Free Plotbunny: Nura with Logic

~ crossovercreativechaos

*Facepalm* And I don’t even plan to do anything in the Nura fandom….

Long story short, part of the Drama in the anime and manga of Nura: Rise of the Youkai Clan is who Rikuo will pick as his romantic interest, given he’s 1/4 youkai and the rest of the Night Parade is justifiably nervous that even more human blood in his line would be… problematic as far as a leader’s strength goes.

Annoyed Bunnies: “Isn’t it part of the universe canon that people can become youkai? So what’s the problem? Kana got over most of being scared of youkai after the cursed mirror was killed, and she does like Rikuo. Offer her the option!”

…I have no excuse. None. Maybe a reason, in that I found some very pretty youkai pics by Evil-usagi on DeviantArt. And that I’m poking a different origfic idea for later. But no excuse. 😉

Anyone want to adopt this bunny? Free to good home!

 

42 thoughts on “Free Plotbunny: Nura with Logic”

      1. Rikuo would probably oppose it if Kana doesn’t agree to it, and Kana, at a guess, would not readily agree to something that requires a lot of deaths.

        Liked by 3 people

      3. That couldn’t possibly go wrong. No, never.

        Of course, worse-case scenario would require a different sort of personality than she has, but if there were ever a reason for a psychotic break…

        Liked by 2 people

  2. Yeah, but are acquired youkai qualities heritable?

    I know very little about Nura’s setting assumptions, and would have trouble with crossoveritis anyway.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. The manga is out in English, I guess I’ll see what the public library has next time.

        I’ve long thought that the Youkai night march has parallels with the wild hunt, and Zub’s Wayward makes an argument for Nurarihyon as a usurper. The gears seem to have started turning, but my plotting and project management do not make success likely. (Yet I can only improve by trying.)

        More than enough idea here for everyone.

        Liked by 2 people

  3. If wiki is correct, Rikuo potentially can’t have children with a youkai.

    A character cursed his grandfather. Because of this curse, his father couldn’t have children with his father’s youkai first wife. If the curse has not been lifted, it would need to be.

    But youkaikuza and onmyou…

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  4. Of course, who’s to say that some enterprising youkai doesn’t jump the gun and decide to turn Kana into a youkai before she agrees? They could be thinking that they were during the Nura a favor by setting up the transformation for them. That could also account for the strong feelings needed for the transformation; I don’t think it necessarily has to be a dark emotion, just a strong one for the conversion to take place. *Is newbie to Nura canon*

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  5. Doesn’t canon establish that in order to become a youkai someone has to be so mad at the world that they genuinely want to just go “@!&$ it” and basically just kill everyone? Or at least everyone who comes within range. The youkai that used to be human in canon literally had sense beaten into him by the main character, but it’s implied that it took at least a couple centuries for him to get to the point to be ready to calm down. Don’t know if there are other ways to do it, that’s just the one I remember.

    My point being, I can’t really see Kana having the kind of personality switch that would lead to her transformation. Or at least not without the kind of extreme circumstances that would render said transformation moot. Even if she did, I can’t see Rikuo caring about her in the same way after such a transformation as he did before. Assuming he is still alive to do so (see previous comment regarding extreme circumstances).

    Now, if Rikuo were the one becoming (fully) youkai… Well, it’s still a stretch. But more likely than Kana in my mind.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  6. I don’t think I blame the in-u folk for not considering this, because it seems like humans become youkai through experiencing horrible trauma — killing a ton of people or nearly dying or…both at the same time. Presumably trying to induce such conditions there’s a big chance the subject just…dies. Unless I’ve forgotten a later development that introduces a way that’s less risky and horrible. I faintly remember something about immortal onmyoujis.

    Would still read the hell out of some youkai-turned Kana AU. Just, if it was because of a clanmember they’d probably go the way of Gyagoze. (And maybe generously distribute therapy to characters hahaha this is a shōnen who am I kidding.)

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

      1. WELL. I mean, did anything horrible necessarily happen to Kejourou? It kind of feels like she just refused to give up her man when Kubinashi became a youkai. What I’m saying is, what if you can shed your mortal state by tapping into an extremity of emotion, only that emotion is exclusively stubbornness. XD

        Or true love but whatever. Stubborn is more relatable.

        Liked by 3 people

      2. So far as I know, we don’t know that anything horrible happened to her – though she did offer her life for Kubinashi’s when Rihan beat him. Not sure if canon says she was human at that point or not!

        Stubbornness doing it would be oddly endearing. And amusing. 🙂

        Liked by 2 people

      5. Not in the traditional sense. 🙂

        Most people think fluff as cotton candy. Light, sweet, often pastel in color.

        The Project has a few too many man-eating monsters, blood, guts, and gore to be cotton candy.

        Unless of course, you’re like me and you like something with some bite to it mixed in your fluff. Or are a sucker for that whole “we might not be blood but we’re family and you’re not alone.” and “I don’t care how many tentacles you have, you’re not a monster. Having tentacles doesn’t make you a monster.”

        Liked by 1 person

    2. Question: If killing lots of people makes you a youkai, shouldn’t certain historical figures have become youkai? Blokhin for one. Or are most of that sort too psychologically abnormal for it to count?

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. I headcanon that there are other factors. It doesn’t especially matter whether they’re mental, physical, spiritual, environmental, or up to chance. Anything keeping it rare or just not a sure thing makes it work.

        And hey, maybe some of those figures are youkai. ;D

        Liked by 3 people

    1. It definitely works for Rikuo transforming, he just can’t stay that way more than 6 hours, supposedly….

      Given Aotabo’s canon backstory (transforming because he killed a group of villains torturing children), that could well work for full youkai transformation as well.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  8. Heya, random from-the-woodwork lurker here!

    Sorry if I’m necro-ing, since this is a fairly old post, but there are actually a couple of reasons for this both inside and outside of the story.

    The outside answer is that (for whatever reason) the anime and manga forms of Kana are quite different, and there was only so far they could go without directly contradicting the original author.

    Manga Kana is fearful of youkai other than Rikuo, and remains this way throughout the majority of the series. She probably wouldn’t be too happy at the idea of becoming one, particularly if it were for the purpose of continuing to be surrounded by them.

    Additionally, while they do have some ship tease, Rikuo himself expresses little to no romantic interest in her in the manga (and eventually actively pursues someone else), and therefore has no reason to make such an offer, assuming there was a relatively painless and non-traumatizing way of doing it.

    The inside the story answer is that (as someone above mentioned) the Nura are cursed, and the curse was placed for the purpose of destroying the lineage of the supreme commander by not allowing him or his descendants to have children with other youkai. This has tragic results for Rikuo’s father, and becomes somewhat important to the overall plot later on.

    So, even supposing that Kana liked youkai and was willing to be one (and Rikuo liked her romantically) it would be counterproductive for her to become one until and unless the curse was broken! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      2. Haha, yup! If I remember correctly, the curse was actually meant to be a “No kids forever! Your line ends with you!” sort of thing, but the person doing the cursing pretty much considered humans to be snack food, and didn’t take that option into consideration, sooo…

        Loophole Abuse: 1, Curse: 0?

        Liked by 2 people

    2. I understand that the one behind the curse eventually allies with Rikuo’s bunch against a greater foe. Does the curse ever get removed in the manga?

      I’ve only found the first volume of the manga so far.

      I still like this idea, yet I haven’t even done the research. Would you recommend watching the anime instead of reading the manga for this? How much less of the mechanism behind becoming a youkai does the anime explain? Could you explain the principles involved?

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. Yes, the curse is eventually removed! Also yes on the allies thing. 🙂

        Hmm, well, I know the books are available on Amazon and Kinokuniya bookweb for purchase, but I’m not sure about where else you might be able to find it, sorry! ):

        I have a strong preference for the manga, so I can’t really answer that without bias (plus I don’t really remember which one explained what about the process!) – but if what Vathara said earlier about Aotabo is the anime version, then they sanitized it a lot.

        Nura more or less adheres to the classical folklore of how youkai are created, which is to say that most of the ways are completely horrific, and usually driven by utter despair, hatred, and a desire for revenge! Or by mass murder. =_=;

        Going back to Aotabo, the reason he became a youkai wasn’t because he killed people who were torturing kids – it’s because they pushed the number of people he’d killed over a thousand. Erk.

        Likewise:

        Gyuuki – mother was eaten, when he tried to find her he was tricked and eaten by the same youkai, revenge and hatred driven resurrection as a youkai.

        Kubinashi – his lover was driven to suicide, he and his friends were tortured to death by a youkai, revenge driven resurrection with the purpose of killing as many youkai as possible (which is precisely what he did until he got a friendship conversion beat-down).

        Inugami – a dog that was imprisoned, tortured and starved until its head was cut off and buried in the ground in order to trap its spirit there and force it to act as a guardian. (Somewhat ironically, this would also be the kind of origin that Sesshoumaru/Inuyasha/etc would have come from, for anyone who’s interested in that piece of horrible…)

        Annnd so on. Some of the others were not victims themselves, but were born from either some form of fear, or the intense suffering some human or group of humans experienced. (You could actually make the argument that Gyuuki/Kubinashi/etc are not actually the person who died, but rather an incarnation of their extreme hatred and desire for vengeance.)

        …Wow, this got kinda dark.

        Anyway, as for the other youkai, they seem to mostly be the result of an animal or object that survived for an unusually long time! Like a fox that lives for over a hundred years will grow another tail and become a youkai, or an object that exists for over a hundred years will become sentient, that sort of thing.

        I honestly can’t think of a human-to-youkai that was created from anything particularly positive, but there are also youkai that hijack humans (especially foxes?) and you might be able to use that as a starting point. Researching Japanese folklore might also help you, since Nura does usually stick pretty close to it!

        I hope that helps a little? 😀

        Liked by 2 people

Leave a comment