Fate Sakura Matou

Sakura Matou - Fate

Profile

Sakura Matou is one of the three heroines in Fate/stay night and the main heroine in the “Heaven’s Feel” route. She is the Master of Rider during the Fifth Holy Grail War as well as Avenger, Saber Alter, and Berserker in the “Heaven’s Feel” route. She is good friends with Shirou Emiya and has a crush on him. She regularly helps him around his house by cleaning and cooking for him and their friends. She is Shinji Matou’s adopted sister and Rin Tohsaka’s biological sister.

Although born into the Tohsaka family, her father Tokiomi decided to give her up for adoption due to there already being a daughter in the family who would carry the family name as a mage and him not wanting there to be competition between the two. She is adopted into the Matou family, an ally to the Tohsaka’s, by Zouken Matou, who plans to train her to become a future vessel of Angra Mainyu. Sakura undergoes brutal training for years at the hands of Zouken. After the Fourth Holy Grail War, Zouken collected fragments of the broken Grail, combined them into Crest Worms, and forcibly implanted them into Sakura with the goal of her one day becoming the Black Grail, a version of the Lesser Grail. After years of torture, she becomes an emotionless shell of her former self who feels helpless to change her fate. After her new brother Shinji Matou returned from studying abroad, he began to bully her. He became jealous after learning that Sakura would be the heir to the family and not him, and he began raping her. She endured her hardships by drawing strength from Shirou, whose determination she admired.

Sakura is shy and soft-spoken, which belies her inner strength. She is eager to please, self-sacrificing, and, despite the years of abuse she endured, very compassionate and caring. She falls in love with Shirou during Fate/stay night and routinely helps him by cleaning his house and cooking for him.

Appearance

Sakura is a young woman with violet shoulder-length hair and violet eyes. She wears a distinctive ribbon in her hair that was given to her years earlier by Rin. Aside from her Homurahara Academy uniform, she wears a casual outfit consisting of a pink cardigan over a white shirt and a long cream-colored skirt. During the “Heaven’s Feel” route, her appearance changes to white hair and red eyes and she wears a long black dress with red markings covering her face, arms, and legs. However, even in this form she still wears the ribbon from Rin.

Abilities

Sakura has incredible potential as a magus, but due to her lack of formal training she is on par with Shirou in terms of her skills in magecraft. She is able to use Absorption magic, which stabs an opponent and drains their energy, however she says that it has little practical use compared to Shirou’s Reinforcement ability.

Role

Sakura appears in Fate/Zero and is adopted by the Matou family the year prior to the Fourth Holy Grail War. When Kariya Matou sees the way Sakura is treated, he makes a deal with Zouken to let Sakura go if he wins the Holy Grail. Of everyone in the Matou family, Kariya was the only one to treat Sakura with kindness. However, he is killed during the war, which Sakura interprets as a warning from Zouken of what would happen to her if she tried to disobey him. This drove her further into despair and hopelessness

Sakura appears in each of the three routes of Fate/stay night as the Master of Rider, though she is only a support character in “Fate” and “Unlimited Blade Works.” However, her role is partially expanded in the anime adaptation in which she is captured by Caster, who plans to use her to summon the Holy Grail by force, and ultimately saved by Shirou, Rin, and Saber.

Sakura’s main appearance is in the “Heaven’s Feel” route, where she is the main heroine. In this route, she is under the influence of Zouken, who is using her as a vessel for Angra Mainyu to eliminate the other participants of the Fifth Holy Grail War. Sakura’s Shadow is able to summon Saber Alter and Dark Berserker after absorbing several Servants. After an attempted rape by Shinji, Sakura murders him, which causes her to give in to her hatred and she becomes Dark Sakura, a psychotic version of her normal self that has become tainted by Angra Mainyu and goes on a destructive rampage. She then captures Illya, whom she plans to use as the core for a new Holy Grail, but is ultimately stopped by Rin and Shirou, who is able to dispel Angra Mainyu from her body using Rule Breaker, destroying her dark self and returning her to her normal form. In the True Ending, she goes on to live happily with Shirou and Rider.

Other Appearances

Sakura has appeared extensively throughout the Fate universe including Fate/hollow ataraxia, Fate/unlimited codes, Fate/tiger colosseum, Carnival Phantasm, Today’s Menu for Emiya Family, Fate/Extra, Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya, and Fate/Grand Order.