Stopping or reversing time?
Enjin's reflection already sprinting forward while he still stands in the back to activate his time powers is such an awesome detail I missed.
So now the question: what exactly did he do here? We have two options:
he stopped the time and we're seeing the last millisecond of him before he did that while his reflection shows him moving forward
he reversed the time and we're seeing two Enjins because the panel shows us two different timelines overlapping
(there is also the option that Enjin accelerated his own time to move faster but that would've looked different, imo)
My gut tells me that stopping time is easier than reversing it. Which would make the repercussion Enjin will face more severe if he did the latter. The moment where he cuts Mymo doesn't show any strange effects like the special anima the watch exudes. So I'm leaning towards stopping time.
And also, splitting the punishment into two tiers gives us the option of dramatising his next use of it.
But if the watch only has one ability, and if that ability is of course the stronger one, then we will definitely see the last moments of chapter 164 again but not as they were presented to us. We'll see the original timeline of events; a scenario where Enjin was too late before he changed it:
But I have to go back to Alto's warning.
The immediate connection we made at the part "Not even... to help someone else" was a straightforward "don't even help this baby".
But what about Rudo's fingers? What did Alto do to make that happen? Common theory is that it's genetic and that Alto suffers the same. I'm presenting my own theory on that but it's more a thought experiment:
Rudo's blackened hands are the punishment for using the watch but it's a special kind of punishment that only affects those who should've died in the original timeline but were saved by reversing time and changing the events.
What could've happened to Alto was his family being killed. So in his desperation he used the watch to save Rudo at least. But then they both were punishment for it and Alto knows with what. He knows that Rudo's entire body will soon turn black and that his son will suffer immense pain until he dies miserably. The only option Alto sees against that fate is leaving the Ground for the Sphere with whatever method he has available to him.
So his warning against helping someone is specifically about preventing that painful and miserable death. Who else on the Ground would even have the option of fleeing to the Sphere? And as we know, Rudo still suffered heavily because of his hands. The user of the watch gets punished too, probably with an even worse fate, so why bother?
Better not use it. Better to let any event take its natural path.
But as Enjin said: Don't push the button is code for push the button.
And maybe the the two-tier split of the powers does exist which would prevent Enjin from becoming like Alto and Gountess from becoming like Rudo.
Enjin...
...stopped time
...reversed time
Voting ended onMay 2
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