Sara is Paul's wife, a man who became addicted to gambling after their marriage. Secretly, she was the demon known as "King," who was responsible for the deaths of numerous famous gamblers.
History[]
Shortly before her encounter with Dante and Lady, King began using her magic to manipulate gamblers into killing one another in cursed games of cards and other contests. Because she never revealed herself, numerous rumors spread about the gambler known as "King," with descriptions of "him" varying, all of which were in fact descriptions of her pawn, allowing the real King to remain in the shadows.
At some point in the past, she also adopted the human identity of "Sara" and married a human man named Paul.
In her guise as Sara, King entered Devil May Cry, playing the part of a distraught wife and begging Dante to help Paul, whom she described as being a rational man before his marriage but had recently become addicted to gambling. Initially, Dante rejected the work being that addiction to gambling was a disease for which there was no medicine, which is why he recommended that Sara give up on Paul. Upon hearing this, J.D. Morrison convinced Dante to do the job saying it could be good for him.
After Sara had departed, Morrison related the legend of King to Dante, Lady, and Patty. He also revealed that a package had arrived to Dante, inviting him to a high-stakes poker tournament on a casino ship. The invitation came with a gift: a pocket watch.
Time later, Sara managed to join the cruise where her husband Paul was betting against Dante and three renowned poker players, which were Gold Arm Joe, Lucky Amanda, and "Santa Claus." During a short break, Lady, who was disguised as a dealer and waitress, managed to see Sara, who was waiting for her husband. Seeing her like that, Lady tried to console the apparently worried woman and invited her to join her in the poker room. Sara declined the invitation, saying she knew would not be able to stop Paul.
After the game was over, apparently all participants had died of a heart attack caused by King, a mysterious gambler who after defeating his opponent killed him, which was believed to come from hell and could call death. Dante had fallen to the ground when being shot by Lady, since this one began to behave as King would do it after beating Paul, trying to bet his own life against Lady. Seeing this, Sara was present applauding and smiling, congratulating Lady for being the last winner standing, revealing that she was King and threatening to kill all passengers on the cruise, thus taking his true demonic appearance.
As the night turned into day, all the poker players were killed one by one, until only Dante remained. When he succumbed to the watch's dark influence and was apparently shot by Lady, Sara revealed herself, applauding. She assumed her true form and promised to kill all the passengers on the ship, but to her surprise, Dante shot her in the eye before standing up again. Seeing this, King was surprised and confused to not know how Dante could resist her magic. However, Dante admitted that he had fallen under the effects of the pocket watch, but he'd already known the watch's power beforehand after it had enthralled Patty. Knowing this, Dante and Lady concocted a plan to draw out their quarry, and Lady shot the watch to free Dante from its hold.
Once explained what happened, King tried to attack Dante by transforming her arms into a pair of spikes/blades, thus starting a fight in which Morrison handed Dante the guitar case in which his sword, Rebellion, was found. Being armed, Dante begins to defend against King's attacks, which ended up destroying the poker table and all windows in a final attack which would decide the victory of one of them. After this attack, Dante ended up winning the fight, thus defeating to King and ending her with a cut of his sword.
Personality[]
From the beginning Sara is shown as a woman worried about her husband, afraid for what might happen to him but resigned to the knowledge that she herself cannot stop him. However, everything is a lie because once sees her husband dead and Dante supposedly deceased, she begins to applaud and smile. She seems to have a somewhat sadistic appreciation for irony, commenting that Dante being killed by his friend and comrade made for "quite the beautiful ending." However, she comments that she was hoping Paul would win, suggesting she did hold some amount of fondness for him.
King shows a fondness for both killing and gambling. As displayed in her M.O., she seems to enjoy manipulating people into doing her dirty work and is quite clever in how she goes about luring Dante into her trap. However, upon taking her true demonic appearance, she promises to kill everyone on the ship (rather than only the 3 who knew her identity). King's love of gambling extended to the fight itself, boasting that she had caught the King of Hearts with her spike-hand after the final blows were exchanged.
Dante describes King as "one smug, stuck-up son-of-a-bitch," upon hearing "his" reputation and looking over the invitation he received.
Appearance[]
Her physical appearance in disguise is that of an adult woman with white skin, long violet hair and green eyes, seen wearing a brown trench coat with a skirt set of the same color, as well as a white turtlenecked shirt.
Once her demonic form is taken, her complexion, like her hair, turns purple. Her hair rises and her sclera turns blue. Her right eye grows larger and rounder than her left. Around her, a dark aura is generated and from her body lines of purple smoke are detached. A group of dark purplish lines pass from top to bottom of her right eye, passing through part of her hair and neck. Red lines appear throughout his body. Her ears become more pointed and his teeth become fangs.
King can change her arms into a pair of blades which she uses to attack her opponents.
Powers and abilities[]
Like many demons, King is able to adopt a human disguise to move through human society without arousing suspicion. This is aided by her acting skills, which were so good that even experienced devil hunters like Dante and Lady didn't suspect her true identity until she willingly revealed it.
By taking her true demonic form, King can use his arms as blades to attack her opponents at high speed, in addition to being able to jump considerably high. She can regenerate quickly, being that when she was shot in the eye she was able to recover his right eye completely, which at the same time shows a considerable resistance since he endured an Ebony shot.
She can endow objects--such as a pocket watch or a set of rings--with her magic to manipulate their owner. The user of the object will behave like a gambling addict, which will reach the point of taking risks such as betting his/her own life and trying to kill his opponent, all due to the magic which makes the bearer act out the part of King. As a side effect of the magic, anyone who used the objects or played someone who did would die within a minute of losing. The effects of the object ended if the object was destroyed; though this would only end the possession, not resurrect the dead.
King also possessed an ability to manipulate chance, or probability manipulation, being able to grant those possessed by her power extremely good luck, most notably allowing both Dante and Paul to draw a royal straight flush, a hand which has odds of 1 in 649,740, or 0.000154%, at the same time. Her magic was so strong, that Dante admitted it was impossible to win against a person using one of her objects without using one himself. However, there were clear limitations to this, as in her final clash with Dante she lost both the battle and the card draw (getting a King of Hearts to Dante's Ace of Spades). Worse, it was (as Dante admitted) due to chance that the devil hunter was able to discern the nature of the pocket watch (this also suggests the magic items' curses were activated by proximity rather than being tied to a specific person).
It appears King was vulnerable to her own power, as she disappeared after Dante revealed he had caught a higher-value card than she had on Rebellion's blade (though her death may have been solely due to the injuries she sustained).
Trivia[]
- When Lady confronts "Sara," the demoness claims she is "half-right and half-wrong" about Sara being King, saying that "it didn't really matter who played as King" with the victims of her magic acting out the role of King. This means "King" may not have been her true identity.
- It is unclear if King is really the "Sara" Paul married, as we never see a flashback from his perspective, nor do we see him interacting with King in her human form. It's possible King was simply chose to assume the identity of Paul's wife in a bid to manipulate Dante.
- However, given her comment on how she'd hoped Paul would be the winner, it's possible she was person he married.