Kirei Kotomine

	Also known asExecutor
	AffiliationThe Holy Church
	ServantGilgamesh, Lancer
	GenderMale
	BirthdayDecember 28
	Height193 cm
	Weight82 kg
	Place of originJapan

Background

Kirei Kotomine was born December 28, 1967 as the son of Risei Kotomine, who was gifted with Kirei on a pilgrimage. Kirei is a word of prayer, so Risei named him such so that he would be pure and beautiful. He grew up according to Risei's expectations, showing morals and good sense from a young age, and was insightful enough to seem precocious to others. He has been actively involved with the Church since his youth, and he often accompanied his father to the holy grounds. He worked diligently as an Executor-in-training from an early age, and he was once chosen as an Executor around the age of ten.

While he understood that he was living up to his father's expectations, he did not love his father. It was unrelated to having to meet expectations, and he grew up healthy. The problem was an intrinsic one, that he did not understand his father's notion of "beauty." He finally realized the inconsistency one morning, and wondered why it took him so long to figure it out. He simply woke up, raised his head, and knew at that moment that, while his father wished for him to be beautiful, he had always questioned why he had never thought the same of which that Risei had thought was beautiful.

Three years before the Fourth Holy Grail War, he discovered the surfacing pattern of his Command Spells. Upon consulting his father, Risei immediately took him to Turin to meet Tokiomi Tohsaka the next morning. Even if he was unable to understand why he was selected, as he lacked any 'sense of purpose', ideal or aspiration, Kirei was instructed by his father to be temporarily transferred from the Holy Church to the Magi's Association and train under the tutelage of Tokiomi Tohsaka. He became acquainted with his family during this time, and he was disliked by Tokiomi's daughter, Rin Tohsaka.

Personality

Unknown to all those around him, Kirei was born defective, possessing a warped mind since birth. He is an evil person, but not a villain. He is deviant, but not inhuman. He is not sane, but neither is he insane. Despite his personal accomplishments, he never felt satisfaction. Despite his best efforts he could not enjoy what other people found happiness in, and instead found himself drawn to negative emotions like the pain of others. He is able to act like a normal person, even bringing pride to his father, but he intrinsically cannot understand others or things they see as "beautiful."

He is very similar to Shirou in that he is a void human being without a clear sense of self, and can be called the opposite extreme of Shirou. If Archer is a light embossing of Shirou's defects, then Kotomine could be said to be the wall exposing those defects by darkness. He also pursued Kiritsugu fervently, believing that Kiritsugu possessed the same hollowness.

Abilities

Kirei's talents qualify him both as an Executor in the service of the Holy Church Executor and a Magus who specializes in healing. His title of "Executor" inherently signifies that he is an elite killer who has successfully completed brutal and pious training to become mankind's weapon. However, his skills as a first class Executor still cannot match the seventh of the Burial Agency under normal conditions. While still capable of displaying superhuman feats of strength and agility by the time of the Fifth Grail War, he has not gotten stronger with age and is substantially weaker than Bazett Fraga McRemitz in terms of pure strength without the assistance of weapons or magecraft. However, if one were to compare Bazett with Kirei at his peak ten years before (the "brightest moment of his life"), he would be the physically superior fighter overall.

His combat ability in at his peak is extremely strong when counting his abnormally large number of Command Spells, utilizing one or two at a time putting his physical ability equal to that of a Dead Apostle, and tenacity towards Kiritsugu, so he could even win against Ciel at that time. The state could also allow him to defeat a Servant under limited conditions. The only ones he could readily defeat would be those who lack physical power like an Assassin after having been revealed or a Caster in close combat. Defeating those that specialize in hand-to-hand combat would require a special condition in his favor like surprise or suitability against the opponent. Kirei is a skilled Executor, who has become a combat expert with over ten years of experiences in killing magi. He has experience hunting many strange magi and has fought countless numbers to the death, so he is used to facing enemies beyond common sense. Even though Rin is stronger, he would counter her talents in battle because of his experience. As he knows her, he would win against her eighty percent of the time due to having knowledge of her past traumatic experiences. He excels at opening up the trauma of the enemy, and as it is not easy for humans to conquer trauma printed into them, having such experiences probed would make her unable to take advantage of her true potential.

He is extremely strong, allowing him to gather all his strength to jump ten meters up and grab a person out of a tree by the head before they can react, all in an instant. Due to his strength, his muscles are trained to the point where they go far beyond what would overpower a normal person in theory. He can easily fall twenty meters while carrying a small girl and land without any issue. He can run fifty kilometers per hour in a forest with uneven terrain while carrying a small girl without reinforcing himself with magecraft, and he does not display any tiredness at all, compared to Shirou being barely able to keep up even when reinforced by Archer's arm to a large degree. He is skilled at free climbing, comparing climbing four stories of a building as easy as walking down the street compared to something like a wall of ice.

Kirei is extremely skilled with Black Keys, thin blades resembling a rapier that are longer than a meter with a short hilt. They are used specifically by Executors as projectile weapons. They boast great power and a high difficulty to master, so Kirei is a strong and rare expert at utilizing them in battle. The blade is a semi-solid formed by magical energy, so it is only necessary to carry the small hilt. He holds a high number of them at one time under his frock, and nobody knows their exact number. It is a sacrament rather than magecraft that is utilized to fight spirits, so it can affect a Servant should one somehow hit them. They lack balance in close combat, making them unwieldy to defend against a smaller weapon like a dagger, so he instead relies on his Bajiquan under such circumstances.

Kirei was born with Magic Circuits despite having a non-magus lineage. Normal lineages rarely acquire Magic Circuits, and such cases of a normal person being born with them are sudden mutations. Kirei is not of this type, but instead his Circuits were a gift from the divine sacrament. They were a reward to his father's years of pious worship, thus Kirei was born with "the right to recreate the miracles in the divine sacrament", with the "right" being the Magic Circuits. Also unlike typical families that pass down Circuits in their genetics, Caren did not inherit them. While he is thought to love destruction, he is a "creator" type of magus like Shirou. His Magic Circuits are noted to have yet to develop properly as of the time of the Fourth War, so he instead makes use of Command Spells. Ever since he first began his tutelage in magecraft under Tokiomi Tohsaka, he has not advanced beyond the degree of beginner, and he cannot reach the "first-rate" level no matter his efforts. During his training with Tokiomi, he studied alchemy, spiritual evocation, summoning, divination, and spiritual healing. The only area where he displayed a natural talent was spiritual healing in which he ultimately became more skilled than even his master after three years. During battle, his most adept skill is physical enhancement to exert greater physical strength. While Rin is considered his student, he is vastly inferior to her. While he is not a genius, just a "normal man", he is able to achieve quick results through complete and total effort, putting in ten to twenty times the effort of other people. He stops short of the last step, throwing all previous labor out like trash.

Role

Kotomine is the biggest enemy in Fate, and the initial concept behind his creation was "the guy you just knew the first time you saw him to be the one pulling all the strings". While he is an antagonist in all three scenarios, he is only the main antagonist in the Fate route. He has a much lesser role in the Unlimited Blade Works route, and acts as both an ally and enemy in the Heaven's Feel route.

He contacts the magus sent from the Mage's Association, Bazett Fraga McRemitz before the start of the Holy Grail War due to having been associated during past missions involving both the Church and Association. He quickly betrays her, fatally wounding her and severing the arm holding her Command Spells. He forms a contract with Lancer afterward, forcing him to become a scout for him to collect intelligence on participants of the war.

Fate
In Fate, he apparently remains out of the plot until nearly the end. Shirou Emiya goes to Kotomine's place again hoping to get advice but he finds out he was the Master of not only Lancer, but Gilgamesh as well. He reveals that he has been keeping Gilgamesh from the previous war. Since then, he's been using orphans from the fire incident to supply Gilgamesh with Mana. He uses the Grail as bait to tempt Saber and Shirou into using it, but they refuse. In the final day of the war, Kirei and Shirou fight in a cataclysmic final battle, just as Kirei and Kiritsugu had done ten years ago. Shirou and Saber (fighting Gilgamesh) use Avalon at the same time and defeat their enemies. Ironically, the knife that kills Kirei is the same Azoth Sword that he gave to Rin and used to murder her father, Tokiomi, many years ago.
Unlimited Blade Works
In Unlimited Blade Works Kirei's ambitions are unchanged, but he also lends his Archer to Shinji Matou so his presence in the general scope of events is pretty much minimal. During the war, he is assumed deceased by the hands of Caster when she raids the church to acquire the Holy Grail vessel and obtain a new hideout, but Rin taunts the witch saying that if she was not able to find the corpse, that means that Kirei is still alive. He reappears at Einzbern Castle alongside Shinji Matou, reveals to a kidnapped Rin that he was the one who murdered her father ten years ago and orders Lancer to rip out her heart and replace it with the Grail vessel. As Lancer just outright disobeys his order, Kotomine uses a Command Spell to order the Servant to kill himself, but as he was proceeding to finish the job, he is killed by a still alive Lancer. His corpse burns away as a dying Lancer proceeds to burn the castle with a Ansuz rune, just after saving Rin.
Heavens Feel
In the Heaven's Feel route, Kirei finds in Sakura Matou the answer to all his desires. The "training" that Zouken Matou did to her in the years between wars turned her into a Lesser Grail, the Black Grail of the Makiri. By exploiting Sakura's innate connection to the dark being sleeping within the Grail since the Third War, Kirei plots to bring about the Holy Grail's completion and the birth of Angra Mainyu through the Third Magic. In the middle of the arc, he significantly contributes to Sakura’s corruption by convincing her sister, Rin, that she's a "bomb with a lit fuse" beyond saving, an act fueling her anger not only towards her estranged sibling but the rest of humanity as well. Kirei further facilitates the transformation of Sakura into a Black Grail by manipulating Shirou Emiya into forsaking his dream to become "a hero of Justice" to become her protector and lover. Ultimately, as a result of Kirei's machinations, Sakura not only devours most of Fuyuki but consumes enough magical energy to enable Angra Mainyu to fully corporealize. Towards the end of the arc, Kirei cooperates with Shirou in a raid against Zouken Matou to rescue Ilya, the White Grail of the Einzberns. They manage to rescue Ilya, but are confronted by both True Assassin and Berserker Alter while tryring to escape. In his ensuing fight with Zouken and True Assassin, Kirei manages to trap the former to a tree before proceeding to exorcise the latter's soul. However, before he can successfully retreat, he encounters Dark Sakura who stops his black heart thereby giving him only a few hours to live. Nevertheless, he manages to escape before she can deliver the final blow. After being greatly weakened by Kirei's exorcism, Zouken loses control over Dark Sakura who then proceeds to go on a rampage. When Shirou eventually frees Sakura from Angra Mainyu's grip, Kirei suddenly resurfaces to stop Shirou from preventing the dark entity's birth. He bitterly recounts to Shirou how his lifelong inability to find salvation and happiness has led him to question why someone like him was born. In pursuit of the answer to his lifelong question, he explains that he has dedicated his entire existence to bringing about Angra Mainyu's birth even if it causes his own death and the world's destruction. By witnessing the behavior and stability of an entity born of all the world's evil, he is convinced that he will gain a deeper understanding of not only himself but the world that saw fit to give him life. While listening to the priest's story, Shirou realizes that he resembles Kirei in that they are both empty human beings in pursuit of happiness. However, while Shirou derives peace of mind by helping others, Kirei can only find peace through others' suffering. Finally, Shirou notices that he likes Kirei Kotomine, and the two proceed to engage in a fateful battle like the one ten years ago. With their bodies half-dead, the only action they are able to perform is hand-to-hand combat. In their ensuing battle, Kirei initially overwhelms Shirou with his fighting prowess and immense physical strength. However, through sheer grit and determination, Shirou manages to resist Kirei's onslaught long enough for the latter's heart to give out before he can deliver a finishing blow. With his last words, Kirei declares Shirou Emiya the victor of the Fifth Holy Grail War and the last Master before collapsing lifelessly to the ground.