Seated man shown from the neck down, covered in a full Japanese style tattoo with a dragon and phoenix on the arms and a deity figure across the chest and abdomen.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Full body Japanese tattoo with dragon and phoenix

Japanese · Shoulder · Colour · Photo

A seated man is shown from the neck down, with a large Japanese style tattoo covering both arms, chest, abdomen and thighs. Central to the design is a dark blue deity figure framed by red flames, with a green dragon on one arm and a multicoloured phoenix on the other, set among stylised waves and clouds. The shading is smooth and bold against a black background, and the vivid reds, greens and yellows dominate the composition.

Japanese Shoulder Upper arm Forearm Chest Thigh Dragon Phoenix Deity Wave Flame Cloud Crest

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The lanterns were still wet from the night's rain when the dragon rose out of the harbour, shaking weed from its green scales and asking for the bride. Fumiko's grandmother had warned her about this. Every house on the headland had struck a bargain with the sea once, and every bargain came due on the day of a wedding, when the water went looking for something to take home.

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The phoenix came in from the other side, over the boat sheds, trailing red feathers that hissed when they touched the wet stones. It settled on the wedding gate and folded its wings with a sound like paper tearing very slowly. "Your father promised her to the fire," it said to the old fisherman who held the gate. "He promised her to the fire for the sake of his nets," the old man answered, and his voice did not hold steady.

Then the figure in the middle of the flames stepped forward, a dark-faced guardian with a sword across his knees and his eyes half-closed as if he had seen this quarrel many times. He said nothing. Fumiko lifted the lantern from her grandmother's hands, walked down the middle of the road between the two creatures, and set the lantern on the threshold. The red light and the green light met on the glass and turned to gold, and the tide drew back from the steps as politely as a guest.

By dusk the dragon and the phoenix sat on either side of the gate like tiles on a roof. Nobody in the village could remember the terms of the bargain any more, only that the water stopped exactly at the threshold and the nets came up full in the morning.