Ultimate Spiritual Body

Shinra Bansho looked at Akira Morisawa's refined, gentle appearance beneath his glasses, then at the unmistakably suspicious light in his eyes.

"Hey, hey, Master Jam-Jam. You are not thinking about something improper again, are you?"

"Who says I am? I am obviously a pure doctor full of righteousness."

Akira repeated that point irritably, then thought of an interesting question.

"Shinra Bansho, if I copy another Zanpakuto, do you think a corresponding blade spirit would appear here too?"

"!"

Shinra Bansho's eyes widened. She stared at Akira as if she had just witnessed him openly bringing a rival faction into her court, then slammed herself into his chest.

"Awful Master Jam-Jam! Am I not enough for you anymore? You are already fantasizing about other blade spirits?!"

Boom!

The next instant, before Akira could react, he was launched like a cannonball and carved a trench hundreds of meters long through the grass.

At the end of that trench, almost his entire chest had disappeared. Only a stubborn, unyielding spine still connected his upper body to his lower half.

But a moment later, with a movement of Akira's will, great amounts of grass nearby decomposed into reishi and gathered toward him. They repaired the nearly missing chest at a speed even more frightening than a Hollow's High-Speed Regeneration.

Reishi Control.

Akira's control over external reishi might not be limitless, but using reishi to repair his own spiritual body was naturally easy.

That meant that when Shinra Bansho was released, as long as Akira's consciousness was not completely scattered, he could easily repair his physical injuries with reishi.

"You absolute deviant."

Shinra Bansho landed on Akira's chest and stomped angrily with her small pale feet, puffing up as she criticized him.

"You really are a vile, shameless, terrible master. You only just heard my true voice, and you are already having filthy ideas like that."

Akira stared blankly.

"What? What filthy ideas?"

"Obviously... obviously..."

Shinra Bansho gestured frantically with both hands, her cheeks flushing as she stammered for a while without managing a complete sentence.

Gradually, Akira reacted. A meaningful smile rose on his face.

"I see. Shinra Bansho, you understand quite a lot too."

"I do not! I am a pure Zanpakuto spirit!"

The next moment, facing Akira's expression of sudden understanding, Shinra Bansho completely lost control. Her small fists fell on him like rain, and terrifying impacts burst outward.

Boom, boom, boom!

The grassland split apart like a rolling earthquake.

With every punch, the blasted crater visibly expanded. Ten meters. Twenty meters. A hundred.

Akira once again became the familiar Master Jam-Jam Shinra Bansho knew best.

By the time he fully recovered, his expression twitching slightly as he looked at the huge pit that seemed to have been excavated by a monster building a foundation, Akira decided not to provoke Shinra Bansho while her head was visibly overheating.

He truly had not been thinking in that direction just now. He had not expected Shinra Bansho to understand it even faster than he had.

All he could say was that she was worthy of being his Zanpakuto.

And, if he thought about it carefully...

That did sound like a beautiful possibility.

Katen Kyokotsu, Sode no Shirayuki, Tobiume...

Cough. Better not dwell on Suzumebachi. In his memory, that manifested form was only a little larger than Shinra Bansho.

Outwardly, Akira only coughed lightly, pushed up the glasses that represented his refined and reliable persona, and spoke seriously.

"Shinra Bansho, since I have already heard your true voice, can you tell me about the real Bankai training now?"

"Hmph!"

Shinra Bansho folded her arms and turned her head aside, seemingly ignoring him on purpose.

"Simple. It is still the same. Master Jam-Jam only has to make me submit through hard strength."

Akira answered with a perfectly serious expression.

"Is that so? What a shame. That means it may take a long time before I can use Bankai. I had wanted to see what Shinra Bansho looks like after Bankai. That must be your true form, right?"

Almost despite herself, Shinra Bansho looked tempted. She hesitated, then said, "In any case, I absolutely will not tell Master Jam-Jam that the way to make me submit is to complete the Ultimate Spiritual Body."

The next instant, Akira's vision went dark. He was automatically pushed out of the mental space that held his Zanpakuto spirit.

'Honestly, I am such a sincere and innocent person. How did I end up with such a transparently contrary Zanpakuto?'

Akira sighed inwardly.

Ultimate Spiritual Body.

After grasping Shinra Bansho's true power, Akira understood what that concept meant.

In a certain sense, the spiritual body itself possessed limits: the upper limit of accumulated reiryoku, the upper limit of reiatsu intensity, the upper limit of spiritual muscle strength, and more.

That was why Sosuke Aizen, in the original storyline, had mentioned that Shinigami themselves possessed a limit that was difficult to cross.

Even Captain-Commander Yamamoto, the strongest Shinigami, still possessed an upper boundary. After more than a thousand years, he had not crossed it. Instead, his spiritual body had visibly aged.

A limit.

That was the so-called limit of the spiritual body, and also the limit of the Shinigami.

The Ultimate Spiritual Body Shinra Bansho mentioned meant that Akira could use Reishi Control to thoroughly reshape and evolve his original spiritual body from the level of reishi.

Reishi density. Reishi structure. Reishi quality.

In a sense, this was the correct use of Shinra Bansho's Shikai ability, Reishi Control. Its priority in interfering with outside reishi might be slightly lower, but it could allow his own spiritual body to undergo a complete transformation.

Only...

Akira slowly opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw, besides the white tent around him, was Retsu Unohana's gentle, refined face.

And as he seemed to wake, a trace of joy passed through Unohana's usually calm eyes.

Then Akira slowly raised the index finger he had used not long ago to block the Adjuchas's tail.

Two years.

Including nearly two years of all the reiryoku he had painstakingly drawn in after mastering Forest Seed, he had only completed the Ultimate Spiritual Body transformation of one index finger.

How much overwhelming reiatsu would he need to fully complete the Ultimate Spiritual Body?

Ten thousand truckloads?

Plant seeds.

He had to plant more seeds, and it had to become his highest priority.

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