Quote (Cyba @ Tue, Aug 11 2009, 02:35pm)
ichigo didn't use bankai or mask.
actually, the mask did save him a bit i think....it protected him from a fatal wound.
Okay, somethign everybody needs to understand here and isn't that hard to figure out.
Before Ichigo's inner hollow took over, his zanpakuto manifested as zangetsu. That meant that his inner hollow couldn't take control since the power was in favor of the soul reaper side. When Ichigo got his "resolve" or whatever you want to call that giant surge of power he gets when he communicated with zangetsu, that was the same thing as his hollow mask, except he was stronger than his inner hollow at the time so he didn't take over.
So yes, he did use his inner hollow, it just took the form of zangetsu at the time since his hollow hadn't taken control yet.
It did have enough influence to form a hollow mask in his wound to protect ichigo from dieing, but I think that was about the extent of his influence at the time.
This post was edited by Thor123422 on Aug 11 2009 01:47pm