Youri didn't hesitate. He pulled his sleeve back first. The scars began at his wrist.
Thin surgical lines. Jagged burns. Old punctures. Some faded white. Others darker, layered over each other like failed attempts at healing.
Cassy's expression did not change.
He removed the other sleeve.
Then the shirt.
Silence filled the room.
His torso was a map of war.
Diagonal blade cuts across his ribs. A circular scar over his sternum where something had pierced clean through. Claw-like marks across his shoulder. A long surgical seam running down the side of his abdomen.
Not random.
Systematic.
Manufactured.
The blond man's posture shifted slightly.
Cassy stepped closer.
She didn't touch him.
Not yet.
"These aren't street scars," she said quietly.
"No." said Youri.
"You military?"
"No." Youri replied.
She looked up at him.
He met her eyes.
There was no story there.
Just absence.
Cassy exhaled slowly.
"You don't want them erased," she said.
"I do."
"No," she shook her head gently. "You want them buried."
Youri didn't respond.
That was answer enough.
She stepped around him, studying the lines of his body like a canvas.
"You want full coverage."
"Yes."
"Neck to waist?"
"Yes."
"Arms?"
"Yes."
"Front and back?"
"Yes."
She paused.
"This will take weeks."
"I don't care."
"It will hurt."
Youri's eyes didn't flicker.
"I don't care."
The blond man let out a breath through his nose.
Cassy studied him one more time.
Then she smiled faintly.
"Good."
She walked toward her station.
"If we're doing this," she said over her shoulder, "we're not doing random pieces."
She pulled out a tablet and stylus.
"You don't want flowers. You don't want animals. You don't want symbolism people recognize."
She looked back at him.
"You want armor."
Youri said nothing.
But something in his stillness shifted.
Cassy turned the tablet toward him.
On the screen began a design.
Black.
Dense.
Symmetrical.
It started at the collarbones—sharp, branching lines like liquid metal freezing mid-flow. The pattern split at the center of the chest and ran downward in mirrored streaks, aggressive and organic at the same time.
The design extended over the shoulders in blade-like arcs, flowing down the arms in tapering streams that narrowed toward the wrists.
No color.
Just black and negative space.
The ink would swallow the scars whole.
But if someone looked closely—
The scars would still be there beneath.
Entombed.
"This isn't decoration," Cassy said quietly. "This is transformation."
Youri stared at the design.
Cold.
Symmetric.
Predatory.
"Do it." He said.
The first needle pierced his skin.
The sound filled the room—a steady electric hum.
The blond man dimmed the lights slightly.
Cassy worked slowly.
Methodical.
The first lines began at his collarbone.
Youri did not flinch.
Not once.
Hours passed.
Ink sank into skin.
Black swallowed pale flesh.
The scars beneath vanished under deliberate, flowing strokes.
Cassy noticed something.
Most clients tense.
Some grit their teeth.
Some breathe through the pain.
Youri?
He didn't react.
His pulse barely shifted.
It was like tattooing a statue.
"You're not human, are you?" she murmured lightly at one point.
"I am."
"You don't feel this?" She asked
"I do."
She paused briefly.
"And?"
"It changes nothing."
Cassy resumed working.
Session after session.
Days turned into weeks.
Youri returned every night.
Drunk.
Silent.
The design grew.
Across his chest, the black spread into intricate branching structures, sharp and fluid at once.
Over the sternum, Cassy layered the ink heavier, burying the circular scar entirely beneath a dense core of black.
On his back, the design widened dramatically—spreading like wings made of fractured shadow.
The spine became the center axis.
Symmetry was absolute.
The pattern looked almost mechanical, yet organic—like veins of oil running across steel.
By the third week, his torso was unrecognizable.
Where scars once mapped suffering, now there was only deliberate design.
Dark.
Controlled.
Imposing.
The arms were last.
Cassy extended the black down from his shoulders in tapering, aggressive streaks that wrapped around muscle and bone, tightening visually toward the wrists.
When she finished the final line on his left forearm, she powered off the machine.
Silence.
"Stand up," she said.
Youri rose.
She turned the full-length mirror toward him.
For the first time since walking into Cassy's, Youri looked at his body without hesitation.
The man in the reflection did not look wounded.
He looked constructed.
Forged.
The black ink carved his form into something sharper.
More deliberate.
His scars were no longer visible.
Not erased.
Buried.
Integrated into something larger.
Cassy watched his face carefully.
There was no smile.
But there was no emptiness either.
There was something else now.
Alignment.
"You didn't remove the past," she said quietly behind him. "You made it part of the armor."
Youri studied the reflection.
The ink looked like controlled chaos.
He lifted one arm slowly.
Flexed his hand.
The black moved with him.
He exhaled slowly.
"How much?" he asked.
Cassy shook her head slightly.
"You already paid."
He turned to her.
"With what?"
She met his gaze.
"With staying still."
A faint pause.
Then she added softly—
"Don't waste it."
Youri pulled his shirt back on.
For the first time, the fabric didn't feel like concealment.
It felt like a layer over something deliberate.
He walked toward the exit.
The blond man stepped aside.
As Youri reached the hallway, Cassy called out—
"Hey."
He stopped.
"You're not missing something."
He didn't turn around.
"You were hiding. There's a difference."
Silence.
Then he continued walking.
Outside, the night district of Fansilia glowed in neon and rain-slick reflections.
Youri stepped into it.
Not healed.
Not redeemed.
But armored.
The boy had died in a white padded room.
The weapon had been born.
Tonight—
The weapon had chosen its shape.
And for the first time since Volar—
He did not feel like he was rotting from the inside.
He felt contained.
Sharpened.
Ready.
Not because Halvek commanded it.
Not because Altopereh required it.
But because beneath the ink—
The scars were still there.
And they were his.