Founding War Unohana Headcanons 1
To be clear, these headcanons are specifically for the time period between when Yamamoto first brought Unohana into the fold to the point where the last enemies are defeated and the modern Soul Society is the last faction standing. I call this conflict the Founding War for the sake of convenience.
0. IMPORTANT NOTE FIRST: Just to be clear here, for the purposes of this blog, the war that saw Unohana’s recruitment is not the first war with Ywach’s forces. That war took place 1000 years ago; the Founding War took place over two-thousand years ago (as part of a related headcanon that Yamamoto only founded his academy after the current structure was fully formed once the conflict was over).
1. When Yamamoto first brought Unohana back to whatever place was serving as basecamp at the time, she was an extremely curt and straightforward speaker. She preferred to stick to single-word sentences or just not speaking at all, which didn’t endear her to her fellows (especially since she was the 11th of 13 to be recruited). Also, she had already taken on the name “Yachiru” by the time Yamamoto found her; nobody learned of the name “Retsu” until after the war, and even then it was only revealed to a select few.
2. Unohana was not a kind mistress to her fledgling Division. She generally seperates people into two different catagories in her mind: “prey,” who need a reason to fight, and “predators,” for whom fighting is the reason. I’ll be making an entire post about her weird double-standard ethics at some point, but the important part for this post is that she had very high standards for people she considers predators, and she was not pleased with those who fell short of her expectations. At one point, after a particularly grueling battle where the 11th failed to hold the line while she was doing her thing, she out-and-out decimated her own Division in the Roman sense: she personally murdered a tenth of her own men to set an example for the survivors that she would not tolerate such weakness from her troops.
3. That being said, as hellishly high as her standards were and as horrible as the punishments were for failing to meet them, Unohana’s 11th Division was a true meritocracy. She didn’t care what your past was, she didn’t care what your beliefs were, and she didn’t even care if you particularly liked to fight. As long as you were both strong and competent, she would reward your efforts. Of course, if you were weak and incompetent, then she’d kill you herself. But she was fair; nobody got special treatment and nobody suffered any form of bigotry from her (aside from the aforementioned predator/prey dichotomy). All were equal in Unohana’s eyes, for better and for worse. For example, people like Chad, Komamura, and Tosen would be just as welcome and accepted as someone like Zaraki in her Division.
4. Unohana gained the name “Kenpachi” during this time. Officially, the founding generation of Captains is considered the overall strongest generation in the Gotei 13′s history, at least until the Thousand-Year Blood War forces a bunch of extreme powerups from the modern generation. This means that Unohana, for over two-thousand years, was considered the strongest non-Yamamoto Shinigami in Soul Society history period. There are all sorts of debates that could be had on how true that actually is, but it still says something about the impact she made and the enduring mythical quality her legacy retained. Before anything else, she is the reason the name “Kenpachi” is considered such a big deal within the Gotei 13. Even in a time when she was surrounded by nothing but freaks and monsters, Unohana was still the most dangerous of them all.
5. Unohana did not get along with her fellow founding Captains, not at first. She was something of a Grade-A Asshole back then, and given what little we know of them, the rest weren’t exactly saints either. Unohana did warm up to them over time, after they’d proven they had enough power of their own to survive and not get in her way. Not all of them ever returned the sentiment, but her strength was eventually respected enough that nobody contested her status as Kenpachi, however grudging that respect might’ve been.
6. Even back then, when Unohana was at her absolute most evil and savage, she was still loyal to Yamamoto. If Sasakibe was the Captain-Commander’s right hand, Unohana was his left. She was his brutal enforcer, the one he sent to “ensure compliance” from the belligerent. A glorified thug, perhaps, but a thug with unusually strong conviction in someone else’s cause. Even back then, no one understood why she was so devoted to Yamamoto’s ideals; if she had her way, no one ever would.
7. Unohana’s official combat role within the Gotei 13 was somewhat unique, even compared to her predecessors. The 11th Division was the dedicated direct combat unit among a bevy of combat units, and they took to their role with zealous fervor, ever throwing themselves into the absolute thickest of fighting where only madmen and madwomen like them could survive. Yet this was not where Unohana could be found; no, instead Unohana was the Gotei 13′s very own “hero-killer.” While the rest of her forces would busy themselves by repeatedly beating down the enemy lines, Unohana would hunt for the absolute strongest warriors that the enemy had fielded and slay them in single combat. This both deprived the foe of a vital asset while also heavily demoralizing their remaining forces. Considering it is canon she never suffered an injury until her fight with a nameless child, she was devastatingly effective at her function. It was a big reason why she was eventually crowned “the strongest,” and she remained the “hero-killer” until she transferred to the 4th Division over a thousand years later.