Now onto Ichigo. This guy's powers have been messing with my head for a while now. I talking specifically about his hollow.
We first see the hollow when he fights it during his fight with Kenpachi. Upon proving himself worthy to Zangetsu, Ichigo leaves and the hollow is seen dispersing and going back INSIDE of Zangetsu, giving the zanapkuto a cryptic message about 'all the power being his' eventually.
Up to that point, the hollow mask had kept appearing no matter how many times Ichigo threw the mask away.
The next instance was where the hollow took control of Ichigo during the Byakuya fight.
Then post-SS it seemed Ichigo's power balance was off, and constantly fluctuating. Ulq even commented that at it's highest fluctuation that Ichigo's reiatsu was higher than him(take that with a grain of salt since he was pretty vague, on if he meant higher than his 2nd ressurecion form, or just his base form)
So yeah, Ichigo had to subdue this thing apparently. He goes to the Visored warehouse where he fights his inner hollow again. Here, he finds his hollow literally has BECOME Zangetsu. Apparently he had become the dominant Freudian personality in Ichigo's soul. (I believe this change officially happened right after Ichigo's hollow took over during the Byakuya fight. Further emphasized by him actually doing Black Getsuga before Ichigo.)
This initially made me ask two things. Does this mean, old man Zangetsu could now come out of the hollow just like the hollow came out of Zangetsu back in SS arc? We never saw this feat however. Ichigo however upon defeating it, stabs the hollow, and the hollow dispersed inside Ichigo HIMSELF.
Okay.....so does old man Zangetsu just pop back into existance now? Ichigo had usurped his hollows dominance, thus 'freeing' Zangetsu and restoring balance right? So where was the Zanpakuto? We never got to see.
Also another thing. The hollow transformation Ichigo went through on the outside during this time. This was different than the transformation that had begun during the Byakuya fight. Notably that Ichigo's hollow was conscious and speaking to Byakuya, while the Visored hollow transformation was more mindless. Yet we all thought this is what Ichigo would have become if the transformation had continued during the Byakuya fight.
So why the difference in sanity? Ichigo was almost blacking out from exhaustion right before the hollow took over in the Byakuya fight. Is this the reason the hollow was able to take full
mental and
physical control for that brief moment? Because there was no power struggle at all?(until Ichi rips the mask off, but even then it's an audible outside-world struggle, not inner-world)
And that the Visored training had Shinji simply knock Ichigo out with some sort of sleep kido(i forgot the name of it i saw in the databook). Thus Ichigo was still
mentally sound and able to wage an inner battle with the hollow, meaning the hollow only had
physical influence at the time and wasn't able to both move
and speak like during the fleeting Byakuya fight?
If all that is true, then let's say Ichigo lost his inner battle during the Visored training? Would we had finally gotten the full hollow transformation Ichigo(that looks like a lizard), but with a fully conscious 'Shirosaki' like during the Byakuya fight? The thing about Visored hollow training Ichigo that I loved was the fact that after his full hollow transformation, Shirosaki would be just a hollow. A normal hollow with the power to fight against top tier shinigami. I imagined the power if Shirosaki became a menos grande, then a adjucas, then a VL. Arrancar even? o_0 He'd be in his own tier for each class! Was Visored training hollow the power Ulq feared?
Then we get to Hueco Mundo. People were complaining that Ichigo's bankai speed was horrible compared to SS arc, and that he was relying to much on his hollow. They tagged that along with his apparent incomplete bankai from using Urahara's 3-day-bankai invention. Now that's alot of things to discuss, but let's move on to what has been coined by the Bleach fandom as:
H2 Ichigo(somebody please tell me the origin of this term, it's used everywhere in the bleach fandom. This transformation was called 'Ichigonator' on mangahelpers for a while before H2 took over).
Ok. What the heck is this thing supposed to be. This thing threw out all other conventions. Not only was it a completely different form(whose humanoid form acted as a catalyst for the VL fanatics
, and rebirthed the entire VL speculation movement, as in claiming every breathing hollow was a VL), but it solo'd untouched R2 Ulq in like 2 chapters. This is Kubo we're talking about, and H2 Ichigo was so strong that it ended a fight in 2 chapters. Before,
Visored Ichigo(the guy was using hollow powers!) was getting solo'd by Ulq's first release. Not to mention the fact that Ulq basically just released for lulz since he wasn't forced to release or anything. Then he does R2. Now how much stronger he got is up for debate, but then H2 comes in and destroys R2 in record time by Bleach standards.
That was 'The Lust' arc. And to this day it confuses me. Was that a
full hollow transformation or what? I mean why was Ichigo's entire body not covered in 'hollow material' like in the Visored training? Why was this not the same transformation seen in the Visored training arc. If that Visored arc transformation had finished(it never finished before Ichigo regained control), I wonder if it would have grown horns like H2 as well.
I really hope the answer isn't that since Ichigo surpassed the '11 seconds' barrier(coughdbz5minutescough), and that he learned to regenerate his mask when broken when he faced unreleased Ulq, that he just got stronger, thus the new H2 form.
Was it the power of
this form that was the superior strength Ulq felt back when he went to Karkura Town with Yammy? If so, then what was up with the Visored training transformation if the hollow had this power all along?
And the big question that plagues me. If the byakuya fight featured a conscious Shirosaki, and the Visored training featured a beastly instinct, then why oh why did H2 Ichigo have what sounded like Ichigo
himself talking "I....I will protect...her," he said while in that form in reference to Orihime.(yet he swings his sword almost burrying her in sand forcing Uryuu to shield her, but that's another story).
Now people were in doubt at the time that Ichigo was actually the one talking. He was clearly not the normal Ichigo. So was this truly a higher level of the Visored training transformation where Ichigo's personality actually managed to seep through? Since it was still a beastly intellect mostly, was there another inner battle going on? You could say no there wasn't since Ichigo was at mental exhaustion like in the Byakuya fight. Then I remembered the Kenpachi fight where not only was Ichigo cut down and bleeding, but proceeded to have an 'inner battle', get back up and 'beat' Kenpachi with no time elapsed in real time in between. But that was only possible as the actual Zangetsu was still in control of things back then right?
So this H2 Ichigo was a total mystery. Then Ichigo goes down and fights R1 Yammy. Pulls down the
new mask and Getsuga's Yammy. Then the mask broke. (this again
)
All that achieved was to rescramble the confusion in a different way. So Ichigo achieved a new mask? So he got a power-up seeing as he just dropped a crescent moon on Yammy? I then ruled out that there was some kind of 'inner-struggle'. This must have been him continuing to rely on hollow powers, and it was getting stronger from all the fighting?
The reason I ruled out 'inner-struggle' was because once we skip to the dangai training, Ichigo is back in his inner world. Tensa Zangetsu is there, and he PULLS Shirosaki OUT of Ichigo. At this my mind was blown. It all came together. I had forgotten when Ichigo beat Shirosaki in the Visored training, that he had disappeared inside of Ichigo, similar to how Shirosaki had previously disappeared inside Zangetsu. So the whole time in Hueco Mundo, Ichigo had Shirosaki inside of him and was relying on it as I had suspected. Thus there was no way there was an 'inner struggle' during the H2 fight because Ichigo had already subdued his hollow and proof of such was when Tensa had to pull 'the source of Ichigo's despair' out of him being Shirosaki.
So again, what was up with the H2 transformation, random boost in power,
and the new mask that BROKE after Ichigo used it. Why did it break if Ichigo had still been in control of his hollow at the time? Does the higher power level require more 'Visored training,' as in like the training he did with Hiyori to up his initial mask time limit?
Meanwhile Tensa Zangetsu is raging because he hates the rain. And what did Ichigo do to make Tensa like this? He apparently had subconsciously went Noah's Arc level Great flood mode on his inner world. The place is flooded and Tensa has no flood insurance and so he yanks Shiro out of Ichigo. Said hollows being the apparent cause of the rain?
And what do we see? Shirosaki wearing the horned mask.
. So what was up with the
hornless mask Ichigo used against Yammy? When he pulled that mask against Yammy was he H2 level or not? It didn't seem like it and it's not because of the lack of horns, but just that he didn't seem H2 level against Yammy in general.
Then what happens next pretty much made me give up and just go with the plot. Shirosaki and Tensa Zangetsu fused. Here's the next barrage of questions.
Um okay..so neither one of them are dominate of each other anymore, or were they never dominant in the first place? At first Shiro disappeared inside Zangetsu during the Kenpachi fight, then only Shirosaki showed up during the Visored training while old man Zangetsu isn't even present(even though both were during kenpachi fight). Then after Visored training fight, Shiro himself disappears inside Ichigo.
I initially assumed that either Ichigo was in full control after that with both Old man Zangetsu&Shirosaki inside him as a result of beating Shiro who had taken over Zangetsu's body or the second option that after Ichigo beat Shiro that Zangetsu just popped back into Ichigo's inner world or something like I said before. So seeing that Tensa Zangetsu was waiting for Ichigo when he arrived in his inner world during the Dangai training kind of confirmed my latter thoughts of the second option.
Then what do they do? They fuse saying "we are your power".
What? Why didn't they take on that form before when Ichigo was in shikai form-.........
Then I saw what was different. Ichigo was in bankai form. None of any of this weird hollow stuff ever happened until Ichigo went bankai. So all it took for this fusion to occur was for Ichigo to go into his inner world while he was in bankai which he'd never done till dangai training? Anyway, we don't see the inevitable beat-down Ichigo receives since he had just got beaten badly by Tensa. So the fused form was about to do some damage. But the next time we see Ichigo it's with his hand implanted in Aizen's face basically teleporting him away from Karkura Town so he can proceed with Aizen-butterfly form ownage.
The unanswerable question: Could Post-dangai Ichigo have used his hollow mask at all? Seems like this is not the case, so instead I ask, could he have done a Cero?
Followup to that question: If a mask was possible, would it have had horns or would it be the same mask he used against Yammy? Possibly with more stripes or something, similar to how his old mask used to always get stripes added as he grew stronger
That brings us to the fullbring arc which you don't even want me to get started on. J/K. I actually don't have much to say about the arc since it's not come to a close yet. I just want to know whether Ichigo still has hollow powers at all and is he as strong as post-dangai Ichigo and why the design change. We know Ichigo's bankai design symbolizes everything since he told Unohana his bankai symbolizes the amount of reiatsu he had, so any costume change means something.
I know we can't answer current arc questions yet, so it'll have to wait, but we can discuss them. 
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...so post Dangai Ichigo cannot put on the mask, becuz there's none...imagine post Dangai Ichigo like this...he is the perfect Arrancar...his base form is the ultimate shikai...shikai means that he has cooperation of his inner spirit and we can see that Ichigo fused with the sword...but the sword's form is in the old bankai form, which is the compressed form of sword...so the base form is the base form of an Arrancar, who has his power sealed in his sword...
...questions are welcome as I don't think I answered all the stuff you brought to table...
Originally Posted by benelori
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...but remember that Ichigo wasn't capable of entering his own spirit world until Isshin showed him the meditation trick
