Don't be fooled by the cute face. While Sakura may seem like a typical kouhai (younger classmate) character throughout most of the routes of the original Fate/Stay Night visual novel, further investigation into her backstory, Heaven's Feel, and Type-Moon as a whole, reveals several secrets about the seemingly shy girl. Secrets that people often miss at first glance.
Some of these secrets inspire humor, others inspire happiness and several inspire rage about the varied past, present, and alternative futures concerning Shirou's kinda, sorta, housemate. So, with that in mind, let's take a look at 10 things you never knew about Fate/Stay Night's third heroine, Sakura.
10 Zouken Wasn't The Only One To Harm Her
Nope, it was a family business. Not only did Zouken physically and mentally harass her throughout the poor girl's life, but the rest of her adopted family also joined in on making Sakura's life miserable. As everyone knows, Shinji was a part of the abuse. The young man treating her no better than Zouken did. Though, another member of the Matou family also joined in.
Byakuya Matou is the father of Shinji and just as much of a loser as his son is. The drunken magus was responsible for continuing Sakura's horrific "training" whenever Zouken did not.
9 Legitimately Cares For Shinji
Despite the abuse she suffered through thanks to Shinji, she still legitimately cares about her adopted brother. Part sisterly affection and part pity, despite everything she never truly came to hate her brother in most of the routes of Fate/Stay Night.
She even takes care of him in several adaptations of the story. After Shinji forcefully becomes a vessel for the Holy Grail in the Unlimited Blade Works route, Sakura takes care of him during his recovery. The same thing happens in the manga, where he once again gets hurt, and Sakura takes care of him in the hospital.
8 She Suffers Less In The Manga
While it may seem sorta like splitting hairs when comparing one amount of abuse to another, the version of Sakura in the Fate/Stay Night manga does have it better than her original. First off, Zouken doesn't exist in the manga and that's worth a lot by itself. Instead, Byakuya takes his place and, while both of them are still terrible, Byakuya is miles ahead of his father.
Shinji, on the same note, is much better to her in the manga. While he still does bully her early on, he never takes it as far as inflicting intense abuse on his little sister. Furthermore, after he loses in the Grail War, Shinji and Sakura manage to patch things up and become more like actual brothers and sisters.
7 Crest Worms Stimulates Her Desire
There is a reason the Heaven's Feel movies are the only adaptations that kept the intimacy scene from the original visual novel. That is because intimacy is the unfortunate aftereffect of Sakura's exposure to the crest worms.
The crest worms feed on magical energy to the point where Sakura cannot typically cast magic. The amount of magic those little parasites can suck up is immense and the poor girl just cannot create enough to sate them. So they have to find it from somewhere else. So whenever they find her magic lacking, they stimulate her "intimacy desire" so that she can go out and find a partner.
6 Originally Based Off Of Fujino Asagami
For those that know Type-Moon's past work, they might recognize Fujino Asagami from Kara no Kyoukai. The premiere work from the company that would eventually become the Type-Moon that we know of today. Fujino Asagami, the matter bending antagonist of one of its novels, an inspiration for Sakura down the line.
Just like Sakura, she seems to be a shy girl but has several dark secrets that may go unnoticed at first glance. First, she has a history of abuse in the same three same ways Sakura suffered, physically, mentally, and intimately. Second, she has a hidden ability that can wreck all those in front of her. Her Mystic Eyes of Distortion can warp and twist matter causing gruesome dismemberment and death to anyone caught in her sights.
5 Things Turn Around For Her In Fate/Hollow Ataraxia
Fate/Hollow Ataraxia is the sorta sequel to Fate/Stay Night. Taking place in a universe where all the routes happened, all the heroines love Shirou (and then some!), and everybody is alive somehow. It straddles the line between lighthearted follow-up and an actual serious sequel to the story.
Fate/Hollow Ataraxia has Sakura living a peaceful life in Fuyuki City. While her sister Rin is gone, she has been tasked with taking care of the city with her newly conquered dark powers. Her control is so powerful, in fact, that it absolutely terrifies Shinji and Zouken enough to have her basically run the Matou household. Quite the step up from being their punching bag.
4 Used To Be Just As Talented As Rin
At the onset of the story, Sakura may not seem like much of a magus when compared to Rin. The girl (when not transformed into Dark Sakura) is often compared to Shirou in the magic department but without the physical ability to supplement her lack of magical skill. But once upon a time, she was just as talented as Rin.
Before being adopted into the Matou family and being constantly tortured to become a vessel for Zouken as a result, she was born with the unique ability of the Imaginary Element of Imaginary Numbers. An ability that is most like void magic or the Fate specific term for it, Imaginary Number Space. If I were to translate that into plain English, it lets her use the powers of another dimension to easily affect spirts and even humans at high enough levels. Combine that with the fact that she had the same magical energy level as Rin, and you have what could have been a first-class mage.
3 Looked More Like Rin As A Child
It may make you wonder how a father with black-brown hair and blue eyes and a mother with green hair and eyes made a daughter with violet hair and violet eyes, and that is because they didn't. There were no Punnett Square shenanigans here, Sakura was originally born looking just like her older sister.
Originally born with black-brown hair and teal eyes, Sakura was the spitting image of a Tohsaka family member. It wasn't until her adoption into the Matou family and her subsequent exposure to Zouken's crest worms that her hair and eyes turned into a shade of purple.
2 Behind Saber, She Ties With Tamamo No Mae In Having The Most Servant Copies
Sakura has proved to be quite the popular heroine among the Fate/Stay fanbase. And if you doubt it, then I'll kindly take you towards all the copies she has in the Fateverse. An exact amount she shares with Tamamo No Mae, best girl another popular character.
Starting from the top, she has BB the whimsical, mischievous, and sometimes evil virus of the Moon Cell. Then there are her Sakura Five. Five different aspects of BB, three of which only appear in the Foxtail manga of Fate/Extra CCC, Passionlip, Meltlilith, Kazuradrop, Violet and Kingprotea. Lastly, she is also bonded with the goddess Parvati and the god Kama in Fate/Grand Order.
Artwork by シソ‖新刊委託中.
1 She Is A Professional Wrestler In Fate/Apocrypha
Of all of the things that Fate/Apocrypha introduce into the Fateverse, this has the be one of the wackiest. Sweet, demure, and physically unfit Sakura somehow turned into a professional wrestler in this world. Sakura teaming up with Rin's frenemy, Luvia as tag team partners. The Butterfly Effect is a hell of a drug.
If it's shame that there isn't a picture of this. But if it is anything like the Type-Moon's Wrestling April Fool's event above, then she probably looks just as wacky as the rest of the heroines. Especially if she is teaming up with Luvia, who has a hobby of wrestling by default in whatever universe she manages to shows up.