Caren Hortensia

Caren Hortensia (カレン・オルテンシア) is a member of the Church and works as a priestess. She replaces Kirei Kotomine as the priest of the Fuyuki Church and the Master of Lancer and Gilgamesh in Fate/hollow ataraxia.

Background
Caren is a rather mysterious figure and little is known about her past. Her weak mother died soon after giving birth to her, while her father had left her mother before Caren was born. Her mother was actually the wife of Kirei Kotomine, who ended up committing suicide in hopes that Kirei would find compassion within himself again. Caren's father is heavily implied to Kotomine; the manga based on Unlimited Blade Works mentions that Kotomine has a daughter, though Kotomine comments his daughter has been living with her mother's relatives since his wife died. As it is, Caren's surname is the maiden name of Kirei's wife.

Left an orphan, she eventually became a priestess in the Church. In the beginning of Hollow ataraxia, she has been sent to Fuyuki City by the Church to replace Kirei, who has died, and report the aftermath of the 5th Holy Grail War. Instead, she ends up becoming the mediator of the war because of the four day time loop which goes back to the fourth day of the 5th War.

Personality
As a priestess, Caren Hortensia has an angelic personality and is forgiving to the point that she believes her only purpose in life is to help others, even if she is hurt in the process. She never blames the person who has hurt her and blames the act on demons who caused the person to commit the sin. Whenever she is at fault, she apologizes to God rather than the person. However, in contrast to her angel-persona, she also loves teasing people and exploiting others’ emotional vulnerability. Upon discovery of an individual’s weak spot, she enjoys bringing it out to light in front of all the other characters. While this antagonizes many characters and causes much outrage and humiliation, she remains calm: once, when Avenger retorted in response to her, she squeezed his face without a change in expression. Due to her somewhat twisted personality, both of her servants fear her and usually stays clear of the church just to get away from her. They also compare her to their previous master, Kirei, and note that Caren resembles the priest in many ways.

Appearance
Caren Hortensia has light grey hair and golden eyes. Due to her demon detecting abilities, she is nearly always covered in bandages. She is usually seen wearing church robes, and a hat if she is outdoors. On the other hand, Caren also wears what she calls her 'exorcist uniform' which is composed of a dress and stockings but without a skirt. She claims that she has removed the skirt to both increase her mobility and to seduce men.

Development
She was to originally be a character developed for the potential Tsukihime 2 along with Bazett, but she was redesigned for Fate instead. The character present with Mr. Dawn in Prelude has an ability very similar to her.

Fate/hollow ataraxia
Caren serves an objective mediator in the false Holy Grail War created by Avenger and Bazett Fraga McRemitz and, in the place of the absent Kirei Kotomine, as the Master of Lancer and Gilgamesh. Because she was not present in the previous war, she is not affected by the four day time loop.

During Hollow ataraxia, Shirou Emiya finds that each time he runs into Caren, he dies. Eventually, Shirou ends up defending Caren from the dark creatures that have appeared since the time loop began. He is finally able to meet her without dying, but finds that he is experiencing strange feelings of anger and hatred and not acting like himself.

Shirou is eventually revealed to be an imposter or in the very least, not completely himself; he is actually Avenger in the guise of Shirou (the real one is either not present in the game, or being possessed by Avenger). She continues to offer advice to him, perhaps knowing his true identity(s) all along. She and Avenger develop intimate feelings for each other.

It is also revealed that the woman who finds Bazett and nurses her back to health is Caren.

Fate/tiger colosseum
She appears as herself and as her alter-ego, Magical Caren. She gets to meet her father Kirei, who quickly remarks that even Caren looks psychally like her mother, she is just like her father in terms of personality.

Carnival Phantasm
She makes a small appearance in Episode 9, alongside Sakura and Bazett, but she gets a major appearance in EX episode. After Caren gets some money in an illegal job, she attempts to control the world using money with varying degrees of success.

Her trolling personality is comically exaggerated and Lancer and Gilgamesh often remark that she is just like her father Kirei. She finally appears at the Ahnenerbe party, talking with Rin Tohsaka, Azaka Kokutou, and Akiha Tohno.

Abilities
As a member of the Church, Caren assists in exorcisms. Her body itself possesses an unusual property which is known as Masochistic Pneumatic Automatism Diathesis (被虐霊媒体質); if there is a person nearby who has been possessed by a demon, she will experience the same pain as the person possessed. As a result, exorcists employ her to act as a radar of sorts to find demons. This ability cannot be gained from training since it is purely genetic, which is why people born with these traits are valued by the Church as demon detectors.

This ability is most evident whenever she comes in proximity to the Servant Avenger as her body sprouts grotesque spikes. She also experiences physical pain whenever people in proximity do evil things.

She owns the Holy Shroud, the Shroud of Magdalene (マグダラの聖骸布), which is a red cloth with the power to forcefully bind men. However, while the man is bound, no harmful physical attacks can be made against him or Magdalene will be rendered useless.