Kendra the Bodyguard

[madimpossibledreamer]

 

Wakabayashi Mishiko (Kendra) - Jagā (jaguar) and Washi (eagle)

Wakabayashi was so hard, not gonna lie.  It’d be easier if I just stuck with Japanese symbolism, but I didn’t want to do that.  So I was searching Nicaraguan symbolism (just returning results on national symbols like the flag, not helpful), mythology and folklore (no, I don’t want her irezumi to be of la llorona) animal symbolism (national animal)…okay, were they ruled by any of the Big Three civilizations in the area (Mayan, Incan, Aztec)—that’s a no, chief…finally stumbled on something connecting them to Tolmecs, which themselves might be a myth, but hey, I can declare that’s actual history in Bloody Petals.

Wakabayashi sees the yakuza as sort-of-shamans, and…honestly, she’s not wrong.  The practice of connecting to a spirit you feel drawn to, inviting it to share your body, doing some inhuman stuff with that power, fairly true to the shaman tradition.  So she’s going with some stuff that I found on a different website that supposedly connects to Tolmec shamans.  Also, since it’s not Japanese, like Miyamoto she ended up with a Horikusa irezumi, not a Horimae one.  She’s also one of few that has the ability to invoke two of the spirits, the jaguar and the eagle.

Her abilities make her the perfect bodyguard.  She’s one of few that can keep an invocation going for a long time (from practice), and also has a fairly stealthy invocation, after she’s invoked, due to the stealth of the tiger.  Rumor has it that she’s even managed to catch Matriarch Natsukawa off guard once, although this is entirely unconfirmed.  She’ll often invoke shortly before a big event and then stalk behind Chairwoman Natsukawa, completely unnoticed, ready and willing to strike down any attacker.  The only times you’re even likely to specifically see her are when she’s purposefully letting herself be seen in order to intimidate.  Chairwoman Natsukawa is pretty good about reading when someone’s lying to her, but with Wakabayashi at her side, it’s almost impossible to deceive the Chairwoman of the Amaya-kai.  Likewise, she can follow directly behind her boss into the spirit world.  Most yakuza need spells to see the state of the Hellmouth or the Underworld.  Wakabayashi merely has to invoke.  She also has precognitive dreams, which is only that much more useful coupled with Natsukawa’s Slayer dreams, and can also astrally project or pass along messages that can’t be intercepted for her Matriarch.  As for fighting skill, the jaguar allows her an advantage of sheer strength second only to Miyamoto.  She probably would surpass Miyamoto easily if she wasn’t quite so much of a traditionalist and therefore predictable, but she makes up for that with raw power and array of tricks, like an almost-complete knowledge of her surroundings.  She finishes that off with water for the jaguar and air for the eagle, and while that doesn’t afford her extra oomph in spells or the ability to manipulate any elements, she is completely capable of moving through air or water faster than she should be able to and somehow not getting hurt (for example, from a somersault off a three-story building into a group of enemies).

*jaguar (Jagā in Japanese)-blend into the surroundings on cue, see past illusions to the truth, read the balance, hunter, the physical world, the present, move between worlds, strong spirit, protection from evil, ferocity, valor, aggressive, power to face fears and confront enemies, white invocation (association with the moon, which is less common than the association with the sun)

*eagle (Washi in Japanese)-move through the spirit world, see other worlds or distant places, precognitive dreams, communication, freedom, blue invocation

*volcano (Kazan in Japanese)-one of the fascinating things I learned while searching desperately for Nicaraguan animal symbolism is that Masaya, Nicaragua, a volcano, was commonly called “The Mouth of Hell”.  So apparently there’s a Hellmouth in Nicaragua.  Presumably, Wakabayashi then knew of the Hellmouth (probably only through legend; I don’t think her father was deep into the spiritual side of things, even if he is probably Christian) and may have even heard legends of Slayers.  One in history was probably even a Nicaraguan native.  (Also, she probably gets called one of the times Natsukawa|Buffy dies, but whether this happens before or after Kuroba|Faith is uncertain.)  Thus, she’s dually useful to Natsukawa|Buffy: she knows about the Hellmouth before it’s even explained to her, even if she doesn’t know everything, but she does know a different angle/set of legends and, perhaps more importantly, she knows of the Slayers and Watchers and gives some of the first intel about their interfering jerkishnesses.

*water-resilience, going with the flow

*wind/air-creation, mind, wisdom