Demise
The Master sends minions to kill Buffy in "Angel", an episode featuring the origin story of Buffy's romantic interest (David Boreanaz), a vampire with a murderous past who was re-ensouled by a Gypsy tribe as the ultimate punishment; this "curse" has caused him to feel remorse and live the past century in misery and torment. His desire for redemption, as well as his attraction to Buffy, compels him to assist her. She discovers he is a vampire in "Angel" and it is revealed that one of the Master's most powerful followers, Darla (Julie Benz), was the vampire who transformed Angel and was his lover for several generations. After the Master allows Darla to destroy the minions who failed to kill Buffy, Darla tries to lure Angel to the Master's side, but Angel stakes and kills her, further thwarting the Master's plans.
Buffy and the Master finally meet in the season finale "Prophecy Girl", in which Giles translates a prophecy that states that if she fights the Master, she will die. Buffy overhears Giles discussing it with Angel and tells Giles she refuses to be the Slayer if it means she will die, then begs her mother to go away with her for the weekend. After five students are murdered by more of the Master's followers, however, Buffy decides she must fight the Master and is led to his underground lair by The Anointed One; she is wearing a long white dress, bought for a dance she was supposed to attend instead. He quickly hypnotizes her and tells her that "prophecies are tricky things" that don't reveal all: had she not come to fight him, he could not rise, as it is her blood which will free him. He bites and drinks from her, then tosses her to the ground face-down in a shallow pool where she drowns. Angel and Buffy's friend Xander (Nicholas Brendon), who have disobeyed her wishes and followed her, arrive after the Master has risen. Xander is able to revive Buffy through CPR, thus the prophecy of her death at the Master's hands is fulfilled, but its intention thwarted. She becomes stronger as a result of their encounter.
An extension of the Master's religiosity is his preoccupation with prophecies. The themes of the first season are destiny and forming an identity separate from childhood: breaking the illusions that the world is safe and actions have no real consequences. Destiny is repeatedly a theme between Buffy and the Master. The entire first season is underscored with prophecies — a narrative device used less frequently in later seasons of the series — that Buffy neglects to fulfill in various ways. Buffy often has prophetic dreams and the Master is nearly obsessed with recounting and confirming written prophecies. Buffy's superhuman powers are her birthright. Despite her desire to live a normal life she feels compelled to fulfill her destiny as a Slayer, and the need for her to live up to this responsibility is reinforced by Giles. Buffy, however, subverts these elements to assert her own free will, which is illustrated in the season finale. According to Buffy studies scholar Gregory Stevenson, the Master has such confidence in the prophecy that the Slayer will die that he is unable to comprehend her resurrection by Xander.
When the Master rises, the Hellmouth opens in the floor of the school library where Giles, Buffy's friends Willow (Alyson Hannigan), Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), and a teacher, Jenny Calendar (Robia LaMorte) are present and fighting off the emerging monsters. Buffy finds the Master on the roof of the library watching through windows in the ceiling. Incredulous upon her arrival, he tells her she was destined to die in a written prophecy. She replies "What can I say? I flunked the written." She is now able to resist his attempts to hypnotize her and pushes him through the window into the library below, impaling him on a broken wooden table and killing him.
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