Warning: Spoilers for Bleach: The Thousand-Year Blood War Episode 7
Ichigo of Bleach has found himself in possession of a wide variety of spiritual powers, including Fullbringer, Hollow, and Soul Reaper abilities. Now, it's being revealed that there's another category of spiritual power that Ichigo may have proficiency in: Quincy.
The Quincy, unlike most other groups in Bleach, are living humans rather than soul beings. They're able to gather spirit particles to form weapons, most commonly bows, which they use to destroy Hollows. Nearly all Quincy were wiped out after their war 1,000 years ago, as well as the subsequent extermination of the remaining Quincy, leaving only a handful of survivors, like Uryu and his family. However, it seems that Uryu's family weren't the only ones in Karakura Town.
In the episode, Ichigo is finally able to break out of Quilge's prison and arrives at the Soul Society, furious that he was held back from helping in their time of need. After a few pit stops to check on the badly wounded Byakuya, Ichigo makes his way to confront Yhwach directly. Ichigo is seemingly taken down by Yhwach, only to reveal that he has unknowingly used the Blut Vene technique that the Quincy Wandenreich have been using to protect themselves. Yhwach is able to explain how Ichigo managed to escape: Quilge's jail was designed to keep in enemies, not Quincy. By constantly flexing his spiritual pressure while inside the Jail, some of Quilge's Quincy spiritual pressure was mixed in with Ichigo's own, triggering his own dormant Quincy powers to manifest. As this is explained, an image of Ichigo's mother, Masaki Kurosaki, flashes on screen briefly.
The Mysteries of Ichigo's Mother
Little has been made known about Ichigo's mother in Bleach so far. It was shown early on that she died when the Grand Fisher Hollow tried to attack Ichigo, an incident which he blames himself for. Ichigo's father is known to have once been a Soul Reaper, so the two of them getting together was definitely some sort of Romeo and Juliet-esque situation. Since the only Quincy living in Karakura Town now are Uryu and his father, it also seems likely that Masaki had some kind of connection to them, although exactly what is hard to say. If Ichigo and Uryu were directly related in some way, that seems like the sort of thing that would've come up earlier. And if Masaki was a Quincy, why wasn't she able to defend herself against Grand Fisher?
The stage seems to be set for Ichigo to take on a Quincy training arc and learn to master this power, but he has relatively few choices as to who to train with. Even Uryu is unsure about siding with the Soul Society, so training with him may not be an option. Mastering the Blut Vene and other Quincy techniques that have proven incredibly powerful in the past few episodes will be essential if he's going to turn this fight around, so one way or another, Bleach has little choice but to allow Ichigo to finally answer some questions about his mother.
Bleach: The Thousand-Year Blood War streams new episodes on Mondays via Hulu.