MCU: No Limits

When she heard noises coming from somewhere in the house in the middle of the night, Keiko woke up, alarmed, and got out of her bed as quietly as she could. Walking slowly, on tiptoe, she opened the bedroom door and followed the hallway.

As her feet stepped on the staircase, she could hear some voices more clearly. Hiding behind the staircase railing, her face went into shock when she saw her younger brother taking relentless kicks and punches, suffering at the hands of men dressed in hoodies, people whose faces were covered by ski masks.

Even though they were disguised, she had some suspicions about who these five could be.

Then, Keiko covered her mouth with her hands, terrified, when she saw one of them taking a revolver hidden under his sweatshirt before pressing the barrel of the gun against Keiji's jaw, who was breathing shallowly.

The man seemed to be making threats, but his voice was distorted and distant enough that Keiko couldn't understand what this guy was saying.

Almost immediately, Keiko saw Keiji, who was lying on the floor of the room, spit on the guy's shoes.

That man grumbled and shouted, furious, before pulling the trigger of the revolver several times.

Keiko crouched down, covering her head with her arms, as she heard the deafening sounds of the gunshots. Out of the corner of her eye, with her vision blurred, she saw the bullet casings fall to the ground beside Keiji's body.

Momentarily, Keiko witnessed her brother making quick gestures with his hands behind his back, towards her.

"Do you also have big dreams, sister? If so, start chasing them as fast as you can."

Keiko woke up the next moment, breathing shallowly, with a mixture of fear, anger, and frustration on her face.

She observed her surroundings, still a bit sleepy, and shook her head in an agitated motion, trying to fully wake up.

Keiko saw that she was still sitting in the same chair in a hospital corridor. This place had no other smells besides the chemical odor in the air, and she was disgusted by that smell and that place.

With slightly trembling hands, Keiko took a deep breath before picking up a phone from inside the sports bag that was on the floor, next to the chair she was sitting on.

With an old model of a phone in her hand, she pressed a button on the side with her thumb. Thus, the phone's screen lit up, showing a wallpaper that had an apparently old photograph. 

In the photo, there was a young woman with blonde hair and Japanese physical features wearing dark green pajamas, hugging a small child in light blue pajamas. It was a boy with a similar appearance to hers, who was smiling a wide and cheerful smile towards the camera, while the older woman who seemed to be holding the phone during the photo had a smile that looked a bit forced. The two were near a table that had a birthday cake with a piece missing and all 6 candles blown out.

On the phone's lock screen, the time read 8:23 PM on April 19, 2009.

The phone screen reflected Keiko's aged face, who is currently 28 years old. Her face bore the remnants of an old and deep scar that ran from the top of her skull down to the right side of her neck, giving her a somewhat menacing appearance when combined with her scornful expression.

She lifted her head, looking straight ahead, and stood up, walking to the wall on the opposite side of the corridor.

Keiko placed her left hand on the glass wall and watched a child lying serenely in a hospital bed on the other side.

Keiko looked in silence before lowering her head, biting her lower lip and clenching her trembling hand into a fist, but she did not cry. She had no more tears for that.

Then, a few moments later, a woman wearing a light green lab coat and with a stethoscope around her neck came up to Keiko, handing her a paper cup with espresso. Keiko grabbed the coffee with a quick motion and began to drink almost immediately.

"Your brother is a fighter, did you know that?" The woman in the lab coat stated, taking a sip of coffee.

"You tell me the same thing every day, but... but I think it still holds true."

"The first bullet hit the upper part of the chin, the second hit the lower part of the neck, and the third shot hit the area between the eyes. The fourth and final bullet penetrated the hippocampus region." The woman, who was most likely a nurse, didn't seem to care about the barely concealed scornful look Keiko was giving her.

"We took out all four bullets, but all four shots penetrated his head so deeply. And as if it weren't enough how much that boy was beaten by those... Well, those guys, all four bullets penetrated quite fragile areas."

"If your brother wakes up, I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't remember anything. He won't be able to speak, by the way. The bullets literally destroyed his vocal cords. And his eyes, well... It's better not to think or talk about it." Sandy said, sighing.

Hearing all this, Keiko glared at Sandy with an expression of anger. Sandy stepped back, taking two steps away, before murmuring an "I'm sorry" while raising her hands in front of her body as a sign of truce.

Keiko put her hand on her forehead, feeling quite frustrated. She began to breathe slowly while counting to 10 in a low voice, trying to calm her turbulent nerves.

"He... He will wake up, Sandy. I... I know he will." Keiko said in a whisper, a few moments later, slowly removing her left hand from the glass before taking a sip of the espresso.

"It's possible, yes. Several things in him are stable, thank God for that. However, he just hasn't woken up since April 2003. Dude, he has missed so many insane summers… He seems to be experiencing a perpetual sleep, honestly." Sandy said in response, sighing, before looking at the bottom of her coffee cup, confused, wondering if she had seen a fly flying and entering the cup.

Sandy shrugged, apparently not caring whether there was a fly in her coffee or not, and drank the rest of the beverage in one gulp.

"The world has changed quite a bit over these past few years, don't you agree?" Sandy said, throwing the paper cup into a nearby trash can before sitting in a chair next to Keiko, who remained standing. "Lately, we only see these people with physical abilities superior to those who participated in the Olympics running through the streets and rooftops, day and night. The spandex these people wear is an insult to fashion, but no one seems to care, right? I don't think those clothes are stylish or really safe, honestly... Oh, and there's that guy, Stark."

"What about him?" Keiko asked, but she didn't seem interested in all this conversation, glancing at Sandy, distracted. 

"I don't know, but the guy seems a bit pale lately." Said Sandy, taking a cereal bar from the pocket of her lab coat and cutting the plastic at the top with scissors. "Actually, he looks like someone who just drank a few liters of poison. Did you notice that?"

"No... God, Sandy, why should I care about things like that?! I don't have a television, let alone read those stupid magazines!"

"I know that. But don't shout, Keiko. You are in a hospital. There are several patients here... There are several children here." Sandy calmly warned, then chewed a piece of the cereal bar. "Even though the walls here are soundproof, we should speak quietly. Ah, do you want a piece?"

"No, I don't want your cereal bar." Keiko quickly refused, shaking her head.

Keiko went to her bag and took out a small Styrofoam box from inside, which she opened slowly. Inside the box, there was a slice of chocolate cake that looked simple.

"Keiji will turn 12 tomorrow, right?" Sandy asked, raising an eyebrow.

Keiko picked up a disposable plastic fork and pierced the cake, looking at Sandy as if she were asking the obvious.

A few hours later, as the clock approached midnight, inside the hospital room, one of Keiji's fingers moved momentarily.

His eyes slowly opened, and the boy smiled, moving his hand in front of his body as if he were rubbing something.

Despite being invisible to anyone not using Gyo, there was a fluorescent dog with green fur, similar to a Golden Retriever, sitting next to Keiji. The dog leaned its head into Keiji's hand while the boy was scratching its ears.

"Thank you for protecting me all this time, my big green comrade." Keiji smiled, speaking in a low and quite weak voice, but which quickly seemed to improve. "You are incredible."

The dog barked in response, with a goofy smile on its snout, before disappearing into the air, as if it never existed.

"Keiji...?"

Keiji turned his face, looking at the woman standing at the hospital room door, confused and internally wondering who she was. However, he was suddenly embraced by this woman with a scar on her face, who began to cry on his shoulder.