A/N: SPOILERS for TYBW arc. This one shot takes place just after the end of the manga.


"See?" Uryuu said, leaning in on the kitchen counter.

Ryuuken squinted down at the bowl and withdrew his now-mangled chopsticks. The mixture had been a uniform pale yellow just a second earlier. Now, it appeared that the whites and yolks of the eggs had spontaneously reconstructed themselves.

"Explain what I'm seeing," Ryuuken said. He turned the former pair of chopsticks over in his hands. They had been grotesquely intertwined with each other, rendering them completely inseparable.

"My Schrift: A – 'the Antithesis.' I used it to unscramble the eggs."

Ryuuken looked up at Uryuu, furrowing his brow. "Your ability is causality manipulation?"

"The way it works is that I can define two targets and an event, then reverse the event. The targets in this case were the eggs and the chopsticks," Uryuu explained.

Ryuuken shook his head. It was surprising that anyone—much less the Quincy—could lose a war to the pitifully inept Shinigami, but it was even more astounding that Uryuu had almost managed to get himself killed despite having access to such a potent ability.

"If my understanding is correct, your ability has few limitations because you can arbitrarily define what the 'event' and 'targets' are," Ryuuken stated.

"Yeah, it's pretty good." Uryuu stood up straight and crossed his arms.

"To what extent have you used your Schrift outside of battle?"

Uryuu paused. "People do that?"

Ryuuken retrieved a pack of cigarettes to stave off his developing headache. "Uryuu, I am not sure if I have ever told you this: You are one of an exceedingly small group of individuals who frighten me."

"I am? Really?" Uryuu perked up at what he perceived to be a compliment.

"It is not your ability that frightens me," Ryuuken said. He lit a cigarette and watched Uryuu deflate. "You are familiar with Haschwalth, correct? Though I doubt that you would have willingly spent your leisure time with him."

"He was a buzzkill."

"Yes, and there's a reason why nobody played poker with him." Ryuuken's voice hardened. "Let me make myself clear. I am not giving you permission to use this ability in your academics. Do not intentionally fail an exam and switch with—"

"What? I'd never do that," Uryuu quickly dismissed, suddenly eager to change the topic. "Don't you also have a Schrift?"

"I drank Yhwach's blood back when your grandfather and I lived with the Wandenreich, but soul was never properly engraved." Ryuuken stopped to puff his cigarette. "At least, not to my knowledge."

"My power activated subconsciously when I was targeted by Auswahlen as a kid. Maybe it's the same for you?"

"Occam's razor. I doubt that an intrinsic ability is what kept me from being absorbed by Yhwach. It is much more likely that my existence was overlooked due to sheer incompetence." Ryuuken scowled and extinguished his cigarette. It wasn't improving his headache.

"It wouldn't hurt to double check."

"And how would you suggest I go about doing that?"

Uryuu thought for a bit. "I'll get back to you."


Ryuuken trained the fiercely glowing arrow at the apple balanced on top of Uryuu's head.

"Are you sure that this is a good idea?" Ryuuken said in a half-questioning tone. He already knew the answer. The hospital basement was reinforced by high quality soul-synthesized materials, but he had never properly stress tested it. He couldn't help but wonder if this arrow would permanently damage its walls.

"You shot me in the chest before and it only rendered me delirious for a few hours. I'm sure it'll be fine." Uryuu stood with his back facing a wall.

"And why must the target be on my child's head?" This time, Ryuuken asked a sincere question.

"For motivation."

"I… don't understand."

Uryuu simply stared back in response.

Ryuuken didn't question his aim. If Uryuu had his face blown off by this arrow, it would be the result of his own foolishness. (In this case, "foolishness" meant a failure to stand perfectly still.) After a few more seconds of consideration, he released his Blut-powered arrow at the apple. A deafeningly loud explosion reverberated throughout the basement.

"Do you see anything?" Uryuu coughed through the smoke. Ryuuken, being a chain smoker, was able to suppress his cough.

It didn't take long for the smoke to dissipate enough for Ryuuken to observe his surroundings. The apple had been utterly decimated. The only trace of its prior existence was the vanishingly thin layer of apple residue that now coated every surface behind Uryuu. And, upon further inspection, an immeasurably deep apple-shaped impression that had formed in the back wall.

"Nothing." Ryuuken's voice somehow fell flatter than it usually was.

Uryuu turned around to observe the damage for himself; this allowed Ryuuken to see the thin film of apple remnant that had stained the entire backside of Uryuu's white clothing. They approached the back wall and inspected the sizzling stream of applesauce that was dripping from the apple-shaped hole.

"Huh. It could be something as straightforward as increasing your attack potency." Uryuu scrunched his nose at the intense burning smell.

"I have known this for many years. Yhwach's blood increased the strength of my natural Quincy abilities." Ryuuken crouched down and dipped his finger in the applesauce to taste it. He immediately gagged. "Well, at least we have learned that my ability isn't to enhance the flavor of a food."

"What else have people used their Schrifts for?"

"Pernida scarcely counts as a person, but it would twist its surroundings into intricate, sprawling dollhouses. I believe that Bazz-B would practice his own bizarre amalgamation of kickboxing and traditional Samoan fire knife dancing."

"Dollhouses… dancing…" Uryuu mused. He paced out of the basement by himself, leaving Ryuuken behind to clean up the mess.

Ryuuken sighed and grabbed a mop. This up would take a few hours at best.


Somehow, Ryuuken found himself in the back of an ice cream truck.

"This is coming out of your allowance." Ryuuken wasn't sure how he had ended up here to begin with. He vaguely remembered Uryuu running up to his car after work, and a few very persuasive words.

"But I don't have an allowance." Uryuu didn't seem to mind shutting himself inside an ice cream truck. In fact, Uryuu appeared to have had little difficulty renting and operating the ice cream truck to begin with. Had he done this before?

"Your college fund, then."

"Well, fine. Why don't you try making an ice sculpture?"

Apparently, their relationship had progressed from firing arrows at each other to making art together. He tried to remember the last time he had played with Uryuu—anything that didn't involve physically assaulting his son or showing him how to destroy souls more efficiently.

"Papa, what're we doing?" A small head poked out of the blanket bundled up in Ryuuken's lap. Uryuu's circular glasses were far too big for his face.

"We are giving money to the government. Watch carefully." Ryuuken continued to fill out the stack of tax forms on his desk.

"Why?"

"To stop them from looking too closely."

"Why?"

"If the government looks too closely, they might try to break into our house and take everything we have. Then, your mother and I will have to slaughter them while your grandfather digs their graves in the backyard."

"…Why?"

Ryuuken hesitated. His son asked far too insightful questions for his own good. He had been caught with a question that he was unable to answer truthfully, forcing him to twist the truth into something more palatable for a child. "Because they will find out about you. Do you want innocent people to die, Uryuu? Could you sleep soundly at night over a dozen corpses? Would you not be afraid of your family after they have done such a thing for your sake?"

Uryuu turned around in response, his eyes wide. His glasses were sliding off. Ryuuken reached down to gently adjust them back into place.

"Nobody can know…" Ryuuken donned a dark expression. "Nobody."

He had failed to raise Uryuu in many aspects, but teaching his child what taxes were before he had entered grade school was a point of pride. One of Ryuuken's only strengths as a parent was that he was able to teach Uryuu that every action had its consequences.

On the other hand, listening to his child was not one of those strengths. Uryuu had been speaking the whole time that Ryuuken had been lost in thought. "…Must be related to ice. It makes the most sense thematically. And to be completely honest, you remind me of Jack Frost."

"Only in appearance," Ryuuken grumbled.

"Try it," Uryuu urged.

Unsure of where to start, Ryuuken scanned his surroundings. The nearby tin of Spongebob-themed popsicle sticks caught his eye. Withdrawing a stick from the tin, Ryuuken reached into his pocket and pulled out a tube of Ginto. He popped off the lid and placed the stick into the silver tube, concentrating his reiatsu.

Uryuu watched eagerly as Ryuuken prepared a custom incantation. A modified Heizen would have to do. "Feel the wrath of the seven seas and plunder this sacred booty. Sacred Sponge!"

Ryuuken was steadfast as Uryuu was knocked to the ground by the sudden blast of icy wind. A thick layer of snow coated everything in the ice cream truck, including Ryuuken. Uryuu had been shielded from the brunt of the snow by Ryuuken's body.

"Um… What's that supposed to be?" Uryuu stood up, trying not to slip on the ice.

"It is the yellow character from that pineapple cartoon. Do you not see the resemblance?" Ryuuken's voice scarcely penetrated the thick layer of snow that he was trying to shake himself free of.

"That's the most horrifying rendition of Spongebob I've ever seen in my life."

"What's wrong with it?"

"The shape looks off to me," Uryuu said. He circled the sculpture and examined it. He stopped for a few moments, then doubled back to circle it in the opposite direction.

Before them stood a solid sphere of ice with two lopsided divots for the eyes and seven rows of jagged icicles for teeth. The popsicle stick stuck squarely out of the center of the sphere as a nose. A Quincy pentagram circumscribed the demented Spongebob snowman.

"Art is not one of my natural talents," Ryuuken said, wiping his glasses on his jacket. "The Schatten Bereich had no shortage of ice. If I had the ability to manipulate ice, I'd like to believe that I would have noticed a very long time ago."

"My ability had to come from somewhere." Uryuu looked down at the floor.

"Perhaps I never had a special ability to begin with." A latent, underdeveloped parental instinct urged Ryuuken to say something to comfort his son for once, but it fell on deaf ears.

"Did mom have a Schrift?" Uryuu stubbornly insisted.

"…No," Ryuuken said. His late wife had been special in many ways (at least to him), but her most overpowered abilities had only been to manipulate the building blocks of the Spirit World at will and permanently remove souls from the cycle of reincarnation. Basic abilities for a race that was literally blessed by God.

"What's taking you so long?" An unfamiliar voice shouted. A sharp banging echoed from the back of the truck as the door was slammed open. It was the ice cream man who had lent Uryuu the truck.

The man took one look at the deranged Quincy snowman and screamed in terror.

"Blessed by God, indeed," Ryuuken quietly hissed.

"Holy shit! Are you cultists? Satanists?!" The ice cream man immediately backed away from the truck.

"Yhwach is technically—" Uryuu tried to speak.

"I'm calling the police!" The hysterical ice cream man cut him off, fumbling for his phone.

Ryuuken shot a look at Uryuu, who simply shrugged in response, and then drew his bow.


Uryuu entered the study room holding a stack of board games and a deck of brightly colored cards. Ryuuken lowered the medical journal that he had been reading.

"You're awfully persistent," Ryuuken said.

"There's a decent chance that your ability is conceptual like mine." Uryuu sat on the ground and placed the armful of games next to himself.

"What does this have to do with…" Ryuuken leaned over in his seat and read the topmost box. " 'Monopoly—Littlest Pet Shop Edition?' "

"You said that Haschwalth used his Schrift on card games. He also has an abstract ability, so I thought this was worth a shot."

"Uryuu."

"What if it works?" Uryuu picked up Monopoly box and slightly lifted it for emphasis.

Ryuuken moved to sit on the ground across from Uryuu, mustering his signature emotionally distant yet disappointed Asian father look. The disappointment was directed at himself for succumbing to Uryuu's persuasiveness yet again. At least this activity wouldn't result in a restraining order, or worse, a lifetime ban from their favorite ice cream shop.

"We'll have to make some modifications since we're only playing with two people. Pick your piece. I've brought my own." Uryuu pulled out his favorite Littlest Pet Shop turtle.

"Chances are that I will not notice a slight difference in the rules. I have never played this game in my life." Ryuuken picked the panda, which looked as exhausted as he constantly was. "Or any game," he muttered under his breath. Had he ever played a game? Using Isshin as target practice would hardly count as a game, especially since it had only fun for one of them.

Isshin's masochism was beyond him. His own definition of fun was reading medical papers about obscure surgeries. Before he had been interrupted by Uryuu, he had been reading about an individual who had their bellybutton surgically removed to "erase any evidence that they had ever been born." It was as fascinating as it was entertaining. He would have to look into trying it on himself when he had spare time at work (i.e., never).

It didn't take long for Ryuuken to understand the rules; the board game was very similar to the real world. After the first 10 minutes of the game, he already could tell that he had built up a sizeable lead. Uryuu was playing impressively poorly. Perhaps it could be chalked up to the fact that his son had less experience living in a capitalist economy than he did.

"You're doing well for your first time," Uryuu said, counting out several bills.

"Fighting Hollows and purchasing real estate are two different skillsets. I just happen to be superior at both," Ryuuken gloated. He collected rent from Uryuu on the Little Lovin' Pet Playhouse tile.

"Sure." Uryuu didn't miss a beat.

Ryuuken's eyes narrowed. He knew Uryuu far too well to think that he'd be happy losing this badly. Had he misunderstood the terms of the game? But within the next few minutes, the game had ended with Ryuuken as the clear victor.

"I've won," Ryuuken said.

"No, I have," Uryuu responded.

Ryuuken looked down and noticed that everything he had painstakingly collected was now in front of Uryuu. He should have known better than to tell his obnoxious son that he could use his Schrift outside of battle, and now the odds that he would end up with another restraining order were non-negligible.

"This isn't finished," Ryuuken growled. "What other games do you have?"

"How about we play UNO next?" Uryuu grinned, already reaching for the deck of UNO cards.

While Uryuu shuffled and dealt the cards, Ryuuken read the UNO manual cover to cover. He also knew Uryuu well enough to realize that he would not expect his father to fall for the same trick twice. Uryuu was about to play the best UNO of his life.

Surely enough, this game was much more challenging. Uryuu either had many hours of experience playing UNO or had been vigorously preparing for this one game over the last week. Eventually, Ryuuken decided that he had to match Uryuu's aggressive playstyle. He chose to play a +2, but Uryuu smirked and immediately slapped down a +4.

"That's not how it works." Ryuuken grabbed the manual and quickly leafed through it. But alas, he could not find a rule explicitly forbidding Uryuu's move. He briefly imagined finding the inventors of this game and nailing them to a cross.

"Oh yes it is! I'm going to win." Uryuu smiled once more. Ryuuken hadn't seen his son this happy since they had maniacally threatened the ice cream man together last week. And before that, the last time he had seen Uryuu visibly happy was when his mother had given him permission to use a calculator on his math homework.

Ryuuken scowled and drew six cards from the deck. He felt—in the most non-violent manner possible—the urge to clock Uryuu straight through the fucking floor and into the foundation of his house. But looking down at his hand, he realized that he could do something even better.

"Obliterate." Ryuuken put down the cards that he had just drawn to summon Exodia, the Forbidden One.

"What the hell is that?" Uryuu's jaw dropped. He quickly recovered from the shock and tried to retaliate. "I can use my Antithesis to give it to myself!"

"Nice try, but you should look more closely." Tucked under Exodia was one last card, face down and sideways. Ryuuken flipped it over to reveal his sixth card: the UNO reverse card. "You've activated my trap card."

"That's not how it works!"

"Yes, it is. Two reversals cancel out and I don't see your ability anywhere."

Uryuu was shocked into silence.

"I am banishing you to the Shadow Realm, Uryuu." Ryuuken frowned. "I rescind that statement. Please do not actually return to the Schatten Bereich."

Uryuu watched Ryuuken collect the cards and return them to the UNO box. "…I feel like being a walking deus ex machina is better than my Antithesis."

"Maybe my Schrift is A – 'the Anti-antithesis.' " Ryuuken couldn't remember consciously using his ability. Unfortunately, it appeared that it could only activate in response to severe stress caused by his son.

"I guess it explains a lot. You came to restore my powers at the perfect time to defend me from a Hollow and you magically showed up with the only weapon that could incapacitate Yhwach."

"The second one was not deus ex machina. I had been planning that for many years."

They quietly sat together for several minutes.

"You have a lot of explaining to do when the anime returns." Uryuu finally broke the silence.

"I see that medium awareness runs in the family. It looks like we will be spending extra time together on screen, so lucky you," Ryuuken said.

Uryuu ignored the comment. "Come to think of it, what's up with grandpa? How'd he lose to a few average Hollows if he used to be a Sternritter?"

"Souken was born with a special power as well. His Schrift was M – 'the My-backstory-fell-victim-to-powercreep-and-now-the-author-has-to-figure-out-how-to-retcon-it-in-a-way-that-makes-sense.' "

"That's not a very cool Schrift."

"At least it amounted to something," Ryuuken sighed. He saw far too much of himself in Uryuu.