As the sun dawned on San Francisco, Momo reflected on the fact that her name had, at some point along her journey, become its own verb.

  To momo it, as Sumire had summarized for her on one late evening, both of them drunk on some kind of cabbage wine and talking until the sun rose, meant to perform a series of seemingly unrelated actions, in a non-chronological order, in order to achieve an end that to anyone else would seem stupefyingly impossible.

  To momo it, meant, in short: to just go for it, and hope it would work out in the end.

  This stupid phrase—this silly, drunken confession by Sumire—was something she held close to her heart as the next few moments unfolded.

  And by next few moments, she meant getting promptly yelled at by a System Administrator after using [Dark Healing] on the policemen.

  WHAT DID WE TELL YOU ABOUT USING YOUR FORMER SKILLS?

  YOU KNOW WHAT I don’t even have the energy to talk in caps lock anymore.

  I’m tired.

  Just—just do whatever you want.

  Kyros will probably eliminate this department in the next few days anyway now that he’s really in charge of things.

  Not sure where I’ll end up after that.

  I mean, if you’re already in Hell, what comes after?

  Bye, Momo.

  “Jesus,” Momo mumbled, before slowly widening her eyes.

  Did she just say Kyros was… in charge of things?

  The funeral—the transfer of power—Valerica’s plan—

  Had it already happened?

  Had Momo missed her chance?

  Hopelessness began to dig into her bones. Momo stared at the sky, feeling numb. Had it all ended, and she wasn’t even there to witness the oblivion?

  Richard snapped his fingers brazenly in front of her face.

  “Yo. Useless Goddess Lady,” he grunted, scowling. “About that plan?”

  Momo turned to Richard, already wincing.

  No. It didn’t matter what the state of the Nether was, she decided.

  Here and now—protecting humanity, for all of its naive inconsequence—that was still enough. That would always be enough. She took a deep breath in, and steeled herself.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t—” She sighed. “Yes, the plan. Of course.”

  He nodded eagerly, then interjected, "Don't leave out any details. I hate people who leave out details. I'm going to need a full view of the case. Suspects, alibis, locations, potential weapons. The whole lot. Don’t skimp out on a thing.”

  That drew out a laugh from Momo. He was being completely serious.

  "This isn't exactly a case, Mr. Smith—”

  “Everything is a case.”

  Richard leaned in close, so close that Momo could see the bruised, purple-ish skin under his eyes. A prize from his fight with the demons, Momo assumed. But that wasn’t what caught her eye. It was everything else. The man had enough wrinkles and scratches and creases on his face to mark a treasure map; it wasn’t that he looked old, per se, just… exhausted.

  She clearly wasn’t the only one who was haunted by demons.

  Stolen story; please report.

  "If I can't solve Laura's,” he continued quietly, glaring down at her. “I'll focus on this one. You never know. Maybe I’ll strike two power-hungry pigeons with one stone."

  Richard’s eyes slid over to where the woman was standing, still healing one of the policemen. Not from the injuries they’d suffered from the demons, but instead helping him recover from throwing up repeatedly after Momo used [Dark Healing] on him.

  It was a useful spell—but it wasn’t exactly a fun one.

  “If you don’t mind me asking—” Momo began, following his gaze.

  “I do mind,” Richard interjected instantly, eyes narrowing as he pushed her lightly on the chest. “If it’s about Laura, it’s off limits. Client confidentiality.”

  Momo sighed. Richard was bright—but also very stubborn. Like talking to the personification of a brick wall.

  “You don’t have to worry about all that. I already know about Rosemary. And what happened with the company. How he made off with everything Laura built.”

  He blinked at her, thrown off.

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  “I’m a god, dude,” she said, throwing her hands up. “I hear things.”

  Okay, so, not totally the whole story. But she left it vague on purpose. She didn’t think she’d win many points by telling him that she was eavesdropping on his conversation in the form of a fruit fly.

  And, on top of that, Momo definitely didn’t want to have to explain to him that he was running on borrowed time. His death clock was still very much clicking forward.

  For how long—she had no clue.

  Richard chuckled darkly.

  “Alright, goddess. I owe her,” Richard said. When Momo opened her mouth to interrogate further, he glared at her. “No. That’s all you’re getting.”

  Momo sighed.

  A dead man was allowed his secrets.

  “Fine.”

  ***

  “So, Kyros is the perp. Earth is the victim. Nether Demons are the murder weapon?”

  Momo sighed. “Well. There are quite a few other perps. And victims. It’s more of an interconnected graph than a flow chart, but, yes, sure. That’s one way of seeing it.”

  Richard and her stood under the shade of a nearby building as they watched the policemen begin to pile into armored vehicles. Laura had agreed to go with them to the shelter up north; it was where her mother and father were. Richard had assured her he’d follow her there as soon as he “finished business.”

  Whatever that meant. He spoke like a character in a film noir.

  But Momo had not missed the way Richard lingered, like a father, before Laura departed. They hadn’t hugged, but Momo knew from his eyes that he wanted to. There was more there than he was letting on—not a romance, like Momo once thought. Something deeper. Something beyond lawyer and client.

  She wondered, not for the first time, why the universe had chosen this man, of all people, to be her first victim as reaper. If it was coincidental, another random roll of the die in this universe of chaos, or if it was actually predestined. If they had something to learn from each other somewhere in this mess.

  It was funny—she’d literally met her creator, found out she was a desperate, depressed mess, and still Momo wanted to believe in something as romantic as fate.

  She couldn’t kick the optimist inside her, even if she tried.

  “Alright, M. I’m starting to get the picture,” Richard said, turning toward her as the vehicles whirred away, sirens blaring. Momo shook her head at the nickname. “So you can—what. Turn the demons from bad to good? That’s your plan? How are you supposed to do that at any sort of scale? The whole Earth’s raddled with these things.”

  “I— I think it’s easier if I show you.”

  Momo lifted up from the wall she’d been leaning on, and pressed her fingers to her neck. The mana gem was still embedded there.

  Kezko had been a mad scientist. And this situation required a level of insanity.

  Closing her eyes, she whispered Body Double.

  Over the course of the next few minutes, the amount of Momos doubled, then quadrupled, until she was surrounded on all sides by duplicates.

  The first of the roster, Momo recognized immediately.

  “Oh, come on,” Mallmart Momo groaned. “Couldn’t you have picked a workday?”

  Her younger twin was outfitted in sweatpants, a hoodie, and fluffy bunny slippers. She had a laptop tucked under her arm, still playing the intro to The Office.

  “Sorry,” Momo said, but she wasn’t. She grinned. “No time like the present.”

  “Oh, shut up. This isn’t even my present.”

  The rest of the group was far more agreeable—i.e. silent—than her delinquent teenage self, but they were also completely foreign entities to Momo.

  Sure, they shared her wide brown eyes, and her penchant for whimpering excessively after time travel, but everything else was different.

  The second Momo had red prickly skin, like a goblin; the third was human, but dressed in a scientist’s coat, holding three beakers in a tray and chewing on a pen, looking more sleep deprived than a mother of seven; and the final one was, oh, actually—

  “You’re Momo,” Momo laughed, feeling insane. “Like—from the movie.”

  Dressed in a skin-tight, cleavage-first white dress was a replica of the Momo she’d seen in Daehyun’s acting debut. She had naturally white hair, long and luscious, and seemed almost ethereal. Not to mention that her face was completely poreless. She wasn’t a poor imitation. She’d jumped straight out of the movie screen.

  So, here was her motley crew: her younger self. Herself but… red. Herself as a… scientist? And herself as a goddess on a television show inspired by a fake rendition of her backstory as rendered by Roger Earth. Great. Wonderful. It wasn’t exactly the hero squad she’d been hoping for. But interdimensional beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  Richard, to his part, didn’t look fazed. If anything, he looked like he was adding Momo to the possible ‘suspects’ column. She couldn’t exactly blame him.

  “Hi, everyone,” she said, taking a deep breath. Here goes nothing. “Sorry to disrupt your weekend. But, if it’s any consolation, the whole universe is at stake?”

  Mallmart Momo turned to the rest of them, and rolled her eyes.

  “She always says that.”

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