June 5th, 2009 
AstroNerdBoy フェイト／ステイナイト Ep 18
Fate/stay night episode 18
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
As the rain falls, Caster thinks back to her own tragic past as well as the rainy day she arrived and collapsed at the foot of Ryudouji. She was found by Kuzuki-sensei, who brought her up the mountain steps into the temple grounds and gave her the choice to stay or go as she liked. She chose to stay and made him her master. Back in the present, Caster mentions to Kuzuki-sensei about the rain and their first encounter. He tells her that he will go along with the plan she has laid out and the set off.
Meanwhile, Saber, Rin, and Shirou arrive at the base of Ryudouji. As they run up the stairs, Rin has a premonition and has them veer off into the woods. At a large stone, Rin uses magic to open a door, which Saber realizes is the entrance to a hidden temple. Inside, they discover that Caster has used her magic to recreate a Greek city and filled it with skeletal warriors. As she prepares Sakura for sacrifice, Rin, Saber and Shirou battle through the underground city until they come to a flight of stairs. Shirou stars up but is stopped by Saber and Assassin reveals himself. He states that he only fights servants and thus all he “sees” is Saber, allowing Rin and Shirou to pass.
Rin and Shirou get to the top of the stairs when Shirou senses something wrong and manages to produce the blades Kanshou and Bakuya just in time as Kuzuki-sensei attacks. Shirou has Rin go ahead to rescue Sakura while he takes care of Kuzuki-sensei. Rin is horrified to see Sakura prepared for sacrifice by Caster and calls Caster out. Caster has no intention of fighting Rin and simply tells Sakura that the one she’s been waiting for is there.
While Saber and Assassin battle as well as Shirou and Kuzuki, Rin has no choice but to take Sakura out despite their friendship going back to childhood. Sakura does not appear to want to fight but cannot help herself and even summons a dagger. While Rin frees Sakura from Caster’s power, Sakura stabbed Rin, leading Caster to chuckle as she merely needed to sacrifice a single mage and it didn’t matter which one it was.
Thoughts/Review:
So, the writers make a small effort to show the tiniest bit of information about Caster’s past (which I read some of online since she comes from Medea). Since I can’t imagine Caster’s flashback sequence being a lie, that suggests that either Ilya was lying or that Ilya didn’t have all the facts when it came to Caster and her original mage master. It seems that Caster was near death when Kuzuki-sensei found her and nursed her back to health somehow. That being the case, I can understand why she then chose him to be her pseudo-master for the war and then set out her own plan to obtain the Holy Grail without any fighting on her part.
Another mere tidbit of information comes from the Rin-Sakura backstory. All I know from this episode is that (1) they knew each other and (2) something bad apparently happened to a young Sakura and Rin feels guilty for abandoning her. I get the ugly feeling that Sakura may have been beaten or raped as a child considering that brief scene showing a shadowed male with an ugly, evil smile inside of a limo. Hopefully we’ll learn more (though I doubt it since the anime can’t waste much time on details) but I’m kind of disappointed that there’d been no indication that Sakura and Rin had been friends before.
I’m not entirely convinced that Rin is going to die here. Why? Well, she is a mage and in theory could heal herself as she did for Shirou when she brought him back from death (or near death). Of course, they could kill her and that would go back to my earlier thought of Shirou getting his wish granted and bringing everyone back in addition to ending the Holy Grail War once and for all.
Shirou gets better at fighting and even produced those blades in a hurry. I suppose once he’d created them and basically perfected them, they are at his beck and call.
I wonder who Lancer’s master is. Who’s the shocking final master? I only mention this because we are rapidly drawing to the end and that means that Caster and Assassin will fall soon, leaving only Lancer. I can think of only one person who might be Lancer’s master of the people introduced, but 
then again, the anime could produce some new and unexpected element (like Ilya had two servants, though I doubt that’s the case).
So another good episode in a good anime series. I really will have to do the visual novel to pick up all of the story elements, but for those who’ve been gracious enough to provide me information, please feel free to continue to do so. ^_^
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I just found out you are blogging this excellent series. Very, very cool! Now you have me wanting to go back and rewatch this, only now with more information than I had before thanks to all those wonderful people leaving those educational comments.
Thanks for everything ANB!
Which part of Caster’s story does it seem Ilya was lying about? I can’t remember what was said and I’d be happy to clear it all up.
Ah, the Rin and Sakura connection. Sometimes people pick up on the truth from the anime, sometimes not.
It’s true, Rin and Sakura were close when they were younger. However, it’s not quite how you think. You’ll notice how Rin seemed to be trying to get Sakura used to the name Matou. You see, Sakura Matou was born as Sakura Tohsaka, the second daughter of Tokiomi and Aoi Tohsaka.
As Shinji pointed out earlier, a Magus family only passes on their knowledge to a designated successor. Tokiomi already had his eldest daughter, Rin, to pass on the Tohsaka crest. Matou, however, was faced with a dying bloodline and a generation without Magic Circuits.
So Tokiomi allowed Zoken Makiri (Matou, as the family came to be known) to adopt his youngest child. If Sakura were to remain a Tohsaka, she would inherit little to nothing. She would forever be doomed to mediocrity without the advantages that her older sister, the successor to Tohsaka, would enjoy. She would be a waste. And there was even a chance that she could be taken advantage of.
However, as the successor to Makiri, Sakura had a future. She could gain the power that her fine bloodline called for. Perhaps, the two once-siblings would even fight and kill each other. As a proud magus, Tokiomi could think of no better path for his children than for them to compete for the secrets of the Root that all magi strive for. Such is the bizarre love of Tokiomi for his children. The man was a true cold-hearted magus through and through.
And the trials that Sakura went through were bizarre and cruel. Her body was made to use the thaumaturgy of Tohsaka, not that of Makiri. So, Zoken set about changing it. With the parasitic crest-worms that Zoken specializes in, he infected her and set about changing her. The worms fed on her mana and magic circuits, eventually becoming something like a magic circuit in the small girl. The worms caused the girl agony as they devoured her nerves and fed off of her. Worse still, she was from then on a slave to the old man. She could do nothing, not even breathe, without his say so. And it seemed to her that her adopted family seemed to feel that her progress was made greater with greater suffering.
To be continued…
Part 2:
Throughout all the agony, she endured. She had a bright shining hope, for she knew she had a sister, and although she couldn’t remember her, Sakura knew that her Nee-san would rescue her, would take her away from the suffering. But the time passed, the agony and fear continued, and no one came.
She became a bitter and spiteful person. She hated her father who had given her away. She hated her adopted grandfather who put her through such hardship. And most of all, she hated her sister, who never came to save her.
And the worms pained her. The effect of the worms is terrible on women it infected. The worms stimulated unnatural sexual desire. It was taken up on her adopted brother to quell the urges the worms drove within her. The humiliation and pain nearly broke her. She wanted to die, but she was far too afraid to take her own life.
It wasn’t until years later that she saw what would change her forever. One lonely evening, she watched as a boy leapt again and again, trying ceaselessly to clear an impossible height in a high-jump. At first she watched him, wanting him to give up. “Give up,” she thought. “It’s impossible.” But he continued, and somehow, her thoughts changed to “Keep going.” If this boy would refuse to surrender, why should she? It was likely that at this moment, she fell in love with that boy.
It was a few years later when she met him again, as her brother introduced her to his friend, Emiya Shirou.
When she got to high school, she once again saw her sister. This girl was so different from her, bright, shining, beautiful and confident. Sakura wanted so much to be noticed by Rin, to be praised by her. Sakura was so envious of Rin, who seemed to have everything and endured no hardship.
They talked a little, just small talk. Never did they mention the past.
About here is where the story you know began. Sakura is bright, she is kind. But beneath everything seethes a mass of resentment and pain that could explode. The embrace of Rin, who could not bring herself to kill her precious sister, was probably is what saved her.
@Anon — you’re welcome. ^_^
@Garik — When I wrote this review, it was roughly a week and a half ago. You actually cleared everything up last episode regarding Caster. ^_^
“Ah, the Rin and Sakura connection. Sometimes people pick up on the truth from the anime, sometimes not. “
You know, I noticed how similar they looked eye-wise in the anime and even grabbed a screen shot of it for the review. However, I didn’t know why. The Shirou-Archer connection was easier for me to pick up but even there, the anime doesn’t specify and within the rules they seemed to establish, it seemed impossible for Shirou and Archer to be the same person until you said otherwise. With Sakura and Rin, I think the anime has not stated that Sakura is only Shinji’s adoptive brother and so I don’t think I would have really thought, “Rin and Sakura must be sisters.”
As always, thanks for the information. ^_^
I was trying to be sly by saying: “No one born into the Matou family in the last thirty years has had any magic circuits.” The last person with any potential at all was Kariya Matou, Shinji’s uncle and just about the only decent Matou around. He was the Matou Master ten years ago. And he did everything in order to return Sakura to her family. But alas, he failed.
Shinji’s bad attitude emerged from all the bitterness he felt from being worthless to his Grandfather. He fancied himself special, the descendant of Magi. But he eventually found out that it was this outsider, this pitiful girl, who was the true heir. He was nothing. He became worse and worse as time went on. When the Grail War began, he convinced Sakura to transfer the Command Seal to him. Zoken had no problem with this. He had waited 200 years. He could wait further. So he allowed Shinji to fail to prove his worth, as the old man knew he would.
You can see with Sakura’s eyes and hair how much of a metamorphosis she endured in order to become her family’s successor. Her entire being needed to be adapted to accept the Makiri magecraft. In essence, she does not need to learn any spells, rather the worm inside her controls her, teaching her physically. It’s really kind of disgusting. Her training is always against her will, even when she wants to learn.
As for the Archer and Shirou connection, it helps to know that the Throne of Heroes, the “database” where the Epic Spirits are stored, is located outside of time. The Epic Spirits can be sent out to any place and any time in history, wherever and whenever they are needed.
One last note on the story where Sakura watched Shirou attempt the impossible high jump: Sakura and Shirou weren’t the only ones there.
As it turns out, a Student Council member from a neighboring school was passing through on an errand and she too saw the boy attempt the jump again and again.
She scoffed at him. She would never do something so dumb. She knew her limits. She would never waste time doing something she knew was impossible; her very nature denied it.
But somehow, the image of that boy always stuck with her, irritating her. And it turned into a fascination. She found herself thinking about him and what an idiot he was. And he sticks with her.
Eventually, she sees him again. She watches him without him being aware of her. He is there when she watches Sakura at the archery range. She finds out more and watches this idiot of a boy who somehow wormed his way into her perfectly ordered life. How he acts to stupidly selflessly. How her sister goes to his house. How kind he is. How he makes Sakura smile.
And one fateful night, she sees his face growing paler as the blood leaks from the spear wound in his chest. And she decides there and then to do something idiotic herself. She sacrifices her trump card, her father’s final gift to her. It is to preserve his smile and the smile it brings to Sakura. And it is to preserve her own heart and the confusing feelings he brings to her.
This is how Rin first laid eyes upon the one who would become both her first student and her Servant.
The great master of Tohsaka, the Wizard Marshall Kishua Zelretch Schweinorg, is the Master of the Second Magic, Kaleidoscope. He travels across the infinite parallel worlds. So, Rin knows that there are infinite possibilities out there. But she cannot imagine one without him in her life somehow, whether as student, confidant, family, or even lover.
God, I’m so into this I make myself sick. ^_^
Yes, Garik is one of those who have educated me so much on FSN. Thank you for all of this wonderful information!