MCU: No Limits

Sitting on the sidewalk in front of his house, Michael was eating slices of watermelon.

Exactly a week ago, he found himself transported to this world, in the body of a dead child.

Breathing in a dead body is quite morbid, he thinks.

But he thought better of it, meditated on it for hours.

Michael came to the conclusion that his situation was not under his control, much less Keiji's.

Keiji Wakui is the boy's full name and, as he is living in his body, it has become his name.

The real Keiji died peacefully in his sleep, and the woman he found in the bathtub, almost dead, is his sister, Keiko.

According to what he discovered by analyzing Keiko's behavior, her routine, and other things, it was possible for Keiji to uncover the circumstances that led Keiko to attempt suicide.

She works from 2:00 AM to 11:00 PM in four different jobs, from Sunday to Sunday.

Her jobs include being the only delivery person for a diner and a waiter at a moderately upscale restaurant during the early morning hours, spending the afternoon working as a taxi driver through the busy streets of New York, and being the bartender at a very busy bar at night.

Not to mention the other tasks she does in between, such as washing seemingly endless piles of dishes, sweeping and mopping the floor, and taking out the trash.

If being a hardworking employee who is treated worse than trash daily by her employers and who simply agrees in silence and smiles a practiced and obviously forced smile is a physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting experience for anyone, imagine what it would do to the psyche of someone like Keiko? 

"She loves her brother, without a doubt. If she didn't love him, why would she work so hard, trying to give him a comfortable life that he probably didn't have in his childhood?" He murmured, then stared at the half-bite watermelon slice in his hands, seriousness in his gaze. "You are worth $12.34, watermelon. In my country, that amount would be worth a dozen watermelons a bit bigger than you, and there would still be change left over. So, I'm going to bite you until you disappear."

He bit into the slice of watermelon, tearing off a piece with his teeth that he chewed until it turned into pulp before swallowing. Then, he spat the seeds onto the tray beside him, forming a small pile of seeds.

Out of the corner of his eye, Keiji - who was already used to being called that - observed an elderly woman walking on the sidewalk, staring at him as if he were a rare seven-headed specimen, and then scoffed disdainfully.

Without hesitation, Keiji greeted her in the most appropriate way his childish brain could think of. He stuck his tongue out at the old woman and pulled down his left eyelid with his index finger, childishly, while raising his middle finger offensively with the other hand.

Unable to form a coherent word, the old woman moved away from him, turning her bony neck to glance back briefly, scandalized.

On the other hand, Keiji laughed at her for a whole minute before placing his hand on his jaw, looking extremely thoughtful. 

He continued his analysis of Keiko, who at that moment was sleeping inside the house, unwilling to leave the comfortable bed and the cozy sheet.

Possibly, when Keiko discovered that her brother died in his sleep early in the morning - the moment when she usually visits his room to let him know she is leaving for work, according to the memories Keiji's brain had assimilated - she was paralyzed when she found him dead.

Keiji has very fragile health and usually stays at home, bedridden.

Almost no one in the neighborhood knows him because he doesn't leave the house, and he doesn't study, not even attending kindergarten.

Keiji and Keiko's parents, a Japanese couple who moved to the United States before deciding to have children, died in a robbery.

The original Keiji was too young to remember it, and Keiko was only 16 years old.

She was devastated, obviously.

According to Keiji's memories, Keiko promised that she would give him everything he needed, even if she didn't love him in the same way his parents did.

On a very related note, the mortgage on the house where the two siblings live was paid off by their parents before they died. So, the two of them didn't lose the house.

Keiji was sick for a long time when he was a bit younger, and Keiko started working to pay the hospital bills and buy other basic necessities.

Knowing that in the United States a patient in a hospital has to pay monthly even for an injection is new to Keiji.

In his previous life, when he was called Michael, he was born and raised in a country with a universal and free healthcare system for all citizens. And that was a very big difference.

Here, Keiko worked to pay those bills.

And at the time before the original Keiji died in his sleep, Keiji was sick once again.

Stubbornly, he didn't want to go to the hospital, and Keiko insisted that he go before finally agreeing with his insistence. 

When Keiji died, Keiko probably drowned in guilt.

She incessantly apologizing to the current Keiji is proof of that.

That's why this feeling of guilt is what, in part, led Keiko to attempt to take her own life.

By the time the emergency arrived, Keiji explained the situation to the doctors who came in an ambulance in the way he thinks a confused and traumatized child would explain.

In a performance worthy of an Oscar, the boy's shoulders slumped as his lower lip trembled and his eyes shed crocodile tears. So, he explained what he saw between cries of feigned anguish, and how he called emergency services just as his sweet sister had taught him.

Keiko didn't teach him any of that, he learned it in a completely different situation, simply researching the most diverse and varied topics on the internet while eating an entire tub of ice cream in his past life.

Keiko was so trapped in her own world that she didn't even refute what he said, staring into nothingness, her eyes resembling an abyss.

Her wrists were cleaned with alcohol on a cotton ball by a gentle nurse before being bandaged.

Starting this afternoon, Keiji and Keiko would be going to a psychiatrist recommended by the same nurse, and she insisted on taking them to this clinic, not giving them a chance to refuse.

After returning from the hospital, Keiji started training his aura.

Keiko thought he had suddenly become interested in meditation and massage, and Keiji just agreed while massaging Keiko's shoulders.

It's a lie that isn't really a lie, after all.

It is a concept far beyond a simple massage that relieves physical pain or a clear mental state that meditation provides.

That is...

"Nen is something abstract that can literally do anything, within limits."

"But I am in some alternate Marvel reality, a particularly dangerous place for ordinary people, like I am now." He folded a newspaper called "Daily Bugle" and placed it on the kitchen table.

"And that's why I decided that I won't have limits. I... I reject my limits."