Wound or scar — including the literal medical kind, and 'damaged goods'.

What a Japanese person actually thinks
Reads more clinical than poetic. Where English 'scars' implies survival, Japanese 傷 leans toward the injury itself and toward defect.

Meaning

Literally: person + wounding
Actually: A wound, cut or scar. Also used for damage to objects — a scratch on a car, a flaw in a product (傷物, 'damaged goods', is also used cruelly about people).

Scores

Naturalness●●●●●

Common word.

Coolness●●●●●

Decent character. The meaning doesn't carry the redemptive note the English idea usually has.

Watch out

medium傷物 (kizumono) is an old, unkind term for a woman considered 'spoiled'. The association isn't automatic, but it exists.

Get this instead

生き様 ikizama
the way one has lived; the marks a life leaves

If scars mean 'what I've been through made me', this says that directly — with dignity rather than damage.

On skin

傷

Orientation: either

Brush.