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Plot and AU Ideas
Perspective Flip
As ever, let us start with the obvious one: it is decided during that fateful Captains meeting that Unohana should be sent to find Kensei instead of Rose. Thus, Unohana turns into a Visored, and Rose spends the next century thinking he'd lost all of his friends in a single night. Having her life saved by Urahara puts Unohana in a difficult spot; she's eternally grateful that he did that for her, but that's the problem. Her loyalty to Yamamoto has not wavered, despite her exile, but she now feels a similar loyalty to Urahara, and she cannot lie to herself by pretending that those two loyalty could never clash. In addition, because she is still loyal to Yamamoto even after everything, she's never able to fully connect with the other Visored, not like they're able to connect with each other. So after Aizen's defeated and the Vizoreds are offered their old positions back, Unohana leaps at the opportunity, followed more slowly by the other canon returnees. Thus, Rose suddenly has his oldest and closest friends back (even if some of them would take a bit more effort to meet than others), while Unohana has to readjust to everything that's changed in the past century (the only century of the Gotei 13's history she never personally witnessed).
Lost but not Alone
Okay, I lied; this is the most obvious one. The premise of this AU is exactly the same as the previous one, except instead of Rose, Unohana is replacing Love. As in the previous AU, Unohana's loyalty to Yamamoto prevents her from fully adopting the Visored's stated creed of "Fuck Soul Society, We'll Fight For Ourselves." That being said, she is still a dedicated caretaker through and through, and does her damndest to support her fellow exiles in all of their efforts. As a side note, she also took the longest of all of them to subdue her inner hollow; her instinctual side was always much stronger than most, after all. All of this to say that Unohana and Rose have spent 100 years living in a warehouse together, with Unohana doing her best to aid the others despite her hang-ups.
Historical Fantasy AU
Rose is a high-ranking member of Totally-Not-European nobility, a patron and true connoisseur of the arts. This includes the martial arts, which is how he and a foreign dignitary from Totally-Not-Japan named Unohana first meet. Rose's fellow nobility look down their noses at this foreign wench, but as it happens, Totally-Not-Europe has a rich history of settling disputes via duels. Unohana takes advantage of this and quickly demonstrates herself to be completely unbeatable in a one-on-one fight. However, while this is how Rose and Unohana meet, they don't truly connect until Unohana shows herself to also have some skill as a physician when she treats a minor noble and close associate of Rose's named Kira. From there, Unohana and Rose form a sort of friendship, one that disregards origin, but is also deeply frowned upon by the other Totally-Not-European elite.
