NOTE: First of all, I want to say that I advise listening to the song What Is Love - Jaymes Young because it was what I listened to during the whole writing process and it is insanely fitting to the mood of the entire fic!

Secondly, I'd like to thank art-by-kou and thalesienenbloo from tumblr for constantly supporting me through the writing process of this fic! Please check out their amazing art, they're an incredible source of inspiration!

People say that there is a soulmate for everyone, but that is not really the case, just a fairy tale ending that parents tell their children to cling to. Hope of everlasting happiness. Nothing but wishful thinking, because not everyone had that luxury.

Some people were lucky enough to find theirs as early as their childhoods, true. But others, many more than society would care to admit, went through their entire lives without meeting them, without ever getting one to begin with. Soulmates aren't destined, they aren't born with their futures set in stone, because with free will come choices. And choices lead down branching paths that diverge from what might have been and has instead become. And even when it seems like there was no choice in the path taken, there is the influence of those around them. Human nature is volatile, so to think that anything can be predetermined is to fool oneself into believing there is a higher power deciding their every move.

But that is not how things work. No one is responsible for the lives they live except for themselves and those that pull the strings higher up in the societal food chain. There is no one behind the scenes of the fabrics of the universe to decide what is and what isn't. If there is anyone, they don't care enough to interfere. Weakness and strength, happiness and sadness, love and hate: concepts made by those who have the power to inflict them upon others. Soulmates are but another construct of this world and the next that bind them to the rules of life, whether those be fair or not.

Shouto knew this from the moment he was born, because he saw it every single day. How two people who the universe never deemed to be meant for each other were shackled together by the greed of someone more powerful. It didn't matter that one had no mark on their skin while the other longed for the one that stretched across her chest. It didn't matter that there was a soulmate waiting for her who was supposed to make her happy. Because destiny is not a thing that simply overpowers the wills of human wants.

Still, she believed, at least for a time, that there was a bigger plan somewhere in there. That there was love waiting for her, if only she could hold out with the children she bore and loved until then. She would tell Shouto, when the monster wasn't listening, everything she held onto to help her endure.

Soulmates are connections. As is in the name, it is a connection that goes as deep as the soul itself. Souls are shaped through life experiences. Brightened and nurtured by love and joy. Bent and broken by pain and misfortune. Throughout it all, someone out there may have a soul that mimics his own, and they will call for each other. It's a connection so strong that it breaks through the fabric of space and time, imbeds itself into his skin so that he never forgets that he is not alone. Someone out there understands him. Someone out there will love him for all that he is, because their souls are the same. Shared as one, through everything that shaped them into what they become. And that connection is etched somewhere on his body, in his soulmate's handwriting: a keepsake, something that will let him know what bound them together by the string of fate.

But Shouto did not believe in fate. And Shouto did not believe a love like that existed. Because all he knew was fire and hurt. His mother's and his sibling's love were the only ones he knew and even that was shattered by that man who insisted that love was weakness. And Shouto could do nothing but believe it, because his mother's love for him hurt her. She tried to protect him, to stop the man she was bound to by none other than his own hands and not some soul mark, and he struck her down. Whatever resolve she may have had was slowly beaten out of her. And any belief Shouto may have had in her words was slowly beaten out of him.

The little shreds of hope he had of those tales being true were weakened by the slow decay of his mother's state. Her sweet smiles turned strained, her loving gazes turned colder than the ice she created and her warm embraces became few and far between.

The middle of the night was a time in which he was not tormented by his father's harsh training, a time in which he should be resting but was instead seeking his mother's love. Because he loved her too and that made him weak to his heart's whims. What he found was his mother crying, her soul aching as she held her hand against her chest where her soulmate's script lied. Shouto knew she was breaking with each day that passed, because there was no such thing as salvation in the twists and turns of life. Even if there was someone out there like her, who would love her forever and more, they weren't coming to save her.

Shouto thought that whoever her soulmate was, they didn't deserve it. He wanted to believe that there was happiness somewhere waiting for her and for him as well, but how could he when all he saw was her suffering and no one coming to stop it?

Each day that passed, with his training becoming more and more intense and the sweet moments where his mother sat by him and filled him with dreams of being a hero became more and more scarce, Shouto stopped believing. The last drop of his hopes vanished when his mother looked at him with eyes filled with nothing but fear. That child's left side sometimes looks very unsightly to me. Even the love she had for him was not strong enough to withstand the unbearable pressure of her hate for her captor. And Shouto was only a product of that hate, so she tried to cleanse him.

From that day forth, Shouto knew no love, he did not believe in happiness and he would never hope for a soulmate to save him. His mother had a soulmate and they gave her nothing but false hopes that ended up shattering her beyond repair. Shouto's life was nothing but hurt and fire, so he resolved to never use his. Because his mother had left him with a reminder that his left side was nothing but wrong, nothing but hate. And the only love he ever knew remained as a memory on his right side, the ice that was her only gift to him now that she was gone. That was the sole thing Shouto would ever trust and believe. That was the only love he would ever feel and even then, it was simply because he was only human and couldn't make himself stop.

Because love was meaningless when it brought only despair.

Hatred consumed him when his father acted as if his mother's fall into misery and despair was nothing but her own fault for being fooled by children's tales. It's your fault. Shouto may see the truth of the world and how wrong it was, but he was no fool to see that he was part of the problem. Maybe if there weren't people like him it wouldn't be this way, maybe those stories and those dreams of unconditional love could be a reality. But none of that mattered because it wasn't so, and no matter who was at fault, nothing would change.

Soulmates would not bring Shouto happiness, just the same as they hadn't his mother.

He was only proven right when not even the bandages over his eye had been removed and there was a black mark on his skin where there was nothing before. The characters stood out, dark and bold, screaming from the background of the pale skin of his right wrist and spelling out PAIN. It was like her ice spread through his veins and sunk its sharp claws into his heart. As if he wasn't already aware that his life was just that, as if he hadn't already been left with the scar to prove it, one that he would have to see for the rest of his existence any time he caught a glimpse of his reflection. The characters stared back at him, mocking him endlessly, laughing at his marred face even as the bandages still covered the ugly damage that was left behind. He hated it.

Shouto's first reaction was to rub at the spot to make it disappear, as if he had simply drawn on his skin with a pen and that alone was enough to get rid of it. But not only were the characters not his own, the strokes completely different from the disciplined way in which he was taught to write, they didn't budge despite the force with which he tried to make them go away. There wasn't even a hint of a smudge as he kept sliding his thumb over the black lines and tears of frustration sprung to the corners of his eyes as he rushed towards the bathroom.

With his wrist under the running water he continued to swipe his other hand across the writing, adding even soap to aid in his attempt. When that didn't work either, Shouto picked up a rough sponge and scrubbed until the skin turned pink and raw, but even then, the script remained. Biting the insides of his cheeks hard enough to draw the taste of iron, he continued to forcefully brush the sponge over his wrist to no avail. His hands were shaking now, from both anger and the ache that throbbed with each beat of his agitated heart and he went towards the kitchen.

There, he grabbed a steel wool scrub and rubbed into his skin until the running water turned pink with the blood that seeped from his scraping skin. Yet, when he took back the stained object, the writing was still etched into it, like a tattoo that had seeped through down to his very bones. In a fit of blind rage, Shouto picked up a knife to get rid of it at any cost only to be stopped by his older sister, screaming as she ran towards him and took the blade away before he could harm himself further.

She held him in his arms, in a way his mother might have done once in a past that seemed so far away, rocking him slowly from side to side as he stained the wooden floors with the scarlet tears that spilled from his wrist. His father didn't hear a word of what happened there, and he didn't question the bandage stained with blotches of red when he showed up for the training that didn't let up to give him time to heal.

Once all his wounds had recovered, the physical ones at least, the characters that his soulmate left him still glared at him and made him sick. Each time he saw them, he was once again reminded that everything about his life was wrong and there was nothing anyone could do about it. His soulmate had nothing to offer him but that. Pain. It couldn't be more fitting and he guessed that was the cruelty of this world, where soulmates stood for a promise of hope and happiness only to crush it to dust. He hated it. Shouto hated them.

A wristband adorned his right arm now. No one asked him why and it was better that way. He didn't want to look at what was beneath it and remember that his mother spent all of her life hoping for someone to save her and nobody came. He didn't want to keep staring at something that just made everything hurt more. Shouto resented his soulmate for even existing, he wished that their handwriting had never been tattooed onto his skin. So, he never took the wristband off except to shower and replaced it with another when it needed to be washed. He hid the pain away from his sight so that there was one less ugly thing for him to stare at on a daily basis.

He had a hard enough time having to look at his own face. At least this he could simply pretend didn't exist if he was careful about it. He could pretend he never really got a soulmate to begin with. Things would be easier that way.

But of course, life was unfair and no matter how much he hid away from it, that pain never really left him alone, and with each passing day, he resented his soulmate even more.

Quirkless. The day Izuku learned that he was born quirkless, when the doctor told him that all of his hopes and dreams were unachievable and he should simply give up on them, was the day that he learned what it felt like to truly hurt.

Scraped knees and hands from falling to the floor in his clumsy excitement as he played, the harsh words of his classmates' mockery and Kacchan's explosions burning into his skin, all of this paled in comparison to that. Izuku didn't think he had ever hurt as much as he did then, the tears that streamed down his freckled cheeks big and filled to the brim with unbearable sorrow. For as long as he could remember, a hero was what he had longed to be. And now he just had to accept that this dream would never really come true.

Even as he looked at his idol saving one hundred people by himself, with a radiant smile dancing on his lips, for the millionth time in his short life, he hurt. When he looked back at his mother, hoping for some sort of affirmation that he could still be like his hero, that he could still become everything that a true hero stood for, all he got was a pained I'm sorry Izuku. And it hurt.

It hurt to even think that all he had ever dreamed of was so impossibly out of reach. It hurt to believe that he could never hope for things to miraculously change and be granted a quirk. It crushed his spirit down to an infinity of broken pieces that even his mother couldn't seem to find it in herself to assure him that he could still be a hero. Weren't mothers supposed to support their children's dreams no matter what? Was Izuku not allowed to even cling to a sliver of hope?

He didn't know how long it was that cried, how his tiny body could even hold so many tears. He felt like his soul itself was being crushed under the unbelievable pain that was seeping deep into him. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt… Izuku couldn't even begin to imagine how to start picking up the shattered glass of his heart, let alone if it was even possible to put it back together.

His mother cried with him, just as torn, aching for him just the same as she held him tightly in her arms. Even if what he wanted to hear was not what she was telling him, Izuku knew that she loved him and only meant well, to protect him from the cruelty of the world outside and what it entailed to live in it. But still, he hurt, because he wanted to be better so badly, he wanted to live his life to its fullest by helping and saving people, bringing smiles to their faces with one of his own. But how could he do that when he was quirkless? And how could he do that when he himself was hurting so much it felt like his insides were burning with the crippling sadness that took hold of his heart?

And it was then, as he was descending into a whirlpool of despair, cradled by his mother's arms, that he saw it. Characters carved onto his skin, black as ink, looking like they were written with the greatest of care. For little more than a second, Izuku stopped crying, long enough to look through the blur of his tears and read PAIN written there. The fleeting moment of happiness that he felt at the discovery that he had a soulmate even though he was quirkless was quickly overshadowed by the meaning of that mark.

Izuku started crying anew, harder still than before, because this was the moment he learned the true meaning of what was written across his right wrist. Being told he was quirkless and his dreams meaningless hurt badly and more than anything he had ever felt. But this… This was so much worse. Because he and his soulmate shared a connection, and that connection was forged through the pain they both felt, and once more Izuku hurt, and it was so much worse than before.

This anguish that was engraved in his very soul was one that his soulmate knew just as well and Izuku cried. This unbearable grief that suffocated him to the point that even the harsh gasps of breath he took didn't seem to be enough to fill his lungs was one that his soulmate shared. And Izuku screamed.

Izuku held onto his mother, crying bitter tears for his soulmate because they were hurting too. He didn't want them to hurt, he didn't want them to feel this way that he felt, so lost and so miserable. Izuku wanted to find his soulmate, he wanted to hold them the same way that his mother was holding him, and he wanted to make the pain go away. It might be the thing that connected them but Izuku wanted to make it better, yet he didn't know who his soulmate was and he didn't know where they were or why they were hurting. All he knew was that he wanted to lessen that burden no matter the cost.

He wanted to be a hero. Izuku had always wanted to be a hero from the moment he knew what that even meant, and he was hurt beyond belief when he was told that he could never hope to achieve that. His heart ached so badly still, but it didn't sting as horribly as knowing that his soulmate felt the same. So, even if the doctor told him he was quirkless, even if his mother believed that he should give up as well, Izuku decided as he wailed for his soulmate's sake, that he would never give up. No matter the cost, he would keep trying hard, he would keep working, more even than his peers, to achieve that dream.

Izuku would become a hero. He would find his soulmate. He would save them from this pain that hurt them so. For their sake, Izuku would do anything, because they were connected through their agony and despite not knowing them or where they even were, he loved them. They shared this suffering and Izuku wanted nothing more than to help them through it.

From then on, Izuku's resolve only grew stronger. Each time that he was told he couldn't do it, was knocked down to the dirt, he picked himself up and tried again. Every time he cried from the way others treated him like he was useless and worthless, he rubbed his thumb over the characters his soulmate left him and he taught himself how to breathe again. The pain never really left him, not when people kept telling him that he was not good enough without a quirk, when his own friends laughed at him and hurt him because of it. But he looked at his wrist and he was once again reminded of why he wanted to be a hero. He wanted to help people, to save those who needed saving, he wanted people to stop hurting the way he did. The way his soulmate did.

For his soulmate's sake, he would never give up. Izuku wanted to be their hero, to save them from the torment that connected them in the first place. As each day passed, Izuku longed to help them even more. His heart continued to ache but he looked to his soulmate's script to remind himself of why it was worth it to keep going. He found strength in that pain.

The time he heard the words out of his childhood friend's mouth to just give up on everything, to give up on his life, Izuku's very soul hurt and he wondered fleetingly if his soulmate felt it too. He wanted to cry and never stop because sometimes it was just so hard to stay strong, but he brushed the tips of his fingers over his right wrist and he kept moving forward.

Even as the corners of his vision blurred, sludge invading his lungs and making it impossible to breathe, Izuku thought of his soulmate and how he wasn't able to keep his promise to save them. He didn't want to die, he didn't want to give up. And as he struggled in the villain's grasp, clawing at anything he could but finding no purchase, his insides burning with the lack of breath he so desperately needed, the worst part was that he would die never having made his soulmate happy. The fear that they would remain with that pain forever was so much heavier than the one for his own life.

For the first time in so many years of pushing, Izuku truly felt useless.

Being met with his idol after thinking he had taken his last breath, his heart taken its last beat, Izuku couldn't help but feel the need for confirmation that all he'd been working towards wasn't for naught. He couldn't resist the overwhelming urge to hold on to the very last shred of hope that he could truly do this, that he could become a hero who could save people like he did, who could hope to find his soulmate and be able to tell them "It's fine now, because I am here".

The soul crushing agony of hearing from his biggest source of inspiration that his hopes were truly unachievable left him so utterly defeated, he wasn't sure he could keep going. Everything felt pointless, he felt useless and weak and defenceless, and his soulmate was still out there, hurting. Izuku felt responsible for them and for all of his shortcomings, unworthy of even having a soulmate to call his own.

When his legs took him to where the very person who told him that his life was best just thrown away, Izuku felt something in his chest that he couldn't begin to explain if he tried. He felt the weight of the characters engraved in his skin and he didn't think as his body propelled him forwards. He couldn't give up, couldn't throw all of his hard work away as if it was nothing. Not when there was someone out there that knew his pain and needed him, when there were people who needed saving and he wanted nothing more than to help them.

Izuku wanted to be a hero, but what truly made him one was that he couldn't give up if he tried. Because he couldn't think of himself when he saw his pain in someone else's eyes, that panic and that feeling of helplessness. As much as it hurt to keep getting knocked down no matter how many times he rose up from it, it hurt more to stay down. The mark on his wrist kept reminding him of what he needed to fight for. Izuku would endure all the pain the world threw at him if it meant that one day he would protect others from it, protect his soulmate from the anguish they felt.

When that opportunity he was so desperately searching for presented itself to him, he took it like the lifeline it really was and he worked even harder than before. He pushed himself to his limit and even over it, never giving in to despair when things seemed the bleakest. His body ached, his muscles complained endlessly and he exhausted himself to the point of shutting down completely. Izuku doubted himself nearly every step of the way, wondering if he could really do this as the voices of those around him rung loudly in his mind, telling him he wasn't good enough. But the pain written across his skin helped him move forward, kept him from stopping dead in his tracks and pushed him towards the finish line.

Anxiety gripped his heart painfully, fear and insecurity sounded too familiar in his thoughts for him to truly let them go. When it seemed like everything was once again lost, all of the work he put into this one moment wasted as if it had never even come to pass, Izuku cried with his soulmate in his thoughts, a faceless soul he longed to hold in his arms and comfort. He held onto the hope they brought instead, and, in the end, it was with tears in his eyes that he learned it was all worth it in the end.

Izuku was so much closer to becoming a hero he could almost taste it. He held on to his wrist tightly, stroking the characters lovingly as he wished for his soulmate to wait just a little longer. I will be your hero, I swear to you that I will find you and save you from that pain.

Shouto spent so long trying to erase his soulmate from his mind. The constant hiding of the markings on his skin was effective to the point that he hardly remembered the shape of the strokes, knowing only the characters that were there because they would never leave him. As much as he hid the mark, its meaning never really went away. It was a constant in his life, if one could even call it that.

Shouto existed to be Endeavor's weapon, to be his masterpiece, no more than an object, clay that could be moulded into any shape he deemed worthy. He tried to fight it, refused to use his father's power, only embracing the cold ice of his mother that encased his heart and soul. But even then, he was beaten into a model fighter. Using only his mother's power or not, Shouto was created for destruction and there was no room for anything other than pain and power. Frozen or not, Shouto still burned with anger and hatred, the only emotions nurtured in his household through an iron fist of violence.

His soulmate, no matter how hard Shouto tried to pretend they didn't exist, constantly laughed at his broken states behind a faceless mask that everyday looked more like that of Endeavor's. His mother's cries, his mother's bruises, her hopes and dreams were all burned into Shouto's mind, a brand that reminded him every single day of what soulmates really meant. Broken promises, crushed faith, pain. There was nothing but pain and that mark was the very proof. Even if he never looked at it, even if when his eyes caught a glimpse of black in his reflection as he bathed, the characters blurred to nothing but a blotch. Out of sight, out of mind, but that wasn't the case. Pain was all that he knew and it was all that his soulmate had to offer him.

He had expected (not hoped, hope wasn't a part of Shouto's existence either) that talk and thoughts of soulmates wouldn't follow him to the most prestigious hero school in the country. If only because Endeavor thought much the same of the notion as Shouto did, the only thing he reluctantly agreed with. Enrolling him somewhere such concepts were thriving seemed like a foolish thing to do. But alas, teenagers, at least those who had a life unlike Shouto's, were filled with lies and deceptions on what this world truly stood for. And so, soulmates followed him even where he intended to focus on nothing more than becoming a hero who could take down the injustices that plagued his every day, make the world a less horrible place.

It seemed to be the first question after their name that his new classmates had was always whether they had a soulmate or not. When it got to his turn, Shouto thought of ignoring the questions all together, but with so many eyes on him, and all of them expectant, eager, that hatred boiled deep within his veins and spread throughout his body, ice crawling up his side.

"Soulmates are nothing but pointless children's tales meant to appease snivelling brats who think the world has anything to offer other than hardships and despair. You should stop holding on to such ridiculous notions if you want to get anywhere in it." His words were muted but fuelled by anger and dripping with such a bitterness that anyone who was close enough to listen was left nothing short of appalled.

One of which, a short boy with bright green eyes and fluffy hair the same dark colour, looked away with a haunted expression, pain Shouto was much too familiar with ghosting across his features. That one knows too but refuses to believe it.

After that, his classmates knew to stay away from him for the most part, especially those of them who had soul marks whose counterparts they had yet to meet. That was fine with Shouto, he hadn't come to this place to make friends. His resentment towards his circumstances wasn't something he had planned to advertise, but when people flaunted soul marks like badges of honour or symbols of hope for happiness, he had no way of stopping his glowers.

Only one other person seemed to have similar aversions for soulmates and his explosive nature and quick to violence responses reminded Shouto of his father a little too much for his taste. The ashy blonde seemed to stare in disgust at those who proudly wore their markings, and Shouto thought bitterly that maybe only those who were either broken by the unfairness of the world or had the power to ignore its structure could really understand. It was pretty clear which group he belonged to and which one his father wanted him to be part of.

Midoriya Izuku was another classmate that Shouto took notice of as time went by. He didn't particularly hide the fact that he had a soulmate, but he would keep the mark to himself too. Hidden away by his clothes or his own hand whenever anyone got too close. Pry as they might, those curious enough to ask never really got an answer as to what was on his skin and Shouto didn't exactly care. But there was something different about the way he acted towards soulmates, it wasn't with a lovesick wonder filled with delusions or with hatred, disgust or resentment.

There was a calm determination behind his eyes that Shouto noticed from afar whenever he gripped his forearm and clenched his jaw. It was something he did often, something that reminded him too much of the way his mother used to clutch her chest after being thrown to the ground for trying to protect him. Shouto hated seeing it, remembering how she drew strength from her mark only to be broken by it in the end. Holding on so tightly to something so foolish was bound to end in misery.

It always did.

Maybe it was for that exact reason that Shouto thought even more that this person All Might himself had taken interest in was someone he needed to defeat. In order to prove to his father that his mother's strength was all he needed to succeed and prove to the world that soulmates played no part in giving them that strength to begin with. Midoriya's constant clinging to his soulmate was something Shouto had vowed to never rely on and maybe that was why he felt the need to show him that it would bring about his fall.

After coming face to face with the raw power of that determination, Shouto pulled him aside to make his intentions perfectly clear in why he wanted to defeat him. He mentioned the circumstances of his parents' marriage and his own birth, his whole purpose for even existing and how his mother's hope for a soulmate that never came ultimately spelled out her demise. His hand reached for his face as the memory of scalding water burned on his skin and the pain written across his wrist throbbed with newfound fervour, as if begging to be remembered when he had never even forgot it.

Shouto's hands closed into fists when he saw Midoriya hold his arm, fingers brushing over the characters. He almost wanted to point out that he was making the exact same mistakes as his mother but instead started walking away with a few last words. Yet the other stopped him, still grasping his wrist when Shouto finally turned to look at him and saw that same unwavering determination in his eyes.

"My soulmate needs me and I won't let them down."

And that was the very first crack that appeared in Shouto's icy walls. Midoriya's strength didn't stem from the hope of being saved or finding happiness like everyone else. He found in his soulmate a resolve to keep fighting for their sake. Rather than depend on them to keep going, he kept going for them. That last sentence was what planted the seed of guilt in Shouto's heart.

That same day, through his words and his actions, Midoriya kept pummelling at Shouto's walls, he kept chipping at them, bit by bit, until he completely shattered them with a few simple words.

"It's your power, isn't it?"

Suddenly, everything Shouto believed in was rendered completely meaningless, his father's treatment, his mother's pain as well as his own, all of that seemed to evaporate to mist. His whole agonising existence was nothing but white noise in the back of his head when he found himself smiling at the memories of his mother telling him he could be a hero if he wanted. Memories he had buried somewhere underneath all that hatred and fury, that ignited his soul anew and filled him with a warmth he hadn't felt for as long as he could remember. And all of that because Midoriya had the strength to give up on his chance to win in order to destroy his pain with a broken fist. For that moment, Shouto forgot why he held such a grudge against his soulmate and he forgot Endeavor even existed to begin with and was surprised to find he had tears in his eyes.

As sweet as that moment felt, to have all of the ice melt away, all of his walls broken, the second it was over Shouto was left with confusion and guilt. Feelings that started to consume him even when Midoriya called out for him to do his best. Midoriya who had given up his chance for him. He owed it to him to go with all of his power but that shame he felt was stronger than the sense of duty he held towards the other's encouraging words.

Shouto was plagued with doubts and guilt, memories long forgotten, now resurfaced, and he questioned everything. Midoriya's words, his eyes and his conviction swam around in his thoughts alongside his mother's smiles and warm embraces. But then, there were Endeavor's trainings and his mother's broken state of mind, there was her absent soulmate and Shouto's very own pain. Everything inside him was clashing, like fire and ice in a never-ending battle, his mother's love and his father's abuse, his own resolve and the guilt that ate away at him.

For the first time in ten years, Shouto removed the wristband on his wrist to actually look at it. His fingers passed over the black characters, feather light, and their meaning burned into his mind as he read them time and time again. The writing still hurt just as much to look at, even after all these years and the events that had just transpired, it still felt like a mockery from the universe itself.

Yet, looking at the script, he came to the conclusion that he needed to start making some changes. And when he visited his mother at the hospital after not once seeking her out of guilt for being the living proof of her abuse, she cried tears of joy when she saw his face. His wrist was once again covered and his mother never learned that he had a soulmate somewhere out there in the world. His heart was still too raw from the shattered ice crystals surrounding it, and the pain he knew was still too real for him to reject every belief he had held up until that point. But it was a start to a long journey Shouto had to make in figuring out what it was he truly believed in.

His whole life Shouto had hated his soulmate, he had hated his left side for the fact it was his old man's power it held, but Midoriya's confrontation had made him question all of that and now he felt lost. He had to discover how to become himself rather than his father's creation. It all started with Midoriya and those fateful words of his, and it continued with him when they faced death together.

In that moment, everything hung in the balance for them and, once more, Midoriya kept pushing through with his soulmate in his heart. Shouto couldn't help but admire the other's dedication to someone they had never even met, his willingness to go above and beyond to help someone he might never really meet to begin with. It was then that Shouto first wondered what it was that connected them, what it was that pushed him to become a hero for them. Whatever it was, it made Midoriya into an outstanding one. It made him into Shouto's own hero, as it was because of him he finally understood that maybe that promise soulmates stood for didn't lie in the other but in themselves.

The next time Shouto visited his mother, she cried once again as she held his right hand in her own, stroking the characters lovingly before moving her fingers to his face and doing the same. It was because of Midoriya's actions that Shouto got to finally see in his mother's eyes that, despite everything, she still held in her heart the hope of happiness. He saw in the way she still held her hand to her chest that her belief in her soulmate and their connection was still there somewhere.

She helped him sort through his thoughts, helped him see that even though he had gone through so much and spent such a long time consumed by his anguish, that he still had time to make things better. Shouto felt warm again in her arms as she helped him see that not all was lost and he could still start trying to shift his view of the world to something more positive. And for a moment, he wanted to believe that, with the help of his friends and especially Midoriya, he could learn to let go of his bitterness and start on his way to becoming a hero he could be proud of.

That all burned to ash when Shouto held Midoriya's notes in his hands one day and, staring at the careful and methodical strokes of the characters for a long time, he began noticing similarities. He realised with a start that Midoriya's soul mark was placed in the exact same spot as his own and when he saw 'pain' written in his literature notes there was no mistaking it for the same handwriting that was engraved on his wrist. Slowly closing the notebook and handing it back to its owner with a calm he didn't really feel, Shouto thanked him and walked away with blood draining from his face.

Once he was out of sight he ran to the bathroom to heave the bile that suddenly rose in his throat and he felt sicker than when Endeavor beat it out of him. His veins felt like they were frosting over, freezing him from the inside out as tears turned to crystal on his right cheek. Shouto was shaking violently, his chest aching with an unbearable guilt that knocked the breath right out of him and left him reeling.

The room became frosty and cold, like the freezing hands of death gripping his heart were drawing the ice out of him and spreading it around him. The reality of this discovery weighed on him, threatening to crush him, swallow him whole. He felt sick, he felt disgusting, Shouto felt like scrubbing the soul mark into a bloody mess all over again. But not because he hated his soulmate, no. Not anymore, not ever again.

Shouto had spent all those years hating them only to find out they were kind and gentle and hadn't gone through a single day without thinking of him. Midoriya had shared his pain ever since the day they were connected through it and he had gone through his life working to become his soulmate's hero. To become his hero. While Midoriya was selflessly working to find him and save him, Shouto had been hating his very existence without even knowing him. He didn't deserve someone like Midoriya as his soulmate. Shouto was unworthy of him. Shouto hated himself more than ever. After all he'd said and done, how could he ever face Midoriya as his soulmate?

NOTE: Hope you enjoyed that part, the second part won't be too long, do not fret!

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