I kinda had a feeling that the head commander thing would change the way it did.

it would be either unohana, ukitake, or shunsui.

ukitake is too sickly, so very bad idea.

unohana...not entirely sure why she didnt get it, perhaps because she's too quiet and internal with her analysis. even though she figures stuff out, she tends to want to act on her own without others knowing, which is the exact opposite of what they needed in the leader. plus top seat would put her too much into the spotlight to act that way. so perhaps thats why.

that leaves him.

and kenpachi with proper training instead of wild animal like raw power...to go with his power...thats going to be nuts.

so this explains why zero squad never did anything...they were busy pushing and constantly improving what made them so vital in the first place so they could "hand of god" step in if a situation was beyond control far enough, like this. putting ppl that important ont he frontlines to get killed is how you lose a valuable resource you'll never recover. so I guess that makes sense.

wow, now this isnt something I expected to see :P kisuke, your always full of surprises. I'll have to think on this one before I could give a solid response XD

but note that they cant find the corpse...something fishy's going on with that.

also...ichigo half quincy. -_- I saw that one comming a mile away, I always did say that his mother must have been something special given the things that kept happening, such as her soul temporarilly overpowering grand fisher in that one scene, aizen's comment about his heritage. I mean, come on, ichigo cant be the first ever natural born shinigami...who was born from a shinigami. thats not even logical. now, first ever shinigami-quincy cross-breed? Now *that* I can get behind. Plus, there needs to actually be a *reason* he has so much power, and a *reason* why it develops in its unique way. it shouldnt just "happen" for reasons like "just because..."...so I like that he was actually given a valid reason for being unique.

That said, kubo's going to have fun now trying to keep him from becomming a "mary sue" character...if he masters any form of kidoh or quincy bows or stuff like that, it will put the final nail in the coffin for this...unless he creates some inherent problem. (orihime gets away with that godlike ability because her personality warps its usage.)

last but not least, speaking of aizen...what the leader said is pure speculation, but aizen...actually helping soul society...kisuke, I have to say, your previous predictions here might have actually been right, I gotta admit, this certainly adds some merit to what you said. aizen was up to something, perhaps more than he was telling. remember when byakuya allowed himself to look like a traitor in that one side-arc? (yes it was alt-uni....) perhaps that was also supposed to drop clues. what if aizen was doing something like that for a reason. or preparing SS for what was to come...some stories in other mediums have done something simmilar before I cant see why kubo couldnt be doing that...a character goes villain in order to present a smaller, more controlled threat, to wake up a faction's military from its reduced training and weakness brought on by a long peace time...in preparation for an enemy they knew was comming. what if thats what aizen was doing? O_o

Oh, gee. *rolls eyes*

Rukia is captured. Ichigo fights SS. Ichigo fights Captains, learns bankai.

Aizen betrays. Aizen makes arrancar crossbreeds. He becomes shinigami/hollow crossbreed to combat it.

Quincy pwn SS. He gets irritated. He now starts using quincy powers? -_- ffs I mean it makes sense I suppose, I'v always found it odd that certain powers could only be used by certain types. Power is power. They should all be able to do it, it should be a skill issue not race. But since they *DO* have the race bounderies.........

ok, so what, ichigo can literally copy any move he ever sees? period? XD

If so, he needs some serious kidoh training. Like. Now. That'd give him one major edge.

That aside. he still got pwned pretty fast before that kicked in. He didnt take his enemy seriously and charged in a blind rage. As usual...

notice that it looks like some sort of half-way almost final-getsuga  form. kinda in between. no facemask. no hair turning long/black. but the way his jacket/hands and sword have changed.

I suspect that everything comes down to that move's clearly very versatile applications. If he can use it on the blade, there's no reason whatsoever he cant use it on his body as well. Perhaps that jacket is the precursor to applying that power to his entire body, turning the whole thing into one giant offensive/defensive combo tool.

Things might just get real serious, real quick, for these bad boys.

I do have to say, that as sad as it is to see awsome characters die and get hurt, after thinking about it, I suppose it makes sense.

Aizen didnt actually care to DESTROY soul society. He wanted to subvert it under his control. It was just not good tactics to kill off the very people he wanted command and control over. Why weaken his future army? *thats* why the shinigami always won. He intentionally picked the people for a given job that would get the job done, but take casualties doing it. On purpose. He made no attempt to hide that towards the end. It was cold calculation.

These guys are out for blood. Period. End of story. And having lost a war against the shinigami once before, they knew that it was nessisary to let the shinigami think they won and that the quincy were no more, and develop a foolproof plan, and stay in hiding untill this foolproof plan became completely unbeatable.

Ichigo is a variable. He's too unpredictable (in the eyes of the characters; to us viewers he's easy to read and predict...but they just refuse to fathom a "human" way of thinking so thats why they dont see it comming...). [thats ignoring the fact that kubo utilizes a "all characters are completely and totally stupid unless/untill kubo needs them to display brilliance for a plot reason" strategy of storywriting.]

So this could be what throws a wrench in their plans. Supposedly. Then again, the one thing kubo is very good at is making it look like one character is going to be the savior and it turns out to be someone else you wouldnt expect (yet should have...) that does it. Like what urahara did. We should have seen that comming, but alot of people didnt.

TL;DR version: Ichigo looked almost like some sort of half-way almost final getsuga tensho form there. Perhaps getsuga' is intended to be used for the full body, look at his jacket. Characters dieing is sad, but its realistic storywriting. (Adding this note for ppl who want to acknowledge and reply but dont want to read the long paragraph.)

Congradulations. You are a nerd with no life. Trollolol. :P

jk lmao jokes aside, this just proves you'v been around and quite active for quite a long time. I forecast frequent talks of retirements that never happen for another several years. :P

or kisuke can analyze how aizen became what he did, and undo the process. At that point, he is toast.

Or do it the easy way. Have orihime undo it. Have all the captains pour power to her to help make it easier for her to do it. :P

And dont forget that that thing finally rejected him, so he lost a lot of power. :P

Plus, I still stand by the belief that if he was so powerful he couldnt be killed, he would also be impossible to seal away, as it would take a far, far greater power to seal him than to just kill him.

nightmare relates everything to that, after all. :P

 aaaaand old man is down for the count...O_o

Old Man Bankai =/= Old Man Sealed State. Only more powerful. :P

jokes aside. it looks like it "returned" to sealed state. appearance wise. its clear that it did NOT do so. it just LOOKS like it. ichigo's does something almost like that. if it had a sheeth, it'd look like a normal sealed state.

Old man also has a looot longer training, so who knows. Its entirely possible that his was origionally a "full-time release" type, but he eventually learned to seal it...and even learned to manipulate its form. (thus giving him the cane/stick form)