Saikyo Kawanami

Saikyo Kawanami (川波　最強 ; first name meaning “The Strongest,” clan name meaning "Ripple in the River," making her full proper name be “the strongest ripple in the river”) is an adviser and officer of the Vanguard Sanctum. Previously a member of the Kawanami clan, she joined the Vanguard after her clan was completely wiped out. As for present, she believes herself to be the last surviving member of the Kawanami clan.

Appearance
Saikyo is a Raen Au'ra with long, raven black hair. Her horns point forward, lining her jaw and coming out just slightly from her chin. Her limbal rings are jet black, circling around her red eyes. She is average height for her race and has a stronger, petite build.

She has a tattoo along her right arm depicting ocean waves in a Sumi-e style. Through battle, she's collected a number of scars over her body and has some scales missing, which she tends to attempt to hide with her clothing.

Personality
Saikyo can come off as angry, proud, and sometimes even sadistic when she's provoked. She has a hard time asking for help and an even harder time expressing her emotions. When there is a goal on her mind, she can also become very stubborn, doing whatever she needs to accomplish it. However, if she fails or if that goals reveals itself to be unobtainable, she has a tendency to shut down and fall into a depressive spell.

Secretly, Saikyo does enjoy being in the company of others though. Having never had friends within the Kawanami clan, she clings to those who show her affection. She will protect those she cares about and care about her.

Because of her prior training as the ward to the leader of the Kawanami clan, Saikyo has a hard time denying authority. She is conditioned to obey the orders of whomever she deems her "lord." At this point in time, her new Lord would be Vrandis, as he is the current Archon of the Vanguard Sanctum.

Birth
Saikyo Kawanami was birthed by unknown parentage. For reasons unknown to her, she was unwanted by her family as a very young child and was taken to the docks of Pier #2. Bound tightly in a blanket with weavings and placed in a basket, she drifted off to sea before she was even three years of age. The winds that day were strong and the tide brought the ocean water south. Her basket floated along the coastline for some time until becoming wedged among the rocks and wooden pillars of Pier #1.

In reality, her parents had put here there as a herald for the “kami.” She was placed in the basket before they both killed themselves in sacrifice to the monster that Beckett Blackmayne encountered and received his blades from. This was to make her marked by the creature as a child, making her destined to wield Migi.

In the shade and nestled tightly in the spot, she cried through the night until the morning workmen of a small, new clan began to fan out. A shipbuilder heard the child’s screams and pulled her from the water. Unsure at what to do, he brought the child to his clan leader, Ryujiro Kawanami. Upon hearing the story of her discovery from the shipbuilder, Ryujiro gave her the name “Saikyo,” proclaiming that only the strongest of souls could weather such conditions so young. He claimed the child as his ward and the clan raised her from that day forward.

A Member of the Clan
Much of Saikyo’s childhood is foggy in the woman’s mind. Although there were many children being born into the clan during her raising, Saikyo was kept isolated from most of them, branding her an outsider to the young. In the rare instances that she did interact with children her age, she would walk away bruised, taunted, and ashamed. For this reason, she grew a favor towards sticking to older company.

From what she can recall, she underwent training in multiple forms of combat and healing magics. When her fellow clansmen were wounded and dying, she would be brought into their chambers with the resident healers and made to observe the healing process. She watched many men and women die from their wounds, but her mentors never showed much emotion towards their deaths. They presented these moments in a more lesson and teaching manner, hardening themselves and, in turn, her. Through this, Saikyo lost her fear of death and grew a fascination with blood and the macabre.

She was also taught how to serve and entertain guests during business events. Days were spent teaching her how to brew proper teas, mix drinks, tend to the flora decorating their halls, and seducing men. Regardless of this training though, Saikyo recalls being locked in her room when those events actually occurred until her teenage years.

Upon becoming of age, Saikyo was granted more freedoms and responsibilities. She was put to work during business meetings as her primary job at first but, as time and jobs required, she began taking up work with the company’s shipments. That was when she finally began to face her first real battles.

After seeing so many of her clansmen die from her healer training, Saikyo took to battle without pause. After proving herself capable, she was taken off entertainment duties and given rank as a full time shiphand and clans guard. As her body count grew from the numbers of pirates at sea and bandits on shore during drop offs to lesser villages, she obtained a thirst for battle over the years. She would eventually move on to become one of the Kawanami’s strongest and most feared soldiers, granting her the nickname Akai Hariken (“The Red Hurricane”).

When troubles with the Kaisuri began to persist, Saikyo was taken from her ship to serve at Lord Ryujiro’s side. At first, she was bitter. She begged him to put her back on her ships, but the lord refused, wanting her to become his personal bodyguard. To placate her, he granted her the position of managing their shipment routes and consorting with the skywatchers to schedule the best times for vessels to embark around rough weather conditions. However, the job only made her crave her old position further.

One night, she snuck back onto one of her vessels and took to the oceans again. Unable to turn back, she remained with the crew for the duration of the trip. They were ambushed on the Ruby Sea by a ship of defected Confederacy pirates. Once again, the Akai Hariken emerged from Saikyo, sending her into a bloodlust rage. She led the crew into battle, boarded their ship, and left no man alive. After dumping their bodies into the ocean, she kept a few unique looking golden coins as a souvenir for, what she did not yet know to be, her last sailing excursion.

Although she returned home victorious, Ryujiro was not pleased with Saikyo’s disobedience. As punishment, Saikyo was sentenced to an extended isolation. For four months, she was locked away in a vacant storage building facing the ocean at the edge of the Pier. Food was brought to her by Ryujiro himself once daily. He would sit with her for an hour, speaking to her as she ate before leaving her alone again for the rest of her time.

As the days went on and she heard the shipwrights work, she began to grow more bitter. The constant sound of the crashing ocean waves kept her awake, while the work and the sound of boats coming to shore preventing her from sleeping away her days.

She came to look forward to her time with Ryujiro. While she was kept away from children her age growing up, she had at least always had socialization with her mentors and, later, her crews. By the time she was freed, her mind had broken. She pledged to never disobey an order again and would later do anything without pause that Ryujiro instructed her to do.

The Final Day of the Kawanami
When Akumo Kaisuri and Ryujiro Kawanami finally had their fated duel, it was Saikyo who tended to his wounds. When he laid dying despite his wounds being healed, she recognized the poison when his veins turned green. It was too late to treat. But Saikyo didn’t have any time for tears. The Kaisuri had begun their invasion and the screams of her family began to echo through the halls.

At first, Saikyo went to fight. She ran through the halls to fend off the attack, but stopped when she spotted the same green veins of her fallen clansmen. She was the only one who recognized the poison that most likely every attacking assassin had. So, she fled. She made her way from the main chambers and towards the nearest exit. But when she reached the Pier, she became surrounded. Faced with the people who murdered her family and were taking her only home away, she grew angrier than she’d ever been before. Her vision went dark.

When she came to, she was surrounded by corpses and covered in blood. All the enemies that surrounded her before laid dead at her feet as she held an unfamiliar sword over them. She didn’t know what happened, but she knew better than to stick around. Seeing the tide moving north, she leapt off the Pier, cleaning herself of the blood and making her way for the Pier that she had been abandoned at all those years ago.

A New Home
The rest of her days were spent on the streets of Kugane. She kept a low profile as she searched for any other survivors of the massacre. Time and disappointment brought her to the grim realization that there were none. She, once again, was left abandoned and homeless. She tried multiple times to get close to the Kaisuri complexes to enact her revenge, but security was always high. That, and a lack of food, shelter, and proper weaponry left her ill-prepared.

Distraught, hopeless, and slowly dying of starvation, she made her way towards the airship tower overlooking Short Pier. It was the tallest structure she knew of and overlooked the ocean that had always granted her protection and safe passage before. She aimed for safe passage in another life.

But, as she climbed the tower stairs, her foot slipped. She stumbled down the stairs and onto a platform, only sustaining a few bruises. Cursing, she grasped the paper that had caused her fall and went to tear it to shreds. Something made her hesitate though - an action she’d later credit to the kami - as she read it over. On it was a description of a home for those who needed led by two twin brothers, stationed in the wards of Shirogane.

Canon Classes

 * Dark Knight - Although she was never properly trained with the great-sword, Saikyo has an natural affinity for them.
 * White Mage - Through training with the healers of her clan, she had to become a competent healer while serving as ward to Rujiro Kawanami.
 * Samurai - As per tradition, Saikyo was trained with a katana, though she never exactly excelled with it.