Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-44061-20130307153642/@comment-1387259-20130606040442

Fatdude wrote: Schiffy wrote: Does this mean that the real Zangetsu might just be the entity we all knew as Hollow Ichigo?

Well he did say "I AM ZANGETSU!" back when Ichigo fought him.

Perhaps he was telling the truth... Think of it this way. Ichigo knows this thing as his "inner hollow." However, He had never been to his soul's inner world before becoming a visored, so he has no real way of knowing whether or not this entity was always there. Perhaps he always was, as he is, or could possibly be, the real Zangetsu.

However, this still leaves one little discrepancy. He fought what he thought was Zangetsu in order to achieve Bankai. But last I checked, a Shinigami actually has to best their Zanpakuto's spirit in a fight in order to do so.