It almost seems like the universe has simply chosen to leave them all behind.
Even after so much bad had happened, even after the world fell apart repeatedly and was stitched back together over and over again, even after so many lives were needlessly lost, time continues to flow onward despite the past; the metaphorical grains of sand trickle through the hourglass with no sympathy or regard for their individual thoughts and feelings.
(Because while literally everyone else has moved on and can act like it never happened, every single one of them remains utterly trapped, caged within prisons of their own design).
The hushed whispers, the blatant looks of pity, the poorly concealed staring—
None of this does anything whatsoever to help them forget, to help them cope, to help them move on and finally leave the past behind (because god, how it lingers).
"I heard that she was impaled twice over by her old captain, but they all say that she loved him anyway—"
"I heard that he was left behind, thoughtlessly abandoned by his own superior like complete trash—"
"I heard that she was involved with one of them, that she tried to save him to the bitter end and failed—"
"I heard that he sliced straight through the throat of his own former captain, how very heartless of him—"
"I heard that he was some kind of scapegoat for the incident, that he had to go into hiding like a traitor, an exile—"
I heard,
I heard,
I heard,
they've all heard, but they'll never understand.
Hinamori can't dream.
Hinamori can't dream because every night when her eyes finally flutter shut, visions of the past haunt her by playing out behind her eyelids like a feature film; all she's aware of is her senses being overwhelmed by the routine feeling of cold steel skewering her through the stomach, the lingering odor of oozing ferrous liquid, and the familiar sensation of creeping dread as she is helpless to watch once again while her crimson red blood pools into a sizable puddle on the floor.
Kira can't trust.
Kira can't trust because whenever he finds himself beginning to depend upon someone, the startling and unwelcome image of an all-too-familiar sinister face with a disquieting and mysterious smile comes crashing into his mind and thoroughly shakes him to his core; the vivid memories of his tiny jail cell, of the corpse-filled Central 46, of the stained floor in the room where Hinamori was stabbed— they all come together at once, forcing both his thoughts and feelings to falter, and no matter what he does to resist the impulse to run, he can never bring himself to stay.
Matsumoto can't forget.
Matsumoto can't forget because even when she drinks so much that her evening ends with her seeing double and ultimately falling into bed with a stranger, their limbs entangled, their breath choppy, their slick skin joined together as one, she always finds herself closing her eyes and envisioning someone who isn't actually there (someone who can't be real, and she knows it so well that it hurts); someone who left her behind without a true goodbye— a person she'll never see again, even if she could tear heaven and earth asunder.
Hisagi can't look up to anyone.
Hisagi can't look up to anyone because he's all too aware that the very instant he does find a person that he might admire, he'll become deathly afraid that they'll abruptly change, that they'll suddenly morph into someone he can't recognize— or, even worse, he's paralyzed with fright that history will repeat itself (as he knows it so often does) and an ugly truth will reveal itself to him once more: that the one that he chose to place his oh-so-hesitant trust in will turn out not to be who they 'were' in the first place at all.
Shinji can't forgive.
Shinji can't forgive because in the end, even if Aizen has been sealed away thousands of miles beneath his feet, he cannot get his time back; he cannot reclaim those 100 long years that he spent cooped up in a warehouse, all the while pretending that living off of stale takeout food and hiding away from the entire world was bearable. The inescapable truth is that his time has wasted away, but the wheel continues to turn over regardless; whether he likes it or not, the sun will rise once more tomorrow and it will be another brand new day (with his same old past).
Years pass by,
then decades,
then a whole century has come and gone since Aizen, since the war—
and yet none of them can seem to shake the hyperbolic scarlet letters that were searingly branded onto their chests.
Hinamori's dreams never bring her happiness now— they are only ever graphic nightmares, episodes that are constantly playing on agonizing repeat that feel so very real they startle her right out of her sleep and leave her in a cold, tense sweat night after night after night, ultimately stealing all of the healthy color away from her face and creating dark shadows under her eyes (that she will cover with makeup obtained from the world of the living so she can pretend to be okay).
Kira spends the overwhelming majority of his time perpetually alone, every single one of his friendships and his select few intimate relationships entirely hollow by intentional design (despite many failed attempts from others to sway him, because he's nothing if not stubborn, just like he was with his loyalty to his captain)— eventually his entire methodology becomes very consistent with an individual who's just going through the motions, lacking any sort of true purpose.
Hisagi is overly cautious, only ever able to see the suspicious traits, red flags, and ulterior motives within others; even if he tries his absolute best not to, he inevitably finds himself picking and pulling every last person in his life apart piece by piece to seek the absolute worst in them— no matter how good and decent of a person they may appear to be on the outside, there is always lingering doubt (because he knows all too well that appearances can be deceiving, perhaps more than anyone else).
Matsumoto constantly indulges all of her absolute worst tendencies, shamelessly attempting to erase the memories of the one man who essentially abandoned her to eternal despair; illicit substances, anonymous sex, overall poor decisions— she does it all and lives her life as nothing but what she considers to be an empty shell, no more or less than a vessel for tragic memories, long lost love, and shattered dreams (dreams that were always impossible, that she naively clung to until he took his final shaky breath in this world).
Shinji develops a nasty habit of occasionally lapsing into bouts of sheer rage, fits where he can only ever see the color bright, searing red and only ever perceive the sensation of white hot anger in his veins while his inner hollow screeches so loudly that his chest tightens unbearably— as a result, he ends up coming up with a secret routine of disappearing to destroy various possessions while hidden away in the his division's captain's quarters (and later he'll toss the remnants away like always, along with his feelings).
They have all been changed irreparably by the damage sustained from the fierce sting of utter betrayal, deformed from their original selves; every single one of them has gone through the sheer agony of having been shattered into pieces, having had their respective shards collected, and then having been haphazardly patched back together again with no true closure—
And try as they might, a singular undeniable and inescapable rule of the universe holds them eternally captive and at its cruel mercy, becoming the very reason why they exist (and malfunction) the way that they do:
The unavoidable truth that once something has been broken,
it can never be the same again.