So, I was watching one of the many AMVs for Animal I Have Become and saw a clip of the moment when Ichigo is just turning into a Hollow. This was the product.
Strangely, it wasn't the moment right before the so-cold-it-burns mask formed on his face that he would remember as the last time he was human. Kurosaki Ichigo would always remember that moment, sure. Eyes jerking around wildly for help that would never come, starting to hear the whispers of a monster in his head, mouth forced open but unable to scream by the white liquid bursting from his throat. It wasn't exactly something that was easy to forget.
No, the Substitute Shinigami remembered waking up that morning, with Tessai uncomfortably close to him, as the last time he was entirely human. He'd yelled so loud that the stitches had nearly come loose. Bickering with Urahara as sunlight dribbled in through windows that looked as if they hadn't been cleaned since Yamamoto was young, and proceeding down to that ridiculously large training room.
Ichigo caught himself wondering sometimes if Urahara had known what would happen next, if the deceptively mild-seeming blond had known he would be turning the teen into a Visored, not a Shinigami. At those times Ichigo clenched his fists, wanting more than anything to throttle someone for this. For the fact that he'd stabbed his friends, and won that same fight through a psychotic side that had taken over. For the razor's edge that he was forced to balance on every day, knowing that he might be in control now, but the Hollow was always there, always waiting to take control and go on a rampage if he got the chance. The strawberry just had to make sure that he never got that chance.
Could he?