He went as quickly as he could without making it clumsy. The last thing they needed was for this to become some other, more grievous damage than it already was. Shortly, the word was written. Not in the particular script as it appeared on the contract, or even as Caleb had read it but, when he looked at it on Suzaku's skin, in the script of Zemnian.

He leaned back slightly. After a delayed moment, he set the knife back on the table.

Then, quite mechanically, he rolled up his sleeves. Caleb's forearms were a network of runic and maze-like scars, very old, and very dark. He had to roll his sleeves up very far to find flesh that was not already marred by those scars. It would have been easier to take the shirt off entirely and present his chest or shoulders instead.