Done bickering with each other Mizuki and Ifrit both led us down the path to a much-secluded corner. From there we entered a violet tent that stuck out like a sore thumb from the lavish buildings surrounding it. However, one step inside, and I already had a clue that may have been.
"Agh!" Laying on a table getting their eyes sewed up, was a lady in a dark gown with massive horns protruding from the sides of her ears. "Be a little gentle, will you?!"
"Your curse needs to be sealed back properly, miss, if I don't put pressure it'll come undone in no time," replied the practitioner as she dug the needle back into the patient's eyelids.
Wincing at the sight, I turned my eyes away from the woman and simply gave the practitioner a quick up-and-down glance. With weighing scales coming out of her shoulders, she had two extra heads weighing on both sides. Then there were six arms each of which was either holding down the screaming woman or sewing her eyes shut forever.
Even her heads were as bizarre as they could be. One had hollow eyes giving out dark mist, and the other lacked a jaw completely, as for the one attached to the body, she had a dark mask over it hiding it altogether.
"A moment please," the eyeless head turned to us and muttered.
"We're almost done with our sweet lady," added the jawless one.
"Shut up you both, I need to concentrate," complained the body.
'This is bizarre…' I thought yet none of the others seemed all that bothered.
Waiting for a while for the operation to be done, all of us settled down in a row of chairs right by the operating table. The whole thing had begun to feel more like a doctor's visit than a venture into a nest of demons. Eventually, as the girl was done, the screams stopped and the patient got off the table with her whole body shaking. Covering her eyes, she panted deeply while making her way towards the exit.
"Quite the first impression," I muttered to myself.
"Now," turning to our group, the girl took off her bloody gloves and threw them into a dustbin nearby. "I assume you're here for your tattoo machine?"
"Inkwell Spider, not just a tattoo machine!" Jumping off her seat, Mizuki yelled against the girl's mask.
Adjusting the pyramidical dark hat on top, the girl faked a few coughs and turned around to head deeper into the tent.
"Wait here, I'll bring it back, Miss Mikato has already told me about your deal with her," she said before disappearing into the next room.
"Already told her? But we came straight here after our meeting," I said, turning to Mizuki for an answer.
"Telepathy probably, the same way we can talk mentally, she can probably talk with her pawns as well," she replied, standing stiff with her hands crossed.
"Alright then," getting up as well, Ifrit held out his hand to get Hibiki off the chair as well. "We'll go meet the other merchant, the nameless one might be able to help you but not us."
Taking Ifrit's hand, Hibiki got up and shot me one light gaze and a message before disappearing outside.
"Mikato left us a message too, we need to meet up with someone before they can start looking for what I want," with that said, she turned around and left with Ifrit.
'What she wants…Family, was it? I wonder what's the story behind that.' A sudden clicking sound coming from the other room brought me out of my thoughts. Shifting my attention to the sound, I noticed a giant crittering spider with a glassy body and metal limbs crawling closer to Mizuki and me.
"Finally!" Holding her hand forward ecstatically, she let the mechanical spider crawl up her arms and even inject its' pincer into her wrist. "Ahhh…Ahaha…"
Her head raised high, she almost seemed relieved like an anxious smoker who'd finally been given a hit. Getting up as well, I moved around to watch the spider drain her of deep blue blood and store it all inside its glassy lobe of a body.
"Seems like you've been anxiously waiting for this," coming out from the other room, the nameless one moved closer to Mizuki. "Allow me to help."
Taking the jacket off Mizuki's shoulders, the three-headed demon revealed what Mizuki truly looked like underneath. Every inch of her pale blue skin was covered in all forms of tattoos, piercing and deep blue bruises. Now that I was seeing it, her constant sleeping cycles made a little more sense.
'She was in pain?' I wondered, yet had no clue how she got those bruises in the first place.
"Oi, Akira want a tattoo? I need to freshen up on my skill," still heaving sighs of exaltation, she held her hand towards me, and the spider's fangs as well as limbs merged with Mizuki's skin itself. Piercing her index finger, the forelimbs conjoined at the tip like a tattooing needle. "And don't worry, if you don't like it we can always tear off that skin and give you a new one."
Seeing how the spider's limbs were squirming around inside Mizuki's skin, and the blood it was sucking out of her, I wasn't so inclined to let that thing even near me.
"Before that, I sense a pair of broken fingers, may I?" Moving between us, the nameless one, took my hand that had shattered fingers after I punched Hibiki a while back. "Allow me to heal you, after that, it's Miss Mikato's orders that you leave with our imp friend unless you plan on becoming one of her pawns today."
"Pawn, huh? She's not even trying to hide it?" I questioned.
"She doesn't need to, it's quite obvious that a demon would look for their own benefit first, isn't it?" The nameless replied.
"I should get used to that line," Muttering to myself, I let her heal my hand, however she wanted.
In the meantime, Mizuki settled back down in the chair and began somehow painting her nails with the spider fangs.
"If you don't mind me asking," having me lay down on the table, the nameless inspected my hand with hers while talking. "How come an imp-like her got hold of such an accursed machine?"
"That thing?" Turning my head, I looked at Mizuki again. "What the hell even is so special about it?"
"Hmm? You don't know?" She hummed, slowly stretching my fingers.
Clenching my teeth, I fought the hurt as best as I could.
"It can turn words into power so long as they're inked on some skin," she explained, slowly letting my fingers go. "Now be ready, I'll need to make a few incisions."
Unable to register what she just said because of the overwhelming pain, I continued with my line of questions.
"What does that even mean?" The moment I asked the question, a sharp razor mercilessly cut through my fingers. "UGHHH! FUC-FUCK!"
"It means if she wants she can doom any human to die so long as they've been inked with her words, but that's an extreme example," whatever the hell she said after that, it was all muddled up in the face of the hurt.
'No fucking wonder that woman before me was complaining about the pain!' Watching it happen and experiencing it yourself was astronomically different.