Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA

Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA (caps part of official title) (Fate/kaleid liner プリズマ☆イリヤ) is a Fate/stay night alternate universe spin-off manga by Kalmia (who has previously drawn Fate doujins).

Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA
A two-volume manga series that introduced the story. Deals with Illya becoming the Magical Girl and having to collect Class Card together with Miyu.

Rin and Luvia were originally Magical Girls that were supposed to collect the Cards, but after trying to use Class Cards in a quarrel, Kaleidosticks abandoned them (mid-air) and went on to independently search for new masters. Ruby made a contract with Illya, and Sapphire with Miyu.

After a series of battles, Illya and Miyu were able to collect all Cards and became good friends, while Rin and Luvia remained in Japan by the order of Zelretch.

Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 2wei
A second story, still ongoing, that focuses on a new character, Kuro, who is a girl identical to Illya, except for darker skin, that emerged from Illya after her failed attempt to use Archer Class Card. Kuro has been shown to act extremely antagonistic towards Illya.

Name is probably the word play on “2” and “Zwei”, which is German for “two”.

Lyrical Nanoha×Prisma☆Illya
A short crossover manga with the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha series that has been published in 2010.


 * See also the article at Nanoha Wikia.

Illyasviel von Einzbern
Illyasviel von Einzbern, addressed as Illya for short, is the main character of the series. She is a departure from her Fate/stay night counterpart, as she is being raised as a normal aged middle schooler with absolutely no knowledge of the world of magic. She has been raised with her brother, Shirou, while under the care of Sella and Leysritt during periods when Irisviel and Kiritsugu are away.

She is extremely passionate about magical girl anime, and has fantasies about becoming one. She has a crush on Shirou, often acting very shy around him or having dreams about him, but she mainly attempts to ignore them as inappropriate feelings. She is a very open person, as she does her best to become friends with Miyu, who openly hates her at first, and Kuro, who attempts to kill her multiple times. She has a hidden obsession with maids, referred to as her "Maid Switch." When around someone dressed as a maid, her "MS level" will raise, and once the switch is "flipped", she will start harassing them to call her master and cling to them.

She is introduced to the world of magic by Rin and the Kaleidostick, Ruby, which leads to her forming a contract to become a Magical Girl. She initially finds it to be a fun experience, but after some time, she begins to see it as a burden. She often wishes to simply forget everything about the world of magic, which angers the people around her. She has some sort of great magical power sealed inside of her, which allows her to instantly harness vast power and knowledge of magecraft and class cards, such as the ability to use them to become one with a Heroic Spirit, while in mortal danger. She completely loses consciousness and attempts to remove the threat, regardless of the safety of her allies, and wakes with no memories of the events. This power is later revealed to be an aspect of Illya's 'creation'; she was originally meant to be used as a vessel for the Holy Grail War that her family, Einzbern, was planning to start. Though they did not complete the process, Illya was partially reconfigured as a Holy Grail and thus has access to tremendous Prana and a limited ability to 'grant wishes', which manifests itself in her bizarre bursts of power answering her wish to 'live' when her life is endangered. When she was an infant, her parents sealed these powers and her memories of them, abandoning the Einzbern family and taking Illya with them to live in Japan in an effort to give her a normal life.

Miyu Edelfelt


Miyu Edelfelt is a young girl who serves under Luvia as a magical girl. Her origin is unknown, except that she has a brother who looks similar to Shirou, and she takes on the Edelfelt name after being taken in by Luvia. She lives in Luvia's mansion and acts as her maid to earn her keep. She uses Ruby's sister Kaleidostick, Sapphire, in order to transform, and she initially has a much better understanding of her abilities than Illya. She takes her role very seriously and treats Illya as a bothersome rival, though they eventually become close friends. She later gains the ability to use the Saber class card to embody the Heroic Spirit after seeing Illya perform it.

Kuro
Kuro, initially referred to as Dark Illya, is a being created from Illya's hidden power and the Archer Class Card. She comes into existence after Illya uses the Class Card in order to save herself, and afterward, she falls unconscious and wakes up to find the card missing and an exact duplicate of herself, with the exception of dark skin and the Archer outfit, in its place. Kuro immediately escapes and makes various attempts on Illya's life, stating that they cannot both freely exist. She is eventually captured and has a seal placed upon her that forces her to share all sensations with Illya, including injuries and pain. Unable to freely fulfill her goal, she attends Illya's school as her cousin, Kuro, though she still holds resentment towards Illya. She is at odds with Miyu, who wishes to kill Kuro in order to protect Illya.

Having received most of Illya's magical power, Kuro is extremely powerful, capable of using all of the Archer class' abilities to a high degree, and easily able to overpower magical girls and even Miyu's Saber class change. She has the ability to drain people of their natural prana through the act of kissing, which leads to certain comedic situations.

The nature of her existence is eventually revealed to be Illya's sealed memories as a Holy Grail. When Kiritsugu and Irisviel stole Illya from the Einzbern family before she could be fully configured as a Grail, they also sealed her memories of these events to help her have a normal life. Unbeknownst to them, however, these sealed memories continued to exist, becoming a hidden second personality within Illya's mind. Eventually, this personality became powerful enough to harness the Archer class card and create a body for itself, becoming Kuro. Kuro is deeply bitter as a result, both towards her parents for sealing her, and toward Illya for wishing to be 'normal' (and thus indirectly wishing for Kuro, the manifestation of her past as part of a Magus clan) to not exist. She eventually comes to terms with her anger after Illya finally accepts her, only to begin breaking down shortly after. Although on the verge of death, Illya is able to convince her to fight for her new life, making her admit that what she wants most is not to be a Magus, nor to kill anyone, nor even to be accepted: most of all, she just wants the chance to live. This admission is enough for her powers as an incomplete Grail to activate, granting her wish to live and stabilizing her body. She is then formally adopted into the extended Einzbern family, being introduced to Shirou as Illya's cousin.

Tohsaka Rin
Tohsaka Rin is a magus sent by Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg, together with Luvia, to Japan to collect Class Cards. She differs from her Fate/stay night counterpart in that she is already affiliated with the Association's Clock Tower and Zelretch while still in high school. She is entrusted with Ruby and she is extremely capable in magical girl form, but due to her competitive nature with Luvia, Ruby cancels their contract. Rin then forces Illya, to whom Ruby takes a liking, to act as her "servant" and collect the cards in her place. She is in constant conflict with Luvia over everything, which stems from competing over their crush on Shirou, which first came about upon seeing him stubbornly attempt the high jump. Though normally competent, their fighting often causes them to create various embarrassing blunders, leaving Illya and Miyu with a negative opinion of their skills.

Luviagelita Edelfelt
Luviagelita Edelfelt is another magus sent by Zeltretch to collect the Class Cards. She is given Sapphire, allowing her to transform into a magical girl. Despite being ordered to work together with Rin, their rivalry causes her to treat collecting the cards like a contest. This makes Sapphire reject their contract, which leads her to have Miyu act as a proxy in her rivalry against Rin. She is indiscriminate in using her wealth, erecting a mansion across the street from Einzbern house in a single day, where she and Miyu are currently living. She is a constant visitor to Japan, which allowed her form a crush on Shirou after seeing him stubbornly attempting to complete the high jump. This eventually formed the rivalry with Rin, as they both constantly competed for Shirou's affection.

Minor characters

 * Emiya Shirou - Shirou is Illya's brother, and a normal high schooler with no knowledge of magic. He is much more carefree than his Fate/stay night counterpart, and he has the general trait of accidentally running into perverted situations, which makes Rin compare him to an eroge protagonist in reference to Fate/stay night. Illya, Rin, Luvia, and Sakura are openly attracted to him, though he doesn't show any interest to Rin and Luvia's disappointment.


 * Sella and Leysritt - Sella and Leysritt are the maids of the Einzbern household and Illya and Shirou's general caretakers. Sella is very serious and prone to overreacting to minor problems, while Leysritt is more carefree. They wear normal clothing most of the time, but after seeing Miyu in a maid uniform, Sella states that “she has abandoned her duties” and starts wearing the uniform again for a short period of time. They are aware of magic and the power sealed within Illya.


 * Emiya Kiritsugu and Irisviel von Einzbern - Kiritsugu and Irisviel are Illya and Shirou's parents, who are alive unlike their Fate/stay night counterparts. They are constantly traveling abroad, and at one point Irisviel states that she is fighting to “preserve their daily lives.” Irisviel is very close with Illya and is aware of the power sealed inside of her, telling her to not be afraid of it, though she refuses to divulge any details about it. She has haphazard driving skills as displayed in Fate/Zero.


 * Caren Ortensia - Caren takes on the role of the school nurse in Illya's school. She is currently observing the situation with Illya, Miyu, and Kuro, calling Illya, "necessary", Miyu, "accidental", and Kuro, a "miraculous existence." She displays absolutely no interest in the events, and she is rather carefree about her job as a nurse.


 * Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg - Zelretch has more of a presence in this time line than in others. He is the creator of of Ruby and Sapphire, and he gives them to Rin and Luvia and orders them to collect the Class Cards. He later orders them to use the prana supply from Kaleidosticks to stabilize the local ley line.


 * Others - Matou Sakura, who is seemingly not related to Rin, appears briefly to help Shirou after he is injured. Ryuudou Issei appears briefly during the first chapter. Fujimura Taiga teaches Illya's middle school class.

Setting
The series takes place in an unnamed city with a resemblance to Misaki City set in an alternate timeline of Fate/stay night. Shirou and Illya live a peaceful life as brother and sister, without knowledge of magic, under the care of Sella and Leysritt, while their parents are abroad. The Mage's Association is the same, but the Grail War is non-existent, and it is instead replaced by various cards containing malicious fragments of Heroic Spirits. Various aspects of the setting and events are a parody of a typical Magical Girl series, and Illya usually points it out. Many panels of the series are based off of different Fate/stay night and Tsukihime CGs.

Class Cards
These are the same cards that appeared in Fate/Stay Night game and anime as a generic visual representation of Servant classes. There are seven cards, one card per Servant class and they contain Servants from the 5th Grail War.

In this timeline, they appeared without warning in the city the story takes place in. Mage's Association managed to aquire two of them (Archer and Lancer cards), but their analysis yielded no information about their origin, purpose or magical theory behind them. Only thing that was discovered was that each card contained a fragment of a Heroic Spirit and with proper ritual it was possible to draw on the power of the specific Heroic Spirit. Originally, it was believed that this only granted the access to the Noble Phantasm of a specific Heroic Spirit contained in the card, but it was later discovered by Illya that it was possible for a Magical Girl to become the medium for the Heroic Spirit, granting her all the skills, knowledge and Noble Phantasms attached to that heroic Spirit. After drawing on the power of the Class Card to use a Noble Phantasm that specific card becomes unusable for the same action for a few hours.

Cards that were left in the wild would accumulate prana and eventually form a body around themselves. These bodies take the appearance of slightly monstrous versions of the Servants from the 5th grail war (the Saber card, for instance, takes the form of Saber Alter), but without any personality and extremely aggressive. These bodies had access to the abilities and Noble Phantasms of the Servants they represent and had to be destroyed to reach the Class Card.

Kaleidosticks
Two sentient wands that can turn their owner into Magical Girls. They were given to Rin nad Luvia by Zelretch to aid them in dealing with Class Cards.

First stick, Ruby, is identical in appearance to the one used in Fate/Hollow Ataraxia by Rin, with a five-pointed star inside a winged ring on its “head”, and small cross on the other end. Second stick, Sapphire, has a six-pointed star on it's head, and what looks like a rope ending on it's other end. In addition, Sapphire's “wings” resemble a ribbon or Butterfly wings, giving it's head an appearance of a brooch. Both stick will be reduced to only their heads when they are not used by Magical Girls. In this forms, they can freely levitate and use their wings to gesticulate. Ruby refers to Sapphire as her “younger sister”, and is shown to exhibit a protective attitude towards her.

Ritual to sign a contract between a Kaleidostick and it's user is fairly simple and includes a small amount of user's blood to be given to Kaleidostick followed by willingly grasping the handle of the stick. As Kaleidostick themselves choose their masters, ritual won't work without their consent, just as the contract can only be terminated from their side. Once the contract has been established, sticks will transform their masters into Magical Girls and provide them with unlimited amount of prana (although at a limited rate) by using Second Magic to connect with alternate realities, similar to how Jeweled Sword works. Transformation and prana supply will be canceled if Kaleidostick is seperated from it's user for more than 50 meters or longer than 30 seconds.

Magical Girls can use this prana to perform high-level Magecraft without formal knowledge of magical theory, such as flying, raising magical and physical shields and enhancing their own physical abilities. It was stated that a Magical Girl's imagination is the only limiting factor in utilizing the prana provided by the Kaleidostick – Illya was able to fly without much effort because she had an image “Magical Girls can fly” in her mind, while Miyu was unable to ignore physical laws, and was only able to fly by imagining a “foothold” and strengthening the air below her feet to form one.

Kaleidostick have shown remarkable amount of endurance, being able to withstand a direct sword slash from Saber and a crushing attack from Berserker (although any accompanying prana had to be blocked by a raised shield, otherwise it would hit their wielder).

Also, Sticks were shown to have some additional abilities (“24 secret abilities”, as Ruby states) that include an ability to imitate a cellphone when communicating with each other (completed with an ability to establish a videolink and project the video feed on a wall) and an ability to make predictions of future based on statistical extrapolation and print them out. However, these abilities were used solely for comical effect.

Mirror World
A group name for a series of pocket spaces that were created by the Class cards. They contains landscape that mirrors the one in the real world, but with no living things present, and with damage done to it not affecting the real world. Their size was originally a few kilometers in radius, but as more cards were collected, they started shrinking until the last one was the size of single building. Their name comes from the analogy that if you put two mirror opposing each other, they would reflect each other infinite number of times, and each pocket space is but a single of such reflections, a mirror image of the world.

Each Class Card card was believed to be contained in a separate space, although it was shown that two cards could share a single space.

Mirror World could only be accessed by Kaleidosticks with a formed contract by opening a “Mirror Road” via a spell. After it's formation a Mirror Road could immediately transfer several humans to and fro Mirror World before closing.