I'm currently making an original character for a story and I'm wondering theoretically could a shinigami become a demon weapon? Or would he have to be a kishin weapon?
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I know I'm late to the party, but that's an interesting question! May as well chip in my two cents here as far as canon goes. (Though you could take a leaf from the anime's book and invent a whole new thing, that's fair too.)
Demon Weapon Transformations
It seems like the ability to turn into a Demon Weapon is hereditary, with Tsubaki's Multi-Form Ability being a clan trait. Arachne created a bunch of Demon Weapons, and this handful of individuals eventually grew into a population that covered the various continents. (Lord Death's commentary in Chapter 99 covers this, as well as pointing to the witch's soul providing the transformation ability itself.)
Given that Shinigami are created through the parent (Lord Death, in this case) fragmenting off bits of himself, it's unlikely that the ability would spontaneously appear.
My take here is that it would be generally unlikely to have a Shinigami created with the ability to shapeshift without good reason. For one, that's the domain of the witches, and the amount of trouble this invites largely outweighs any potential benefit. For another, the ability to turn into a weapon isn't looked on favourably by the general public, given Demon Weapons'... reputations.
Soul Consumption
Eating souls will empower Demon Weapons, though it seems to turn people who aren't Demon Weapons into Kishins. However, there's only two known examples, these being Asura (fed Vajra a lot of souls, then physically consumed Vajra to empower himself) and Crona (literally has a Demon Weapon fused into them) to illustrate this, and presumably the turn-into-a-Kishin threshold is very high regardless. Outside of this, we don't see anyone else eating souls.
We also know that the students are under the impression that non-weapons can't eat souls. In chapter 16 of the manga / 19 of the anime, Kilik expresses confusion over how Asura could consume souls, which prompts Lord Death's explanation of what Asura did to Vajra. Lord Death does foreshadow the fact that Asura was not human, which is eventually confirmed when we discover that he was created as a Shinigami- though I think you know that!
(The anime also has some of their targets eating souls in early episodes, so it's up to you whether you'd consider or disregard this fact.)
Again, I wouldn't say for sure that it's impossible, given the amount of general weirdness the universe already allows for, but we've just not seen it.
Weapon-Meister Dynamics
Across instances of combat in the series, Soul Resonance plays a huge part in attack output- by leaning on this bond, meisters are able to amplify their soul wavelengths to take out opponents or withstand incoming attacks.
This trait poses another challenge to the idea of deliberately making a Demon Weapon Shinigami- who's the intended meister here? (Though I should mention Justin Law as a counterexample: he doesn't need a meister on account of his weapon type, and through being sufficiently powerful on his own.)
TL;DR: I don't think canon gives us a definite answer on whether or not a Shinigami could be a weapon, but we know enough of the world's politics to anticipate the scenarios where one might be created, and the problems that would come with it. We also know of various artefacts that seem to break the rules, like BREW, so it's not inconceivable for a Shinigami Demon Weapon to come about through more unconventional means.
