Assassin (Fate/Zero)

Assassin (アサシン) is the Assassin-class Servant of Kirei Kotomine in the Fourth Holy Grail War of Fate/Zero. He is unique in that he has the capability to manifest as multiple entities at once.

Identity
Assassin is The Hundred-Faced Hassan (百の貌のハサン), one of the nineteen people to hold the legendary Persian title of "Old Man of the Mountain" (山の翁), Hassan-i-Sabbah, the leader of al-Assasīn.

He was a candidate along with The Beautiful Assassin, but he was chosen due to their fear of her. Their official reasoning was that even though she copied the eighteen previous Zabaniya abilities, she had not produced a miracle of her own.

His own ability, Delusional Illusion, was unique in that it was the first to be an inborn ability rather than achieved through modifying his body. Instead, he took advantage of his affliction of Multiple Personality Disorder and acted as an assassin without a true identity. He became the nineteenth in succession and currently the last to have become a candidate for summoning. His wish to the Grail was ultimately "to be reconstituted as a complete personality."

Appearance
The multiple bodies of Assassin can vary widely in age, gender, build, and style of dress, but in general, their hair appears purple, and their skin and clothing are nearly black. They wear the standard skull mask associated with the known Hassan of the other Grail Wars. The masks change as he changes personalities.

Personality
Each of the Assassins has their own personality, and their experiences are not shared between them. The female Assassin is shown to be the main one to interact with Kirei. The Einzbern Consolation Room introduces the first Assassin to be killed by Gilgamesh as Zayd (ザイード). He has a polite tone of speech and a habit of pushing his mask up repeatedly while he speaks. He is very passionate and emotional, and he is upset that his role was to simply die. He is eventually convinced to have pride in his role, and vows to become Zayd, the King of Assassins, before dying in despair while seeing the others being slaughtered by Rider.

Assassin's goal in wanting to obtain the Grail is "to have a perfect and unified personality." Due to his Master having no intention of winning the war, he is instead damned to the fate of a voyeur. Kirei following the orders of Tokiomi makes it so he is truly a servant of a servant. He had plotted to hijack the Holy Grail before either Kirei or Tokiomi in the event the War had gone in their favor, but he didn't even get a chance to display his rebellious side before becoming the first Servant eliminated from the war.

Fate/Zero
The Assassins initially act as reconnaissance agents for Tokiomi and Kirei, after Gilgamesh kills one of them in full view of the other Masters who possessed no specialization in any particular skill. This tactic successfully lead most of the Masters to believe that Kirei and Assassin had been defeated, and allowed the dozens of remaining Assassins to move freely without suspicion.

In the conversation between Kiritsugu Emiya and Maiya, Kiritsugu found it hard to believe that Assassin was defeated so easily so he orders Maiya to send familiars to keep an eye on Kirei Kotomine who surrendered in Fuyuki Church. In the battle between Saber and Lancer, Kiritsugu notices one of the Assassin watching the battle.

Their continued existence, however, is discovered when Rider and Waver Velvet accidentally encounter three Assassins in Caster's lair but they retreated after one of them was killed.

Kirei uses all of his command seals to send all the Assassin to gauge Iskander's power levels. The Assassins meet their end when they decline Iskander's wine offer. He complies by using his most powerful Noble Phantasm, "Ionioi Hetairoi: Army of the King", to massacre each and every one of the Assassins.

Einzbern Consultation Room
Assassin is the first Servant to visit Einzbern Consultation Room. This individual is Zayd and he explains his existence to both Irisviel von Einzbern and Zecchan. The truth wounded him when Zecchan calls him fake among fake. Both Iri and Zecchan continue wounding him when they described him as a disposable pawn that only lasted in episode two and was easily tricked by his master. He calls himself the most unfortunate Servant in the Holy Grail War as his appearance, class and Noble Phantasm are plain. Kirei, Tokiomi and Risei only see Assassin as surveillance and they called him useless and a loser. Assassin couldn't stand for the slander as he considers it isn't his fault. Iri and Zecchan questioned to Zayd whether it was his fault. They pointed out was it necessary for himself to be proud of himself to snuck in alone with cool theme playing, he struck strange poses to dodge magic wires to show off which he only needs to dodge and destroy the origin of the Bounded field and lastly to say out loud it was "too easy" on a top secret mission. Zayd fallen to the pressure and admitted to his faults, he tried to redeem himself by offering his service as a tea server representing the Assassins. Iri rejected his offer as his troubles were solved and should be in the battlefield as a Servant. Zayd was touched when Iri thought highly of him, motivated by her words, Zayd leaves. Before leaving he tells his wish to leave his name on the pages of history, to change his name as Zayd the king of Assassins. Zayd runs out and was looking forward to participate in the war again, to assassinate all enemies to earn Kirei's respect. However he is caught by the tentacles of the Black Shadows, as he is being dragged he saw visions of the other Assassin being slayed by Rider and his armies. His last words were Assassin has no right and thought it was cruel who thought of it.

Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA
When manifested, their appearance is similar to the original except all of their masks are slightly cracked and is shaped like a cyclops instead. Since Illya was at the brink of death, she unknowningly released her mana in a massive explosion and managed to defeat the Assassin Class Card, but as a result, she injured Miyu and the others.

Other Appearances
In Type-Moon's April Fools' Day 2015, Asako and Chibi Assassin is in a female group called Momoiro Hassan Z (ももいろハサンZ) in the Imperial Roma talent agency, her class is Stealth idol (ステルスアイドル).

Abilities
Unlike True Assassin, who was one entity, the Zabaniya of the Assassin of the 4th War permitted him to divide into up to 80 separate existences. This was not a result of modifying his flesh in the manner of the 18 Hassans that predated him. Rather, the multiple bodies he possessed as a servant came of intentionally fragmenting his psyche in life—a sort of self-inflicted dissociative identity disorder intended to compartmentalize the various skill sets and knowledge he had accumulated during his lifetime; a total of 32 distinct specializations. Summoned by the Grail, he obtained the capacity to express each personality as a independent body, and to relegate individual tasks to the personalities best suited to them.

Among these, several distinct persona are observed. Each personality has his strengths and weaknesses. Among them, there are impatient glory-hounds who ignore orders like fools, and individuals who are terrible at ambushes despite being assassins.
 * The first known as Zayd, sacrificed in a staged battle against Gilgamesh is noted as having no specific abilities, but was shown to be very acrobatic. Dancing freely between the magic defence of the Tohsaka house, he used stones with lethal accuracy and power to shatter the gems that maintained the bounded field around the building.
 * A second, female persona known as Asako (アサ) seems to act as the liason between Kirei and the Assassins. Her unique skills are not seen, but it may be her ability at delegation that led to Kirei interacting most with her.
 * A third, while not seen in the final version, was a young girl who suffered amnesia. Planted in order to be picked up by enemies, she would later reveal herself as Assassin and take out her enemies. While not a talent as such, the use of such a sleeper agent would be an invaluable tool to someone like Assassin.
 * Big Assassin (でかアサシン)

As the nature of the Assassin's Noble Phantasm is "division," the sum of his iterations did not exceed his original existence in strength or capacity; that is to say, each independent fragment was far weaker than his original whole—and owing to the generally weak starting attributes of his class, he definitively became the weakest Servant of the 4th War. However, the class ability of Presence Concealment was shared across all bodies without degradation, effectively permitting him to serve as an "intelligence network" in his multiplicity.

Development


Gen Urobuchi originally designed a plot line involving one of Assassin's personalities, a small girl called Child Assassin (ちびアサシン), joining with Waver and Rider in the second or third volume to lighten up the story, but it remained unused because giving Waver too much focus would have made the identity of the main character too confusing. She was conceived as a unfortunate young girl lacking in conversational skills, memories, and the awareness that she was a part of Hassan-i-Sabbah. Her clueless personality surfaces when she is captured by the enemy in order to protect her secret, so when she, along with the other Assassins, attack Waver and Rider in Caster's workshop, she separates herself from those who are beheaded by Rider. Waver mistakes her presence there, believing her to be one of Ryuunosuke's victims suffering from memory loss, and while Rider knows of her identity, he honors Waver's chivalry to allow the Mackenzies to take in yet another false household member. After Kotomine, who knows of her existence, utilizes the Command Spell to attack those at the Einzbern Castle, she regains her memories as Hassan. Through a dramatic farewell tragedy, Waver would climb another step on the path to becoming an adult. Although she was discarded, she was later featured in Einzbern Consultation Room and Capsule Servant.

Atsuhi Ikariya was responsible for the Assassin scenes in episode 2, he had drawn the key animation and had fun drawing him. The scenes with Assassin put Mr.Ikariya abilities on display. He says that Assassin is drawn with an emphasis on actions that are striking and having impact merely standing still. Pay particular attention to how meticulously the abdominal muscles and overall musculature are drawn.

Creation and Concept
The female Assassin is given a design for her face in Fate/Zero material. Takashi Takeuchi calls her the "most delicious" female and says she looks more like a thief than an assassin, but says he made her more like a "Terasawa Girl" rather than just having a beautiful form to keep from overlapping with Maiya. Urobuchi thinks he may have used her more if he had seen her face earlier, and he likes her muscular figure. Despite the design, she doesn't actually have a face under her mask, much like True Assassin.

Kinoko Nasu explained that Ufotable has made many original character designs, one for each Assassin. Atsushi Ikariya was responsible for Assassin designs. Covered in muscles. Because there are multiple Assassins, additional character designs are made each time he appears.

Urobuchi has made up a Assassin who is famous for impersonating "Toyotomi Hideyoshi". Nasu has made up a Assassin whose expertise is in sexing chicks

Reception
Urobuchi really liked the stage direction and execution of the scene where Assassin infiltrates the Tohsaka estate, he thought it was excellent. Urobuchi like the Assassin Servant, he was surprised by how well the Ufotable staff drew all the different Assassins that were all part of him (Hassan). He was impressed to see them make 100 varied designs for the scene where a swarm of them attack Rider.

Nasu thinks Assassin is a great Servant and he was pumped up thinking about him sneaking into the Tohsaka headquarters in the anime.


 * In the Type-Moon's 10th Anniversary Character Poll, Assassin was ranked 91st.