Disclaimer: Hetalia and its characters are property of Himaruya.

~X~

Prussia had almost always had more scars than he thought he should have room for. Wars had been a near-constant part of his life, and they had all left their marks on his body. He was proud of them. They marked his strength as a nation.

Today, however, was one of the first times he felt the need to hide one.

Nervously, he tugged at the sleeve of his shirt once again. Gilbert could feel the material drag roughly across the new cuts across his arm.

He caught his eye in a small mirror and forced his lips into an arrogant smirk as he repeated the words "I am awesome."

It was common for these words to pass his lips. Gilbert had said them so often that all the other nations were convinced that he believed that.

The truth was in the new scars on his arm. Engraved there, with painstaking precision, was a single word.

He kept that idiot's grin on his face as he left his room to greet his little brother, who merely nodded in response. So long as Ludwig didn't know, everything would be ok. Or, that's what Gilbert tried to convince himself of.

Every single time he was asked how he's been holding up since his dissolution, he would break out that brilliantly fake smile of his, and tell them exactly how he had been. "Awesome."

No one ever thought to ask again. If he said he was fine, then surely that must be true. And as long as he was around someone else, it may as well have been the truth.

Still he knew that night when he finally went back to the isolation of his room; he would allow himself another glance at the reality that was written in his new scar.

'Useless'.