STORY
Shirma Magnolie Era
For the first half of this characters backstory, please refer to the Soleil Shirma page.
The NYAH Mercenary Era
After the halving of The Second Party, the downfall of the NYAH Hunt Company seemed imminent. The tavern was not financially sustainable on it's own, and two people did not a hunt party make. It was decided that NYAH would start recruiting, but after building up so much notoriety as the clan of the famous hunter Zarg, every green adventurer with a stick the size of their ego would want to join, and would undoubtedly underperform. To supplement this, Shirma would offer paid combat lessons. "Anything from a rod to a broadsword", he would advertise. This would delay the inevitable death of their company, but there was no way to know for how long.
Primal Shirma and the Warrior of Light
It was during this rough time that Shirma stumbled upon a vial of a mysterious concoction found during one of his and Zargs old jobs. Feeling the pull of a quick and painless, albeit cowardly way out, Shirma ingested the contents hoping for the best and at peace with the worst. To his shock, nothing had immediately happened.
The next day, he awoke in a new body.
What Shirma had consumed was Fantasia, a legendary serum said to alter whoever consumes it to fit their ideal self. Deep down, after everything he'd been through, Shirma had always wanted to be a woman, and moreover always idolized the rare Dunesfolk who'd traveled from Thanalan to Limsa. The result was a mixture of his birth race of Seeker Miqo'te and the jovial Dunesfolk.
While somewhere deep in his subconscious, this was truly what he wanted, his conscious mind - full of bias, full of fear, full of uncomfortable familiarities, his family, his identity - was terrified and enraged. Attempt after attempt, locked in the company workshop so nobody could see what had happened to him, he tried to revert back. A simple glamour curse, after all, could probably be reversed with potent enough white magic. Unbeknownst to him, this was not a curse, and no method of breaking curses was giving him the results he wanted. Were that he had a suitable vessel, he could simply soul transfer into something akin to his original body, but it would never be his. Finally it occurred to him. Crystal summoning. He could summon a clone of himself - his real body, to the letter - and inhabit that. Without delay, he combined the company's crystal resource and began the summoning.
The form conjured was much taller, much more twisted than Shirma. A disturbing grin plastered on its face.
As any Primal summoned is merely a twisted suggestion of the god it intends, this clone of Shirma the crystals made manifest was an unpleasantly vague reflection of his former self. At least three times in scale, with a booming voice and screeching laugh. It knew it's purpose, and it knew it was going to be eradicated. It attacked in a jarring mix of playfulness and fear, leaping toward the real Shirma like a feral animal. With his new smaller stature, the Primal held the advantage. The in-house recruits from the training program were all upstairs, simply tolerating the noise, knowing full well their leader was an eccentric and best left to his devices. However, hearing the thud of something so heavy, and what sounded like cries for help, several recruits took up arms and broke open the sealed entrance to the workshop where Shirma was barely surviving. A young recruit by the name of Demira fell Primal Shirma, while other recruits ran for their lives or were driven mad by its mere presence.
The aftermath was dense with implications. In the following days; Shirma accepted her new identity as a woman, and renamed herself Shiroma to fit with her inspired races naming conventions; Whispers among Shirogane had said that Demira might be in possession of some sort of gift having felled a Primal without being tempered or slaughtered. This also made her Shishi's star pupil; Though the details were vague and few, fuss surrounding the Primal Shirma incident - known as the Akaikami Event to locals - gave the Tavern some much needed buzz, and financial stability seemed within reach once again.
During a time of dire political strife, NYAH would be hired on by the Scions of the Seventh Dawn to combat the growing beastman problem, the advancement of the Garlean Empire's conquest, and the flood of light in the First shard of Hydaelyn, but not before Anther defected, joining the Empire and helping with the production of Black Rose. Shishi and Soleil especially formed a specialize taskforce to handle both the Ivalice Excavation and the following Bozja Incident.
The Bozja Conquest
NYAH was commissioned by the Bozjan Resistance to aid in their insurgance against the IVth Imperial Legion. Like their foray in Othard and surrounding nations, this was to be treated as a serious threat, and as such, junior operatives were not to be involved. Shishi and Dawn took the job personally. Upon arriving to the camp of Utva's Aegis, they were told by fellow resistance members that they needed someone on the front lines, and someone on medical duty. While Dawn, the Sharpshooter, seemed perfect for filling a combat role, and Shishi, the magically inclined, seemed more appropriate for healing soldiers, Dawn took a much more sympathetic approach to the wounded, and had much more medicinal experience that would help treat serious conditions that magic simply wouldn't affect at all. Meanwhile, simply standing in this barren wasteland made Shishi itch. To her, stretching her combat prowess in such a wide open area, filled with unfeeling robots and berserk beasts, was the only way to have fun around here. Thus it was decided Dawnheart would stay at the furthest camp from the Castrum, and Shishi would aid the fighters on the front lines.
Some time later, Shishi would discover ancient black magic texts, and become obsessed with the power she was getting to exercise on a daily basis. Dawn would warn her that this fixation would inevitably end up being self destructive, but Shishi wouldn't hear it. She would wave it off as Dawn being jealous that she got to fight while he was stuck here with the wounded whelps.
This conquest would culminate in a face off against the IVth Legions Diablo Armament, in which Shishi fought it 1-on-1 using a combination of Shell and Fire spells that surrounded her body in flames. The figure of flames she surrounded herself in was nigh the size of the armament itself, and together, their unhinged entanglement wrought destruction on Zadnor. When the fight drew to a stalemate, a dazed and desperate Shishi began casting a spell she had told no one else about. A spell that would destroy the armament, sure, but would also completely destroy her, as well. A spell she simply dubbed Nuke. A magic similar to what was once used to destroy Bozja. At the last moment, Dawn appeared in the ruins of their arena and interrupted Shishi's cast, causing her to fall unconscious and plummet to the mess of steel rubble bellow. Dawn would salvage her body while the rest of the resitance finished off the now weakened Diablo Armament. Shishi would remain comatose at the Tavern for roughly a month before awakening for the events of Endwalker.