Saber (F/SN)

Background
From Fate/stay Night

"The Once and Future King", England's legendary hero, King Arthur. He is a hero well known as the model for knights but it is said that he actually did exist. The real King Arthur was called "Dux Bellorum", the kind of battles, and he was a great leader who led the twelve kings of Northern England (Gododdin) against the foreign invasions by such people as the Picts and the Scottish.

The identity of the real great leader, King Arthur, has many variations, and there is even an opinion that there were two people that correspond to the king. One was a pure Briton, Arthur. The other was a Roman, Arturius. This opinion states that the legend of King Arthur that is known today is one story, merged from the accomplishments of these two.

The legend of King Arthur is all too famous. The exceptional magus Merlin prepared a sword and said, "Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone is rightwise king of all England." When Arthur pulled out the sword he was recognized as the king of England, and with the Knights of the Round Table gathered around him, he went through many adventures.

Arthur was the child of the King of Britain, Uther Pendragon, and the wife of his servant Duke Cornwall, the blue-eyed Igraine. As a price for Merlin's assistance in ensuring the success of his love for Igraine, he had to leave their child in Merlin's care. "I will properly guide this child, one bearing a great destiny, and protect him from the crisis of the royal family."

Merlin entrusted Arthur to Uther's loyal Knight, Sir Ector, and Arthur was raised as his adopted child until the day he pulled out the chosen sword. The days of battle dand troubles that followed after he pulled out the sword and became king became a great story of medieval knighthood. The great deeds of King Arthur, ruling over Camelot as the great king of knights, and saving England by leading many great men, are all one could ask from a hero.

Arthur's all too famous sword, the holy sword Excalibur, was not the chosen sword. Rather, it was the treasured sword of fairy-land given to him by the lady of the lake under Merlin's guidance after he lost the chosen sword. After giving King Arthur the holy sword Excalibur, the fairy princess of the lake, Vivian, became his guardian. King Arthur's lifelong enemy, princess Morgana, was an existence opposed to Arthur's guardian Vivian, but Morgana herself was also a fairy of the lake that protects the king.

King Arthur ordered the Knights of the Round Table to search for the "Holy Grail". In the King Arthur legend, the search for the Holy Grail comprised the core episodes in the story of Knights of Round Table, but only three knights were commanded to search and King Arthur himself did not go on the journey. Of the three knights, the perfect knight Lancelot did not make it to the Holy Grail due to his unfaithful flirting, and his son Galahad did obtain the Holy Grail but abandoned it due to his lack of greed.

The end of the legend was marked by King Arthur's death. Arthur's life had been sought many times by the princess Morgana, his older sister by a different father. At the end of the battle between him and the knight Mordred, born from princess Morgana's scheme, his legend closes its curtain. King Arthur's fall started when his most trusted knight Lancelot disappeared, after becoming ashamed about his affair with Arthur's wife Guinevere. Losing his trusted knight, losing the sheath of the holy sword, and even losing his own country while on a long expedition, King Arthur faced his last battle in the land of Camlann.

The holy sword Excalibur was entrusted to Sir Bedivere on King Arthur's deathbed, and he returned it to the lady of the lake. King Arthur's corpse was carried by the ladies of the lake to Avalon, the land where heroes sleep. A legend is handed down that King Arthur will awaken from his sleep in Avalon when England is in peril, so that he can save his homeland.

Arthur bears the red dragon that symbolizes the British people, and he himself has the attributes of the dragon. Since he has the karma of the dragon, the embodiment of divine mystery and the transcendent, he has strong magical qualities. On the other hand, he is weak against heroes who have defeated dragons in the past.

From Complete Material III

Once up on a time, there was a king in England named Arthur Pendragon. He was the legendary king who staunchly defended the land from the invading Saxons for a long period of time.

The name Arthur, written in the fashion of Romans is “Artorius," the feminine form of which is “Artoria." In other words, this is Saber's true name.

Artoria was born between Uther Pendragon and a Queen hailed from the rival kingdom. She grew up under the guidance of the True Magician Merlin (Translator’s Note: Is this for real Nasu?), and became the king after pulling out the Sword of Selection. Later, she led Lancelot, Gawain, and other famed knights to achieve innumerable deeds. They engaged the King of Saxons at the Battle of Badon Hill and brought peace to the land of Britain. Because the Scabbard of the Holy Sword stopped her from aging, Artoria continued to reign as the ideal king. It was ironic that Queen Guinevere and the serving knights grew more distant from Artoria precisely because she was too ideal. In the civil war that raged at the end of her reign, she crossed blade with her very own son, Mordred. At that instant, she pledged her service as a Heroic Spirit after death in exchange for striking a pact with the World. The one wish she hoped the Holy Grail could realise was “redo the selection of the king”. In legend, the body of King Arthur was transported to the Fairyland – Avalon, where he is healing his wounds in serenity.

Character
From Fate/Side Material, p063, Fate Dictionary

Heroic Spirit of the sword. A type of Servant that requires above average abilities in every basic parameter except for MGI.

Also, one of the main heroines of the story. A maiden knight that formed a contract with Emiya Shirou and fought to the very end of the Holy Grail War. Her personality is righteous and thoroughly serious, and any sort of femininity she might have had has long since been usurped by her pride as a knight.

...However, if you strip away that veneer, a girlish aspect befitting her age will reveal itself.

She holds grudges when she's sulking, and gets so sucked into competitions that she totally forgets about her surroundings. She gets overly excited about delicious food, and frets about making mistakes in front of the person she likes.

Honestly, she's a hard to please heroine, umu. (Editor's note: Yes, that is included in the dictionary)

Her true identity is King Arthur.

She disguised herself as a man to become king and brought peace to her homeland, but afterward lost her life during a civil war that tore her country apart from within.

The King Arthur in Fate/stay night is treated as a fusion of myth and historical fact. Her name before becoming king was Artoria.

Living in the castle while hiding her gender was an endless string of stressful situations. The matter of producing an heir was particularly troublesome, but it seems that she managed to get by without any problems thanks to Merlin's sorcery. In the story, when she said that "she knows how to please a man", she was speaking from actual experience.

She stopped aging the moment she pulled the sword of selection, so physically she's about a year younger than Shirou.

Also, King Arthur is the red dragon that protects Britain.

Due to an arrangement her father, King Uther Pendragon, made with Merlin to produce an heir bearing the essence of a dragon, Artoria was born as a human infused with a dragon's magical energy.

Consequently, she has no need for magic circuits. Her every breath, the very circulation of her blood, it all naturally generates magical energy. It wouldn't be wrong to call her very being a "magic reactor", on a completely different level from magi.

Fate/stay night was originally her story.

At its conception, the main themes revolved around King Arthur and the Holy Grail, and that fact alone has never changed.

A maiden knight who galloped through the Holy Grail War.

I want to believe that the dream she saw at the very end was one worthy of her life.

From Fate/Zero Material, p099, Fate/Zero Dictionary

A symbol-like existence. Without her, Fate wouldn't be Fate. However, in Fate/Zero her kingly shell is still intact, and she plays the role of a hero instead of a heroine.

Over the course of Zero she experienced neglect play and tentacle play, was stalked, slandered, leered at, and preached at by drunks, and to top it all off the scoundrel who ambushed her at the very end turned out to be a former ally. It's no exaggeration to say that the entirety of Zero is built on her suffering. Still, all of that was for the sake of enjoying Shirou's delicious cooking ten years down the line. Or at least, that's the excuse I gave to the Saber Maid figure that silently watched over my furious writing every day. If it had been the plain clothes version, I definitely wouldn't have been able to finish the story. Even just seeing one in a store window was enough to make me drop to my knees, ashamed of my own ugliness, and yell to the heavens, "What kind of man am I, bullying such a pure and beautiful young girl like this!?"

By the way, about Saber's suit. When I first imagined it, for some reason I just naturally assumed it would be a tuxedo. But after the art actually came in, I ended up settling on the current not-too-mannish traditional suit. Thinking about it now, making her patrol around a rustic suburban city like Fuyuki in full party dress would have been extraordinarily embarrassing for her, so it was probably the right call.

Tactics:
From Complete Material III

Saber’s ability is maximally unleashed while engaging in honourable face-to-face single combat. It is a mode of battle full of chivalric honour, and it is also one that suits Saber's sense of aesthetics. However, this does not mean she dislikes strategising. Because she is also a capable military commander, she tends to loath fabricated strategies that have no concrete basis. She fine-tunes her strategy meticulously. While on the battlefield, she further adapts her actions in response to the ever-changing dynamics of combat. Naturally, Saber despises cowardly actions, strategic or not. For this reason, in the Fourth Holy Grail War, her compatibility with the ruthless, achieving-his-goal-at-all-cost Master Emiya Kiritsugu was the worst.

Magic Resistance: A
From Fate/stay Night

Cancels any magic below A-rank. In practice, no magi today are able to hurt Saber.

From Complete Material III

Artoria boasts the highest rank of resistance to magic amongst the Servants. She is capable of completely neutralising grand sorceries involving magic arrays and instant contracts. Even modern magi of the highest level cannot wound her directly with sorcery. Artoria is able to resist an action force onto her powered by one stroke of the Command Spell. Such is the extraordinary rank of Artoria's Magic Resistance, sufficient to shake the very foundation of the Servant system. If the opponent is someone who attacks with sorcery, Artoria will charge without fear and determine the outcome of the battle with a slash.

Also, as her “Pendragon” name shows, Artoria is the holder of the Element of the Red Dragon, charged with the task of protecting the kingdom. She carries the very magical power of the Dragon. This humongous magical power is also the source of Artoria’s Magic Resistance. Due to the characteristics of Dragon, Artoria has much trouble with existences such as Siegfried, who are associated with tales of “Dragon extermination”. If she is targeted by “Dragon-slaying Sorceries”, it is possible that Magic Resistance will not function to its fullest extent.

In the story, Artoria retained her Magic Resistance of A while having Emiya Shirou and Rin as Masters, regardless of the differences in power and characteristics. On the other hand, while having Matou Sakura as her Master, her Magic Resistance decreased to B as a result of Blackening.

Riding: B
From Fate/stay Night

Ability to ride things. She can ride most vehicles with above average skill, but she cannot ride those of demonic beast and holy beast rank.

From Complete Material III

Since “knights” are soldiers who are proficient in mounted warfare, Saber’s rank in Riding is very high. Chariots can be ridden the same way. Motorcycles and automobiles are treated as “modern mounts”, thus a high rank in Riding is also applicable. It is unclear if Riding is applicable to aircraft. Saber’s Riding was elevated to A while having Emiya Kiritsugu as Master. However, Artoria can ultimately only control normal mounts. She cannot control Pegasi, Griffons, Dragons, and other Magical or Divine Beast-ranked Phantasmal Species. This is due to her Class not being Rider, as well as the fact that she was a King in the Age of Man, thus did not have the fortune of having “Legends of Riding Phantasmal Species”.

Artoria rode a motorcycle in the Fourth Holy Grail War, but did not have the opportunity to demonstrate her Riding ability in the Fifth Holy Grail War. Provided with the appropriate mount, the battles might have developed differently.

Instinct: A
From Fate/stay Night

The ability to always "feel" the best course for oneself during combat. This heightened sixth sense is now close to precognition. It reduced by half any obstacles to vision and hearing.

From Complete Material III

Instinct is the ability to instantly identify “the best personal course of action” during combat. Because this skill allows for the prediction of trajectory, it is possible to avoid attacks from firearms. At rank A, it is essentially in the realm of precognition. Through this ability, it is possible to negate the penalties inflicted by visual and auditory interference to a certain extent. Being able to discern Cú Chulainn’s ultimate technique certainly reflects her skills, but having exceptional Instinct also helped her immensely.

Prana Burst: A
From Fate/stay Night

This transfers magical energy into one's weapon and body, and by releasing the magical energy instantaneously, it increases one's ability. SImply said, it is like a magical energy jet propulsion. Saber uses this magical energy for her sword techniques, guarding, and movement. Because of her great magical energy capacity, she can fight Berseker even though she is a girl of a small size. A normal weapon without strong divine protection will not be able to endure her magical engery-fueled attack and will be destroyed with one blow.

From Complete Material III

The ability to reinforce one’s weapon and body through the infusion of magical energy. By reinforcing the ability of the body to a great extend using magical energy, the physically fragile Artoria was able to fight head on with monsters such as Berserker. At rank A, even a stick can become a weapon of great power. Executing large-scale body reinforcement through Prana Burst is only possible with Artoria’s immense magical power.

Charisma: B
From Fate/stay Night

Natural Talent to command an army. It increases the ability of one's army during mass combat. Charisma is a rare talent, and a B rank is enough to lead a country.

Bounded Field of the Wind King - Invisible Air


Rank: C

Type: Anti-personnel Noble Phantasm

Range: 1-2

Maximum Targets: 1 object

From Fate/stay Night

An invisible sword. It does not allow the enemy to determine its range. It is simple, but tremendously effective in hand-to-hand combat. It is a Noble Phantasm protected by strong magic, but it does not mean that the sword itself is invisible. The blade is clad in wind that changes the refraction of light and makes the shape of the sword invisble.

It is not a vacuum, but the wind whirring around the blade is like a weapon and it seems to increase the damage of the slash. Only when the compressed wind is released is a vacuum state created. When the target has "resistance to visual impediments", the accuracy correction of Invisible Air is ineffective. Other than the advantage of making the blade invisible, it is possible to release the compressed wind, making it a single-use projectile weapon. The damage of such an attack is constant, and Saber's strength or magical energy does not affect it.

From Complete Material III

A Bounded Field that renders the blade hidden by entangling it with layers of wind, and altering the light refraction rate. It is closer to a sorcery than a Noble Phantasm. By using this field, Artoria can attack without the opponent recognising the sword’s reach and trajectory. Since concealing one’s Noble Phantasm also conceals one’s true identity, Invisible Air was highly effective at the early stages of the Holy Grail War. It also has other advantages such as increasing attack power and accuracy. Entangling the sword with wind and using the wind as the blade enhances the attack power, while having an “invisible weapon” provides an advantage in accuracy. [It is probably more" decreasing opponent's evasion" in RPG terms.] Since the advantage of Invisible Air lies in "invisibility," the accuracy increase will not occur while engaging opponents who possess Eye of the Mind or do not depend on vision.

In the Fourth Holy Grail War, Artoria unleashed the condensed air and used it as a long-range weapon that mauls groups of enemies -- the "Iron Mallet of the Wind King."

From Fate/Side Material, p071, Fate Dictionary

An invisible sword.

The sword's blade has been sealed off by wrapping it in multiple layers of wind that alter the refractive index of light. Strictly speaking, it is sorcery, not a Noble Phantasm.

Because it prevents the enemy from determining its range, it is far more effective in close combat than its relative simplicity would suggest.

It increases the user's accuracy rate and defensive power, but should the enemy happen to have "resistance toward compensation in response to visual obstructions" then Invisible Air will just be a normal sword clad in wind.

Against opponents with the skill False Mind's Eye, or who are otherwise protected from visual illusions, it has no effect at all.

Sword of Promised Victory - Excalibur


Rank: A++

Type: Anti-fortress Noble Phantasm

Range: 1-99

Maximum Targets: 1000 persons

From Fate/stay Night

Sword of light. It is not a weapon made by men, but a divine weapon forged by the planet. It is a Noble Phantasm that is the greatest of holy swords. It transforms the possessor's magical energy into "light", increases its kinetic energy by converging and accelerating it, and allows for usage of sorcery on the level of divine spirits.

To an observer, it looks like a giant beam of light, but its target point is the tip. It is the "ultimate slash" that cuts through everything in the "area" the light goes through. Its enormous power heats space around the tip, and as a result it is interpreted as a wave of light that mows across the earth. You could also call it a directed energy weapon.

From Complete Material III

Artoria's greatest and most powerful Noble Phantasm. It is the strongest and most majestic holy sword that symbolises King Arthur. The pinnacle of holy swords. Excalibur was not forged by mankind, but crystallised within the Earth, using the wishes of mankind as the basis. It is one of the ultimate God-forged weapons, a Last Phantasm. Originally tended by the Faeries of the Planet, it was passed into the hands of King Arthur through the Lady of the Lake.

Excalibur converts the prana of the wielder into light, and as the sword is swung, the light is released from the tip of the blade like a laser beam, destroying everything in its path. Of course, the prana consumption is extreme, so it cannot be fired consecutively. In the Fourth Holy Grail War, the beastly giant sea monster summoned by Caster was completely incinerated by this Noble Phantasm. Excalibur is classified as an "Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm" due to its magnitude and destructive power.

From Fate/Side Material, p076, Fate Dictionary

Sword of light. It is not a man-made weapon, but rather a divine construct tempered by the planet. It is the Noble Phantasm standing at the very pinnacle of holy swords.

The strongest illusion (Last Phantasm), crystallized and refined from the wishes of humanity stored in the planet.

Though it was entrusted to elementals, who act as the planet's sense of touch, it temporarily passed into the hands of a human king for a time.

Because it is so recognizable as the symbol of King Arthur, Saber had no choice but to keep it hidden while she fought.

But despite the fact that it's a Noble Phantasm that's almost synonymous with Saber herself, the number of times she actually uses it can be counted on two hands.

That is, three times in the Saber route, once in the Rin route, and twice in the Sakura route.

Because it is too powerful, it cannot be used carelessly at ground level.

Whether it be dark or light, it could be argued that Excalibur's clash with Rider's Bellerophon is Fate/stay night's grandest splendor.

Ever Distant Utopia - Avalon


Rank: EX

Type: Bounded Field Noble Phantasm

Maximum Targets: 1 person

From Fate/stay Night

The ability of Excalibur's sheath. The lost third Noble Phantasm. The sheath of the holy sword was excavated by Einzbern at Cornwall, and returned to the hand of its owner through time. In the legend of King Arthur, the real ability of the holy sword is said to be the "Power of Immortality" in this sheath.

It has the ability to heal the wounds of its owner and stop their aging, but it can actually be called a "Moving fortress" centred on an individual. By producing the sheath and moving oneself into the land of the fairies, it shuts out all physical interactions. It can even defend against one of the sorceries, interation.

From Complete Material III

The sheath of Excalibur, a Noble Phantasm with its origin in the Fairyland Avalon where King Arthur rests. The wielder will heal from any wound, and the aging process will cease. Unleashing the true name of Avalon will deploy a Bounded Field that provides the greatest defence. A Noble Phantasm that annuls the interference of True Magic; its existence is equivalent to True Magic.

In legend, losing this sheath cast an ominous shadow onto the life of King Arthur, eventually cascading to the collapse of the kingdom. In modern times, the Einzberns excavated Avalon at Cornwall and passed it into the hands of Emiya Kiritsugu. Afterward, it was planted into the body of Emiya Shirou to save his life, eventually becoming the link that led to his bond with Artoria. In Fate Route, Artoria learned that Shirou was her “sheath”, which led the duo to emerge victorious in the Holy Grail War.

From Fate/Side Material, p063, Fate Dictionary

A sheathe crowned with the name of the land of fairies that appears in the legends of King Arthur, said to be wreathed in everlasting spring.

It is a paradise reminiscent of the island in Greek mythology where the gods grew their golden apples of immortality.

Not only does the holy sword's sheathe heal all of its owner's wounds and stagnate their aging, but when its true name is called it even decomposes into hundreds of parts and protects them from all interference.

It was excavated from Cornwall by the Einzberns, and entrusted to Kiritsugu as a catalyst for summoning King Arthur.

It is a Noble Phantasm at the level of magic, that completely shuts out all physical interference, transliners from parallel worlds, and communication from other dimensions (up to the sixth).

If Saber secludes herself with this, none will be able to reach her.