Soul

A Soul, written with the characters read as Konpaku, is a spiritual entity that either dwells in the Rukongai districts of Soul Society or lingers in the living world as the spirit of a dead person. Although a great many begin as deceased humans, others are simply born within Soul Society itself.

The term acts as an umbrella covering the many spiritual states a being can occupy across the Three Worlds.

A wandering spirit in the human world carries a Chain of Fate linking it to its former body. Severing that chain cuts off any return to life, and over time the chain corrodes on its own. Ordinarily a Shinigami performs the rite of Konso to send such a spirit onward before the decay sets in, because a fully eroded chain turns the spirit into a Hollow.

Certain spirits resist passing on because of lingering regrets, binding themselves either to a location or to a living person and leaving them exposed to Hollows. Shinigami stand at the center of this cycle, ferrying spirits to Soul Society and purifying Hollows with their zanpakuto, and those souls gifted with spiritual power may train at the Shin'o Academy to join their ranks.

The soul takes many recognized forms. A Plus is a harmless ghost awaiting passage; a Jibakurei is chained to a place and a Tsukirei to a person. A Hollow is a corrupted soul stripped of its heart, and an Arrancar has torn away that Hollow mask to gain Shinigami-like traits. Shinigami themselves regulate the balance of souls, while Artificial Souls are engineered pills used to evict spirits from bodies. Other media add the memory-less Blank, lost in the Valley of Screams, and the Togabito, sinners chained for eternity in Hell.