"Hey! Look what I just found—a self-aware temporal pseudo-crystal!"
A bright, mischievous voice sliced through the primordial chaos. A slender silhouette stepped into view, delicately pinching a teal-green crystal between its fingers.
"Someone from another dimension is meddling with the Imaginary Tree."
The figure chuckled, low and amused, then pressed the crystal with a fingertip.
"Heehee… the combined power of a million Captains—an authority that surpasses the Tree itself. Whose little game is this?"
A divine gaze drifted to a single leaf on the vast Imaginary Tree, tugged by invisible threads.
"How utterly fascinating."
A black tentacle unfurled lazily.
Poor little world… How could a projection that eclipses the Imaginary Tree not make the knowledge-seekers below salivate?
…
December 23, 2013. Schicksal Headquarters.
"Lord Overseer, do you have any further orders?"
"No, Amber. Leave me with my old friend for a while."
Amber paused at the faint smile on Otto Apocalypse's face, a flicker of puzzlement in her eyes.
"Understood."
She set down the prepared red wine, closed the door quietly, and—on her way out—deftly confiscated the game console still open to Kallen Fantasy.
"You could have spoken sooner. Red wine suits the great romantic far better than childish games."
Once Amber left, a phantom materialized beside the desk—an exact duplicate of the seated Otto.
"I'd say," the real Otto replied, smile softening just a fraction, "a man whose secretary polices his gaming time wouldn't mind the console disappearing."
As if.
If he hadn't only just transmigrated and didn't dare make waves, he would have shown this thing what "if there's work, the secretary handles it" really meant.
He was no longer the canonical Otto Apocalypse of Honkai Impact 3rd or the Second Eruption manga. He was a fanfic writer who had, by some cosmic joke, been dropped into Otto's body after touching an old book that burrowed into his mind and flung him across worlds.
Of all people—why the pure-love war god himself? The cunning Overseer he'd once cursed with every fiber of his being?
The same Otto he'd called "dog Otto" while sobbing over The Last Lesson.
The same bastard whose Thus Spoke Apocalypse left him speechless for days.
He'd once joked online that if he ever transmigrated into Honkai, he'd pour wine on Otto's grave and smash the glass on the headstone.
And now he was the man he'd despised.
He shook his head, forcing the storm of emotions down. Self-pity could wait.
Survival came first.
"Void Archives," he said calmly, expression perfectly composed. "I'm glad you're staying so calm."
He had to bluff—and bluff well.
He mimicked Otto's familiar mannerisms while deliberately letting tiny inconsistencies slip through: a slight hesitation in posture, a micro-twitch in his fingers.
Void Archives would have noticed the change already. Five hundred years of mutual murder attempts—from Kallen's execution to Otto's ascent toward the Imaginary Tree—had forged an intimacy neither could deny.
In A Post-Honkai Odyssey, it had worn his face and voice without flaw.
Otto/Kallen might be the "official" ship, but Otto/Void shippers had won the long game.
She knew a new tenant occupied the body.
That wasn't necessarily fatal. Void Archives had never been loyal to the original—it had always coveted the body for itself.
So why hadn't it tried to seize control the moment he arrived?
Was his soul unusually resilient? Did he have some hidden golden finger? Or… was it afraid that erasing him would let the original Otto return?
He dismissed the first two possibilities. The third, though—that fear was real.
He could use it.
A self-destruct threat crossed his mind, but he shelved it. That card could only be played once, and he wasn't ready to cash it in for mere coexistence.
For now, he needed to amplify her unease, nudge her toward helping him out of self-preservation.
He clenched his fist beneath the desk and spoke with measured calm.
"Of course I am Otto Apocalypse, Overseer of Schicksal."
"Oh, my dear old partner," Void Archives replied, head tilting with smug amusement. "Let me guess—you're about to claim you've simply lost some memory data, making you seem… different."
Good idea.
His eyes widened a fraction, a soft gasp escaping.
"You…"
He let the word hang, then steadied himself.
"Old friend, you know me too well."
Void Archives sneered inwardly. The real Otto would never lose composure so easily. This impostor might have inherited memory fragments and studied the original closely, but he was still a cuckoo in the nest.
"What exactly are you missing, then?"
It decided to play along. This Otto seemed far less troublesome than the last.
"I lost…" He clutched his chest, letting a trace of vulnerability surface. "Every memory of the days I spent with Kallen Kaslana. I only retained third-person observations."
"I can't understand why I was once so obsessively stubborn. I have no desire to fall back into that madness."
Void Archives's interest sharpened.
In five hundred years, it had seen countless humans break the same way.
Its form shimmered, shifting into Kallen Kaslana—sky-blue eyes bright, long fair legs bare, silver hair cascading.
"So you no longer feel attachment to this body?"
The illusion stepped closer, bending to meet his gaze. A delicate finger hooked under his chin.
"Could you say that again, O-t-to A-po-ca-lyp-se?"
The voice was Kallen's—perfectly synthesized.
His breath caught. Even knowing it was fake, even not being the original—
Damn, she was good.
He recovered quickly, letting raw greed flicker across his eyes. Not the original's pure devotion. Just base, human desire.
"Look what I've found," Void Archives murmured, delighted. "The Otto Apocalypse, lonely for five centuries, actually feels lust toward little old me?"
"I don't," he said, voice steady despite the slightly faster rise of his chest.
"Ah, of course not," it replied, smile widening. "No worldly desire for an artificial intelligence. It's… her."
It snapped its fingers. The form shifted—pink hair, fox ears, heavy-lidded seductive gaze.
Yae Sakura.
The original Otto would have felt nothing for the pink-haired miko who once complicated Kallen's past. This one's eyes clouded for a heartbeat before he caught himself.
"You—!"
Before he could finish the scripted outrage, the illusion spun again.
"And how about this, my dear Lord Overseer?"
Rita Rossweiss—elegant, teasing, dangerous.
He hid his inward scoff. The real Rita was his maid in black stockings; an illusion couldn't compare.
He froze anyway, lips parting—only to be interrupted once more.
"And… how about this?"
Silver hair, black armor, gentle eyes, absolute territory—Cecilia Schariac.
The woman he'd regretted never "boarding" in his previous life.
His gaze turned strange.
Cecilia was married. Dead. Killed by the previous tenant of this body.
Void Archives, in Cecilia's soft voice, smiled as if reading his thoughts.
"Because if it's an Otto who has grown weary of the original Kallen," it said, "perhaps he would develop an… interest in a Kallen with a different personality~"