celibate Hero: His complete lack of interest in women despite his popularity with them is a large running gag.
• Character Development: Goes from a self-centered, obnoxious, arrogant brat to a true man, a dignified and loyal follower of the great King of Conquerors that even Gilgamesh somehow considers worthy of living.
• Charm Person: One of the few things he can accomplish with magecraft. He uses it on the Mackenzies just to score free room and board, although it stops working when they start to notice inconsistencies. In a CD drama he uses it to convince Taiga to go home and stop trying to catch the guy who walked off with a barrel of wine from her family's bar, left a giant hole in the wall, and took off in a flying chariot, before she realizes she's been walking around with him and his Master all evening.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: He's the only Master in the war who doesn't cheat at some point, and while he doesn't win, he makes it through the war alive, and is the only one of the surviving Masters who is better off at the end of the war than he was at the start.
• Coming of Age Story: Fate/Zero is one for him as it shows him learning important lessons and growing as a person.
• Cowardly Lion: As scared as he is about the war, he's willing to stand and fight alongside Rider.
• Cowardly Sidekick: He cries and screams as his Servant drags him to the action. He gets better.
• The Dog Bites Back: His stealing Rider's catalyst and joining the war was to get back at Kayneth for humiliating him in class.
• Foil: To his Servant. Rider's brash and confident demeanor and Waver's cautiousness to almost the point of cowardice bounce off each other, enhancing and contrasting quite a bit.
• Green-Eyed Monster: To the point that he almost immediately resents having the powerful, confident, and accomplished Rider as his Servant in the original novel.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: His paper stating hard work can make up for talent is both obvious and gibberish: Hard work will make you better at something, but with no aptitude from the start hard work can only get you so far, and it certainly won't grow you magical body parts that you weren't born with. However, it turns out that while Waver is rather bad at magic himself, he's quite good at educating others and helping them maximize their own potential. Which is something he has no interest in, even though it gives him a solid career and good social standing.
• Hero-Worshipper: In the end, facing Gilgamesh alone, Iskander asks if Waver would serve him. Without hesitating, he replies that he would. When Gilgamesh confronts him after defeating Iskander, he proudly replies that he's not Rider's Master, but his follower. Although later he wished more to be his friend than his servant.
• High Hopes, Zero Talent: Waver wants to be a great mage, but lacks the necessary heredity because magical ability apart from a few freaks tends to be something gained over the generations and Waver is a nobody compared to the old mage families.
• His Own Worst Enemy: The guidebooks list his natural enemy as "Himself", because of how his arrogant yet self-deprecating immaturity is the biggest obstacle in his life. As Fate/Zero is his Coming of Age Story, he spends the Holy Grail War learning to overcome himself.
• Humble Pie: Kayneth utterly humiliates him in public at the very start of the story. This prompts him to impulsively enter the Grail War to prove his worth and rebuild his shattered ego.
• Identical Stranger: In the anime, when Rider's Ionioi Hetairoi appears, the camera lingers on Eumenes, who coincidentally happens to bear a peculiarly strong resemblance to an older version of Waver.
• I Have Many Names: Waver acquires a large swath of titles and nicknames upon becoming a Clock Tower professor. Examples include Master V, Great Big Ben ★ Londonstar, Professor Charisma, and — most notably and amusingly — Lord El-Melloi II.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Born with neither impressive power nor talent and looked down upon by his teacher for attempting to challenge the prevailing idea that bloodlines are the be-all, end-all of a mage's potential, Waver at the start of the war wants to prove to others, but most of all himself, that he can indeed become an amazing mage worthy of respect.
• Inept Mage: He says that the Charm Person trick he used on the Mackenzies is a basic spell any mage should be able to do... but it fails twice.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: While Waver begins the series as quite arrogant and self-assured, Rider's forceful presence quickly strips away that confidence, revealing his insecurities about his less-than-stellar talent at magecraft.
• Last of His Kind: He's last surviving master of the Fourth Holy Grail War by the end of Fate/Stay Night.
• Leitmotif: An unreleased one in the Sound Drama, which can be heard in the background here, for example.
• Lovable Coward: Frequently panics and worries about the dangers of the War. Despite this, Iskander is quick to point out that Waver rides with him into battle, making him more courageous than several other masters.
• Manly Tears: After Iskander dies, Waver weeps, but he maintains his dignity.
• Naïve Newcomer: The only contender in the Grail Wars that wasn't already accustomed to high stakes mage battles. Kayneth briefly mocks him over his inexperience.
• The Napoleon: Iskander's even joked that he should use the Holy Grail to make himself taller.
• Nerds Are Virgins: When Rider goes on about the joys in life Waver thinks about how he personally doesn't know the least thing about war or sex, but a LOT about magic. He doesn't have any interest in sex.
• Non-Action Guy: Waver is merely a student and lacks any real combat ability.
• Odd Friendship: With Iskander; it's like a shy booknerd and a boisterous sports team captain.
• Older Than They Look: He's nineteen or so, but he's so short and skinny he looks several years younger. Particularly highlighted in any scene where he's wearing pajamas, and official art that sticks him in a group of six-year-olds◊. Plus, he somehow gets an incredibly late growth spurt post-series, which makes his nineteen-year-old appearance look much younger by comparison.
• Remember the New Guy?: In the original Fate/stay night visual novel, it is often mentioned that the only masters to have survived the fourth Holy Grail War were Kiritsugu and Kirei. However Waver did manage to survive in the end. Later, he gets a cameo in the Ufotable anime adaptation of Unlimited Blade Works. Could also be a minor case of Ret-Gone as he lost the Holy Grail War (which implied that people forgot he participated in the War) and went by another name in his later years and was known as a teacher but not a mage. Lord El-Melloi II Case Files elaborates on this somewhat: his participation was known within the Mage's Association, but due to deliberate attempts by another character to downplay the true significance of the Holy Grail Wars it's dismissed by most of the Association as unimportant, and not known to anyone in the cast of Stay Night.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Subverted. After Gilgamesh kills Iskander he mentions that as Iskander's retainer, it is Waver's duty to avenge his king. Waver refuses, as that would be suicide and Iskander had ordered him to live. Gilgamesh considers this a sign of true loyalty and allows him to live.
• Running Gag: His Servant can literally knock him down with one flick of the finger, which is an efficient means of silencing his many complaints.
• School Uniforms are the New Black: Waver continues to wear his Clock Tower uniform throughout the war.
• Ship Tease: Rider tries to get Waver to go out with a young Taiga Fujimura in one of the Drama CDs by deliberately mistranslating a line of his to suggest he's asking her out, to Waver's annoyance. Nevertheless, Taiga found the incident memorable enough that it helped inspired her to become an English teacher afterwards.
• Short Teens, Tall Adults: Gains several inches in height between Zero and future appearances in the series. Lord El-Melloi II's Case Files makes it explicit that Waver is nineteen during the events of Zero.
• Sidekick: Ironically, to his own Servant. And he knows it. And he's bitter about it - at least at first.
• Staring Down Cthulhu: His unwavering stare and loyalty to Iskandar actually causes Gilgamesh to back down from otherwise killing him, and even compliments him on his great courage while leaving.
• They Called Me Mad!: His reasons for joining the Holy Grail War are an attempt to prove his beliefs that Kayneth sneered at and the other students laughed at.
• Translation Convention: A special Voice Drama featuring teenage Taiga, reveals that Waver doesn't know Japanese at the start of the HGW, and has been speaking English the whole time until now. You would never know this otherwise as he barely speaks any English.
• Tsundere: In great Nasuverse tradition, Waver is exasperated and frustrated by Iskander's boisterous nature, but develops a strong respect for him.
• Undying Loyalty: Eventually has this to Iskander, swearing to serve and follow the King of Conquerors' ideals for the rest of his life. To the point that Gilgamesh just leaves with a smile and finds this act of loyalty a beautiful thing.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His theft of Iskander's mantle results in Kayneth summoning Lancer instead, and the resulting Love Triangle that helps lead to Kayneth, Sola-Ui and Lancer's deaths and the El-Melloi's nearly being destroyed by the debt Kayneth's failures strapped them with.
• Wizarding School: He is formally studying to be a mage, and later goes on to teach future mages.

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Ryuunosuke Uryuu

(Master of Caster)

Voiced by: Akira Ishida (Japanese), Johnny Yong Bosch (English)

"Nah, it's fine. I'm kind of a demon. But if there were real demons beside me, I'd like to try to talk a little with them. Now that'd be nice."

Unlike the rest of the participants in the Grail War, Ryuunosuke is not a mage nor is he even aware of the Grail War (or even what a grail is) when the story begins. Rather, he's a bog-standard serial killer with latent mage potential who simply stumbles across a grimoire, performs the rituals inside using the blood of his victims out of curiosity, and summons a Servant where he vaguely expected a demon. Because of his own twisted nature and insanity, he summons an equally insane Servant in the form of Gilles de Rais, a Caster class Servant that shares his love of murder. Neither of the two has any actual interest in winning the Grail War (nor any idea how to actually do so) and Ryuunosuke simply amuses himself by killing civilians with his Servant in extremely gruesome ways that are, oddly enough, played for a measure of dark comedy. A brutal, heartless, Ramsay Bolton-level sadist, and all-around not very nice man, he delights in causing pain and suffering, especially in children.

Despite being the least in touch with reality or the Grail War, Caster and Ryuunosuke have a cheerfully deranged, friendly relationship matched only by that of Waver and Rider.

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• Animal Motifs: Ever since he saw an animal program about leopards, he became obsessed with them, and made their way of life a model for his own. This is depicted by him always wearing something with leopard print on it (his shoes in the anime).
• Arch-Enemy: Unlike the other masters, Ryunnosuke has no natural enemy of his own. He is noted to have been this to Risei. Considering he is a hedonist who believes god enjoys sin and nearly exposed the magical world with his serial killing, it's no surprise Risei would hate him. There's also they fact that if Uryu hadn't entered the Grail War, Risei probably wouldn't have been killed by Kayneth, who wouldn't have been able to get him alone while trying to retrieve a Command Seal from him for defeating Caster.
• Arc Villain: Ryuunosuke is the primary antagonist for the first half of Fate/Zero since he’s the one who summoned Caster and convinces Caster to join him in killing innocent women and children before finally persuading Caster to summon a massive monster to cause more death. It gets to the point where other participants of the Holy Grail put their conflict with each other aside and work together to defeat him and Caster.
• Ax-Crazy: He starts out the story as a serial killer and exits the story as a serial killer. His Servant has a skill called "Mental Pollution" based on his insanity which prevents Caster from getting along with anyone whose mind is not equally twisted. Ryuunosuke and Caster understand each other perfectly.
• Badass Creed: Delivers a truly epic speech about his strange morality after Rider and Waver destroy their "art studio" on the subject of how God appreciates both benevolent and evil actions.
• Beauty Is Bad: He is very attractive, but is also probably one of the most evil of the characters in the Fate series.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: His introduction to Caster includes his name, his employment - odd jobs and errands, mostly - and his hobby. Which is murder.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He really delights in being evil.
• Catchphrase: "Cool!" Caster picks it up later on thanks to him.
• Churchgoing Villain: The curious thing is that he seems more devout in his affection for God than even the characters who are actually priests. Granted, his worship comes out as mass-murdering and macabre "works of art"...
• Cold-Blooded Torture: As part of his hobbies.
• Conflict Killer: He and Caster together cause the War to be put on hold, as their magical killing-spree threatens to expose the world of magic. As such, all the remaining participants enter into a shaky truce to kill these two first.
• Death Seeker: His happiest moments in probably his whole entire life was watching his own blood gushing out after getting shot in the stomach by Kiritsugu, and after lamenting that he wished he had thought of spilling his own blood/dying sooner, he died with a smile upon his face after getting the top of his head blown off by the second shot. Considering his fascination with how it feels to be killed by a demon, it really isn't that surprising when you think about it.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Despite being the main human antagonist of the first half of the war, he gets killed off at the beginning of the second half by Kiritsugu, so Kirei takes over as the main villain.
• Establishing Character Moment: Ryuunosuke's first appearance is him acting casual around a boy whose family he just murdered so he could summon a demon. He then gets excited at the thought of a demon killing someone. He even offers up the boy to Caster after he thinks he summoned one.
  "Here, wanna eat this kid?"
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: Despite (or perhaps because of) being a depraved Serial Killer, Caster seems to truly think of Ryuunosuke as a friend and is genuinely saddened when he learns of Ryuunosuke’s death.
• Evil Duo: He and Bluebeard spend most of their time slaughtering children together.
• Evil Is Not Well-Lit: Seems to enjoy hanging out in dimly lit areas. His sewer base had only a few flood lamps and the lights are kept off when he is in normal rooms. This serves to hide the mutilated corpses of the children that comprise his "art."
• Evil Redhead: What with the child murder and all.
• Expy: His position as an Ax-Crazy Serial Killer uninvolved in the larger conflict of the Deadly Game and only interested in satiating his own lust for human suffering and violence makes him very similar to Takeshi Asakura.
• Face Death with Dignity: Ryuunosuke actually takes his death very well, to the point he considers seeing his own death the happiest that he’s ever felt.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Sure he may look innocent, but keep in mind the "Mental Pollution" skill brings in the servant whose mind matches his the most and it just so happens to give him possibly the single most twisted and sadistic servant in the entire Fate series and that guy most certainly does not look like an angel.
• Faux Affably Evil: Like his Servant, he's friendly and cheerful a lot of the time, right down to asking one of his victims politely if he'd be okay with getting killed by a demon. There are fleeting moments when the cheery façade cracks and reveals the vicious murderer beneath.
• For the Evulz: He thinks murdering women and children is fascinating and "cool".
• Freaky Is Cool: Ryuunosuke is incredibly happy to be friends with someone who shares his hobby.
• Go Out with a Smile: In Volume 3, when Kiritsugu snipes him. It's visible in the anime, too.
  Even though his entire head above the nose had been blown away without a trace, his lips still traced a smile of total bliss.
• Hypocritical Humor: Used in a rather dark way after Rider burns up their lair:
  Ryuunosuke: How could someone do that and call themselves a human?! (sob)
• In Love with Your Carnage: He's fascinated by how inventive his Servant can be when it comes to murder. People contain all sorts of cool stuff and pretty colors.
• Irony: In spite of being the Master/Servant duo who expected each other the least (the rest had specifically selected their Servants), they get along far better than all the other servants, especially the ones with higher moral standards. It's justified in-universe since he was one of the few Masters not to use a catalyst in order to retrieve a specific Servant, meaning the Grail assigned one that matched his personality.
• Karma Houdini: Despite having killed families and many children, the only "justice" he ever receives for his actions is getting shot to death by Kiritsugu, and that actually made him the happiest he had ever felt in his entire life.
• Kick the Dog: Let's just say he makes this a hobby.
• Laughably Evil: Despite his being a terrifically creepy sadist, his gushing over evil is too Played for Laughs to be taken seriously compared to the heinous acts of his partner. He draws the summoning circle in blood with his big toe, the grimoire in one hand and the other being used for goofy gestures, and stumbles through the ritual, going off on bizarre tangents and holding a conversation with his one surviving victim by interpreting his muffled screams.
• Luminescent Blush: In the anime, Bluebeard's sadistic shenanigans often make Ryuunosuke's face turn pink in excitement.
• Malevolent Mutilation: Although for censor reasons it wasn't depicted in the anime, in the light novel and manga, Ryuunosuke would often mutilate the bodies of children into things such as furniture and musical instruments. If that wasn't bad enough, thanks to Caster's magic, the children were still alive throughout the process and could not pass out from the torture. They could do nothing but wallow in pain.
• Misanthrope Supreme: It's clearly obvious based on his personality and his "hobby" that he has absolutely no love nor care for other humans, not even his own family. Also according to an entry on him in the Fate/Zero material encyclopedia; he is fond of animals, and loves going to safari parks and watching nature documentaries on TV. However, it seems he can only appreciate violence when the target is a human. While he may admire sharks and other predators, he has never once desired to be one himself, because as far as he's concerned the most skillful hunter of humans is another human.
• Mundanger: Unlike most other antagonists, Ryuunosuke isn’t a mage, doesn’t know or care about the Holy Grail, and isn’t interested in acquiring any powers for himself; He’s just a simple Serial Killer and none of the other participants would have ever learned that Ryuunosuke existed if he hadn’t summoned Caster by complete chance. That said, he is a Serial Killer who’s killed countless women and children For the Evulz and, coupled with his depraved sadism, Ryuunosuke stands out as one of the most evil villains in the entire Fate franchise.
• Naïve Newcomer: The only Master who doesn't know anything about the Grail or the world of Magecraft.
• Nightmare Fetishist: He finds his servant, a creepy-looking mage who summons even creepier looking monsters, to be really cool. He was also enchanted by the sight of his own blood.
• Pastimes Prove Personality: He works odd jobs but murder is his hobby.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Ryuuonsuke's actions and mental state are equivalent to those of a six year old burning ants with a magnifying glass. Just... scaled up.
• Rousing Speech: Delivers a long and coherent speech on his thoughts on the role of evil and God in the universe after Rider burns down the duo's art studio, which succeeds at getting Caster out of his slump and accept his role as a villain in God's great narrative.
• Sadist: He enjoys torturing and killing people, and his first response after summoning Bluebeard is telling him to find new and more brutal ways to torture and kill.
• Slasher Smile: A more amiable one than usual, but it fits.
• Shadow Archetype: To Kirei Kotomine. Both are men born with an evil heart and sadist tendencies, but while Kirei has a conscience and is capable of feeling guilt, Ryuunosuke completely lacks a conscience and fully revels in the atrocities he commits. Ryuunosuke is ultimately what Kirei would be like without the little restraint he has and fully embraced being evil.
• The Sociopath: He casually talks about the artistic value of his torture to the people he's torturing, and is utterly devoted to dog-kicking.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: As explained under Ax-Crazy, Caster is a Servant with insanity leagues beyond human standards, and Ryuunosuke is equally messed up, meaning the two are perfect partners.
• Villainous Friendship: He and his Servant seem to be genuinely fond of each other, making them ironically the best Master/Servant relationship in the entire series including Fate/stay night. Most of the other servants and their masters have ideals that clash too much to have a functioning bond that doesn't require bantering.
• Would Hurt a Child: Something he and his Servant have in common is butchering children.
• You Monster!: He is called a demon by the news. He doesn't mind. His introduction has him giving a little speech casually contemplating whether he likes that title, or if actual demons would think it was impolite. Which is one of the reasons he tried summoning one - so he could ask.
  Uryuu 'Sup! I'm Uryuu Ryuunosuke, and I'm a demon! I don't know if that's how I should be introducing myself...
• Your Head Asplode: Kiritsugu's second bullet takes off the top of his head, though the anime downgrades the violence somewhat and obscures the damage.

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Kariya Matou

(Master of Berserker)

Voiced by: Tarusuke Shingaki (Japanese), Liam O'Brien (English)

"Say, Sakura-chan, shall we play together again when uncle's work is finished? Together with your mother and big sister."

Kariya is the White Sheep of the Matou family and the first in many generations to have any real talent for magecraft. However, due to his disgust with his family he severed ties with them ten years prior, earning him the ire of family head Zouken Matou. Kariya has loved Aoi since they were childhood friends, so upon seeing Tokiomi Tohsaka apparently abandoning one of the girls he views almost as his own daughters he vows to protect her. While Kariya has no interest in the Grail, he made a deal with Zouken that should he win the Grail for him, Sakura will be taken from the horrible abuse Zouken intends for her and released back to the Tohsaka family.

However, despite his noble intentions, Kariya simply lacks the training to participate as an equal and is inflicted with parasitic worms that will boost his abilities in exchange for rapidly degrading his health. Making matters worse, Zouken forces him to summon a Berserker class Servant, all previously summoned examples of which have killed their Masters either directly or through the staggering power they consume in battle. Berserker and Kariya cannot interact directly due to Berserker's madness, but Kariya can issue orders, and sometimes glimpses Berserker's thoughts while sleeping, though these only disturb him. He has no interest in his Servant's identity.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: The anime adaptation toned his Two-Faced face down a bit, making it look like the consequences of a bad stroke in comparison to his appearance in the light novels.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: The anime leaves out most of the monologues, which includes him calling everyone else idiots and him being the only who supposedly knows the truth. It also in general puts him in a better light, as his flaws aren't called out by the narrator.
• Advertised Extra: Despite being one of the seven Masters in the Grail War, he appeared in a grand total of THREE episodes out of thirteen in the first season (if we’re not counting Kirei and Gilgamesh discussing him in “The Grail Beckons”). This is averted in the second season, though doesn’t exactly make things better for him.
• All for Nothing: He gives up his pursuit of Aoi in order to protect her from Zouken's plans. Later on, he would even join the Fourth War to try to save Sakura and help Aoi. In the end, Kariya would fail to win the Grail War, fail to save Sakura, strangle and handicap Aoi, and end up dying miserably without having accomplished any of his goals.
• Always Save the Girl: Kariya's arc in Fate/Zero sees him wanting to save Aoi and her daughter Sakura from the unfair world of magecraft. This quickly gets Deconstructed as he assumes that Aoi is in a loveless marriage with Tokiomi and getting manipulated by him when in actuality she's more or less complicit in the decisions he made. It also becomes apparent that while Kariya sympathizes with Sakura, he's also projecting his feelings towards Aoi onto her. This plays a factor in both his descent into madness and his manipulation at the hands of Kotomine.
• Ascended Extra: Shinji mentions in Fate/hollow ataraxia that he had an uncle who was disowned by Zouken. He finally gets a proper appearance in this series.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Over the course of the Holy Grail War, Kariya becomes obsessed with killing Tokiomi, losing sight of his original goal of winning the War to free Sakura. Kotomine and Gilgamesh set up Kariya to be framed as Tokiomi's murderer in front of Aoi. This turns out to be the final breaking point of their relationship.
• Big Damn Heroes: He destroys one of Caster's familiars right before it can kill Rin.
• Body Horror: He is filled with Crest worms that are eating him alive. The damage is so extensive that he's half-blind, half-paralyzed, and exhibits all the signs and symptoms of a stroke victim. Trying to use magic makes his capillaries explode. And those worms? He lets them turn into giant beetles and expels them from his body. He's got it as bad as poor Sakura.
• Butt-Monkey: Even though he doesn't physically appear in the Einzbern Consulation Room specials, Berserker and Iri both view him as hopeless.
• Byronic Hero: Kariya starts off entirely well-intentioned, but his resentment and envy of Tokiomi merely grows with time and is partially to blame for the two failing to understand the full situation when they confront each other. In the end, he fails to save Sakura, nearly kills Aoi himself, and dies a lonely, ugly death.
• Cain and Abel: With Byakuya. He is the Abel, while depressed alcoholic Byakuya is the Cain.
• Cast from Hit Points: He lacks training as a mage despite his talent and thus Zouken infests him with worms to boost his abilities at the expense of them slowly devouring him.
• Childhood Friend Romance: He has loved Aoi since he was young, but due to his abandoning the Matou family she married Tokiomi.
• Chuunibyou: invokedUrobuchi, Nasu and Takeuchi describe Kariya as one^note Especially when considering the fact that the term didn't even exist yet In-Universe as the Fourth Holy Grail War started in 1994, and fittingly, he is "someone who pretends to know how the world works", or "someone who pretends to be special far from others". They were actually surprised how popular Kariya turned out to be, despite his obvious flaws. In Kariya's case, he never got over Aoi and moved on. Getting her back and getting rid of Tokiomi was one of his motivations to participate in the Grail War. He also never understood Tokiomi's view regarding Sakura's adoption, lacking the knowledge Tokiomi had about Sakura and Rin and never bothering to explain why Tokiomi made a mistake.
• Classical Anti-Hero: In a series full of tragedy, Kariya arguably suffers the harshest fate due to his own vices. His biggest mistake was projecting his own disgust with the magecraft society and assuming that Aoi completely shared his sentiment.
• Cool Uncle: Is this to both Rin and Sakura. He might even be one for Shinji if one were to compare how Byakuya and Zouken treated the boy.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Contrary to what his sinister appearance might suggest, he's a pretty decent guy whose reason for entering the Holy Grail War is the nicest of all the Masters excepting perhaps Kiritsugu, who just wants to fix the world.
• Despair Event Horizon: When Aoi, never realizing Kariya's love for her, accuses him of never having loved someone, he snaps.
• Determinator: He begins the War infested with carnivorous worms that slowly rob his bodily functions. It only goes down from there, but he does not give up.
• Did Not Get the Girl: This is his status with Aoi at the start of the story. The two were Childhood Friends and it's greatly implied that the two may have ended up together had Kariya not walked away from his life as a Mage.
• Does Not Like Magic: Thanks to Zouken treating him as a tool and host body, he wants nothing to do with the world of Mages.
• Dogged Nice Guy: So dogged, he still hangs around Aoi despite her being married for several years and having two children with Tokiomi. And he fails to realize that Aoi actually loves Tokiomi.
• Doomed by Canon: He enters the war on the condition that Zouken will release Sakura if he manages to win. Needless to say, he's destined to fail.
• Driven by Envy: Though he genuinely wishes to save Sakura and help Aoi, jealousy is definitely also one of his motivations.
• Dying Dream: His last vision before his death is of Sakura, Rin, Aoi and himself safely escaping together. The capstone is the two girls smiling while calling him "Uncle Kariya".
• Entitled to Have You: Kariya spends not just the series but most of his life assuming that Aoi loved him like he loves her. The idea of her loving her husband isn't even really in the cards for him. When she tells him off and that she loved Tokiomi, he snaps like a twig and strangles her. If he were in a saner state of mind it could be considered If I Can't Have You… but he likely wasn't thinking that "rationally."
• Face of a Thug: He looks horrifying after being infested by the Crest Worms, but he's still a good guy.
• Family Theme Naming: Kariya and his older brother Byakuya have names referring to birds (goose and crane, respectively).
• Fatal Flaw: His envy of Tokiomi, and to a lesser extent his self-centeredness. While he enters the war with good intentions, he lets his envy warp him. As a result, not only does he fail to achieve any of his goals, but in spite of wanting the best for Aoi and her daughters, his actions actually leave them worse off than before. Aoi is rendered mentally invalid and dies years later, Rin is orphaned and left with the burdens of becoming the family's head with no support, and Sakura is ultimately convinced that it's hopeless to go against Zouken, which drives alot of her trauma for the next several years.
• Fond Memories That Could Have Been: He dies dreaming of escaping with Aoi, Sakura, and Rin, and bringing them together as a family.
• Go Out with a Smile: Kariya dies with a satisfied smile, comforted by dreams of escaping with Aoi, Sakura, and Rin and starting a family together.
• Handicapped Badass: By virtue of controlling Berserker and being a Determinator.
• The Power of Hate: His hatred of Tokiomi aided in powering up Berserker.
• Hero Antagonist: Besides Kiritsugu, Kariya is one of few Masters with a noble goal.
• Honorary Uncle: Rin and Sakura refer to Kariya as 'Uncle Kariya'.
• Hopeless Suitor: Aoi is not only unaware of how he feels, she's already happily married.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: All he ever wanted was to be a Parental Substitute for Sakura and Rin. Sadly, he gets repeatedly screwed over by the world and his own flaws.
• In the Hood: Kariya wears a hood to help him look more low key due to the obvious damage the worms have done to his body.
• Incompletely Trained: Kariya ran away from home before Zouken could properly begin his training so when he comes back to learn all he can in one year before the War starts, he gets a brutal crash course that leaves him half dead and unable to do much.
• Irony: Despite how much he wants to ensure Sakura's safety and happiness, he ultimately is the thing that pushes Sakura over the edge. Kariya dies in his attempt to save her, succumbing to the worms and being devoured by them right in front of her eyes. His death demoralizes Sakura and convinces her that she should not attempt to fight against Zouken at all.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: The Zero material states that while he has always loved Aoi, and Zouken in fact did intend to set her up with Kariya due to fertility and ability to bring out the best magical traits, he knew what Zouken intended to do with any heirs they might have. This is a large factor in why he abandoned the Matou clan. In the present, however, he can't or won't admit that Aoi is happy with Tokiomi and supports his decision to have Sakura adopted.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Before the Crest Worms had their way with screwing up his body, Kariya actually looks quite nice, even if unremarkable.
• It's All About Me: Kariya straddles the line of the trope given his motivation of wanting to win the Holy Grail War. His original motivation for returning to Zouken is to prevent Sakura from suffering the fate of becoming the Matou heir. But then as the War goes on, he quickly falls into Motive Decay, with his new priority becoming to kill Tokiomi so that he can take his place as Aoi's husband.
• Laughing Mad: When he starts laughing his ass off, it's not a sign his mental health is particularly robust.
• Leeroy Jenkins:
  • Two times he sends Berserker charging into the fray, despite not being a trained mage and Berserker consuming unbearably large amounts of Kariya's mana. Why? Why, to attack Tokiomi's Servant, the strongest Servant in the Grail War. Kariya completely forgets his actual goal to win the Grail because of his personal vendetta.
  • Latter still, when his face-to-face confrontation with Tokiomi goes to hell as communication breaks down, he lets out his bugs and tries to attack Tokiomi head-on in a fit of vengeance-filled rage. Tokiomi casually burns them away while Kariya can only fruitlessly try and send more and more at him, right before Tokomi just sets him on fire. The only reason he survives is both because he stumbles off the rooftop screaming and Kirei was there to find his body and heal him while he clung to life, which Kirei only did because he decided he wasn't done watching Kariya suffer.
• Leitmotif: "The Kariya's Theme".
• Locked into Strangeness: His hair has turned white as a result of the worms implanted in his body.
• Love Makes You Evil: Not realizing that Aoi never wanted Kariya to fight Tokiomi, when she raged at him for apparently causing Tokiomi's death, he strangles her, leaving her with brain damage for the rest of her life.
• Love Martyr: He endures so much pain and attempts to sacrifice his life in order to save Sakura and earn Aoi's gratitude, but she only loves Tokiomi and is totally oblivious to his love for her.
• Madness Mantra: "Endured, endured, endured, endured..." Right before he strangles Aoi.
• Make an Example of Them: Sakura sees Kariya's death as an example of what happens to those who oppose Zouken.
• Martyr Without a Cause: Perhaps the true tragedy behind of all of Kariya's suffering; his actions are driven without any real consideration for what Aoi actually wants. He believes that by saving Sakura, and killing Tokiomi, she and her daughters will ultimately be happier with him as the father instead.
• Mercy Kill: Kirei claims that a quick death would be a blessing for Kariya after all he's suffered. Unfortunately for Kariya, Kirei then changes his mind after beginning to indulge in his darker impulses at long last.
• Mistaken for Murderer: Kotomine tricks Kariya and makes him look like Tokiomi's murderer in front of Aoi. Kariya doesn't react well to Aoi's grief-stricken rage.
• Motive Decay: Kariya enters the Holy Grail war with the express purpose of freeing Sakura from her fate as the new Matou heir. Over time this morphs into his true motive being to kill Tokiomi so that he can replace him as the patriarch of the Tohsaka family.
• Never My Fault: A really tragic and messed up case, Sakura getting adopted by the Matous was the consequence of Kariya previously abandoning his position as the heir family. While Kariya had justifiable reasons for cutting ties to his family, to the outside world he's lashing out after refusing to take responsibility.
• Nice Guy: As shown in the prologue, he is the nicest of all the Masters. Sadly, his desperation to save Sakura before the Crest Worms kill him as well as his hatred for Tokiomi causes him to degrade in this regard when he's not interacting with Sakura.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Kariya, despite his ambitions, ironically creates a worst situation for Aoi and her daughters. He causes Aoi to have a mental breakdown, demoralizes Sakura from ever wanting to rebel against Zouken, and ends up burdening a young Rin to shoulder being the head of her family without any support.
• Not Quite Dead: Kotomine heals him after Tokiomi roasts him because he wants to see Kariya suffer even more.
• Papa Wolf: For Sakura and Rin, even though he's not even related to them, he is fiercely protective of them. Surely, this is due to his desire of being their real father instead of Tokiomi.
• Parental Substitute: He wants to be a father-figure for Rin and Sakura, and be a better one than Tokiomi.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • Angrish version. He's a little too busy screaming at Tokiomi how he's such a bastard to actually explain why. Given what Zouken was doing to Sakura and Tokiomi's apparently genuine desire for his daughter to have a good life, there's a decent chance Tokiomi would have helped Kariya do something about it. Urobuchi further implied in an interview that Tokiomi would not mind the "means" so much as the "end": Zouken reneged on their agreement when he decided to turn Sakura into a breeding ground for future heirs, instead of making her a proper mage heir to the Matou line. Meaning, their moralities and mindsets were too different to have a non-emotional conversation on that topic.
  • Later, Kariya is too mentally worn down to explain to Aoi that he didn't kill Tokiomi, and after Aoi accuses him of never loving anything he basically suffers a psychotic break and only realizes what he's doing when Aoi's already near death.
• Prodigal Hero: Well, he tries his damn hardest to be one, but he's just not up to snuff thanks to his incomplete training.
• Psychic Nosebleed: His eye bleeds during the servant summoning.
• The Resenter: He despises Tokiomi for having everything he always wanted and seemingly not valuing it in the slightest. And repressed as it is, he also resents Aoi to some degree for not resisting Tokiomi's idea to give Sakura over to Zouken when Kariya himself basically agreed to let Zouken torture him to death for more than a year to return Sakura to Aoi and Rin. He only admits this consciously when Aoi accuses him of never having loved another and having been entirely responsible for Sakura being taken.
• Revenge: His secondary motivation, which grows more important with time, is his hatred of Tokiomi.
• Sanity Slippage: As his body and mind are consumed by the worms - and possibly due to his link with Berserker - Kariya's stability degrades with every battle until he barely resembles the person he used to be.
• Secretly Selfish: His goal and motivation for fighting in the Grail War initially seems like a heroic act, as he willingly sacrifices his well-being to try and keep Sakura safe. While he genuinely wants to save Sakura, as the series goes on it becomes clear his heroic desire to keep her safe is merely the first step in a larger goal: the love of Aoi. When it becomes clear Aoi does not feel the same way as him, he snaps and sides with Kotomine under the belief he would be able to obtain the grail and achieve his dream of saving Sakura and having Aoi fall for him. His dying dream makes it clear his ideal victory would have been bringing Sakura to Rin, and having them both call him father instead of their actual father, with Aoi falling for him.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: In a series full of a cast of characters who suffer Tragic Dreams, Kariya perhaps suffers the cruelest fate. Kariya abandons his life as mage and his One True Love Aoi moved on with her life and did not wait for him. Kariya enters the Holy Grail War in a bid to rescue Aoi's daughter Sakura from his family, all in a bid to win her affection. He's subjected to physical and mental torture, becoming a shell of his former self. His body is infested with worms that are guaranteed to kill him within a month's time, meaning even if he were to win the Holy Grail war, he won't be able to start a family with Aoi like he dreamed. When he finally comes face to face with his Arch-Enemy Tokiomi, he suffers a Curb-Stomp Battle and is only saved by Kotomine because the latter finds the strife he is going through amusing. Ultimately, in the end he's unable to accomplish any of his goals; he plays no role in Tokiomi's death, Aoi rejects him, and Sakura remains with the Matou family.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: With Byakuya, being the black sheep of the Matou Family.
• Tragic Dream: His deepest wish is to win Aoi's heart, and to be called 'Daddy' by Sakura and Rin.
• Tragic Hero: His Fatal Flaw is his envy of Tokiomi. He wasn't doing well before it rose to the fore of his thinking, but once it does, it begins a cascade of events that destroy him.
• Two-Faced: He has a hideously disfigured left side of his face as a result of the crest worms in his body. The anime adaptation toned it down a bit, but did take the opportunity to portray them wriggling visibly beneath his skin.
• Unknown Rival: To Tokiomi, who barely acknowledges his existence. He got a confrontation with Tokiomi... which went nowhere, because they couldn't understand each other.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Kirei's moral decay gets going when Gilgamesh prompts him to realize that he really enjoys watching Kariya's suffering and just generally crappy life.
• Unwitting Pawn: Kotomine saves his life and then promises to bring him to Tokiomi in exchange for Kariya's assistance in another matter... except Tokiomi is already dead (by Kotomine's hand) and Kotomine brings in Aoi to see Kariya standing next to Tokiomi's body. She jumped to conclusions, and he was in no state to argue his innocence. The strain on his body and mind reaches the breaking point.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Averted. He is actually a pretty good guy, and his fall from grace due to his flaws is meant to be pitiable and tragic
• White Sheep: Of the Matous, rejecting Zouken's rule and twisted way of maintaining magical power.
• The Worm That Walks: Not as extreme an example as Zouken, but Kariya's body is infested with the Matou family's crest worms. He can actually vomit these worms out and transform them into much more dangerous bugs to use as weapons.
• You're Insane!: He says this verbatim to Tokiomi when Tokiomi says that he's perfectly fine with the idea of Sakura and Rin potentially having to fight each other in the Grail War.
• Your Days Are Numbered: With the Crest worms in his body, Zouken estimates he has maybe a month after the beginning of the Grail War before he dies. Of course, exertion will hasten his death... In the end he only lasts two weeks before the worms overcome him due to Berserker's intense drain on his body and mind. And also getting set on fire.

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Kirei Kotomine

(Master of Assassin)

Voiced by: Joji Nakata (Japanese), Crispin Freeman (English)

"Why would the Holy Grail choose me? Someone without any ideals to accomplish; someone without any cravings to fulfil... Why am I chosen?"

Kirei Kotomine is an Executor for the Church and the magecraft apprentice of Tokiomi Tohsaka. Prior to the story, his wife died after a long illness, plunging him into despair. He received the Command Seals in the same week, but unlike the other Masters he had no wish or desire for the Grail whatsoever. Due to his passive nature and lack of desire, Tokiomi and Risei inform him that he is to support Tokiomi in his bid for the Grail, to which he complies. He summons Servant Assassin and uses his unique abilities to both trick the other Masters and work as an information gathering force.

Though he has no interest in the Grail and no apparent desires, he terrifies Kiritsugu. Kirei, however, thinks he may have found a being similar to himself in Kiritsugu and attempts to research him and the other Masters. While he does not speak much with his own Servant, Gilgamesh finds Kirei to be of great interest to him.

For his appearance in Fate/stay night, see this page.

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• 11th-Hour Superpower: A rare villainous example. Obtaining both the accumulated Command Seals and Gilgamesh as his Servant considerably increases his power just in time for the finale.
• The Ace: Pointed out by Kiritsugu that Kirei is basically able to be good at anything he tries; he's a skilled fighter and even though magic may not be his forte, he has enough knowledge about it and experience combatting it that he wouldn't be caught lacking on knowledge of the supernatural compared to the traditional Magi. Kiritsugu recognizes him as the most dangerous Master in the grail war.
• Admiring the Abomination: Kirei expresses awe towards the Grail, and cannot comprehend why Kiritsugu would go to such lengths to obtain it, only to stop at the last second. Kirei even goes so far as to demand that if Kiritsugu does not want to unleash Angra Mainyu, then he should let him do it. After Angra Mainyu grants his dying wish by immolating most of Fuyuki, he vows to fully unleash it upon the world during the next war.
• Arch-Enemy: Kiritsugu fears Kirei because while the latter is not that interesting on paper, the former can see his true nature and talents. Kirei, on the other hand, believes that he has found someone like himself and wants to meet Kiritsugu.
• Back from the Dead: Kiritsugu kills him at the end, but the Grail revives him.
• Badass Longcoat: His clothing is technically priest robes, but the general appearance is this.
• Badass Preacher: A trained killer serving the Church who possesses genuine faith in God.
• Batman Gambit: After killing Tokiomi, he places the latter's corpse together with an unconscious Kariya in order to set Aoi against him, then manipulates Kariya into kidnapping Irisviel with Berserker disguised as Rider using the former's Noble Phantasm For Someone's Glory. This provokes Saber to attack Iskander, whose chariot is destroyed in the process. Gilgamesh then moves to finish off Iskander while Berserker duels Saber, ensuring that Kirei faces Kiritsugu alone.
• Battle Butler: To Tokiomi, in whose service he is obedient, dutiful, and effective. Until he decides he does not wish to quit the war.
• Berserk Button: To have capability to love and have normal happiness, and still throw it all away. Kiritsugu presses this button by hitting too Close to Home, and this is the ultimate reason why Kirei wants to destroy him. It's more obvious in the light novel where Irisviel and Kirei's last conversation is longer than in the anime. After Kirei learns Kiritsugu's true nature (an idealistic man who turns off his emotions for greater good), he feels that Kiritsugu's way of life is a cruel mockery of his inner emptiness and lifelong struggle to be a good man. It's a mixture of jealousy, disappointment, and incredulity that makes him hate Kiritsugu.
• Big Bad: While it was foretold by canon, he doesn't start out as the main villain in Zero. He does, however, eventually embrace the role upon murdering Tokiomi.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Kirei and Gilgamesh agree to betray Tokiomi Tohsaka and form a Master-Servant pact — something Gilgamesh had been subtly suggesting Kirei do for some time, finding Kirei to be a much more interesting and entertaining person than Tokiomi — after the former is told to leave Japan to maintain a ceasefire with the Einzberns and the latter learns that Tokiomi was planning to force him to commit suicide once the Grail was obtained.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Tokiomi, Aoi, and his father all consider him a upstanding young man. It's helped by the fact that even he himself doesn't know that he's a bitch at heart.
• Bodyguard Betrayal: Near the end of the story, he stabs Tokiomi because he refuses to quit the Grail War.
• Broken Ace: As good as Kirei is at what he does, he finds no solace in his talents, and doesn't feel happy about anything, and the one thing that makes him happy goes against his faith.
• Bulletproof Vest: Not just vest, but his entire priest robes (including the sleeves) are reinforced with Kevlar and magic, making them bullet-resistant. However, it is not invincible, as a full-powered rifle round from Kiritsugu's Thompson Contender is able to easily pierce his arm, and knives could tear it just fine like any other Kevlar vests.
• Byronic Hero: Kirei starts out a moral man greatly troubled over his inability to find happiness without the suffering of others. Due to Gilgamesh, he eventually descends to full blown villainy for its own sake.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Of the Destruction sphere. His only finds pleasure in the suffering of others, which is ironic because his profession directly contradicts his "passion". He is, however, a slightly unusual spin on this trope as he spends most of his life trying to repress it, which puts him into Tragic Villain territory.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Executors are trained to enhance their physical body to the absolute limit, to the point he can dodge bullets from close range with a high backflip and shatter a tree that he is tied to. He can even keep up with Kiritsugu when the latter is using time manipulation to speed himself three, and later four times past the human limit with his magic, through sheer physical ability alone.
• Confusion Fu: With magic no less. Kirei baffles Kiritsugu by using Magecraft to counter the latter's Origin Bullets, which are designed to kill mages with their own mana, by utilizing his one-time use Command Seals in place of his own magic circuits.
• Crazy-Prepared: Bulletproof priest's robes, anyone? He even creeps Kiritsugu, Maiya and Irisviel by attacking them during unexpected times.
• Cry Laughing: Once he sees that the burning of Fuyuki City and three hundred of its inhabitants is his most practical and truest desire, as realized by the Grail, he laughs; then, he laughs harder; then, he cries as he laughs. The contradiction entertains him so thoroughly that he resolves to repeat his participation in the next Grail War, so as to see what else he's hiding inside his head.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Kirei's motivation for literally everything he does for most of his life. With a little help from Gilgamesh, he eventually finds it.
• Dissonant Serenity: In the novel, his murder of Tokiomi is accompanied by a cheerful laugh and a bright smile.
• Doomed by Canon: Given that he dies in all three routes in Fate/Stay Night, his whole desire for the Grail after his victory becomes this.
• The Dragon: While technically supposed to be withdraw from combat after Assassin is formally declared defeated and as the Church's Overseer, he is (initially) allied with Tokiomi Tohsaka and uses his expertise as a Mage Killer to illicitly do away with the competition.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Especially in the anime, it's easy to tell he doesn't care about almost anything.
• Even Evil Has Standards: As sadistic as Kirei is, Zouken Matou disgusts him, because the latter is openly, shamelessly and thoughtlessly accepting of his own evil nature, and has no rhyme or reason beyond self-indulgence. During their encounter near the end of the war, his internal thoughts reveal that Zouken's lack of remorse and reason leads Kirei to conclude that a duel to the death is the only way he could reasonably interact with Zouken.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: In his first encounter with Irisviel, he demands her to tell him who's ordering her to get involved in the Holy Grail War, unable to realize she's doing it because she loves Kiritsugu and helps him out of loyalty. This is because Kirei believed the 'Mage Killer who threw away his pride' was like him in that he was alone, empty, and understood by no one enough to have loyal allies, and Kiritsugu being sufficiently understood to be loved so deeply would invalidate that belief.
• Evil Counterpart: To Kiritsugu. The two contrast in all aspects of their lives, from reputation, motivation, family life, and fighting technique.
• Evil Feels Good: He's particularly aware of this because evil is the only thing that feels good to him, despite a lifetime of service to God.
• Evil Virtues: Primarily Resourcefulness, Determination and Diligence. Kirei actually lacks a lot of the resources the other Masters boast and does not initially have a particularly strong Servant.
• Extreme Doormat: Early on. Even goes through a villainous version of the "growing a spine" and "finding your own reasons for living" stages, thanks to Gilgamesh.
• Fallen Hero: One in the process of falling. At the beginning of the Grail War he is, as an Executioner, a sort of Sociopathic Hero, and disgusted with the "sociopathic" part of that title. By the time the Grail War ends the Hero part is completely gone.
• False Reassurance: Not at the beginning, but after the midway point when Character Development makes him close to the Kirei of Fate/stay night, he starts to give Exact Words as if it was his new personal dogma. Examples include his conversation with Tokiomi right before he stabs him with his "parting gift" and his promise to Kariya that he'll find Tokiomi in the church.
• Foil: To Zouken, which is why Kotomine hates him so much. Zouken is a sadistic bastard and very proud of it, whereas Kotomine has struggled all his life with his own sadistic nature.
• Genius Bruiser: All the time. Unable to draw out the Mage Killer? Attack him when he is attacking other Masters, or invade his castle when his Servant is busy. Tied against a tree by your forearms by a few dozen meters of magical wire? Snap the tree in half with Fa Jin. Not a good mage, standing against the Mage Killer? Use Command Seals to boost your magic.
• The Gift: A major deconstruction, because he gains zero joy from it. He's very charismatic despite being an Empty Shell personality-wise at first, started training as part of a secret Vatican assassination branch by the age of ten, graduated as Valedictorian Student Council President at a prestigious Catholic theological university at the age of fourteen after spending his early years Wandering the Earth with his pilgrimaging father, and was a talented student of a half-dozen orthodox branches of Magecraft in a few years because he kept quitting right about when he was considered adept. Kirei is basically good at anything he tries, but not a moment of it has ever brought him any pleasure, and he considers searching out pleasure to be sinful. Gilgamesh helps him break out of this mindset to the expense of the entire world, pointing out things like Kirei's taste for wine surpasses Tokiomi's despite having no interest in drinking, and that Kirei should try to put those gifts of his to use to find out how he can put them to use and feel good about it during the Grail War.
• A Glass of Chianti: Double subverted. Kirei has a wine collection that surpasses even Tokiomi's wines quality wise, but he has never touched them. Later on, he is seen drinking wine (after a horrific Kick the Dog scene) and describing it delicious.
• Good Powers, Bad People: Halfway to the series, he uses his healing magic to save Kariya (who has just been curb-stomped by Tokiomi) in order to prolong Kariya's suffering; eventually allowing Kirei to manipulate him.
• Gun Kata: With the only difference that he doesn't use guns himself, substituting them for shortsword like daggers thrown at terrifying speeds. He is specifically noted to have trained to hear the movement of a gunman's shooting arm in the air and be able to use only that to Dodge the Bullet.
• Healing Hands: Kirei finds it ironic that his natural talent — and the only area of magic in which he's naturally above-average — is healing and spiritual surgery.
• Heel Realization: Gilgamesh reveals Kirei's true nature as a sadist to him early on, leading to him committing an act of betrayal, but it isn't until he causes a massive amount of destruction that he fully realizes and accepts how evil he is.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: It's implied he's also looking for someone he could call an equal to himself, which is why he desperately wants to meet Kiritsugu and later Aŋra Mainiiu in the Grail as he thinks they're just like him. Unfortunately for Kotomine, those two are actually Not So Similar as they chose to be who they are unlike Kotomine who was born empty, and it wouldn't be until another ten years later that he finally meets a true equal in Shirou.
• Immune to Bullets: Even if he doesn't dodge or parry them, his priest robes are almost completely bulletproof to low caliber firearms, as they can take a salvo of about 50 rounds during his fight with Kiritsugu and not even get scratched. There are limits however, as his robes are unable to stop bullets from a high-powered gun, and he is unable to dodge a small round from ricocheting off of his skull when he's dropped his guard.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: He can throw his Black Keys to accurately strike even unconfirmed targets such as illusions in the midst of a forest, at night. Kiritsugu's analysis in the light novel even notes that his throwing accuracy is 100%, and Kirei himself states he can draw the hilts from his sleeves and complete preparatory movements to throw them at around 0.3 seconds, and perform four separate throws with a single hand under 0.7 seconds.
• In the Back: Stabs Tokiomi in the back with the Azoth dagger that Tokiomi himself gave him.
• Irony: Invokes it, killing Tokiomi with the Azoth dagger he gave to Kirei as a parting gift, and then gives it to Rin as a gift. This comes up again in Fate/stay night.
• Jack of All Trades: Invoked. Kirei could easily become a Master of All, but he chose not to master any of the skills he almost mastered due to finding himself not happy with the results. When Kiritsugu reviews all the information on him, he outright claims he reached the point of mastery, then stopped as he seemed unsatisfied with the process. Thus he's the most balanced mage in the war, which is why he's arguably the deadliest.
• Karma Houdini: As can be expected, he avoids the consequences for his various evil deeds until Fate/stay night.
• Kick the Dog: Murdering Tokiomi by literally backstabbing him with the dagger he just gave as a sign of trust was already a nasty betrayal, but then posing his dead body in the church in order to frame Kariya in front of Aoi and then watching him mentally break down and strangle Aoi for no apparent reason other than his and Gilgamesh’s ENJOYMENT is nothing more than callous cruelty.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: You can't get any more literal. Word of God says his "Super Bajiquan" fighting style is actually the real life Baji Quan being augmented with Magecraft, to the point it's more like a magical martial art than anything resembling the traditional school, despite using the same techniques turned up to eleven. He even hits Maiya with a classic Bajiquan Elbow Check after grabbing her by the wrist to pull her onto it. Kirei's sheer explosive power using Fa Jin is enough to crush a man's entire ribcage and heart with one punch, after crossing the entire room in a Flash Step.
• Laughing Mad: In the final episode, he looks over the devastation the Grail War has wrought and laughs his head off. This is because Angra Mainyu realized his dying wish, setting half of Fuyuki ablaze, and then resurrected him. It is this that finally causes Kirei to realize how evil he truly is, and he vows to fully unleash Angra Mainyu upon the world.
• Love Makes You Evil: It was the death of his wife Claudia that caused Kirei to become depressed and come to believe that joy itself was sin, because not only was he not saddened by her death, he wanted to be the one to kill her himself, which horrifies him.
• Made of Iron: His final confrontation with Kiritsugu just goes to show how ridiculously tough he actually is. Among other things he takes a massive rifle-caliber bullet through his hand without even keeling over, suffers a massive blow on the same hand with the butt of Kiritsugu's Thompson Contender and a knife through the thigh without as much as a flinch.
• Mage Killer: Executors are trained to combat mages along with other supernatural entities. He happens to be a very skilled one.
• Magic Knight: Already well-versed in the techniques of an Executor and master of real-life martial art Bajiquan at the beginning of the series, his crash course in magecraft yields remarkable results and complements his physical fighting style perfectly. His combined skills make him one of the most dangerous masters in the war. No small feat for a man who didn't know the Grail War even existed before he was selected.
• Manly Tears: In the novel, he cries upon finding his father's body, even though he feels the same as he did when his wife Claudia died. He would've rather killed him himself.
• Mutual Kill: Narrowly averted during his final duel with Kiritsugu. Kirei is just about to blow Kiritsugu's brain out with one of Baji Quan's Eight Grand Openings strike, when Kiritsugu's own Contender is ready to be fired at him point-blank. To enforce the point, in the light novel Kirei even notes that he would have won, but would also have died, an assessment Kiritsugu shares at the exact same moment.
• Not So Similar: This is the real case between him and Kiritsugu. Kirei is a man born empty inside who could not enjoy life despite trying his hardest, while Kiritsugu has everything but chose to throw it away in pursuit of his dream. Kirei is enraged that Kiritsugu takes for granted what Kirei desperately wants.
• Not Worth Killing: At the end of the novel, a triumphant Kirei is gloating with Gilgamesh when he spots Kiritsugu going through the rubble. While initially excited at the chance to fight the man again, Kirei is obviously angered by Kiritsugu's broken state, and just lets him go. Quite telling for someone who enjoys the suffering and despair of others. This comes back to bite him in the ass later, big time.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: In his internal monologue he shows disdain for "modern" women and praises Aoi for being a submissive housewife to Tokiomi.
• Professional Killer: He's officially an Executor in service of the Church.
• Psychotic Smirk: Kirei starts as a Stoic with some Perpetual Frowner mixed in, but he relaxes gradually and smiles and laughs more and more until he has his final Not So Stoic moment when the light novel specifically states that a constant smile becomes his default expression.
  Narrator: Perhaps from today on, he would always keep this expression.
• Red Herring: It's part of the Foregone Conclusion that Kirei will kill Tokiomi and early on Kirei dispatches Assassin to do just that. Assassin is promptly killed by Gilgamesh and it's revealed that this was all a plot by Tokiomi to let Kirei fake a defeat and use the rest of the Assassins to observe their enemies from the shadows.
• Red Mage: He's a master of martial arts and is noted to have studied each branch of orthodox magecraft to just short of the point of mastery before switching to another discipline and starting over. The result is a combat-oriented mage who performs well in any situation, though lacks the specialized mastery of a classically trained mage. His collective talents more than compensate for any potential shortcomings.
• Saved by Canon: Fate/Zero was written after Fate/Stay Night so his survival is guaranteed.
• The Sociopath: As with stay night, Kirei's case is played with. While he is incapable of empathy and eventually accepts that he can only derive joy from the negative emotions of other people, he has a functional conscience and moral compass, thus Kirei has a great deal of remorse over his nature, something he retains even 10 years later.
• Stalker without a Crush: Kirei is fascinated by Kiritsugu because he thinks he has found someone as empty as himself. Thus, he goes out of his way to track Kiritsugu's movements and attempt to meet him.
• Start of Darkness: Fate/Zero is as much about how Kirei turned to evil as it is about how Kiritsugu destroyed himself.
• The Stoic: With Not So Stoic moments, such as learning the truth about Kiritsugu from Irisviel, the aftermath of his fight with him, and his hysterical breakdown during the fire.
• Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum: While the anime makes it ambiguous due to omitting Gilgamesh's and Kirei's encounters with Angra Mainyu, as he was dying he wished for something, and then Angra Mainyu granted that wish in the form of the Great Fuyuki Fire, resurrecting him in the process. Although it should be noted that since the Grail was corrupted and thus would result in destruction no matter what, his actual desire might or might not be this.
• Super-Speed: Zig-zagged. He is stupefyingly fast for a human combatant and always has the upper hand in a fistfight against other Masters or their bodyguards, but he is actually not so fast that he can dodge or parry bullets once they are fired. But, he has mastered the technique of "hearing an attack" - by feeling the air difference and hearing the movement of the gunman's arm, he positions himself in such a way that he can either avoid the bullets, block them with his bulletproof vestments or parry them with his Black Keys.
• Super-Strength: The guy breaks and rips a tree out of the ground while tied to it.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: When Gilgamesh suggests that Kirei could wish for happiness from the Grail, Kirei exclaims that he wouldn't wish for anything so sinful. Gilgamesh immediately notices Kirei's choice of words, which is his first clue that Kirei might be more interesting than he initially believed. And thus Gilgamesh starts a series of Breaking Speeches For the Evulz.
• Taught by Experience: Kirei has had years of service under the Church as an Executor, hunting down and eradicating mages and other supernatural entities such as Dead Apostles. As such, he is barely fazed when he realizes Kiritsugu survived his heart-demolishing strike at the final battle. Kirei merely decides he will go after the next weak point, the brain, which would indeed kill Kiritsugu even with Healing Factor.
• Teen Genius: Graduating valedictorian from the Theological College of St. Ignatius at Manresa, where he was Student Council President, after skipping two levels at the age of fourteen. He began his Executor career at the age of ten. And as his ridiculously long exposition and speeches in Fate Stay Night had displayed, he has lost none of the genius.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: The standard equipment of The Church's Executors are Black Keys, hilts capable of generating magical blades sharp enough to penetrate iron even when thrown at a minimal force. The blades are rapier-like in design, and are designed to be thrown or at most stabbing rather than slashing. When not thrown, they are usually held in the knuckles between the fingers with (thus he can wield four at most with each hand).
• Tragic Villain: He really just wants to find out why he enjoys evil so much and finds joy in nothing else, yet was still born with a human conscience and a strong moral compass.
• Would Hit a Girl: He beats up Maiya, stabs Irisviel in the chest, and later strangles a defenseless Irisviel.
• You Are What You Hate: Initially, Kirei tries to convince himself that he despises violence, suffering and killing. Just look at his early conversations with Gilgamesh, where he states that he sees Gilgamesh as immoral and a sinner for enjoying others' suffering. Then compare to what he does later, when he accepts the only thing that makes him happy is the suffering of other people.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Kotomine tries to kill Zouken when the latter praises his evil nature and encourages developing it.

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Supporting Characters

Irisviel von Einzbern

Voiced by: Sayaka Ohara (Japanese), Bridget Hoffman (English)

"You don't need to grieve over me. I am already part of you. Enduring only the pain of your own sundering is enough."

Irisviel is a homunculus created by the Einzbern family as a vessel to activate the Great Grail. She is Kiritsugu's wife and the mother of Illya. Having lived her whole life inside the Einzbern castle in Europe, she is bright and cheerful, and follows Kiritsugu on pure faith and trust. During the War, she is partnered with Artoria as a decoy so the other Masters will assume that Irisviel is a Master.

She has absolute loyalty and faith in Kiritsugu's goals, though she doesn't appear to entirely understand them.

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• Alchemy Is Magic: Yes and no. Einzbern alchemy is responsible for her life, but other mages clearly consider it a step down from real magic.
• Alien Blood: While Kirei is surprised to see she has red blood when he stabs her with his Black Keys, in the opening credits of Season 2 she's shown oozing Angra Mainyu's black mud from her eyes and mouth.
• Always with You: Before going to Japan, Irisviel tells Illya that even though they won't be able to see each other again for a very long time because of a "job", she will always be there for her daughter.
• Badass Adorable: Healing isn't her only skill. She only fails to take out Kirei because he can punch trees in half.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Shows signs of this in the Einzbern Consulation Room special omakes. A result of the Holy Grail influencing her.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: The Gentle Girl to her husband Kiritsugu's Brooding Boy. Her caring and innocent nature is a solace to him in his angst. They fit in this trope so well that they're the page's image.
• Clone Degeneration: By the latter half of the series, Iri's body deteriorates until she can stand only with the help of Avalon and Saber's presence. In her Dying Dream, she even sees all the previous homunculus bodies like her, piled in a heap and staring lifelessly.
• The Cutie: The most idealistic and upbeat member of Team Einzbern.
• Demonic Possession: Towards the end of the Grail War, she is killed by Kotomine. A corrupt copy of Irisviel is created by Angra Mainyu and operated like the Grail's puppet, bearing her personality and appearance but not truly being her.
• Doting Parent: For Illya. Tragically, this is because she knows she'll never see her again.
• Drives Like Crazy: She's actually a pretty great driver, except that she has absolutely no idea about traffic restrictions and treats the car like it's a toy. She managed to make Saber sweat...
  Irisviel: (nailing sharp turns at high speed on a cliff-top road) See? See? I told you so! This car takes the turns really fast!
  Saber: (sweating) Well... that's because you're a... surprisingly good driver.
  Irisviel: (grinning like a maniac as the car jumps over a speed-bump) I know! You may not believe it, but I practice all the time. Of all the toys Kiritsugu has brought me over the years, this is my absolute favourite!
  Saber: Th-this is... a toy?
  Irisviel: At the castle, I was only allowed to drive around the courtyard, so this is great!
  Saber: Shouldn't we have hired a professional driver?
  Irisviel: No, that would be boring! I mean, that would be really dangerous! What if the enemy were to suddenly launch an attack against us?
• Dying as Yourself: In the finale of the post-canon Einzbern Consultation Room Specials, thanks to Zecchan, she remembers everything she loved about Kiritsugu and his ideals. Doesn't stop the Grail from using her image to manipulate Illya later on, but Irisviel as a person at least fades restored to her old self.
• Dying Curse: Already possessed by Angra Mainyu, "Irisviel" dies cursing Kiritsugu after he rejects the Holy Grail.
• Everyone Has Standards: As loyal as she is to Kiritsugu, she's rather horrified by what he does to Lancer, Kayneth and Sola-Ui, and disapproves of his refusal to directly speak to Saber in the resulting argument.
• Evil Makeover: As her personality is finally overcome by the evil of the Grail, she appears one last time in black vestments.
• Good Parents: She's a loving mother to Illya and enjoyed the years in which she raised her to the fullest.
• The Glomp: Cuddly in canon, this gets turned up to eleven in the Einzbern Consultation Room Specials.
• Happily Married: To Kiritsugu. The first episode alone shows her devotion to him and she sneaks in a "I love you" during their pre-war strategy session. Her "Cheaters must die!" rant in the Einzbern Consultation Room shorts reveal that she's not as accepting of Kiritsugu's infidelity as she appears but then again, she is being influenced by Angra Mainyu at this point.
• Healing Factor: Carries the healing artifact Avalon for most of the war, though since she is not Saber's Master it only works when the owner is near. It saves her life when Kirei stabs her through the stomach, but she eventually gives it to Kiritsugu when it's clear she's going to die of health problems anyway.
• Healing Hands: Her natural abilities tend towards healing.
• The Heart: It's generally up to Irisviel to keep the growing friction between Kiritsugu and Saber in check. Kiritsugu only communicates with Saber through Irisviel because without her, he knows any possible conversation with Saber will only result in an argument that would make teamwork impossible.
• Heh Heh, You Said "X": This conversation she had with Saber concerning the nature of her "Riding" ability:
  Saber: If required, I could even pilot this aircraft.
  Irisviel: You could pilot it?
  Saber: My Riding ability allows me to command any beast or vehicle. Excepting only divine or fantastical beasts. Once I put it {The Saddle/Seat} between my legs and take the reins, intuition does the rest.
  Irisviel: You take it between your legs... (starts giggling)
  Saber: Did I say something amusing?
• The Ingenue: She is pretty sheltered due to isolation in the Einzbern mansion. That she can innuendo where none exists is only because she had become a mother by then.
• Lady and Knight: She is the Bright Lady (kind, loving, feminine etc.), Saber is the White Knight (traditionally chivalrous and selfless).
• Long Hair Is Feminine: She's the only girly girl on Team Kiritsugu and the only one with long hair.
• Loving a Shadow: Non-romantic version. She admits she's far too sheltered to truly understand Kiritsugu's ideals or the necessity of him getting his wish, but supports that wholeheartedly since it sounds like a noble aspiration.
• MacGuffin Super-Person: Being a homunculus, she is the vessel for the Holy Grail.
• Manchild: Played with. Her childish attitude is not only because she was raised in seclusion, but also because she's younger than she appears. It's that same childishness that allows her to get along with her emotionally-stunted assassin husband.
• The Medic: She has some effective healing abilities, though thanks to Lancer's cursed spear she doesn't get much of an opportunity to use them.
• Morality Pet: To Kiritsugu Emiya. His ideals force him to act coldhearted and pragmatic, but his genuinely loving marriage to Irisviel proves he's a human being capable of love.
• Mum Looks Like a Sister: She could likely pass as her daughter Illya's older sister, especially since her chronological age is only about nine years old.
• Mystical White Hair: Standard for a homunculus along with her red eyes.
• Naginatas Are Feminine: In the Einzbern Consulation Room shorts, she wears traditional Japanese clothing and wields a naginata, complementing her role as a feminine, loving and loyal wife.
• Nice Girl: Irisviel is the only openly friendly female member of the cast.
• Our Homunculi Are Different: A homunculus is a being created in the shape of a human with the internal structure of the phantasmal races, allowing them to freely use magic just as naturally as a normal human breaths. However, they generally do not have souls, though a naturally conceived homunculus like her daughter may be an exception.
• Plucky Girl: Even when outmatched, Irisviel is pretty determined.
• Pretty in Mink: She wears a fur-lined jacket and hat.
• Proper Lady: As Lady Einzbern, though she has her moments of childish wonder and naivete.
• Proper Tights with a Skirt: Her casual outfit, being a proper lady and all.
• Rei Ayanami Expy: Not during the series proper, but she started off as one in her backstory. Irisviel is part of a line of homunculi based on the original homunculus of the First Holy Grail War. Her white hair, red eyes and pale skin are standard for homunculi. When she was first "born", Irisviel was an emotionless doll with no sense of self. Thanks to Kiritsugu treating her like a human and giving birth to their daughter Illya, Irisviel learned to love and developed the sweet and cheerful personality she displays during the series.
• Rescue Romance: Her relationship with Kiritsugu began to develop after he rescued her when Jubstacheit decided to cast her into the wastes of the Einzbern forests to prove her durability.
• Senseless Sacrifice: She dies for nothing as the Grail was already corrupted.
• Sheltered Aristocrat: She lived her whole life inside Einzbern grounds and this is her first time in the outside world. She has also admitted she doesn't understand the hardships of the world Kiritsugu wants to fix. She fits the plucky-type with child-like innocence and kindness.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Fits the bill in several ways despite being a woman-child, such as aiding Saber in her fight against Kirei.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She loves Kiritsugu because of his gentler side and good desires despite his murderous actions and sordid past.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl:
  • She's a sheltered and feminine woman wearing pretty dresses, while the tomboy Saber is a knight and wears a suit when she doesn't materialize her armor.
  • When comparing her with Maiya, Irisviel is definitely more feminine and sweet in contrast to Maiya's no nonsense combatant attitude.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Her health breaks down as the Grail War continues and she dies convinced that she is making the world a better place, though she doesn't understand how and its later shown her death changed nothing.
• Troll: In the later "Einzbern Consultation Room" shorts, she starts deliberately driving the vanquished Servants - namely Lancer and Berserker - to despair and madness instead of consoling them, and is rather sadistic about it. Unsurprising, when your very existence and personality are subsumed by the Grail.
• The Von Trope Family: She belongs to the highly privileged mage clan Von Einzbern.
• White Magician Girl: She mainly casts healing spells, and fittingly is white-themed in appearance, with white hair and all-white clothing.
• Winter Royal Lady: A member of the Einzberns, an aristocratic family of Mages who live in a snowy castle in Germany. Her predecessor Justeaze Lizrich von Einzbern whom she is a replica of was known as the Saint of Winter.
• Younger than She Looks: Appears to be an adult woman in her early twenties, while her chronological age is about nine.

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Maiya Hisau

Voiced by: Ayumi Tsunematsu (Japanese), Carrie Keranen (English)

"Even if I were to give up this life of mine, I would protect you till the end. Therefore, for Kiritsugu Emiya, please don't die. For the fulfilment of that man's dream."

Maiya is Kiritsugu's gunslinging partner and "other woman" of sorts, though she and Irisviel get along well. She is most satisfied when Kiritsugu is most businesslike and willing to Shoot the Dog.

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• Action Girl: She can certainly handle herself well enough.
• Almost Dead Guy: After being attacked by Berserker, she lives long enough to talk with both Artoria — who arrives almost instantly — and Kiritsugu unspecified tens of minutes later.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: She's tall, dark-haired, attractive, and aloof.
• Badass Normal: She has no magic and no special Church-ninja training, yet still proves to be very competent, even if her only real win in a one-to-one fight is against Sola-Ui. She also has enough skill with a combat knife to at least hold her own against Kirei with his Black Keys, only being beaten once he switches to martial arts.
• Boyish Short Hair: She's a female mercenary and her short hair complements her professional look.
• Child Soldier: When Maiya was a child, she was forced into the army and trained to be a soldier.
• Dead Sidekick: She's killed by Berserker in the back half of the story and Kiritsugu laments the death of his partner.
• Defiant to the End: She still tries to stop Kirei from killing Irisviel even when she's beaten so bad all she can do is grab his ankle.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: She dies in Kiritsugu's arms after being attacked by Berserker, but she kept telling Kiritsugu to focus on his objective instead of grieving for her.
• Empty Shell: She describes herself as emotionally dead inside.
• Face Death with Dignity: As she's bleeding to death, Maiya serenely smiles in an attempt to keep Kiritsugu from mourning her.
• Foil: To Irisviel. Both love Kiritsugu and both are mothers, but while Irisviel is a puppet who acquired human emotions, Maiya is a human who willingly shut down her emotions and became a puppet. She is also the woman in Kiritsugu's life who knows his Mage Killer personality, unlike Iri who only knows Kiritsugu's human loving side.
• Friends with Benefits: She shares a sexual relationship with Kiritsugu that contains no real emotions.
• I Owe You My Life: She was found as an orphan on the battlefield and saved by Kiritsugu. She dedicated her life to assisting him ever since.
• It Meant Something to Me: It's explicitly stated that there's no real emotion involved on Kiritsugu's part in their Friends with Benefits relationship. Kiritsugu does it as a form of masochistic self-punishment, and as a "rehearsal" for how he'll eventually have to betray Irisviel, though Maiya still treasures it.
• The Mistress: For Kiritsugu. On his end it's only so he can prepare himself for having to betray Irisviel.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: "Maiya Hisau" was the name on the first passport Kiritsugu made for her. She no longer remembers her real name.
• Rape as Backstory: She was raped by soldiers in a war-torn battlefield before she was found by Kiritsugu. She had a Child by Rape, Sigma from Fate/strange Fake, that way.
• Satellite Character: Her only actual role is acting as Kiritsugu's partner who either assists Kiritsugu move about behind the scenes, acquires and assembles the components for his plans, or helps guard Irisviel. Her only known backstory is being a Child Soldier who was rescued by Kiritsugu.
• The Stoic: She's always cold and professional, never showing emotion.
• Sweet Tooth: She actually has a love of western sweets and is quite embarrassed by it.

---

Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri

Voiced by: Megumi Toyoguchi (Japanese), Karen Strassman (English)

Sola-Ui is Kayneth's very reluctant fiancee through an Arranged Marriage and the daughter of the head of the Department of Euryphis at the Clock Tower. Kayneth bent the rules of the War by removing the burden of Mana supply to her, allowing him to keep the rights of the Master and still be an effective combatant. Sola-Ui views herself as a mere pawn in mage politics, thus she has buried her emotions completely - and for worse, when they do arise, it's because she has fallen for her fiancé's Servant Lancer, and doesn't hide her feelings for him.

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• An Arm and a Leg: She has her right arm cut off by Maiya in order to remove the Command Seals.
• Arranged Marriage: She is engaged to Kayneth as a result of a strategic marriage arrangement and the decision of her family to entrust their crest to her older brother, Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri instead. Because her brother did not succeed as a mage, there is increasing pressure from her family to marry Lord El-Melloi. Although Kayneth does have feelings for her, Sola doesn't bother to hide the fact she's unhappy with Kayneth and attracted to his Servant.
• As You Know: She reminds Kayneth of the special contract he made with Lancer and the advantages it provides to mock him for not going out to fight.
• Bodyguard Crush: To Diarmuid, and incredibly so, though he's technically not her bodyguard to start with.
• Empty Shell: Supplementary materials reveal that this is the reason she fell for Diarmuid — her upbringing left her emotionally dead, so Diarmuid's love spot is the first time she felt anything ever. Thus, she allowed herself to be affected by it because she enjoyed the sensation of feeling something.
• Faux Action Girl: Justified. She's spent so long in Kayneth's shadow that she is a weaker master than even Waver. After stealing control of Lancer from Kayneth, she barely does anything in the Holy Grail War before Maiya ambushes and cuts her arm off.
• Irony: Threatened to cut Kayneth's arm off if he didn't surrender his Command Seals to her after his defeat. Guess what happened to her in the end?
• Lady and Knight: She wants this with Diarmuid. Badly.
• Longing Look: In Episode 9, as shown here◊.
• Love Makes You Crazy: She seems like a typical high-class Ice Queen until she falls for Lancer, after which she begins torturing Kayneth for the rights to the Command Seals.
• Mad Love: Lancer makes it obvious that all he wants to do is serve his lord faithfully and that he isn't romantically interested in her. However, this just makes her even more infatuated. She breaks one of Kayneth's fingers as he lies paralyzed and threatens to continue unless he hands over the Command Seals to control Lancer.
• More than Mind Control: A mage of Sola-Ui's caliber would be able to resist Lancer's C-Rank "Mystic Face," meaning she willingly gave in to the power of the Love Spot. That, or she did resist and in the end couldn't hack it. Or she just fell for the guy and the spot had nothing to do with it.
• Overly Long Name: Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri. Yeah.
• Skewed Priorities: In her panic after her arm with the Command Seals is cut off, Sola-Ui seems less distressed by the loss of her dominant hand than she is by her connection with Diarmuid being severed. Priorities, lady.
• Stalker with a Crush: Diarmuid has to force her to stay away out of combat after she takes over, pointing out that she doesn't have Kayneth's training; Sola only gives in because she doesn't want Lancer to think she lacks confidence in him, not out of any concession to her own safety.
• The Starscream: After falling for Lancer, she blackmails her crippled fiancé into giving her the Command Seals, calmly breaking one of his fingers, then threatening to amputate his arm.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Disenchanted and already aware that she was little more than a pawn in mage politics, Sola is usually indifferent and cold, especially towards Kayneth. Lancer's chivalry and bravery bring out Sola's affectionate and clingy side with incredible speed. She doesn't bother hiding it from Kayneth.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: Subverted, she isn't one, but Kayneth wants her to be obedient and entirely dedicated to his goals. This is one of the reasons she betrays him.
• Yandere: She calmly tortures her crippled fiancé into giving her Lancer's Command Seals.

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Aoi Tohsaka

Voiced by: Hasumi Ito (Japanese), Michelle Ruff (English)

"I was prepared for something like that when I decided to marry into the Tohsaka family, when I decided to become the wife of a mage. When you enter the bloodline of a mage, it is a mistake to seek for the normal happiness of a family."

Aoi is Tokiomi's wife, the mother of his daughters and the childhood friend of Kariya Matou, who has always loved her. Despite knowing exactly what was meant by marrying a mage (ie. being used to produce a capable heir) she accepted and was happy with her life. Devoted and unquestioning, she supports all of her husband's decisions and makes no objections; the ideal 'traditional wife'.

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• Baby Factory: As a daughter of the Zenjou family, the women are "renowned" for their ability to birth mages with great potential, despite the family effectively-being Muggles. Due to this, Aoi's marriage with Tokiomi was an arranged one, though it's shown that the two actually do love one another. It's also implied that Aoi could have potentially ended up in a marriage with Kariya, but he abandoned his position as heir of the Matous, not wanting to expose her to their horrific life.
• Broken Bird: After the death of Tokiomi, and almost being strangled to death by Kariya, the last we see of Aoi is her in a wheelchair, completely out of touch with reality.
• Extreme Doormat: She's extremely submissive, never challenges the decision to marry Tokiomi and once married never questions him, following him devotedly and obediently no matter what, even when he decides to give her youngest daughter to the Matou family. It's even more evident in the bonus Drama CDs.
• Hime Cut: She has blunt bangs, bra strap length sidelocks, and waist length straight hair. It's a good look for a classical and traditional wife like her.
• House Wife: This is basically her assigned role; homemaking and heir-producing.
• Loving a Shadow: In the end, Aoi loves the image of a perfect mage and husband Tokiomi projects and doesn't fully understand how empty Tokiomi is a person.
• The Mentally Disturbed: The combined trauma of Tokiomi's death and Kariya's attempt on her life has left her almost completely disconnected from reality. Even when Rin says they're there for her father's funeral, Aoi simply rambles quietly about Tokiomi needing to dress nicely.
• Never My Fault: Aoi arguably demonstrates this trope, in a semi-justified example. Her unwillingness to confront Tokiomi for his decision to give Sakura to Zouken is rooted in her expected role as a Japanese housewife. Indeed, it was stated that her parents pushed her to agree with the decision. However, her behavior indicates she’s clearly anything but happy about it, and it can be argued that her unwillingness to say anything to Tokiomi would come across to him and others as tacit acceptance. Never mind her later accusing Kariya of having never loved anyone, implicitly holding him responsible for Sakura being taken when it was Tokiomi’s choice (and her refusal of a choice) that truly sealed the deal.
• Oblivious to Love: She has no idea of Kariya's feelings for her. This goes rather badly after she tells him he never loved anyone in her grief over Tokiomi's death. Kariya snaps and strangles her.
• Superior Successor: Her family possesses a trait which will make the children of their partner more powerful than the parents. It's why Zouken and Tokiomi wanted Aoi. This turns out to become a problem, as Tokiomi and Aoi unintentionally had two children.
• What the Hell, Hero?: She calls Kariya out when she wrongly believes he killed her husband, and even blames him for Sakura being taken away, since Kariya leaving the Matous is why Sakura was adopted into them.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: Subverted. She's a traditional, gentle and devoted Japanese wife to Tokiomi, but she's too much of an Extreme Doormat to qualify for the trope.
• You Should Have Died Instead: After finding Tokiomi's dead body and assuming that Kariya was the killer, she blames him not just for that but also for the Matous taking her daughter. From her perspective, her daughter was only taken as the Matous' new heir because Kariya ran away from his responsibilities.

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Risei Kotomine

Voiced by: Masashi Hirose (Japanese), Michael Donovan (English)

"I am obliged. My debt toward the Holy Church and both generations of the Kotomine family will be carved as a family precept."

Risei is the Church appointed overseer for the Grail War and the father of one of its participants, Kirei. He secretly supports the Tohsaka family due to a close friendship with Tokiomi and faith in his goals. While he is proud of his son, he does not understand what torments him, seeing only a talented and tortured young man.

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• Badass Pacifist: Unlike his son, he uses Baji Quan as a meditation method and for pacifying opponents, whereas his son uses it to kill.
• Combat Referee: Risei's job during the series is to be a neutral overseer, although like Kirei in his debut in Fate/stay night, he is anything but neutral due to his secret alliance with Tokiomi and him being the father of Kirei, who is one of the Masters in the War.
• Couldn't Find a Pen: Before dying, Risei leaves the letters "jn424" (Gospel of John 4:24), transcribed in blood so he can transfer the Command Seals to Kirei posthumously.
• Dies Wide Open: Kirei waves them shut.
• Doting Parent: He thinks that he knows what makes his son tick. Unfortunately, he doesn't know him as well as he thinks.
• Eyes Always Shut: His eyes never seem to open.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Risei trusts Kirei unconditionally, although this is justified - Kirei is Risei's son.
• Morality Pet: To Kirei, in a weird sense.
• Neutral in Name Only: Similar to Kirei in Fate/stay night, despite being the Church representative as the Combat Referee, Risei secretly aligns himself with Kirei and Tokiomi.
• Old Master: Kirei didn't learn his martial arts as an Executor, Risei taught him. His badassery is mostly implied by the time we see him.
• Older Than They Look: Considering Risei apparently supervised the 3rd Holy Grail War as well, which happened 60 years prior to the story, he has to be at least 79-ish, but he only looks maybe 55.
• Silver Fox: Under the Church robes, Risei is supremely ripped◊.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He looked a lot like Kirei in Fate/Stay Night when he was younger.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After Risei reluctantly gives Kayneth additional Command Seals, Kayneth shoots Risei and leaves him to die.

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Zouken Matou

Voiced by: Masane Tsukayama (Japanese), Michael Donovan (English)

"There were terrible cries for the first three days, but by the fourth day, she was silent. Today, she was thrown at dawn in the worm storage to test how well she would last, but, ho ho, she endured it for half a day and is still breathing. What do you know, the Tōsaka material isn't defective."

Zouken is the head of the Matou/Makiri family, grandfather to Shinji Matou and father to Kariya Matou. Before the beginning of the story, Tokiomi decides that the Matou family would make a good home for his younger daughter as mage families are not supposed to have multiple children. Thus, Zouken becomes her adoptive grandfather. Unfortunately for Sakura, Tokiomi is a terrible judge of character and Zouken is, in fact, extremely cruel and manipulative. He has no plans of giving Sakura real training and instead introduces her to the Matou parasitic worm pit. Upon learning what has happened, a horrified Kariya makes a deal with Zouken that if he obtains the Grail for him, Sakura will be returned to her true family.

Zouken desires to use the Grail to become immortal. While he is already two hundred years old thanks to his use of the worms, his body is starting to fail him. Because he doubts Kariya's ability to win the Grail by his own merit, he infests him with worms that temporarily boost his abilities in exchange for causing him agony and a death sentence.

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• Abusive Parents: He's the reason why the Matous are so damn screwed up. Kariya successfully escaped the madhouse long ago but when circumstances force him back in, Zouken decides to make up for the lost time with interest.
• Bald of Evil: He is bald and very evil. How evil? He has his Crest Worms rape a child in order to turn her into a replacement body for himself.
• Black Eyes of Crazy: His sclera are black and he has white irises, emphasizing how inhuman he's become in his pursuit of immortality. He has pupils, but they're tiny and rarely shown.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Openly admits he enjoys seeing people suffer, and encourages Kotomine to do the same, much to the latter's disgust.
• Dirty Old Man: Has the worms that comprise his body violate Sakura on a daily basis, and laughs when he force-feeds Kariya the Crest worm that stole her purity.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Kariya ran away from home despite being the Matou heir because he didn't want to get mixed up in Zouken's evil. When he comes back, Zouken decides to punish him with as much torture as possible, knowing that Kariya's victory was impossible.
• Evil Old Folks: An abhorrent old man who will do anything to attain immortality.
• Fallen Hero: It's briefly alluded to in a flashback, but in his youth Zouken had noble intentions for the Grail besides immortality. These days he's become all the evils he once sought to eliminate.
• For the Evulz: He sends Kariya into the 4th War, although he considers Kariya's victory improbable from the very start, just because he wants to torture Kariya for betraying his expectations and leaving the Matou clan. In fact, he does much to ensure Kariya will fail and endure horrible pain in the meantime.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Though he is a Big Bad in one of the routes of Fate/stay night, his presence is relegated to the background in Fate/Zero. As Zouken is one of the people that helped build the Fuyuki Holy Grail system to begin with, he's indirectly responsible for all the suffering in Zero.
• Hate Sink: Like in Fate/stay night, he's by far the least sympathetic character in the story, and everyone who has even an inkling of his true character despises him. It's especially true here because the viewer gets to see and hear about what he does to Sakura.
• Immortality Seeker: He wants the Grail so he can live forever.
• Jerkass: Just look at what this evil bastard did to both Kariya and Sakura.
• Karma Houdini: His survival is a foregone conclusion due to his presence in the Fifth Grail War. That said, in the Fifth Grail War, he eventually gets what's coming to him, even in the routes where he's not the Big Bad, per Word of God.
• Noodle Incident: Fate/strange Fake reveals that Francesca Prelati, a rival mage and reincarnation of the original owner of the Textbook of the Sunken Spiral Castle, attempted to enter Fuyuki during the Fourth War to meet with her old friend, Caster, only to be confronted by Zouken. As horrible as the decrepit mage is, Francesca is far worse, and killing her, even if it didn’t take, is hands down one of Zouken’s most laudable acts.
• Obviously Evil: This is one book you can judge by its cover.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: He offered Tokiomi to adopt Sakura and train her to make her the heir of the 500-year-old Matou family. Of course the latter is Blatant Lies. Zouken takes over the bodies of his "heirs" and he merely trains Sakura's body with his worms, never giving her a magical education like Tokiomi had in mind. Kariya knew this, which is why he left the family in the first place.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Zouken throws Sakura naked into his pit of Crest Worms, creatures which are a part of his body, which the anime implies are raping her. The manga is more explicit about it.
• Really 700 Years Old: He is over five centuries old. In fact, he's one of the mages who established the Grail War to begin with.
• Sadist: Zouken has no faith whatsoever in Kariya winning the Grail War, and gets a kick out of seeing his futile struggling and suffering.
• Shadow Archetype: To Kirei Kotomine. Unlike Kirei, Zouken openly revels in the suffering of others and can tell Kirei enjoys the same. This accusation hits so close to home Kirei destroys Zouken's puppet body on the spot.
• The Worm That Walks: His body is made of the worms he uses to attack people with.
• Would Hurt a Child: He mentally and physically violates Sakura using his Crest Worms, turning her into a Broken Bird. He wasn't much nicer to his own children either.
• Xanatos Gambit: Whether Kariya wins the 4th Grail War or not, Zouken's happy. If he wins, then it is a Matou victory. If he loses, Zouken still gets to watch him suffer, which is something he never tires of.

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Byakuya Matou

Voiced by: Katsumi Toriumi (Japanese), Kirk Thornton (English)

"Kariya? I don't know where that fool is!"

Byakuya Matou is the father of Shinji, brother of Kariya and eldest son of Zouken Matou. He was passed over as heir to the family due to holding almost no magical potential.

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• Abusive Parent: Towards Sakura, apathetically going along with Zouken's plans for her.
• Ascended Extra: Went from a deceased minor character in Fate/stay night to a whole scene in the prequel...where Kiritsugu subjects him to a beating trying to get Kariya's location out of him. Lucky him!
• Authority in Name Only: While he's appointed as the head of the Matou family, Zouken is the one pulling the strings and everyone knows it. Byakuya doesn't mind, as he can live on easy street with the family riches.
• Bystander Syndrome: The novel clearly states that Byakuya doesn't care about what happens to Sakura, Kariya or the family and simply follows Zouken's orders out of resignation.
• Cain and Abel: With Kariya. He is the Cain, while the more heroic Kariya is the Abel.
• Dirty Coward: He could have run away like Kariya, but continues to live in the Matou household because he's too afraid of Zouken and to live a comfortable life with the family riches.
• Does Not Like Magic: According to the Fate/Zero' Material he despises magic and wants nothing to do with it.
• Drowning My Sorrows: He started drinking out of the stress of having to deal with Zouken, and it gets worse during the Grail War, even using it to sleep.
• Family Theme Naming: Byakuya and his younger brother Kariya have names referring to birds (crane and goose, respectively).
• Freudian Excuse: Due to being considered as a disgrace by Zouken because of his few magic circuits, he is a pathetic alcoholic who hates everything related to magic.
• Inept Mage: He technically qualifies as a mage, but his Magic Circuits are of such atrocious quality that he might as well be a Muggle.
• Jerkass: He's a cowardly drunkard who does nothing but resent his brother and complain about his lot in life.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: However, his claim that Kariya is fighting in the war for selfish reasons becomes true in the end, as while Kariya genuinely wants to save Sakura, he also wants to kill Tokiomi and start a family with Aoi.
• Mirror Character: Ironically, with Kariya. Both look down on everyone and consider themselves as the ones who supposedly knows the truth. They both hate magecraft and Zouken. They also die miserably after failing to protect a child they cared for (Kariya lost the war and his death demoralizes Sakura from ever wanting to rebel against Zouken; while Byakuya's attempts for Shinji to not get involved in the Matou magecraft are for naught when Shinji finds out anyway years later).
• Parental Neglect: The Drama CD reveals that Zouken ignored him because of his lack of Magic Circuits.
• The Resenter: Towards Kariya.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Byakuya is selfish and cowardly while Kariya was brave enough to abandon his family and potential happiness with Aoi for her own sake.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He looks exactly like an older, taller version of his son from Fate/stay night. His bitter relationship with his sibling also echoes Shinji and Sakura's relationship.
• The Unfavorite: Kariya was supposed to be the Matou successor while nothing was ever expected of Byakuya. However, Kariya ran away, meaning Zouken holds both in contempt now.

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Children

Rin Tohsaka

Voiced by: Kana Ueda (Japanese), Mela Lee (English)

Rin is the elder daughter of Tokiomi and Aoi. She is energetic, outspoken and shows great promise as a mage. Her father Tokiomi is responsible for training her.

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• Adaptational Badass: In the anime, she manages to stand against Ryunosuke Uryu and free a bunch of children he had captured. And keep in mind she was only 8 years old at the time. There was no such segment in the light novel, however, where she's attacked by a monster and saved by Kariya before she can enter the enemy's lair. ^note The scene in the anime ends the same way, but it takes place after she leaves the enemy's lair.
• Badass Adorable:
  • In the anime, using a magical trinket and her own barely-controlled powers to thwart Ryuunosuke.
  • Standing up to school bullies and making them back down with words alone.
• Born Winner: She is born with more talent than her father and her Elemental Trait allows her to manipulate all of the five natural elements.
• Daddy's Girl: She adores Tokiomi, treasures the time he spends teaching her gem sorcery and really wanted to help him win the Holy Grail War. All of this is consistent with how she's characterized in Fate/stay night.
• A Day in the Limelight: Gets a short chapter from her POV in the book and it is expanded into a full-fledged episode, fittingly titled Rin's Adventure, in the anime adaptation.
• Girlish Pigtails: Her appearance, emphasizing her cheerful youthfulness.
• Kid Hero: Takes a shot at this during her spotlight chapter/episode. In the novel it ends in complete failure. In the anime her attempt is more successful.
• Saved by Canon: Since she's a major character in Fate/stay night, it's unlikely the Caster-Uryu duo would be able to cause her any harm.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Tokiomi notes that Rin doesn't look much like her mother, but more like Tokiomi's mother.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Being a beginner, she's not all that good at controlling her magical ability but she's strong enough to destroy the hypnosis bracelet Caster gave Uryu.

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Sakura Matou

Voiced by: Noriko Shitaya (Japanese), Cristina Valenzuela (English)

Sakura is the younger daughter of Tokiomi and Aoi. She was given away to the Matou family because the laws of the mage world prevented Tokiomi from training more than one of his daughters to carry on his family's tradition, and Tokiomi didn't want Sakura's potential to go to waste.

However, Zouken is not really training her as a mage but instead putting her through hell. Kariya made a deal with Zouken to win the Holy Grail in exchange for Sakura's freedom to return to the Tohsaka family.

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• Blessed with Suck: Sakura is actually a Born Winner, possessing more Magic Circuits than her father and being born with an extremely rare Elemental Trait: Imaginary Numbers. Unfortunately, her trait isn't useful against anyone except for ethereal beings and Rin was also born with just as much talent as Sakura, forcing her father to find a family to adopt and protect Sakura. He chose Zouken.
• Body Horror: Her body has been infested with parasitic worms.
• Breeding Slave: Zouken tells Kariya her fate is to become the Matou family's personal Baby Factory and produce a powerful offspring as their representative in the next Holy Grail War if they don't win this one.
• Creepy Child: In full effect in her final appearance in the anime, when she coldly watches Kariya's corpse being eaten by the worms.
• Curtains Match the Window: She has purple hair and eyes as a result of the experiments performed on her.
• Despair Event Horizon: Seeing that Kariya failed to keep his promise to save her and died for trying to defy Zouken, Sakura loses all hope and chooses to subdue herself to Zouken's abuse for the following 10 years.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: She's in a perpetual state of this because of the crest worms.
• Living Macguffin: In Fate/Zero, her purpose in the story is so that Kariya has a reason to fight.
• Locked into Strangeness: Her hair and eyes have turned purple as a result of the worms implanted in her body.
• Mark of the Supernatural: Her purple eyes are a sign of her Matou magic, inflicted by Zouken's experiments.
• Rape as Drama: Sakura is thrown into Zouken's pit of worms naked and it is implied that she is sexually violated by them. The manga makes it disturbingly explicit. Zouken also tells Kariya she has nothing but a lifetime of rape ahead of her as the Matou family's Breeding Slave.
• Signature Headgear: Wears a ribbon in the left side of her hair, which was the first ribbon her sister, Rin, ever made.
• Strong Family Resemblance: She had the same hair and eye colors as Rin before Zouken got a hold of her.

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Illyasviel von Einzbern

Voiced by: Mai Kadowaki (Japanese), Stephanie Sheh (English)

Illya is the daughter of Kiritsugu and Irisviel. She is perhaps the only person that Kiritsugu is shown acting entirely comfortable and happy with, which surprises Saber somewhat.

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• But Not Too Foreign: Half-Japanese, half-German (since her mother is a German-made homunculus).
• Calling Parents by Their Name: Oddly enough, Illya never calls Kiritsugu "dad" or anything similar, calling him by his given name instead.
• Cheerful Child: A much more genuine example than the jaded and unstable person she'd later become in Fate/stay night.
• The Cutie: Bright and cheerful, in stark contrast to her Fate/stay night self.
• Daddy's Girl: Eagerly awaits Kiritsugu's return. That he never comes back is a big reason for her rage towards Shirou.
• Half-Human Hybrid: She's half-homunculus on her mother's side.
• I Will Wait for You: She promises Kiritsugu to wait for him until he returns from his "business trip" during their last moment together.
• Mystical White Hair: Like all the Einzbern homunculi, she has pure white hair.
• Nom de Mom: She has the family name of her mother despite her parents being officially married. Given the Von Einzbern's are essentially mage royalty and Illya's father is an outsider of humble birth, this is to be expected.
• Older Than They Look: As opposed to her mother. Due to being a homunculus that was born instead of created, she doesn't have a 'set' age from the beginning nor does she grow like a normal human would. Kiritsugu guesses (correctly) that she'll never have secondary sexual characteristics.
• Our Homunculi Are Different: Illya is a naturally-conceived homunculus. This has warped her growth patterns so that despite being around eight years old she is absolutely tiny, only weighing about twenty pounds.
• The Von Trope Family: The Von Einzbern is from Germany.

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Shirou Emiya

Voiced by: Junko Noda (Japanese), Mona Marshall (English)

Shirou is a boy Kiritsugu finds while wandering through the destroyed city after the War. Finding a survivor gives Kiritsugu some measure of hope that his own life is still worth something. Ten years down the line, Shirou becomes the protagonist of Fate/stay night.

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• Empty Shell: Partial. Pretty much everything about this child was lost in the flames. He is later able to build a new identity for himself, but who he was before the fire is gone completely.
• Happily Adopted: He was taken in and raised by Kiritsugu.
• Heroic Resolve: It's eventually revealed in Visual Novel Fate/stay night as well as the Anime adaptation of Fate/Zero that this is a trait that survived with him.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Discovering him alive in the rubble is all that kept Kiritsugu from succumbing completely to despair.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: He vows to take on Kiritsugu's ideals with blind faith when his adoptive father is dying.

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Zecchan

Voiced by: Hisako Kanemoto (Japanese)

An amnesiac teenaged girl somehow pulled into the Grail in the metafictional "Einzbern Consultation Room" shorts. She befriends Irisviel and helps console the defeated Servants of the Fourth Grail War.

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• Adaptation Expansion: She doesn't appear at all in the light novel, but makes a few background appearances in the anime and stars prominently in the Einzbern Consultation Room shorts and one of the drama CDs.
• All Just a Dream: At the end of the Einzbern Consultation Room shorts, she awakens and wonders if everything she'd seen had only been a dream. She realizes it wasn't a dream when she sees the Einzbern Consultation Room signpost, which inspires her to set up the Tiger Dojo.
• Big Eater: She eats three days' worth of food in one go.
• The Cameo: She appears a couple of times as a background character in the Fate/Zero anime, as well as prominently starring in one of the special drama CDs. However, she was deliberately omitted from the light novel.
• Canon Character All Along: She's really a younger Taiga Fujimura.
• Even the Girls Want Her: When Zecchan praises her instructions in Episode 2, Irisviel gushes that Zecchan is close to turning her into a lesbian.
• Foreshadowing: Her true identity is foreshadowed when Irisviel remarks that Zecchan would make an excellent teacher and that she hopes Illya will be like Zecchan six years in the future, and Zecchan takes up studying English.
• Genki Girl: She is always eager and excited to learn new things, and to help the vanquished Servants come to terms with their losses.
• Identical Stranger: She resembles a younger, fairer-skinned Shirley, though they're completely unrelated to each other. This goes in line with how Taiga is said to remind Kiritsugu of his childhood friend and first love Shirley: not only are their personalities almost similar, they even look alike too!
• Identity Amnesia: After somehow getting sucked inside the Grail, she loses her memories. All she recalls is that her name started with a "T".
• Innocently Insensitive: She and Iri insult Zayd (one of Assassin's personalities, who died in Episode 2) to his face, without intending to.
• Irony: Zecchan shows annoyance with Kiritsugu's Combat Pragmatist tendencies when talking about him even if she says she doesn't dislike him in episode 2 and when she actually meets him before Stay Night, she gets a huge crush on him.
• Mafia Princess: She is the granddaughter of the leader of Fuyuki's branch of the yakuza.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: Zecchan studied the Fate series lore under Irisviel von Eizbern in the Einzbern Consultation Room shorts, and would later go on to mentor Irisviel's daughter Illyasviel von Einzbern in the Tiger Dojo shorts.
• Master Swordsman: She's extremely talented at kendo.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: She cannot remember her name and is dubbed "T-chan", "Student #0", or "Zecchan" for short. Her real name is Taiga Fujimura.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Joins in delivering a Circling Monologue to Zayd with Iri in Episode 3, pointing out what he'd done wrong.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Even after finding out that Irisviel is a manifestation of Aŋra Mainiiu, Zecchan insists on trying to save her from the nihilism and hatred of All the World's Evil, delivering a passionate Declaration of Protection.
• Time Travel: Zecchan is somehow pulled back in time to the events of the Fourth Grail War after being sucked into the Grail.
• What the Hell, Hero?: As Irisviel's Avenger starts showing, Zecchan calls her out on driving Lancer and Berserker to despair and madness instead of consoling them.
• Yaoi Fangirl: When Irisviel comments on Iskander's compatibility with Waver, Zecchan remarks that the dōjinshi featuring them will be sexy.

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Shinji Matou

Byakuya's only son.

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• Demoted to Extra: He doesn't even get an appearance at all and is only briefly mentioned by Byakuya in the original Fate/Zero novel.
• The Ghost: He doesn't appear at all in Fate/Zero, due to him being sent overseas to study.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Was sent to study abroad so he would be away when the Grail War starts. It's implied (and confirmed in the Heaven's Feel manga) that Byakuya hates magic so much, he doesn't want Shinji to get involved on it.
• Minor Living Alone: In this case, probably living in a residentiary area of the boarding school he's attending overseas.

Past Characters

Shirley

Voiced by: Ayahi Takagaki (Japanese), Carrie Savage (English)

"Kerry, what kind of adult do you want to be when you grow up?"

Shirley is a young Filipino woman whom Kiritsugu was friends with in his childhood. She admired the work of Kiritsugu's father and acted as his assistant. Unfortunately, her curiosity got the better of her and without Norikata's approval she tested a potion he was making on herself, causing her to undergo a vampiric transformation.

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• Brainy Brunette: She had brown hair and Zero Material reveals she was very smart. In the anime, Kiritsugu calls her his dad's "star pupil".
• Cool Big Sis: She acted like a big sister towards Kiritsugu, but he had a crush on her.
• Curiosity Is a Crapshoot: Drinking her teacher's potion costs her life.
• First Love: Kiritsugu pined after her when he was a teenager.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: She begged Kiritsugu to kill her. Since he was unable to do so, she turned into a vampire.
• The Lost Lenore: Kiritsugu's crush on her and her subsequent death is what eventually leads him to become the jaded Mage Killer. Fittingly his last thoughts before his death are a memory of her.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: She defended Norikata and his work to his critics in town whenever she could. She eventually decides to take matters into her own hands by testing his potions on herself, which both transforms her into a Dead Apostle, and damns the entire village because of her involvement with him.
• No Listening Skills: As the novel states, Norikata warned Shirley not to drink one of his potions and she did it anyway, starting a Zombie Apocalypse on their island.
• Tragic Monster: She's a sweet girl who's irreversibly transformed into a violent vampiric creature, and even begs Kiritsugu to kill her before she hurts someone.
• Uncertain Doom: As Kiritsugu was unable to go through with killing her, she's left to turn into a Dead Apostle while he can only flee in fear hoping someone would save her. While the Enforcers sent by the Mage's Association and Executors sent by the Church laid waste to the island and killed all those infected they could find, she's never explicitly noted to have been killed. Regardless, the odds don't look good for her, and Kiritsugu operates under the idea she indeed died.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She drank one of Norikata's potions under development out of curiosity, which caused her transformation into a vampire and the destruction of her village.

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Norikata Emiya

Voiced by: Isshin Chiba (Japanese), Kirk Thornton (English)

Norikata was Kiritsugu's father and a mage researching manipulation of time who took up residence in the rustic, out-of-the-way Alimango island. While his experiments proved successful for plants, they were not suitable for use on humans.

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• Anti-Villain: In contrast to someone like Kirei, Norikata was not out to cause havoc for the sake of sadism and he loved his son genuinely. That said, he had a profound lack of empathy for any of the damage his irresponsible experiments caused.
• Asshole Victim: His death by his son's hands is mostly tragic for the effect it has on the son. Norikata himself, however, is quite unsympathetic given his callousness regarding the disaster he's responsible for.
• Destroy the Evidence: He attempts to destroy the evidence of the disaster that took out the island's population, waving it all off as the results of a failed experiment.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Just like Kiritsugu, possibly due to his failures towards finding immortality.
• Immortality Seeker: While working out a way to bring immortality to humans through time control, he stumbled across the problem most mages do: it means you become a Dead Apostle.
• Lack of Empathy: He does not care at all about all the deaths on the island. It's ultimately what sets off his son into killing him.
• Never My Fault: He solely blamed Shirley for the disaster that killed everyone but Kiritsugu on their island because she didn't listen to his explicit instructions not to drink the potion, even though he made the potion in the first place and allowed her access to it.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Out of concern for Kiritsugu, who had just got out from the house and saw the Zombie Apocalypse in the village caused by Shirley and his own potion, he waits for him so they could escape together. His son stabs him and then shoots him three times.
• Not a Game: When Kiritsugu expresses an interest in learning magic, Norikata sternly refuses with these words, saying it would be dangerous for someone without the proper experience.
• Perma-Stubble: He sports beard stubble, like his adult son.
• Posthumous Character: He died not long after Shirley when his son stabbed him and then shot him three times in cold blood.
• Predecessor Casting Gag: He has the same English voice actor that his son Kiritsugu had in the 2006 Fate/stay night anime.
• Predecessor Villain: Is essentially the reason Kiritsugu is a broken and ruthless man by the time of Fate/Zero.
• The Stoic: Consistently even toned in all circumstances. He burns his research notes without hesitation and reacts to the news of Shirley's death as if it were a prediction of bad weather.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He strongly resembles Kiritsugu as an adult with his stubble albeit with a different hairstyle and glasses.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His experiments not only destroyed his village and caused his death, they caused Kiritsugu to lose his idealism and becomes a hardened mage-killer, resulting in countless deaths and the near-destruction of Fuyuki City.

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Natalia Kaminski

Voiced by: Akeno Watanabe (Japanese), Wendee Lee (English)

Natalia was a freelance mercenary who sold information concerning Norikata and his research on vampires. She rescued a young Kiritsugu from Arimago Island and took him as her apprentice. Over time, she became a mother figure to him.

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• Action Girl: A requirement for her line of work is killing efficiently.
• Badass Longcoat: Like her protege.
• Cold Sniper: Pleasant when she wants to be, but on the job she's all business.
• Cynical Mentor: To Kiritsugu for the tactics and outlook.
• Expy: A gun-toting version of Aozaki Touko. Her design in the anime even resembles the original, novel-only design of Touko.
• Go Out with a Smile: She has a smile on her face in the anime when Kiritsugu shoots her down, implying she knew it was coming.
• The Gunslinger: The origin of Kiritsugu's guns and magic methods.
• Half-Human Hybrid: As revealed in a side-story and the databooks, she's part Succubus.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: She's part succubus after all, although she apparently limited herself to only teasing Kiritsugu, according to the databooks.
• Mage Killer: Kiritsugu learns all his gruesome trade from her, especially marksmanship.
• Mentor Archetype: For Kiritsugu.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: She let her guard down after killing the vampire Odd Vorak and ended up releasing all the bees he was hiding within his body, turning the entire plane cabin into a bloodbath.
• Parental Substitute: Her last speech was about how she found herself thinking of Kiritsugu as a son, much to her own surprise. Kiritsugu clearly agrees.
• Posthumous Character: She died when the plane she was on was destroyed by Kiritsugu.
• Sexy Mentor: She is Kiritsugu's mentor and a beautiful woman, who is part succubus.

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Claudia Ortensia

Claudia Ortensia was Kirei Kotomine's wife, who died three years prior to the Fourth Holy Grail War. She was nearing death and wanted to prove to her husband that he truly had compassion in his heart, so she committed suicide to remind him of this. However, her actions only brought him into deeper despair when she failed.

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• Adapted Out: In the first Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel movie, part of Kirei's line about being able to use Healing Magic where he mentions that someone died in front of him once is cut. This was supposed to foreshadow the reveal about Claudia's existence later in the route.
• Artistic License – Biology: She's not a true albino as she doesn't have red eyes. However, she does have similarly unusual yellow eyes and her permanent use of a medical eyepatch implies she still had pathological eye defects common to albinos.
• Driven to Suicide: Due to being married to a man who was unable to love her in a conventional way, though she was already dying. Her suicide was also an attempt to make Kirei actually care about her (or at least her death) and show him he could love, but it didn't work.
• Go Out with a Smile: After committing suicide. She thought her plan had worked and Kirei crying proved he loved her, but in reality he was crying because he wouldn't get to kill her.
• Love Martyr: She was devoted to a man who was literally incapable of loving her in a way she would understand, but like everyone else, including Kotomine himself, she was not aware of his true nature. Kotomine considers her a saint for loving him.
• Posthumous Character: She died several years before the Fourth Grail War began.
• Senseless Sacrifice: She ended up committing suicide in hopes that Kirei would find compassion within himself again. Not only did it fail, it drove him further into despair. However, while he considers her death "worthless", he doesn't consider it "meaningless", because she helped him find his identity.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Hortensia or Ortensia?
• Strong Family Resemblance: Her daughter Caren takes after her quite a bit. Kirei notes this in the non-canon spinoff game Fate/tiger colosseum.

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