Shikishi

"Hmm? And who might you be?"

As Shikishi's vision began to sharpen, she gazed past the dust particles floating in front of her into the dark shadows beyond where the voice had come from. She could just make out a figure: around her height, dark clothes, white hair... a dark energy... a curse.

"I could be asking you that." The cool tone of her voice cut through the dim silence, acting as a stark contrast to the playful tone of the curse across from her - which was uncomfortably similar to that carefree tone Noriko often used... when she was toying with people.

Friend or foe, Shikishi couldn't tell.

"Hmm...," the man stepped closer and his image became clearer, "a sorcerer? Or... a curse?"

"I'm not interested in conflict," the red of her eyes glowed in the darkness as they locked onto a curious cylinder clutched in the curse's right hand. An embryo? A curse? Something inbetween? She guessed that seemed to be a reoccurring theme. "Or whatever you're doing here. I just have a few questions."

"Questions, huh? But you still haven't answered mine," the white-haired curse began to grin, raising an eyebrow at his ambiguous acquaintance. His polarized irises followed his fellow curse's to the Death Painting in his hand and then returned to her face. Another sealed curse? He wondered to himself.

"You're currently speaking to Shikishi Naishinnō of the Heian Period, however, this body goes by Noriko Kamo," the girl shrugged, taking a couple steps back to lean back on a crate and fold her arms over her chest. Mahito's eye twitched at the familiar surname as he noted the unusual coincidence and glanced down to the Death Painting again. Perhaps they were distant relatives, he hummed morbidly to himself.

"A princess? You'll have to forgive me, I don't really care for petty human history," he scoffed smugly, rubbing the back of his neck with his freehand in mock meekness. The curse across from him didn't even blink at his subtle insult. "I would tell you who I am, but - "

"You don't need to, I'm not here for you," Shikishi interrupted, running a hand through her bangs as she became aware of her limited time. How long would his distraction last? "I'm looking for a plague curse, which you seemed to have encountered recently."

"A curse looking for another curse? Well, I might've come across a plague curse recently." Now genuinely intrigued, Mahito couldn't help himself moving closer to the sorcerer - noting her lack of care into what he was stealing. "The sorcerer's seem to be collecting all sorts of interesting people recently. Perhaps you'd be interested in our -"

Shikishi clicked her tongue in exasperation.

"Tch! You curses are so insufferable!" She snapped venomously, feeling her already-short temper reach it's boiling point. She didn't know when her next chance to gain this kind of information would be. "I asked you about a plague curse! Are you so lacking in intelligence you can't even answer basic questions?"

There was a heavy silence.

"Ah~! You've pissed me off now," Mahito lunged forward, reaching out his free hand to grab a hold of the vessel before him. He gripped his palm around her uncovered forearm and began to manipulate his technique - but Shikishi didn't move.

Trailing his eyes up, his dull irises met burning red ones and he felt the world around him shift.

"Your soul - "

The figure in front of him dissolved into a black abyss which bloomed out around him, encapsulating him in Shikishi's own biosphere as it melded into existence like ink bleeding onto a page. Trees, koi fish, a set of red lanterns floating ominously above his head... and a looming shrine formed before him.

While more peaceful than any other domain he'd experienced, there was a foreboding aura as a heavy energy rolled over his shoulders.

"Ahh~! Is this the curse?" He turned his head to identify the voice. The girl he'd seen before - now with dark eyes - sat lazily sprawled out on the steps to the shrine and further behind her stood a woman donned in shrine maiden robes. Pale, poised and half-familiar... he recognized the red. "But he's not the one we're looking for."

"You're not sealed, but - your souls... they're joined," Mahito breathed out, ignoring the static that bubbled up around his feet as he stepped off the wooden bridge. The Death Painting remained tightly gripped in his hand and he glanced down at it again as his thoughts raced. Another sorcerer his technique wouldn't work on? And... they were melded? Wasn't that what he was trying to achieve with the Death Painting? Yet it had occurred here without one, with a curse that was strong enough to draw him into her domain? "What are you? Curse, or sorcerer?"

"The plague curse, hurry up," Noriko drawled, forcing her anxiety down. While she didn't exactly know what the curse was stealing, it's aura was strong enough for her to know that it was probably a big deal. That only meant that if the distraction was resolved quickly and she was found in a forbidden section of the compound, chatting with the enemy, she wouldn't be able to escape suspicion. Time... so little time - and she didn't really want to fight... it wouldn't be clean. Noriko wasn't really sure she could beat him - no, she knew she couldn't... even with Shikishi's help.

"So, the sorcerer is in on it too?" Mahito swallowed down his anxious disbelief as he stared past the physical bodies of the enemies in front of them and into their souls - which were too mangled to even distinguish. Just a messy web of yellow static in sea of dark blue - not even vaguely shaped in a manner that made sense. "Oh, poor human, you're being devoured. Are you feeling the pain yet?"

The static on the ground began to crackle more intensely then it had been before and the silent domain was filled with a quiet chittering.

"That curse will fast replace you first, her energy will devour your pitiful sliver of energy so easily," his face blossomed into a sick grin, "and things will return to as they should. We, curses, are the true existence - and what a painful erasure it'll be for you."

Mahito drew in a sharp breath as the static leapt up and began to spark against his bare arms. He raised the Death Painting above his head to avoid any interference with the embryo's state and began to focus his energy - but the static withdrew into the ground a few moments later.

Shikishi's scarlet eyes met with Noriko's dark ones as the latter shrugged at her - the priestess nodded in return.

"We have no interest in what you're doing here, or whatever purpose you serve," Shikishi's voice was calm and authoritative - that ever-unwavering cool tone - and she turned her attention to the apprehensive curse. "This encounter has been more of a trifle for both parties - my host and I don't care to stop you and clearly, since you didn't instantaneously attack, you know that as well."

"It would be mutually beneficial for us to pretend this encounter didn't happen - since if we decide to kick up a fuss, your chances of being discovered increase (if the curse had gone so far to cause a distraction, he probably didn't measure up against the staff at the school)," Noriko finished off, leaning forward as she propped her elbow up on her knee and dropped her chin into her palm.

The sorcerer watched Mahito mull over her words carefully, glancing between them and the cylinder in his hand. He took his time staring around the domain, clearly sizing up Shikishi's potential strength - which was very difficult to determine. With the mess their souls were, it was almost impossible to tell whether Mahito would win - he knew he was already at a disadvantage as his technique wouldn't work - and he didn't trust the opposing curse. A curse working alongside a human? Even in the cases where they had been combined (such as with Itadori and Sukuna), the relationship was explicitly parasitic, yet Shikishi wasn't taking advantage of her current control over the body and they even had the same goal in mind.

"Are you sure you'll just let me take this?" He held up the canister. Of course, he had already taken other two.

"I really don't care what that is." Mahito's smirk grew into a grin.

"Alright, let's pretend we didn't see each other, and since you've shown me something interesting, I'll tell you about the plague curse I saw recently." He bargained, shrugging his shoulders lazily. Glancing to her counterpart out the corner of her eye, Noriko saw her clenched fists at her sides and nodded at the trespasser. "'Moyi-ue*' is the only disease curse I have had contact with recently - he's the one you're looking for."

The domain around him began to disappear, fading into an inky black and beginning to slowly melt in extinction, and the heavy energy began to dissipate.

"Thank you for your cooperation." Dusting her skirt off, an exhausted Noriko pushed herself up off the crate she was slouched against, twirling her calligraphy brush between her fingers and securing it back into the holster on her thigh. Mahito noted the new dark irises shadowed by the black bangs, as well as the similar cold look in her eye. He wondered whether she and the curse had looked similar before their conjunction or if that had happened prior - either way there was no way Geto wasn't going to find this new information intriguing.

Shooting him a brief nod, the sorcerer turned on her heel and began to leave, prompting Mahito to follow suit as he stepped back into the shadows.

"Are you satisfied, Shikishi?"

"Yes... thank you."