Sarianzo

"You are my quest"

- Hanzo

Sarianzo is the het ship between Sariatu and Hanzo from the Kubo and the Two Strings fandom.

Canon
Hanzo and Sariatu are Kubo's parents. When Kubo was an infant, Sariatu had to flee from her family through a turbulent sea, Sariatu had suffered a concussion and Kubo was found by her with one of his eyes missing. When Kubo was old enough, Sariatu tells him that Hanzo was a mighty warrior who died fighting her father, the Moon King. From what Sariatu can remember, she tells Kubo how Hanzo was, leading to the kid idolizing his father and wishing he had the chance to meet him personally. However, since Sariatu is strangely only lucid at night, Kubo has to be the primary breadwinner of his small household and entertains the local villagers with the stories Sariatu told him of Hanzo, turning paper into living origami in Hanzo's likeness to earn money. In those stories, Hanzo collects the Sword Unbreakable, the Breastplate Impenetrable and the Helmet Invulnerable to fight the Moon King. Since Sariatu told him to never stay out past nightfall, else her family will find him, Kubo never gets to finish his stories.

However, when he hears from the villagers that there's a celebration in honor of the dead, Kubo disobeys Sariatu's wishes for the first time, since his desire to speak to Hanzo through a spirit lantern is so great. So he stays outside past dark and witnesses the arrival of Sariatu's two sisters, who tell him that he can join them if he allows them to rip out his remaining eye. Kubo is understandably terrified, running back into the village to get help, but is found by Sariatu. She knew this day would come, so she always told Kubo to wear his father's cloak, which she enchanted with the power of turning into wings, allowing Kubo to fly away from danger while she fights her sisters, giving her life for her son.

Kubo is awoken by a talking monkey, who reveals herself to be the monkey charm Sariatu told Kubo to always carry with him and was herself brought to life by what was left of Sariatu's magic. She tells him that they now have to defeat the Moon King by finding the three artifacts, doing exactly what Hanzo did in his stories. As they take shelter inside a whale carcass, they are joined by an origami replica of Hanzo the next day, Kubo notes that his mother also brought origami to life in her sleep, but it always fell apart when she woke up. They allow Little Hanzo to join them on their journey, since he always points towards one of the artifacts, giving them some sense of direction. On their way to the Sword Unbreakable, Kubo is kidnapped by a giant beetle, but it turns out to be a friendly warrior on Hanzo's side who was turned into a beetle. Kubo insists that Beetle should join them as well, but Monkey is very hesitant to let him, finding Beetle's abilities with bow and arrow and his obsession with Hanzo to be somewhat suspicious.

Throughout their journey, Monkey and Beetle always bicker about how to handle the journey and Kubo, much like parents would. They manage to retrieve the Sword Unbreakable through sheer luck and Kubo's quick thinking, else they both would've been eaten alive by a giant skeleton. However, when it comes to retrieving the Breastplate Impenetrable from under the sea, they once again are outside during nightfall and are attacked by one of the sisters, Karasu, the one with the chain. Kubo retrieves the breastplate by himself as is in real danger of drowning due to a yokai living underwater with hypnotic eyes, so Monkey tells Beetle to save him while she is fighting Karasu. During their fight, Karasu mocks Monkey, telling her how embarrassing it is that all that remains of her sister is a stinking ape. When Karasu laments how loving Hanzo made Sariatu "weak", Monkey takes personal offense to that, referring to Sariatu as "me" when telling her that love only made her stronger and killing her sister. When Beetle retrieves Kubo, Kubo tells her that he saw a vision of Monkey's face turning into his mother and correctly guessed that they are the same person. They also discover that her battle with Karasu left a deep wound just beneath her ribs.

Settling down in a cave, Sariatu/Monkey tells Kubo the whole story of how she met Hanzo: He was a strong warrior who challenged her father and she was initially planning to kill him for it. But then when Sariatu confronted him directly, Hanzo told her that she was "his quest", and those words changed everything for her. Through Hanzo's compassion, she realized that she always had compassion of her own and went on to greatly prefer Hanzo's warmth to the coldness and unfeelingness of her family. Though Hanzo and Sariatu were happy when Kubo was born, the Moon King and his other two daughters were furious, seeing Sariatu eloping with Hanzo as a betrayal. Hanzo stayed behind to fight them off, to this day, Sariatu believes that her family killed Hanzo. She tells Kubo the reason why the Moon King wants Kubo's eye, it's because he acknowledges Kubo as his own child despite being related to his enemy and wants Kubo to be just as blind as him so he could join his ranks.

Right before retrieving the Helmet Invulnerable, Kubo has a dream of a friendly old blind man telling him to go to Hanzo's old palace. So he takes his mother and Beetle there, only to find a note showing the helmet as the bell of Kubo's home village, realizing that they were lured into a trap. The living sister, Washi ambushes them, trapping Monkey and Beetle and mocking Beetle for his failure. She then acts amused when none of them know what she's talking about, finally revealing that Beetle is none other than Hanzo himself, who was cursed by the sisters as they took his humanity away, just like how he took their sister away. Upon finally getting a chance to reconcile with his wife and son, with Sariatu telling him to take care of Kubo when she dies, Hanzo/Beetle is stabbed in the back by Washi, with Sariatu soon dying from her wounds as well. All alone, Kubo defeats Washi by strumming his shamisen and releasing an energy wave strong enough to shatter her mask. However, his victory is short-lived as his what remains of his parents lay there lifeless. Realizing he has nowhere else to go, Kubo returns to his village using his mother's magic to turn his father's drapes into wings. There, he briefly reunites with the surviving villagers, but then tells them to flee so he can challenge the Moon King without anyone getting hurt.

Kubo however uses the piece of hair he accidently took from his mother, his father's bow string and a hair of his own head to re-string his shamisen, using the love he has of his parents to summon the dead loved ones of the villagers and using their combined energy against the Moon King. The Moon King turns human, with one functioning eye and no memories of his tyrannical past self, giving Kubo at least one parental figure who could take care of him after the deaths of his parents. The epilogue shows Kubo lighting a lantern for both of his parents, telling them how great it was to meet them, but wishing he had more chances to spend time with them. In response, Hanzo and Sariatu return to him as spirits, back together and in humanoid form, just to give Kubo a bit of comfort.

Fanon
Sarianzo is one of the main ship of the Kubo and the Two Strings fandom, given that they are canonically married. Before Monkey and Beetle were revealed to be Sariatu and Hanzo to the audience, they had felt that Monkey and Beetle had a married couple-like energy from their fights, and how they ended up reconnecting through Kubo.

Fandom

 * FAN FICTION


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