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Revision as of 16:30, 7 January 2012
Matou Sakura (間桐 桜, Matou Sakura?) is the younger, adopted sister of Matou Shinji and biological sister of Tohsaka Rin. Sakura has a long standing and obvious crush on Emiya Shirou. After Shirou's father died, Sakura would often visit Shirou's home to help him with his daily chores.
Appearance
Sakura is a beautiful young woman with violet hair, which she styles with a pink ribbon on the left side, and violet eyes. The ribbon she wears in her hair was given to her by Rin when they were children and is the first ribbon Rin ever made. Physically, she's noted to have large breasts. During school, she wears the standard Homurahara uniform. Her casual clothing consists of a pink cardigan, a white top and long cream-coloured skirt.
In the Heaven's Feel route, her appearance changes when she becomes Dark Sakura. Her hair turns white and her eyes turn red. She retains her trademark ribbon, though it turns purple. She wears a long black dress made of black ribbons, that are trimmed in red. The length of the dress and the length of the ribbons it is composed of vary. In this form, her face, dress and legs are covered in red markings.
Before Sakura was adopted in to the Matou family, she resembled her sister, having had short black hair and aqua eyes. Shortly after her adoption, her hair and eyes take on their violet color, which is a direct result of being implanted with Zouken's parasitic worms. Her clothing at this time consists of a purple dress, purple socks and black shoes.
Personality
While Sakura is outwardly shy and soft-spoken, she possesses a great inner strength. As noted by Shirou, she can also be stubborn at times. However, timid as Sakura may be, she is prone to feeling resentment towards Rin, whom she believes abandoned her and poses a threat to her relationship with Shirou. When she awakens as Dark Sakura under the influence of Angra Mainyu, her personality changes drastically; she becomes a devilish, evil, and cruel person. As a result of this change, the jealousy and hatred she feels towards her sister increases drastically.
History
Tohsaka Sakura
Born as Tohsaka Sakura, she is the biological sister of Tohsaka Rin. Like most sorcerers, her father, Tohsaka Tokiomi, chose only one daughter to carry on his family's tradition, believing that raising an additional child would introduce competition. Matou Zouken, an ancient ally of the Tohsaka House, offered to adopt Sakura. He did this as his own heir, Matou Shinji, was incapable of sorcery. Sakura would be in the care of the Matou family for many years.
In Fate/Zero, it is revealed that Matou Kariya made a deal with Matou Zouken to win the Holy Grail in exchange for Sakura's freedom to return to the Tohsaka family. Having been a childhood friend of Tohsaka Aoi, he had become well-acquainted with Sakura and her sister. Kariya was the only member of the Matou family to love Sakura. Unfortunately, he lost the 4th Grail War and Sakura was left with the Matou family.
As a result of her natural abilities, Zouken sought to use Sakura as one of his future vessels, empowered by the Angra Mainyu. Gathering the tainted fragments of the shattered grail from the last war, Zouken hybridizes the collected black ichor with several of his crest worm familiars. He implanted these parasitic worms into Sakura's body, which drain her Mana but feed on her carnal impulses, drastically increasing her sexual frustration. To curb her sexual frustrations, Zouken frequently instructed Shinji to rape Sakura. Jealous of the fact his adopted sister usurped his birthright as heir to the Matou House, Shinji brutally rapes her of his own volition.
Although castigated and humiliated on a daily basis, Sakura maintains her bearings with great stoicism. She draws her strength to endure such hardships from Emiya Shirou, whom she admires for his staying dedication. Her inspiration comes from watching him constantly attempt to jump a bar during a track-and-field practice session. Her admiration and confidence give her the courage to approach and assist Shirou after he receives an injury. For the eleven years after her adoption, Sakura grew to resent Zouken for his cruelty, her father for sending her away, and finally Rin, for never coming to save her. As Rin and Shirou become closer, Sakura begins to feel contempt for her sister, which is intensified by her belief that Rin is the cause of all her suffering.
Sakura is the principal Master of Rider, who was summoned several days prior to the start of the 5th Holy Grail War. However, under pressure from Shinji and the desire not to fight either Shirou or Rin, Sakura yielded her Master's right to him, although Sakura retains her original Command Mantra.
Abilities
Sakura during the worm implanting process
She has inherited tremendous sorcerous potential from her Tohsaka pedigree, although she has little knowledge of established incantations and her Mana supply is limited by Zouken's worms. As a child, her father Tohsaka Tokiomi recognized that while Sakura lacked all five elements, she extraordinarily possessed the rare potential as a mage with only Imaginary Numbers. While Sakura is capable of mastering the Matou family's style of magecraft, Matou Kariya notes that Sakura is actually best suited to the magecraft of her birth family, the Tohsaka.
On a whim, Zouken can twist Sakura into a premature form of Angra Mainyu, referred to as "the shadow". In this state, Sakura's actions are below her threshold of awareness and are primarily directed by
Dark Sakura
Zouken. However, once Sakura rejects Zouken's control and regains her central consciousness, she becomes Dark Sakura, a rancorous and psychotic distortion of her normal self. In this form, her reasoning and emotions are severely impaired and she is indiscriminately destructive to everything around her.
Dark Sakura has an unlimited supply of Mana, but the amount she can expel at any derivative is limited by her number of magic circuits. Her touch is highly corrosive, dissolving organic matter and converting the base elements into pure Mana. When an astral being, such as a Servant, comes into contract with Dark Sakura's shadows, that Servant's mentality is corrupted by her evil influence, while their offensive power is considerably augmented. She is also capable of forming tentacle appendages from her body, as well as birthing shadow monstrosities that follow her general intent but otherwise operate independently. Finally, Dark Sakura can spontaneously regenerate, allowing her to recover from mortal wounds within minutes of receiving them.
Role
Fate/stay night
Sakura only plays a minor supporting role in both Fate and Unlimited Blade Works, but she is the main female to the third arc, Heaven's Feel. Matou Zouken, disgusted at the ineptitude of Shinji as a Master, begins a genocide against the other Servants with help from True Assassin and Sakura. Berserker, Lancer, Saber, and Archer are all felled by this unholy trinity, and Sakura regurgitates Dark Saber and Dark Berserker as assistants. At night, she goes on a rampage throughout Fuyuki City, ingesting large numbers of innocents for Mana. Gilgamesh eventually confronts and impales Sakura's body with several Noble Phantasms from within his Gate of Babylon, but she regenerates at an impossibly fast rate and consumes him as well.
Recognizing the devastation she has wrought, Sakura seeks out her grandfather to force him into ending her life. Along the way, Shinji attempts to blackmail her into sex, threatening to tell Shirou of his history of raping her. Horrified at this prospect, Sakura kills Shinji and gives up to her internal evil. She then becomes Dark Sakura and abducts Ilya, hoping to use her as the core for a new Holy Grail.
After Shirou and Kotomine rescue Ilya, Dark Sakura kills True Assassin and purges her body of Zouken's worms. She is confronted by Rin in the chamber of the Greater Holy Grail beneath Mount Enzō, her power equally matched by The Jeweled Sword of Zelretch. Rendering Sakura's shadows useless, Rin makes her way to Sakura, but is unable to give the finishing blow due to her love of her sister. Rin embraces Sakura even after Sakura has stabbed her in panic. Realizing Rin's love, Sakura again starts resisting her evil long enough for Shirou to dispel Angra Mainyu's grip on her soul with Rule Breaker. Shirou then attempts to trace Excalibur but in True ending, Ilya intervenes, closes the gate, and performs the Heaven's Feel on Shirou to keep him alive (in Normal ending, Shirou does trace Excalibur and destroys the Grail, but his life extinguishes soon after. Sakura, refusing to accept Shirou's death, continues to live in Emiya house, forever waiting for Shirou).
After her dark self is destroyed, Sakura's body is left containing vast amounts of mana. She ends up living with Shirou and Rider, with the servant's existence sustained by Sakura's mana pool.
Fate/hollow ataraxia
In Fate/hollow ataraxia, Sakura lives a peaceful life in Fuyuki City, which Rin has left in Sakura's care while she is at the Mage's Association, and Rider comments that Sakura is now the popular new captain of the school archery club. Sakura's dark side still exists, but appears only for comic relief. In Eclipse, the bonus episode of Ataraxia, Rider and Sakura seem to work together to seduce Shirou and engage in a threesome with him. Actually this is all Rider's doing, trying to get Shirou to pursue Sakura more aggressively. Yet in the middle, Shirou realizes the truth and reverses her spell on her, in the end revealing to viewers that Rider herself has deep feelings for Shirou. Sakura appearing in this episode is only a conjecture by Rider's spell, a representation of Rider's true intentions of her actions.
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