The figure, who bore striking red eyes, stood within the entranceway silently. Her form was hazy as she turned her gaze from Satoru Gojo (who remained relatively unbothered on the surface) to Noriko, whose eyes were wide. She bore traditional shrine clothes and her face was mostly shadowed by the white hood she was wearing.

"That's... not a cursed spirit," Noriko breathed, hand twitching near her holster, "and it's not... a sorcerer?"

"That wouldn't be possible," Satoru shrugged, oddly relaxed for the whole situation. Unless Tengen's barrier around the school had dropped (and if it had, he would know), no cursed spirit would be able to breach the grounds. "But it's not exactly a sorcerer."

"What's it doing here?" He glanced down at his student.

"Well, it's your Domain Expansion, so shouldn't you know?"

Noriko's eyebrow twitched at his cheerful response. While curses didn't particularly bother her, this did. Curses and cursed spirits followed rules; they had strict guidelines in which their existence fit into - but this? Not a cursed spirit, not a sorcerer, but somehow in her Domain.

"Those robes are of the Kamo Shrines - not modern - perhaps the Heian, or sometime in the early Kamakura period..." Noriko explained, steeling her emotions as she felt her grasp on the Domain flicker. She couldn't afford to end it there - not until they knew more. "The priestess at that time... would that... It's the High Priestess -"

The figure lifted a bony hand, directing her bony finger towards Noriko, or more specifically: the holster on her leg, containing the ink brush.

"Princesses Shikishi."

Her gaze was cold, perhaps almost sorrowful, but the glow of red from her irises sharpened her features into a solemn stare. The brush in her holster began to form it's own gravity, and Noriko was aware of the sudden weight of it.

"I see." Gojo murmured, reaching his hand up to pull his blindfold up, revealing a set of striking, pale blue eyes. "Eh?"

Now seeing the figure in full, he was even more confused.

"Don't you think she looks too much like you?"

Noriko blinked, glancing over to the woman donned in priestesses' robes. Her mouth fell open and she took a step forward. They did indeed look very similar: sharp, slanted eyes, fuller lower lip, sharp jaw... even the general expression was similar.

"Wait, is that a figment... of me?"

Satoru Gojo returned his gaze from his student back to the woman. She hadn't moved, only lowered her hand. They were too similar - perhaps Noriko's innate talent for using the brush before she even had a grasp on her energy wasn't an insane coincidence after all.

"Her energy is different." Satoru explained, nodding to the figure before dropping to a crouch. Dragging his finger through the grey dirt, he beckoned for Noriko to copy him, which she did, tucking her skirt under her legs. "This is the kanji used for your name, right?"

"Oh, yeah, that's it," she hummed, propping her elbow onto her knee so she could rest her chin on her palm. They had both considerably calmed down (well, Noriko had) and were quite at ease with the impossible phantom, who, all but her eyes, remained unmoving.

"Can't that be more commonly read as 'Shikishi'?" A set of puzzled brown irises met blue as they stared at each other. "Personally, I've never encountered a situation like this before."

"Mmm... well, neither have I." Noriko turned her gaze to the shrine maiden. "The High Priestess, or the current one, named me after she took me in - the name might be a coincidence?"

"The name, the brush, the appearance, similar cursed energy, and the fact she's in your Domain? Wow, that really would be a great coincidence~!"

"You know, sensei, as much as I sometimes appreciate your carefree attitude, I'm starting to see why Fushiguro told me he had no respect for you," she stated bluntly, folding her arms across her chest as she scuffed out the writing in the dirt with her foot. He pouted, and was about to playfully whine about Megumi's cold behaviour, when a sudden movement startled them.

A hand, cold and shrivelled, gripped at the fabric of Noriko's white shirt, and her vision was completely eclipsed by a sheen of red. The red that you see when you've been looking at a car's taillights for too long, Noriko mused unaware, before the sheen sharpened before her and she found the red was merely the eyes of the figure - who was an inch at most away from her face.

It drew back after a second and a numbness overcame Noriko. The figure held out it's hand - a hand drenched in a thick red liquid. Upon it's palm, a beating heart rested, freshly removed and oozing blood from the arteries. Her breath hitched as she then identified the red stain and gaping hole in the centre of her lookalike's robes, and the rivets of the same red that wound down her white robes and pooled at her feet. As she glanced down, she found the phantom's feet weren't the only ones surrounded in a pool of red - hers were too.

A jagged hole had been torn over the chest of her white shirt and a warm liquid was beginning to soak through the rest of it. It was then she noticed the newfound silence within her - her pulse was quiet. It was her heart in Shikishi's hand, and it was Shikishi's too. Lifting her gaze, she winced upon meeting her counterpart's. It was sad, maybe slightly melancholic, and she found herself staring back at her.

Another hand wrapped around her right wrist and Shikishi brought it up to the organ she was holding. As the two cupped the beating heart, Noriko finally noticed the blackness running across the veins in the front of the vessel like black spiderwebs - or ink splattered across the page, seeping into the fibres.

"We're... I'm dying." The sorcerer breathed, eyes moving to become fixated on her counterpart, who offered her a small smile.

"You're cursed."

A sharp pull flung Noriko back and she found her vision streaking with various colours. A hand was tightly grasped around her upper arm - probably Gojo's, she mused internally - and her Domain was quickly receding into the background, overcome with visions of galaxies and true creation. That two rescinded and Noriko found herself blinded again by the bright Tokyo sun.

Her feet hit the ground with a thump, however, her legs buckled before she could think, sending to her knees. The tight grip around her arm remained, but she couldn't bring herself to look over her shoulder to acknowledge her teacher.

She couldn't move - eyes trained on the ground - until she was gently shaken. Perhaps he was also saying something to her, but all she could hear was muffled murmurs.

Reeling forward, Noriko pulled her arm out of the grasp and threw herself away as she keeled over to throw up onto the grounds. A hand gently lifted her signature ponytails over her shoulder and out of her trajectory as her chest heaved. Lifting a hand to her chest - to check for a heartbeat - she found the same hole in her shirt. She drew her hand away quickly to check for blood, however, there was none.

A slow vengeful feeling blossomed in her chest.