Scars Pt. 1

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Shūzenji sat alone at her desk lit by a lamp, the only light source in the dark infirmary. It was late at night, closer to sunrise than to sunset. 

Shūzenji had dismissed Midoriya and Bakugo from her care a few hours earlier after All Might and Nezu had visited. The two woke up confused and in shock, but they would eventually make a full recovery. 

What Shūzenji couldn't predict with certainty was the state that the last young student left in her care would awaken in. 

While his physical health was in perfect condition, Shūzenji worried about Kenji's mental state. Heroes with regenerative quirks often develop strange relationships with pain and grave injury. Over time, they start to dissociate and become numb to agony. After all, pain is a neurological response that helps the brain deduce what actions are harmful and what should be avoided through negative stimuli. 

But, lose a couple of limbs a few dozen times, bounce back without a scratch, and the brain starts to catch onto the fact that pain has no long-lasting consequence. Eventually, the heroes are emboldened by their sudden invincibility, and they start taking more and more risks, getting high off the dopamine and adrenaline rush. 

But like any high, the brain builds up a tolerance, and the dosage needs to increase to have the same potency. As their addiction progresses, Regenerators take greater and greater risks, pushing the limits of their healing factors to get high off the risk and the rush of feeling 'alive.' Eventually, they reach a tipping point, taking an injury that their quirk couldn't heal or going so far that they become numb to pain entirely and go through extreme withdrawal as their brain stops producing the hormones in response to stimuli. 

However, Kenji's case was unique; those with healing factors often grew their tolerance to pain over time with wounds of progressive severity. Kenji had been brought to the brink of death without knowing he could bounce back from an incident that left behind a gruesome and visible reminder. Judging from his ceaseless twitching and spasming, Kenji's mind was already reeling from the trauma. 

Shūzenji sighed heavily and returned to the paperwork spread across her desk, 'Only time will tell if he'll recover.' 

As Shūzenji went to reach for her pen, the entire infirmary shook as an explosion went off. Plaster rained down from the ceiling, and Shūzenji ducked her head while looking over her shoulder to see a writhing mass of black cloth strips smashing through the ceiling, rising up from where Kenji had been put to rest. 

Standing up with a speed that belied her age, Shūzenji made her way to the back of the infirmary, waving her hand to clear the fine dust raining down on her. 

Making her way to the back of the room, Shūzenji paused as she stared at Kenji, who had woken from his restless sleep in an equally violent fit. 

Kenji sat up in bed, hunched over, his hands grabbing the sides of his head as if to block out a deafening noise. His chest heaved with frantic breaths, and his pale skin was slick with sweat. 

The angry mass of inky cloth wrappings emerged from his back, thrashing and clawing at everything within reach. Massive holes and gashes decorated the walls behind Kenji, and the privacy curtain had been torn to shreds in his manic state. 

Shūzenji took an unconscious step back as the cloth strips started to crawl across the floor and walls in a terrifying undulating wave, tearing holes as they burrowed in and out of the sheetrock. 

"Kenji!" Shūzenji called out as she continued to backway, "You're safe now! The danger is gone!" 

My head shot up at the sound of a wizened voice crying out, and my eyes landed on an elderly woman, her dress identifying her as a doctor. My gaze darted around, trying to find the source of her unease, only to feel the familiar icy current of flux flowing through my body. 

Suddenly, I became fully aware of my surroundings or what was left of them. My flux woven into strips of cloth had emerged from my back without my knowing and descended on the room around me like a vengeful demon. For a moment, I was taken aback by the sheer volume, far more than my limited capacity would allow. At that thought, my mind seemed to stall as if trying to pull up some memory stuck in the mire of my subconscious. 

"What happened to me?" I muttered absently as my mind started to race, my brow creased with concern, and a sense of deep foreboding threatened to overwhelm me. As if responding to my turbulent thoughts, my flux was whipped up into a frenzy, thrashing about even more violently. 

"KENJI!" 

The doctor cried out once more, but this time, her steady voice was tinged with panic and fear, slowly creeping into her inflection as my flux continued its destructive path. It was then that everything clicked, and I realized I was the source of her terror. 

Clarity returned to my addled mind, and I seized control of my quirk with an iron grip. The inky cloth spread across the room quickly retracted back into my body, and the doctor let out a sigh of relief before making eye contact with me, "Well, that escalated quickly. Are you with me now?" 

"I-I'm sorry I d-don't know what came over me," I replied as I looked around the ruined walls at a loss for words, "W-where am I?"

The doctor sighed, "You're in the infirmary; you've been unconscious for quite some time." 

"Unconscious?" I parroted back, confused, "T-that can't be right. I was just walking to the U.S.J. training facility with class 1-A-" 

My voice died in my throat, my thoughts stalling once more as I tried to replay the events in my mind, only to encounter a wall of fog obscuring the finer details, leaving only a vague outline. But that barest impression made my blood freeze, and I reached up to brush the hair out of my eyes, "I-I was walking...I was walking with my class and-" 

Trying to calm myself down, I took a deep breath, only to feel a strange tightness crossing my chest, and I looked down. My breath hitched as I stared at the jagged x of scar tissue nearly an inch wide at its thickest point, along with the uneven scar atop my right pectoral muscles that I knew possessed a twin on my back. 

The wall of fog shattered, and a flood of memories washed over me, driving the air from my lungs as I found myself breathless. 

"Kenji?" The old doctor asked tentatively as I fell deathly quiet. 

"I remember now," I muttered still trying to process the series of events brought to the forefront of my mind, "W-we were ambushed, one of the villains could create portals...they said they were there to kill All Might and-" 

My voice failed me once more as everything came to a grinding halt as the Chimera's fearsome visage settled into my mind and refused to move. Without even realizing it, I began to run my fingers along the slightly raised scar tissue as my mind replayed the scene of me prostrated before the monster impaled on its barbed tail and as the beast mutilated me. 

But against all odds, I had survived by-

"I think I'm going to be sick," I muttered, my mouth suddenly sour and dry as I remembered the bloodthirsty hunger that had driven me to bite the Chimera's tail off and gorge myself on its flesh. 

I gagged as my stomach was squeezed in a vice. Fortunately, the doctor had heard my cry, producing a garbage bin from seemingly thin air as I leaned over to the side and voided the meager contents of my stomach. I coughed and spat, trying to get rid of the taste of bile coating my tongue. 

After a second, I recovered, sitting upright, as the doctor set the bin back onto the floor.

"Thank you," I muttered weakly as I sat back in my bed with a lost, vacant look in my eyes, "I-Is everyone alright?" 

The doctor sighed, "All of your classmates are fine; you were the only one who suffered serious harm." 

"What about Mister Aizawa?" I asked, briefly remembering that I had managed to rescue my teacher from being kidnapped just before I had passed out. 

"He's survived worse," The doctor replied with a fond smile before focusing back on me, "But you young man, haven't." 

"Hey, I'm still alive. Isn't that all that matters," I replied weakly, trying to force my face into a convincing smile but failing miserably. 

The doctor scoffed, "Did you even know that you could regenerate when you started to fight that monster?" 

I froze at the mention of the Chimera, "H-how do you know about that?"

"Principal Nezu sent me the footage," The old woman scowled like a disappointed parent, "What possibly possessed you to take on such a dangerous threat?" 

I sniffed dismissively and glanced away, "I know this sounds insane...but I think it was my quirk. I-I could barely control myself. Even now, I can't remember everything clearly. It was like I was drawn to that thing, and when I...when I drank its blood, I got stronger. It's the only reason why I survived. I can only produce a limited amount of flux, and healing even a small cut eats away at my total." 

The doctor paused, and I could practically hear the gears turning in her head, "I've never heard of something like this before...has anything made your quirk grow stronger?" 

"It's grown over time," I replied, "But not like this. I'm pretty sure I managed to double my reserves, and that was after bringing myself back from the brink of death."