Manaka Sajyou (沙条 愛歌, Sajyou Manaka?) is the main antagonist of Fate/Prototype and the older sister of Ayaka Sajyou. She acts as the Master of Saber in the First Holy Grail War of Fate/Prototype: Fragments of Blue and Silver, and she acts as the Master of the Beast in the Second Holy Grail War of Fate/Prototype.
Profile
Background
Manaka is the older sister of Ayaka, and while both were raised to be magi, Manaka was the one their father had expectations for rather than Ayaka. She participated in the Holy Grail War eight years before the main story, and was the Master of Saber. They managed to defeat the other six Masters and Servants, allowing them to finally reach the Great Grail. While her father thought he was guiding them towards a bridge to the Root that they had failed to attain for a thousand years and yearned for a thousand years more, she had a different plan for it.
She believed such an outcome was boring, as she had already been connected to the Root since birth, so she instead decided to use it for its real purpose of raising the Beast rather than silly stories about granting wishes. She gathered sacrifices, a number of girls weeping as they fell into the Grail, and even her own father and sister. She tore her father into mincemeat, and while Ayaka could only cry and hide at the sight, Manaka easily found her and prepared to use her as a sacrifice as well. She was killed by Saber before she could do so, and unable to cope with such a betrayal, she died smiling at Saber with an expression that didn't show any pain. He threw her corpse into the Greater Grail afterward.
Appearance
Personality
She is a cheerful girl dead set on her dreams and completely infatuated with her former Servant, Saber, to a disturbing level. While already obsessed with him in the previous war, she has become even more unstably attracted towards him after being killed by him. She bares no hatred for him, instead referring to him as her prince, and comparing her love for him to having her organs fall out.
She can be called innocently monstrous, capable of killing her father and tearing him to pieces, and saying that Ayaka is only capable of being used as a sacrificial ingredient for the Grail simply because she is ordinary, all while smiling like an angel without any sign scorn or ill will. Her interest in obtaining the Grail is entirely for granting Saber's wish in some twisted way by manifesting the Beast. She holds no interest in reaching the Root due to her already established connection, so such a thing would have been boring.
Role
Fate/Prototype: Fragments of Blue and Silver
Manaka forms a contract with Assassin and Caster. During the First Holy Grail War, she dominates the competition by defeating or manipulating the other Masters.
During the later half of the war, she starts gathering young girls to throw into the Greater Grail.
After hearing that Saber met with Ayaka, she gets jealous and decides to make her a sacrifice too.
Fate/Prototype
After the defeat of Sancraid Phahn, he reveals to Ayaka that he was not one of the ranked Masters, instead taking the role of the Void extra Master, and poses the question "who is the First?" There can only be seven Masters participating in the war, so if there was to be another, it would have to be a survivor from the previous war.
After Saber uses Excalibur Proto on Archer, Manaka begins to dance innocently like a child in the underground Great Grail in front of the currently incarnating Beast and the six Servants from the previous Holy Grail War. She begins to obsess over Saber, repeatedly calling out his name, and saying she wishes to see him soon. She claims that the Beast was born in order to make his wish come true.
Fate/Labyrinth
Manaka has possessed the body of Norma in the Seventh Labyrinth of Caubac Alcatraz. She had summoned a female King Arthur in the Subcategory of the Holy Grail.
Other appearances
In Type-Moon's April Fools' Day 2015, she part of the Imperial Roma talent agency and she is known as the Idol Princess (アイドル王女, Aidoru Ōjo?). Her Tmitter user account is @tmtt15_manaka.
Abilities
Manaka is a superhuman magus who is proficient in every magecraft in the entire world, with talent that surpasses even the magi from the Age of the Gods. Caster implies that she is more powerful than her own Servant, and Saber himself says that she far surpasses regular Servants. Rider sees her as the goddess that would swallow the world, and seeks to eliminate her to save the world. Due to her superiority and Ayaka's mediocre skills, Ayaka developed a complex towards her. While she is lacking in the quantity of her Magic Circuits, their quality is beyond measurement and their composition is an abnormal, never-before-seen precedent. She has been connected to the Root ever since she was born, so she has no interest in the supposed purpose of the Grail. Its actual form is a three dimensional magic circle and natural furnace located below the city.
Manaka's current existence, after having been thrown into the Grail, is some sort of anomaly. While she died eight years ago, she became something of a half-zombie due to the power of the Holy Grail. While she is older than Ayaka, she retains a childlike appearance. The true purpose of the Grail is to act as a cauldron of magic to give shape to the eighth Servant class, Beast. It requires sacrifice beyond the souls of the Servants already killed in order to form, so she used a large number of live girls, forcing them to hurl themselves into the cauldron while still conscious. Its form is the "Beast of 666" from the Bible, as the design of the Grail originates from Christianity. It refers to a beast wearing crowns symbolizing the sins and greed of humanity. It is none other than the beast that comes from the sea, written of in Revelation. The Beast is completely subservient to her, referring to her as "mother." She also manages to bring back the six Servants other than Saber from the previous war, and places them under her control.
She possesses the ability to connect to the Root to interfere with reality much like Shiki Ryougi but is limited by the quantity of her magic circuits. Although she can use her Connection to the Root in order to realize Saber's wish of an eternal Britain, the correcting force of Alaya would easily reverse this. She intends to use Beast as a boost of mana for her abilities, overcoming the limits of her circuit quantity.
Under her Hanafuda skill-set, she possesses three Noble Phantasm skills, Potnia Theron: Monster Princess (怪獣王女, Kaijū Ōjo?), GomorrahWP's Blaze: Burning Holy City (聖都炎上, Seito Enjō?), and SodomWP's Fall: Holy City's Fall (聖都陥落, Seito Kanraku?). It is unknown if she possesses such abilities in the actual story.
Development
Creation and Conception
Takashi Takeuchi was the character designer and Ototsugu Konoe was responsible for the costume design for Manaka Sajyou. Takeuchi describes her clothing design as "super-cute."
Rather than "the girl who became omnipotence," the concept behind her design was "omnipotence who became a girl."
References