Darius Ainsworth

is the first head of the Ainsworth family. He has "lived" for one thousand years through the means of a curse upon his descendants that overlay them with a "Conceptual Replacement." His current host is Julian Ainsworth.
==Profile==
===Background===
The first head of the Ainsworth Magus family, Darius is an undisputed master of Flash Air, also known as "Displacement Magecraft", the seemingly-weak art of switching one thing for another. During his first life after a bout of adventuring, he met Pandora, whereupon she told him a horrible truth of their world: it was slowly dying, with Mana across the Planet slowly but surely depleting and being replaced with something toxic to life. Shook by this revelation, Darius set out with Pandora to overcome this crisis using Pandora's Box, hoping to transform mankind into an existence that could survive the Mana depletion.
Much like how Archer of Fate/stay night tempered the similarly seemingly-weak Projection Magecraft into a fighting style worthy of a Heroic Spirit, Darius elevated his skills with Flash Air to such heights as if to warp reality. Among his visible feats was the transportation and replacement of a large mountain into a lavish castle in the center of Fuyuki City, surrounded by an equally large invisibility field and used as his headquarters. His greatest Magecraft is "Conceptual Replacement", which involves the newest head of the Ainsworth family gradually being overwritten by Darius after his death; through this spell he has lived and pursued his goal with Pandora at his side for over a thousand years.
===Appearance===
Darius Licht.png| character sheet of Darius Ainsworth in Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA: Licht - The Nameless Girl.
Younger Darius.jpg|Young Darius Ainsworth in Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! as illustrated by Hiroshi Hiroyama.
===Personality===
 
Darius displays a bipolar personality switching between calm, sometimes comedic conversation and manic declarations. He has an immense love for theater, treating allies and enemies alike as if they are actors in a grand stage play, and displays an incredibly foul temper toward those who deviate from the "script" he has planned.
He is very close to Erika, watching over her and telling her not to leave the estate without permission. He dotes on her for the most part, and her obliviousness to his actions causes her to see him as completely normal. He only becomes angry with her should her actions somehow go against his pursuit of his legend. 
==Role==
===Oath Under Snow===
Darius is the primary antagonist of PRISMA☆ILLYA and is labelled such by Gilgamesh, a title that Darius himself makes no attempt to disprove and in fact embraces in front of Illya despite his apparently noble goals. He is the creator of the Class Cards that are the focus of the series, done so that he could conduct the Ainsworth Holy Grail War. He accomplishes this by summoning Heroic Spirits through the Mud of Pandora's Box, their diluted egos as a result making them easy to bind to the Class Card and control by their owners.
Darius' first four attempts at orchestrating a Holy Grail War were failures, the Fourth Holy Grail War failing so badly that it caused a catastrophic explosion of darkness, ending in the giant crater that dots the alternate Fuyuki City and destroying Darius' previous host, causing his Spirit to move on to an 11-year-old Julian. It was not until the Fifth Holy Grail War that he found a path to success, beginning with the abduction of Miyu Edelfelt to use as a natural-born Holy Grail and creating Dolls with the souls of deceased people to wield the Class Cards necessary for the ritual. Despite this breakthrough however, Darius' will was suppressed during this time, while his unwilling host Julian managed the war. Julian's spite towards his world's version of Shirou Emiya would result in Shirou accidentally becoming an eighth Class Card user in the war, using Archer EMIYA as his Heroic Spirit. With this power, Shirou defeated every Ainsworth Doll except the other Archer wielder and won the Fifth Holy Grail War singlehandedly, and although said other Archer wielder (Angelica Ainsworth) found and defeated him, with his seven Class Cards he had managed to wish Miyu away to Illya's World. Infuriated but undeterred, Darius reasserted his control over Julian and began preparations for a Sixth Holy Grail War. Thus began the events of the PRISMA☆ILLYA series.
=== Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! ===
Darius Ainsworth.jpg|Darius Ainsworth announces the Sixth Ainsworth Grail War to Illya.
Rule Breaker PRISMA.gif|Illya tries to use Rule Breaker on Darius to save Miyu.
After re-capturing Miyu and seeing Illya's first rescue attempt fail, Darius taunts Illya over the cruel choice of saving either Miyu or her world. He later enters Illya's hideout to take back Erika, who went there to meet Illya. He declares to Illya that he is responsible for all the horrible things she has ever faced, and that if she wants to truly win, she must defeat him. He begins to cackle madly describing Illya's story, events he learned from the "legend", until Erika stops him. He then enters into battle with Illya, Chloe, Tanaka, and Bazett, and soundly defeats them all. However, right when he is about to finish Tanaka, she calls him "Counterfeiter". Realizing the importance of that statement, he abruptly leaves with Erika.
Despite his best efforts to impress the hopelessness of her situation on her however, Illya eventually comes to her senses thanks to her allies, culminating in them storming his castle and Illya stabbing Darius with the Caster Card's Rule Breaker Include.Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 20: "To the Princess" The Anti-Magecraft effect of Rule Breaker not only breaks through Darius' Conceptual Replacement and reveals Julian, but destroys the displacement effect of his castle. With Darius incapacitated, Julian takes over for the remainder of the battle, first destroying the Caster Card in retaliation, then summoning Angelica, Beatrice Flowerchild, the corrupted Sakura Matou and Pandora's Box's army of corrupted Heroic Spirits to wipe out his enemies.Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 21: "The Vanishing Castle and the Neverending Legend" However, the intervention of Tanaka's mysterious flaming sword allows Illya to repel the overwhelming assault and damage the Pandora's Box, forcing the Ainsworths to retreat with Miyu having been saved from them yet again.
Darius and Pandora seem to be fully aware of Tanaka's true nature, and feeling that time is no longer on their side, they finally decide to go on the offensive, summoning Pandora's Box over Fuyuki City to draw Illya and Miyu out. Miyu and Chloe von Einzbern defeat Sakura and reach Julian first, which goes against Darius' plans; he manifests over Julian and defeats them within minutes before trapping them inside Pandora's Box with its owner. After defeating Beatrice, Illya then arrives to confront Julian and Darius alone. Julian decides to fight Illya without Darius' help, the latter mostly providing exposition and revelations throughout the battle, only intervening when Julian needs to perform a massive Flash Air on Pandora's Box itself by providing him the power to do so. Despite their efforts, Illya's clever use of the Saber, Rider and Berserker Class Cards allows her to defeat Julian. As he loses consciousness, Darius assumes full control of the body and wounds Pandora in the process, boldly challenging Illya, Miyu and Chloe to the final battle.
Darius spends much of the battle grandstanding about how poor of a Magus Julian was, and demonstrates his superiority handily. All of the skills and techniques the heroines learned and perfected throughout their journey are rendered meaningless against Darius' mastery of Displacement Magecraft, everything thrown at him either dodged or blocked with an almost lazy attitude. The only moves Darius needs to make against the girls are against their Class Cards, using his status as Holy Grail War's Rule Master and his Displacement Magecraft to reach out and crush the Class Cards by hand, even when they're already installed by Displacing his hand into their chest to reach the Class Cards. Despite their best efforts, all of their Class Cards are destroyed, ending with the Archer Card that serves as Chloe's heart.Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 59.2: "As An Older Sister"
Darius getting his Magic Circuits destroyed.jpg|Darius getting his Magic Circuits destroyed by Chloe.
Darius being exorcised from Julian.jpg|Darius leaving Julian's body.
Realizing that she was about to die, Chloe made a last-ditch attack against Darius when he felt his hand inside of her, ramming the Origin Bullet of Kiritsugu Emiya's she was given by Shirou into her chest to get at Darius' hand. Though he succeeds in destroying her Class Card, the bullet of the Magus Killer finds its mark; as a being who only lives because of his permanently-active Conceptual Replacement, Darius suffers the full wrath of the Origin Bullet as his body and Magic Circuits undergo a catastrophic failure, dispelling his Conceptual Replacement of Julian and utterly obliterating the thousand year old Magus.
However, after Miyu and Illya grieve Chole's death, and are about to head off to close the hole in reality pouring Mud, the Mud starts to shift and a loud voice is heard. The voice is revealed to be Darius, who explains that Human History is like a tree, with branches being cut away and the trunk eventually reaching an "Apex" far in the future. However, he states a second "Apex" is at the beginning of Creation, when the seeds of Human History were place by an existence known as 「The Creator」. Thus he reveals his goal that he will replace his world's dying "rotted" Human History with the History of untapped potential in the Pandora's Box and use the tablets of his "Legend" he made using Miyu's blood to become "It", 「The Creator」, of the new Human History and all Creation.Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 60: "A certain world's conclusion"
Unveiling a new giant, monstrous form similar to Kid-Gil's monster, wearing a crown made of both thorns and his Tablets, he crushes Miyu and manifest a massive magic circle beneath him that transforms her into a Holy Grail chalice, before eating it is a spray of blood and, according to Illya, "[ended] the Whole World". It is later shown that, "in the blink of an eye", he has painted over the entire world with Mud from the hole, completely wiping out all civilization, humans, land, and everything else without a trace; the world having lost to the one on the other side. All as part of his plan to establish a new Human History on the other side of the hole, in the fake universe, which will survive even if the current world is destroyed; his answer to "Human Salvation", which Kid-Gil considers to be a feat worthy of his praise, commenting that Darius' arrogance rivals the Gods.Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 62.1: "The Last Existence"
However, is it shown that after civilization was wiped out, Darius is seemingly frozen in time reaching for the hole in reality. Kid-Gil explains that this is the only flaw in Darius' plan: he cannot replace Human History with the fake universe until it ends in the current one, and as long as there are "observers" to history, it won't end, freezing Darius "half-a-step away" from completing his plan based on the observers' perception of time. These "observers" are the last living survivors of the World: Illya, who was saved by Kid-Gil at Tanaka's request, and Pandora, who can't die until the Box has finished emptying as her "Death" is within it, which the Box can't do as the Mud-covered world remains frozen in time and cannot completely die as long as there is an observer, herself, trapping Pandora inside this "hell".Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 62.2: "From The Planet To The People"
As Illya's spirit travels back through the Starlog with the aid of Gilgamesh and Tanaka to find any sort of solution to this problem, she sees Darius and Pandora of the past when they first met. Pandora is miserable as ever, but Darius' demeanor is a stark contrast to his current self, a kindly and devoted man who only wanted to open Pandora's Box so that Pandora's suffering could end; the same wish as Julian, as Illya notes.Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 64: "The Light that Illuminates Darkness"Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 65.1: "An Inextinguishable Fire" Darius invented Displacement Magecraft to this end, using the Box as a sort of storage device so that he could continue living and working towards his goal through Conceptual Displacement, essentially putting himself in the same undying situation as Pandora. But the method came with a price: his memories would diminish with each resurrection, with him eventually forgetting why he sought to open the Box to begin with—eventually only the goal itself of opening the Box remained, and what was once Pandora's caretaker degenerated into the unhinged madman of the present day. Darius' initially stated goal of "using the Box to transform mankind into an existence to survive the world's Mana Depletion" was in fact an incorrect conclusion he reached due to his fragmented mind.
As Illya agonizes over the apparent reality that her feelings towards all of friends could change as drastically as Darius', she stumbles through the Starlog back to Darius' first life before he passed away—and discovers that he can talk to her, despite this merely being a recording of Darius' past, him seeing Illya and Tanaka as "Faeries". He posits that his Thaumaturgical Attribute as a Magus is to "connect with something impossible", which is what allowed this miraculous meeting. He offers Illya a small, sealed chest, which she accepts before exiting the Starlog. With this done, Darius reclines in his chair, confident that with this done, Pandora's Box will one day be opened.Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 65.2: "Oh, Consciousness of the Planet"
After Illya decides to go back 6000 years to give the chest to Pandora in the Age of Gods,Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 66.2: "The Stars that Shine on your Back" she disappears entirely from the present, with everyone's memories changing to as if Miyu was alone in her adventures without Chloe or Illya. Because of Illya's absence, Miyu manages to survive Darius' swipe and continues the fight. A wounded Julian explains that, though Darius' Magic Circuits in his main body were destroyed, the magical thorns expanding outside his body acted as a backup, regenerating Darius' concept from their ends, like how a plant can grow after its root is cut. The new giant form Darius is showing is his magical thorns having taken over the body of the Giants' King. Darius, grabbing its edges, starts stretching the hole in reality in order to turn the world inside out and substitute the world front and back with the one on the other side.Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 67: "Someone"
While doing so, Darius commands his giants to go forth and invade and corrode the world, destroying all people and civilisations and painting over the world in their path, which will allow Darius to replace the world with the world on the other side of the hole.Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 68.1: "Command"
Darius seeing the Fate Stay Night Servants.jpg|Darius seeing the Fifth Holy Grail War Servants.
Zabaniya ensnaring Darius.jpg|Darius caught by Assassin's Zabaniya.
Miyu defeats Darius.jpg|Miyu defeats Darius by letting EMIYA's arrow hit him.
Darius explodes.jpg|Darius explodes as Miyu turns her back on him.
However, as this is going on, he notices Pandora freeing herself from her bonds and having a complete change of demeanor as she taunts him.Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 68.2: "The Stars are Still in the Sky"Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 72.2: "Come Forth, Guardians of the Scales!" This angers him to the point that he tries to strangle her, but as Pandora continues to taunt him, Darius feels that something is off. He then sees Miyu regaining her power as the Child of God, which she uses to summon the Heroic Spirits of the Fifth Holy Grail War. He initially tries to brush it off, however his Headless Giants' King get progressively destroyed by Artoria, Cú Chulainn, Medusa, Medea, and Heracles.Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 73.1: "With Just That Swing" He tries to escape, vowing that he would not lose to the old humanity, only for him to be caught by Cursed Arm. He then sees an arrow shot by EMIYA (who was summoned after a revived Sakura uses Rule Breaker to revive Shirou) heading towards him, and manages to free himself in time to successfully catch the arrow, only for Miyu to push it with , causing him to explode on contact.Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 73.2: "Shoot"
Darius mud body.jpg|Darius surviving as a mud doll.
Darius arrives at Illya's house.jpg|Darius suddenly arriving at Illya's house.
Illya showing Darius the original future.jpg|Illya showing Darius the future of the original timeline.
However, Darius survived by creating a mud body, as he continue to reach the light, he suddenly found himself in Illya's house who then greets him as she restored his body. She then offered him tea. Only to get enraged at her antics as he tries to attack her with his Magecraft. Only to find out it isn't working. Illya revealed that the reason for it was because the world is at it's "infancy" or rather it's "grave". She then destroys a part of her house as she showed Darius the future of the Original Timeline..Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 74.2: "Welcome" As Darius horrifying looks on, she angrily ask Illya how could this happen. With the latter answering it's all because of his Original Timeline Counterpart and that the world where he came from is a result of Pandora opening the Pithos. This caused Darius to have a breakdown and angrily asks Illya again who she is.Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 75.1: "Inside and Outside"
==Abilities==
Darius is an incredibly powerful Magus, showing the ability to deflect attacks from Bazett and Kuro easily, catch Excalibur bare handed, and easily dispatch four strong opponents with one Class Card. He uses the unique Noble Phantasms Authoritarian Personalism, Apneic Beauty, and an unnamed dagger from three unknown Class Cards, supposedly all fashioned by himself. As the Rule Master of his Holy Grail War, Darius (and Julian by extension) is also the only person who can destroy Class Cards at will.
Through his Flash Air Magecraft, Darius is able to warp space however he pleases. He can easily teleport from one area to another, replace a mountain with a castle and change where its doors lead, launch and redirect attacks from any angle or location, displace light and sound to appear and be heard from places he isn't and practically making him undetectable - the list goes on.
For all his magical prowess however, Flash Air is still Magecraft, and a Magecraft that he needs to continue existing; thus Darius' monstrous power is offset by a critical weakness to anything Anti-Magecraft. If physical contact can be made, a single stab from Rule Breaker is enough to incapacitate him and temporarily break the connection between him and his current host, which is how Julian was able take back control, though Darius will take back control within a few days at most. Another weakness is not his Magecraft, but his Magic Circuits themselves, as they were specifically passed down through the Ainsworth family to give birth to the concept of Darius' existence and allow him to possess his descendants. Something like an Origin Bullet will destroy the Magic Circuits of his current host and thus break his ability to displace his existence over theirs.
However, Darius was shown to have survived his apparent "death" by Origin Bullet, and revealing a new giant, monstrous form similar to Kid-Gil's monster, wearing a crown made of both thorns and his Tablets. It is later revealed by Julian that, though Darius' Magic Circuits in his main body were destroyed, the magical thorns expanding outside his body from when Julian was fighting and was his host acted as a backup. They regenerated Darius' concept from their ends, like how a plant can grow after its root is cut. The new giant form Darius is showing is his magical thorns having taken over the body of the Giants' King.
It is revealed when Illya looks back through his life that Darius was in under the same curse as Pandora: he cannot die until the Pithos is opened, making him immortal. However, this was done intentionally by himself: over the course of his first life, he recorded the data of his life for dozens of years. Then, in what would be the creation of Flash Air and his first use of the spell, he stored all the data about himself within the Pithos, since it contains a place not governed by the World's rules and thus wouldn't suffer soul decay. Tanaka explains that this is truth of his Flash Air: it is in reality an application of "Transfer Magecraft" that uses an entire imaginary world as a back-up. Every times he dies he retrieves a back-up from the copy stored in the Pithos that is a near-perfect copy of him in his prime — it is not a flawless process however, as though his soul escapes damage, his memories diminish with each resurrection.
Originally, he researched the creation of gold or unknown materials from a unique mineral. However he didn’t have any special talent, and was below third-rate as a Magus.
===Legend===
Darius has been weaving his own story in an attempt to make it into a legend for an unknown reason. It has something to do with saving the world and humanity from its current state and ascending humanity to a new level able to survive in the coming new world using Miyu as the Holy Grail and the mysterious object for some purpose. He has created Class Cards containing Noble Phantasms unknown to Gilgamesh even though his treasury contains all of them. If they exist, especially powerful ones like Darius displays, he should know of them. He has the "story" all planned out, even involving current events, and those who change even the slightest details earn his ire. Factors like Illya dying too early before the final battle, noted to be a long ways off, could change it too much.
He is actively carving his legend into tablets that have something to do with actualizing it. Each is filled out by taking Miyu, laying her on a slab, and generating a large, thorned plant that stabs through her hands to drain blood into a magic circle that subsequently fills out one of the carvings. The ritual does no damage to her body, only draining blood and filling her with phantom pain. He has filled five of seven slabs, with the latest telling of events that have transpired since Miyu's return to the their world. Even without her, another passage will be added upon the cube leaking out its mud. His story should attain the status as a legend once all seven are filled, and he equates its ruination to the death of humanity. Tanaka is notably not in the records, and he considers her an "extra" in the story until she mentions the word "Counterfeiter."Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA 3rei!! - Chapter 11: "Icy Hostility"
His unique Noble Phantasms are:
*Authoritarian Personalism
*Apneic Beauty
*Crown Undertaker (Anime Only)
*Ninth Prayer (Anime Only)
==References==
vi:Darius Ainsworth
Category:Characters in Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA
Category:Magi
Category:Heads of household
Category:Ainsworths
Category:Card Users
Category:Humans
Category:Giants
Category:Holy Grail War administrators
Category:Introduced in 2012
Category:Residents of Fuyuki City