Stupid Retribution and inspiring me to write weird stuff. BACK ON MY MUNDANE BULLSHIT.
The streets were always being patrolled by the lower members of the Shimada clan as members milled slowly past but around the tiny house that sat innocently amidst the narrow row of residentials.
Genji could point out nondescript house even now: a mix of wood and brick modestly painted with the family crest of the ones inhabiting it: a master and apprentice.
Behind the mask, Genji smiles as he observes the still house with its curtains drawn shut and windows cracked open just a sliver to catch the chilly spring breeze.
How nostalgic.
The steady hand on his back or arm (more to guide the needles than to comfort, but he took what he could), the smell of ink so thick he drowns in it, the constant, painful prickle of the tools was still pressed into the forefront of his memories. The clan had insisted on a ’hori-shi’–a traditional tattoo artist who practiced tebori, hand tattooing.