"Itadori Tōkan." It's not a question; more a statement. The source of the voice, a white-haired boy who seems to be about the same age as Tōkan, seems to have come from out of nowhere, he walked so quietly. He steps out into the light of the hospital reception where Tōkan was signing the last release forms for his grandfather's remains to be cremated. "I am called Fushiguro, from Jujutsu High. We need to speak. Now."
He smiles, a tiny bit, and his dog dissolves into shadow. "I have high pain tolerance," he replies, simply.
"Wouldn't matter if I aimed for your head! Eugh. At least I made you summon at all. And took you briefly by surprise. Mnrh."
He is in fact, still a teenage boy. On top of her. "...I'm so glad Itadori didn't see any of this and can't make a single innuendo at all."
Innuendo...? Oh. Oh. He gets off her and quickly jumps to his feet before offering her a hand, looking away as a faint blush creeps up his neck and cheeks.
She lets out a little laugh, then accepts the hand to pull herself back to her feet.
"It's fine," she says, looking away and busying herself with fixing her hair and clothes. Despite this, she has her own blush. Not that he can see, since they are both not looking at each other. She clears her throat. "It happens, let's not make it weird. Or mention it to Itadori. Ever."
"If he's any good at hand-to-hand combat he has to be used to this kind of situation," Fushiguro reasons, scratching the back of his neck before deciding to busy his hands by fidgeting with one of the fallen discs.
"Do you think familiarity with the situation is reason enough for him to not make it weird?" she wonders, archly.
He chews on his lower lip then shakes his head. "Should we... discuss what went right and wrong and... stuff?"
"Yes. I don't even know where to begin, though, that entire fight was..." she trails off, then lets out a little giggle. "... absolutely ridiculous."
"Okay, so," she snorts, going to find a spot to sit down, still kind of giggling. "I can make a sympathy bond between objects that are alike. Then, what I do to one object happens to the ones it's tied to. I can do a bit of magnification of the force I exert, and have some control of the direction the force is expressed from, but I have to keep track of everything and it can get very complicated very quickly. Larger objects take more cursed energy, it also gets very expensive very quickly, especially when they're heavy. It's why I tend to stick with small, light things."
"Living things are more expensive," she says, wryly. "And not really worth it to move around with cursed energy. But, with living things, if I have a piece that comes from a larger whole I can sympathy impress whatever damage I do to the smaller piece to the larger whole. So if we dismember any curses, throw their limbs to me and I can do terrible things with them."
"Oh, I think so! But my skillset does not lend itself well to dismemberment, curses don't bleed, and anyway, the proportionally smaller the piece is to the whole, the less damage I can do to it overall, so. It hasn't come up all that often."
"Demon dogs." Both dogs emerge from his shadows, one to either side, and he places one hand on each of their heads. The black one starts panting in a decidedly puppylike fashion. "Dismemberment should not be a problem."
"Awww, who are some good puppies that will dismember our enemies for us," coos Hayashi, charmed. Can she give the demon dogs scritches? She would like to!
"Mind you, I have plans for tying fishing line through the holes in my needles and figuring out dismemberment on my own that way, because I'd like to be at least somewhat self reliant. But since I can't pull with much force, I need to figure out how to channel cursed energy to make it sharp instead. And my control is not good enough for that kind of fiddly detail. ... Yet."
The white dog sits and looks up at her with a goofy expression, tongue lolling to the side. Yes it wants pets.
"How could you have beaten me with what you do have?"
"Without sending needles through your eye sockets and out of the back of your head?" she wonders, a little wryly. She gives the dogs their pets and thinks.
"Your demon dogs are a pair. You didn't summon them both, and I think that was actually to my detriment instead of my benefit. They are alike enough that I could mirror whatever I do to one to the other. I think I had a decent idea by cutting to the chase and just directly tackling you, but I got too hung up on your cursed technique needing you to make shadow puppets instead of how I could quickly subdue you, and that made the actual execution garbage. Uh. I think if I were to try it again I'd go with attrition and just try to stay away from you while raining small pie weights on you from unexpected angles. Directly beating you..." She makes a bit of a face. "I'm not sure that's realistic right now, honestly. You have been hanging out with other sorcerers for years, I have been in the countryside exorcising curses on my own. You just honestly dwarf me in sorcerer to sorcerer tactical thinking and experience."
"You need shadows and the ability to make shadow puppets with your hands in order to summon shikigami. You don't have any weaponry besides your shikigami that I can see, so I think if an actual close combat specialist did what I did that probably would have been game, set, match. Uh. ... I didn't really have time to observe many weaknesses, honestly. There is probably something about your shikigami needing direction or orders from you in order to act, but I don't quite know what. I bet you can't summon all of the ones you have at the same time, but I don't actually know how many is your limit. You.... are easily embarrassed by social situations and I could probably leverage that somehow?"
Okay now Fushiguro's blushing for real. "I would not let that stop me during combat," he says, you know, like a liar.
"Stop you, no, absolutely not. Throw you off your game and get me an opening, though, probably."
He furrows his eyebrows and shuts his eyes. "Yes, probably, all of those are true," he continues. "Entirely getting rid of all shadows everywhere is very difficult, but the fewer or smaller ones I have to work with, and the farther from me they are, the longer it takes for my shikigami to form. The ones I have right now are all smart enough and we have fought together for long enough that they mostly take nonverbal cues for me, although I do sometimes give them instructions with hand signs. Number of simultaneous shikigami I can summon is limited by having to do it sequentially and each summon consumes cursed energy, but I have practice with it and can keep all of the ones I have contracted with up at the same time."
“Oh. I see. You have to physically give them instructions. I thought it was some kind of mental connection or something. And… contracted? How does that work?”
"There is a ritual. I can summon a shikigami I have yet to contract and, should I defeat it in single combat, I will be able to summon it to my side to fight with me. The ritual does not end until one of us dies, though, so I need to be very sure I can take a shikigami on before trying to contract it."