Zagi

Zagi is an antagonist in Tales of Vesperia.

Fighting Style
In battle, Zagi uses two dagger-like blades, held in a reverse grip. He fights with various fluid movements, such as spinning around and dashing upwards or downwards. He can also throw his knives like boomerangs. In later battles, his attacks can also inflict paralysis on their victims. Zagi apparently carried a vial of poison with him when he attacked the group in Heracles. Surprisingly, however, he used it on himself, enabling him to blow poisonous clouds at his foes. His final form in Tarquaron could do this without the self-poison effect. Zagi's blastia arm opens a whole new range of abilities for him. He can fire powerful beams from it, or use it to shield himself from attacks. Doing so, however, seems to tire him out, leaving him vulnerable to attack afterwards. In his final battle, it also acted as a key to a magic seal blocking the party's path up Tarquaron.

His mystic arte Shining Blastia Field blows his opponents away from him while he overloads the blastia in his replacement left arm. The overload shoots a beam of concentrated aer into the air which proceeds to rain down on the party. Coincidentally, he shares some of his attacks with Repede.

Story
Zagi is an elite assassin Yuri meets early on in the game. He appears to be insane, as implied by members of the party and his general behavior and speech patterns. The player ends up fighting him five times before the game ends. He is first encountered in the castle where he mistakes Yuri Lowell for Flynn Scifo, though it is never known who sent Zagi to assassinate Flynn in the first place. He is defeated by the swordsman, who also protects his new ally Estelle from Zagi's attacks. This defeat led Zagi to develop a grudge against Yuri, presumably because Yuri was the only man who made Zagi bleed in battle. Before having to leave the castle when a member of Leviathan's Claw appears, he attacks him twice before accepting to retreat.

He battles Yuri and his allies again on the ship leaving Capua Nor, incidentally preventing the party from pursuing Ragou. He is again defeated, even being knocked off the boat a few times, before being caught in the ship's explosion. Despite his seeming demise, Zagi returns yet again in the Arena, interrupting a battle between Yuri and Flynn. In this encounter, he sports a seemingly-mechanical left arm equipped with a powerful bodhi blastia. He tells Yuri that he was the one who gave this to him, meaning his arm was probably lost after the previous battle. The blastia allows Zagi to absorb magic artes, but it breaks when he absorbs too much magic, leading to his defeat.

Zagi appears for a fourth time in the control room of the mobile fortress Heracles. He attacks even more fiercely than before, even poisoning himself to add new attacks to his repetoire, but falls yet again to the party's strength. Optionally, Karol Capel can cure him of the ailment. Even after being defeated here, he comes back and tries to continue his fight with Yuri even after being knocked clear out the window by Yuri's attack. But before he can, Yeager appears with Gauche and Droite, who twin kick Zagi out the window once again.

Zagi's fifth and final appearance is in Tarqaron. He blocks the party's progress with a seal that can only be removed by taking his prosthetic left arm, ensuring that they would fight him with their full strength. At this point, his physical appearance had changed dramatically-his hair drooped around his head, his shirt was torn, exposing bulging veins on his shoulder and chest, his blastia arm had a new design around the forearm, his voice was distorted, and he was constantly surrounded by a crimson aura.

Zagi battled the heroes with every one of his deadliest techniques, but eventually succumbed for a final time and fell from the platform where he duelled the heroes. After his death, the party speculates on his reasons for fighting. Estelle comments on how Zagi might have thought Yuri was the only person he could fight with at 100% to which Yuri responds, "What do I care about someone that crazy?"