please info dump to me about Shu Hao 🙏 I love their design so much and wanna know more!!
MY FIRST ASK??? THANK YOU!!
Ok where do I even start? So originally, her name was Shu Hui.
As a kid, Shu Hui was very, very ill. Her quirk was originally just a set of dragonfly wings that manifested when she was born. However, this meant that instead of human bones, she had an exoskeleton. Exoskeletons are great for small creatures, not so much for people. As she grew, her brittle bones and skin only got worse, and left her paraplegic and largely dependent on her carers.
These carers were obsessed with keeping Shu Hui prim and proper, because her wings were so pretty. They'd often bathe/dress/generally preen her without her consent, resulting in Shu Hui's severe aversion to touch.
When she reached the age of 8, her GP told her foster home that she wouldn't make it another year. Her carers wanted nothing more than to harvest her wings, so they were given two options.
put her down, and take her wings as they were (brittle, with little chance of preservation) OR
Send her to an alternative treatment facility called HYBRID, that would attempt to strengthen her quirk through a mutation gene
Obviously, they choose option 2. What they don't realise is that they'll never see Shu Hui again, because they take her to I-Island, where one HYBRID facility is located.
Shu Hui meets a boy, Hao Yu, who's been admitted because his wings, a hummingbird mutation, were too small and dented for flight purposes. There's a lot more lore on this end, but essentially it's a year of them surviving constant experimentation.
Hybrid's main goal is to successfully merge multiple quirk types - this becomes the starting point for Nomu creation, but we're not there yet ;)
So far, the successful merges have resulted in death from overwhelm. They have only had one merge survive so far, and that was at the very start of HYBRID's creation. (Fun Fact! in my AU, HYBRID is also the facility that created Nezu! The only successful merge!)
Eventually, Shu Hui's quirk is deemed perfect to merge into Hao Yu, meaning Shu Hui would die, but their quirk would still be preserved, if a little bit altered.
Eventually Hybrid’s location was leaked (by Sugarcane, but Shu Hui doesn’t know that at this stage) to the foster that held Shu Hui. They hijack the building just as the transfusion is taking place. Shu Hui, with her naturally fragile disposition, is powerless to stop Hao Yu from switching their places so she's on the receiving end of the transfusion.
Shu Hui had been well acquainted with pain, it had been her only company for ten years.
Yet it seemed like a stranger to the hot lava coursing through her body now, ricocheting bullets off of every cell in her being, shaping and reshaping the course of her DNA, screaming louder and louder, louder even than her hoarse throat.
The eyes across from her dull, but Shu Hui can’t focus on that.
Shu Hui wants to say. Her tongue can’t do more than spasm with the rest of her body. Her muscles tense, crunching her bones into powder, before reviving them into thick rods under her skin.
“paint a massive mural of me, and make sure…”
The voice fizzles under the beeping, the sounds of yelling and crashing, the scientists thundering footsteps as they rush past their oh-so-precious magnum opi, the two snakes on Hybrid’s caduceus reduced to nothing but near corpses.
Shu Hui supposed that even monsters feared mortality.
“Make sure to paint my wings massive, so we can finally fly together.”
She had heard whispers of death before. The grim reaper promising her luxury in his domain. She’d gotten fond of his voice, and would be lying if she said she didn’t wish to succumb. She’d always functioned under the assumption that she would, eventually.
Someone as energetic, as full of life as Hao Yu, should’ve died a grandeur death. Should’ve died in a place where someone could coat him in fragrant roses, and water them with salty tears.
It was cruel, really, that one shudder was all it took before he was gone for good. His corpse, his wingless corpse, lay there, unseeing. Shu Hui stared back, her silhouette reduced to a glassy reflection in a pool of nothingness.
Green had always been his favourite colour.
“You know that humans can see more shades of green than any other colour?”
It flickers like bile on his face now, except for the shadow cast by Shu Hui’s own limp form. She can’t bring herself to look at the monitor from where it glows behind her, silhouetting her form in the acrid colour. She knows what it’ll read.
The reason, it turns out, that the previous merges hadn't been successful, was that the person the quirk was being transferred from had to be willing to let it go, otherwise the quirk would 'self destruct' before it reached the new host.
Shu Hui manages to use her wings for the first time to hide, and the foster assumes that she's died.
Shu Hui (somehow? idk I haven't worked out the details) gets to Australia from I-Island. Because I've yapped so long, let me summarise what happens
She meets Emilio, and introduces herself as Shu Hao (having taken the character from Hao Yu)
Emilio is her lifeline, he helps her read and write for the first time, as well as speak english, and get food without stealing. Eventually, they end up in the same middle school
Shu Hao and Emilio tried out for the Elysium Entrance together, unaware that it was a rigged exam. Shu Hao was desperate to get into the school, it would offer her the most protection from Hybrid. She made a contract with Sugarcane, they promised her security so long as she agreed to their terms. Emilio was kind of dragged into Sugarcane because of her, but he eventually conceded because his family needed the support.
And then found family happens lol!! It's really just one year of absolutely hating all the other kids that have been recruited into sugarcane, then five years of trauma bonding and indomitable human spirit - I think I'll get to this lore in another post because this has gone on for so long
Tidbits/other character interactions:
Shu Hao is often mistaken for a young boy, and loves watching the realisation people have when they realise she’s not. Will try to drag the bit on for as long as possible until someone stops her.
When the kids first got assigned weapons, Shu Hao begged for something cool like Isaam’s double blades or Malachi’s crossbow. She got a yoyo, and was clowned for a good year whilst she learned to use it. Now, she (mentally) thanks Ms Kuroki every day for forcing her to learn the yoyo. It’s such an unconventional weapon that no one ever knows how to react to it on the field
She despised Torren, saw her as a spineless pawn that bent to Sugarcane’s every whim. This was remedied years down the line as she slowly realised that Torren was trapped, the same way she had once been.
Used to hate micah because he refused to use his wings, shu hao resented that he had the choice to fly and he chose to stay grounded
Shu Hao was the first to actively disobey sugarcane, most hardy to punishment, having been punished her whole life. This faltered when she found herself caring for the squadron, who would be used as bait to get her to succumb to sugarcane’s will.
Now, she is fiercely loyal to her squadron, and will throw hands with anyone (she has a track record of punching teachers)
Thanks again for the ask!!!
