Asami Zair Serénez

"It's frustrating, for me to one moment be sane, and the next I'll be hearing voices or see people screaming at me. Then everyone realizes I'm crazy, and it's all downhill from there." ~Asami Zair Serénez~

Asami Zair Serénez, sometimes known as Asami Zair Wekera, is a Shinzoka woman and a Kagero-Kiza agent sent to survey the Renkida Kingdom in wake of the recent vampire crisis that had only recently settled down there. She is most famous for her combat skills and diplomacy, but most of all the fact that she earned her entire name by fighting for it and working for it.

Due to her parentage, she is actually only a half-blooded Shinzoka, which is part of why she was assigned to the Kagero-Kiza. While her mother was Shinzoka, her father was an elf.

Early Life
Asami was found in Lenzizhen after the chaos of flames that consumed nearly the entire Sezonzé province. She was taken in by Zurok Takamatzu, who raised her as a proper Shinzoka and helped get her admitted into the Kagero-Kiza organization at a young age. Asami displayed great natural talent, and so she advanced through the academies with ease.

She displayed notable talent with fireforming, but her true forte was in the advanced element lightning, with which she was something of a prodigy. This was believed to be due to her bloodline being that of a Serénez, which also made her a prime target of the Vestar-Menda for manipulative experimentation. They did not make a move right away, but kept tabs on her until her 35th birthday.

Kagero-Kiza years
Asami spent many of her formidable years in the Kagero-Kiza organization, where she learned useful lessons and disciplines that helped shape her into a formidable woman. She became extremely proficient with Lightning, becoming one of the more formidable users of the element despite her young age. Shortly after she came of age, Asami was given to the Arakos by the Kagero-Kiza, who in turn altered her memory. These attempts were met with moderate success; although rather than modifying her memories, they ended up wiping most of them instead. This increased her efficiency among the Kagero-Kiza, however, and thus was considered a success. During these years she travelled a great deal of the world outside of Krawvill, eventually arriving by ship on The Mainland with another band of Kagero-Kiza. It was this journey where Asami lost memories for the final time, and when her psychosis began to more properly manifest. During one of her episodes, she slaughtered the remainder of her companions during the night, and being unable to properly pilot the ship, was wrecked along the coast of Tsominku and found unconscious.

Despite this, she survived, and her journeys took her to Shioru where a prince by the name of Henam caught her eye. While she takes a clear interest in this Renkida, she is instead drawn back to Krawvill where she ends up helping restore order after a series of sabotages and attacks from Zulera and the Kukaña throw the nation into chaos. During this time, she runs into a Kumenza named Eka-Koshu, as well as Zulera's three children, all of whom join her on her adventure.

Post-Shinzoka War
After marrying her beloved and becoming queen of Shioru, Asami settled down from the travelling adventurer life for many years, seeking to help return stability to the broken land. She bore many children, most of which were Renkida, although two of her daughters were Shinzoka. There were controversies surrounding the royal family for a short time after her ascent to the throne due to the dragon blood of King Henam's children thanks to their mother, but these qulams were put to rest both by Henam and by his children as they grew older, particularly the youngest one, Hyrem.

After her children had all long since come of age, Asami disappeared for several months on a gripping adventure to Shahar-Eka led by Zulera's brother Akhet. While it was unclear what this mission was about or what it accomplished, what was known as that multiple people came with them, including a Grey Lakamaté named Eka-Valen, and that upon her return, she had an artifact whose style of construction was unfamiliar with any of the known races on Mencu. While the item itself was harmless, it was believed to be Ancient Wakudan in design, although this was later disproven after word got out that it was not only much more contemporary, but also crafted by another race entirely.

Physical Appearance
Asami is tall and robust like most Shinzoka, and fits right into the Kagero-Kiza's mandatory height range at 5'9". Her athletic physique is also perfect for the role, with a great deal of her 153 pounds going towards her musculature and athletic figure. Her darker brown skin and dark brown hair suggest some type of mixed heritage, but since the identity of her parents was unclear for the longest, there was no way to tell for sure. It was safely assumed that since at least one of her parents was Shinzoka, it was very likely that if one of her parents was a different race, that this parent was Asami's father. After her parents were revealed as Nayeli and Hiawatha Serénez, who were Shinzoka and Zukuren respectively, these theories were settled.

Dragon Form
Like all Shinzoka, Asami is capable of transforming into a dragon, although discipline from Krawvill and the Kagero-Kiza has this ability serving more as a last resort, especially with how much energy it requires and exerts. Asami's dragon form is similar to that of most other Shinzoka, being nothing out of the ordinary and/or what people would expect of a fully-transformed Shinzoka. However, due to her personality, she is considered a "Feral Dragon" because of her erratic nature and the role it can play in affecting her behaviour in this form.

In terms of appearance, Asami's dragon form is a red and brown creature with large wings and massive claws, with a particularly magnificent crest of horns that curve downward towards her neck, almost like long hair. On occasion, streaks of blue scales are seen between the reds and browns, hinting at her powerful affinity for Lightning.

Clothing
Asami is almost always seen in her Kagero-Kiza uniform sporting the reds and golds of her organization for good or ill. She finds the attire comfortable, and being so accustomed to it, she has developed a disliking for pants, and so in the few times she is not wearing it, she often dons skirts or dresses. Upon becoming queen, this becomes much easier for her to justify, and she alters her choice of attire from her uniform into queen's attire: switching her skirts for gowns, her armor for jewels, her boots for slippers, and regalia of the Kagero-Kiza to regalia of Shioru. Much like one of her mentors, Asami always strives for professionalism due to her upbringing, and as a Kagero-Kiza agent and a queen, she accomplishes a lot of this through her well-kept attire.

Personality
Asami's emotions and behaviour are something of a pendulum, depending mainly on how much or how little her psychosis is kicking in. Most of the time she manages to retain a calm and level-headed demeanour, but during her episodes, she often reverts to old and irrational mindsets complete with illusions and delusions of both her current situation as well as morality itself.

Virtues
Despite her mental condition, Asami can remain stable much of the time and live a fairly normal life, and even managed to win the heart of then-Prince Henam Wekera who later asked for her hand in marriage, a proposal which Asami accepted. When she is not having a psychotic episode, Asami is calm and level-headed, presenting herself as a kind and diplomatic woman who always has an ear to listen to other people's troubles, and possesses a desire to help solve those problems when she can.

Vices
Asami is a diverse and somewhat erratic woman when it comes to calculating her behaviour; and is, at her core, psychotic. This has given rise to many complicated relationships with people who do not fully understand her condition, or with people who see her as a broken and disturbed woman. These episodes often cause her to see things that are not there, or cause her to converse with herself, muttering about this or that, acting in many ways similar to Leto. Her psychosis also leads her to being insecure at heart, wondering and fearing that people think less of her because of her mental instability.

Beliefs & Morality
Asami believes in freedom, but not to the point of anarchy. She believes there are many people that cannot and should not be trusted, and views the Shinzoka, Krawvill, and even the Kagero-Kiza as corrupt organizations. Barring times when her psychosis hijacks her sense of reason, she seeks to do good in the world, as well as learn its inner workings; something that she respects Zulera for, despite the latter's obsession with her. She also beieves that the Jalenga were not all bad, and this mindset has also earned her much favour with Zivia.

Relationships
Due to the modification and removal of her memories, any blood relationships Asami had were shrouded in mystery, since none save her parents and the ritualists that modified her knew of her original heritage. She was actually able to meet her parents, however, and also managed to marry as well as make many close friends.

Family
Asami is the only child of Nayeli and Hiawatha Serénez, and since her father is Zukuren, this means Asami is only a half-blooded Shinzoka which in turn means she cannot birth any male Shinzoka children. This also means that her real name is Asami Zair Serénez, a name that she ends up retaking sometime after the events in The Koldian and the Queen. She also gives birth to nine children, the youngest of which, a son named Hyrem, becomes the heir to the throne of Shioru.

Friends
Barring Henam, who Asami fell in love with and later married, Asami's friends include Faren, Nadezda, and Fukui, the three children of Zulera. While her relationship with Zulera is dubious, she is friends with Zulera's brother Akhet and his wife Minali. She also befriends Eka-Koshu Aki Varada, a cunning Kumenza man who, along the same vein as famous mercenaries such as Zak and Nevada, has a reputation of "knowing things he is not supposed to know."

Like so many others, Asami is also a friend of the Jalenga sorceress Zivia, and her partner-in-crime, the seraph mercenary Zak Dreggite. As a Serénez herself, she was welcomed in by the Serénez Clans, and befriended them as well. She also became one of a rare few that was fully trusted by many Tzengua, a trait notably only shared at her level with Zulera herself.

Enemies
After realizing that Asami had gone rogue and become subversive to the Kagero-Kiza organization in several ways, the Shinzoka Grandmaster Council set their sights on her, with several notable leaders tracking her as best they could. Other Kagero-Kiza agents turned against her as well, but were unsuccessful in ultimately stopping her. Despite it being the Arakos that were responsible for erasing most of her memories, she holds little ill will against them, especially since she is unsure who exactly performed the rites, or who ordered them carried out.

Role in the Series
Asami appears in multiple volumes of The Crest of Zabutur, although her primary role is in the 3rd volume of the series, The Shadows of Shinzoka.

The Crown of Zivia
Asami is absent from The Crown of Zivia, due to not being born yet. Owing to her origins, Asami is not mentioned or even foreshadowed at all in this volume of the story.

The Crusade of Zulera
Since a bulk of The Crusade of Zulera takes place during the year Asami is born, she has a very minor role in this story, cameoing near the end as she gets mentioned a few times as one of the few survivors of the fires that ravaged Sezonzé. Otherwise, she does not appear in this volume.

The Shadows of Shinzoka
Asami is the lead protagonist of The Shadows of Shinzoka, and since the story centers around her life, her actions, her feats, and her exploits, Asami's role in this volume is massive and central as she makes her journey from being a common Kagero-Kiza agent to the queen of Shioru.

The Rebirth of Krippa
Asami serves as something of a diplomat during the events of The Rebirth of Krippa, trying to help diffuse tension between her native country of Krawvill and neighboring Krippa. Her success is limited, and this in turn causes her to side more with Krippa and the Zaderei rather than Krawvill and the Shinzoka.