Xin Yu looked at the somewhat unhinged smile on Otto's face, his eyes downcast. His tone remained as calm as ever as he said, "Otto, what if I could change the past of 500 years ago? Change the mistake you once made, and allow the person you love to live longer. What would you be willing to pay for that?"

"Everything."

Otto answered without a moment's hesitation.

"...If you can answer one question for me, I will change your past."

"Oh? A single question can fulfill a wish I have held for 500 years? Then this question must be an exceedingly difficult one to answer, wouldn't you say?"

"Yes. It is a question that I myself have been unable to find a perfect answer for, despite all my contemplation."

"Then please, esteemed traveler of time, tell me what kind of question has troubled you for so long?"

"After humanity defeats the Honkai, what path should they take?"

Hearing this, the smile on Otto's face, which he had been wearing just a moment ago, gradually faded. He frowned, sitting in deep and profound thought.

Otto remained lost in thought for a long while before letting out a deep sigh. Looking at Xin Yu, he slowly shook his head.

"I can offer some answers, but they all boil down to concentrating the majority of power into a single organization, or even into the hands of a single person. Only then can humanity be unified."

"But that is not the answer you want. You want the evolution of human civilization. You want the evolution of human morality. You yearn for something far more greedy, for an age where every man is a dragon, an age that is almost unimaginable in its truest sense."

"We could perhaps use some kind of power to rewrite people's thoughts, to rewrite their hearts. Only then could humanity truly join hands in peace, truly work as one toward the good."

"If you are expecting humanity to evolve to that degree on its own, then please forgive my bluntness, but that sounds even more absurd and inconceivable than my own dream."

In his 500 years, Otto had seen many things and met many people. He understood all too well what kind of species humanity was.

To expect every single human to be kindhearted? To be able to let go of past hatreds and join hands in peace? To be able to work as one for the development and great harmony of the world...

And to want to achieve this without the intervention of any supernatural power.

Frankly, it was more realistic to discuss how to reverse time.

"I see. It seems I was caught in a fallacy, foolishly hoping for a better outcome without doing anything... In that case, it seems I must still choose that path."

Xin Yu nodded. Since a perfect answer was unattainable, he would have to choose a relatively perfect one. Even if it couldn't score full marks, getting 90 or 80 points was still acceptable.

It was just that the path he was thinking of taking would ultimately lead to an imperfect ending for some people.

No, that wasn't right. He could still give everyone a perfect ending.

"Otto, thank you for your answer. If even you have no way of making everyone good without relying on special powers, then that proves I must walk that road."

"...While I don't know what you plan to do, it seems, my friend, that you have chosen a path fraught with thorns. It will be tiring and painful. When you walk this path to its very end, you may find that nothing but a void awaits you. Even so, are you truly willing to walk it?"

"Some things must be done by someone. I was fortunate enough to live in this world, fortunate enough to gain special powers, and fortunate enough to have people I can love and who love me. This world has been so good to me, so I should do something for it in return."

Otto looked at the genuine smile on the young man's face, at the utter lack of shadow in his eyes... How could it be so similar? He felt as if he were seeing Kallen, seeing the same smile that bloomed on her face when she decided to become a phantom thief to help the poor. It was just as pure, just as beautiful.

"Mr. Otto, would you like to take a look back at the past?"

Xin Yu smiled and extended a hand toward the man before him.

"...It is what I have desperately sought and could not obtain."

Without any hesitation, Otto grasped that hand.

In an instant, time reversed, yin and yang were overturned.

When Otto regained his senses from the strange, twisting distortion of his surroundings, he found himself in a familiar place. It was a place that had haunted his dreams for countless nights, the place where the life of the man named Otto Apocalypse had begun.

He saw a small, crying, golden-haired boy, and he saw a white-haired girl perched on a surrounding wall.

He watched as the white-haired, blue-eyed girl invited the boy to play with her.

The girl praised the creations the boy invented with all her heart, calling him a great inventor and inviting him to save the world with her.

The boy tasted the flavor of recognition and praise. It was the first praise he had ever received in his life, the first time he had received recognition from another.

He etched the girl deep into his mind. She was his light, his salvation.

And she was also the beginning of the story of the foolish man named Otto Apocalypse.

"Sigh! Big brother, why are you crying?"

Otto was suddenly snapped back to reality by a voice at his ear. He looked down and saw the white-haired, blue-eyed girl looking up at him with concern.

"You were just standing here all by yourself with your eyes closed, crying. Did something sad happen?"

Perhaps it was due to the kindness in her heart that the girl was worried about this stranger before her. She thought for a moment, then waved to the somewhat timid boy standing in the distance. When the boy came over, she took the toy bird made of wood and paper from his hands and offered it to Otto.

"My friend, the great inventor, made this. It's amazing, right? Tell all your troubles and worries to the little bird, and it will fly to the sky and take them all with it! Then maybe you won't be sad anymore, right?"

Otto took the toy bird from the girl's hands. He smiled, a smile more gentle than any he had worn in his life. He knelt and gently stroked the girl's head, saying, "Thank you, our little hero."

"Heehee! You're welcome! Dad said that a knight of the Kaslana family is supposed to help others!"

The girl placed her hands on her hips, her face beaming with a proud smile.

Otto stood up. He held the bird in his hands and released it into the air.

"Oh! It's flying!"

"Wait for me! Kallen!"

"Okay! Let's go together!"

"Mhm!"

Otto watched as the two small figures ran off into the distance, a smile of unprecedented tenderness and sincerity on his face.

He vanished into the gentle breeze. When the two children picked up the paper bird and looked back, the strange big brother was long gone.

"...Kallen, what is it?"

A young Otto Apocalypse asked quizzically, looking at Kallen, who was staring intently in the direction where the strange man had disappeared.

"Hmm... I just feel like that big brother looked a lot like you, Otto."

"Like me?"

"Your hair and eye color are exactly the same, and you look a bit similar too! Could he be an illegitimate child of your family who got lost?"

"I don't know."

"I just don't know why... why that big brother was smiling so happily?"