Spanish ships reached the Visayas and found warriors marked so densely they read the skin as printed cloth. The marks were soot pigment punctured into the dermis, healed to a blue-black that never lifts: sun discs paired across the chest and thighs, banded runs down arms and legs.

This system treats the page the same way. The ground is skin, not paper. Marks accumulate where deeds accumulate, so density is uneven and the composition stays asymmetric. The 1590 codex enters only as a quotation — a framed plate on aged paper, set inside the body, never covering it.