User Profile

While not a true part of his mental illness, he also has a few particular quirks that edge his violence with eccentricity. The insistence upon wearing an eyepatch over his perfectly functional right eye, for example. Various doctors have suggested different deep-seated reasons for this particular quirk, most of them having to do with some sort of repressed trauma during Kenpachi's childhood and the symbolism of him partially blinding himself; the truth is far simpler, though. The eyepatch gives him a notable blind spot and removes much of his depth perception -- it makes fights more interesting. And, deep down inside, he thinks it looks kind of cool. He also styles his hair elaborately, working it into a series of long spikes and tipping each spike with a small chime. For someone who otherwise really doesn't care that much about his appearance, it seems an odd act of vanity. He claims the bells are also a part of his 'fighting handicap' as the sound should help opponents follow his movements; they're also intended to give Yachiru something to play with while clinging onto his shoulder the way she often does. Despite the more or less accurate impression he gives most (that of a merciless killer), he also has his own code of honor, which he holds to firmly.



Yachiru represents what some people might see as his greatest quirk. With most, he is violent and generally uncaring. If you don't want to fight him, or if you're too weak to put up a good struggle, he doesn't give a damn about you. But the little pink-haired girl? In his own rough way, he adores her, and he goes out of his way to do little things for her to make her happy. Anyone who messes with her might as well paint a large "please, come kill me" sign on their foreheads. As far as he is concerned, she's his daughter: their lack of a blood relationship means nothing to him.

Character History:

Presumably Kenpachi had parents at some point; he doesn't, however, remember anything about them. He grew up as a nameless street kid, taken in by one of the tougher gangs that roamed the slums. The Zaraki Street Stalkers, named for the stretch of road at the heart of their territory, were unique in one respect: their undisputed leader was female. The young woman known as Yachiru presided over her gang with an almost maternal caring, mixed in with a solid dose of iron-fisted control. If you behaved yourself, she adored you; if you caused problems, she'd kick your ass. Almost from the beginning, she took to the nameless street kid who'd had the audacity to try and pick her pocket; for some unknown reason, she found that amusing and endearing, rather than maddening, and decided that a kid with balls that big definitely belonged in her gang.

She practically adopted the boy, making him her second-in-command and chief enforcer when he proved to have a notable skill at breaking the skulls of troublemakers. In recognition of his skill, she gave him the name Kenpachi, telling him it was the name of the strongest person she knew. He treasured the name, becoming even more loyal to her and seeking always to make her proud of him. Perhaps, in some way, he even loved her. Certainly, she was the closest thing to a mother figure Kenpachi would ever have.

The gang was a good home for him. While they were a street gang, breaking the law in dozens of ways every day, they were also a sort of family, all looking out for one another. From them -- especially from Yachiru -- he learned the rough but heartfelt code of honor they lived by. Don't hit someone who can't hit back. Look out for your friends, but don't steal fights from them. If someone attacks you with fists and you pull a knife, you're saying you're weaker than them. It's okay to lie, but if you make a promise, you'd damned well better keep it. Don't steal from people that don't have anything to begin with. If you gotta kill someone, just kill them -- don't torture them. The rules were a far cry from what more civilized people might think of as codes of honor, but they had their own rough logic that struck Kenpachi to the heart and shaped his worldview.

That was all to change, though. A large, violent gang thought the Zaraki street territory looked awfully inviting, and never one to back down from a challenge, Yachiru led her gang into a viciously territorial gang war that ultimately destroyed them. Fighting at Yachiru's side, the teenaged Kenpachi watched as one gang member after another went down; by the time the police, not particularly interested in getting in the middle of things, arrived, the entire thing was more or less over. The Zaraki Stalkers had lost almost all their territory in a series of vicious fights, and Yachiru had taken an injury that quickly became very infected. Refusing to seek medical attention for fear of arrest, she asked her protege to care for her, and Kenpachi did everything for her that he could. Ultimately, though, it was fruitless; she died, convusing as her fever soared to an unbearable inferno.

With the gang in ruins and Yachiru dead, Kenpachi took off on his own, taking the gang's name as his own in order to remember them by. Now, as Zaraki Kenpachi, he eschewed the gang scene, not wanting to suffer through a repeat of the war that claimed the only mother figure he'd ever had. Instead, he made a halfhearted effort to go legal, seeking out a variety of odd jobs and augmenting his earnings with theft and muggings. All his jobs proved short-lived, though -- as the years progressed, his temper (which had never been that good) deteriorated further, and he started suffering from hallucinations. Yachiru's face would appear before him, telling him how angry she was with him, how he'd failed to save her, how he'd failed to save the gang. He felt like he was going mad. He started fighting more often, trying to soothe the itch of his mental torment with good old-fashioned physical violence. And it was after one of these fights that he found her.

His opponent, a street tough with more knives than brains, had fallen to the ground, bleeding heavily. Kenpachi didn't know whether the guy was alive or not, and didn't care -- unconscious was good enough. He moved to start cleaning out the guy's pockets, searching for money or valuables. And he heard a giggle. A coo. And a little baby girl who couldn't have been more than a year old crawled out from behind a pile of rubbish, attracted by the glint of a knife.

Something seemed to snap, deep inside Kenpachi's psyche; he abandoned his search for valuables and picked up the little girl. A cursory search for anyone who might be responsible for her yielded nothing; she didn't seem to recognize the tough he'd killed, and he decided he might as well hang onto her. He gave her the name of Yachiru, after the one person he'd cared about in life, and she quickly became his focus, his daughter in all but bloodline. God help anyone who tried to mess with her, because they instantly entered Kenpachi's "To-Kill" list.

The killing he was ultimately arrested for was not by any means his first; as he sees it, he simply got lazy, too angry at the drunken pervert who'd grabbed at Yachiru, leering. It was that leer that really got to him, and he'd sort of snapped inside, beating the guy to an unrecognizable pulp. Sadly, there'd been witnesses -- he hadn't checked for prying eyes first -- and he'd found himself under arrest. Going slightly berserk when they'd taken Yachiru away didn't help, and putting three policemen in the hospital hadn't helped either. They'd tossed him in solitary, for the safety of the other prisoners, and brought in shrink after shrink to try and see if he was sane enough to stand trial. With Yachiru gone, he became increasingly unstable over the time that he was incarcerated, wanting to kill everyone who stood between him and his beloved adopted daughter, leaving the psychologists to conclude that he was indeed mentally ill.

A good portion of the ultimate decision regarding his mental health might have involved the prison most heartily not wanting him around. Either way, he was declared insane and shipped off to the only asylum that was willing to take him, along with a suggestion that heavy drugs be used in handling his aggressive nature. When Yachiru was allowed to come to the asylum to stay at him, he quieted somewhat, settling into his normal mental state. Aggressive still, fight-loving and fearless in the face of potential death, but no longer thirsting for the blood of every person around him. Just the ones who looked cross-eyed at Yachiru or annoyed him somehow.

[Character journal for karasylum]

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