Tanya had hoped for a pleasant moment—a chance to show Ishita the design and share a smile as she explained the new Intentions. Sharing custom designs was her favorite part of the job. She treasured the flushed cheeks, teary eyes, and raw emotion of it all and promised herself she'd never forget that feeling.

Then, as she returned to the shop, she collided with Mrs. Eceer in the doorway. The look on Mrs. Eceer's face told Tanya everything she needed to know.

"Ishita lost consciousness," Mrs. Eceer said flatly.

Tanya's hands immediately moved to pull up Ishita's Interface. Her stomach twisted in tight knots. They should have had more time—had she made a mistake?

Vitality: 1/7

"She still has Vitality," Tanya said, more for her own reassurance than anything. She nodded, trying to steady herself. "Maybe this is how it's supposed to work. I went into minuses because of the adrenaline, but if she's relaxed... maybe we lose consciousness before zero."

Mrs. Eceer didn't respond. Instead, she turned sharply and walked over to Ishita, who had slumped on the sofa. Her body was sprawled diagonally across it, one hand resting palm-up on the side, the other on her lap. One leg hung awkwardly in the air, too steep an angle for it to touch the floor, leaving it to dangle there uselessly.

"I'll sit with her," Mrs. Eceer said, her voice firm. "You can work around me."

Tanya hesitated. She met Mrs. Eceer's eyes, which bore into her with a weight that felt like a thousand suns. Tanya shrugged. She'd had people bring in loved ones for tattoos before, and this design would only be on one arm.

"Think we can lift her?" Tanya asked. "I could do it there, but angle's better in the chair." She nodded toward the tattoo chair.

Without a word, Mrs. Eceer moved swiftly, scooping Ishita up effortlessly—one arm under her knees, the other around her shoulders. Tanya stared, her mouth agape as Mrs. Eceer lifted Ishita like she was a child half her size.

"What?" Mrs. Eceer asked, noticing Tanya's shock. "You could probably do the same."

In that moment, the world around Tanya felt distant, unreal. She looked down at the blank space on her arm where her hand tattoo usually appeared before it was summoned. She was in the same parlour, doing the same work—but the windows were boarded up, the tattoos were alive, and this hand before her needed to be removed, either before or after she finished the tattoo tonight.

Mrs. Eceer gently laid Ishita on the tattoo chair, her hand resting briefly on Ishita's shoulder. She looked around the room, eyes landing on a stool in the kitchen. She marched over to it without hesitation and returned just as quickly, not giving Tanya a chance to object. Not that Tanya was going to anyway. With quiet authority, she placed the stool beside Ishita's left hand and settled herself there, taking Ishita's hand in both of hers, the size difference making Ishita's grey hand seem even more fragile.

"This isn't going to be pretty," Tanya said, her voice trembling. "If you want to go upstairs, you could wait with Fahad and get some sleep."

Mrs. Eceer's face twisted in disgust. "No," she said, as though Tanya had suggested she kill Ishita with her bare hands.

Tanya stared at her, speechless. They sat, eyes locked until Tanya broke away to disinfect her tattoo gun on the workstation. She exhaled slowly, trying to still her shaking hands.

"What's the design?" Mrs Eceer asked after a moment.

Tanya's eyes never left the device as she took it apart piece by piece for cleaning, but she replied over her shoulder. "Found a new way of looking at it—it gives her Vitality. That way we get the synergy but without the issue of too much drain."

"Hm," Eceer said. Tanya expected more, but no more words came.

"I know she'd have preferred something Concentration in an ideal world, but this ain't it," Tanya continued. She began wiping down the larger surfaces with disinfectant wipes.

"No, it isn't," Mrs Eceer said. Tanya's head was still tilted slightly towards her to talk and hear better, she relaxed it, but then Mrs Eceer spoke again. "I don't have Vitality magic, but it sounds nothing like concentration. I don't think they're compatible."

Tanya grabbed the little soft brush and began on the smaller crevices—the grooves and O-ring were the trickiest—a small sealer to keep the bar from bouncing. "I wonder if Vitality and concentration are the only casting Attributes," Tanya wondered aloud.

"Hm," came Mrs Eceer's all too familiar reply.

Tanya began her final isopropyl alcohol rinse and then fanned them to dry faster. She looked over whilst she fanned, seeing Mrs Eceer gently smoothing Ishita's fringe back into place.

"You really care for her, huh?" Tanya said. The words slipped out, but she whispered them, subconsciously protecting the quiet of the room.

"Not really," Mrs Eceer replied.

Tanya snorted. "Not really?" she repeated, unsure she'd heard it right.

Mrs Eceer sat back down, smoothing her skirt, then she looked up to Tanya. "I wish her well, but we met yesterday."

"And then all this..." Tanya waved her hand around towards Ishita's unconscious form and Mrs Eceer's hand still in hers.

"Is what she deserves," Mrs Eceer said.

Tanya couldn't argue with that. She reassembled the machine, the pieces slotted back together in her hands.

"I'll… deal with the hand later," Tanya said offhand in the silence. "The increased Vitality might help."

The silence continued.

"I'd like to use some water, if you agree," Mrs Eceer said. She hadn't moved yet.

"Uh, sure, what for?" Tanya asked. She plugged all the wires back in and carried over her generator from the corner. One of them must have brought it down from under her dining table in the flat. It was hard to miss with its large orange frame. The battery pack was probably near dead from Phantom Brand—she'd only gotten it as a carry-around for her phone's feeble battery life when it started to falter. This generator would easily last through this tattoo and more, and not having to rush in case the electricity died was very welcome.

"For a cold cloth," Mrs Eceer said, placing the back of her hand on Ishita's forehead. "She may already have a low-grade fever, and pain like that can be inflammatory." She nodded towards the tattoo gun with a curled lip.

"Yeah, that's fine with me." She turned on the generator, hearing the comforting buzz of the tattoo gun vibrating away in her hand. It worked.

Mrs Eceer rose from her stool and walked to the kitchen. Tanya heard her opening and closing cupboards and opening a bottle.

She walked back in with the cloth and brushed Ishita's fringe off her face before laying it on her forehead.

"Done this before, huh," Tanya said. She took the stencil and pulled off the backing, laying it on Ishita's arm.

"Too many times," Mrs Eceer replied.

Rubbing the bottom of her clenched fist across it to transfer the image onto her skin, Tanya felt the coldness of Ishita's skin. It was uncanny. She peeled the stencil off with a soft tack.

Tanya glanced up at her, catching the way Mrs Eceer's eyes lingered — not just on Ishita, but somewhere beyond her, far away. It made Tanya's chest tighten strangely, like she'd stumbled into a memory that wasn't hers to touch.

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"Someone teach you?" Tanya asked, voice low again without meaning to.

Mrs Eceer smoothed her skirt again, a tiny, habitual motion. "No one left to teach me," she said lightly, almost like a joke, but her hand trembled just a little as she adjusted the cloth on Ishita's forehead.

Tanya didn't know what to say to that. She bent her head back to the skin, making a few adjustments to the design now that she could see how it would sit.

"You're good at it," Tanya said after a beat, not sure if she was talking about the cloth or the way Mrs Eceer sat so still, like she knew how to be calm when other people's bodies failed them.

Mrs Eceer gave a soft laugh, one without any real humor. "You have to be when they just have you."

Tanya caught her eye again, and for a second she thought she saw something raw flicker there—an old grief, worn so smooth it almost looked like something else.

"Yeah," Tanya mumbled, turning her focus back to her work, but the weight of Mrs Eceer's words stayed with her.

When she was satisfied with the hand, she stepped back. "Mrs Eceer, could you do me a favour?"

Mrs Eceer snorted. "You do know my first name, don't you?"

Tanya stopped and looked up, caught off guard by the question. "Yes, Petunia. You said in your story."

She raised an eyebrow. "But I'm still Mrs Eceer."

Tanya said her name with the fervor of a child finding out their teacher had a first name. "Alright then, Petunia."

Mrs Eceer grimaced. "No. I take it back."

Tanya laughed.

Mrs Eceer dabbed at Ishita's forehead again, more for something to do than any real necessity. "What was it you needed?"

"Oh, yeah. Weird request, but could you be my blinkers?" Tanya asked.

Mrs Eceer's head snapped towards her, hand still hovering above Ishita. "You—what? Like a horse?"

"Yeah. I need less distraction for me Ability thing to work well."

Mrs Eceer sniffed and adjusted the wet towel once more, but it barely moved. Then, she walked around the chair and stood behind Tanya.

Mrs Eceer hesitated, then slowly lifted her hands and cupped them lightly around Tanya's face to block her peripheral vision. Her palms were soft and cool against Tanya's skin, her touch tentative, like she wasn't sure if she was doing it right. Tanya could see the teal of her thumb nails out of the corner of her eye. Up this close she could tell they had a design on, but it was too blurry to make out without moving her head.

Tanya held perfectly still. She could feel the faint shift of Mrs Eceer's breathing above her, the slow exhale ghosting across the crown of her head. Mrs Eceer was tall enough that Tanya could feel the weight of her looking over her, scanning the room, and it made the back of Tanya's neck itch with self-consciousness.

Neither of them said anything. The silence stretched long and taut, full of unspoken discomfort.

Mrs Eceer's thumbs twitched minutely against Tanya's temples, then stilled again. Tanya couldn't tell if she meant to adjust or if she was just...nervous. Probably both.

Tanya cleared her throat, the sound awkward and small between them. "Is this... okay?" she asked, voice a little higher than she meant.

"Hm."

Tanya didn't know what to say to that, so she just pressed her lips together and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore the feeling of being examined from a distance of about six inches.

She leant in further, and Mrs Eceer's arms moved with her. She grasped Ishita's arm and lifted it to her face with one hand, holding the unlidden pen in the other. This might be an insane idea, but she was going to see if she could make any changes whilst it was open to test what happened.

This time, when the suppression lifted, it didn't hit her like a flood. It seeped in slowly, like a tide pushing up against her skin. Still wrong, still heavy—but bearable, just barely.

The first wave of knowledge rolled through her, and for a breathless second, she flinched, waiting for the tearing sensation from before. It didn't come. The pressure was still there, still building behind her eyes like a second heartbeat, but her mind didn't immediately buckle.

She couldn't help but look up beyond the arm and then flick her eyes down again, ready for the wave of nausea that never came. She looked up again. It was clear now—the architecture of the words. It wasn't random. It was a structure, vast and living, built from overlapping intentions. Every surface in the shop buzzed with a kind of blueprint, each object tethered to a hundred invisible threads. She could almost see the connections: the way the analysis of the walls leaned toward the wood of the floor, the way the dampness in the air thickened the outlines of the paper stacked behind the counter.

She nudged Mrs Eceer away, and the hands moved from beside her head.

Before, everything had screamed at her at once. Now, the whispers were still deafening, but she could pick out a few distinct voices. She focused on a polaroid design, one of many that adorned her parlour walls.

• • •

Polaroid Image Material Analysis:

Paper: Composite fibers, slight wear

Coating: Laminate finish, fading

Ink: Silver halide exposure, subject to degradation

Symbolic Significance:

Immediacy: Snapshot of a moment, fleeting

Decay: Tendency to fade, erode over time

Memory: Captures and preserves, but never lasts

• • •

Tattoo Design Analysis Design: Feather Spiral, inward rotation

Feathers: Sigils of regeneration, renewal

Spiral: Represents return to origin, self-repair

Lines: Precision ink, extremely fine

Connection: Ink patterns mimic organic tissue regeneration

• • •

Magical Functionality—

• • •

She cut it off—clenching her fists, grounding herself in the sensation. Each section unfolded from the one before, an ever-moving array of words that, if she stared at too long, would change meaning before her eyes.

The temptation to pull was still there, rising like hunger. If she looked at anything too long, it would unfold like russian dolls—throwing her into more and more analysis until all she could do was close her eyes and see the imprint of it on the blackness.

She breathed through it.

The world thinned and thickened, the lattice of choices shifting like oil on water.

She leant down to the design, and the first thing she came face to face with was the intention in her own scrawled handwriting

1. Increases Wielder's Vitality

She dug deeper, squeezing her awareness within the words themselves.

• • •

Design Analysis: [Vitality Spell Focus]

LOADING……

Intentional Focus:

Vitality Increase

Possible Active Parameters:

Sacrifice Accumulation (Passive): Consume any Vitality left before you strike a killing blow.

Vitality Absorption (Trigger): Ability to take Vitality directly from the living

Life Channeller (Passive): Unlocks the consumption of Vitality through deals like pacts.

Growth Pattern: Unknown. Parameter Dependent.

Potential Risks:

Harm to others either directly through taking or indirectly through lowering of absorbent mana.

Trade off with low growth or low control

May be impacted by emotional state

• • •

That was very useful. She stared for too long at the Intentional Focuses and it expanded into a huge list of subconscious focuses also. She looked away, only looking back when the world around her was beginning to be repopulated with new information boxes.

"It follows your eyes," Mrs Eceer whispered. It sounded far away, like the words in front of her eyes were humming over it like an old television.

Tanya jumped, forgetting there was even a person behind her. She barely controlled her reflex to turn and face her, catching herself mid spin. It was a natural reaction when you'd been frightened by something behind you, but Tanya didn't know how the Ability would react to an entire person.

The idea that Mrs Eceer could see all of this suddenly made her self-conscious. As she thought, some information expanded more and more. She realised and looked away. Controlling her eye movements this carefully was difficult.

Tanya began making tweaks, starting with small things like how sharp the nails were. She thought it might make the Abilities kinder. It felt random when they'd change—and they didn't swap out all at once either. The rounder nails replaced Sacrifice Accumulation with a new Parameter.

Vital Ambience (Passive): Absorbs Vitality from the air slowly

Sometimes it would only change the wording ever so slightly—like how "deals like pacts" became just "pacts," or just a full reword of the sentence that upon first glance looked like it had the same meaning.

She was aware of time, but she wanted a good array of options before she started, and an idea of what was even out there. So she spent some time tweaking every element she could think of in small ways.

"Assistant," Tanya asked loudly. She thought carefully about the wording, aware that Assistant may still be mad at her. "Ishita needs our help."

She wasn't sure Assistant had heard her, let alone agreed. Right as she was about to ask again, movement flickered in the corner of her vision.

Tanya didn't move her eyes "Can you see all this?"

No response.

Then she felt a little tap on her arm for yes. Assistant had come round to touch her directly, realising she couldn't see it.

Tanya sighed in relief. "Could ya grab a pen and join me? I'm experimenting with little changes to see how it changes wordings an' stuff."

The design morphed and moved between different ideas, Assistant and Tanya working in silence aside from the squeaking of their pens and the occasional tap or "Hm," as they considered their next steps.

Between them, they cycled through a couple dozen variations in mere minutes. When they reached the final swap they'd sought after, they both stopped wordlessly. It had taken a while to swap out a particularly uncanny option. It would allow her a staggering number in one stat by adding one stat to another—like moving all of her Concerntration points into Vitality. Although, it did that by making the other one zero. Tanya definitely didn't want to go there, and from Assistant's firm no tap, it agreed.

With intriguing options ahead of them and no clue how accurate the new Interface even was, Tanya braced her Concentration once again, and the static of the strange Ability was replaced with the familiar whir of her tattoo gun as she began the first line.

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