Saber (Fate/Prototype)

Saber (セイバー) is a main character of Fate/Prototype. He is the Saber-class Servant of Manaka Sajyou in the First Holy Grail War of Fate/Prototype: Fragments of Sky Silver, and Ayaka Sajyou in the Second Holy Grail War of Fate/Prototype. He is one of the Servants of the Protagonist of the Grand Order conflicts of Fate/Grand Order.

Identity
Saber's True Name is Arthur Pendragon (アーサー・ペンドラゴン), otherwise known better as King Arthur. Approving of the virtuous and correcting atrocities. A hero who is like a knight in shining armor that anyone would dream about as a child. Also called the wielder of the holy sword of the planet. His true identity is that of the “King of Knights” of a parallel universe, who reached this world by chasing after some sort of existence.

A completely identical, and yet different person than Heroic Spirit Artoria Pendragon, possessing the same past and legend as her.

Appearance
Saber has short blond hair and green eyes. He has the height and weight of a standard man in his 20s. He has a beautiful form and appears composed.

In his servant form, he wears the standard armor of a knight. The armor parts are silver in color. While the tunics part are blue. He also has a black and white hood attached to the back of the armor part of his neck.

In the 1991 Tokyo Holy Grail War, Saber wore an all black business suit which consisted of a black tie, shirt, vest and shoes. He also wore black gloves.

During the 1999 Tokyo Holy Grail War, Saber's casual clothing is a long black coat with a red shirt underneath it. He also wears black jeans and black shoes.

Personality
Arthur is originally deeply plagued by his desire to save Britain to form an eternal utopia, and even while recognizing Manaka as potentially evil, he follows her commands to fulfill his wish. However, upon meeting Ayaka in the Garden he realizes that his wishes had already been entrusted to the present, and he becomes determined to protect the present over the past. He becomes a father figure and guardian for Ayaka from that point on until the Second War.

He has the sense of values of a matured man, as well as a strong sense of justice. He will bring things that bring virtue and goodness closer, and will ascertain those that bring atrocity. He is the image of a hero one can feel good about.

In Ayaka's eyes, he is the ideal prince in addition to his station as her protector. However, for a brief period his style of speech was mingled with nihilistic mannerisms. Not only that, but he had his bouts of hypocritical courtesy as he would at times tease or make fun of Ayaka.

He is good at eating, but also good at making (cooking). However, due to his experiences with Manaka and the large breakfasts that she makes, he seems to think that big meals are the staple for Japanese people.

In Japanese, the way he refers to himself differs depending on who he talks to. To Ayaka, he uses 'boku'. To his enemies, he uses 'watashi'.

Astonishing words whose veracity cannot be judged even with the help of Chaldea’s system but, at the very least, he won’t spew lies to his Master. He places his wholehearted trust towards his Master. Deception and betrayal are unthinkable.

Fate/Prototype Fragments of Sky Silver
Saber was summoned to participate in the Holy Grail War of 1991 by Manaka Sajyou.

On the second day of the Holy Grail War, Manaka welcomes Saber with a massive private feast of English cuisine. They then have a discussion about possible strategies to take to win the war, but Manaka winds up disturbing Saber when she talks about possibly using the Masters own children against them.

Saber scolds Manaka on this, proclaiming that the Reiroukan daughter (Misaya) is her friend too. Manaka giggles and chides Saber. Maintaining her innocent act, Manaka unbuttons the front of her dress and reveals her master's degree declaring that she doesn't want to use it on Saber with tears in her eyes.

Later that day, Manaka has a fight with her father about using Saber to lure out the other servants. Saber though calms the situation and that night they go on patrol and encounter Lancer near the Sunshine 60 building. After sharing some pre-fight banter, Saber and Lancer fight for a series of blows destroying much of the vicinity. Noticing that Saber is truly the warrior that she think he is, Lancer brings out and uses a mysterious red drug which supercharges her. Saber and Lancer fight some more, but then they end their battle as a tie and run back to their masters.

On a nearby rooftop, Saber is astounded to see that Manaka has laid out a midnight picnic for him. As Saber chides her on this, Manaka motions him to sit down and eat. As they eat, Saber reports to Manaka about the battle and of his concerns for her safety. Manaka reports that she's fine and that she has also met Assassin and that Assassin is willing to be their ally. Manaka then shyly asks for a reward for her "good deed " and  Saber rewards her with a kiss to the forehead. Blushing, Manaka yells at Saber for being unfair and cheating her as she meant that she wanted an actual kiss.

He also battles with Berserker at one point in order to protect Misaya Reiroukan from the beast and was there when Berserker was finally defeated.

During the decisive battle in the temple on top of Tokyo Bay, he does a combined attack with Archer using both of their Noble Phantasms to defeat Rider, though he loses half of his body in the attempt.

During the latter stages of the war after Rider's defeat, Saber starts showing doubts about Manaka and having his wish granted. He later meets Ayaka in "Garden" (her mother's botanical garden), and she innocently helps him realise that his wish was misguided. Saber then vows to protect Ayaka and her world.

Heading to the Holy Grail, he ends up facing both Assassin and Caster, and defeats them. Saber then arrives just in time to save Ayaka from been thrown into the Grail as a sacrifice by stabbing Manaka from behind through her chest. His words as he did so were "I too have committed a grave error. You and the Grail are insane!" Saber then pushes Manaka into the Grail with the force being projected from removing his blade.

Noticing that his temporary body is disappearing, Saber tries to will himself to stay in the modern day world. However, as his consciousness starts disappearing, he hears the voices of the other defeated Servants who encourage him to not give up and save the world from the Beast Class Servant. Waking up, Saber realizes that he is carrying Ayaka and that the Beast is losing itself to rage because of Manaka's death.

The Beast then tries to devour the two of them while hastening its own manifestation. Standing in the darkness, Saber activates his 13 Seal Release and receives approval to release 6 of Excalibur's seals from the Knights of the Round Table. However, due to not being able to release more than half of the seals, Saber is unable to release Excalibur's true power. As he is about to lose, the other 6 defeated Servants lend Saber their power and he defeats the beast.

After the battle, Saber takes the unconscious Ayaka to the Reiroukan estate and leaves her in their care before disappearing. He is then transported back to the past to just after the Battle of Camlann where he sees Bedivere. Saber tells Bedivere about his dreams of his Holy Grail War battles and thanks Bedivere for his loyalty before ordering him to throw Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake.

After Bedivere returns twice in failure, Saber tells Bedivere of his desire to protect one girl. Bedivere then leaves for the third time and after he accomplishes his goal, Bedivere returns to the site. There he sees that Saber has disappeared again, this time with only a pool of blood left behind (implying that he has been summoned back to the world of 1999).

Fate/Prototype
He had been summoned to fight in the Grail War eight years prior by Manaka Sajyou, the elder sister of Ayaka. Though both he and Manaka had made it to the end, it was at this time that he discovered the true nature of the Grail and that she had been offering sacrifices to it. As Manaka was about to offer her sister Ayaka as a sacrifice, their father already a victim, Saber stabbed and killed his Master.

With Manaka dead, he threw her corpse into the Grail.

Like his counterpart, he has memories of the previous Grail War, and like her his wish was the altering of his destiny to give salvation to his land and people. With the nature of the Grail revealed he has been liberated of that wish. Because of this, he responded to and accepted the summons from a girl who indirectly realized that a wish upon the Grail would be warped. He was summoned in time to save her life from Lancer, who had been hunting her.

During the war, he would be seen as a rival by Archer, due to not only being summoned as a higher class than the Sumerian King, but also due to Archer's interest in Ayaka, whom Archer proposes to. Later on he would be nearly killed by Berserker and then corrupted by his Master, Sancraid Phahn. This situation would be later inherited by Saber Alter and from notes his Dark Persona design would be inherited by Gilgamesh.

He would, like his counterpart felt towards his Master's counterpart, fall in love with Ayaka. In one scene it is suggested that Ayaka was to confess to him. Within the twilight hours of the day in her classroom and the mood between the two getting better Gilgamesh would appear, compliment her and proclaim to make her his queen. Ayaka would leave the room shocked and babbling in panic.

He is also the one who suggests to Ayaka that she move from using Witchcraft to Formalcraft to fight with. Like her counterpart, she finds that she is much better at the latter to a stupendous degree, though it is normally considered useless by other Magi.

Fate/Grand Order
He has manifested in this world while taking an integrals form that can be described as an “ideal prince” or a “knight of silverly blue”. A heroic spirit visiting from a different world, or so he says but a heroic spirit belonging to a different world・parallel universe, who reached this world after chasing after a certain powerful antagonist, evil omen; so he tells.

Other appearances
In Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA, the Doll of Zachary Ainsworth used the Saber Class Card. Although it was the card for his female counterpart, the armor and helmet were those of Saber.

Abilities
Saber has Excalibur Proto and Invisible Air much like his counterpart. It is unknown if Avalon exists in Prototype, but it is said that Ayaka was able to summon him due to having a holy relic buried within her to act as a catalyst much like Shirou.

His Charisma is a natural talent to command an army corps. At this occasion, Arthur has been specialized for battle against large animals. Since the allies cannot keep up when fighting against large animals, and he ends up all alone, there is no place to display his Charisma.

Giant Beast Hunting (巨獣狩り) is a skill that denotes having abundant combat experience against giant enemy lifeforms. King Arthur fought against and managed to completely defeat all the magic beasts that attempted to tramp down Britain.

Creation and Conception
Originally called Archetype Saber (旧セイバー), he is the version of Saber that was to be used in the original Fate/stay night novel that was penned and left uncompleted. It was decided during the development of the visual novel that Saber's master, Ayaka, was not an ideal protagonist for the target audience, so both Saber and Sajyou were redesigned and had their genders swapped to make them more appealing. He was detailed in Character Material, and has been given an expanded role in Prototype. When the time came to redesign the characters, on Takeuchi Takashi's suggestion, Kinoko Nasu switched the gender of Arthur, who would then become the Saber seen in Fate/stay night.

Takeuchi calls him the ideal protagonist of the 90's era.

In Fate/stay night, Archer would inherit nihilistic mannerisms. In fact, the nature of Saber and Ayaka's relationship, at least in the beginning, was similar to that of Rin Tohsaka and Archer.

Chihiro Aikura was responsible for the redesign servant costume for Saber. Takeuchi says his armour design is pretty cool and his hoody makes him look.