Tear Jerker / Fate/stay night

Moments pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.

Tearjerking moments in Fate/stay night.

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Prologue

• Though it requires playing through the second and third routes for the full impact, Rin discovering the dying Shirou definitely counts. In addition to her own crush on him, Rin is aware that Shirou is one of the few things that seems to make her sister genuinely happy. She openly wonders how she could hope to even look Sakura in the eye or comfort her given the role she played in his death by not making sure the school was deserted. What happens next though belongs on another page for this same reason.

Fate

• The only ending (and a truly Bittersweet one) for the Fate route is "Continuation of the Dream." Having won the battle, Saber asks Shirou to let her fulfill her duty one final time, and he uses the last Command Spell to order Saber to destroy the Holy Grail. The last scene you see is the final moments of Saber, ending her life as King Arthur. She speaks to Bedivere one last time, talking about how she had a "pleasant dream" — the first in a long time — and asks him if it's possible to continue your dream where you last left it when you woke up. Bedivere, sadly aware that his lord is having a Dying Dream, comfortingly tells her that yes, you can. When she finally passes away, just to drive the knife in, her last faltering words are telling Bedivere that her slumber may be a long time. Bedivere's parting words to her are "Do you see it, King Arthur? The continuation of the dream?" Cue profound crying.
  • Four simple words: "Shirou...I love you."
  • The anime adaptation of that scene isn't much better, either, since now you have very sad music playing in the background. Damn you La Sola, damn you!
    • The combination of Shirou telling Saber to fulfill her duty even though it's painful for him, her confession of love shortly before she disappears, and the music are all gut-wrenching. The Distant Finale in the Updated Re-release does soften the ache, but it's still a Bittersweet Ending, since Shirou and Saber were separated for decades upon centuries before being reunited; as well as the fact they're both, well, dead.
• Shirou and Saber's confrontation after their date in Fate. There's something heartbreaking about Shirou's first real admission that he's in love with Saber, mixed with his hopeless realization that he can't save her from her own self-destructive path.
  • After the two fight, Shirou runs away, leaving Saber at the bridge. After going home, when Rin asks him of Saber's absence later that night, he immediately goes back and finds her...still at the same spot. When he asks why, she reveals after Shirou yelled at her to just "do what she wanted," she was paralyzed by indecision the whole time he was gone.
    Saber:...I was still here because I did not yet know where to go. You told me to do as I wished. So I tried to do so. But I could not think what I should do or where I want to go. So I was thinking all this time about where I should be going.
• The very first thing told after you finish the prologue and start this route? A flashback of Shirou's in a dream, to the great fire 10 years prior in which he says that he knew he would not be saved even as a child and that his body might have survived by a miracle but everything else about him burnt away and died there as if you take parents and home from a child there is nothing left. Small wonder he idolized Kiritsugu and wanted to be like him... Not that any other flashback or mention of that fire is any better, almost all of them showcasing a severe survivor's guilt and go a long way to explain why he has a hero complex.
• Maybe it's just because of the music, but the dream-flashbacks Shirou is having about Saber's past in the Fate route, about how she was all alone and had to kill her emotions to move on, are devastating...
• The reason why Shirou is part of the going-home club (aka, is not in any clubs), despite everyone agreeing he was hands down the best archer in the team? ^note There is a story in UBW that he only ever missed once, and when another club member, astonished, pointed that out, Shirou said, "I missed, because I was supposed to miss", meaning he aimed slightly off. He was working at his part-time job when the crate of a shipment fell on his right shoulder and broke it. The fracture wasn't too serious and it healed, but as the shipment was hazardous, the accident left Shirou with a big burn scar. Matou Shinji was kind enough to point out that as kyuudo is very traditional, the boys have to uncover their right shoulders even during club practice and especially in competitions, and they can't have someone showing a bad burn. Shirou quit then and there.

Unlimited Blade Works

• While Gilgamesh is taking a level in badass when killing Berserker about 13 times in the UBW route, he also destroys Ilyasviel's eyes and rips her heart out of her body, thus making an incredibly sad play on Kick the Dog.
• The Fate route had already established Ilya as a homicidal, sociopathic Creepy Child and her Servant Berserker as a Nigh-Invulnerable embodiment of madness and destruction... And then we come across Berserker desperately pressing forward into Gilgamesh's endless hail of swords in an attempt to shield his master. After a flashback revealing their bond in Ilya's backstory, a now blinded, frightened, and dying Ilya slowly crawls across the floor, calling out for her Servant for comfort; to fulfill his master's wish, Berserker defies reality and forces his body to physically remain through sheer willpower, when even his mind ought to have disappeared. Upon feeling the touch of (dead) Berserker's stone foot, Ilya is reassured that he will protect her and loses consciousness hoping that he will pet her head when she wakes up. A moment later, Berserker's body begins to crumble to dust, and Gilgamesh rips out Ilya's heart.
  • The real tearjerker is the scenes we are rewarded with afterwards. Shirou desperately tries to be the big damned hero, running towards Ilyasviel and the flashback of Ilyasviel's past 'training' with Berkserker, which is spartan training at it's finest. You finally gain some affinity with the emotion driven huggable giant.
• Similarly, in the anime adaptation, Servant Caster tries to protect her master from Archer's hail of swords and is fatally wounded in the process. In the calm that follows, Caster desperately checks to see if he is okay. He says he is fine and promises that if she tells him her wish, he will fulfill it in her stead. But she just shakes her head and with a hand to his face says that her wish has just been fulfilled, vanishing with a smile. After another moment, he falls down dead from the fatal wounds he had sustained but kept hidden...
  • In the game, where it was Archer's swords, Kuzuki does survive Archer's attack but then insists on attacking Archer without the assistance of Caster's magic and Archer ruthlessly cuts him down. Not quite the same effect.
  • The manga redition of this scene is arguably worse: rather than Caster protecting Kuzuki, it's the other way around as Kuzuki takes Archer's arrow and collapses, to Caster's shock and horror. As Caster starts crying, we get a whole look at Kuzuki's backstory before he dies, and we cut back to him telling her to keep fighting for her wish - Caster insists that her wish was to live a second life with Soichiro by her side, and breaks down completely when he breaths his last. When Archer cuts the sobbing Caster down, it feels more like Shoot the Dog than Karmic Death.
• When Archer is fighting Shirou, his past self, and screaming at the top of his lungs that his entire life was a meaningless waste. As he tries to effectively kill himself, he comes to the conclusion that while his original ideals are beautiful, they can never happen, and the only salvation from the horrors of human atrocities is his own death.
• Archer's goodbye to Rin and his last smile. He talks and smiles just like Shirou, for the first and last time in all three routes...
• Archer is a walking tearjerker. He worked tirelessly towards his ideal of trying to save everybody he could see. He realizes the limits of his powers and begins to fall into his foster father, Kiritsugu's mentality, which is sacrifice the few to save the many. But he still continues to work endlessly to try to make as many people happy as possible. But the people around him become suspicious of him, since he never asks for any rewards, and since he never talks, they start to think he's "ruthless" as well. But the real reason that he never talked or wanted any rewards was because he never had anything to talk about, and his reward was the sole action of saving people. And thus, he keeps getting betrayed by the people he saves, but he continues pursuing his ideal, because he believes that as long he doesn't betray himself, there will be another oppurtunity. He eventually even makes a contract with the World giving his entire afterlife as a guardian to save a few hundred people. He eventually gets killed by one of the people he saved, but even as he is excuted, he's glad that he might still be able to save people after he died as a guardian. But after becoming a guardian, he discovers the truth, in that a guardian's sole duty is to kill people who threaten humanity as a whole, and he is essentially betrayed by his own ideal, causing him to become a cynical and bitter individual, whose only goal is to erase himself from existence by killing his past self.
• Addendum to the above: He exchanged his freedom for power to save the people right then, right there. He thought he could continue doing what he had always been doing, but with more power. However, the role of a Guardian is to clean up the mess after it's already too far gone, usually by eliminating whoever is connected to the threat that caused the mess in the first place.. He felt that he ended up saving no one in the end, despite everything.
  Archer: I didn't dream of a world without conflicts. I just wanted people in my view not to cry.
• To add in, the UBW movie ending with Archer's final words to Rin with his 'Old Look' and smile back, and Rin's promise to both Archer and Shirou, and the ending theme song, ~Voice ~Tadori Tsuku Basho~ by Tainaka Sachi. Well done, Tainaka-san and Nasu-san. Damnit.
• Something that needs to be said is just how much Archer hates Shirou. When in the Einsbern Mansion, Saber points out that EMIYA's plan is impossible because EMIYA himself is already outside the boundaries of space-time and causality, his plan is doomed to failed. EMIYA states he's just that desperate and even if he does fail at least something like a hero of justice won't exist in this timeline. EMIYA hates himself so much that he honestly believes that if he doesn't exist, the world is automatically better. Just damn ...
• Rin (narrating): "The boy who stated that he just doesn't want to see anyone cry...could only see crying humans forever." And the audience just joined them.
• Arguably, the final epilogue of the route is even more heart wrenching than Archer and Rin's final conversation. Briefly, Archer is able to reflect on his duel with Shirou, and comes to terms with the fact that, no matter what kind of hell his ideal dragged him through, he was not wrong to pursue it. After unknown years of service as a Counter Guardian and wishing only for his own destruction, he was able to stand firm, once again, behind his choices. He knew, once and for all, that he was not wrong. The only problem is, due to the nature of Servants and the Throne of Heroes, Archer was only a copy of the true Heroic Spirit EMIYA, a copy created solely for the Holy Grail War. The real EMIYA, the one who would continue to serve as a Counter Guardian until the Earth itself died, will never receive the closure and self-assurance that Archer did, which means that he continue to cling to his self-hatred and wish for his own destruction forever. Dammit.
  • Although this one is somewhat mitigated by some apparent differences between the nature of Counter Guardians and that of the Throne of Heroes. The Throne of Heroes is a part of Gaia, the World itself, and the Heroic Spirits are copied when summoned, with the original getting a sort of brief report of what happened with their copy self when it returns. The Counter Guardians are commanded by Alaya, the collective subconscious of humanity and seem to operate under different rules. While Counter Guardians also seem to get copied when summoned (and lack free will when "on the job") EMIYA's devastation from what he had to do after the fact (combined with Archer's later appearances where he remembers far more than he should) suggest that he has a much more vivid and complete recollection of his experiences than normal Servants. Since EMIYA's despair stems from his experiences after becoming a Counter Guardian (whereas those in the Throne of Heroes all have traumas from their life) it is suggested that Archer will retain his closure and renewed self-worth after all.
  • This is confirmed by the UBW Anime as we witness Archer returning to EMIYA.
• The game's prologue has a tearjerker moment, the nature of which only becomes clear after finishing Unlimited Blade Works. Rin's summoning goes awry, which is why she ends up with Archer rather than Saber, and as a side effect, her living room becomes a giant mess. The first order she gives Archer, the legendary hero whom she summoned to help her fight for no less a prize than the Holy Grail? "Clean up this mess." On the first go-round, it's a pure Funny Moment, but after learning that Archer long ago lost sight of the Despair Event Horizon due to being involved in an endless cycle of pointless violence, performing so mundane a task as housecleaning is probably the closest thing to heaven he can imagine himself attaining, the more so because he was quite domestic during his lifetime as Shirou, and he's helping one of the girls whom, as Shirou, he loved the most.

Heaven's Feel

And yet all those pale in comparison to this route:

• Saber's death is bad enough (especially when Shirou learns of it, when his Command Spell disappears). Forcing the player to make the choice to stab Saber Alter in the heart while she's helpless is just mean. Yet failure to do so triggers the worst Bad End in the game with Dark Sakura giving Rin Tohsaka a 'personal lesson' on what she suffered the past eleven years at the hands of the Matous. No matter which decision you make it is a HUGE Player Punch.
  • The Tiger Dojo segment afterwards drives it homes even further. While the Tiger Dojo is normally designed to break the tension from the Bad End and give the player advice on how to avoid it, Taiga here will frankly tell you there is no Happy Ending for Saber in this route. You HAVE to kill her.
• And then the Last Episode goes out of its way to tell you how much you lost.
• What's the scene called after making that painful decision? I'll forget about you. Within it, Shirou believes that he's just committed an unforgivable act that cannot be justified in any capacity, and is so consumed by how he feels so bad about killing Saber that he has to erase every trace of her memory from his mind just to keep from going mad, how he knows he's sacrificing literally everything he has and he knows it just isn't worth it... but that if given the choice, he would do it again, because a world without Sakura in it is incomprehensible to him.
  "Using my own hands, I killed someone who protected me until the very end ——
  Neither regret nor a confession will bring forgiveness ..."
• Saber being corrupted by the Shadow and fighting against Shirou is worse when you remember the UBW route, half of which focused on Shirou and Rin attempting to rescue Saber from Caster's control after the latter had taken her in as a servant. Fortunately they're able to save her before she is broken down completely. Guess Saber wasn't so lucky this time around.
• The rainy night in the park, with Shirou's decision to abandon his ideals and protect the most-likely dying Sakura.
• Later on, Shirou asks her what she'd like to do "when" she gets better. She says she just wants to go watch the cherry blossoms fall. Shirou then promises her they'll go do exactly that. Given that at this point, Shirou has just decided to Mercy Kill her...
• Ilya's response to your choice and the knowledge that you'll have to kill her and Rin so soon after her Heartwarming Moment in the infamous "Mind of Steel" ending ought to wring some tears out of you.
  • It's even worse if you're aware of Ilya's true parentage.
• Shirou, Illya, and Rin meeting Saber Alter for the first time. On the battlefield, the trio are at their lowest, and suddenly — a certain masked swordswoman appears and points her sword at them. In the movie, the look on Shirou's face as he sees what became of his servant while she glares at them coldly with unfamiliar eyes is heartbreaking.
  • What might hurt even more is that it's supposed to be a reference to the Signature Scene of Saber appearing to Shirou for the first time and looking down towards him while he's on the ground in shock.
• It's revealed that Shinji wasn't always the arrogant asshole we know and hate. He actually used to be a decent kid once and got along with Sakura well. After discovering the Matou were a clan of magi he began putting all of his heart and effort into becoming one himself... only to later find that he was a Muggle Born of Mages and that if anyone in his family was going to end up fulfilling his lifelong dream, it was going to be Sakura whether she liked it or not. And so, he started abusing Sakura out of spite for "ruining his dreams".
  • A constant source of angst for him is Zouken berating him for being unable to use magic. Then the Heaven's Feel manga adaptation reveals that his father Byakuya was actually okay with this and wanted Shinji to have a normal life away from magecraft. In order to do so, he kept Shinji away from the truths of the Matou family, and when he found out anyway, Byakuya cut all ties with his son until his death.
• Bad End #38. Right after the Moment of Awesome for Shirou that is defeating Saber Alter single-handedly by going past his limits, the consequences of doing so hit and he's reduced to a vegetable that will never recover and is effectively dead. At this point narration switches to Saber, who contemplates his strength and what will come of his sacrifice.
  Saber (thinking): The one whose limits held her back, and the one who went past his limits. The result is the one laying beside her. [...] Tohsaka Rin and Matou Sakura. No matter which one survived, the one who would bless them is no longer in this world.
• The night where Shirou decides to attempt to kill Sakura to end the entire mess. Not only does he fail at stabbing her, but it turns out that she was awake the whole time and was absolutely horrified, shaking in fear, despite pretending to be calm about it. Shirou ends up crying, thinking about how he could even consider it, and gives Sakura a Cooldown Hug.
• Kirei's past gives a lot of reason as to why he does the things he does- the only woman he ever loved died just after giving birth to their child, and rather than feeling loss for her death or suffering because she's gone, Kirei only felt one emotion- despair over not being able to kill her himself. While it's debatable whether or not he loved his wife, the fact that Kirei could only feel bloodlust for her demise despite marrying her and caring for her all those years drove him mad with despair. He can't even remember her face or voice. Kirei is well aware that he's a terrible, despicable human being, but just can't stop being one.
  • His own death, oddly enough. After how much of the route is spent getting to know him better and after he became a character who's easily sympathetic to some degree, there's something oddly poignant about his short, quick, anticlimatic death, especially thanks to the narration.
  Did he smile in his last moments?
  The priest disappears from this world, with no one to bury him.
• When Shirou is fighting Saber Alter in the cave, and using Archer's arm causes him to lose the memory that most shaped his path in life prior to the war: the night of Kiritsugu's death and his promise to become a superhero.
• The Normal Ending: Cherry Blossoms' Dream. Shirou destroys the Grail with Excalibur, but dies in the process. Refusing to accept his death, Sakura continues to live in the Emiya household, forever waiting for him until eventually dying of old age. She passes away in front of Rin's granddaughter and reunites with Shirou in the afterlife. Needlessly and maliciously cruel.
  "I close my eyes and open them. The hill is covered with cherry blossoms. The boy, appearing just like he was before, is waving his hand on the familiar hill road..."
  • Oh, and then after that the title screen changes to both the music and background of the very last scene of that, so we can now ALWAYS feel depressed on loading the game.
• The True Ending has one last kicker, despite being happier than the Normal Ending. Right before Shirou dies, Ilya rescues him. The entire time he's begging her to let him die so she can live, or at least he's trying to. At the end she goes out with a smile saying she's going to show Shirou a miracle.
  Ilya: You said an older brother protects his younger sister, right?… Yeah. I'm the older sister. So I have to protect my younger brother.

DEEN anime

• Archer's Heroic Sacrifice in the anime (and by extension, Fate), staying behind with the intent to defeat Berserker (or at least take out some lives) while his Master, Shirou, and Saber flee. Even as he takes that beating, not once does he think to strike at Ilya (for very good reason, as it turns out ...), and when he finally fades away upon completely draining his mana ... God. Rin's reaction is already heartbreaking as she vows to not forgive Shirou and Saber if they get killed by Berserker; worse when the credits play and instead of the usual song we get "Hikari" as the ending theme. In the last moments, we get to see Archer's red cape disintegrating into light to reveal the only thing left of him - the gemstone Rin used to save his life, back when he was still Shirou Emiya and first got caught up in the war ...
• Anime episode 18 makes it appear that Rin has had to kill Sakura to prevent Caster using her to summon the Grail. She's left holding Sakura in her arms as the credits roll, and Sakura looks up at Rin and seems to be thanking her...
• Episode 21 of the anime:
  • The flashback where Saber had to kill her "son", Mordred.
  • The moment that Shirou kisses Saber is when she seems to finally (and tearfully) realize she loves him...but even that isn't enough to change her mind on using the Holy Grail to redo the selection of the King:
    Saber: I can fight with you as soon as you are ready. But I will fight...only as your Servant.
  • The dejected expression on Shirou's face the next morning is also incredibly painful.
• Shirou and Saber defeat their respective Big Bad and yet by doing the right thing and destroying the Grail, they lose any chance of staying together. This is made substantially worse when Saber tells Shirou she loves him before she leaves his life forever. How Shirou manages to smile through it all is simply amazing. I Want My Beloved to Be Happy indeed...

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