How would Kisuke fare if he were to witness Yoruichis's death? Would he mourn? Would he recover?
“I suggest you find a more productive line of thought.”
Unlikely. So unlikely that his thousand scenarios only ever included it as an outside chance, at best. Still, he’s confronted with the ‘reality;’ still, some part of him remains convinced that this is the Universe with the bad ending, and there must be countless others... Perhaps if he rejects reality strongly enough, his will can influence it? He knows two others who can. They appear to be of no help here, and he knows he must find it in himself to forgive them. Strange, how everyone around is able to accept the impossible....
For some time after forgets himself. He becomes more of a ghost than he was already; as though he could will himself into non-existence. He throws himself into his projects and keeps up a pleasant face toward those who who look in on him with pitying concern: Tessai, Ururu, Jinta; even Shinji and Hiyori pay a visit or two. He greets them cheerfully and waves them off, but he grows thinner, if such a thing were possible, and nobody dares come too close, since it’s been awhile since he showered or changed his clothes. That’s just as well. He’s stopped shaving as well, but his beard never seems to grow any thicker. Perhaps shaving, even infrequently as he did, was merely a vain illusion. Perhaps it all was. He stops going through the motions; all of them.
Winter passes. Then spring. And one day, the sun is out, and it feels good upon his shoulders. He is sitting on his roof, and he remembers that seasons pass and he is still here. He holds the sadness and the joy in open palms under the empty sky, embraces her absence with a bittersweet nostalgic gratitude. And life goes on. He doesn’t know that it must, but it certainly does.