Next up is Dino.
Amano Akira owns Reborn. This story is for entertainment purposes only.
Theme Five - Tattoo
The ink on his skin was a record of who he was since obtaining the title of Cavallone Tenth.
It had started with the desire to honour his late father with something more permanent and tangible than a memory. Something more accessible than the empty coffin they'd buried in the churchyard near the Cavallone estate, after recovering his father's body from the flooded Po River had proven to be an impossibility. He'd told his men as much when he'd drawn himself up to his full height at twelve years of age and said he wanted his first tattoo. His father had sported ink down both of his arms; records of his personal history, his convictions, his passions and his most significant kills. His men had laughed at first, but had agreed to the idea when it became clear that he wasn't going to give up until he got what he wanted. And so they had one of the family members - a tall man covered from head to toe in different colours, symbols and words of ink - visit him after a particularly harsh training session with Reborn to tattoo the top of his left arm. He wasn't about to lie; his first tattoo has hurt like hell, but he sat through the pain and the concerned, patronising looks of his men with arm tense and jaw tightly shut until the tattoo was complete. The orange starburst stood out vividly on his arm, even against the tan and angry, irritated red of his skin. He managed a smile when he looked at it, and that small gesture alone seemed to be enough to provide his men with some reassurance.
From that day onward, it had become as much of a habit as it had a superstition for the significant things in his life to find a real, permanent place on his skin. The flames on his collarbone, shoulder blade and hand were there to cover up scars left by bullet wounds he'd gained while making his most important kills. The rearing horse on the top of his forearm had been added when he'd earned his nickname. The red-lined barbed wire represented his links to his family, the unbreakable bonds that he forged with each and every man under his command. The blue and black pattern curling down the side of his body was added to every time one of his men lost his life serving the Cavallone.
Each had its significance. They were all mementos of the people most important to him, of the moments in his life that had defined him, of his successes and failures and of his wins and losses. And he would carry them with him forever, long past the day that the Mafia took his life.
end.