God Damn it Deku, you piece of shit!"

He hisses softly and rubs at his back. The pain isn't too bad. More just startling than anything. He huffs and looks up to see the man they'd been chasing passed out just a few feet away.

At least they had caught the villain. They'd gotten hit by the assholes quirk before doing so, but eh...

...semantics.

The villain went by the name Scarred Memories. His quirk involved shooting kisses that turned into stupid looking red glittery beams of lights at his opponents. If the beam hit it's intended target then opened wounds would begin to appear on the person's back. The wounds always took the form of words, phrases, and sentences that supposedly had been said to the target in the past. Words that had hurt them in some manner. Within twenty-four hours of the attack the wounds would scab over and begin to scar, but so far nobody knew how to make the scars go away. Some estimated they would vanish on their own, some were set on using medical science to make them go away, others figured they were permanent.

It's kind of made since that the scars from the quirk were permanent. His stupid slogan was, "Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will scar forever." He'd then laugh this stupid nasally laugh and run off before help could arrive.

Or... at least until now.

Katsuki huffed and glared at the villain. For someone who was supposedly so good at escaping he hadn't been much of a challenge.

Being that most of Scarred Memories attacks had occurred around U.A. the school had decided to test its Hero Course students by sending them in groups to search for the villain. A good little real would experience right in their own backyard. How lucky.

He of course had gotten grouped with stupid Deku of all people.

They'd both gotten hit with the fucked-up kissing beam (Deku's fault), but hey they'd managed to knock the villain so props to them.

Speaking of stupid Deku.

"Hey Deku, you piece of shit. Are you listening to me?"

He takes his eyes off the villain for a second to look back at were he knows the other boy should be, and is surprised to find Deku slumped over passed out on the concrete.

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?!"

He makes sure to keep one eye on the villain, even though he doubts the man will be waking anytime soon, and makes his way over to his ... partner. His back stings a bit as he moves, new wounds being pulled.

It's nothing he can't handle.

"Deku you piece of shit. Wake the fuck up!"

The other boy doesn't even twitch. He kneels down and grabs the other boy's shoulder ready to shake him.

"Hey! Useless nerd! What the hell-" It's wet.

No.

Soaked.

The entire back of the other boy's uniform is soaked in blood. "D-deku?"

--

He can't stop staring. He wants to. Fuck does he want to, but he can't look away.

He should be celebrating. Hell, they should both be celebrating. They caught the villain. They'd saved the day.

He has five new scars on his back. Recovery Girl had used a mirror to show them to him. He hadn't been to surprised to see the words "failure," and "not good enough," slashed across his lower back. He had the the words "villain" and "bully" carved onto each of his shoulder blades, and then lastly "Kacchan" stretched across the middle of his back. By the way the letters looked shaky, especially comparative to the neatness of the other scars he was pretty sure it was the way that last one was said haunted him more than the actual word itself.

Five new scars.

It was nothing compared to Deku. He didn't even know where to start with Deku's scars. There were just... just...

... just so fucking many of them.

Deku was laid out on the small bed on his stomach wearing nothing but a pair of shorts that Recovery Girl had forced Katsuki to help her change him into. They'd managed to clean the blood from his body and stop a majority of the bleeding, but... fuck!

Even Recovery Girl seemed to be at a slight loss. Her kisses had no affects on the wounds. All they could do was put some medicine on them, bandage them (which Recovery Girl was still trying to decide the best route to go about this), and hope for the best.

Hope for the fucking best. He didn't know what the best could be in this situation. There was just so fucking many scars.

He didn't even think it was possible to count them.

The words and phrases carved into Deku's back just seemed endless. Words on top of words. Phrases on top of phrases. Sentences on top of sentences.

The boys back was more wound then skin at the point.

But the worst.

The absolute fucking worst was that he recognized most of these words.

These words had come from his mouth. Not all but...

He'd done this.

He knew he'd never been exactly nice to Deku. He knew he'd pushed the boy farther than he should, but to see it all laid out before him.

And the boy had just continued to smile. Continued to follow his fucking dreams. How the fuck does someone smile with this many scars!?!

He presses his fist to his eyes and tries to will away the tears threatening to fall. Fuck.

He looks back to the shorter boy. Looks back at all the hate now carved into innocent flesh. Out of the mass of never-ending pain three scars stick out like hateful beacons.

The first is the word "Quirkless" written in giant letters fully across the other's shoulder blades. The second not surprising is "DEKU" written in giant bold letters starting from the boys left shoulder blade and stretching out all the way to the boy's right hip. The letters themselves look like someone had taken a pair of safety scissors and just repeatedly carved the letters over and over again. The little bit of flesh still intact around the letters has turned a deep ugly bruised purple. The "D" and "U" have scabbed up like most of the other wounds, but the "E" and "K" still continue to bleed sluggishly.

The last wound that stands out is much smaller than the other two. It was a sentence, written across the back of the boy's neck like it was trying to physically choke him from behind. Comparative to some of the other scars it actually didn't look that bad. Recovery Girl and him had almost missed the sentence due to Deku's mop of unruly curls covering a majority of the words.

He knows its there now. He stares at the one sentence.

He can't stop staring.

"If you think you'll have a quirk in you next life... go take a swan dive off the roof!!" Katsuki drops his head onto the bed and cries.