Tear Jerker / Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works]

Run, Shirou!

Moments pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.

By attempting to continue where Fate/Zero left off, it manages to make some of the scenes of the original visual novel even more heart breaking.

• Kiritsugu's last moments and words with Shirou. Hearing and seeing his tired demeanor after all that has happened, there's a stronger meaning when he manages to pass out with a peaceful smile.
  "I wanted to be a hero of justice. However, to save one person is to be unable to save another. I just wish I'd realized this sooner."
• During Shiro's meeting with Kiritsugu in the hospital after the fire, the scene widens to a group of injured children in the room showing that Shiro wasn't the only orphan from the disaster. It's worse if you watched the 2006 anime and/or played the VN and remember what happens to those poor kids later on.
  • Kiritsugu's appearence and behaviour in the flashback is also one in another sense: his unshaved beard and his way of speaking makes it very clear how broken he is after the events of the fourth grail war and just how much Shirou was a Morality Chain to him.
• Rin's flashback of her magus training manages to convey the loneliness she had to deal with after the death of Tokiomi and Aoi's falling health.
• The extent of Shirou's trauma due to the fire that followed the destruction of the Holy Grail in the fourth war.
• Saber's sad look upon meeting Illyasviel for the first time - since she resembles her late mother so much.
• From Episode 10:
  • The intro. The aria of Unlimited Blade Works is, in and of itself, utterly tragic. But with everything shown, and the dark implications they have, it just gets even worse. And the implications are then later confirmed in later episodes, even somehow managing to add to Archer's already tragic story.
• From Episode 12:
  • Saber crying when she's forced to attack Shirou and Rin.
• Episode 15 WILL make you tear up:
  • Everything about Illya's expanded backstory. Everything.
    • To go into further detail: Illya's flashback takes place right after the end of Fate/Zero, where she was comforted by her mother's voice and the hope that she will once again see her beloved father. Not only is that tragic, given what happens to her parents, but due to the victory-obsessed petty old bastard mage Acht, Illya was led to believe that Kiritsugu abandoned her and her mother when the fourth war was over, never knowing that Acht kept Illya away from her father as punishment and that Kiritsugu couldn't save her despite his best efforts, thanks to being corrupted by the Grail. Illya then undergoes hellish training that no little girl or human being for that matter should ever have to go through; cut open and experimented on, seeing older copies of yourself sacrificed left and right, and being thrown out into the wilderness for the sole purpose of trying to survive. The last one is especially jarring since this was the same fate that befell her mother. Thankfully history repeats itself again when Berserker saves Illya (like how Kiritsugu saved Irisviel) but not before she was attacked and gnawed on by hungry wolves. The seiyuu's terrified screams of fear and pain only add on to the horror.
  • Illya furiously demanding to know why the older versions of herself have to die, as she believes that the only one who should die will be her because she's the one who is supposed to die.
  • Gilgamesh was always a bastard and this episode reinforces that point in spades: He easily murders Berserker given his level of power but then goes after Illya, first cutting her eyes and then stabbing through one of her lungs. He would've gone further had it not been for Berserker's last attack against the prick. Fans of the Visual Novel knew this was coming but it was still hard to watch, made worse for fans of Illya.
    • And ESPECIALLY for Shirou. In a bit of added drama, the anime has Rin trying to restrain Shirou from trying to stop the inevitable. Rin may not have been Illya's biggest fan but even she was terrified over what was happening to the young master. Despite this, she knew she had to keep herself and Shirou out of Gilgamesh's crosshairs; if he could easily kill Berserker, imagine what he could do to two powerless Masters. Shirou trying to struggle out of Rin's hold takes the cake because at that point, it didn't matter that Illya tried to kill them once before. What laid before his eyes now was just a scared defenseless girl being attacked and killed by a monster and given by Shirou's muffled but anguished screams, he'll be DAMNED before she suffers any more pain.
    • This is all made even worse by the fact that, in this route, he's watching his foster sister be murdered, and he doesn't even know it. Unlike the other two routes, they don't get to interact much. So he can do nothing as his one remaining, long-lost family member dies.
  • Berserker trying his hardest to fight off Gilgamesh and protect his Master. Gilgamesh suggested to Heracles several times that he might stand an inkling of a chance if he would just abandon the girl he's trying to protect and come at him full force. Berserker is having none of that, proving that he cared for Illya as a person and surrogate daughter, and charges at the golden intruder with renewed gusto. Unfortunately, it's not enough and he ends up dying.
  • Illya dies believing that Berserker never left her side even in death, her last thought being that her faithful Servant reminded her of her beloved father and how she wishes that she could be lifted and carried through the snowy landscape at least one more time like the good old days. She then comments with her last breath that it feels a bit cold... Pass the tissues.
    • And the VN adds to this as Berserker is already dead in the chains at that point, but FORCES himself to not fade away through sheer power of will so Illya can be comforted by him, before going one step further and forcing himself back to life for one last strike while breaking out of a chain that is basically INDESTRUCTIBLE against GODS. Berserker cared THAT much for her.
  • The ending theme song for the episode qualifies as well. Instead of the regular "ring your bell" by Kalafina, viewers get a remix of the same song by the same singer but sung in a much more slower and haunting melody, complete with a slow, dark moving snowy background. This eerie but beautiful atmosphere is similar to Nasu's earlier works, The Garden of Sinners.
  • Adding insult to injury, she was ecstatic of meeting Shirou, been able to ask about her father, and getting to know her brother, yet she died, still thinking of Kiritsugu as a traitor, her brother an enigma, and the sacrifice of so many homunculi a waste. The only thing that would have made this episode even more bitter would have been to hear die lorelei again.
• Episode 16:
  • We have Gilgamesh ripping out Illya's heart as the first thing we see. And then we have her grave that Shirou and Rin made for her.
  • This episode deals with the fallout of her deed to protect herself and Shirou by letting Gilgamesh kill Illya. She's in tears over how he endangered them both - and keep in mind, it's for him she's worried about - while Shirou isn't happy about what happened but tries not to hold it against Rin.
  • Watching the normally composed Shirou struggle through his reasoning for his Chronic Hero Syndrome can be pretty rough on its own. Even after he acknowledges there might be something wrong with his way of thinking, he decides to continue sacrificing himself to help others anyway.
• Episode 17: The reveal of Archer's true identity also serves as a subtle one, considering Rin and Shirou's disturbed tones while talking to him about his distasteful actions since the previous episodes.
• Episode 19 gives us a glimpse at Archer's life and career as a Guardian. He has to kill people over and again, slaughtering men, women, and even children to keep the world safe. Even though his ideal was to save peoples lives, he was forced to kill for the rest of eternity.
  • Not least of things, the way Archer died in the first place: not in a battlefield fighting for his ideals nor out of old age, but by being framed as the perpetrator of the war he fought and hanged by the people he wanted to protect in the first place.
  • Finally, Archer's flashback is further accentuated, subtly, by Rin's sorrowful and tearful narration about it, and her sad realization that neither Archer nor Shirou will be saved because of it. Rin is basically seeing both what happened to cause Archer to be this way, and what will happen to Shirou to become this way as well.
• Episode 20: As Lancer dies, he wishes that Rin had been his Master.
  • Even sadder, if you've completed Hollow Ataraxia, as you would find out that the Master Lancer should've had if Kotomine didn't backstab her was someone very much like Rin.
  • The landscape of Archer's Unlimited Blade Works is one in its own way: as his Reality Marble, it is the eternal representation of his curse and his mistakes, a barren, lightless place filled only with rusted weapons and cogs, showing how much of his life is so alike to that of a machine.
  • When Archer rips into Shirou for being driven by the idea that he must sacrifice give himself for others, the idea that other people are more important than him, and wanting everyone to be happy his a ridiculous fairy tale the camera barely focuses on Shirou. It focuses on the horrified expression and body language of Saber showing that his words are cursing her ideals just as much as they are Shirou's. As if she didn't have enough to deal only able to watch Shirou get brutalized by an opponent that vastly outclasses him.
• Episode 21: Archer getting utterly vaporized by Gate of Babylon. Rin's anguished scream is what sells it.
• Episode 22: A small detail which makes sense after reading the Visual Novel, but becomes more heartbreaking if you are coming from watching Fate/Zero: Sakura is not included in the Tohsaka family photo. It does come off as if Sakura was virtually Un-person-ed by her original family.
  • While Rin's final memory of Shirou ended the scene on a heartwarming note, her memories started off with both her father's funeral and her mother's failing health. The previous Holy Grail War messed Rin's life up just like it did Shirou's.
  • Another detail that will likely strike viewers of Fate/Zero: Saber spends a long moment staring at the inside of Shirou's shed. That shed was the last time she saw Irisviel and Maiya alive.
• Episode 24:
  • Saber disappearing as she wishes that if she had the chance she would have liked to see both Rin and Shirou grow.
  • Archer and Rin's last conversation. Rin begs for Archer to stay knowing that he'll be forced to stay as a counter-guardian for all of time. Archer refuses but asks for Rin to look after him (Shirou). He then gives her a real smile and calls her Tohsaka, just like the good ol' days, as he disappears. Making all of this worse, is the fact that, for the first time, he looks like an older Shirou. She's basically watching Shirou die while knowing that this will ultimately happen to the Shirou behind her.
• Episode 25
  • Shirou starts the episode in a monologue about how nothing has changed. "I'm still him and he's still me." It's like he has a fatal illness that's incurable because it's his personality.
  • Rin's declaration that she's going to make it her life goal to make Shirou "thorougly happy", is bittersweet. On one hand, they're together, but on the other hand, there's this undercurrent of meaning; she knows that Shirou is going to hero himself to death so she's going to have to make him happy or at the very least content before that happens.
  • The epilogue. Archer gives a heartfelt monologue in much the same manner that Shirou does at the beginning. What makes this sad? The narration is about how Shirou eventually went on to have regrets, ending with the following four words: "I was not wrong." We then get a shot of what appears to be Archer in his desert robes...except it's Shirou. Nothing changed. In the end, Shirou's desire to become a hero of justice dooms him into becoming like Archer, regardless of the actual outcome. This contrasts with the original VN where it is stated by Nasu, that Shirou doesn't end up becoming EMIYA in any of the three routes. It is likely this was done on purpose, to both separate the anime from the source material and to show that even in a vast Multiverse there can't be too many deviations and that some events must play out the same way.

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