Arisawa Tatsuki still stands unchallenged as strongest kid in her class, until-

She wonders why the funeral was so small. Is there really no one else who would miss them? Her crybaby best friend, and his impossibly-smiley mom, and now a white stone where she leaves offerings every year. No one else visits.

She still steps in to save a little crybaby kid from bullies. She's still the strongest (girl) in her peer group - the second-strongest girl in Japan! She still kicks ass, takes names, and always does her best to be there for her princess.

She knows there's no second chances after losing a friend.

Inoue Orihime is still a bright gold in a dull grey world. She still loses her brother to a car accident at thirteen, drags his body to a hospital; learns again that there is no fairness in the real world. She still gets rescued by Tatsuki, still befriends this strange loud mannish girl with a smile like a newborn day. She still rises diligently to near the top of all her classes, competing against a boy she doesn't know for a prize she doesn't really want. First in class would be nice, but this is good too!

She wants to get into a good college. She's aiming for Toudai, and six different backup schools. It's never too early to start studying for entrance exams!

She still tells all this good news to Enraku, who sits in his place of honor. She wants to get into a good school. She wants to make Sora-niichan proud. She wants to be sure he knows she's happy in this world, with Tatsuki-chan and her classmates and the sewing club and everybody!

Maybe that's enough? Enough to tip her brother's bound-up ghost that final step into emptiness.

Maybe Uryuu and Rukia, on routine patrol, catch the signal of a Hollow emerging into the real world and hunt it down. Maybe Acidwire is cut down quickly, before Orihime can get worse than a tardy on her school records and some suspicious bruises.

Maybe they don't.

Sado Yasutora still grows up hiding his face.

He still gets sent to live with his grandfather when no one else will take him; still gets scared and hits back at everything and everyone, and doesn't stop until his abuelo makes him stop. He still winds up in Japan, somehow; because his grandfather was strong but he was old, and his time just– ran out.

He still gets kicked around for being different, too tall and too dark and too quiet, so so quiet - he doesn't know yet how to take up space without hurting anyone to get it.

He doesn't want to hurt anyone. He wants his abuelo to be proud of the man he is growing into. The fourth or twenty-fourth time he wanders into the urgent care area in the hospital, holding himself together by sheer stubborn will, he starts to wonder if he'll even live that long.

Some punks steal his abuelo's memento, and his hands hurt from not hitting back. The strings on his beat-up fourth-hand guitar snap, again and again. He won't break that trust.

He still hears an urban legend about a cursed parakeet, his first year of high school.

Maybe he still winds up watching the bird for a while. Maybe he wakes up one day to a cracked wall and a dead bird, or an empty cage.

Maybe a few years on, he runs into a strange man with a sword. It's not likely, though.

Maybe he died with the bird.

Shibata Yuuichi is still trapped in the bird; still hunted; still lied to.

Maybe Rukia gets a Hollow alert, and she and Uryuu hunt Shrieker down. Maybe their combined experience is enough to finally end that bastard and get his filthy soul dragged off to hell. Maybe they lie to the child, certainly and kindly, and the truths of his proloned death and short life are forgotten as a matter of course. Maybe this was always going to be the way of things.

Or maybe Shrieker doesn't get caught, and there's nothing left of Yuuichi to care about anything after long enough time spent in a Hollow's stomach.

Kojima Mizuiro still goes on with his empty days. He goes to school (and talks to people he doesn't care about) and brings home decent-enough grades (which he only cares about insofar as meeting his mother's minimum standards, and retaining what autonomy he has) and charms older women into buying him things and cooking him homemade meals (he doesn't really care about them either).

He doesn't care about anything.

Making stupid people look even stupider is something like happiness, right?

Asano Keigo still goes through with his daily routine with as much enthusiasm as he can! He goes to school and gets bad grades (but good enough to keep Mizuho happy, which keeps his butt unkicked, so that's good) and sometimes he doesn't get everything that's going on (but that's okay as long as he goes through life with a smile-smile-smile!) and just... he tries, okay?

Keigo isn't just a good try-er; he's the best try-er, and that's his best quality!

That's gotta be enough, right?

The pill is still there, lying abandoned and sensate in a tube in a box in a candy store. In storage.

He never gets to be anyone.