Shinja (True Snake): The most horrific and powerful of the serpent-woman masks. Very little is left of her humanity. The following description from the Taiheiki of a beautiful woman transforming into a demon fits this mask very well: "her eyes become like two pools of molten vermillion, flowing on the surface of a mirror; her upper and lower fangs protrude and cross, and the edges of her mouth split wide open, reaching from ear to ear; the eyebrows that obscure her forehead look as though they've been dipped in lacquer at least a 100 times, and two calf horns, grown over with scales, sprout out from under her parted hair."

Shinja is mainly used for Dôjôji, rarely for Aoi no Ue. Below: the serpent woman of Dôjôji as she appears after the bell rises, pulling back the robe that covered her to reveal her true form. Note her bright red, disheveled hair (indicating dissordered passion and supernatural power), the stronger orange and gold triangle-scaled robe, the demon stick, and the long split hakama pants which lengthen her lower body and hint at the image of a serpent slithering across the ground.