Shiro Yoshida

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Former Xavier’s student and current X-Man/art student, Shiro Yoshida is certainly not the friendliest or most agreeable person this side of the Pacific. Though his intense nationalistic pride has been tempered during his time in the States, Shiro remains a volatile, independent, yet sometimes vulnerable young man.

Details

Character Journal: x_sanfuaiyaa

Real Name: Shiro Yoshida

Codename: Sunfire

Aliases: Kamikaze

First Appearance: November 10, 2003

Date of Birth: March 15, 1987

Place of Birth: Tokyo, Japan

Citizenship: Japanese

Relatives: Yashida Clan: Saburo Yoshida (father - deceased), Shinobu Yoshida (mother - deceased), Leyu Yoshida (sister), Shingen Yashida (great uncle - deceased), Keniuchio Harada (first cousin once removed), Mariko Yashida (first cousin once removed - deceased). Tomo Hino (maternal uncle - deceased).

Education: High school diploma, currently working for a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Cartooning at the School of Visual Arts.

Relationship Status: single

Occupation: student/superhero

Team Affiliation: X-Men (currently on medical leave)

Biography

Childhood

The Yashida Clan is one of the oldest and wealthiest families in Japan, claiming to be able to track their heritage back to well before the time of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Though they hold exclusive ties to the Yakuza, Shiro’s father Saburo was a diplomat, committed to strengthening post-war Japanese-American relations.

Shiro’s mother’s family hails from Hiroshima, and his maternal grandparents were victims of the atomic bomb dropping in 1945. Though they were lucky enough to survive without significant personal damage, they and their children were all very sickly. When Shinobu and Saburo married, they agreed to take in and care for Shinobu’s older brother Tomo. With Saburo away often and Shinobu growing weaker after giving birth, child rearing duties fell to Tomo. He blamed America for his family’s condition, and raised Shiro to share these anti-American sentiments. By the time Shinobu died after giving birth to Leyu, the damage was done and Shiro accepted Tomo’s hatred as Gospel truth.

When Shiro was 11, Tomo took him to Hiroshima so he could see first-hand the destruction wrought. When he touched the still-radioactive soil, his powers manifested, and Tomo decided that he could use his nephew as a weapon against the Americans. He trained Shiro to use his powers for destructive purposes. When Saburo discovered what his brother-in-law was doing, he confronted Tomo, who shot him. Shiro witnessed this, and in a fit of rage lost control of his powers for the first time, utterly annihilating his house and everything in it. Thankfully, Leyu was out at the time.

Now orphans, the Yoshida children were adopted by their father’s cousins, Keniuchio Harada and Mariko Yashida. Shiro and his sister lived with Harada for the next four years. Despite Harada’s numerous business ventures with the United States and Mariko’s insistence of the maintenance of cordial international relations, Shiro stayed true to Tomo’s lessons. It was to his great dismay that his guardians decided to send him to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters in 2003 to further develop his mutation, which both Harada and Mariko agreed was a mission of the utmost importance.

Living At The X-Mansion

Shiro set himself apart from the rest of the student body the moment he entered the school. But despite his automatic contempt for Americans, he befriended his roommate Alex Summers after they decided to kick out their other roommate, Angelo Espinosa, in order to get him to seek help for his personal problems. While this action further alienated him from his peers, he developed an everlasting bond with Alex.

The next year proved itself challenging for Shiro. The school was invaded by Pete Wisdom's former employers and not only did Shiro dispatch two of the soldiers, but also witnessed a confrontation between Sarah Morlocke and a possessed Betsy Braddock. He earned Harada's ire after failing to deliver Piotr Rasputin to a cadre of Yakuza working in conjunction with the Russian mob. And the joy he felt at helping to rescue a kidnapped Alex from the hands of Selene was supplanted by Kwannon's seduction and Betsy's subsequent rejection, Illyana's abduction to Limbo, and Skippy kidnapping Artie and Miles.

In August, Shiro was one of many who was spirited away to Asgard by the vengeful deity Loki. He ended up in the company of the goddesses of fate, the Norns, who had taken on the appearances of the three lead characters of the anime Aa! My Goddess. He became their champion and performed errands for them until an encounter with Marie-Ange ultimately led him back home.

Blaze of Glory

Not three days after coming back to Earth, Shiro returned to Tokyo for a vacation, taking Alex with him. Their fun came to an abrupt end when Harada demanded that Shiro drop out of Xavier's to become his protege in the Yakuza, claiming that this was his responsibility and destiny as a Yashida. When Shiro refused, Harada disowned him and threatened him with death should he ever set foot on Japanese soil again. Shiro packed his bags, grabbed Alex and his sister Leyu, and headed off to the airport to return to New York. After a brief confrontation with Harada's bodyguard who ordered Shiro to leave Leyu behind, the three crossed the Pacific and Shiro enrolled Leyu in the school.

Stripped of his family and his country, Shiro became withdrawn and began to ponder his fate. He concluded that all of his troubles stemmed from him beind a mutant: his mother dying, Tomo murdering his father, Harada trying to control him, and everything that happened in his nine months in the States. He convinced himself that the only way to discard his lot in life and start anew was to strip himself of his powers. Thanks to the timely intervention of Manuel de la Rocha, Cyclops, Cable, and Northstar, he was saved from an act that would likely have ended in his death. The trade-off of losing his powers, however, was his entire skin turning pitch black and exposing Paul to significant amounts of radiation.

When Shiro awoke, he agreed to seek counseling. The summer's events proved to be a wake-up call for him, prompting him to seriously reevalute himself. He started his college application process in the fall, investigating local art schools and taking the required standardized tests. He even went out on a date with friend Clarice Ferguson. At the end of October, he fell ill, but this was just a brief preparation for the explosive return of his powers.

Proteus, Reavers, and the X-Men

Reempowered, Shiro jumped back into studies of both his mutation and of the mundane kind. He completed the TOEFL and ACT in November, and with Alex's help in December, discovered new aspects of his power. Anxious to demonstrate a willingness and commitment to help, he disobeyed orders and tried to assist a small team of X-Men against a creature granted the powers of Moira's dead son. The resulting fallout prompted him to again reevaluate his views of himself.

This impetuousness was tempered a couple months later when a group of cybernetically enhanced soldiers known as the Reavers attacked the school. Alex and Shiro went to help Kitty assist some of the younger students when they were attacked by three of the Reavers. They managed to take out the Reavers and get to safety. Also around this time, Clarice and Shiro decided to pursue a romantic relationship, and he also joined the X-Men as a trainee. He had his first (unsuccessful) Danger Room run in July.

With the beginning of college in September, 2005, Shiro found himself juggling school responsibilities, X-Men training, and an increasingly complex personal life. He was in Seattle for the riot, helping to discourage potential arsonists and to rescue people from the damaged monorail. And with Alex down in Hawaii for college, Scott asked him to move in with new student Tommy Jones, a former member of the Friends of Humanity. Their relationship began as cordial yet distant, but they grew to understand and tolerate each other over time.

Full Metal Mutants and Shiro’s Fall

2006 started off well for Shiro. His training progresses smoothly and classes were going well. After missing the Japanese festival of Setsubun for the third year in a row, he decided to ignore Harada's death threats and spend a weekend in Japan with Clarice for White Day. Of course, even the best clandestine affairs fall apart. While taking a walk around the ryokan where they were staying, a small contingent of ninja from The Hand spotted them and attacked, thinking that Shiro was a Yakuza spy out to get them. Though Shiro and Clarice managed to neutralize them and retreat, the encounter of Hand and Yashida led to increasing violence in Japan between the two warring clans.

A truce was negotiated between Harada and the leader of The Hand, Matsu'o Tsurayaba in April. By marrying Mariko to Matsu'o's right-hand-man Hideki Noburu, The Hand and Yashida Clan would be united and the violence would end. Shiro was surprised to receive an invitation to the wedding, but temporarily put that concern away when a strange old woman tried to kidnap some of the young students. It was determined that only younger people could stand up against her due to some age-dependent bioweapon, so Shiro and the other X-Men trainees set out to find and apprehend her. Shiro was promoted to full-time X-Men after successful completion of this mission.

The wedding was set for barely two weeks later. As Shiro expected, The Hand betrayed the Yashidas, poisoning Mariko and igniting an offensive in the shrine where the wedding was held. Clarice, exhausted from teleporting across continents often, managed to send Leyu back to New York, but stayed in Japan with Shiro to help him fight alongside his clan. The Hand was beaten back, but Mariko could not be saved. Before she died, she pled with her half-brother to start a clean slate with Shiro, and he acquiesced.

Once again a Yashida, Shiro found himself contemplating his abilities and his duties again. In late June, he helped Yoshi Satou, a friend from school fend off a gang of Korean thugs. Twice. Yoshi admitted that he was indebted to the Korean mob because he was taking a mutation-enhancing drug called Kick. Shiro offered to help Yoshi pay off his debt in exchange for a promise to get clean. Yoshi agreed, but Shiro found him Kicking. Angry and betrayed, Shiro sent Yoshi to a hospital and confiscated the drugs.

He didn't have time to consider what to do with it, though, as he was called to San Diego for the events of The Rictor Effect. Cyclops called on him, Storm, and Iceman to avert a series of mini-tsunamis after Magneto tortured Julio Richter to the point where he lost control of his seismic manipulation powers. Shiro questioned his ability to do this job until he found a cartridge of Kick that he'd accidentally packed away with him. He viewed using the drug to be the lesser of two evils, and successfully destroyed the tidal wave with the drug's boost.

A side effect of Kick's power-boosting effect is an incredibly high possibility of addiction, and Shiro fell victim to the drug's influence. By the end of the summer, he was so dependent on it that not only could he not access his powers without Kicking, but he'd lost his natural immunity to the radiation he emits and was growing ill. Shiro blamed this on his supplier, Korean crime lord Chung Sheng Ho, and high out of his mind, he flew to the Lower East Side to confront him. Dr. Amelia Voght, having seen Shiro just before he left and noticing his odd behavior, alerted Xavier, who sent Scott, Logan, and Marie (with Ororo on comms) to retrieve him. Scott tried to appeal to the young man, but when Shiro noticed Logan and Marie off to the sides, he thought that it was all a trick and attacked. Marie subdued him by touching him, and Logan managed to talk her down before Shiro's influence became too much. When Shiro awoke again, he apologized for his behavior and eagerly accepted treatment for his addiction. Physically weakened and his control over his powers severely shaken, Shiro is fighting hard to return to his former state.

Physical Characteristics

Height: 5’7”

Weight: 130 lbs.

Eyes: brown

Hair: black

Other Features: Shiro’s skin turns pitch black when he overexerts his powers, due to an increase in pigment production in order to increase sunlight absorption.

Powers

Shiro possesses the mutant ability to absorb sunlight and use the stored chemical energy to ionize air into plasma. With little effort, he can release an omnidirectional wave of plasma, and with some concentration, he can control and direct its path. He can also fly by riding on a hot cloud of monoatomic hydrogen atoms. Mental stimulation of this hot cloud can propel him through the air at a maximum speed of 400 miles per hour. His lungs are developed to extract oxygen from altitudes of up to 30,000 feet above sea level, and the heat from the plasma equalizes the pressure. He’s also learned how to shape plasma into small exploding fireballs, and to extend his vision into the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Despite the intense heat, light, and radiation released by use of his powers, Shiro is immune to their effects. Whenever he uses his powers, he automatically conjures a personal force field that protects him. The force field is visible, ranging from a faint golden glow to bright flames that cover his entire body and extend up to five inches outward (like the Human Torch) depending on the intensity to which he accesses his powers. He cannot extend this force field to offer anyone else protection; it affects his body, his clothes, and small objects on his person.

It is possible for him to exhaust himself if he uses more energy than he can bring in. When this happens, melanocytes and similar cells go into overtime pigment production so he can quickly absorb light and regain his energy. He absorbs a lot of light during this period, so his skin doesn't reflect any, turning it black. This will last until he's back to normal levels.

The most dangerous application of his powers was demonstrated in the summer of 2004; he can release so much energy that he acts as a thermonuclear bomb. At full strength, he could annihilate a small island. The strain of such an act would likely tear his force field apart, and if he didn't die immediately, then he would be poisoned by the intense radiation and die within the week.

Equipment

Shiro owns a katana given to him as a gift by Betsy a couple of years ago. He used to own a custom-made sword that Harada had commissioned for him, but it was destroyed when Shiro was cast out.

When he was addicted to Kick, he’d carry around what looked like an asthma inhaler loaded with a cartridge of the drug. He’s long since discarded it.

Trivia

Shiro never learned how to drive, but out of his own volition. Who needs to drive when they can fly?

Legally, Shiro's name in Japanese is spelled 四郎, which translates to "fourth son." (His father, Saburo, is "third son," whose father Jiro is "second son," whose father Ichiro is "first son.") After the events of Blaze of Glory, however, Shiro began to sign his name as 死郎, which loosely translates to "death boy" or "death son." He did this to represent how the break from his family was in many ways equivalent to death.