i wonder how many Togami children were ivf babies. i wonder if byakuya himself was an ivf baby.
it's not necessarily a closely-held headcanon of mine, but i think it's great food for thought. because of the unreliable nature of DR:T's narrative and possibly Imposter's account in his FTEs, the actual amount of prospective Togami heirs is debatable, all we know is its anywhere from 16 to 108. given what we can derive about what kind of family the Togamis were from different installments of DR it feels uncharacteristically inefficient to imagine Kijo just went out there and banged that many women. especially in what i would assume is a relatively short amount of time, if making sure the contestants don't have too large of an age gap is of importance.
additionally, it's safe to say that the Togami family likely didn't see the heirs as actual children, or even people, no? the existence of the Legacy Crown Championship and (if we take it to be true) the ranking system they have for the heirs which is based on their mother's "breeding" implies that the heirs are, like in many rich and influential families, little more than a means to the ends of further expanding and maintaining their status quo. they are closer to tools, to cattle, or to product. they make as many as possible, pit the best among the bunch against each other, until they are left with only best.
and it's also easy to imagine that the act of having offspring with high-class women was transactional in nature; the Togamis get to add another one to the pile and these high-class women get a chance to become part of the Togami Family should their child win the championship. of course it's still possible that Kijo slept with at least a handful of women he had chemistry with under these terms, but to me there's a non-zero chance that at least a little over half the Togami children were born without coitus. given that the women or Kijo or both could just not be interested, the availability of the technology, and the fact both are most likely ridiculously wealthy, why bother?
hell, if the women themselves didn't want to deal with the struggles that come with pregnancy, they could even get a surrogate involved. since if both the egg cell and sperm cells are from the High-Class Woman and Kijo respectively, the child will be related to them and not the surrogate mother. neither have to actually bother with the actual baby-making process. it fits of the narrative of the supposed survival-of-the-fittest, cutthroat worldview Byakuya has in his FTEs
and wouldn't that be such a incredible, harrowing addition to Byakuya's background, if he was one of those children born from the cold sterility of said transaction? if he was produced for the sole purpose of becoming an heir? if he was born from glass to be among the dozens upon hundreds of other children to be either discarded for circumstances beyond their control, or made to beat each other down until only one is left, in the slaughterhouse that is the Togami family?
to be born without love and raised without compassion. to be the next arbiter of this inane cycle.
to be Byakuya Togami, the Ultimate Heir?
