Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-9826910-20130618064245/@comment-11061490-20130619201303

I think that we are all forgetting that he was a Fullbring as well. And as we know, to be a Fullbring you have to have had parents (mother*wink wink*) attacked before birth to pass on some of the Hollow's Rieatsu (the hollowfied like creature that attacked his mom when his dad and mom first met, which would explain why his final hollowfication form looks like that creature) to the child (*wink* Ichigo *wink*). In essence, Ichigo was birthed from a Quincy that was attacked by a Hollow and to a lesser degree was hollowfied because of it, as well from a Royal Shinigami Bloodline father who tethered his life to hers by giving up his Shinigami powers and combining their Rieatsu (which would explain why his dad can use Getsuga Tenshou and knows so much about Zangetsu as his Engetsu is similar).

Ichigo has always had a Hollow in him because of this. Urahara's process to help him regain his Shinigami powers strengthened and released his inner Hollow in Tandem with His own Shinigami powers (no longer relying on Rukia's power he took when he took the blade in the chest) which in turn led him to eventually discovering his zanpaktou's name which up until that point he didn't even know.

This bring s us to the point that Ichigo's inner hollow was always zangetsu and the zangetsu he knew was always his quincy power. With the onset of his new Zanpaktou he has said farewell to both by realizing that they were always apart of him. the real question i think should be that as all zanpaktou have a spiritual image the owner see's as part of the bond... does Ichigo get a new one (true one) to reflect the realization that what he thought was real wasn't?