Lamplight fell across the dark hardwood desk in Otto's private villa.
Thick files lay spread across the surface alongside handwritten analysis reports and a tablet running Honkai Impact 3rd.
Otto Apocalypse sat behind the desk, fingers interlaced and pressed against his chin.
His calm green eyes moved slowly over the documents.
"Honkai."
He repeated the word softly, as though savoring a glass of aged wine.
"A disaster similar to a virus? No, I think it's something far more than that."
His gaze settled on one particular page of notes, densely packed with details about Honkai's lore from the game: the civilization culling mechanism, Herrscher cores, the erosion and transformation of Honkai energy.
"More mysterious than any virus, this thing called Honkai."
He murmured to himself.
"And beyond that, it can strengthen one's command over the laws of nature. Taken to its extreme, it produces a Herrscher with dominion over a fundamental force."
He paused. "Fascinating."
It had all started a week ago.
At dinner that evening, Kallen had slammed her chopsticks down on the table.
"Otto!"
He blinked, caught off guard by the sudden outburst. "What's wrong?"
"Look at what this game made you into!"
She shoved the tablet in front of him. On the screen was a screenshot from a cutscene. The Otto in the game was gazing at something with a meaningful, cryptic look, a faint smile on his lips that made the skin crawl.
"A villain! A full-blown villain!" Kallen fumed. "And a five-hundred-year-old monster on top of it! How could they write you like that!"
Theresa chimed in quietly from beside her. "Actually, Grandpa as a villain is kind of cool."
"Theresa!"
"I didn't say anything!"
At the time, Otto had simply laughed and soothed a ruffled Kallen, telling her it was just a game and not worth taking seriously.
But that night, he downloaded Honkai Impact 3rd.
And then he couldn't stop.
Now, he turned to the next page of his notes.
It was a reconstruction he had built from the game's existing story and character details, working backward to trace the life of his parallel-world counterpart.
Born five hundred years ago. Childhood friends with Kallen Kaslana. Kallen, likely having died to save others. And himself, in the long years that followed, driven by one singular obsession: bringing Kallen back, extending his own life by any means necessary, crossing every line in pursuit of an answer.
He stopped turning pages. His gaze landed on the final line he had written, a note added in his own hand.
That version of me must have died long ago.
"A five-hundred-year-old relic."
He repeated the phrase quietly, and the faint smile at the corner of his mouth faded.
"More than that. The me in that parallel world and the me here are very different."
He raised his head, his gaze drifting past the windowpane to somewhere far away.
In what way, exactly?
The Otto here had Kallen.
The Otto here had never had to endure that kind of loss.
The Otto here could live something like an ordinary life: being scolded by his wife at dinner, spending weekends being dragged into games by his granddaughter, handling company matters that were, in the grand scheme of things, not all that important.
But the Otto of that other world.
Otto slowly narrowed his eyes.
"Is it possible," he murmured, his voice barely audible, "that it all comes down to Kallen?"
He looked down and turned to the next page.
It held his reconstructed theory, built from what he knew.
Five hundred years ago, Otto had tried to save Kallen. He had failed. Her death became a fracture running through the rest of his life. From that point on, what walked in his body was no longer Otto Apocalypse, but something driven by obsession, a creature shaped entirely by the need to bring her back.
He had pursued every field of knowledge, mastered every available method, crossed every moral boundary, all for that single goal. And somewhere in those endless centuries, he had perhaps forgotten entirely who he had once been.
The gentle young inventor had died the same day Kallen did.
Otto read over the words he had written and sat in silence for a long time.
From elsewhere in the house came the sound of laughter, Kallen and Theresa playing some game in the living room. Kallen's voice carrying over, Theresa's protests following close behind.
The sounds were distant, and yet they weren't.
Otto didn't turn around. He only looked at the materials in front of him, at the parallel-world version of himself he had pieced together piece by piece.
"So this is it," he said quietly, as though afraid of disturbing something. "The life of the me in that other world."
A life without Kallen. A life belonging to something long dead that still kept moving.
He thought of that other Otto in the game, those cryptic smiles, that calculation kept carefully sheathed. He and the others had assumed at the time it was just standard villain characterization.
Looking at it now, he recognized it for what it was: the sediment left by centuries of loneliness.
"Fascinating." He said the word again.
But this time, his tone was different.
He closed the folder, leaned back in his chair, and shut his eyes.
Two images surfaced and alternated in his mind.
In one, a young version of himself stood beside Kallen before a stained-glass window in a church. Sunlight poured through the glass and fell across them both. Kallen was laughing, saying something. He was turned toward her, a shy and gentle smile on his face, the kind that only belonged to someone very young.
In the other, a five-hundred-year-old version of himself stood alone in an empty church. No sunlight. Only solitude and obsession keeping him company.
Which one was the real him?
Both.
Kallen's voice carried in from the living room again, this time calling out directly: "Otto! Get in here and help us figure out this level!"
Otto opened his eyes.
The green gaze that looked out now held none of the weight or depth from a moment before. There was only something very quiet, somewhere between relief and gratitude.
"Coming, Kallen," he answered.
He stood, took one last look at the documents on the desk.
"The you from that world," he said softly, as though speaking to a version of himself that didn't exist, "you've worked hard."
Then he turned and walked toward the living room, toward the light, the laughter, and Kallen.
In the living room, Kallen was staring at the screen with a troubled expression. Theresa stood beside her, directing loudly.
"Here! Jump here!"
"I can't! I'll fall!"
"Then go left!"
"There's an invisible wall on the left!"
Otto walked in and sat down beside Kallen.
"Let me see," he said, his voice gentle.
Kallen handed him the controller, still muttering under her breath. "This game is so hard, but the story is really good. That Otto is so insufferable though. Not you, obviously. My great inventor."
Otto took the controller. A quiet curve came to the corner of his mouth.
"You're right. The Otto in the game is insufferable."
His tone was light, carrying a smile that only he could fully understand.
Back in the study, the documents lay undisturbed on the desk, waiting for their owner to return tomorrow.
And all of it: the thoughts about a parallel world, the theories about another version of himself, the questions about what might have been if Kallen had died, all of it had been left behind in that quiet, private moment.
Because right now, he had something more important to do.
Like helping Kallen clear this level.
. . . . . . .
One more chapter today, making up for yesterday. I got stuck and the writing stalled. I'm not going anywhere.