Rider (Fate/stay night)

"You appear to be a brave person, unlike my master. I shall kill you kindly."

- Rider, Fate/stay night

Rider is a heroine from Fate/stay night. She is the servant of Sakura Matou during the fifth Holy Grail War, but she became her brother Shinji's servant due to Sakura's refusal to be an enemy of Shirou during the war.

Rider is first seen scouting around Homurabara Gakuen. Rider is silent, sultry, and vigilant, never hesitating to shield her Master from harm. With Shinji incapable of lending any Prana to her, she is forced to seek alternative means to augment her abilities. To compensate for this weakened state, Rider employs covert battle tactics and takes full advantage of any territory around her. Her weapon of choice is a pair of long iron nails fastened to opposite ends a single chain, which she effectively thrusts from distances.

Shinji's arrogance often sees to it that Rider is usually the first servant to be eliminated in every route of Fate/stay night, except in the Heaven's Feel route.

She is voiced by Yu Asakawa in Japanese and Karen Strassman in English.

Identity
Her real name is Medusa, the Gorgon from Greek mythology. Medusa, along with her sisters, Stheno and Euryale, were born from the wishes of mankind for ideal goddesses, contrasting the flawed gods of Olympus. All three Gorgons were blessed with beauty, but unlike her sisters, Medusa was mortal, and fated to grow older and taller over time. Medusa was also cursed with Mystic Eyes, which transmute all living flesh under her gaze into stone, requiring her to wear a blindfold. Because of these differences, she was bullied by her older sisters. At one point, Medusa was given Pegasus as a gift from Poseidon.

Jealous of the sisters' allure, Athena goaded the Gorgon's worshippers into attacking them, forcing the sisters to take refuge on the Shapeless Isle. This disgrace left Medusa bitter and spiteful of humans, her resentment intensifying as she killed invading men who lusted after her sisters. Over the years, Medusa became eager to slaughter and ingest humans, which spread infamy about her as an icon of terror. These fears, like the desires that gave birth to the Gorgons, distorted Medusa's appearance and incarnated her into the atrocious Gorgon of legend. Despite their teasing, Stheno and Euryale deeply loved their sister, and upon realizing they were responsible for her savagery, allowed Medusa to devour them. Eventually, the demigod Perseus, equipped with five Noble Phantasms, proved capable enough to decapitate Medusa, ending her tortured and dismal life. As she died, Medusa realized that however poorly Stheno and Euryale treated her, she had treasured the time she spent with them, and would later consider those experiences as her fondest memories. The Fate/stay Night universe also removes any references that the Gorgon sisters' hair were made out of living snakes, and thus Medusa and her sisters are depicted to have very long hair, instead of snake hair.