The Memories Our Bodies Tell [Part 2]

Sato Ichiro sprinted away from the approaching sirens, watching from the comfort of his plastic tent with Mika in his arms. The neighborhood of Sanya was filled with dutiful officers requesting paramedics to dispose of yet another mysterious body. He held his thumb against Mika's small lips, allowing her to teeth against his finger as to silence her cries.

Sato had black and grey hair down to his back and a deep scar on the edge of his chapped lips. He was absolutely filthy, covered in eleven long years' worth of dirt and grime. As fellow vagrants approached his tent, they couldn't believe their eyes.

Sato was holding the dead woman's baby girl, cradling her with a sweet smile plastered on his face. He peeked up at the homeless men crowding around his tent, noticing their frightened faces.
"What? Don't look at me like that! I just saved this little girl from being pawned off to some terrible orphanage!"

"Sato... Do you realize what you've done?! You can never return her to the police, or they'll bring you in for questioning and discover who you really are!"

"Sato! How the hell do you expect to breastfeed her?!"

"For crying out loud, Sato! We already don't have enough food as is! How are you going to raise a little girl?!"

Sato let out a boisterous laugh at his friends' accusations, lifting Mika up to face them. She wore a perplexed gaze, tilting her head as she examined the unfamiliar, dirty faces before her.
"I'll just steal some formula for her from that lousy supermarket down the road! Just look at her, isn't she the cutest little thing you've ever seen?!"

The three men turned their blushing faces away, maintaining their usual harsh expressions.

"She's... not cute at all!"

"I'm not sharing my food with that little mutt! You're on your own, Sato!"

"If she keeps us up with her crying, I'm going to toss her in Tokyo Bay!"

Sato twirled Mika in his arms, nuzzling his nose against her cheek. He lay atop his throne of garbage, resting the tiny Mika against his chest.
"So, Charlotte said your mother's name was Umeda Sora... and if I heard her correctly, she called you her little Mika, yeah? Umeda Mika... I hope I got that right."

Mika cooed softly, giggling as Sato's voice called her a familiar name. She placed her hand on his chest, squeezing at his pecks with drool on her chin.

"No way, men don't breastfeed. Let's go get you some formula, Umeda Mika."
Sato carefully wrapped the half-naked Mika in a blanket, fastening it around his chest with a few leather belts. He was willing to go to great lengths to ensure Mika would live a comfortable life as a vagrant, even if it meant sacrificing his own comfort for her sake.

By the time Mika had turned eight years old, she knew the streets of Arakawa-ku like the back of her hand. She became what the vagrants referred to as a 'Ninja,' sneaking through the markets and convenience stores to acquire food and drink for the comrades who had initially tried to convince Sato to abandon her. She didn't quite understand what she was doing, but she was having fun. Unlike most girls her age, who found excitement in play structures, attending school and playing video games, Mika preferred the outdoors and getting chased away by angry shopkeepers as she made short work of their products.

Her earliest memories were of the nights she spent sharing a meal over a bonfire, listening intently as the vagrants rambled on about their lives before they lost it all. She found it exciting when they drank alcohol, as it meant extra funny stories on those nights.

By the time Mika had turned twelve, she was at the top of her game. It didn't matter to her if she went days on end without a decent meal, because she had Sato and her friends.

There were a few instances when she had to fight off drunken salarymen in the back alleys, occasionally enduring a few, disgusting minutes of unwanted advances, but all of her tears seemed to fade away when Sato Ichiro comforted her, often apologizing for being too old and frail to prevent her from being assaulted. She didn't seem to mind, and her reasoning was simple: because she was still alive at the end of the day.

Just two months later, when Mika turned thirteen, she woke up to Sato Ichiro missing from his tent on his birthday. She had heard the rumors from the other vagrants about how Sato Ichiro had to fight off the Bara-gumi after being discovered during a trip to the supermarket. Mika had heard the stories from the others about the Bara-gumi, tearing their lives apart with their brutal and unrealistic expectations regarding loans. Sato was no exception.

Mika scoured day and night, shouting and searching for the man she revered as a mentor. She found herself under the Hōsuiro Bridge late at night, making out the familiar shadow of the man she loved dearly, hanging by his neck from the edge of the bridge.

Around the time Mika had lost Sato, she strayed from her path as a vagrant, taking on dangerous missions such as stealing money directly from the Bara-gumi while they were on duty. Ultimately, Mika sealed her fate by encountering Kazuya's crew on the night of the summer typhoon.

"If I had to describe my time as a vagrant... I would say it was fun. There isn't a day that goes by when I don't wish things could go back to the way they were before, to when I would listen to the homeless men chatter by the bonfire."
Mika's eyes shot wide open. She could feel the final sting of one last needle poke against her back, and her mind was slowly returning from the intense, psychoactive trip she had just endured.

She sat up, clutching her head as her vision distorted between hallucination and reality. Sitting before her in the run-down tattoo shop was Enki, wiping a single tear from her eye. Mika had no idea what had just happened, but she could feel the immense pain coursing through the skin on her torso.

As she stepped off the chair she had spent a long ten hours in, she studied her naked upper body in the mirror. Her chest was covered in beautiful, withering red roses, stretching all the way down to her navel and up to her chin. She turned around, tilting her head over her shoulder as she inspected her back. There were detailed portraits of wolverines, seemingly battling against each other in the midst of a snow-covered field.

Mika let out a quiet gasp, feeling as if the tattoos on her body perfectly painted the profound vision of her very life- an internal conflict between her life as a dog, and her life as the Bara-gumi's slave.

Enki stood from her chair, stretching her arms above her head as she cried.
"I've tattooed a lot of people in my days, Mika. But your story was the most beautiful I've ever heard."

Mika gently touched her tender chest, exhaling a sharp hiss at the pain. She met Enki's polite gaze, and raised her hand out to her with eyes full of expectation.
"Thank you, Enki. I promise you these tattoos will carve the path toward a safer Tokyo."

Enki gratefully accepted Mika's hand in her own, gripping it tightly as she shook it.
"No, Mika. Thank you. I truly believe you will become a legend. I'll have to start calling you Inu-hime, you know, meaning Dog Princess?"

Mika let out a giggle at the nickname, finding that it suited her quite well. She raised her kimono around her torso with a beautiful flutter, stepping into the damp night with a newfound confidence. She had no desire to call Kazuya, wanting to spend as much time outside as she possibly could. For one final night, she could watch the stars overhead as she walked the quiet streets of Arakawa-ku, just like she used to.