Tattoos are a right of passage. They're a marker of bravery, of maturity, of cultural acceptance. The tattoo represents not only a willingness to accept pain - to endure it - but a need to actively embrace it. Because life is painful - beautiful but painful.
The trigger has been squeezed, the deathly mechanism has been enabled, the fatal course of a bullet has been set. No amount of bleating or praying or wailing of cajoling can halt it or stall it or call it back.