Neither of them spoke first when the call connected.
Su held the communicator, fingers pressed against its edge.
Kevin sat off to the side, his glass of liquor barely touched, eyes fixed on Su Yu.
Cioara kept wiping glasses, unhurried, as if she'd seen this kind of scene play out too many times before.
A few seconds later, Otto laughed first.
"I didn't expect it to be you."
His voice came through the communicator, crackling faintly with static but carrying that same unhurried tone as always.
"I'd actually assumed tonight would be the night Su reported his progress on the Arc City assignment to me."
Su Yu leaned back against the barstool, turning his glass idly. The ice inside clinked with a crisp sound.
"That just goes to show the Bishop's intelligence network is running half a beat slower than a kid's learning tablet."
He raised his eyes toward the wall of liquor bottles ahead of him, as if studying the bottles — or perhaps someone a thousand miles away.
"After all, tonight it wasn't just your prize student who nearly got buried alive in that bomb shelter. If that place had blown a little slower, my people would've gone down with it too."
The line went quiet for a moment.
Otto didn't immediately rise to the bait. Instead, with practiced ease, he redirected the conversation entirely.
"Speaking of which, how's the progress on Kiana's psychological recovery plan coming along on your end?"
The other three people in the bar all wore the same odd expression.
"You've done remarkably well. I hadn't expected you to track down Siegfried and Cecilia's long-lost biological daughter so quickly — let alone work out a treatment method. As their former teacher, I'm genuinely gratified."
Su Yu let out a short, incredulous laugh.
"Worthy of Bishop Otto — that pivot from confrontation to compliment, your Reaction Speed is truly something else."
"That Oscar-worthy duet you and Bronie put on earlier — I still remember it vividly. Especially the part where you strung Theresa along; I nearly wanted to stand up and applaud."
"Oh? It seems we share a common language in certain professional fields, then."
"Such as how to team up and con Theresa."
"Or, say, what counts as a 'benevolent omission.'"
Back and forth they went, sounding like idle pleasantries on the surface, while every line quietly undercut the other.
Su sat off to the side, his temples throbbing, and couldn't stop himself from gulping down a large mouthful of his drink to steady his nerves.
These two old coins had barely traded three lines, and the air in the bar was already thick with gunpowder.
It was like two bloodless blades laid on the table — neither man in a hurry to draw for real, both instead testing each other relentlessly, sheath against sheath.
Otto chuckled on the other end.
"Since you're still willing to bring up old matters with me, it means we can at least sit down and talk calmly."
"Of course we can talk."
Su Yu's tone stayed loose, betraying nothing.
"This should count as our first genuine direct conversation, wouldn't it, Otto?"
"Strictly speaking, yes."
Otto's voice remained steady and even.
"Though from that game you developed, I've already 'heard' your true thoughts many times over. Those rebellious plotlines, those lines of dialogue that struck straight at the soul, those figures standing in the ruins who still force themselves to keep walking forward... If I may be a bit presumptuous, I've sometimes felt we've already had deep exchanges across time and screen, long before this."
"To have a grand bishop become a fan of a game I made — I'm truly flattered."
Su Yu paused a beat after saying that.
When he spoke again, all trace of amusement was gone from his voice.
"All right. Enough of the empty pleasantries."
"Time to settle this mess of an account."
The bar went suddenly quiet.
"Su's sudden deployment back to Arc City — that was a mission you personally authorized, wasn't it?"
"That's right."
"Then do you know what grade of banned drugs that gang in the underground bomb shelter was using tonight?"
Otto went silent for a moment, considering.
"That's a rather delicate question. Do you think I ought to say I know — or that I don't?"
Su Yu didn't rush to fire back anything sharp.
He simply lowered his eyes, gazing calmly at the glass of iced spirits sitting on the table in front of him.
The next instant, the amber liquid in the glass gave an eerie little shudder, as if lifted from underneath by an invisible hand.
Not a single drop spilled.
It simply vanished into thin air, silently, in front of everyone's eyes.
Meanwhile.
In Europe, inside the Schicksal Bishop's office.
Otto stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, hands empty a moment ago.
But the instant his gaze shifted slightly, a glass of liquor appeared beside the desk.
Fine cold beads of condensation clung to the glass, and the ice inside slowly turned in the liquid, knocking together with a crisp, chiming clink.
Otto's eyes — the ones that always seemed to be calculating ten moves ahead — finally changed in that instant.
He didn't reach for the glass. He simply stared down at it, unblinking. His breathing had grown noticeably heavier than a moment before.
A full five seconds passed before he managed to pull his trademark smile back into place.
"Well, my thanks to Mr. Su Yu for such a thoughtful gift, delivered clear across half the globe. Unfortunately, this drink looks far too strong — I doubt I'll dare touch it."
"Didn't we already say we've had 'soul-deep exchanges' many times before?"
Su Yu leaned against the bar, his tone almost lazy.
"Since we're old friends now, if one day I'm in a good mood and suddenly show up right in front of your desk for a nice face-to-face chat, that wouldn't be unreasonable at all, would it?"
The words were light.
But everyone understood exactly how much weight lay beneath them.
This time, what got sent over was a glass of liquor.
Next time, it might not be quite so civilized.
Otto went quiet for a few seconds.
He looked at the glass on his desk — the glass that had no business existing there — and the faint trace of condescension in his eyes finally vanished.
In that moment, he had to admit that all his prior assumptions had been far too conservative.
He'd known Su Yu wasn't ordinary.
But he hadn't imagined that 'not ordinary' would extend this far.
Manipulating space itself.
Sending a glass of liquor across thousands of miles, straight to his hand.
And if that damned power were turned to a different purpose?
It wouldn't just be a drink that could arrive.
A missile, a blade, even... an entire heavy-armored task force.
All of it could appear inside his most guarded stronghold as easily as pouring a glass of water.
On the other end of the line, Su Yu didn't press him. He simply waited, patient.
Kevin and Su both stayed silent; even Cioara's hands slowed, quieter now.
A few seconds later, Otto spoke again.
"Well then, I won't be so rude as to refuse — thank you, my dear student, for the fine liquor sent from so far away."
He absorbed the pressure with an air of nonchalance, giving himself a convenient way down from the moment.
"Speaking of which — that large sum I had Theresa wire over under the guise of an investment, did it reach you? I genuinely believe in that game of yours. Please, keep up the good work."
Hearing that, Su Yu's expression eased slightly. This old fox found his exit ramp fast.
"You don't need to trouble yourself over the game."
"Though I can give you a preview. Later on in the story, there's a scene that'll hit people pretty hard. I think you'll like it when it comes."
"Is that so? Now I'm looking forward to it."
"Don't worry — it'll be a genuine highlight."
"Then let me thank the screenwriter in advance for his kind favor."
The two of them, separated by the call, laughed at the exact same time.
Each laugh more polite than the last, and each more hollow than the last.
Su and Kevin, sitting nearby, listened with twitching eyes.
Between these two top-tier old snakes, every pleasantry that came out of their mouths sounded like a noose being tightened, one word at a time.
"All right."
This time Su Yu didn't beat around the bush any further.
"Now that Mr. Otto has accepted my drink, it means we can finally sit down and talk about what's next — like adults."
He tapped the rim of his glass with a fingertip.
"You already knew Schicksal's intelligence network in Arc City is in my hands now, didn't you?"
"That wasn't hard to guess."
Otto answered plainly.
"After Siegfried and Cecilia entered Arc City, contact with them on my end nearly went dead. They'd clearly joined some organization. Given their clearances and the resources they had access to, it was only a matter of time before you took over the intelligence network here."
"So you just went with the flow, and gave Su this near-suicidal mission as a probe to test the waters?"
Su Yu's tone stayed flat, but the protective anger simmering underneath was clear even to Su.
Otto let out a long sigh.
"Since we've come this far, I won't dance around it any longer."
"Schicksal's interior has never been an unbreakable slab of iron. I can more or less trace the outline of what you and Welt have been doing in Arc City."
"And that terrifying anomaly that appeared over Arc City's sky a while back — that's already made certain people back at headquarters extremely uneasy."
"Your secrecy has been near flawless, but paper can't hold back fire forever. The so-called doomsday prophecy, the so-called Anti-Entropy Titan Project · Mass-Production Type mech project... within Schicksal's upper echelons, there are more than a few who can read between the lines."
"Most of the fools are still kept in the dark, assuming Shenzhou's official channels are running some kind of intimidating clandestine arms program. But the old foxes who've been in this game long enough are different. One glance at that abnormal sky is all it takes for them to realize things are far from that simple."
"Su Yu, honestly, I've wanted to have a real conversation with you for a long time. I just never went through with it."
"Why not?"
"Because I know full well that certain words, spoken in the wrong setting, would only accelerate humanity's Destruction."
Otto stood by the window.
"When humanity faces a catastrophe it cannot resist, unity is one option — but seizing power amid the chaos to satisfy one's own desires is another. And more often than not, the latter moves far faster than the former."
"I knew from the very start that when Su went back to Arc City for the investigation, he'd very likely face assassination attempts. He's a student I value, and the head of several of my core projects. There are plenty of people who'd love to clip my right hand and take his position for themselves."
"But I also knew — given how protective you are — you'd never sit back and let him die on your own turf."
"And the fact that you're on this call right now proves... I guessed correctly."
Su Yu didn't answer right away.
The bar's lighting fell across half his face. He stayed silent for a few seconds, then asked, very directly:
"How much do you know?"
"The answer is — not much more than those old fossils know."
Otto let out a bitter laugh.
"Even now, my mind is still frantically running through scenarios, trying to figure out what irreversible mistake this world has made. But rest assured, I won't be reckless enough to dig any deeper at a moment like this."
"Because Schicksal's upper ranks are already rotten with traitors, I have to prepare for the worst — what if I fall someday? If I learned every ultimate secret from you now, and one day couldn't withstand interrogation and gave it all away, this world's order would collapse entirely, once and for all."
Su Yu raised an eyebrow, his tone dripping with mockery.
"I really didn't see this coming — the ruthless, decisive Bishop Otto, turned out to be some noble martyr enduring humiliation for the sake of all humanity's order."
Otto let out a self-deprecating laugh on the line.
"Justice, you say?"
"Unfortunately, what I consider justice might not look like justice to anyone else."
No one in the bar picked up that line.
Su stared into his glass and suddenly thought that the two of them talked like they were sparring in tai chi.
Every line landed somewhere, but never fully struck ground.
And yet, listening to all this, he had to admit — at least half of what Otto said was probably true.
Su Yu dropped the sarcasm.
He took a deep breath, his voice settling into the calm cadence of a negotiator.
"Then let's be straightforward, Otto."
"Oh? What insight does Mr. Su Yu have to offer? I'm all ears."
"Your ultimate goal is to preserve what fragile order this world still has left. My ultimate goal is to defend whatever future this world can still limp toward. Since our overall directions align, there's no reason for us not to cooperate."
"And what would this cooperation involve?"
"It's simple."
Su Yu raised his eyes.
"I won't tell you the truth. You can guess, you can speculate — we'll keep that part of things sealed off from you."
"All I need from you is one thing."
"Rein in Schicksal's overreaching hands. Don't let them set foot in Arc City again."
Silence fell on Otto's end — clearly, he was running a frantic mental cost-benefit analysis.
After a few seconds, he finally spoke, slow and measured.
"Since this is a partnership, I suppose I'm entitled to some compensation in return?"
"Your compensation is that once we survive this apocalypse, this world will still have something resembling order."
Su Yu's answer was ice-cold.
"Instead of everyone holding hands and watching it rot into an unspeakable pile of garbage together."
"And besides — haven't you long found those old relics inside Schicksal, always pressuring you into retirement, insufferable?"
Otto said nothing, his breath catching faintly.
Su Yu kept piling on.
"You've just personally felt a taste of my Strength. You're a smart man — you understand that in the face of absolute Strength, no shady conspiracy stays hidden for long."
On the other end, Otto finally, fully understood the killing intent behind his words.
"You'll help me physically eliminate my rivals?"
"You're overthinking this."
Su Yu let out a mocking laugh.
"Cleaning house with your dirty hands is your job. I'll just handle rooting out the rats with hidden agendas, one by one."
"Whether you hang them from a lamppost or sink them in the sea afterward — that's your business. I'd rather not get my hands dirty."
Otto went completely silent.
This silence stretched longer than any before it.
Truthfully, before he'd even picked up this call, there'd been a knot of unease in his chest.
Not fear of death — fear of dying meaninglessly.
And now, the price Su Yu had laid before him was exactly the one thing he couldn't possibly refuse.
Order.
If the world truly ended, then Schicksal's glory, the hollow notion of justice, even Kallen's dream that he clung to more than anything — all of it would become worthless scraps of paper.
From that coldly rational angle, Su Yu wasn't wrong at all.
Aside from bowing his head and cooperating, he had no second path left.
Finally, across the line, Otto let out a slow, heavy breath.
"Fine."
"Since that's how it is — here's to a pleasant partnership."
The soft clink of ice against glass came through the line.
Otto raised the glass of liquor that had appeared out of nowhere on his desk. On the bar side, Su Yu didn't hesitate to raise his own empty glass.
Separated by thousands of miles and an impassable void, unable to see each other, the two of them wore the exact same knowing, cold smile at the exact same instant.
"Cheers."
"Cheers."
Physically, the glasses couldn't touch.
But the conspiratorial understanding between them was more than enough to stir up a storm.
Su and Kevin sat nearby — one rubbing his forehead, the other staring at the ceiling.
Cioara finally couldn't hold it in and thought to herself:
Damn, these two sure know how to talk.
Two old foxes tugging at each other across the miles, and somehow they'd actually hammered out a deal that would reshape the whole world's balance of power.
"Oh, right."
Su Yu suddenly spoke up again.
"One more thing."
"Let Su tell you himself."
With that, he slid the communicator across to Su.
Su snatched up the communicator, and for a moment, visibly froze.
The feeling was like being suddenly called on by the Dean right in the middle of that dizzying, high-stakes battle of wits — his mind stalling out for a beat.
It took two seconds before he spoke.
"...Master Otto."
On the other end, Otto's voice instantly softened by several degrees, taking on a warmth full of elderly affection.
"I'm listening, Su."
Su gripped the communicator, took a breath, and let his shoulders slowly relax.
"I won't be coming back to Schicksal."
"I have a more important mission to complete."
When he said this, his voice wasn't loud at all.
There was no heroic, life-or-death bravado to it, no tragic sense of betraying his old order.
It sounded more like something he'd finally spoken aloud, on some exhausted night, a decision that had already been carved into his bones for a long time.
The line went quiet for a moment.
Then Otto spoke.
"I understand."
"But I hope you understand too — there will always be a place for you in Schicksal."
Beside them, Cioara nearly dropped the glass she was holding when she heard that.
Her brow arched as she silently complained in her head.
What kind of melodramatic nonsense was this?
'Teacher, don't contact me anymore, I'm afraid Su Yu might get the wrong idea'?
Before she could finish grumbling to herself, the call was cut off with a merciless click.
The bar fell back into a silence so complete you could hear a pin drop.
Only the lazy jazz music kept flowing on, tireless.
Su tossed the communicator onto the table, his fingers hovering stiffly over it for a moment.
Kevin had already risen to his feet. His broad palm clapped Su on the shoulder before he glanced over at Su Yu.
"Want some air?"
"Let's go."
Su Yu picked up his empty glass and stood.
The three of them went up the narrow back stairwell of the bar, all the way to the rooftop.
A sharp, biting night wind hit them full in the face, jolting them instantly awake.
Arc City's dazzling cyberpunk lights spread out endlessly beneath their feet, block after block, all the way to the edge of sight.
On the elevated highway in the distance, streams of traffic trailed red-and-white afterimages.
The massive neon ads between the buildings bathed the low-hanging clouds in a reddish glow.
The suffocating sense of conspiracy from the phone call earlier faded a little, thinned out by the wind at this height.
Su stood right at the edge of the rooftop, glancing down once at Su Yu's glass.
Kevin stood on his left, hands in his pockets.
Su Yu stood on his right, glass in hand.
The three of them stood in a row, looking down over this still-humming super-city.
None of them rushed to break the quiet moment.
After a while, Su Yu was the first to raise his glass.
Kevin followed suit, raising his right hand in unspoken sync.
Su was only a beat behind, lifting his hand high as well.
The glass caught what dim light there was, refracting a faint gleam.
"To tomorrow."
Su Yu said it softly, gazing at the distant skyline.
"To tomorrow."
Kevin echoed, expressionless.
Su looked out over the city beneath them.
This sprawling super-city of millions still slept on, oblivious.
The countless people living inside it, busy and hurried in all their different ways, had no idea about any of the brutal truths concerning the apocalypse, Honkai, or the future.
"The sun's about to set — aren't your children afraid?"
Su suddenly recalled a classic line from a science fiction novel he'd once read.
He remembered clearly that the book's answer was:
"Of course not. Because he knows the sun will rise again tomorrow."
Su let out a long breath, and finally spoke up softly in turn.
"To tomorrow."
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