Assassin of Black


 * This article is about the Fate/Apocrypha Servant. For the Servant summoned in Fate/strange fake, see Berserker (Fate/strange fake).

Jack the Ripper (ジャック・ザ・リッパー), the Legendary Serial Killer (伝説の連続殺人鬼), is a Servant of the Assassin class appearing in Fate/Apocrypha. She was designed by Yuichiro Higashide originally for an online game, but it was canceled during the planning stages. Her design was collected with other Servants in Fate/complete material IV. She is one of the main characters in the novelized version of the story written by Higashide for Type-Moon Ace volume seven. The short story details her summoning and the bond she forms with her Master.

Background
Jack is the perpetrator of a series of gory murders in 19th Century England. She grew up without ever having a home, and spent her time living in the streets. She was extremely thin, and lived outside even during cold weather. She only has memories of the alleyways shrouded in mist and stench. The areas where she slept were not places of rest, but rather nests covered in waste and feces where filthy rats ran about. She was in constant danger of being attacked at night while she slept, and upon waking up on the morning, someone may have easily died during the night. She constantly dealt with pitch black smog so bad that she often couldn't breath properly or even open her eyes.

She eventually reached the point where her mind she could no longer deal with the conditions. Upon randomly finding prostitutes, she would impose her image of a mother onto them. After being rejected, she would simply wander the streets once more without change. If she came into contact with her "Mother" again, she would slowly approach within the mist, and after saying "I'm sorry", she would slit their throats. As they were in anguish, she began to dissect them while in tears. After obtaining a part of the woman, she would press it against her face and cry while remembering the warmth of her mother's womb.

While she is thought to be a legendary serial killer who knew of dissection and slipped into the darkness of night to quietly perform his work, the true form of Jack the Ripper is just a pitiful girl. It is believed that all of her victims were assailed when unguarded, and they were all found with organs removed in a somewhat skilled fashion. Her lamentations never reached anyone, and it is unknown how she eventually faded away after the murders. No one knows if she was killed, committed suicide, or simply passed away naturally. She will likely perpetually reign as an eternal mystery and eternal darkness carved into the history of England. While her identity was never discovered, her knives were left behind after her death and later obtained by Sagara Hyouma.

Personality
Jack is a young girl who embodies contradiction itself, combining the dual natures of "day" and "night." She displays a childish manner of speech, but she is truly quick of thought. Rationality dominates her behavior, but there are many inherent weaknesses to her psyche. Her personality is both pure and cruel, and she is inclined to repay cruelty with cruelty and benevolence with benevolence. Her psyche is inherently broken, and mistreatment toward her may result in irreversible deterioration. She uses first person plural pronouns, such as "us" and "we", to address herself.

Due to her time on the streets, her ultimate wish from the Holy Grail is to return to the safe and comfortable warmth inside her mother. This desperate wish was the driving motivation behind the murders. While dissecting the women she labeled as her "mother", she would constantly apologize that she wants to "go back" while crying and rubbing a part dissected from the woman against her face. Rather than continue on the cold streets, she wished to return where it was warm.

If summoned by a female Master, she will begin to refer to them as "Mother." When she addresses them, they hear a strange sound, as though she is pronouncing both "Master" and "Mother" at the same time. She is extremely affectionate and childlike towards her Mother, but cruel and ruthless towards others. While she fawns over her wounded Mother, Reika Rikudou, she easily turns cold and maims her proper Master, Sagara Hyouma, with ease before returning to her concerned filled expressions towards Reika. Despite becoming easily flustered by Reika's question a moment earlier, she can just as easily casually rip out and eat the hearts of loan sharks without any expression.

She is surprised by the notion of having a home to return after having lived on the streets her entire life. While Servants do not require food to survive, Reika tells her that she is going to make hamburger for her either way. She is left happy by the notion.

Role
During Act 1: Unbirth of Fate/Apocrypha, Sagara Hyouma, a magus, wishes to summon Jack the Ripper as a Servant, but he fails to do so even with her six knives as the catalyst. He concludes that he needs to create the conditions where the blades were practically used in order to establish a better connection. He quickly decides to use Rikudou Reika, a prostitute he is living with, as a sacrifice. In his attempt summon Jack by killing her, her wish to live is what brings her into the world. While Sagara is the proper Master with Command Spells, she quickly shows that she has concluded that Reika is her Master instead. Before he can tell her to commit suicide after realizing something is wrong with the situation, she incapacitates him by cutting off his jaw and the hand with the Command Spells. She uses her skills to stitch up both their wounds while Reika is unconscious.

She explains the nature of the Holy Grail War to Rekia upon arriving at her apartment. She is able to transfer the Command Spells from Sagara's hand to Reika, but she is not a magus or a proper Master. This requires that she devour souls in place of being unable to restore prana from her Master. She uses Sagara at Reika's suggestion, and they decide to participate in the War together. Jack's memories appear in Reika's dream during that night, and she sees Jack cutting open a woman to return to where it was warm. They target a loan shark company full of "bad people" the next day in order to gather energy for Jack. She uses the Mist to kill them all, and then they return home for a meal afterward.

Abilities
Her weapons include four strangely-shaped knives, two butcher's knives, and a black, bloodstained scalpel. Compared to other Servants who have garnered legends over centuries and millennia, she is a young Heroic Spirit of only one hundred twenty years. Even with the fame she garnered that gives her the necessary "monstrosity" befitting of a Heroic Spirit, she cannot hope to match those worshiped as gods and heroes with such little history of her own. She can be called a completely unknown Servant, and she has never participated in the Holy Grail War. This suits Hyouma's plan, as he wishes to avoid the weakness granted to those of the Assassin class. It is normally fixed that only one of the Hassan-i Sabbah can be selected as Assassin, so it is possible to develop countermeasures against them simply by having their identities as Assassin exposed. With a different Heroic Spirit, it is possible for him to best make use of the class.

She has the qualifications to be summoned as either Assassin or Berserker. She obtains Mad Enhancement when summoned as Berserker, which causes a Rank Down in Luck and Mana and the loss of verbal communication and complex thinking in exchange for reinforcing all other attributes. She is only able to be active at night while summoned as Berserker, and The Mist remains active at all times while targeting all entities possessing prana within range of the ability.

She prefers the cover of night to conceal her exposure, and due to her provocative manner of dress, she rarely leaves her abode in daytime. She has the normal Presence Concealment Class Skill granted to the Assassin class, which allows her to almost completely eliminate her presence toward others. This allows her to easily carry Hyouma down the street behind Reika without exposing herself at all. She is even able to elude the senses of Servants, but the ability fails upon the execution of an attack. She has her own unique skill, Murderer of the Misty Night, that compensates for the weakness of Presence Concealment and utilizes both their strengths to allow for a perfect ambush. The skill is associated with her nature as a serial killer rather than that of an Assassin, and it permits a preemptive against all opponents. The skill is unconditionally successful during the night, and if utilized during the daytime, the success is determined by a luck roll.

Her unstable nature grants her a natural protection against mental interference magecraft. Mental Pollution provides a probability that it will be rendered ineffective on its use. Masters of an Evil alignment that perpetrate acts of cruelty towards her can further increase its rank and its capability to defend against magecraft at the cost of possibly causing irreversible damage to her psyche. She has her own ability that affects the minds of others, Information Erasure, which removes any records or memories of her true name, abilities, or appearance following the conclusion of an engagement. It not only targets witnesses of the her fights, but also the opponent and even digital recordings by a closed-circuit camera in broad daylight will be changed. Physical evidence of the engagement is not altered in any way, and her identity may be revealed through logical deduction.

She has a very low rank in Surgical Procedure that uses techniques over one hundred twenty years old. While it is somewhat unreliable simply by its crude appearance upon its application, the procedures manage to attain the intended effect after being boosted somewhat with the application of prana. It can be applied to either Jack or her Master, and it stems from the anatomical knowledge and skills with dissection required to remove the organs of her victims. It allows her to heal Reika's stab wounds. Reika finds that her wounds have been stitched up, but it is done in a crude method looks like the black thread is creeping about haphazardly like an earthworm. While it seems like her wounds may not even be closed properly, the bleeding and pain have completely subsided. The same chaotically done surgical procedure is also able to keep Sagara alive after Jack cuts off both his jaw and one of his hands.

Noble Phantasms
Maria the Ripper: The Holy Mother of Dismemberment ((Maria the Ripper)) is a set four strangely shaped knives. They are normally classified as Rank D Noble Phantasms, but they can be empowered under certain conditions by "the hatred of children who were denied everything, even the chance to sell their own flesh; the children who were abandoned back then by the 80,000 prostitutes in the London ghettos in order to maintain their own livelihood." If activated normally, they can be used to deal physical damage to the target while the conditions are not completely fulfilled. Upon fulfilling them, the damage rendered receives a large boost in Rank and the attack can guarantee instant death. If a) "it is night-time," b) "the target is a female," c) "it is misty," the knives manifest within the target's body, instantly vivisecting their flesh. The attack is communicated as a curse rather than a physical technique executed by utilizing the set of knives, so it may be used at range. Much like Zabaniya: Delusional Heartbeat, physical defense is impossible, but resistance to curses may permit evasion.

The Mist: Darkened Misty Metropolis ((The Mist)) is a Bounded Field Noble Phantasm generated from an antique lantern that reenacts the phenomenon of the "Mist of Death". Upon opening the shutter and gently touching the candle inside, the lit flame instantly begins to generate smoke-like mist from the bottom of the lantern. The mist, wrought of prana, forms a Bounded Field around the area that has a negative effect on all those who enter within the perimiter. Normal humans will quickly faint from pain upon coming in contact with the dense cloud of enveloping smoke, as simply breathing it in burns the throat and direct contact with eyes causes them to fester. They start to sufficate due to being unable to breath, and they cannot see anything as they writhe in pain. She can easily use this time to selectively kill them, or she can simply wait for them to be inflicted with death within a few turns. Magi will not immediately perish, but they will recieve continuous damage. Heroic Spirits will not recieve damage, but they will have a Rank Down in Agility.

Jack is able to direct The Mist as she wishes in order to select which targets within the Bounded Field are affected, allowing her to leave a blank space around her Master. She is also able to limit it to only a specific area, allowing her to activate it just inside a building. The ability is continuously activated while she is under Mad Enhancement, and it will instantly target all entities possessing prana within range of the ability. It also affects the sense of direction of those within the field perimeter, making them lose their baring of the area. Even within a familiar enclosed space, the mist deceives all those trying to escape into running around in circles in the same place without realizing it. Normal humans will always die in agony without ever being able to escape. The only means of escape for magi and Servants are the employment of magecraft or a Rank B or higher in Instinct. The Mist quickly clears upon being deactivated.

The ability is not something gained only upon becoming a Heroic Spirit, but something similar to magecraft that she used during life. Upon finding her victims, the mist would begin to thicken suddenly, and she could approach them without being noticed. They were only able to tell she was there when she spoke while standing directly before them. Similar to 's nickname of "The Old Smoke", The Mist is a recreation of the smog, the mixture of smoke and fog released during the burning of coal, that plagued the city countless times from the 19th to the 20th century because of conditions during the Industrial Revolution. The use of coal emitted large quantities of smog that eventually resulted in a crisis wherein a thick mist of sulfuric acid plagued the city in the 1950's. The worst of it was the of 1952 where the mist covering London caused over ten thousand deaths.