As a kid, vGoddess did not like tattoos. She just found them a way to give oneself pain and didn't like the look of them. But as she grew up, she started liking tattoos. She thought they look cool now. But she never thought of getting one herself, nor does she know what design would even suit her or what part of her body she should get tattooed. 

Recently, someone informed her of a tattoo shop that does aura reading to help people choose a suitable design and that is exactly what vGoddess needs

As soon as she landed in Detroit, vGoddess took a cab to the address she was provided. 

She found the parlor to be very simple and yet beautiful. She knew she was in the right place to get her first tattoo. 

She entered and took a seat to wait for the artist to be done working on one of the customers. Once done, she tells the artist what she wants.

"It is my first time getting a tattoo so I want the aura reading. I am also not sure where I should get it done. Do you have any tips for beginners? Maybe where it will be less painful?"

Pauly nodded before smiling politely at vGoddess, removing his gloves and cleaning up his work station. "Ah, I see! We haven't done those in a while. I'll just call my boss. She's the one who does the hocus-pocus things around here." He gestured for the woman to take a seat as he headed out back to call Taiga, who was neck-deep in paperwork. Running a tattoo business wasn't all fun and games, and with the city's new regulations, she'd been stressing over studying all the new policies that affected their business.

"Is this a good time, boss?" Pauly asked her tentatively, not wanting to be on the receiving end of a rant from a stressed-out Taiga. She sighed as she slumped in her chair, nodding slowly. "Any break from this mountain of paperwork is good for me, Pauly. What is it?"

"Well, there's a woman outside who's looking for an aura reading tattoo. I know you've already trained me and all, but not about aura reading yet..." Taiga smiled before getting up -- more like jumping from her seat, not even letting Pauly finish. She hadn't had a customer who asked that of her for a while now, so she was extremely excited. As she walked outside, she was surprised to see a familiar face waiting in her studio.

"vGoddess!" Taiga greeted before going in for a hug, which might have weirded the woman out as they've only met once or twice before, but not only was her mother a friend of Taiga's, but vGoddess also helped her out when she needed a makeover to go incognito for a while. She'd always felt extremely grateful to vGoddess and was glad she stumbled into her shop of all places.

"I hear you're looking for an aura reading and a tattoo... Hmm." She went to her desk and dug around until she found a paper with sketches on it -- she'd brought the piece of paper from the Philippines and they were authentic Kalinga sigils and symbols. "Right off the bat, I feel a very bright and light aura from you, so I'd suggest the Sun and Moon, which means life. This would look great on the base of your neck or your ankle." Taiga pointed to a circular sigil on the right side of the paper before thinking again. "Though I also feel great strength in you..." Her finger trailed a little downwards to the horizontal sketch right below the Sun/Moon. "The shelf-- this means strength. It's also one of the designs that would look good on your upper arm or chest area. But ultimately, the decision is up to you, these are just my suggestions..."

"vGoddess!" a woman appeared in front of vGoddess and greeted her with a hug.

At first vGoddess as confused. "Did I meet her before?" She thought. On taking a closer look, she found a resemblance to a woman she had seen in the Beauty Hall some time back. "Oh, Taiga?!" She was genuinely taken by surprise seeing how different she looked with the makeover.

"I did not expect to see you here!" She smiled. "Glad to see you again. You look gorgeous. It's comforting to know I have someone trustworthy doing my first tattoo... or tattoos?"

vGoddess looked carefully at the designs suggested to her.

"They both look amazing. I like them so much that I want both! 

The Sun and Moon one, I want it on the base of my neck and the Shelf one done on my right upper arm. 

And do it with the machine."

"I only look this way because of you! The makeover was supposed to be temporary but I loved it so much that I kept the long blonde hair, all thanks to you. I never did get to thank you enough for helping me out of that pickle I was in a few months back... Your tattoos are on the house!" Taiga declared sweepingly, not hearing anything about it. "Especially since it's your first tattoo -- it'd be such an honor."

Walking towards her cabinet of supplies, she got out her trusty machine and other tools to do the job. "Let's start with your arm because it'd hurt a whole lot less than the base of the neck. If ever it gets too much, you can always just come back the next time for the sun and moon, but I'm sure you can handle it!" Taiga told vGoddess as she started drawing the shelf on her upper arm with a marker. After a short while, she showed vGoddess what the tattoo would look like and afterward proceeded with the tattooing itself. The tattoo machine whirred to life and before she began, she asked vGoddess to take a deep breath.

As she first broke her skin, Taiga talked to vGoddess to keep her mind off of the pain. The first tattoo was always the worst, after all. "So, how have you been? Got any new businesses I should visit other than your salon in New York?"

As Miss Taiga- worked her magic with the machine, Beetle was trying her best to keep a straight face. This was her first tattoo experience afterall. She knew it would hurt as much as a prick from a needle and she had prepared herself for it. As the process began, she flinched for the first few moments but soon settled down. Before long she was calm and listening to Miss Taiga talking about her toy store.

"Oh yes! A business proposition sounds nice. Selling in gift shops is always a good option for us. I had almost found a deal in a huge amusement park." She paused as she remembered the day when Miss Mercury had walked in her store with the idea of a lucrative business. "Hey, I have an idea too. Would you mind if I would borrow your animals once in a while to make them act as live models for new ideas for toys?" She was excited as she imagined more real life inspirations behind her creations. "Actually, I always prefer to make my toys as real life as possible while adding my specialty - FLUFFINESS" She declared too loudly making heads turn and she blushed. 

"Just a talk between two artists" she made it clear before any misunderstandings. Then she looked at Taiga, her red eyes shining "So take your time to think about it and if you agree we can take it further"

As the machine whirred on her skin, inking it and making beautiful letters appear, she was adoring the art and the affluence of colors. Meanwhile Miss Taiga inquired about her Beetle name to which she replied 

"Haha, it's more like a family name." 

As Taiga started tattooing on the arm, vGoddess felt herself get lightheaded for a split second but Taiga started talking to her and asked her questions which made her relax a bit. Soon she got used to the needle poking her skin. 

"I am pretty sure you have visited almost all my businesses by now," vGoddess chuckled, "Honestly, it's nice to have a friend visit sometimes, even unknowingly." She paused for a while. "I don't know many people around here so it's really great to have someone to run into and to be able to greet each other even if we are busy working all day....That reminds me to visit your beach house again. I really need some time off from all these duties. Maybe we can have some drinks there together and share stories?" She looked at Taiga, waiting for an answer.

Briefly pausing and looking up at VenomousBlackBeetle, she flashed the other woman a smile and nodded. "That sounds like an amazing idea! I'm on board completely. Perhaps I can visit your shop sometime soon and bring some of my fluffiest animals to see if they'd fit the bill. Did you say your shop is in Chicago?" Taiga's eyes lit up, she was always a sucker for good business deals, especially of such a cute nature. She loved working with animals and was a fan of collecting stuffed toys, so it felt like a win-win.

"Just the finishing touches now. You've done an amazing job for your first tattoo, Beetle. Others wouldn't have taken this as calmly as you did, especially in such a high-pain area." Taiga added the final flourishes and colored it all in before showing Beetle the final product. "What do you think? I personally love the contrast between the dark ink and your light skin."

"What can I say, I'm a fan of your businesses! I believe we have similar tastes, is why." Taiga replied with a grin, never taking her eyes off of her work. She wanted this to be as quick and painless for vGoddess as possible, after all. "And I know what you mean -- seeing a friendly face always takes the edge off during stressful days. Like today, I was pulling my hair out over paperwork so it was such a relief seeing you come in. We do always seem to run into each other in a business capacity though, so I'd absolutely love to have a day where we can just hang out and talk! I'll be down there next weekend maybe if you're free then?"

The tattoo was already taking shape and was almost halfway done. "Almost there, vGoddess. In the meantime, I'm curious about your name -- what does the "v" stand for?"

After spending countless nights poring over Taiga's letters, files, and business records, Sana came to the conclusion that her sister spent most of her time in Detroit during her last few weeks, managing her tattoo shop called the Sinsana Tattoo Parlor. Taiga had always enjoyed giving other people tattoos, she'd given Sana all of hers after all. Flying out to Detroit to follow her sister's trail and trying to figure out where she had disappeared to, Sana walked inside the tattoo parlor, which had been closed down ever since Taiga left. Although Taiga had trained her assistant Pauly in the art of handpoking, Pauly was preoccupied managing the restoration of Taiga's Art House, which Sana designated as the first priority above everything. Taiga loved that museum more than anything on this planet and Sana wanted to keep it up and running for when -- not if, when -- her sister came back from the self-imposed exile she was on.

Sana arrived in Detroit just as the sun set and finally found her sister's shop as night had fallen. The lights inside the shop flickered on and Sana looked around in awe, seeing the walls filled with pictures of her sister's art painted on people's skin. "You've always been amazing at whatever you did, Taiga," Sana whispered as her fingers trailed across the vast walls that told the story of how much Taiga loved her craft. A sharp pain seized her heart and Sana had to sit down on the lone tattooing chair in the middle of the room, crumpling and letting the tears flow. She felt her sister's energy all around this room, and she'd been retracing Taiga's steps for weeks now to no avail. Sana was extremely and utterly frustrated -- frustrated she couldn't find where Taiga went, frustrated that she felt her sister's presence all around her but can't physically hold her, and most of all, frustrated because she realized that she never knew Taiga at all. She only got to know a small part of who her sister was, the parts that Taiga let her see. But she had all of these passions and joie de vivre that she'd kept hidden from Sana all this time.... and Sana never even realized it.

Letting out a long sigh, Sana stood up and did what she came here to do. She went to the office and rummaged through her sister's desk, trying to keep Taiga's meticulously filed paperwork in order while she did so... and utterly failing. Taiga had always been the responsible one between the two of them, she was always getting Sana out of trouble. Now, it seems the tables have turned and Sana needed to save Taiga, or at least find her. After almost an hour of going through the drawers, Sana was close to giving up and accepting this was another dead end when she found two interesting things taped to the underside of her desk table: first, a world map with various places across Asia and Europe encircled, and second, a piece of paper with a phone number on it which simply said: "If ever you want to work in Detroit."

Leaning back in her seat, Sana smiled as she held the map in one hand and the phone on the other, bringing it up to her ear. "Yes, this is Taiga. I hear you were looking for people to work for you..."

We make countless decisions every single day. Whether it be what we have for breakfast or what book we'll pick up next -- we make decisions that propel our days, weeks, months, and eventually entire lives forward. We don't think much of these minute decisions, after all, they become irrelevant in the grand scheme of things anyway. But there will be a few select times that a decision can be life-altering, times when choosing one or the other can mean leading two different lives entirely. It's called 'being at a crossroads', or so they say, and Sana found herself literally and figuratively at a crossroads on a rainy summer night in the heart of Detroit, as she stood in between 2nd avenue and Selden street.

You see, Sana was on the fast track to becoming a lawyer. She was 22 and fresh out of university with a degree in political science, intending to go straight to one of the most prestigious law schools in New York afterward. This had been a childhood dream of hers -- to work in criminal litigation and put bad guys in their rightful place... so it was no secret that when she found out that her sister Taiga was one of those so-called "bad guys", Sana didn't take it well. She spent months trying to reconcile that her older sister -- who Sana knew as the kindest and most tender-hearted person in the world -- was out there pushing drugs and basically being a gun for hire who had twisted moral principles. When she finally got around to the idea that Taiga's life of crime was a mere means to a noble end of providing for her family and the charities which she supported, Sana got a glimpse of the life her sister lived whenever she'd visit her in New York. Taiga was always tiptoeing around and speaking in hushed voices, looking over her shoulder and retracing her steps... at the time, Sana was sure Taiga was insane for willingly working in such a dangerous and ludicrous field. Sana was happy living her picture-perfect life and being the perfect young woman -- young, beautiful, ruthless... and most of all, engaged in a line of work that lets her shine bright and one where she doesn't have to stick to the shadows and hide in the darkness.

This was a fact until a few weeks ago when Taiga ended up disappearing off of the face of the Earth to evade a group of people that were hunting her down. That made things personal for Sana. She dove into her sister's world by reading her letters and all her files about the double life she led, and what Sana realized was that she didn't know her sister at all. Reading about her stories of how she broke inside the Met and stole a precious painting or how she got walked out of a gunfight with 4 other mobsters... Taiga had the time of her life while she was running around in this world. Sana always thought Taiga was miserable and was always looking for a way out, but it turns out that she was addicted to the fast-paced life of being a mafioso, and Sana wasn't surprised. Who wouldn't be?

And so she was faced with a choice as she stood under an umbrella facing two diverging roads. One road led to the bus stop which would take her to Detroit International Airport and back to New York, and the other led back to her sister's tattoo shop where she promised to meet a mysterious stranger -- the same stranger on the other end of the line when she called the number she found taped to Taiga's desk, offering her sister a spot in Detroit's prestigious crime families. The choice was simple enough: does she leave her perfect life behind to lead a life in the shadows, hoping to find some sort of connection to her missing sister? Or does she stick to her plan, walk away, and move on with her life knowing she never truly knew the person closest to her?

"You're not Taiga," was the first thing she heard as she entered Sinsana. With eyes filled with steely resolve, she looked up at the mysterious man in front of her and shrugged off her coat knowing that by now, her plane to New York was probably getting ready to ascend. The decision has been made. The crossroads has been passed, and there only remained a long and treacherous terrain in front of her. 

"You're right, I'm not. My name is Sana - I'm her sister. Sit down, this might take a while..."

"And why in the hell would I hire you? I gave your sister that calling card because I know she's good at what she does. You, on the other hand... you seem like a spoiled brat who'd burst into tears whenever a nail would break."

Hearing that from this stranger in front of her felt like a slap across the face... mainly because he wasn't wrong. Sana was all-in and hell-bent on tracking her sister down, but a huge hesitation of hers is that she was afraid that she'd fail in doing so because she was so weak. All her life, she was coddled by her parents and her sister that she'd never figured out how to stand on her own two feet until now that she was being forced to do so. The Sana one week ago would have thrown a tantrum and probably cried in front of this big-shot mafioso man, but she held back her tears and looked at him with steely eyes.

"Listen, I'm well aware I'm not half the woman that Taiga was, but you have to realize that she started out somewhere," Sana remembered the days when her sister was meek and too gentle for her own good and was still in absolute awe at how she'd changed. "She learned, she adapted, and she was molded by the fire she had to walk through. I'm not asking you to give me the position you would have offered her -- I'm willing to start at the very bottom. Get your coffee and bagels in the morning, read you the newspaper kind of shit. I may not be the best yet, but trust and believe that I'll get there. Just give me a chance."

The man stood there motionless for a while, processing everything Sana said before breaking into a smirk. "You're feisty, I'll give you that. The same can't be said for your sister, who was a sweetheart through and through. I'd seen her say sorry to someone trying to kill her before shooting him in the chest." He said with a chuckle, shaking his head. "But I will warn you, Sana, it's not just buying bagels and reading the newspaper around here... to prove yourself you've gotta get your hands dirty. Are you sure you're up for it?"

Sana nodded so quickly it almost gave her whiplash. "Yes. Whatever it is, yes."

"Alright then," he said, cracking his neck as if he was getting ready for something. A devilish smile crept onto his face which made Sana fear what he was going to ask of her. "Have you ever smuggled drugs across states, princess? Because I've got me a good ol' shipment up in New York and I think you'd be the perfect woman to get it."

Ennio knocked on the window. It looked dark inside, he was about to leave when the door opened.

What?! A Balding man squinted at Ennio_Morricone. 

I came by to learn about tattoos. This place was not the larger-than-life art studio that VenomousBlackBeetle told him about. She was egging him on when she learned that he had no ink. He had no idea why her opinion mattered so much to him, so he felt that he should check the place out when next he was in Detroit.

Hmmm. Listen. Taiga- is gone. She's gone, and he looked deeply forlorn, Come back another time.

Ennio nodded and walked back to his car. He realized that he had no idea what he wanted for a tattoo anyway. Beetle had told him the good folks would help him. He noted the street and drove off.

Putting something permanent on your body was something that Cepheus had never thought of doing to himself and yet there he was at Sinsana Tattoo Parlor with the intentions of doing just that. Maybe it was the fifth of tequila he had earlier that night or the fact that two of his closest bodyguards had placed his manhood at stake with a challenge that would lead to only negative connotations if refused; in this line of work perception was key and right now getting ink on his body was the only way to continue on with the positive one he had garnered for himself around some groups.

"So how does this work?  need a tattoo of a..."

Lowering his voice just in case anyone else in the vicinity could hear there was a distinct crack in his words as he uttered them out to the person who he had assumed would be the one doing the "operation" as he referred to it.

"...turtle playing volleyball with a duck."

This was an odd request to be certain but he was still rather hopeful that someone would be able to help him.

The old man keeping shop at Sinsana looked at Cepheus as if he was insane for a few seconds. A few silent beats passed by and he decided to call out to the shop owner to make sure he should push through with giving him the tattoo. "Miss Sana! There's a gentleman here with a... err... rather peculiar request." He shouted towards the direction of the office.

Sana was once again going through a bunch of paperwork when she heard his call. Sighing, she stood up and exited her office, finding a rather visibly intoxicated man standing in the middle of the tattoo parlor. "Perhaps you can talk some sense into him, Miss Sana... He said he wanted a tattoo of a turtle playing... volleyball with a duck?" Old man Benjamin shook his head as he shuffled out the door with a cigar, muttering something about kids these days and their eccentric interests.

Leaning against the doorframe of her office, she offered him a warm smile. "Sorry about that, we try not to give out tattoos that people will regret, especially when they reek of... hmm, tequila, is it? It almost always ends with that person coming back the next day demanding a refund. So... if you can promise me you won't sue me or the business then please, take a seat in the chair and I'll be right with you."

It had felt like ages since Sana last visited her own tattoo parlor -- it was partly because business kept on pulling her in virtually every direction but this one, but also because remembering what had gone down in Detroit wasn't a particularly happy memory for the young woman. Still, she had a business to run and money to collect so she practically forced herself to get back out to Motor City and drop by Sinsana again.

She was greeted by Old Man Benjamin's sour face. "What, not happy to see me, Benny boy?" Sana said with a small smile as she entered the main room of the parlor and hung up her coat. She already knew the answer -- of course he wasn't. Who would be happy to see someone who promised she'd come back the next week and proceeded to disappear for months on end, leaving their tedious business to be run and overseen? Old Man Benjamin glared at her for a few moments and Sana mentally prepared herself for the verbal assault she was about to receive but she was surprised when he spoke in a soft voice. "Did you find her, at least?"

Sana sighed, sitting in the tattoo chair and laying down. She looked at the ceiling and shook her head slowly. "Not yet, but I'm closer." He was talking about her missing sister, Taiga. Taiga was the one who hired Benjamin years back, so it wasn't a surprise he was genuinely concerned about her whereabouts. "I've narrowed it down to Indonesia and Turkey... I think. I'll let you know. For now, I just want a new tattoo right here, over my clavicle. Just a small tribal tattoo, you decide what you think goes best."

Benjamin sighed as he pulled up a chair beside her and whipped out the machine gun. "Well... I think you need strength right now, so I'll draw the symbol for that. Ready? Deep breath..."

Ennio drove by the Tattoo Shop, he was no closer to finding the right image for a tat. In many ways it would only mark him, so he was intent on having it under the clothes. Just close friends would be able to see it.

The doors looked closed, but the windows did have a presentation to indicate if he came earlier in the day, it would be open.

He was leaning towards a tattoo to sum up his success, maybe one of adventure, or risk, maybe a windy image of some kind, or a compass, maybe an arrow. He realized that most folks getting tattoos were much younger than him, and he laughed whenever he saw an old guy with a tattoo obviously taken at a much younger age.