https://archiveofourown.org/series/6005871
The wolf-like cursed spirit is a mass of deep, dark shadow that steams from it like smoke. The beast has no eyes, and its body has no mass— it's just a wispy bunch of wispy shadows that only vaguely resemble the shape of a canine, but the dark violet sharp-toothed maw that extends too far back across its face, almost to its ears, very much has a physical presence. The intangibility of the curse gives it an extra air of unnaturalness, like it crawled out of an actual nightmare. For all Shoko knows, it did.
The other creature is the first one's vague opposite. If the black wolf monster fits as the Chinese yin, then this is its yang, white as opposed to black, and solid, covered in soft, real-looking fur instead of being made of dark smoke. In fact, it has its own light source, six tiny little fireballs hovering around its body. Except for the blue fire and the pale, slightly fluorescent blue highlights in its fur, the curse is almost entirely paper-white, and the fresh snowfall of its color palette is almost blinding to look at in the golden glow of the sunset. It, too, is a canine beast, but it's thinner, more foxlike and less wolfish, sleeker and daintier and prettier than its counterpart. Instead of having no eyes, like the first beast, it has six. There's a set of in the normal spot where eyes go, but there's another two dotted along each of its cheekbones, making two triangular pairs of three. All of the eyes look more like glowing cerulean marbles than actual eyeballs, lacking scleras or irises or pupils as far as she can tell. Its mouth looks normal in comparison to the first monster, but the proportions of its limbs are too elongated, and all of its major joints are wreathed in strange, fluffy, stylized curls that remind her of old paintings. Pairing all that with the little blue fireballs, it looks like a creature out of a fairy tale — a kitsune straight from a mythology book.
While the white monster doesn't move, it does look at its counterpart. The black wolf curse, in turn, makes a sort of exasperated snuffling noise, and then— ah, shit— it starts loping its way over to Shoko with slow, lumbering steps, and she just saw how fast these curses can move, so she knows she can't outrun it. All she can do is watch, terrified and frozen, as the huge, shadowy form of a dog bigger than a car stalks towards her. It circles around to her back, and she braces to be chomped, but the dog monster just snuffles the back of her head, cold breath rustling her hair.
It liked taking its time before. Is it toying with me now, too?
The beast doesn't bite her, though. It doesn't rip her to bits. Instead, it nudges her with its huge, freezing nose. The touch feels simultaneously like the pressure of a human hand as well as that of a chilly gust of wind. Gentle. Prodding.
Shoko risks a step forward.
Still, she doesn't get eaten.
The white dog has stopped cleaning itself, and Shoko sees that it's not just bloody— the thing itself is actively bleeding. There's a red patch at the top of its face, and a big, matted line of blood drags down from its throat to its belly. There's… four stab wounds in one hind leg. It— It has six glowing blue eyes.
Shoko carefully turns around to look at the shadow beast behind her. It has no eyes, and its mouth is so big it looks like something out of a crappy horror flick, but… She stumbles backwards and catches a glance of two red lines crisscrossing downwards over its chest, just barely visible beneath the black smoke. She looks at its face again, then at where its eyes should be, and still, there's nothing, but its wispy ears twitch downwards with attention the way they would if it was a normal dog making eye contact with her.
Six blue eyes and snowfall fur. An ink-black form and a huge maw that she just saw used to eat a curse.
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