Shekinah

Shekinah is a demon first seen in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux and its true final boss.
==History==
With a name that literally means "dwelling" or "settling," Shekinah, also known as Shekhinah, is the female counterpart to God. She represents the divine presence of God and denotes its dwelling or settling. Shekinah literally means "the presence of God on earth or a symbol or manifestation of his presence," which hints at her connection to the Great Will.
Kabbalah was the first practice that associates Shekinah with the female gender. The Zohar, a foundational book of kabbalah, presents the shekhinah as playing an essential role in the conception and birth of Moses. In Kabbalah, the Shekhinah is identified with the tenth sefirah (Malkuth), and the source of life for humans on earth below the sefirotic realm. Shekhinah is sometimes seen as a divine winged being, dwelling with the people of Israel and sharing in their struggles. Moses is the only human considered to have risen beyond Shekhinah into the sefirotic realm, reaching the level of Tiferet, or the bridegroom of the shekhinah.
Her name is also romanized as Shekina(h), Schechina(h) or Shechina(h). The concept of Shekinah is also associated with the concept of the holy spirit in Judaism (ruach ha-kodesh).
==Appearances==
*Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux: Root Race, Final Boss (New Law, New Neutral, New Chaos)
==Profile==
===Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux===
Shekinah is the true form of The Three Wise Men and the master of Demeter (and by extension, Mastema). In all "New Alignment" Routes, she is the final boss, replacing Zelenin in the standard Chaos routes and Mem Aleph in the standard Law/Neutral routes.
The Three Wise Men become one as they transform into their true form of Shekinah using the fifth Cosmic Egg formed from the six fruits of the Womb of Grief, after Demeter delivers it to them. The masculine voice and forms of the three are replaced by Shekinah's feminine voice and a bust made of four female faces, facing off against the protagonist who stands in their way.
In battle, she harnesses the fruits gathered by Demeter and the protagonist to attack, each fruit having a different ability stolen from the guardians originally holding them. When near death, Shekinah summons Demeter to heal her at the cost of her life, which the Greek goddess reluctantly does while fearing dying herself.
Healed with the death of her servant, Shekinah continues the fight, becoming highly resistant to all forms of damage except Co-op Attacks. Despite this and added attacks, she's eventually forced to erect a barrier as she nears death again. Shekinah meets her end at the protagonist's hands, with the fifth Cosmic Egg obtained afterwards.
Despite her manipulations, egocentrism and arrogance, Shekinah still believes wholeheartedly that her actions are for the Great Will, implying that she was one of its avatars and her actions might not be done for the sake of delighting on the suffering that follows. Upon being slain, she falls into despair and sadly mourns in her belief that humanity will slay everything in existence, including the Earth she loves, and apologizes to the Great Will for failing to "guide humanity" before finally dying.
Her connection to YHVH is implied by Shekinah referring to herself as the god of law, along with the Three Wise Men mentioning that Mem Aleph stole the source of their power and divided into pieces (the fifth cosmic egg/cosmic fruit), which is similar to the EX mission False God in Chains that say that YHVH's power was torn into pieces and sealed away by the mothers of the Schwarzwelt.
==Strategy==
Shekinah's initial moveset bears some resemblance to that of Mem Aleph's, packing very strong elemental skills that hit the whole party. Divine Pain is a parallel to Antichthon, inflicting Almighty damage and applying an all-round debuff, and Divine Light is a very strong Expel-based instant kill attack. Shekinah doesn't have Mem Aleph, MA or Mother's Kiss, so the risk of instant death to the protagonist is relatively low. However, throughout the fight, Shekinah will invoke the powers of the six Cosmic Fruits at the end of the turn, changing her elemental affinities to match the bosses found in the Womb of Grief, and gaining some of their powers to boot. Divine Glare instead reverts Shekinah to her base affinities and abilities.
Once Shekinah falls to low health (20% or lower), she summons Demeter and demands her sacrifice, invoking Eleusinian Harvest which fully restores Shekinah's HP and grants her great resistance to all forms of damage, including Almighty, but excluding Co-Op Attack damage.
Shekinah almost always opens this phase with Heaven's Arrow, a strong Gun attack that strikes the party 3 to 8 times, with power rivaling that of Mother's Kiss. She also does this the turn after she reverts to her base resistances. After which, once she starts channeling the Fruits, she begins using the field effects of the bosses, including Cocytus to protect her weakness, Sol Canus to negate buffs and debuffs and Abyssal Prison to inflict Fear on the party. However, these field effects also end if she invokes a different Fruit or uses Divine Glare. She also gains access to Preening, which not only heals her for over 1,000 HP (at this point an equivalent to one or two good Co-Op attacks) but also buffs her an equivalent of four Luster Candies, easily erasing any debuffs the party has placed on her and almost necessitating an immediate Dekaja Stone.
While Shekinah is at her base form, not only does she have no weaknesses, thus requiring the party to rely on criticals for Co-Op attacks, but she can erect one of three Toras, which grant her guaranteed reflection from all attacks of party members from any one alignment. The Toras last a good seven turns and persist through different Fruits, but the sole solace is that she doesn't reflect Almighty attacks with them. She does this each time her health falls by around 30%, and the Tora she chooses is dependent on the dominant alignment in the active party.
Because this second phase is so dependent on Demon Co-Op attacks, it helps to use demons of matching alignments as much as possible so that the party can get quick damage on her. Those that have a variety of offensive elements will serve excellently when she switches her resistances; even the quad-dyne Seth gained from Thoth's EX missions comes in handy. Don't forget that the elemental attack items are still viable when the protagonist lacks the proper element in his gun. When she throws her Toras up, go on the defensive as even Almighty attacks do pitiful damage to her, or switch demons out for those of other alignments to bypass the Tora. Even the Toras cannot block Co-Op attack damage from the protagonist augmented with Co-Op Enhance W.
While playing on Expert, Shekinah's Toras in the second phase are not simply brutal, but nearly impossible to overpower with consistent DPS and good decision making, as Anahita's realm shift makes Co-Op attacks nearly impossible, Preening will be used every 2-4 turns, the phase length of the Toras seems to increase, and Shekinah will re-apply her Tora very likely the turn after it ends, resulting in a painful and embarrassing lockout even with high-level parties with damage-resistant demons like Ongyo-Ki, Trumpeter and Kohryu. 
The best way to get around this stonewall is to allow her to trigger her first Tora, buckle down to stay alive for 7-10 turns, keep her buffs low with Dekaja Stones and then as soon as her Tora ends, exploit the Change feature's first-in-queue priority to swap the three primary demons to any other three demons with matching Alignments that do not match the protagonist’s. Shekinah will trigger a Tora in response to the Alignment of the weaker demons, and this can be used as a very wide time window to switch back, push forward with stronger demons and finish the fight. 
A split-Alignment party can also get around this lockout to some capacity, the difference in doing ~1,400 damage per Co-Op in her second phase down to likely around ~900 with split Alignments can slow the fight down significantly, and one can't be completely sure of which Alignment she will block (Though the Torahs seem to focus on the protagonist’s Alignment to some degree). 
Bring Beads of Life and don't be afraid of breaking the bank to spawn Mitamas to Source in skills like Null Physical and Null Gun to keep the primary party alive.
==Stats==
These are her stats at the start of the fight.
<tabber>
Divine Glare =
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1st Fruit =
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2nd Fruit =
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3rd Fruit =
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4th Fruit =
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5th Fruit =
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6th Fruit =
</tabber>
After absorbing Demeter, her moveset changes accordingly:
<tabber>
Divine Glare =
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1st Fruit =
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2nd Fruit =
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3rd Fruit =
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4th Fruit =
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5th Fruit =
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6th Fruit =
</tabber>
==Quotes==
===Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux===
Category:Abrahamic Mythology
Category:Final Bosses
Category:Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Enemies
Category:Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux Characters
Category:Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux Demons