- This page is about a Fate/stay night route. For other uses, see Fate.
Fate is one of the routes in Fate/stay night.
The main heroine and love interest of this route is Saber. Fate is the first route the player will be able to play through in Fate/stay night, and completing it is required to access other two routes, Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven's Feel.
The route emphasizes plot and world building, and the main theme is "oneself as an ideal".1
Plot
Shirou Emiya is first drawn into the Holy Grail War after he witnesses the Servants Lancer and Archer fighting at his school. Lancer chases Shirou around the school trying to kill him, adhering to a rule of the Holy Grail War which states bystanders must be killed. Lancer corners Shirou in one of the hallways and mortally wounds him with his Gáe Bolg. Rin Tohsaka, Shirou's classmate and Archer's master, feels guilty about involving Shirou and saves his life using her strongest jewel (a memento given to her by her father). Rin leaves before Shirou wakes up. Shirou, amazed he is still alive, returns to his home and is ambushed by Lancer. Shirou tries to defend himself using a magically reinforced poster, but Lancer easily disarms him. Lancer commends him for his efforts, mentioning he might be the seventh Master, and prepares to finish Shirou off. Before Lancer can kill him, Shirou summons Saber (albeit incompletely), who quickly drives Lancer away using her invisible sword. She then attacks Archer and Rin, who are outside the house, and badly wounds Archer. Saber starts to attack Rin, but Shirou, confused by the situation, stops Saber before she kills Rin.
Rin, grateful to Shirou for sparing her life, offers to take Shirou and Saber to the church where he can learn about the Holy Grail War. There, the priest and moderator of the war, Kirei Kotomine, explains to him the role of Masters and Servants in the quest for the Holy Grail, the magical object which is said to grant any wish. Kotomine also reveals the Holy Grail caused the fire that destroyed Shirou's town ten years ago. Shirou agrees to participate in the war as the seventh Master, wanting to prevent another catastrophic disaster.
As they leave the church, a young German Master named Illyasviel von Einzbern assaults them with her Servant, Berserker. Berserker, whose true identity is the Greek hero Heracles, completely overwhelms Saber. He severely wounds her, but as he lets loose the finishing blow, Shirou jumps into its path, shielding Saber and taking the fatal blow. Ilya, confused by this action, calls off Berserker and leaves.
Later, Shirou wakes up fully healed inside his home. He also sees Rin there and learns she aided him again, caring for him as he recovered. Shirou and Rin agree to form an alliance in order to protect themselves from the pair of Ilya and Berserker, an immediate threat to their lives. The reasoning behind this alliance is simple - each of their servants are operating at a sub-optimal capacity; as part of an incomplete summon, Saber cannot use her full power; likewise, Archer is still recovering from the wounds he received while clashing with Saber. During the course of this alliance, they discover a spell has been placed on the school, one that will drain the life force of anyone within its range.
While investigating the spell and gathering information on other Masters and Servants, Shirou discovers that his old friend, Shinji Matou, is the master of the Servant Rider. Shinji's ancestors were sorcerers, and, despite the power of their bloodline having weakened over the ages, Shinji still successfully summoned Rider. Shinji states he has no desire to fight Shirou and instead gives him information that another Servant resides in the Ryuudou Temple.
Although Shirou does not feel it necessary to fight the Servant at Ryuudou Temple, Saber disagrees and disobeys him, rushing out to confront the other Servant. At the front of the temple, she encounters the Servant Assassin, and the two engage in combat. However, as both begin to execute their special attacks, Shirou arrives, preventing them from fighting any further. This conclusion is preferable to Assassin, who mentions that he sensed a third enemy hiding in the nearby bushes and waiting to see Saber's Noble Phantasm, which would reveal not only her identity but also her weaknesses. After Assassin departs Saber collapses from over exhaustion from using too much magical energy, Shirou then carries her all the way back to his house. After she recovers, she and Shirou argue about him fighting instead of her, which ends with her agreeing to train him.
Shirou soon discovers, much to his dismay, that the Master who placed the life-draining spell over the school was Shinji. This revelation is enough to force a confrontation between the two. By this time, Shirou has begun to excel at reinforcement magic and melee fighting, a fact which quickly becomes apparent as Shinji's spells prove useless against his foe. However, as Shirou prepares to deliver the finishing blow, Rider intervenes by kicking Shirou out a nearby window. While falling, Shirou uses a Command Spell to summon Saber, who rescues him. Saber then goes after Rider while Shirou goes after Shinji. After a bit coercing from Shirou, Shinji tells Rider to remove the bounded field on the school afterwards the two escape via Rider's Noble Phantasm. Shirou would later wake up at his house, where he decides to fight with Saber instead of by himself after realizing his own uselessness earlier. Though relunctant to let Shirou do so, Saber agrees to his proposal to have him fight alongside her.
The next day Shirou and Saber search through town for possible locations that Shinji might use to set up a new bounded field. After resting in the park late into evening the pair continue their search, but Saber senses Rider on a nearby skyscraper. She defends Shirou from Rider's attack, then quickly gives chase to her. While Saber and Rider clash up toward roof of the skyscraper Shirou thinking Shinji is there as well goes to the building's rooftop. Meanwhile, Saber continues her fight with Rider, who attacks with her mount, Pegasus, eventually forcing Saber to reveal her own Noble Phantasm, Excalibur to save Shirou. With Excalibur revealed, Saber easily defeats Rider with a single blow, whose defeat causes Shinji's Book of False Attendant to burn away. Though Shirou starts to go after Shinji, he sees Saber collapsed and opts to save her. However, unbeknownst to Shirou at the time after letting him go Shinji gets killed by Berserker at Illya's command. Taking Saber back to his house, Shirou learns from Rin that Saber has reached the limit of magical energy and she will soon disappear, much to his dismay.
After this event, Shirou begins having visions each morning; the first is of Saber in her past role as Artoria, a lonely monarch who devoted herself solely to fighting for her country. The second vision is of himself, being saved by his adoptive father Kiritsugu Emiya, in a fire. Shirou's memories of his father makes him determined to become a hero, someone who can save people just as his father did; thus, he finds that he and Saber have more in common than he thought.
A short time later, Shirou, grieving that he may lose Saber, encounters Ilya in the park and attempts to befriend her. Instead, he is kidnapped and taken to her castle; fortunately for Shirou, Saber, Rin, and Archer quickly come to his rescue. During the rescue, Berserker and Ilya confront them; Archer opts to fight the pair in order to allow the others to escape. Meanwhile, the trio manage to make it to a rundown shack, where (at Rin's urging) Shirou and Saber have sex in order to replenish Saber's low magical energy. In Realta Nua, They perform a ritual that allows Saber take part of Shirou's Magic Circuit in order connect the magical path between him and her. Rejuvenated somewhat, Saber then confronts and attacks Berserker on a more equal footing; despite this, she is not able to inflict much damage upon him. However, while Saber distracts him, Rin attacks Berserker with a surprise attack which decapitates him. Surprisingly, Berserker regenerates. It is then revealed that Berserker's own body is his Noble Phantasm, God Hand, which grants him near-immortality and the capability to rise from death up to 12 times. Unfortunately for Berserker, it is at this time that Shirou's true magic skills awaken, allowing him to trace a copy of Caliburn, Saber's original sword from her past, the use of which ultimately leads to Berserker's demise. With Berserker gone, Ilya is now out of the War; feeling somewhat responsible, Shirou decides to let her stay at his house.
A few days later, Shirou concerned about Saber due to the visions of her past, asks her about her wish. Saber soon reveals that she, on the brink of death, made a contract with the World to gain the Holy Grail, which made her an incomplete Servant caught in an temporal loop of returning to her point of death and being summoned to retrieve any Holy Grail while the contract holds. She then reveals her wish to redo the selection of the king to undo her rule, believing that will save her country from destruction. It is further revealed that she will become a Heroic Spirit that eternally serves the World if her wish is granted, which means the erasure of her current existence. However before any further discussion can be made, the residence is attacked by Caster, which prompts Shirou and Saber go outside to fight her. Caster briefly fights Saber, which soon turns into short conservation about her motives during which Assassin's demise is revealed. But before another fight can even begin, Caster is killed by someone wearing golden armor, who Saber identifies him as Archer from the previous war. Saber soon reveals that she destroyed the Holy Grail in the previous war when forced to by her Master, Kiritsugu. Bothered by the revelations of Saber redoing life, Shirou goes to the church and asks Kirei Kotomine if a way exists to allow Saber a normal life. Kotomine explains though that there is no such way, as she's already considered dead to the timeline. However, he tells Shirou that he can force Saber to drink from the Holy Grail to keep her in the world, though Shirou knows that her retrieval of the grail also means her death. After leaving the church dejected by the information given to him, Shirou realizes he had fallen in love with Saber since he first met her, and vows to protect her and make her happy.
The next day, Shirou decides to take Saber out on a date in order to try to cheer her up. However, the date ends with an intense argument between the two regarding Saber's wish, resulting Shirou in angrily running away after Saber states that she doesn't need him and will finish the war on her own. But, Shirou later returns to Saber, saddened from their fight earlier, to bring her home. However, on their way back the two are confronted by the Archer in golden armor. Saber and Shirou soon find out he is the legendary Gilgamesh, the "King of Heroes". Shirou attempts to fight Gilgamesh but is quickly defeated. Saber then fights Gilgamesh but is critical wounded by his use of Ea, which had overpowered Excalibur. Shirou then gets up fights Gilgamesh again, this time with a projected Caliburn, but is critically wounded by Merodach. However, Shirou regenerates and gets up, whilst confessing his feelings to Saber, to confront Gilgamesh. Then, to both his and Gilgamesh's surprise, he projects Avalon which, with Saber's help, deflects Gilgamesh's attack back at him causing him to retreat. Shirou, having passed out after the fight, later wakes up in his room being cared for by Saber. After recovering a frustrated Shirou again tells Saber that he loves her, even kissing her, but she rejects him to keep to her duty. However, the two end up sleep peacefully together after having sex again at Saber's request to recharge her. In Realta Nua, they simply sleep together peacefully, as requested by Saber, to improve their connection to recharge her.
Shirou goes to Kotomine's church the next day to ask for advice regarding Gilgamesh, only to discover a chamber of decrepit orphans in the basement. He attempts to escape, only to be wounded by Lancer at Kirei's command despite his supposedly "neutral" status as the Judge of the War. Meanwhile, back at the house, Saber learns from Rin that Lancer's contract was stolen by someone else very early in the war; Saber then quickly realizes who Lancer's Master must be. However, she soon senses Shirou is in mortal danger at the church and rushes off to save him. Once there she fights Lancer, as this is happening, Kirei attempts to force Shirou to use the Grail to change his past. However, Shirou remains resolute that the past cannot be changed and that the path he has choosen is not wrong. Disappointed, Kotomine tempts Saber with the Holy Grail in exhange for killing Shirou. Seeing Shirou's resolve though, she rethinks her life, ultimately accepting her past and rejecting the Grail. Kotomine then reveals the full extent of his betrayal: he is the Master of both Lancer and Gilgamesh. He proceeds to reveal the corrupted nature of the Grail, and reveals that it was his wish that caused the fire ten years ago. Kotomine then leaves, ordering Gilgamesh and Lancer to kill Shirou and Saber. However, Lancer instead opts to aid Shirou and Saber in escaping, resulting in his death at Gilgamesh's hands. Outside, Saber reveals to Shirou that her sheath was implanted in him by Kiritsugu to save his life ten years. Happy that she was able to save Shirou's life, Saber admits that her wish to change her past was selfish. Accepting Kiritisugu's actions, Saber wholeheartedly agrees with Shirou's decision to destroy the Holy Grail.
After this event, Kotomine decides to go into active action; he kidnaps illya and severely wounds Rin, initiating a final confrontation. Shirou and Saber return home to discover from Rin, whose condition leaves her unable to fight, that Ilya was kidnapped because she is the vessel of the Grail - the embodiment of its power. Shirou then decides to return Avalon, Saber's final Noble Phantasm, to her. After this the pair proceed to Ryuudo Temple to confront their respective enemies; Saber against Gilgamesh, and Shirou against Kirei. However, their enemies have the upper hand on them; Gilgamesh with the Gate of Babylon and Ea, and Kotomine wielding the Grail's curse. However, Both Shirou and Saber eventually overcome their opponents by using Avalon simultaneously, nullifying their enemies' attacks. The two then proceed to kill their enemies; Saber kills Gilgamesh while Shirou kills Kirei with the Azoth Sword given to him by Rin earlier . With no opposition remaining and Illya now safe, the pair destroy the Holy Grail and its contents, ensuring the evil within it will never be used again.
As a result of using the last Command Seal, Saber vanishes to her original time, but not before returning Shirou's feelings. She returns as Artoria, and accepts her past without the wish to change it. At the end of this route, she weakly smiles and tells Sir Bedivere (who is attending her) "I think I will sleep much longer this time...", then passes away, finally obtaining the peace she long sought. Shirou, meanwhile, decides to live life normally and peacefully with Taiga, Sakura, and Illya, vowing with Rin to keep Saber in their memory.
In the Realta Nua version, an epilogue to this route can be unlocked. Saber goes to Avalon after her death and waits several centuries to see Shirou again. Shirou endures many tribulations in his life and never stops believing that he will find Saber. After he dies, Shirou and Saber are joyously reunited in Avalon.
Bad Endings
- Forest of no return: On Day 3, If Shirou decides not to participate in Holy Grail War, two of his Command Spells are removed by Kirei. Exiting the church, Shirou uses his last Command Spell to abolish his contract with Saber, who leaves to find a new Master. Unfortunately on his way home, Shirou encounters Illya and Berserker, who proceeds to tear him apart.
- Girl rhapsody: On Day 3, If Shirou decides to run from Berserker while he's fighting Saber, he takes Rin to run to a safer populated area under belief he can save Saber if Berserker chases after them. However, while running, Rin is fatally wounded by Berserker; with her final words Rin tells Shirou to go to the church. Running to the church, Shirou is severely wounded by Berserker, and surprised by his survival, Illya decides to torture him in Kiritisugu's place. With his final thoughts, Shirou thinks only about Saber and Rin's safety.
- Missing Ariadne: On Day 6, If Shirou decides to attack the Master at Ryuudo Temple, He and Saber go to the temple. There Saber senses the presence of a servant in the temple, but before they can enter, Shirou goes under the effect of a transference spell. Saber tries to save him, but she is attacked by Rider. Shirou ends being transferred inside the temple grounds, where his left arm is severed by Caster after being fatally wounded by her.
- Melty Blood: On Day 9, If Shirou decides to attack Shinji when Rider is present, he is stabbed in the neck by her. Bleeding profusely, Shirou is then drained of his remaining blood by Rider.
- Rafflesia umbrella: On Day 9, If Shirou decides not to use a Command Spell to summon Saber to save himself after Rider kicked him out the window, He fatally lands on the ground. On the ground, swords begin to burst forth from his body resulting in his death.
- Dress of heaven: On Day 11, If Shirou agrees to be Ilya's servant, he suddenly finds himself unable to use his body. Illya then calls in Sella and Leysritt to help her transfer Shirou's mind to a new container.
- Night without dawn: On Day 11, If Shirou doesn't stop Saber with a Command Spell, she uses a weak Excalibur that fails to kill Berserker. Berserker then kills Saber before she fades away, he then cuts off Shirou's legs as Illya commands. Before his consciousness fades, Shirou notices Rin's corpse, having been crushed by Berserker.
- Walpurgis night: On Day 13, If Shirou lets Saber fight Caster alone, his Command Spell soon disappears. A pained Saber soon enters the house, and a concerned Shirou, despite Rin's warning, goes to her. However, Saber kills Shirou, who dies wondering why she killed him.
- Witch's mark: On Day 13, If Shirou doesn't tell Saber not to attack Caster, she is struck by Rule Breaker. Caster then commands Saber to kill Shirou, whose last vision is of her crying.
- One end: On Day 14, If Shirou doesn't get up when Gilgamesh approaches Saber, he dies of his wound inflicted by Merodach.
- Time limit: On Day 15, If Shirou decides not to go down into the church's basement, he goes home to a upset Saber. She soon proposes that they cooperate with Lancer in order to defeat Gilgamesh. However, Kirie soon arrives at the house, wishing to speak with Shirou. Saber recognizes him as a Master from the previous war and wants Shirou to stay away, but she reluctantly lets the two speak alone. Outside, Shirou notices the Boundary Field has gone off, which Kirei confirms as Lancer's doing, who Saber went to fight. Shirou is then fatally stabbed from behind, as he stares at the mutilated body dropped by Kirei earlier.
- That which cannot be changed: On Day 15, If Shirou fails to get Saber's affection score to a certain level before Day 15, she gives into Kirei's temptations and kills Shirou. Saber quickly becomes horrified by her own actions, Kirie then gives her the Holy Grail, who tells her lamentations make her worthy of receiving it.
- Holy Grail completed: On Day 15, If Shirou doesn't return Avalon to Saber, he is consumed by the contents of the Grail.
| Routes |
|---|
| Fate/stay night |
| Fate • Unlimited Blade Works • Heaven's Feel |
| Tsukihime (2000) |
| Near-Side Arcueid • Ciel Far-Side Akiha • Hisui • Kohaku |
| Tsukihime (2021) |
| A piece of blue glass moon Moon Princess • Rainbow in the Night |