"Read, Shinken!"
As Luca spoke the new release command, the red light on the Zanpakutō in his hand immediately faded.
In its place, the blade lit up with the same intricate blue circuitry patterns he had seen earlier in his inner world.
And this! This was what Luca had truly been hiding!
The second Shikai form of Shinken!
It wasn't like Yumichika Ayasegawa's "half-release" versus "full-release" in the original story, nor was it like Shunsui Kyōraku's ability to cycle through different games within a single release.
Luca's Zanpakutō, "Shinken," was more akin to Kisuke Urahara's Benihime. From the moment of its birth, it possessed distinctly different Shikai modes with corresponding abilities.
And right now, the true ability of this blue-light form—"Read, Shinken!"—was...
Without hesitation, Luca flipped the blade and plunged it straight into his own gut.
Of course, he wasn't trying to off himself.
The moment the blade pierced him, the countless blue streams of light on the exposed half of Shinken reversed their flow. They surged into the hilt, traveled through Luca's hand, and poured directly into his body.
Simultaneously, a massive stream of data flooded Luca's mind.
Height, weight, age...
Heart, liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys...
Brain, nerves, blood... cells...
Down to the unique Reishi structures that made up spiritual bodies in the Soul Society... and even the Lineage Factor of the Devil Fruit...
Every single scrap of data regarding this body was being uploaded into Luca's brain without reservation, becoming part of his knowledge base.
That was it.
Shinken's "Read" ability allowed Luca to analyze, understand, and archive the comprehensive data of anything the blade pierced.
A Shikai with zero offensive or defensive power, which even required the blade to remain "plugged in" for a while to fully process—for an average Soul Reaper, this would be utter garbage. It wouldn't even be efficient for gathering intel in the heat of battle.
But for a researcher like Luca? This was striking gold.
His already impressive talent for invention and creation just got a massive buff.
The composition of matter held no secrets from Luca anymore.
Especially in this world where everything was made of Spirit Particles (Reishi), and where Luca had to learn Reishi technology from scratch.
This "Read" ability basically paved a superhighway for his future research.
As long as he wanted to, he could rapidly understand, manufacture, and reverse-engineer any creation.
Naturally, such an ability would invite jealousy and suspicion. Plus, since the "Read" function was useless in a direct fight, it made sense for Luca to lead with the offensive "Plug-in" ability to throw people off the scent.
Actually, before mastering Shikai, Luca had assumed his sword would manifest powers related to the [Pink Dragon Fruit] or the Hex energy he possessed.
But now that he understood Shinken, he realized this was the blade that truly resonated with his soul.
However...
Luca, currently standing there with half a sword sticking out of his stomach, suddenly let his expression drop. He looked confused and started muttering to himself.
"Wait a sec... I downloaded all this data, so why no Bankai?"
"Where's the True Name? If you're not gonna tell me, at least spawn a Tenshintai doll so I can beat it out of you!"
Refusing to give up, Luca pulled Shinken out and stabbed himself a few more times in different spots. But the instant Bankai he was hoping for didn't happen.
See, the reason Luca immediately set up barriers and stabbed himself upon returning to the real world wasn't actually to analyze his body metrics.
Back in his inner world, he had realized Shinken had no independent consciousness. It couldn't talk to him or teach him Bankai like a normal Zanpakutō.
So, he figured he could use "Read, Shinken!" to brute-force the sword's True Name and achieve the fastest Bankai in Soul Society history.
But since Shinken has to penetrate a target to read it, and a sword can't exactly stab itself...
Luca came up with the bizarre idea of stabbing himself.
After all, they say the Zanpakutō is a part of the Soul Reaper's soul, right?
Since he didn't have a "USB adapter" to plug the sword into itself, Luca figured plugging it into the "Host PC" (himself) might work.
Evidently, that logic didn't hold up.
But Luca didn't get discouraged.
He pulled Shinken out of his gut, sat back down cross-legged, placed the sword across his knees, and calmed his breathing.
It was time for his second Jinzen—Sword Meditation.
His consciousness dove back into his inner world. The scenery was the same: endless black ground, infinite white sky.
But this time, Shinken was already in his hand the moment he arrived.
"Huh? The spawn point changed?"
Luca muttered, looking around.
Well, there wasn't much to see in this monochromatic void.
But Luca clearly remembered that when he left earlier, there was a "socket" in the ground where he had pulled Shinken from.
Now, the black ground was perfectly smooth. The socket was gone.
Not just the socket—the blue circuit lines and circles that had guided him to the sword were missing too. No matter how much he called out, they didn't light up.
Luca didn't waste time wondering why. He raised the sword and stabbed it into the ground.
He tried to use the "Read" ability to locate the socket.
CLANG!
A crisp, metallic sound rang out.
Shinken, which could phase through matter in the real world, bounced right off the ground.
Luca looked at the sword, then at the pitch-black floor made of the same material. He rolled his eyes.
"So I can't plug it in here either? Talk about strict DRM."
Despite the complaint, a strong intuition hit him.
He just needed to find that one specific missing slot on this endless black plain. If he plugged Shinken back in there, he could use "Read" to access the sword's complete database—its True Name.
"No wonder I got kicked out of the inner world the second I achieved Shikai earlier!"
"Trying to gatekeep me? You think that stops me?"
With a confident smirk, Luca tossed Shinken high into the air.
The black sword tumbled down.
Clang... clatter... clatter...
After the noise settled, the sword lay pointing in a random direction.
Luca picked it up and immediately started sprinting that way.
"That way it is!"