Sakura Matou

Sakura Matou is one of the three main heroines of the visual novel and anime series Fate/stay night. Specifically, she is a minor character in the Fate route and Unlimited Blade Works and the main heroine of Heaven's Feel. She is the adopted younger sister of Shinji Matou and biological younger sister of Rin Tohsaka. Sakura has a long standing and obvious crush on Shirou Emiya, who sees her as family. After Shirou's father died, Sakura would often visit Shirou's home to help him with his daily chores. She is the true master of Rider during the Fifth Holy Grail War, but due to her refusal to fight Shirou, her servant was given to her brother Shinji instead.
She is voiced by Noriko Shitaya in the Japanese version of the anime and Sherry Lynn in the English version, the former of whom also voices Rydia and Kyoko. In the English version of the Unlimited Blade Works anime and Heaven's Feel movies, she is voiced by Christina Valenzuela.
==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 very "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.
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, soft-spoken and eager to please, she possesses a great inner strength. As noted by Shirou, she can also be openly stubborn at times. However, she is prone to feeling resentment towards others. When she awakens as Dark Sakura under the influence of Angra Mainyu, her personality changes drastically; she becomes a devilish, evil, and cruel person.
Despite the cruelty she endures living with the Matou family, she is given brief reprieve from Kariya, her adoptive uncle and the only person who genuinely loved her. When he dies in the fourth Holy Grail War, Sakura mistakes Kariya's last attempt to free her from the Matou house as a warning from Zouken as the fate of those who disobey him. The incident cements Sakura's despair and resignation towards her own suffering. However, her own resolve is strengthened after she falls in love with Shirou Emiya and becomes closer to him by helping him with domestic tasks to express how she cares about him. During Fate/stay-night, she begins to feel isolated when she believes that Shirou is beyond her reach. This shows that due to these experiences, Sakura is a troubled person. 
== Background ==
Sakura is Shirou's timid underclassman and the third and final heroine of the story. She has been friends with him since the previous summer when he was injured in an accident and she began visiting him with the excuse of taking care of him while he couldn't care for himself. Even after he recovered, she continued to visit him and attempts to do all the chores at his house due to her massive crush on him, which he attempts to ignore. Despite coming from the Matou family, Shinji claims she has been kept in the dark regarding magic as in a traditional magus household only the successor will be taught any magecraft. Though she is respectful of her brother and defends his misconduct, he is in turn an abusive ass towards her. Further, despite her upbeat attitude with Shirou, she is actually nearly silent and much gloomier when away from the Emiya household or Taiga and has no real friends apart from those two.
In Heaven's Feel, Sakura becomes the love interest of the story and secrets about her life and the Matou family are slowly revealed. 
==Roles==
===Fate/Zero===
In Fate/Zero, Sakura is adopted into the Matou family one year before the Fourth Holy Grail War begins. Sakura is described as soft-spoken and often in the shadow of her more energetic sister, and her adoption has deeply affected both Aoi and Rin, who both try not to express their unhappiness openly. Kariya arrives in Fuyuki City three days after her adoption, which he learns from Aoi. Having been a childhood friend of Aoi, he had become well-acquainted with Sakura and her sister, who were both fond of his company.
After confronting Zouken, Kariya makes a deal with Zouken to win the Holy Grail in exchange for Sakura's freedom to return to the Tohsaka family. Kariya was the only member of the Matou family to love Sakura, who became resigned and emotionally withdrawn from the torture she endures from training under Zouken and Kariya's older brother, Byakuya.
Unfortunately, Kariya is defeated during the Fourth Grail War and failed to obtain the Grail. With the last of his strength, Kariya returned to the Matou mansion to take Sakura back to Aoi and Rin, but he died in the process. Sakura, who was standing in front of Kariya, interpreted Kariya's actions as a warning to those who defy Zouken and she was left with the Matou family.
At some point after the war, Zouken managed to collect fragments of the destroyed Grail and implanted them into Sakura's body, transforming her into an incomplete lesser Grail.
===Fate/stay night===
====Fate====
Sakura only plays a minor supporting role and she only appears as Shirou's friend. She visits Shirou every day and is a rival with Rin for his affection.
In the anime adaption, her role is expanded slightly beyond her appearances in the Fate scenario. After the defeat of Berserker, Sakura is captured by Caster to use as a sacrifice in order to summon the Holy Grail and is held at Mount Enzo, Caster's stronghold. Shirou, Rin, and Saber attempt to rescue Sakura and to stop the Holy Grail from being summoned, during which Shirou and Saber are forced to fight against Souichirou Kuzuki and Assassin respectively. Rin confronts Caster, who manipulates Sakura to fight against Rin. During the fight, Sakura is revealed to be Rin's sister and that she actually comes from the Tohsaka family. In order to save her sister, Rin allows Sakura to stab her so Rin will be able to sever Sakura's magic circuit and prevent Caster's plans from being completed. Following Caster's defeat, Sakura recovers at Shirou's house and ultimately survives the Fifth Holy Grail War.
====Unlimited Blade Works====
In Unlimited Blade Works, she also plays only a supportive role.
====Heaven's Feel====
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. As Rin and Shirou became closer, Sakura began to feel contempt for her sister, which was intensified by her belief that Rin was the cause of all her suffering.
Zouken, disgusted at the ineptitude of Shinji as a Master, begins a genocide against the other Servants with help from True Assassin and Sakura morphed into a premature form of Angra Mainyu, referred to as "the shadow". Berserker, Lancer, Saber, and Archer are all absorbed or terminated 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. She is forced to quickly convert him to mana in haste because she was afraid he might tear her up from the inside if she does not digest him.
Meanwhile, Shirou, who wasn't attracted to Sakura and only saw her as a friend and Shinji's sister, realizes that something is wrong and that Sakura is suffering. Shirou decides to protect her, but he is unsure of his feelings for her. Because of it, Shirou is devastated when he founds out that Sakura is one of the participants in the Grail War. He starts doubting about his ideals because he still wants to save everyone, but realizes that if he does so, Sakura might die. Finally, after a talk with Illya and later Archer, Shirou abandons his ideals in order to protect Sakura. With this new ideal in mind, he finds Sakura crying at the park, and believing that she cannot be saved. Shirou consoles her by telling her that he will always protect her and he will fight for her. However Sakura continues having her strange dreams. Recognizing the devastation she has wrought, Sakura seeks out her grandfather to force him into ending her life in order to protect Shirou.
However, 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 murders Shinji and gives up to her internal malice. She then realizes that she is the shadow that appeared in her dreams and 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 stops the supervisor's artificial black heart, giving him only a few hours to live. She also executes the 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.
If Shirou does trace Excalibur and destroys the Grail, but his life extinguishes soon after, results in Sakura's Normal Ending. Sakura, refusing to accept Shirou's death, continues to live in the Emiya house, forever waiting for Shirou until she later dies of old age.
If Ilya intervenes, closes the gate, and performs the Heaven's Feel on Shirou to keep him alive and close the Grail for once and for all, it results in Sakura's True Ending. 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/stay night (manga)====
In the manga version of Fate/stay night (which follows the Fate and Unlimited Blade Works scenarios), Sakura is a supporting character. She is trained by Byakuya Matou rather than Zouken (who does not appear in the manga); while Shinji does not rape her, he is still abusive towards her. However, she shows concern for both Shirou and Shinji, wishing for the three of them to be good friends like they used to be before the Grail War. She quietly watches the fight between Saber and Rider from afar and after Shinji is defeated by Saber and Shirou and falls from a building, Sakura uses her last Command Spell to make Rider save his life, revealing to Shinji that she is the Master of Rider. After this, Shinji feels guilty after all he has done to her and apologizes. She is currently taking care of Shinji at the hospital and has not appeared since.
===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.
Shinji reveals to Shirou that Sakura assumed control of the Matou household, and both he and Zouken are terrified of her. 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.
===Carnival Phantasm===
Sakura makes small appearances in the first episodes, but she is the protagonist of Episode 6, called Type-Moon Serial TV Novel Sakura, which is a soap opera parody in which Rider tries to save Sakura from Shinji's abuse. Sakura silently endures it, because she remembers a time when Shinji was nicer. Every time Rider whacks Shinji with something in order to save Sakura, Sakura only expresses concern for Shinji and is completely oblivious about Rider's doing until she notices later. When Sakura is about to be raped by Shinji, Rider gives Caster's Rule Breaker to Sakura in order to stab Shinji. However, Sakura is disappointed with Rider, because Shinji's spirit was cleansed thanks to the Rule Breaker, and she preferred him when he was a jerk.
In Episode 8, she is seen together with Shinji as they help Zouken enter the Ahnenerbe bathroom. In Episode 12, she is one of Shirou's dates. Somehow, Sakura already knew Shirou's plan to date all the girls, as she follows him around all his other dates, and subtly brings his plan crashing and burning down by appearing when Rin and Illya are questioning him about his whereabouts. She finally appears at the Ahnenerbe party with Rider, smiling while Shinji is eaten by one of Nrvnqsr Chaos' beasts as she reverts to being Dark Sakura.
==Abilities==
Sakura 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 Tokiomi Tohsaka 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, Kariya Matou notes that Sakura is actually best suited to the magecraft of her birth family, the Tohsaka.
On a whim, Zouken can morph 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 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.
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