User blog comment:Xilinoc/Ch. 540 - The Sword Five/@comment-8669536-20130605182414/@comment-28861328-20130606170847

Only, it does work like a regular Zanpakutou and there is nothing in the slightest to reveal that it is even remotely similar to a Quincy's weapon. It has a Shikai and a Bankai. It DOES have a spirit that commands it (Hollow Ichigo), its just not the spirit we've all been lead to believe it was. It was born out of Ichigo's Shattered Shaft training, in which both his Hollow and Shinigami powers awoke, not out of the stolen powers he got from Rukia (Byakuya took those away). It is not a spirit weapon. At all. That is what you call a crack theory.

The only thing this chapter revealed is that Ichigo's Quincy Powers, manifested in the form of a young Yhwach, have tried to fool Ichigo into believing that they are his Shinigami powers. That is all.