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kennhiro · 9 months

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Tomioka and Sabito training together

Story: Tomioka and Sabito are alone training because Urokodaki had to go get something...

Anime: Demon Slayer

Characters: Tomioka, Sabito, Urokodaki

Warnings: Fanart is not mine! Original head canon! No ships! Short story!

Tomioka and Sabito are standing by an edge of a cliff, the cliff also had a waterfall. It's after training with Urokodaki, about 3:00pm. This is the time where they train by them selves but Urokodaki watches them to make sure they don't get hurt, but Urokodaki left to go get something so Sabito and Tomioka are alone.

"You sure this is a good idea Sabito?" Tomioka says looking worried. "Yes it is!" Sabito says excited. "What if we get hurt!?" Tomioka says while looking over the cliff "Stop worrying, it's going to be fun!" Sabito says while looking over the edge with Tomioka. Sabito pats Tomioka's back to reassure him.

"It's now or never Tomioka, because If Urokodaki sees us, we're in big trouble" Sabito says. "Ok than, let's do this!" Tomioka says happily. "I knew you would agree to do it!" Sabito says. "Remember to use water wheel!" Sabito says before jumping off the cliff.

"Yep, I will" Tomioka says to Sabito before he Sabito jumps. "Ok here I go!!" Tomika says while running up to the cliff and jumping off. "Hey Tomioka!!" Sabito says while falling, "I'm going to use water wheel now, so watch out!" Sabito says. Then Sabito uses water wheel to stop his fall.

"You got this Tomioka!" "Use water wheel" Sabito says. "Water wheel" Tomioka says, then he uses water wheel to stop his fall. "Wasn't that fun!?" Sabito says with lots of energy. "Yeah it kinda was.." Tomioka says. "I told you we weren't going to die!" Sabito says, "but we still could of" Tomioka says back to Sabito in a sassy tone.

"But we didn't" Sabito says back, "yeah..let's do it again" Tomioka says while whispering the last part. "What did you say?" Sabito says mocking him because he actually heard what he said. "I said.. let's do it again.." Tomioka says softly and quiet. "I knew you would enjoy it! And hell yeah, let's do it again" Sabito says with much excitement.

"Beat you back up there" Tomioka says, "No way in hell I'm letting you beat me up there" Sabito says. "You can't beat me up, I already head of you" Tomika says sassy, "watch me" Sabito says. Sabito uses water breathing to catch up to Tomioka and go straight past him. "Hey, that's cheating!!" Tomioka says angrily

"You never said..." Sabito says, "Heyyy... Urokodaki.." Sabito says nervously. "Sabito you cheated..." Tomioka says once he gets up the mountain. "Urokodaki" Tomioka says scared. "What are you two doing?" Urokodaki says mad, "uhh...nothing Urokodaki!" Sabito says.

"You two are post to be training, I left for a few minutes and you guys start goofing off." Urokodaki says angrily. "We were training Urokodaki!" Sabito says nervously, "yeah, we were practicing our water wheel!" Tomioka says. "How were you practicing it?" Urokodaki says seriously.

"Umm..." Tomioka says, "we were just practicing right here!" Sabito says. "But a few minutes ago I saw you both jump off this cliff" Urokodaki says. "You saw that..." Sabito says scared. "Yes, your both introuble" Urokodaki says.

"Uhh, not unless you catch us" Sabito says while grabbing Tomioka hand and heading towards the cliff. "You better be ready to use the water wheel" Sabito says jumping off and pulling Tomioka with him.

The end! I hope you enjoyed it :)

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kennhiro · 10 months

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What are your favourite canon/non canon ships in kny? If you ever cared about

Hang on, Anon. This is probably gonna go in an expected direction. If you've noticed, I've recently reblogged some of my thoughts on canon pairings (or popular pairings), and if I've created content, that's generally a sign that I enjoy it. But you got me there, I’m really not that much of a shipper in the first place. I’m usually very enthralled by epic bromance (all my OTPs are BroTPs), and I go wild for all sorts of platonic closeness and tension and fluff, but I’m just ‘meh’ about romance elements. However, there are three reasons I why I do enjoy the canon ships in KnY: 1. I’m obsessed with KnY 2. Romance wasn’t a big element in canon, which may be why I’m left with appetite for it 3. I love these characters and I want them to be happy and I am very curious about them, which means wanting to know anything Gotouge gives us about their love lives too Since I have a preference for sticking close to canon I have a preference for canon ship content, but I generally enjoy a lot of cute fanart for pairings even if I don’t interpret them as romantic.

Back to canon and wanting to know everything about it, though, there’s little details that of course get very curious. And from those ponderings about canon details, it's made me ask some questions about off-screen pairings, or potential post-canon pairings. There is one pairing in particular I've never seen content for, which I'm going to go into more detail about for most of this post, but due to the age of the characters and some people not being comfortable with that, it's behind the cut (that said, illicit content has been very, very purposely avoided, and I've gone to lengths in my headcanons to make them have to be aged up before anything happens). So like, canon ponderings:

We know Sanemi and Giyuu left descendants, but with whom? How did that go down, with the knowledge that they probably wouldn’t be around long? Various swordsmen and Kakushi have expressed in passing that they want a partner or liked someone, but how common is it for them to have a partner? If so, do they tend to be inside or outside the Corp? In the light novels Haganezuka had a match-making meeting with a woman who had no appreciation for sword smithery, who in the world thought it would be a good idea to let a women like that even know of the existence of the Nichirin sword making practice?

There’s a passing detail in Fanbook 1 that stated Urokodaki is single, but he has a woman who he likes. However, things don’t really progress between them. Who is this mystery woman? A widower whom he’s only had casual exchanges with down in the nearby village? A woman who has known him since his demon slaying days, but who has always remained a tease? Has Tanjiro met her, or would he recognize her scent? Do they only have rendezvous when Urokodaki is alone without students? Tell me more, Gotouge, tell me more!! Then again, sometimes Gotouge tells us more than we bargained for, like in Fanbook 2 when it’s stated that girls of the Ubuyashiki clan must marry out and change their last name before the age of 13, or no matter how careful they are, they’ll meet an early death due to sudden illness or accident. I have more analysis of this under the cut which I have striven to keep at a wide audience's comfort level, but again, it is below the cut so that people who aren't comfortable with this part of canon can choose not to read on. Buuuut, this is my starting point for wondering where other characters wind up, and with whom.

So with this uncomfortable "marry out by 13" thing, I hope this is like some forms of historical child marriages which were only formalities between families for a long time while the children continued to grow up, like a betrothal that already has paperwork done, as the kicker here is the last name change. At least, I find enough flexibility in the wording of this detail that I think it's okay to interpret it generously. In the KnY universe, there is a lot resting on being an Ubuyashiki (and marriage is as powerful as genes, apparently), and everyone born into or married into their clan has their own role to play almost as soon as they can walk and talk for the sake of the mission to take down Muzan. Tragedy, both widespread and personal, is just part of the Ubuyashiki existence. If Kagaya’s distressingly young marriage is anything to go by, they did not consider innocence something they could afford.

Still, they are keen to do anything that may offset their curse and/or protect their children (Amane’s daily purification rituals no matter the weather (Fanbook 2), raising the frail boys as girls until they take up an adult man’s role (even at the age of 4, like Kagaya (Fanbook 2), etc.). I’m inclined to think that they chose the marriageable age based on incidents of daughters' deaths in family history and decided it wasn’t worth risking it. Even if they still stayed in the family home for a while with a different name, they were essentially raised as small adults, so they probably still left the home younger than would had been normal in any given time period. Since nobles/warrior clans adopting each other daughters’ out and raising them before marrying them off to other clans or to people within their own clan (this makes Sengoku era relationship maps between samurai clans such a mess), I’ll bet that simply getting adopted out happened a lot too, but their fates might be totally out of the Ubuyashiki’s clan hands that way. At least in an arranged marriage, it’s an agreement between families.

Once we get to Taisho, they’ve gotten pretty established in how they protect their girls from the Ubuyashiki curse, and as Fanbook 2 tells us, Kiriya doesn’t believe the curse is lifted until he reaches his 30’s, which is a very emotional realization for him (he had felt certain he'd die in his 20's). That means, a few years after canon, he probably looked at his remaining sisters one day and said, “you guys gotta get out. Where do you want to go?”

So. For Kanata, the more mild-mannered of the two, the one who is scared of bugs but didn’t bat an eye at Genya being rough with her, I wondered if there might be distant relatives on their mother’s side (clans can be big, I’m not very concerned about inbreeding here) who wish to take her in and have her married to a son near her age. She would be a Himorogi, and would take up the Himorogi clan’s shrine-tending mission. From the Ubuyashiki clan perspective, this is like thanking the Himorogi clan for their centuries of assistance and brides who married into harsh Ubuyashiki fates.

This leaves a little more freedom for Kuina, the more fiery one who slapped sense back into Kiriya when he needed it. She proposes an idea, someone who has always been on her periphery, but she’s probably only had limited interaction with. Enough to develop a crush on someone, but not enough to say you’re more than an acquaintance. Kiriya thinks it’s an outstanding idea, especially since this is also a clan who the Ubuyashiki clan has long been indebted to.

Apologies for my terrible handwriting. The idea was just to do a few doodles to explain the set-up, but doodling led to more ideas and next thing you know I awoke from a doodle stupor like, “did I draw all this?” And when I’m in this doodle-mode, anatomy is all made up and bone-structure does matter. Style consistency is an illusion. There are no plans, only draw.

So anyway. As honored as Shinjuro is by the idea of an Ubuyashiki-Rengoku union, Senjuro is a Taisho-minded, fresh young adult (based on my best guess on his age in canon (based on him being a 1st year Kimetsu Academy student), as age 12, while Kuina is 8). Senjuro wants nothing to do with this old-fashioned, superstitious, hand-waving way of marrying off a young girl who doesn’t know any better. And, dang it, he’s a young man with needs, and he’ll in no way expect a young girl to fulfill them! He wouldn’t even want to!

Shinjuro, who probably would have preferred to have been born in the Warring States heyday of swordsmanship, isn’t that privy to his son’s fancy modern-minded arguments and generally dismisses them. Even if Senjuro does have a point about Kuina being very young, Shinjuro thinks Senjuro is just playing around with his girlfriend (Mitsuri’s youngest sister, in case my handwriting isn’t very clear), and tells him that he shouldn’t put off getting married anyway, like Kyojuro did—

--and, whoops, Shinjuro stops himself and fumbles around a bit. Got himself a little too emotional and didn’t mean to take it out on Senjuro, who he simply fears losing too young too. It’s too late for Shinjuro to hide he’s thinking this, though, so Senjuro relents a bit, but still concludes the argument that day that even if Senjuro did accept this marriage proposal, Shinjuro would actually have to wait even longer for grandchildren than if he were just to let Senjuro do what he likes.

But then, if we stick with what canon has told us is the rule (but hasn’t actually followed through on its own threat), it’s around this time that Giyuu or Sanemi may drop dead.

This is a shock to everyone, even if they did know to see it coming. Senjuro is hit with the weight of a girl’s life on the line, so this is what prompts him to accept the marriage. On conditions, though! It’s only a paper marriage until she’s of age, besides, he’s already made plans to leave home and reside elsewhere for the university studies he’s starting soon (and since he’s really only doing this as a favor, there’s a part of him that sees it as a temporary arrangement). Still, this means he needs to set his affairs in order.

In case my handwriting is unclear, the kicker here is that yeah, Senjuro is the one under pressure to carry on the Rengoku family name in the first place because he’s the only one left. He finds his bitterness about this directed at Kyojuro, but Kyojuro doesn’t deserve that, and Senjuro starts to resent Kuina for making him think uncharitably toward his brother (however reasonable of a grief response this is, even years later). He stresses that the marriage is only a formality for now, and never goes out of his way to communicate with her. If anything, he dodges correspondence and finds excuses to stay busy at university, and his only infrequent meetings with her are at gatherings Shinjuro dragged him to, or where there were going to be a lot of Corp retirees whom Senjuro wanted to see anyway (and knew he’d spent most of his socializing with). Tanjiro becomes aware of the marriage through his other correspondences and congratulates him, but Senjuro only acknowledges his warm wishes as much as politeness dictates.

And at some point, Kuina has moved in to the Rengoku family home.

It’s been a while, but she’s still not of legal age when this happens, and she’s cursed to still look much, much younger than her actual age (making it harder for Senjuro to recognize that she has aged at all, in all this time). It drives Senjuro a little crazy how both his father and Kuina and Kiriya see nothing wrong with this. He reacts by trying to shut himself away (they have their own private bedrooms), and his resentment toward Kuina grows with how she acts so much like she belongs there as a doting wife.

So anyway, more time passes, and with the situation being less avoidable with her residing in his home (though he still has his own small place by his university, where this whole mess is a secret), Senjuro gets more fretful about it—especially once Kuina is of age. Shinjuro and Kuina feel like they already spared his feelings by delaying the evitable, and he’s just delaying more due to his hesitant nature. From Senjuro’s perspective, he’s trying to be kind and do her right, but he’s generally very avoided of her, like her whole existence is a burden.

Yeah, I don’t know what’s happening with my art style by this point. I don’t even know why I’ve drawn so much. Making set-up for a romantic pairing feels weird. Onward we go anyway. Senjuro can no longer outright ignore her, he’s got to confront that he’s stuck! But has he confronted the actual person whom he charitably rescued? Only as much as one confronts a thorn in their side.

Kuina and Shinjuro get along well because they do have shared experience, which Senjuro never attained. He felt the weight of the Corp mission simply by accident of the family he was born into, but he was never directly involved, even if that was what he had spent his whole childhood striving for. This almost gives Kuina and Shinjuro a dynamic of seeing Senjuro as the child in this relationship, he’s the one whose innocence in the face of violence has never been lost.

Still, Kuina tries to be sympathetic. She knows how much Senjuro looked up to Kyojuro, and how much Kyojuro cared about him, and how much it hurt everyone to lose Kyojuro. She misses him too. So when she, as a member of the Rengoku household, goes to tend the Rengoku family grave on the anniversary of her late elder brother-in-law’s death, she does so in full sincerity. But Senjuro has been distancing himself so much and reading all her intentions as cheeky and pushy and getting her way, and he doesn’t take kindly to her pushing in on his grief.

You didn’t think I’d get through this without Kuina slapping him, right? I try to stick close to canon and that is her primary canonical character trait.

Anyway, it’s not the slap, but the look into Kuina’s feelings that shakes Senjuro, since he’s never deeply considered her feelings. He had dismissed her as a child who didn’t understand anything so long ago that he ignored what he knew all along, that the Ubuyashiki children grew up under immense pressure and were directly involved in the fight to take down Kibutsuji Muzan himself. All this time, he hadn’t been considering who she is, and her true feelings whatsoever, for she always kept a cap on her emotions so well.

And for the first time, Senjuro realizes she’s kind of incredible, and that he’s been a jerk who hasn’t bothered at all to recognize that. And that is the start of them actually working toward a true relationship.

She accepts his apology, and they wind up having a long talk about Kyojuro, mostly Senjuro talking, but he very honestly appreciates hearing about what his brother was like at Pillar meetings and the impact he had on the whole Corp. Little by little (not the same day, just in daily life), they wind up talking more about their other family members, and Senjuro has to do a lot more listening. They get into the deepest discussions when talking about their mothers, whom Senjuro only knows through what he’s been told, and whom Kuina was very influenced by. They find a lot of similarities between their mothers, at least based on what they know of them.

And, while getting to know each other, Senjuro feels humbled by how he never actually did anything but pray for the Corp, whereas it was normal for Kuina to see children off to their deaths. Even with vastly different experiences, they find they can relate to each other on the pressures of having grown up in clans with such histories. Senjuro, who has been doing very well as a scholar, is humbled by the sharp mental prowess Kuina possesses, but she assures him that her education was deep but very narrow, he’s been right all along, she really doesn’t know much else about the world. And, while being peeved by his behavior, she had been dismissing his perspective.

And for all this time it takes for them to get to know each other, Shinjuro is on the sidelines, trying not to spoil the good progress by revealing that he’s been eavesdropping and praying and asking for Ruka and Kyojuro’s and Oyakata-sama’s blessing that it continues to (finally) go well, as he did feel some guilt for forcing Senjuro into this when things were especially sour.

So anyway. It takes a very long time, but eventually they become a couple in full and have genuine affection for each other. Their children have the most intense stares, and the daughters have black hair, which throws everyone off. They live long happy lives, Gotouge style (if you’ve survived Muzan and haven’t gotten a mark, anyway). The end. EDIT: I suppose I couldn't get this far without attempting to draw what children with an Ubuyashiki-Rengoku gene pool would look like.

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