Caster (Fate/Crossover - Yukari Yakumo)

**Caster** (キャスター, *Kyasutā*) is the servant of Yukika Saegusa in the ??? Holy Grail War.

*"Ah, the dull... The dull go through so much trouble, don't they?"* - Yukari Yakumo

## Profile

### Identity

Caster's true identity is **Yukari Yakumo**, a legendary youkai with the power to manipulate boundaries, and one of the youkai sages who created Gensokyo. Often called the "gap youkai," she is a remarkably youkai-like youkai who spends most of her time sleeping and relaxing. However, she is quite brilliant and is aware of most things happening within Gensokyo.

Yukari's origin is unknown, and her name is known to be something that she chose for herself. She is an old friend of Yuyuko Saigyouji, having known her when she was alive, and lead the youkai invasion of the moon over a thousand years ago.

### Appearance

Yukari is a Youkai with the appearance of a young woman with long blonde hair who carries a parasol as well as a paper fan. In Touhou 7, she wears a deep purple short-sleeved dress with white elbow gloves and a pink mob cap and has purple eyes, and rides on a red boundary, and her parasol has pink laces. In Touhou 8, she wears a pink mob cap like in Touhou 7, as well as a pink and purple long-sleeved dress, carries a pink parasol, and has dark golden eyes. Her main palette in Touhou 7.5 and 10.5 has the same appearance as in Touhou 8, except her hair has been coiled up into her white mob cap.

### Personality

Yukari is known for being a very youkai-like youkai who sleeps all day and lives for the enjoyment of life. Though she rarely leaves her house, she's well-connected and is acquainted with most of the most powerful youkai as well as anyone having anything to do with the Great Hakurei Barrier or the outside world, although she rarely attacks humans. She has a tendency to toy with her opponents rather than use her full power from the start. If anyone is suited for the role of "mastermind", it's Yukari. She excels at mathematics and is experienced due to her long life.

She possesses superhuman intellect, and especially surpasses in dealing with numbers. In Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red, as Ran Yakumo said, this intellect is something that even Ran is not able to understand, to the extent that for example that she is able to determine the depths of the darkness of Avici or determine in an instant how long it would take for Ursa Major to devour the North Star, as it seems. Concretely to what extent this amazing intellect goes is hard to know, but it would be no mistake to think that this intellect far surpasses that of humans.

She often has a great deal of insight and understanding about whatever happens in Gensokyo, and possesses considerable intellectual prowess, as well. Though she seems flaky and unreliable most of the time, when the safety or security of Gensokyo is at stake, she won't hesitate to get involved, even if it means using others to do the work for her. For example, in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, she treats Tenshi Hinanawi with much hostility after finding out the plot of the Heavens. She could easily be either a villain or a heroine, depending on her whims.

Yukari deals with problems by manipulating others to act to resolve things for her. She seems to rarely act directly except in particularly egregious situations. In all cases, she rarely lets anyone know what her true aims or goals are, and sometimes these goals are extremely abstract. Yukari has a well-deserved reputation of being fickle, whimsical, and lying often, and thus many characters in Gensokyo dislike her. For whatever reason, Yukari takes it all in stride and does not seriously deny any of those comments. She seems to actively try to keep her more obviously-altruistic actions a secret, such as her donations to the Hakurei Shrine in Strange and Bright Nature Deity. She possibly cultivates this image to ensure that people continue to fear her as a youkai, as this is what her true goal for a particularly complex gambit is revealed to be at the end of Cage in Lunatic Runagate.

### Relationships

#### **Youmu Konpaku**

Being Yuyuko's servant, Yukari helps Youmu with lessons and advice every once in a while, like in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody.

#### **Remilia Scarlet**

Yukari uses Remilia as part of her scheme to extract the residence tax and get revenge on the Lunarians in Silent Sinner in Blue. Patchouli reveals Remilia knew she was manipulated but didn't care, because she was bored. Remilia herself has an unexplained rivalry of sorts with Yukari, wanting to get to the Moon in her own way before Yukari could to surprise her.

This rivalry might be due to the power struggle mentioned in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense's Vampire article, possibly starting with the vampire incident. The rivalry is mostly on Remilia's part, though Remilia has no objections to Yukari staying for the party at the end of Silent Sinner in Blue or assisting her with investigating in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody.

#### **Patchouli Knowledge**

Patchouli first meets Yukari in her scenario in Immaterial and Missing Power. In Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, Yukari places her in charge of watching the underworld in her victory quote to her. Patchouli later informs and urges her to act about the evil spirits coming out of the underground in Subterranean Animism's prologue. Yukari finally agrees to act because she "can't let them all just do whatever they want again". It is unknown (even to Patchouli) which incident Yukari is referring to (there are many possible ones). Patchouli continues to collaborate with Yukari regarding the underground, as she informs Yukari of the Palanquin Ship in a Touhou Hisoutensoku victory quote.

#### **Alice Margatroid**

For whatever reason, Alice Margatroid is willing to confront Yukari in Immaterial and Missing Power despite otherwise avoiding strong youkai such as Remilia Scarlet and Yuyuko Saigyouji. Yukari's also set up Alice's dolls off-page to allow for long-range communications in Subterranean Animism. Her dialogue towards Yukari in Immaterial and Missing Power shows that they knew each other before then. Like most characters, Alice is still suspicious of Yukari by default. Alice is aware of various youkai roles and agreements that Yukari is constantly preaching. Yukari also harshly scolds Alice in Alice's second bad ending in Immaterial and Missing Power, much to everyone else's entertainment.

## Abilities

Yukari is with no doubt one of the most powerful youkai in Gensokyo. A few other youkai like Suika Ibuki and Yuugi Hoshiguma have been considered to be around her level. Yukari also refers to Watatsuki no Toyohime as being stronger than she is, and tries to avoid direct confrontations with her. Despite her power, she might still lose spell card battles to humans or youkai.

Her physical strength is what you'd expect from a youkai. While the extent of an average youkai's strength is never really specified, their bodily ability is typically very high, so her strength is still far from that of a human. There are some examples and statements which show Yukari's physical prowess:

* In *Curiosities of Lotus Asia* Chapter 12, Yukari's hand is able to effortlessly block and brush aside a mallet swung by Rinnosuke Morichika with all his might, leaving him shocked that a small slender feminine hand was able to pull off such a feat. Rinnosuke said that it feels like he hit a pillow.

* Hong Meiling, in one of her *Touhou Hisoutensoku* win quotes, notes that she felt a odd resistance from Yukari's body (presumably after punching and kicking her a lot), to the point where she wondered if Yukari was wearing something else under that presumably delicate dress of hers.

Yukari states in her own win quotes in *Immaterial and Missing Power* that she has no weaknesses, and even shooting, cutting, stabbing, hitting, or killing her is useless.[5] In *Perfect Memento in Strict Sense*, her ability is yet again described as being "without weaknesses", and as one of the most dangerous that youkai are known to possess. Her *Imperishable Night* profile also states that *"she easily has enough power to annihilate all of Gensokyo if she so desires"*, while the manual says that *"the danger and potency of her ability is beyond imagination"*.

By mostly moving around in gaps, one would usually not see her as doing much physical labor at all, and according to *Scarlet Weather Rhapsody*, since she ends up in blurting out herself such sayings like "to do mountain climbing at such an age", there is the image that she is like an indoors-type youkai, but in the end, she is still a youkai.

**Manipulation of Boundaries**

With the word "boundary" in its name, Yukari is capable of pretty much anything put under the influence of this ability.　In her monologue during A Beautiful Flower Blooming Violet Every Sixty Years, she explains that this power allows her to control the boundaries "between any and all things", like Gensokyo and the outside world, the worlds of the living and the dead, humans and youkai, and even the day and the night. The most common application of Yukari's boundary manipulation abilities is opening "gaps" (*sukima*) which act as portals between two places,　where she's able to hold, sit on or emerge from such gaps. By manipulating borders in space and creating a chasm, she is able to link together separate places.

According to this, she's able to show up in unexpected places from time to time, but the aforementioned suspiciousness has been refined. Although this gap is a kind of sub-space, within Yukari's gap, one can see a lot of eyes. These eyes are a manifestation of what one can say is the image of "how desires are swirling around" that Yukari sees in the outside world. The description of Yukari's Magic Eye "Laplace's Demon" spell card implies that Yukari can see using the eyes, as well. Also, although sign posts and other flotsam also drift about, these things also come from Yukari's image of "things that have come to be of no use in the outside world".

Other than that, since there is a boundary on the water surface so to speak, as there is definitely a distinction between water and atmosphere, and since there is the boundary called the horizon that separates the sky from the earth, as was said, she can freely manipulate the boundary of all existent things at will. According to *Perfect Memento in Strict Sense*, it seems that not only are physical boundaries, but also the general idea of boundaries are also able to be manipulated, and it seems like she would be able to manipulate the boundary between dreams and reality and open up holes for people to enter into dreams. Yukari is also capable of seeing (and seeing through) boundaries that are normally invisible; when the Human Village was displaced from history by Keine Kamishirasawa, Yukari was still able to see it.

It's shown that Yukari can also control the boundaries and bend them to her will as seen in *Immaterial and Missing Power* when she adjusted the sky by manipulating the border between the daylight and moonlight to unite the day and the night. According to Marisa Kirisame, Yukari can even control the boundary between "a danmaku for play and a danmaku for battle".

There are limits to the kinds of places Yukari can connect with her gaps; she required multiple trips to reach Heaven in *Scarlet Weather Rhapsody*, while in *Silent Sinner in Blue* she could only create a gap to the Moon under highly specific circumstances (and had to travel much of the distance to the Lunar Capital on foot). She is, however, capable of travelling between Gensokyo and the Outside World. Yukari can create gaps through which only she can pass, or through which anything can pass.

Ultimately, since existence of anything consists of having a boundary, for anything to lose its boundary is a very big thing, as it would then not be able to have its own individual existence. As the rules that govern boundaries would govern this, it is said that to make a new boundary is to create a new existence, and to destroy a boundary is to negate an existence. Hieda no Akyuu evaluated this ability, saying "there is not any sort of defense method nor countermeasure, a power comparable to the power of gods". However, Yukari is capable of sensing and repairing damage to the Great Hakurei Barrier, and is widely believed to have aided in its construction (Yuyuko Saigyouji states that Yukari could not have done so herself). To add to all this, Hieda no Akyuu writes that "manipulation of boundaries" is theoretically a godlike power which would allow Yukari to create or destroy anything, but that all the stories about it are impossible to confirm.

**Onmyoudou**

Yukari is skilled in Onmyoudou, the Taoism-derived arts of traditional Japanese court wizards, and specializes in spells which create and manipulate barriers (presumably due to overlap with her innate abilities). Yukari has been able to teach some of her spells to Reimu Hakurei, whose own techniques have similar roots.

Yukari also displays great aptitude with shikigami, binding a powerful kitsune and numerous lesser servants at once. As Shikigami are strongest when following orders, Yukari must also be skilled at giving the correct orders to fully maximize her shikigamis' potential. In an interview with Aya Shameimaru, Ran Yakumo states that despite sleeping most of the time, Yukari is capable of giving orders no one else would think up the instant she opens her mouth, and Yukari uses complex equations to increase Ran's power indefinitely (This manner of using shikigami is likely one of the reasons Yukari views computers and shikigami as one and the same).

### Skills

#### Class Skills

* Item Construction Fake (A Rank): Instead of being capable of creating items, Yukari has limited capabilities of adding and changing concepts and abilities on an item. Through manipulation of boundaries, she can change a piece of wood into a weapon capable of clashing with the greatest of legends, though the needed energy grows exponentially the greater the desired effect.

* Territory Creation (A+ Rank): Capable of creating a realm that is both connected and disconnected from normal reality when given enough time. Though due to the fact that she does not have the support of other similar high-level creatures, she cannot form something on the scale of Gensokyo unless extraordinary circumstances are given.

* Independent Action (C Rank): Capable of remaining in this world for one day without an established contract. Although certainly independent in her own right, Yukari often used the support of others or threw her responsibilities at these more suitable so she wouldn't have to work herself. Sealed as a Caster.

* Magic Resistance (E Rank): Cannot neutralize Magic, but lowers the effectiveness somewhat. Sealed as a Caster.

#### Personal Skills

* Nature of Phantasm (A Rank): A rare skill based around possessing an extremely strong affinity with the conceptual nature of all things and the way they can change on mix. Due to the extremely high affinity and the ability to see boundaries Yukari possesses, she is entirely immune to illusions and techniques that distort the awareness of others. This is not the ability to see through them, but more of an immunity to the level where she isn't even aware of them and cannot notice their existence.

* Protection from Arrows (C Rank): The ability to dodge projectiles refined through years or through inherent capabilities. At this rank, one can dodge attack so long as they are visible to the user and there is a visible chance to dodge. This skill gets a rank-up when the opponent uses non-lethal attacks and attacks based upon Patterns that still leave an opening, aka Danmaku.

* Deep Sleeper (B Rank): A skill inherent to these that either sleep for long time due to their nature or due to a sickness or magical affliction. At this rank, one can fall asleep and not wake up for seasons, years or even decades if there is no one to wake the target. While it is unlikely, it is possible for the possessor to fall asleep during combat or a conversation when he gets bored.

* Onmyoudou (A Rank): Knowledge and capability to use the techniques of an Onmyoji, a japanese style magician often specialized in sealing, binding, divination and the use of Shikigami type familiars. Although very skilled in the use of Shikigami and barrier creation, (the latter due to her inherent capabilities.) she is otherwise somewhat limited.

### Noble Phantasm

#### **Shikigami under the Phantasm; "Allies and Tools"**

The ability to summon a number of Shikigamis that were under the control of the one named Yukari Yakumo. This includes the one called Ran Yakumo, Ren Yakumo and a group of crow yokai under her control. Their existence count as something between a Servant and a familiar, not even having stats of E-Rank, though still being superior to humans. Due to the fact that a Shikigami is most powerful when following orders, they are much weaker when acting independent, but can become exceedingly dangerous when following an exact command.

#### **Dream Between Reality and Phantasm; "Boundary Gaps Everywhere"**

An impossible ability that is inherent to the existence known as Yukari Yakumo. She is capable of manipulating the boundaries between anything she desires. One of her favorites is the creation of gaps or holes from one place to the other, sometimes playing around with people and coming and going as she pleases. Yet, she can also manipulate more esoteric concepts like the boundary between daylight and nightlight, life and death and many others. Yet, there are Limits to her ability as she was incapable of reaching certain points normally and seems incapable of full-out reality warping. For example, it was stated that she couldn't create something like Gensokyo herself. In addition, due to the laws of magic that the Nasuverse follows, she needs to expend great amounts of prana for big or permanent conceptual changes and thus a big energy source.

#### **Runaway Train; "Secret of the Ghost Train"**

A minor Anti-Army Noble Phantasm that calls forth a runaway train through one of Caster's famous gaps. Somehow it manages to produce more train tracks for itself and will continue to move forward until an outside force halts it. It's mystery is relatively weak, but it is still a dangerous weapon worthy of some consideration. Yukari can at any point call the train up or send it back into her gap. Should it be damaged or destroyed, it will repair inside the gaps given enough time, up to a maximum of 48 hours during complete destruction.

### Gallery

#### Fate/???

1st Ascension2nd Ascension3rd AscensionFinal Ascension
## References

https://touhou.fandom.com/wiki/Yukari\_Yakumo

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Yukari\_Yakumo

https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Yukari\_Yakumo

https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Yukari\_Yakumo

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/summon-a-servant-mk4-fate-stay-night-crossovers.208968/page-83

https://aminoapps.com/c/fatenasuverse/page/item/yukari-yakumo/6za2\_eoHYI664qgEnvndj6LvD2bvlzBgBL

https://www.deviantart.com/stoneificaunt/art/Fate-Grand-order-card-Yukari-Yakumo-853180078

https://all-worlds-alliance.fandom.com/wiki/Yukari\_Yakumo

https://i.redd.it/ryyrgu67my031.png