STORY IDEA!! DING DING DING DING!!

You know how I drew the boys as Demon Slayer characters, right? What if there was an AU BASED OFF OF those drawings?

Here's my AU idea: the boys are born in the timeline of the Demon Slayer series, separately from one another - none of them have any idea that the others even exist. They grow up perfectly normal boys, until something comes along and wrecks their entire worlds.

Because let's face it - all of the demons in the series have pretty bleak backstories.

When they're at their lowest point, old Muzan Kibutsuji comes along and offers them strength and power to take back control of their lives. Going off of their steadfast and determined personalities from the original series, they readily agree.

So he turns them all into demons.

Thing is, Muzan is experimenting with how much blood he gives away at a time, trying to find the perfect amount in order to create the "perfect" demon - so he gives them each a relatively small amount. Because they weren't given the same amount of blood as the other demons, their minds didn't instantly become flooded with thoughts of carnage and eating. They're still acutely aware of what they're doing as well as the other demons around them, and are repulsed by both their actions and themselves. 

Their new bodies still needed sustenance, though - like Lady Tamayo and Yushiro - so they tried to control their hunger by only eating who they deemed "unworthy" of life - namely, the killers and the con artists and the rapists. It's a controlled diet, so they came along in their transformation stages a lot slower than other demons, but after a handful of decades, they each developed their own Blood Demon Arts.

Each of the towns that they hunted in eventually caught on, though, and they were hunted down by Demon Slayers multiple times and forced to leave. They all found themselves in a dense forest, where they all met together for the first time. Each of them were surprised to find other demons that share their ideals and formed a group.

Their group followed a set of rules. Only hunt at night. Only eat the wretched. Make sure they are truly rotten before consuming them. Split the body with the others so no one gets more than another. Never EVER eat children.

And so, their group turned the forest into their hunting grounds, as those who wanted to visit neighboring towns would have to travel through the forest. The boys would keep a close eye on those who entered the forest and made camp at night, labeling who was an oppressor and who was a victim. They would eat the wretched travelers and set the rest of the party free to spread the message: The forest is always watching.

Sometimes children who had been abandoned by their families would wander into the forest. The boys would never eat children, but again, the poor dears had no home to go back to. So they build a temple with no windows (sunlight being fatal to them and all that) within the heart of the forest for the wandering children, and they were free to come and go as they pleased. The boys try their best to give the children a formal education during their stay, each one the teacher of their own class: Mathematics (Wakiya), Writing (Shu), Science (Naoki), and so on.

When the children sleep during the night, the boys hunt travel parties and feast - the children are aware that they still need to eat, but there's no need to traumatize them even more.

They're like one big demonic family.

Oh! The title of the story would be: Forest of the Twenty Demons.

I don't know why, but as I was daydreaming this up, this song kept replaying on loop in my head:

[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]

Anyways, what do you think of this potential AU? Let me know!