"You're off to handle your own affairs?"
Mobius put down the file in her hands and turned to look at Xin Yu, who had appeared by her side at some unknown moment. This was the first time he had come to the laboratory without being asked, which meant something significant was about to happen.
"Yes, I'm going to face a friend in a battle of life and death. If I live, I will return with a higher state of being, and then I will fulfill my promise to your future self and eliminate this civilization's Herrscher of the End. If I die… then everything will end here."
"The meaning of time and space will be completely twisted into the past, present, and future will all occur in the same time period. The fundamental logic and underlying physical laws of the entire universe will shatter, with chaos becoming the new ruler. All living things will fall into silence. After this destruction, there will be no rebirth, only an unchanging cycle of ruin."
"Mobius, I love you."
Mobius did not show any hint of shyness at her lover's sudden confession. Instead, her expression grew heavy as she gazed at him. The usual bewitching charm on her face was gone, replaced by the kind of solemn and earnest expression she only wore when conducting academic research.
"Is the opponent you're about to face so powerful that even a time traveler like you must treat this so seriously?"
"Because the enemy I have to face is, in essence, myself. This is a battle between me and I. If I win, I will still be me. If I lose, I will become him."
"Will you win?"
"I don't know. I have no certainty of victory."
"Why is it that you clearly command the power of time, yet the time we spend together is always so brief? It feels like we have endless time to use, yet why is our parting always so rushed?"
Xin Yu fell silent, unable to answer. This battle was, in the truest sense, his final boss battle in this world. As long as he defeated this final boss, all subsequent difficulties could be overcome with the purest accumulation of time.
By defeating the Heart-Demon and reclaiming his most complete self, Xin Yu would also break free from the shackles of being mere energy. He would evolve from a pure energy lifeform into a concept, an existence.
It would be a dual evolution of both soul and body, an ascension from the material plane to the informational plane.
That would be Apotheosis.
"There's nothing I can do to help you. On the contrary, you've always been the one helping me…"
"No, Mobius. If we had never met, if you hadn't offered a sliver of companionship to the me who crawled out of the Void, perhaps my problems would be even more severe now, and this battle would be even more difficult. Your existence is very important to me."
"...You must come back. My supporter, my love."
"Mm."
Xin Yu gently embraced Mobius for a final moment, then his entire being dissolved into an illusion and vanished.
On the moon of the future, a white-haired figure sat on the grass, still holding that bowl of instant noodles. This time, however, she showed no surprise at the figure who suddenly appeared before her. Instead, she smiled and lifted her bowl.
"Want some?"
"No need, Kiana. I'm about to face a duel, one I might not return from."
"Mm, is it against the past Xin Yu?"
"More or less. If I win this time, I will rewrite all tragedies. I will make this world beautiful enough!"
"It feels a bit like when we all prepared to face Kevin, except that time we were deciding the fate of the Earth. This time, you are deciding the fate of the future."
"Kiana, wait for me."
"I will."
"I didn't tell Mei about this. She has a very strong personality. If she knew I was going to do something so dangerous and that she couldn't help, she would definitely feel frustrated."
"Mm, I won't tell her."
"Mm. And remember, it's fine to eat instant noodles occasionally, but eating too much isn't good for you. Also, even if the past you is helping you with your studies, the future you shouldn't slack off either."
"Mm, I know."
"Well then, see you in the new world."
Xin Yu's body shattered like a mirror, transforming into countless fine specks of dust that dissipated on the moon's surface.
Kiana continued to hold the bowl of noodles. She stared silently in the direction Xin Yu had vanished. Even after the noodles in her hands grew cold, she didn't eat them, nor did she throw them away, as if she was waiting—waiting for someone to fulfill a promise they had made.
In Nagazora City, at a shrine on a mountain in the outskirts, beneath a blooming cherry blossom tree, stood two small grave mounds. One was inscribed with the name Yae Rin, the other with Yae Sakura.
Xin Yu held a small bottle of cherry blossom wine, a vintage he had created using the power of time.
"Sakura, see you tomorrow."
Xin Yu poured all the wine onto the ground.
Afterward, his body dissolved into countless fine grains of sand and fell to the earth.
His final stop was a place that was once his home, the place he lived before the destruction of Nagazora. It was his first home in this world, the first place his heart had acknowledged as such.
His consciousness began here. The dazed and ignorant him who had just awoken then knew nothing at all, relying only on the fragmented and blurry impressions in his memory to find his way in this world.
Xin Yu looked at the dilapidated ruins before him. With a mere wave of his hand, the villa from the past reappeared in an instant. He pushed open the door and walked inside. Everything was so familiar, yet for some reason, it felt tinged with a hint of strangeness.
He walked into the bathroom on the second floor and looked at the familiar bathtub, as if he could recall the bewilderment he felt when he first woke up in it.
Leaving the bathroom, he returned to the bedroom and looked at the familiar clothes in the closet. It seemed he had only worn them twice—once when he had just awoken, and once when he had just emerged from the Void, wearing the clothes that came with him.
He turned on the computer. Guided by a certain intuition, he searched through it for a while before finding a folder tucked away in an extremely hidden corner. The folder had no password. After opening it, he found a single text file.
He opened the file, and a notepad popped up, containing only a few sentences.
[I don't know which 'me' is reading this now, and I don't know if my plan will succeed, but I believe that no matter which 'me' it is, they will definitely go on to achieve the goal I desire.]
[If Dad finds out that I hurt so many people and even abandoned a better life just to go home, will he scold me? Crap, just thinking about Dad getting angry and scolding me makes me a little scared.]
[But still, I'm more scared of the image of my dad being all alone.]
Xin Yu silently closed the computer.