Soul

A is the spirit of a living creature. When a human dies, their soul passes on to the Pure Land, though some, such as Zabuza Momochi, believe their souls are destined for Hell.Naruto chapter 32, page 17 A soul's appearance varies, depending on whether it is or is not involved in a jutsu: free-floating souls resemble small wisps,Naruto chapter 618, page 13 while souls freshly freed from reincarnation resemble themselves, merely glowing and translucent.Naruto chapter 590 Within the mind of a living human, a soul completely resembles themselves.Naruto chapter 199Naruto chapter 688 Souls can exist on a separate spiritual plane invisible even to the Senrigan.Boruto chapter 68, page 13
Humans can exist with only part of their soul. Orochimaru lost a portion of his soul, specifically his arms, to the Shinigami;Naruto chapter 137 the process did not kill him, though it left his arms in a state of unendurable pain, and they resembled a form of necrosis.Naruto chapter 198, pages 15-17
While uncommon, some souls reincarnate; Indra and Asura Ōtsutsuki are two known examples of souls who reincarnate throughout the ages, passing along their vast chakra and potential to each new reincarnate. Additionally, the soul of Obito Uchiha was able to perform a fundamentally similar feat, teleporting back to the world of the living and possessing Kakashi, bestowing him with his chakra and abilities.Naruto chapter 688, pages 3-4 Orochimaru made it his own personal mission to achieve immortality. The end result was a jutsu which simulates reincarnation, manipulating his own soul, allowing him to move from host to host: the Living Corpse Reincarnation.
Members of the Ōtsutsuki Clan are able to use the power of Kāma to compress and backup their biological data and implant it into a suitable host called a vessel. Upon dying, their soul will migrate to the vessel and thus remain anchored to the world of the living, while the biological data slowly overwrites their genetic data. Once the data is fully extracted, the Ōtsutsuki will completely replace the vessel and resurrect. However, should their vessel die before the extraction is complete, their soul will be completely extinguished.
There are several forms of ninjutsu which make use of souls in their effect: the Dead Demon Consuming Seal, for example, is capable of stealing the soul of an opponent, feeding it to the Shinigami. The most infamous of these techniques is the Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation, created by the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju.Naruto chapter 520 This forbidden technique uses a living body as a template, bring a soul back from the Pure Land and forcing it to inhabit the living body as a form of possession.Naruto chapter 117
The Rinnegan itself has an uncommon dominion over living and deceased souls, as the Human Path,Naruto chapter 419 Outer Path,Naruto chapter 449 and Naraka PathNaruto chapter 551, page 8 are all capable manipulating souls in some manner. Through unknown means, Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki - himself a spirit - was able to recall the souls of several past Kage to aid him in rescuing Team 7 from Kaguya's dimension,Naruto chapter 690, pages 13-15 and later released the previous four Hokage from Orochimaru's usage of the Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation.
== Trivia ==
* Kōza Kubisaki's soul was able to linger in the world of living in order to lead Team 8 to Shiromari's summoning scroll. This feat is later shown with Hagoromo and Hamura Ōtsutsuki.
== References ==
Category:Naruto Terms