The shikigami in Yami no Matsuei are guardian spirits; creatures which can be summoned by shinigami. When in battle in the living world, shikigami appear as various types of mythological creatures. There are different kinds of shikigami, roughly divided bythe four elements, earth, wind, fire, and water. The majority of shinigami can only summon two or three shikigami. The single exception is Asato Tsuzuki, who commands the power of twelve high-ranked shikigami. They include the following:
Kouchin: A court musician who spends her time flirting and playing music, though she displays some knowledge of the civil war in Gensoukai.
Rikujo: An astrologer shikigami and Genbu's student with several pairs of eyes on his hands and face. He appears to have a confrontational relationship with Souryuu.
Taimo: A spellbreaker with a completely blank face who occasionally offers advice to Tsuzuki.
Kijin: The son of Souryuu, and Tenko's older brother. He is a thunder shiki.
Daion: A gag shikigami who lives in a pot that has a mouth and eyes cut into it.
Tenku: A large shrine that the others dwell in who also served as Touda's prison prior to Tsuzuki's arrival. He is shown to bear a grudge towards the former.
Touda: a huge, black, winged serpent. The only shikigami capable of destroying a shinigami.
Kurikara: a fire dragon type. Thought to be the most powerful shikigami in all of Gensoukai.
There are two other characters who have shikigami: Hisoka Kurosaki and Hajime Terazuma. -Hisoka is in control of a small, first level water Shiki named Riko. He can contain water in his body and spray it at will, and enjoys singing into a microphone and speaking bits of Spanish and English. He died protecting Hisoka from an enraged Kurikara. Hisoka then tried to attack Kurikara, but was stopped by Kotaro. -Terazuma carries the only known example of a parasitic type of shikigami, KaGanKokuShunGei. It roughly translates to 'Red-Eyed Black Lion'. When he is touched by a girl or a boy who looks girly, he transforms into a raging black beast that breathes fire. The beast is only contained by Wakaba's quick action slapping sealing fudas on its forehead, and she has admitted that she can only seal 'Kuro-chan'two times in a row per day. Because of Terazuma's practical non-existence in the anime, its form is never seen on screen. Tsuzuki stated that a bad match between a parasitic type and its host results in markings and other irregular deformities of the face, eyes, or teeth. This leads one to presume that Terazuma is a prime example of a 'bad match'.
GensouKai
The later manga volumes explain how the shikigami live an independent existence in a dimension separate from but connected to Meifu. This "imaginary world", GensouKai, is populated by many shikigamis. Like the Meifu, GensouKai appears to be an individual realm and society in its own right. The shikigamis inhabit the world in their human forms. When he visits, this causes much confusion for Hisoka, who searches for a "tiger, or a red bird", ignorant of the fact that the shikigamis in their own world do, in most cases, resemble humans. GensouKai is allegedly ruled over by an Emperor. However, the "Golden Emperor" as he is known, has not been seen for many years. It is thought by some that he is dead. The Emperor's representative is Souryuu, the Protector of the East.
