User blog comment:Xilinoc/Ch. 540 - The Sword Five/@comment-8295743-20130605172815/@comment-7488132-20130605175707

No, what this chapter revealed is that Zangetsu IS what we know as "Hollow Ichigo" which is in reality the essence of "White" the hollow, who was created from the souls of Shinigami. The impostor is who we know or knew as "Zangetsu" (Old-Man Zangetsu). This is why Oetsu tells Ichigo to say goodbye to this "Zangetsu" since in reality he's not a Zanpakuto spirit. If you guys go back to the way that Ichigo was able to "bring out" Zangetsu in his Shinigami training, he literally pulled it out of thin air, which is more of the way that a Quincy would bring out their weapons. Throughout the series, when "Hollow Ichigo" was asked who he was (at least when Ichigo asked him during his Hollowfication training), he's always stated "I am Zangetsu" and "I am part of your power." However, the narrative of the story had conditioned me into thinking that because "Hollow Ichigo" was an antagonist that he was playing with us and bs'ing Ichigo.. How wrong we were...

Here's my proof: http://www.mangastream.to/bleach-chapter-218-page-18.html