Sheena Fujibayashi

Sheena Fujibayashi, known as Fujibayashi Shihna (藤林しいな) in Japan, is one of the main protagonists in Tales of Symphonia. A skilled warrior from Mizuho, Sheena is sent to assassinate Sylvarant's Chosen of Regeneration, Colette Brunel.

Sheena is always accompanied by Corrine, a human-made Summon Spirit and Sheena's best friend. Because of her looks, Zelos Wilder frequently flirts with her, but she more often than not rejects him, usually in a violent way. As stated in a skit, her name is not actually her real name, but only those of her family can know what their real names are.

Fighting the Assassin
Sheena is first encountered at the Ossa Trail, where she stops the Chosen's group to kill Colette. However, when Colette falls and activates a hole that leads to a mine, Sheena stands over the hole and falls, stopping the battle. Lloyd Irving and Colette worry if the fall might have killed her, but Genis Sage calculates how the fall did not do so, while Raine Sage tells them not to worry for an assassin. At the end of Ossa Trail, however, Sheena breaks out, once more challenging the group, this time starting a fight. As her name is not revealed yet, her enemy name is "Clumsy Assassin". When the fight ends and Sheena loses, she disappears with the vow that she will kill the Chosen later. Through the journey around Sylvarant, it is possible to meet Sheena in the House of Salvation near Palmacosta, where she prays for luck and help to carry out her mission. It is also possible for Lloyd to watch her play with the children in Luin, where they exchange a few words before separating.

She is once more seen in the Balacruf Mausoleum, where the group enters to release the Seal of Wind. She is stopped by Noishe, and has to summon Corrine to make the creature get out of her way. However, the path is closed, forcing her to find another way inside. When the group has released the seal, Sheena blocks their path on their way out to challenge them once more. As she loses, the group asks her why she wants to kill the world's last chance for regeneration. In anger, she admits that her own world will decay if that happens, but runs away before she can be questioned more.

Working Together
In a now destroyed Luin, the group finds a hurt Sheena, who explains how the Desians from Asgard Human Ranch attacked the town, how she tried and failed to protect the citizens and that all the survivors were taken to the ranch. Lloyd and Colette beg Raine to heal her, which she eventually does. Depending on certain choices beforehand, Sheena might either join the party, wanting to help the citizens she has lived with for a while, or she leaves to save them by herself. In the human ranch's first visit, Sheena uses her last seal to transport them away from danger, and during the night, they all talk about how their Exspheres are actually the lives of humans who suffered at the ranch. They decide to once more infiltrate the human ranch, where they manage to free the prisoners, kill Kvar and destroy the ranch. From then on, Sheena decides to follow the group, temporality giving up on killing Colette after seeing much of her kindness.

When Colette has released her fourth seal, thus taking away her ability to speak, Sheena tells them about Tethe'alla, the world where she came from and how she was told to assassinate Colette to prevent Sylvarant from flourishing, which would make Tethe’alla, which is currently in flourish, to be in the same state as Sylvarant. The ninja admits that she does not know what to do, as she has come to like Colette and the others in the group. They later find a unicorn, trapped under the water, and Sheena admits that she can make a pact with Undine, the Summon Spirit of Water, so that they can free it for its horn with healing abilities. Although scared, Sheena eventually manages to form her first real pact. At the Tower of Salvation, Sheena is shocked to know that Colette was supposed to die at the end of the journey, and tries to save her with the others. When they fail and lose consciousness, they are saved by the Renegades, where Yuan Ka-Fai tells them more about Tethe'alla and Sylvarant, and Cruxis and the Church of Martel, suddenly surrounding them and tells how he needs Lloyd to fulfill his plans. Sheena helps the party escape from the Renegades, and then agree to go to Tethe'alla with the Rheairds.

Corrine's Sacrifice
When they arrive in Tethe'alla, Sheena has to go and report to Tiga about her failure to assassinate the Chosen of Sylvarant, and bids farewell with the party in Meltokio. She reappears again in Sybak, where the group is held down in the basements for planning to betray the King of Tethe'alla and having two half-elves with them. After breaking out of the basement, she follows them to save the Sages from execution.

After rescuing the Sage siblings, the group travel to the Gaoracchia Forest, where they have to battle another assassinate who is after Colette, Regal Bryant. After defeating him and taking him as a temporally prisoner, Corrine tells them that more knights are coming after them, forcing Sheena to take them to Mizuho, the hidden village for ninjas. There, she is appointed a new mission by Tiga, to follow the group as a representative, not a spy. However, she has to try to make a pact with Volt, the Summon Spirit of Lightning, and she runs off. Tiga explains how Sheena failed to make a pact with Volt twelve years prior to the events of the story, leading to the deaths of a quarter of Mizuho's population and her grandfather's comatose.

Lloyd finds and comforts her along with Corrine, and she decides to try once more. However, at the Temple of Lightning, Volt refuses to make a pact, and in desperation, Sheena attacks the Summon Spirit. Furious, Volt strikes the party with lightning, and proceeds to kill Sheena with a stronger lightning bolt. Corrine runs between, taking the hit. Before he dies, he encourages Sheena to make Volt regain belief in human kind, like she did with him. Moved by Corrine's sacrifice, Sheena tries once again and succeeds with the pact, making a vow in honor for him.

Making the Pacts
After realizing that forming pacts with Summon Spirits sever the mana links that makes the worlds connect to each other, the party travels around Tethe'alla to form pacts with Gnome, Summon Spirit of Earth, and Celsius, Summon Spirit of Ice. After the help of the Renegades, they form pacts in Sylvarant as well, with its Efreet, Summon Spirit of Fire, and Sylph, Summon Spirit of Wind. Before making a pact with Luna and Aska, the Summon Spirits of Light, the party goes back to Tethe'alla to form a pact with Shadow, the Summon Spirit of Darkness. After the final pact with Luna and Aska is formed, the Giant Kharlan Tree becomes unstable, and Kratos Aurion explains how the mana links were keeping the tree under control from going amok. They make a plan to how to calm the Kharlan Tree again, and Sheena is to go to use power of the Tethe'alla Summon Spirits to activate the Mana Cannon when given the signal from Lloyd at Iselia Human Ranch. After calming the Giant Kharlan Tree, she goes to Dirk's House, where she passes by Kratos leaving.

Settling the Score
Because of Colette's rare angelic illness, Sheena is forced to make a deal with Kuchinawa, who has revealed himself to be a traitor who wants her dead because of the Volt incident that left his parents dead. They agree upon "Corrine's Bell" that they will fight to settle down their score, and when entering Mizuho after this meeting, Sheena will go to fight him. The fight will have just the two of them, with Lloyd as a seer. When Sheena wins, Kuchinawa attempts suicide, but is stopped by either Lloyd or Sheena and is told that he has a meaning of living. Kuchinawa decides to not return to Mizuho and instead travel for himself. After Mithos betrays the group and hurts Altessa and Tabatha, Sheena sends some people from Mizuho to protect them while the group prepare themselves for the final battle in Flanoir.

Betrayal
The group travels to the Tower of Salvation, and to Sheena and everyone else's shock, Zelos betrays them and hands Colette over to Pronyma. Sheena admits to him that she never actually thought of him as a bad guy, but Zelos turns his back on her, and goes to Welgaia together with Pronyma and Colette. After fighting off the angels, Orochi and other ninjas come to hold the rest of them back while the group continues and retrieves Colette. After losing Regal and Raine, Sheena and Lloyd come to a bridge that is guarded by a root of the previously rampaging tree. Although Sheena manages to hold the root off with the Summon Spirits long enough for Lloyd to get over the bridge, the root falls and destroys it, taking Sheena with her. She tells Lloyd to continue after reminding that falling into a hole was how she met him. As Lloyd runs further into the tower, Sheena reflects on her decision before letting herself fall down the hole.

Final Battle
When Lloyd is about to get killed by Yggdrasil, Sheena is with the saved group as Genis uses Fire Ball to stop the murder. After defeating and watching the death of Pronyma, and witnessing Martel's rejection of Mithos, they fight to kill Yggdrasil, in which they succeed. However, Kratos arrives and tells Lloyd, his son, that if they truly want to save both worlds, he needs to kill him before Origin's seal. After he leaves, it is explained that Zelos saved them all from their apparent deaths, and the Tethe'allan Chosen rejoins the group. After the battle against Kratos and Origin, Colette is possessed by Mithos' soul, as Genis kept his Cruxis Crystal behind everyone's back. As they all go to save her, everyone but Lloyd is trapped in their own fears and nightmares. Sheena and Zelos must run away from a giant spider while they watch illusions of Kuchinawa and Seles Wilder convincing them to join Mithos, as they have no value in life. However, Lloyd comes and saves them, telling them that they do have a value in life, as his friends. In the end, Sheena and Zelos stop running, and find out that the spider was just an illusion. When they are all gathered, they go to face Mithos one final time.

In the End
After the battle against Mithos and the reunion of the worlds, Sheena watches as Lloyd and Colette flies up to the sky to save the Great Seed. She returns to Mizuho, where she is welcomed by everyone. Although they are celebrating a victory, Sheena claims that it is not over yet, as they have to move to Sylvarant and make themselves a name to be proud of, and also make it a home where Kuchinawa can return.

A Long Time Ago
In A Long Time Ago, it is revealed how Sheena and Corrine met, as well as the details for the failed pact with Volt and its aftermath. Sheena was asked to be a part of the experiments done in order to study Summon Spirits twelve or more years ago, being one of the world's last summoners. While there, the researchers tried to be friendly, but she rejected them. When a human-made Summon Spirits became aggressive, she took it out and let it free. However, it followed her, revealing its name, Corrine, and afterward they became friends.

After the failure in the Temple of Lightning, however, Sheena became more closed and sent all the money she earned from the experiments to Mizuho, but admitted to Corrine how much she wished that she had died in the temple instead. One day, another fake Summon Spirit went out of control and attacked the workers. Sheena tried to stop it, but its physical resemblance to Volt stopped her. Corrine, who revealed that he could talk, encouraged her to fight and not die, as she was the only human he trusted. She succeeded, and they have been partners since. It also reveals that, after the prologue, the King of Tethe'alla has taken Zelos's advice and called upon Sheena. He asks her to become the ambassador of peace between Tethe'alla and Sylvarant, as she has traveled both worlds and know much about them both. He warns her of the responsibility and that he understands if she rejects, but she agrees, and thinks back to how she used to be, and Corrine.

Rodeo Ride Tour
As revealed in Rodeo Ride Tour, Sheena and some fellow people from Mizuho are in a mission to stop a man's mana-fueled bomb from destroying the anniversary festival of Sylvarant and Tethe'alla's union. Ready to sacrifice herself to stop the bomb from killing the Meltokioans, Sheena takes the bomb away and summons Efreet to destroy it, ending their mission. While Sheena is in her house in Mizuho, Zelos comes for a visit and tries to persuade her into following him on his new journey. Seeing him and Orochi fight about responsibility, Sheena rejects Zelos's offer, making him leave.

Later, however, when they have an audience with the king, the King of Tethe'alla tells her that the reason Zelos let go of his duties is because the mad bomber and his companions are after his life as the Chosen of Tethe'alla, which would result risking Meltokio's people's lives should he stay. Realizing this, she regrets rejecting him and, encouraged by Orochi, goes to follow him. Throughout the journey, Sheena and Zelos get closer as they run from the enemies, and Sheena reflects on herself, her relationship with Lloyd, and how she was saddened that she could not be by Lloyd's side instead of Colette. However, she admits that they are better matched together. She also compares her and Zelos's relationship as a rodeo ride tour.

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
Sheena returns in the sequel to Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, which occurs two years after the main story. She does not appear before Emil Castagnier, Marta Lualdi, Tenebrae, and Regal go to the Temple of Ice. After it appears that Richter Abend has killed Marta, they hear Sheena's voice, and she and a healthy Marta appears in a cloud of smoke, revealing the dead Marta to just be a fake by using Sheena's Igaguri style. She follows the group for a while, before she accidentally falls into a hole. When the group finds her again, she is taking care of Alice with Decus, as she fell on her. After she finds out that they are from the Vanguard, however, she uses Celsius to seal them off, and upon hearing of Lloyd's recent behavior and his interest upon Centurions' cores, she decides to follow the group to look for him.

She continues with the party until they reach Altamira, when she stays and goes back to help Regal. She meets the trio again when they journey back to save Regal and was beaten by Richter after Brute Lualdi was defeated. After her recovery, she and all of Lloyd's friends get answers for his strange behavior and joins them to the Martel Temple to see Verius again. After Emil sealed away his Ratatosk personality and the party went their separate ways to relax before the final battle, Sheena returned home to Mizuho where she and Emil were talking about recent events. She tells Emil that the village will be moved and when there is peace, the village would be gone. She then asks Emil that, since he is Ratatosk, to make a pact with her so that she can see him whenever she wants and if that would not work then she will have to ask the people at the Elemental Research Laboratory to find another way. On the day of the final confrontation with Richter, she follows the party to the Otherworldly Gate. After the final battle, Sheena leaves Emil with a smile of their friendship and wishes him good luck. As revealed in various skits toward the end, after Lloyd and Colette named the newborn world tree with Martel, Sheena and the others met them before the tree. There, they learned its new name, but were requested by Martel to keep the name a secret to protect it from harm.

Appearance and Personality
Sheena is a very strong-willed person. In part owing to her ninja upbringing, she tends to act somewhat hot-blooded and angry most of the time, but she does possess a gentle side, which becomes more apparent as the story progresses. She has little confidence in her ability to make important decisions, a flaw that was considerably deepened since the disaster with Volt, and considers herself a lone wolf. However, like Lloyd, she is a strong believer in altruism. She is willing to bend the rules imposed on her, such as the Pope's orders to kill the Chosen of Sylvarant, in order to do what is right. Despite the anger some of Mizuho bears toward her, she understands that mistakes can be corrected, and absolutely refuses to give up on someone, even her greatest enemy. Sheena's tough facade has created an interesting outer personality. She tends to anger easily and is not above disciplining someone with a swift smack. However, she is also talkative, despite her troubled past and angry members of society who have cast her out of their circles. Sheena is also very clumsy, similar to Colette. Unlike Colette, who tends to get unnaturally lucky from being clumsy, Sheena is very unlucky, often falling into traps and tripping into holes, although this does not happen as often as Colette's clumsy moments.

Fighting Style
Armed with a variety of magic-infused seals, Sheena proves a decent melee fighter. More importantly, however, she can call upon powerful Summon Spirits to aid the party in battle; these summoning abilities are also vital to the storyline. With the exception of Corrine, she can only summon when she is in overlimit, and at a heavy cost to her TP; once she begins the incantation, however, the chosen Summon Spirit will appear and deal massive damage on all enemies in range, as well as give support stats to party members. After gaining the Summon: Lightning arte, she can no longer to use Summon: Corrine.

Trivia

 * Sheena's name is derived from a ninja master of feudal Japan, Sabuji Fujibayashi.
 * Sheena is the only playable character able to deal Dark damage without the use of an item or the arte Tethe Seal: Darkness in Tales of Symphonia; that method being Summon: Shadow.
 * Sheena's strongest weapon is the "Divine Judgment", obtained from the coliseum. The name of her Devil's Arm is "Gates of Hell". The gag weapon the player can buy for her in the completely rebuilt Luin is "Money Bags".