Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-31283382-20131221170348/@comment-44061-20160630232006

The Asauchi are the sword templates that are made by Oetsu, they are not your zanpakuto spirit. The Asauchi's purpose is to bring out your zanpakuto spirit in a physical form making the asauchi a zanpakuto. Asauchi or no you still have a zanpakuto spirit prior to getting an Asauchi. Whether you can associate with your zanpakuto spirit prior to Asauchi seems to have to do with how potentially powerfull you may be. Filler and Movies are commonly seperate from the manga because they contradict manga content which is exclusively written by Kubo himself unlike filler arcs and moveies. This concept of two shinigami wielding the same zanpakuto makes little to no sense seeing as the zanpakuto spirit is uniquely part of a shinigami's soul, making its power ultimately their own innate powers given form.