Uryuu. Proud, noble Uryuu. Refusing to stay away from the front lines, following Ichigo always just a step behind. He argued with Ichigo, dragged him up out of his slumps and distracted him from his pain. He helped Ichigo recover from Rukia's death, even as he himself grieved. He was always available, to fight along with him and cover his back. The war brought them together as fast friends, not just rivals who understood one another. They were actually friends, in a way that no one really understood or wanted to. Uryuu had gone down in a truly astonishing way. But Uryuu…Uryuu had done it. He had faced down the ninth espada, the hollow that had haunted Rukia's nightmares for decades, the monster that had stolen the face of her beloved Lieutenant Kaien. Even when all others prepared to flee, as Ichigo had trembled from watching Zangetsu break apart in his hands, Uryuu stood and faced his demon. Yes, it was his demon now. When Orihime had once guessed at Uryuu's feelings towards Rukia, she hadn't been right at the time. But she would be.
Uryuu had only learned the story of Shiba Kaien after Rukia's death, after he had realized he loved her and before he had gotten to tell her how he felt. He took the burning fury he felt and used it to fill the aching hole Rukia's death had left in his heart. But Uryuu hadn't expected to meet the fool creature on the field of battle, hadn't expected to see it puppeteering an army of possessed shinigami, hadn't expected to see it towering before Ichigo's weaponless body wearing the face that had been described to him as Rukia's hero and nightmare. Even faced with his new personal demon, more terrible than his grandfather's murderer, he did not waver. Uryuu stood slim, proud and tall, and drew his bow. Ignoring Ichigo crying for him to run, ignoring the surrounding waves of energy overflowing from other battles, he faced down the hell beast he had pictured so many times, had cursed more than he had ever cursed the shinigami. Uryuu had gathered his energy and all the power in the air around him, forming a small windstorm that caught up the sands of the dark desert. Even Ichigo's energy was swallowed up, leaving barely enough for him to cling to life. The Quincy drew his bow, and the arrow was red.
Most people believed that the Quincy were killed because they eliminated hollows completely, that this was causing the imbalance of the universe. This was true—it was the reason why the Quincy were the victims of mass genocide. However, the reasoning itself was not correct. The Quincy did not destroy hollows, they just didn't send them to soul society; instead they scattered their particles throughout the world until the soul could get its purified self back together. This process took a long time, which led to a slight imbalance. The flow of the world was too steady to be ruined by the spreading of spirit particles, but the shinigami had panicked and took preemptive action. This theory was developed by Urahara long after the war, mercifully too late for Uryuu to hear but sadly far too late to do the Quincies any good.
So, normal Quincy arrows did not eliminate hollows. What no one knew (and no one would guess for decades after the fact) was that there was a very, very special Quincy arrow that did destroy hollows completely. This unique arrow's properties made it take a nosedive on the electromagnetic spectrum and go from white-blue to the red of blood.
The arrow had been aimed, steadied, and fired with a silent apology to Ichigo. The ninth espada had stood no chance of dodging or blocking, its energy sucked up in the vacuum that had birthed the heavenly arrow. The hollow had recoiled, shrieking with rage as its doom sped towards it. The crimson arrow pierced through its forehead with power vastly superior to any spell or energy blast, dissolving the monster into nothing in the space of the second. No mercy had been given to this hollow, sentenced to the ultimate fate by the wrath of one who had lost their love. It was doomed to utter nothingness, the total destruction of its 'self'. Uryuu had momentarily possessed the power of a god, sentencing the monster to a face worse than hell and delivering the final judgment with his own hand—his own bow and life-ending arrow.
The ninth espada wasn't the only one who fell by Uryuu's arrow. Ichigo watched in horror as his best friend lifted his head to the sunless sky of Hueco Mundo, his mouth forming words that could not be heard. The last of the Quincies—the true last, his father having died in an immensely destructive suicidal move that took out about a fifth of Aizen's army at once—stumbled forward and fell to the sand, unable to catch himself. Every last bit of his energy had gone into the structure and firing of that arrow, and now it was gone. His enemy was too, though, and that was what mattered. Uryuu vaguely heard Ichigo's cracked voice screaming his name, and the smooth falling of sand as his best friend tried to reach him. In his mind, he apologized again. Then he promised that he would say hello for Ichigo when he met Rukia. He would be seeing her soon. Finally, Uryuu simply closed his eyes and died on the sands of the eternal desert, shrouded in the darkness of a sunless world.
-a broken bow in the hand of god-