Kiritsugu Emiya
Kiritsugu Emiya is a male anime and manga character who features in Fate/stay night.
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Biography
Kiritsugu Emiya (Japanese: 衛宮切嗣, Hepburn: Emiya Kiritsugu?) was born to Emiya Noritaka who was a fifth-generation magus who researched the vampiric Dead Apostles on a remote Pacific island. It was this research that eventually leads to Kiritsugu's childhood friend and love interest, Shaley, being transformed into a vampire, an event that coincides with the arrival of representatives from the Roman Catholic Church and the Mage's Association. The island is razed and its inhabitants massacred in an attempt to wipe out any remaining vampires, or any witnesses of their existence. Kiritsugu was confronted by Natalia Kaminski, an Association mercenary seeking to kill the cause of the vampire outbreak, namely Emiya Noritaka. Kiritsugu in turn confronts his father, who displays indifference when faced with the results of his work, particularly Shaley's transformation. Kiritsugu then shoots Noritaka in the back using Natalie's gun.
Natalie goes on to adopt Kiritsugu as her apprentice, and later as her partner during the course of her work. Their final mission, involving Natalie boarding a plane in order to take out a target, leads to the both the crew and passengers being turned into Dead Apostles. In their final conversation over the radio, Kiritsugu tells her that he views her as his mother, and that he was glad how they were never lonely when together. He then shoots down the plane using a surface-to-air missile, rather than allow it and over 300 Dead Apostles to land.
Dedicating his life to becoming a "Hero of Justice", Kiritsugu's primary goal was the protection of human life, without exception. However, he came to realize that such an ideal was impossible to realize; for every individual life that he saved, there would be another that he would fail to protect. Understanding this, Kiritsugu decided that, rather than strive to save every single individual, he would take the approach of sacrificing the few to save the majority.
Over the years, Kiritsugu became famed as an expert "Magus Killer", a ruthless man capable of dispatching even the most powerful Magi. During this time, he rescued a girl named Maiya Hisau, and trained her as an apprentice and partner. His reputation continued to grow, eventually leading to his being hired by the Einzbern family of Magi, to act as their representative during the 4th Holy Grail War. Kiritsugu agrees, his intention being to wish away the ills of the world using the Grail's power. He meets and falls in love with Irisviel von Einzbern, the latest in a line of Einzbern homunculi. The couple marry, and Irisviel gives birth to their daughter, Illyasviel von Einzbern, eight years prior to the 4th Holy Grail War.
Using funds provided by the Einzbern family, Kiritsugu spends years making preparations for the war. He is provided with Avalon, a Noble Phantasm excavated by the Einzberns from Cornwall in England, and uses it to summon Saber as his Servant. However, the pair prove to be incompatible as partners, with Kiritsugu's ruthless and underhanded tactics going against Saber's code of honour and chivalry. As a result, Kiritsugu chooses to have Irisviel act as a proxy Master, and liaison between him and his Servant. He bases his strategy on having Saber engage enemy Servants directly, while he dispatches their Masters from a range. His arsenal during the War includes a Thompson Contender pistol, a Calico 960 submachine gun, and a Walther WA 2000 sniper rifle with an attached AN/PVS-4 night scope with IR heat vision.
During their first battle, Saber is injured by Lancer, while Kiritsugu tries to snipe the latter's Master from a distance. The plan fails due to interference from other Servants. The Servant-Master relationship deteriorates after a bounty is issued for the rogue Caster, with Kiritsugu planning to pit the other Servants against one another and sending Saber to kill the weakened survivors. Saber expresses disgust at the plan, and is further angered by Kiritsugu's refusal to address her directly. Kiritsugu would later defeat Lancer's Master, Lord Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi, but fail to kill him when Saber literally steps aside and allows Lancer to rescue him. This further strains ties between the two. In contrast, Saber forms a close friendship with his wife, Irisviel.
Caster is eventually defeated, thanks largely to Kiritsugu's tactics and foresight. Saber goes on to engage Lancer in a one-on-one fight, only to watch the Servant die when Kiritsugu blackmails Lord El-Melloi into activating a Command Spell, forcing Lancer to commit suicide. An enraged Saber confronts her Master regarding his seemingly despicable methods, questioning his stated purpose for seeking the Grail. Kiritsugu angrily retorts that Saber's ideals are naive, and that her mentality not only results in needless sacrifice of life, but in fact perpetautes an endless cycle of war.
During the climax of the War, Kirei Kotomine kidnaps the Vessel of the Holy Grail, namely Irisviel. The remaining Servants enagage one another, leaving Kiritsugu and Kirei to finally meet in battle. The pair are evenly matched, with neither able to gain the upper hand. When Rider's death triggers the near-complete manifestation of the Holy Grail, it disgorges a torrent of ichor that engulfs the combatants, effectively ending the fight in a stalemate. Kiritsugu is taken into the world bound within the Grail itself, and confronted by Avenger, the Servant that had corrupted the Grail during the 3rd Holy Grail War. Avenger appears in the form of Irisviel, trying to tempt Kiritsugu into using the Grail's power. However, upon realizing the tainted Grail could only grant his wish through widespread death and destruction, a shattered Kiritsugu rejects it, and tries to strangle his "wife". Avenger retaliates by infecting his being with the ichor of pure evil and corruption contained within the Grail. Kiritsugu is then ejected from the Grail, where he recovers before Kirei. Wanting witnesses to disappear from the area, Kirei makes a wish prematurely on the grail, causing a large portion of the city to be destroyed in a vast fire. Kiritsugu then shoots the priest, ending the conflict. He never knows that the priest does survive.
With all other Masters and Servants defeated save Saber and Archer, Kiritsugu effectively ends the 4th Holy Grail War by activating his two remaining Command Spells, forcing Saber to shatter the Holy Grail with Excalibur. Kiritsugu then saves the life of a severely injured Emiya Shirō, only surviving victim of the explosion by implanting the Noble Phantasm Avalon within his body. With the War's end, Kiritsugu discarded his merciless facade and adopted Shirō, raising the boy as penance for his past sins. Due to the curse inflicted upon him by Avenger, his body steadily deteriorated over the years, rendering him unable to rescue his daughter Ilya from the Einzberns.
Emiya Kiritsugu dies several years prior to the time of the 5th Holy Grail War, his mind and heart at ease, confident that Shirō would succeed him as a "Hero of Justice" without suffering his own wretched fate.
Overview
Personality and attributes
As a freelancer, he developed a notorious reputation where he was known as the Magus Killer (魔術師殺し, Majutsushi-goroshi?).
In his youth, Kiritsugu felt a strong need to right wrongs and saw himself as being a hero of justice. . In his youth, he wished to become a Hero of Justice and protect the weak. He is often haunted by Shirley's question about what he wants to become, and how she believed he alone had the power to change the world. His hesitation to kill his first love when she became a Dead Apostle resulted in the death of everyone on the Island. Kiritsugu, realizing that his father was the cause of this and he would continue his Dead Apostle experiment, hardened his resolve and killed his father to prevent more deaths. Kiritsugu then resolved to make meaning and worth from the murder of his father. Only by hunting and assassinating all heretic magi like his father could he truly prevent such tragedies from occurring again. He lost all traces of youthful innocence after having spent his life going through countless battles while trying to obtain a utopia that could never be fulfilled, which caused him to become incredibly self-loathing. After learning of the Grail, he sought to use it to create the utopia from his dream. He feels no emotion from personal victories over his targets, seeing them as nothing more than successful taunts with calculated resolutions. However, the years led to him becoming disillusioned with this ideal and he came to abandon it.
In order to pursue his dream, he attempts to distance himself from his emotions, acting as the "machine that is Emiya Kiritsugu." He has managed to become completely devoted to any duty without showing any emotional wavering, though he is prone to occasionally fall into moments of extreme emotion and despair. When he admits that he is afraid and terrified of Kirei Kotomine, it is partly because of Kirei's bizarre personality, but also because of the fact that he fears that Kirei might be the one and only person who can kill him. When examining the Contender, he begins to wonder if he will remember the touch of his wife and daughter after the Grail War ends and falls into self-derision upon realizing the eight-year-old Ilya weighs less than a rifle. He dislikes such emotions interfering with his work, believing that his interactions with his family have made him more susceptible to sentimentalism in viewing the figures of his own wife and daughter in a passing mother holding her crying child
After joining the Einzbern family, he came to be wed to Irisviel von Einzbern who became pregnant with his daughter Illyasviel von Einzbern. Afterwards, he came to adopt an orphaned boy who became his son named Shirou Emiya.
Powers and abilities
A skilled magus, Kiritsugu was capable of utilizing common spells and enchantments such as Mystic Eyes. Kiritsugu, due to the lack of devoted magecraft training under his father or Natalia, is only average as a magus, and instead specializes as a "Magus Killer." He has a number of specialties that would not make him very notable within the Mage's Association, but instead make him useful for higher-ups when they need an assassin to kill other heretical magi. Compared to someone like Rin Tohsaka, who would have a high numerical value as a magus, Kiritsugu would have a low value as a magus, but a much higher evaluation as a specialist. He was talented in the use of the Emiya family's brand of time-altering magic, specifically the spells Double Accel and Triple Stagnate. The former allows him to accelerate all functions and actions of his body, allowing him to move at superhuman speeds, while the latter slows his bodily functions to the point that his heartbeat is undetectable. Both spells function by isolating and modifying his body's flow of time in contrast to the rest of reality. However, prolonged or frequent usage has detrimental effects on Kiritsugu's body.
Kiritsugu is a very unconventional magus, known as a Spellcaster, that treats magecraft as a mere tool in which he has acquired knowledge rather than the object of his lifelong goals, and he primarily prefers the use of modern technology supplemented with any little magecraft abilities he has to gain an advantage over enemies. Compared to someone like Tokiomi Tohsaka, who refuses to use phones and the like despite their convenience, he freely uses anything at his disposal in order to accomplish his goals. He learned most of his skills from studying Natalia's abilities while also refining his own as her assistant in his pursuit to become a "hunter" that stops other heretical magi like his father. Much of his ability comes from the fact that he can act cold and ruthless to complete his objectives. After having spent time in retirement with his wife and daughter, he believes he has degraded a great deal compared to the Emiya Kiritsugu from nine years before. He is no longer as willing or capable of being as ruthless as he once was due to his interactions with them, which he believes he needs to change. He wishes to restore his cold manner of judgement as fast as possible in order to be able to obtain the Grail.
Kiritsugu's weapon of choice is a custom Thompson Contender pistol, which he uses to fire unique "magic bullets". He originally owned 66 such bullets, each containing ground-up bone from Kiritsugu's own ribs. Upon contact with a mage's body, the bullets send a wave of magical interference through his magical circuit, literally short-circuiting it. This in turn causes the totality of the afflicted's magical energy to flare up and discharge, causing massive nerve damage and burning out his magical circuit. In the rare event that the afflicted survives the ordeal, he is left almost completely paralyzed and unable to use magic. The bullets themselves do not require actual contact with the victim, but may also be fired at extensions of their magical energy, such as their defensive spells. Since the bullets act by sending interference through magic, the only safe way of defending against them is to use physical means with absolutely no use of one's magical powers.
Unlike most magi, Kiritsugu is willing, and at times even prefers, to use non-magical means of combat. As such he has extensive training and experience in the use of modern weaponry, including various pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, explosives, and even surface-to-air missile launchers.
Notes
- Kiritsugu Emiya was done by Rikiya Koyama in Japanese and Kirk Thornton in English.
Alternate Versions
In other media
Television
Video games
Appearances
- Fate/stay night:
- Fate/stay zero:
External Links
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