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

But if Ichigo really never had a Zanpakutō, then all the hollows he "purified" are completely destroyed.

But it really is confusing considering he always appeared to have the powers of a Shinigami, more or less. But when you think about it, Getsuga is just channeling reiatsu, and that's something Quincies can easily do.And Ichigo never did have any other special abilities.

But did Zangetsu try to deceive Ichigo all along? And does he have all the memories of Yhwach? And how did he imitate Bankai and later change into a child form? One can of course speculate about these questions and many others that arose in this chapter, but the safest thing would be to wait for Kubo to clarify things.