NierKai

NierKai is the het ship between Nier and Kainé from the NieR fandom.

Canon
Nier and Kainé meet after Nier visits the Aerie for the first time as a sixteen year old. On his way back to the overworld, he notices Kainé's house and goes over to investigate. It is unoccupied but he observes that the owner possesses a crown of Lunar Tears. At that moment, Kainé shows up and tells Nier to get away from her flowers, challenging him to a fight. After they fight for awhile, a giant Shade shows up and instead of fighting against each other, Nier and Kaine team up to drive the Shade away from Kainé's home. At the end of the battle, Kainé falls unconscious and is brought back to her bed by Nier. Upon waking, she tells Nier to leave her alone and that the Shade they just fought is her target alone.

When Nier visits the Aerie for the second time, he finds it under attack by the same giant Shade from his first visit. Running into Kainé on his way to the Aerie, the two of them once again team up to fight the giant Shade. This time, they kill it for good. At the end of the battle, Kainé is once again knocked unconscious and, observing Kainé's comatose state, Grimoire Weiss correctly guesses that Kainé intends to die like this. He further remarks that perhaps death is the best possible outcome for Kainé at this point, which Nier vehemently denies, saying, "That's not your decision! You don't get to decide who lives and who dies. She's a life! She has meaning and worth, and we're going to save her! Everyone has something to live for. Even Kainé." Existing in a limbo between life and death, Kainé is pulled back to life by Nier's voice, who tells her, "Don't give up! You're stronger than that! Don't you dare give up now!"

When she regains consciousness, Kainé states that she has nothing left to live for, after successfully taking revenge on the giant Shade who had killed her grandmother. Nier denies this, stating that they're friends now and that he needs her help in curing his sister, Yonah, of her fatal illness, the Black Scrawl. Given a new reason to live, Kainé smiles and agrees to join him.

After locating all of the Sealed Verses together, Nier and his companions return to his village only to find it under attack by Shades. In order to protect Nier's village, Kainé asks Emil to petrify her with his eyes, in order to seal a powerful Shade away inside the basement of the library. Nier protests her request but, unable to do anything after being stabbed through the chest by the Shadowlord, he helplessly watches on as Kainé is turned to stone. The scene fades as Nier vows to restore Kainé back to life.

Fanon
NierKai is one of the most popular ships in the NieR fandom, arguably only rivaled by 9B/2S from NieR Automata. Some fans were surprised when Nier kissed Kainé before killing her in ending C, due to the fact that their romance was downplayed during the earlier parts of the game. However, the downplaying of their romance was done intentionally by the writers for Replicant, who stated that they did not want to muddle the central focus of the game — the relationship between Nier and his younger sister, Yonah. Despite this, many fans did pick up on hints throughout the game that Kainé had developed feelngs for Nier after the timeskip, and it was confirmed by Yoko Taro (the director of the game) that Kainé had fallen in love with Nier by the end. These feelings were shown to be reciprocated by Nier in both final endings of the original game, C and D.

NierKai is occassionally rivalled by the ship Nier/Emil. Some even prefer to ship Nier with Grimoire Weiss, especially those who played NieR Gestalt and feel that the age gap between Father Nier and Kainé is too large for romance to be viable. However, NierKai appears to be the most popular pairing in the fandom for Brother Nier, as well as for Kainé.

Fandom
FAN FICTION



PIXIV