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The warehouse was empty.
She couldn’t remember the last time it was full. There for a bit, eight had become four and that was fine. That was just perfect. Who needed fucking Shinji and Kensei and Mashiro and Rose? They could go back to the world that betrayed them and act like nothing happened for all she cared. She, Hachi, Love, and Lisa would hold the line, and if the Shinigami hurt them again, well, she’d tell them she warned them, and then slam the door in their faces.
She’d let them back in when they begged her enough.
This fantasy had kept her going for a few years. She really and truly expected it to come true one day, but then the Quincy Invasion happened and she had to join the ranks of Shinigami again and what had it gotten her in the end? A whole lot of nothing. Beaten and lost and dragged out of the rubble by a shitkicked Shinji and a Rose still grieving his lieutenant. And Mashiro and Kensei were somewhere with that dumbass lieutenant of theirs, so good luck finding them in that mess.
They’d won (well Ichigo had won, as tended to be the case) and for a brief moment, the Visored were back together in an exhausted heap, sleeping off the battle and taking care of each other. Hiyori would never admit it, but it was the first time she’d felt truly content since Shinji and the others went back to Soul Society.
And then, the party split again, but this time Lisa stayed behind. Promoted to Captain, she said, and Hiyori had never seen her usually serious face look so… elated. She’d watched from a distance as she and Nanao embraced and that was it. That was done. Lisa was back where she was supposed to be.
And nothing that happened before mattered. None of it.
Next went Love. The Seventh Division’s captain had been incapacitated in the battle and his lieutenant wasn’t ready to take the seat. Love assured her it was only a temporary thing until they could sort everything out, but Hiyori knew better. No one had ever come back.
No one ever stayed with her.
She had Hachi for about a month before he was offered a spot on Squad Zero, out of nowhere, and when he went to talk to her about it, she’d shrieked “JUST GO” at him. He’d told her he would send Hikifune her regards and she had tried not to cry. When he finally left, she wouldn’t even look at him.
They all went where she couldn’t follow. Hikifune, Shinji, Kensei, Mashiro, Rose, Lisa, Love, Hachi… All she had was Kisuke and she’d sooner die than admit he was her only remaining friend who understood what it meant for her to stay here. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t go back. Her world changed once before and it had been brutal, cruel, and traumatizing and she’d vowed to never let it change that much again.
And because of that, she was left behind.
But wasn’t that typical?
The last to fall, the last to gain control, and the last Visored standing. That’s just who she was. The little snaggletoothed princess of being last and this empty warehouse was her kingdom. She could make the most of it if she wanted to. She could stubbornly refuse to fall prey to whatever bullshit logic her friends subscribed to that made it so easy to go back.
And she could be alone when she did it, unsupported. Abandoned.
As usual.
It occurred to her after she’d trashed the warehouse and taken her rage and frustration out on every single remaining item that once belonged to her friends that they’d left behind with her (as if she, too, were just an old hat or a collection of manga or girly mags) that there must be something broken in her. Something about her that made her utterly undeserving of family. In the Rukon District, she’d had no one and nothing, except bare feet and nerves of steel.
Then she’d had Shinji, who persisted like a toxic mold growing on her life. He’d been a student at the Academy, then- years and leaps and bounds ahead of her, but she’d followed him out of spite if nothing else. Years later, she’d wonder if that was Shinji’s plan all along- drag the kid with talent out of the slums and unleash her on the Seireitei. Like a big cosmic prank on the world- well, if his plan was for her to fall on her face, he didn’t succeed. She’d risen to the challenge. Maybe she didn’t graduate fast, but she’d gotten the attention of Kirio Hikifune, hadn’t she?
And then Hikifune, the closest thing she’d ever had to a mother, just left her, and it just got worse from there. The Visoreds gave her a family for over a hundred years, but then her luck ran out again, and while Hikifune went to a place she literally couldn’t follow, this metaphorical barrier was worse somehow.
They could have stayed. They didn’t have to go.
She wanted to kill them all for betraying her- for crawling back on their bellies like gutless slaves and taking up their coats and badges and pretending like the olive branch couldn’t be snatched away at any moment. What were they going to do when they all remembered what they were- abominations that should have been put down like rabid dogs a hundred years ago. What changed? Did anything really?
No. It couldn’t have. She couldn’t accept an alternative where it had. No, the problem was that she was never enough. She was always going to be last. Eternally and regrettably. If she was too angry to be loved, well that was just the cost of being constantly abandoned. She was angry because she was left alone too much. She was alone too often because she was angry. An eternal, horrible catch-22 she would never escape from.
And so she laid on the floor of the warehouse, alone and bereft. There were solutions. There were always solutions, but they were never fair. Why should she always compromise?
Tears stung her eyes, falling without permission, and despite her deep rage and melancholy at being alone, she was desperately happy to know that no one could see her crying like this on the floor, or hear her sudden, horrible howl of loneliness that she bit off at the end with a tight, pained grimace.
Tomorrow Shinji would probably call her and she’d yell at him and tell him how stupid everyone was and how great her new life in the living world was going to be without any of them holding her back. She’d let them think they were missing out. She’d make it seem like she didn’t need them, because she didn’t. She didn’t need anyone who didn’t need her.
She didn’t need people who could clearly get by without her.
But, for right now, she’d wallow and wonder why, in all of her years, had no one ever once chosen her.