Bleach 124

Ichigo is inside his soul, or spirit, or just somewhere dark and dank, and Reverse Ichigo attacks him and says that he's now Zangetsu, the personification of Ichigo's sword. Ichigo isn't having that, see, and he releases his bankai. Reverse Ichigo (Richigo?) surprises everyone by releasing his own bankai, and he seems to use it pretty well. Ichigo is incredulous. Where did Richigo learn to use bankai? Ichigo must assume that Richigo sits around in his soul all day reading manga and eating Hot Pockets. Richigo answers that he learned to use bankai at the same time Ichigo did.

Now things get weird, and that's to be somewhat expected because we're inside Ichigo's soul, after all. But there's good weird and there's just okay weird, and this unfortunately is just okay weird, and then later on becomes bad weird. I'll explain in a bit.

Ichigo deflects a big attack from Richigo. He closes his eyes (in fear!) and reopens them to see that he's back in Soul Society. Beautiful pink blossoms float gently by his face, and he whirls about to see Kuchiki Byakuya, one of Soul Society's most powerful captains. I like to call him the Captain of Nonchalance, which makes him the Captain of My Heart. I'd put a little heart symbol there, but I can't. Anyway, Byakuya makes a few cryptic remarks about how confused Ichigo seems and releases his own bankai. This all looks like a much earlier episode: same characters, same location, same fight, but the animation isn't recycled. It's new and shiny. Byakuya cuts the mountain in half on top of Ichigo and tells him that he isn't really using bankai. Ichigo naturally can't make any sense of this. He's just that dense, even though I'm yelling something at the screen that I can't quite remember now. Why can't TV characters ever hear me?

So Ichigo is falling toward some jagged rocks (with their jags) when Byakuya appears under him. He prepares for his final attack, cracks the earth under him with the force of his insouciance, and flies up to stick Ichigo with his sword!

We never see the attack. Ichigo deflects Richigo's blade instead. Richigo seems to be enjoying himself, but Ichigo wants to end the fight quickly and fires off getsuga tenshou. To everyone's (no one's?) surprise, Richigo blocks it with one hand. He then comes up real close to Ichigo and releases his own getsuga tenshou, and everything blows up. Rocks fly up into the air and the screen turns red, and I think that's what happened when the dinosaurs died.

New scene, back in the real world. Lisa, the best Vizard, leaps into a spinning handstand and delivers a series of wicked kicks to Hollow Ichigo's head. Follow all the Ichigos? There's real Ichigo. There's Reverse Ichigo, who I assume is his id, and then there's Hollow Ichigo, who just appears to be a mindless shell whilst Ichigo and Richigo battle for control. Hollow Ichigo also howls and screeches a lot. It's spooky. So Lisa kicks him a few times until he blocks her and then goes on the attack, but she's cool, so she easily evades and counter-attacks.

Another Vizard, Kensei, replaces her. He has short gray hair, cargo pants, and his zanpaktou looks like a little knife. Maybe he has some matches and a fishing line in there.

Back inside Ichigo, Richigo explains that he was the one who first used getsuga tenshou, and Ichigo has just been copying him, and badly at that. He grabs Ichigo's sword and it changes color, falls apart. Ichigo gasps, and then he spaces out again. He turns around to see, of all people, Kariya Jin. I don't really want to talk about this part. Jin, if you simply must know, was the leader of the Bounto, during the terrible filler arc a while back. I'll just say that Jin tells Ichigo that all battles are futile because they only leads to more battles. Ichigo also realizes that his sword, Zangetsu, has been inside of him this whole time.

Meanwhile, Kensei is fighting Hollow Ichigo. Hollow Ichigo really is turning into a Hollow, what with the mask and the weird arm and even weirder attacking mouth-thing that flies out to bite Kensei. Kensei blows it away, and outside the shield Lisa extemporizes that Ichigo must surpress his inner Hollow within an hour. If he doesn't, then it will be her turn to fight him again. She looks pretty good, determined, in her glasses, with the wind blowing her hair about.

Moving quickly past the Jin scene, Richigo tells the stunned Ichigo about an adorable king and his horse. See, all things being equal, the only factor that determines whether one is the king, or whether one is the horse, is instinct. The stronger person seeks more battle to gain more power (sort of like leveling up, right?). The stronger person lives to destroy their enemies (now it's like my workplace). Richigo has that instinct. Ichigo does not. He tries to think his way through battles, and then he feels bad afterwards and sends the loser a "get well" card, I bet.

To prove the point Richigo throws his sword right through Ichigo. He simply isn't going to stand being the horse anymore. He starts to pull out his sword, but Ichigo suddenly has an epiphany and grabs the sword. It changes color and Richigo jumps away. Ichigo's eyes start to glow and he mutters, "Instinct." What could this mean?