The heart monitor was the only thing speaking, and it didn't have anything good to say.
Beep... beep... bee...p.
In Bed 402, Haruto Akagi was fading. At 11 years old, he was quirkless, with cancer that had found a home in a body with no supernatural defenses to kick it out.
"I'm so sorry, Hana-san," the doctor whispered, his voice heavy. "There's simply nothing left to try."
Hana Akagi didn't scream. She collapsed. Her forehead hit the edge of the mattress, her hands clutching her son's small fingers, her tears began to soak into the white sheets.
Then, the Reboot happened.
Inside Haruto's mind, the darkness wasn't empty. It was a crowded highway at rush hour. Three lives slammed together like tectonic plates.
First, a lifetime of scarred tissue and gunpowder from a man who refused to die.
Second, a lifetime of glowing screens and the encyclopedic knowledge of a world where "Musutafu" was a setting in a manga.
Third, an 11 year old boy who just wanted to see his mother smile.
The memories didn't fight; they merged.
Haruto's eyes snapped open. The dull, glazed look of a terminal patient was gone, replaced by terrifying clarity.
'Wow... okay, that was a lot. How do I suddenly have memories of lives I never lived? It's like my brain just got hit by a high-speed train carrying three different boxcars of baggage.'
He felt a sudden, violent surge in his chest. 'Wait,' he thought, his mind racing. 'I know this feeling.' The itch under the skin. The smell of ozone and copper. He looked down at his own pale arms.
The tumors, previously the kings of the castle, were being systematically hunted by a force that didn't care about biology or medical "impossibility."
'Holy crap,' he realized, a manic spark lighting up his eyes. 'I've got The Big H in here.'
"My baby... my poor, sweet Haruto..." Hana sobbed into the bedsheets, unaware that the boy she was mourning was currently experiencing a cosmic hardware upgrade.
Haruto reached out and patted his mother's head "Hey, Mom? Take it easy on the waterworks," he croaked, his voice cracking but carrying a steady rythme.
"If you keep crying like that, the animators are going to spend the whole budget on your tear-tracks and I'll end up being drawn as a stick figure in the next panel."
The sobbing stopped instantly. Dr. Tanaka's jaw dropped. The room went deathly silent.
"Haruto?" Hana whispered, looking up with eyes blurred by salt and confusion. "What... what are you talking about?"
"And Doc?" Haruto pointed a finger at the man's clipboard.
"Your data is a little outdated. I just checked my internal settings, and I'm currently 'Too Awesome to Die.' It's a very rare condition. Highly contagious."
Hana let out a choked, broken laugh. She saw the crooked grin on her son's face as a tragic shield against the trauma.
"Oh, Haruto!" she wailed, throwing her arms around him and pulling him into a crushing embrace. "You don't have to be brave for me!"
She wept harder now, her tears soaking his hospital gown.
Haruto looked past his mother's shoulder, staring directly into the empty corner of the room as if an audience were sitting right there in the air.
"You see this?" he whispered to the void. "Smothered by love. This is definitely going to be a recurring trope, isn't it? If I survive the cancer just to be taken out by a 'Grieving Mother' embrace, I'm leaving a very mean review on the subreddit."
**********<>*********
A day later, the door to the room hissed open.
Dr. Tanaka walked in. He was staring at a fresh set of tablet results as if they were written in an alien language.
"This is... Impossible," the doctor muttered, stopping at the foot of the bed.
He looked between the boy, who was currently trying to see how far he could stretch his cheek, and the data.
"The mutation... the Stage IV cells... they're gone. Not just retreating. They've been eradicated. Your white cell count is performing at a level that shouldn't be physically possible for a human."
He looked at Hana, his voice trembling.
"Hana-san, I don't know how to say this... If I didn't know better, I'd say his body just decided to stop losing."
Haruto leaned back against his pillows, crossing his arms. "Told you, Doc. I'm a miracle. A high-budget, meta-breaking miracle. Now, can we talk about the hospital food? Because the Jello here is a crime against humanity, and I'm pretty sure I have the constitutional right to a chimichanga."
He turned his head to the "camera" again and winked. "And so begins Volume One. Buckle up, folks. It's going to be a bumpy ride."