Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-10797017-20130622101437/@comment-4794735-20130707074239

Iron.Shadow.Dragon wrote: now that i remembered, Shunsui's zanpakuto are two separate blades even in sealed state, how could he have acquired those two asauchi during his first day at the academy? could it be that Yamaji sensed that Shunsui has an overwhelming power than can't be handled by a single asauchi .. or

he originally had only one and when he awakened his shikai, it's also only one blade, and then he trains and communicates with his zanpakuto and learns that Katen Kyokotsu has a twin spirit that would require another asauchi to awaken .. and then he masters it and wields two of them.. what do u think guys ??

I doubt he ever had 2 Asauchi. If we're to assume that all Asauchi have a uniform appearance as swords prior to awakening, then it's clear that their awakening causes their sword forms to change, I.E. gaining the different colored handle wrapping and different shaped tsuba. So if an Asauchi's appearance can change that much, there's nothing to say it couldn't potentially split into 2 swords.

Regarding Ichigo's new Bankai, while I do indeed hope that it includes two blades (me being a huge dual-wielding fan), I'm gonna be kinda ticked off if it IS two swords connected by an extendable chain for throwing purposes, seeing as that's the exact weapon/fighting style the main character of my series uses =/ (Wouldn't be the first time Mr. Kubo and I have had similar idea >..>).

One theory that crossed my mind regarding Ichigo's Bankai pertains to the whole Old Man Zangetsu repressing Ichigo's power. Generally a Bankai is a massive expansion of reiatsu, creating a large effect/weapon/creature/etc, but Ichigo's was a massive compression. I've theorized that Old Man Z was behind this, trying to hold Ichigo's Bankai back, and now that he's stepped aside we'll see a more "traditional" Bankai.

Not that the uniqueness of Ichigo's small Bankai wasn't a good thing; I enjoy it when characters have traits that so drastically contradict the norm. Not to mention Ichigo's personality doesn't really seem to match someone who would wield a large, flashy power (mansion-destroying Getsuga's aside).

The fact that we haven't seen the Bankai of any of the other dual-wielders doesn't help with theorizing. If we knew Shunsui's or Jushiro's maybe it would be a little easier to speculate how two swords work in Bankai. But I'm starting to ramble now so I'll leave it at this...