Participants of the Fifth Holy Grail War Masters ; : :Sakura's older brother and a long-time friend of Shirou, until Shirou discovered Shinji abusing Sakura, at which point Shirou beat Shinji within an inch of his life. Shinji is very popular as vice-captain of the archery dojo despite being chauvinistic and a narcissist. Like Rin Tohsaka, he is of a distinguished lineage of Japanese sorcerers (though his family is originally from Russia), though the Matou blood has thinned and no longer produces heirs naturally capable of sorcery. Shinji feels uncomfortable with his sister's daily visits to Shirou's home. He has an open crush on Rin, but she does not return his feelings. :He participates in the Fifth Holy Grail War as a Master, with Rider as his Servant, although he does not have Mage abilities. He is beaten and humiliated by Shirou, who almost crushes Shinji's throat for using the school as a power source. He has a Command Seal created by his younger sister, who is Rider's true Master. In the
Fate route, after Rider loses to Saber, his book burns up; he flees but is killed by Berserker. In the
Unlimited Blade Works route, he is implanted with the heart of Illya, the seed of the Holy Grail by Gilgamesh, but is later rescued by Rin Tohsaka and ultimately survives. In the ''Heaven's Feel'' route, he is ousted as a false Master as Rider returns to her true Master, Sakura. It is revealed that he had been raping Sakura for many years. He threatens to expose this to Shirō and in a fit of fright, Sakura murders Shinji. ; : :Kuzuki is an instructor in Rin's class. Kuzuki is well respected among staff and students. He is a highly trained assassin who has no qualms about letting his servant Caster, whom he loves, do whatever she wants, even if the actions are considered evil. Berserker also possess a Noble Phantasm called , which is the legendary bow and arrow set used by Heracles to slay the nine-headed Hydra. Shirō uses it in the ''Heaven's Feel'' route, projecting Berserker's axe-sword against a corrupted Berserker to remove all his remaining lives in one go in a modified technique known as . In the anime and the "Fate" route of the visual novel, Shirō and Saber perform a joint special attack with a traced
Caliburn, Saber's lost Noble Phantasm, and kill him. In the
Unlimited Blade Works route, Gilgamesh binds the Servant down with his divine chains and pelts him with weapons, removing all his lives and killing him. In the "Heaven's Feel" route, Berserker is defeated by Saber Alter – the corrupted form of Saber – and is then consumed by Angra Mainyu and reborn as the decrepit Dark Berserker. He is later killed by Shirō Emiya. ; : (Japanese),
David Vincent (Fate/stay night, UBW film),
Todd Haberkorn (UBW TV) (English) :A solitary Servant, clothed in a traditional Japanese
hakama and
kimono with an indigo
haori. He carries an
odachi as his main weapon. He initially claims to be , but in reality he is a nameless samurai "who forged his past and is a master swordsman only in people's memories". He was summoned by Caster as a guardian and watchman for the front gate of the Ryūdō Temple. As an improper servant, Assassin is entirely dependent on Caster for mana and cannot move freely beyond the grounds of Ryūdō Temple. Because of his limited status, Assassin only seeks to enjoy a decent sword fight. His special move is the , an unblockable attack that hits from three directions simultaneously, reaching into parallel dimensions. It is a sword skill of the highest degree that requires no mana other than that needed for Assassin to move, and as such is incredibly efficient. It is a sure-kill move, although in a different sense from
Gáe Bolg. In
Fate/Hollow ataraxia, he is described as having been killed by Gilgamesh. In the Unlimited Blade Works route, he faces Saber once after letting Shirō and Archer pass to let them cause inconvenience for Caster, later letting Saber leave with her Master after Archer wounds Shirō as a sign of respect for her abilities and desire to defend her comrade. Saber defeats him on the last night of the Holy Grail War. In Heaven's Feel route, Assassin's flesh serves as Zōken Matō's catalyst for summoning True Assassin, with the latter bursting out from within his flesh. ; – : :She is an honored guest of the Ryūdō family, permitted to live at their temple until the preparations for her marriage have been finalized. Her true identity is Medea, the disgraced princess of
Colchis who was branded a witch due to actions outside her control. Unlike other Servants, she does not wield a weapon for physical combat, but her rank allows her to manipulate Mana and perform magic like a wizard, which other Servants cannot do. Her magical ability far surpasses modern Magi, due to her technique, . This allows her to cast spells that would normally take minutes to cast by uttering a single word. Because of her Magus ability, she has a dual role as a Servant to Kuzuki and a Master of Assassin. Her Noble Phantasm is , an otherwise weak dagger which dispels all forms of magic that it comes in contact with. Its greatest use is in severing the bond between Master and Servant. She also possesses a Noble Phantasm called , a coat of golden fleece which is capable of summoning the original Colchis dragon that guarded it after it is thrown upon the ground. However, she is not capable of using it in the Fifth Holy Grail War. :In the Fifth Holy Grail War, shortly after her summoning, she kills her original Master Atram Galiast within a few days, and is later taken in by her current Master
Sōichirō Kuzuki at the Ryūdō Temple. Caster quickly fell in love with Sōichirō, for he was the first man to show her genuine kindness, dedication, and loyalty. Her primary objective shifted from obtaining the Holy Grail for herself to simply preserving their short time together. To that end, she takes the souls of other beings to sustain herself and strengthen her defensive power, as Kuzuki is incapable of providing her with Mana. In the anime-original storyline, she kidnaps Sakura by possessing her body and stabbing Saber with Rule Breaker, but, because of Saber's A-ranked magic resistance, she was only able to take away Saber's ability to use her Noble Phantasm. She then tries to sacrifice Sakura, who has latent Magus abilities, to summon the Holy Grail directly. She is then defeated by Gilgamesh's
Gate of Babylon in her underground city. In the
Fate route, she is defeated by Gilgamesh's
Gate of Babylon while attempting to attack the Emiya household. In the
Unlimited Blade Works route, she is the primary antagonist of the first third of the path. She personally stabs Saber with
Rule Breaker, turning her into her Servant for a short time, but is later betrayed and defeated by Archer. In the ''Heaven's Feel
route, she is killed by Saber early on after losing Assassin and Kuzuki in an attack by the Shadow. Still, Zōken Matō uses one of his worm familiars to maintain her body as a puppet for a brief period before Saber slays it. Her Rule Breaker'' would play a critical role later, being projected by Shirou to sever Sakura's connection to The Shadow. ; - : : The Hassan-i Sabbāh that appears in the ''Heaven's Feel'' route of the Fifth War is a servant that Zōken Matō summoned by sacrificing Kojirō. Known as True Assassin, he possesses a unique ability to conceal his presence outside of battle. His Noble Phantasm is , a long, satanic, three-metre long right arm which replaces the heart of whoever it touches with a fake substitute, which can be crushed to destroy the real heart. True Assassin's battles Saber and traps her between his Noble Phantasm and The Shadow, resulting in her being devoured by the latter and her subsequent corruption into Saber Alter. He attempts to kill Shirō immediately after but is defeated by Rider, who comes to Shirō's defense at the behest of her true master – revealed later to be Sakura Matō. He is later slain by Sakura's Shadow when Sakura turns on Zōken as revenge for his years of tormenting her.
Participants of the Fourth Holy Grail War Masters ; : :Tokiomi is the father of Rin and Sakura, an arrogant and manipulative mage who was Gilgamesh's master during the Fourth Holy Grail War. He arranges for Kirei Kotomine to be his understudy in magic and his support in the Holy Grail War. He thinks highly of Kotomine and has him serve in all manners of affairs, appointing him as Rin's guardian should trouble befall him. He is skilled in fire manipulation, and employs a large ruby set in the end of a staff as his Mystic Code to help him shape and control flame. While a skilled mage and confident in his abilities, he is actually one of the weakest Tohsaka in history and considers himself as inferior in potential to Rin and Sakura, who were both recognized by Tokiomi as possessing extraordinary abilities from birth. Though he and Kiritsugu never have any actual one-on-one engagements, the two are perfect foils for one another, as Kiritsugu is a tech-savvy spellcaster who puts his job as a father ahead of his job as a mage, while Tokiomi is a traditional mage who puts his identity as a mage before all else. He eventually meets his end when Kirei, who had been corrupted by Gilgamesh, stabs him in the back with an ornamental dagger Tokiomi had gifted Kirei with moments earlier. Kirei lies to Rin that her father was murdered by Kariya, giving her the dagger as a present, which ironically was later used to defeat Kirei in the
Fate route. ; : :Kariya is the uncle of
Shinji Matō and Lancelot's master during the Fourth Holy Grail War. He is the only member of the Matō family who truly loves Sakura Matō like a daughter, and harbors a very strong grudge against Tokiomi, who allowed his younger child to be adopted by Zōken. Kariya had previously left the Matō family ten years prior to the 4th Holy Grail War out of disgust for his own family, but returns and makes a deal with Zōken Matō that he will win the Grail War in exchange for Sakura's freedom. He is in love with Aoi (his childhood friend), although he stepped down after she chose to marry Tokiomi instead. Due to his lack of formal training, Kariya was implanted with the same magical worms as Sakura. This caused a number of side effects as the worms would literally eat away at their host, causing Kariya's health to progressively fail in return for significantly expanding his magic circuits and magical potential. By the time of his summoning of a Servant, Kariya's hair had turned white and the nerves on the left side of his face were dead. In addition, his natural lifespan had been shortened to such an extent that Zōken estimated he would only live on for one additional year. However, despite the Crest Worms and his own accelerated training, Kariya remained severely lacking as a Magus. At Zōken's behest, he compensated for this by summoning the most powerful of the seven Servant classes, the Servant of Mad Enhancement, Berserker. However, the high volume of magical energy required to maintain Berserker causes him frequent, severe pain. He dies after exhausting his energy and passes away while dreaming of Aoi, Rin, Sakura, and the life he wished he could have had with them. ; : : Ryūnosuke is Bluebeard's master, a highly deranged
serial killer who summons the Caster class servant after murdering a family and using their blood as a component in the summoning ritual. He does not seek the Holy Grail, but follows Bluebeard in order to find macabre ways to kill people and relieve his boredom, using a hypnotic charm to lure children to their deaths. But Ryūnosuke does admit that he does in fact feel that there is something missing from his life and that, on some level, he desires to find it through his atrocities. He eventually becomes the primary antagonist of the first season, as the entire war is put on hold so as to stop his and Bluebeard's rampage. He is killed by Kiritsugu with shot to the stomach and then the head, having a realization the interval between the bullets that the "thing" he had been searching for his whole life was his own death. ; : :The Master of Diarmuid Ua Duibhne, Kayneth is a nobleman from the Magus Association, Lord of the House of El-Melloi and a prodigy at magecraft, said to be the most talented participant in the Holy Grail War. His artifact is stolen by his pupil, Waver Velvet, but he manages to obtain another artifact and summon Diarmuid instead. While he holds the command spells for his Lancer, the energy to materialize the Servant is maintained by Sola-Ui. Despite his skill, Kayneth's overly-traditional approach to combat causes him to underestimate his opponents' capacity for violence, as he believes that the Holy Grail War will be fought with honorable duels and tests of skill rather than quick blitzkriegs like those perpetrated by Kiritsugu and Kotomine. He is confident in his abilities and takes pride in his heritage, but finds the extent of Kiritsugu's untraditional and underhanded tactics both offensive and unexpectedly challenging to overcome. He loses his ability to use magecraft after being shot by Kiritsugu's Origin Bullet and is left half-blind and crippled. Sola-Ui then steals his Command Seals to make Lancer hers. After being forced to make Diarmuid commit suicide, he and Sola-Ui are sniped by Maiya so as to tie up any loose ends and avoid future retribution from the Archibald family. Kayneth is then killed by Saber as an act of mercy.
Servants ; – : :The First of the Knights of Fianna, Lancer possesses a love spot on his face, which causes females with insufficient magic resistance to fall in love with him should they gaze upon it. As a knight, he adheres to a code of honour in battle and a sense of loyalty to his master, being summoned to fight in the Fourth Holy Grail War because he wants to display the loyalty to his lord that he was not able to show when he was alive. Despite being enemies, he and Saber share mutual respect for each other, and he considers it his duty to take her head, protecting her and aiding her on multiple occasions, in an attempt to ensure that he will be the one to kill her. Lancer fights at Mion river with the other heroic spirits, where he is forced to break one of his spears, Gae Buidhe, in order to allow the wound he inflicted upon Saber to heal so that she can use her noble phantasm, Excalibur, to destroy Caster. Later that day, during a one-on-one duel with Saber, Lancer is forced to commit suicide by Kayneth, and dies cursing his master, Sola-Ui, Kiritsugu, Saber, and the Grail for destroying his pride and last remaining wish. :Lancer possesses two Noble Phantasms: , a short yellow spear which inflicts wounds that do not heal as long as the spear exists in the world, and , a long red spear which cancels mana upon contact, ignoring all magical defences and temporarily dispelling all magical attributes of the target struck. ; – : : Iskandar, the King of Conquerors, famous in history as Alexander the Great, appears during the Fourth Holy Grail War to seek reincarnation and resume his conquest of the world. While he initially respected Saber, Iskandar considered her ideals regarding kingship are delusional and that she would thrive as one of his followers. He derives his status as Rider from a set of divine bulls and chariot purportedly a gift from Zeus, known as , summoned when Iskandar slices the air with his . His eccentric and overbearing personality along with his incredible abilities creates difficulties for his Master and their opponents. He is also the only Servant that Gilgamesh truly respects as an equal, the latter inviting him to challenge him in combat as many times as he wished. He is killed by Gilgamesh in single combat and, in his dying moments, finally finds Oceanus, the place he had searched for all his life. :His first Noble Phantasm is , the trampling attack used by the Gordius Wheel, which causes lightning strikes upon movement, inflicting massive damage to whatever is in its path. His second and most powerful Noble Phantasm is , which is a Reality Marble, a self-contained miniature world that contains thousands of the most trusted of his soldiers who fought alongside him in life resurrected as temporary Servants, marching upon an endless plain of sand. ; – , : :Commonly known as
Bluebeard, his real name is Gilles de Rais – a comrade of
Jeanne d'Arc whose death drove him insane as he spent his final years dabbling in the occult becoming a serial killer of children. Deriving pleasure from giving his victims a false sense of hope before killing them, Rais entered the Fourth Holy Grail War to revive Jeanne. But he mistook Saber for an amnesiac Jeanne and assumed he already won the war, proceeding to go on a killing spree with Ryūnosuke that forces the war to be placed on hold until they are eliminated. Following Ryūnosuke restoring the Caster's faith in God with his twisted perception of humanity's relation to the divine as entertainment, Rais decides to give God a show with his Noble Phantasm. Following Ryūnosuke's death, Rais is obliterated by Saber's Excalibur. :His sole Noble Phantasm is , a magical tome made from human skin which acts as a massive mana source and a guidebook for various spells of varying power. Among its spells include summoning
otherworldly monsters known as Horrors. The strength of his Noble Phantasm helps make up for his otherwise average ability in magecraft. A Saber variant of Rais appears in
Fate/Apocrypha. ; – : :Previously known as the
Black Knight, Berserker is a Servant during the Fourth Holy Grail War who possesses the ability to use practically any object as a Noble Phantasm, allowing him to match Gilgamesh in combat. His madness has reduced him to a mindless, though dangerously skilled, fighter. Despite his insanity, he is still able to instinctively recognize Saber. When Saber finally learns Berserker's true identity, she is devastated that her decisions in life and her adherence to chivalry had caused her friend such suffering even after dying. During the battle it is revealed that his insanity stems from his overwhelming desire to be punished for his adultery with
Guinevere and his own subconscious love for Saber, his sanity being eaten away as he was forced to watch the love of his life throw away her humanity for the sake of her people. He is killed by Saber as he is about to deal her a killing blow when his Master runs out of magical energy midway, and regains his sanity in his dying moments. His death almost drives Saber into darkness, as she becomes hellbent on gaining the Grail by any means. :He possesses three Noble Phantasms, the first of which is , which envelopes him in a black fog that makes his outline blurred and his status unreadable to other Masters. By use of a Command Spell, it is possible to use the fog to allow Berserker to mimic another's appearance, although it is noted that had Lancelot been summoned under a different Class, he would be able to freely disguise at will. , allows him to turn anything he recognizes as a weapon, into a D-ranked Noble Phantasm. If he grabs hold of others' Noble Phantasms, he claims them temporarily as his own and their original rank is retained, making it the perfect counter to Archer's attacks. His last Noble Phantasm, is a magical sword which, when drawn, dispels For Someone's Glory and Knight of Honor, boosts all his parameters and grants him additional prowess against beings with a 'dragon' attribute such as Saber. ; – : :Assassin is actually the reincarnation of the head of the
Assassin Order. While every Assassin in every Grail War thus recorded has shared the same name of Hassan-i Sabbāh, they are different persons as all the leaders of the Assassin Order changed their names to Hassan-i Sabbāh upon ascending to the position. :The Hassan-i Sabbāh in the Fourth War became head by intentionally fracturing his psyche during life to confuse opponents, a form of self-inflicted
dissociative identity disorder. When summoned as a Servant, this ability manifests itself as the Noble Phantasm , which splits his body into up to eighty different entities, sharing his spiritual potential amongst them. They act as reconnaissance agents for Tokiomi and Kirei after Gilgamesh "kills" one of them. Assassin can only be truly defeated if all of them are killed, which they are after being massacred by Rider's Ionian Hetairoi.
Others ; : :She is an English teacher at Shirō's school, homeroom instructor of Shirō's class, and the supervising teacher for the archery dojo. She is widely called , a nickname she dislikes, but Shirō calls her "Fuji-nee" (older sister Fuji). After Kiritsugu passes away, Taiga becomes Shirō's guardian and has been living with him for several years. Taiga and Shirō are very close, and she regards him as a younger brother. She is also a skilled swordswoman, wielding a shinai known as the
Tora-Shinai that was jokingly said to have absorbed so much bloodlust that it has become a high-level cursed object. She has a grandfather named Raiga. ; : :Issei is the Student Body President of Shirō's school, and another close friend of Shirō. Issei often asks Shirō to fix broken equipment for the Student Body to save money on school expenses. Issei and Shirō often have lunch together in the Student Body office where they talk about whatever comes to mind. His father is the head priest of Ryūdō Temple, and his brother was a classmate of Taiga and Neko-san. ; : :Maiya is an assistant to Kiritsugu Emiya. She is cold and professional, which makes it easier for Kiritsugu to act as he needs to. Maiya was originally a child soldier from a war-torn land who was rescued by Kiritsugu who taught her his way of life. Her real name is unknown; her current name was given to her by Kiritsugu when he first created false identity documents for her. Despite initial discomfort between them, she and Irisviel develop a mutual respect for one another out of their steadfast dedication to protect Kiritsugu. She is fatally wounded by Berserker (disguised as Rider) when she defends Irisviel and dies after she is found by Kiritsugu. It was later revealed that she was raped in the past by an unknown soldier, resulting on her having a son who she never seen when an unknown government took him from her upon birth to be raised a soldier. Her son would later take on the name
Sigma, who knew few details about his mother and is one of the protagonists in
Fate/strange fake. ; : :The daughter of the head of the spiritual evocation division, Sola-Ui is engaged to Kayneth as a result of a strategic marriage arrangement and the decision of her family to entrust their crest to her brother instead. However, she is coldhearted and does not reciprocate Kayneth's love for her; instead, she becomes infatuated with Diarmuid, who in turn does not reciprocate her feelings and regards her only as his Master's wife. After Kayneth loses his magecraft abilities, Sola-Ui eventually steals his Command Seals by breaking his fingers until he gives them to her, only to lose them when Maiya cuts off her arm. She is used by Kiritsugu as a bargaining chip against Kayneth to force Diarmuid to commit suicide, and is then shot dead by Maiya. ; : A Servant who was formerly a villager from ancient times who was driven mad from being sacrificed to a torturous ritual after being selected as "source of all evil in the world", losing his identity consumed by his growing hatred towards humanity while becoming a Heroic Spirit as his forced sacrifice eased his peoples' state of mind. Angra Mainyu was made a Servant during the Third Holy Grail War by the Einzbern family with the rare class of Avenger yet lacked the fighting strength of the other servants before being defeated and absorbed into the Holy Grail, corrupting it while turned into monstrous being whose existence influenced the following wars in the form of black mud. : During the events of
Fate/Zero, invested in Kiritsugu Emiya due to their similar ideas, Angra Mainyu assimilated the form and memories of the deceased Irisviel and speak to Kiritsugu as the Greater Grail materializes. But Kritsugu rejects Angra Mainyu and is cursed while attempting to destroy the Holy Grail, the Avenger reviving Kirei and giving Gilgamesh a physical body while also tormenting Illya and providing Zouken with fragments of the Grail that were placed in Sakura's body. : Angra Mainyu makes his presence known in the end of the three routes through the machinations of Kirei, Gilgamesh, and Zouken. ==Minor characters==