Stories and situations which follow a story-line where Momonga IS Momonga; further elaboration: He still remains as a Player Avatar, and continues to exist without the influence of Suzuki Satoru. The result: One that is entirely unexpected. No-Nazarick, for reasons.
Very weird that no one did this before. Consider this as a late Christmas present.
Further elaboration: Momonga essentially was a doll just before being brought to the New World, with nothing else but his spells, staff and power, he struggles to fit into a world where his entire existence is repudiated and chased to extinction.
This chapter focuses in not only his beginnings, but his first principles and long-lived quirks that suspiciously are very similar to one certain salary-man.
I recommend you to read this while listening to this song in a loop:
watch?v=EJLNLWv-nmM
(I think this version of Guts' theme actually resonates with this Momonga's lifestyle, if only for a bit)
Before coming to life, or, better said, 'un-life', he was… "asleep", for a lack of a better synonym.
Momonga did not know what he did during that lapse of time – which he felt was a long time ago indeed, nor how, nor why.
But something was certain: whatever kind of dream, or existence, or whatever kind of deity or supernatural force decided to conceive him, they did not half-ass his creation: why of course, with the humongous sense of power he wielded in each, ringed finger.
And the silky robes that caressed his arms, his shoulders, his spine… and the magical knowledge of seemingly a thousand sages.
However… he felt hollow, as he stared towards the night's sky.
He didn't know what was magic, nor didn't he know what was silk.
Standing upon a grassy plain, which he had never saw before, nor did he even know what grass was in the first place, only that he knew that it was, the Overlord was surrounded in a small, encapsulated state of idle thought and reflection.
'Who am I? What have I done, to go through this eternity of uncertainness?' The Overlord was neither surprised nor unsurprised of his… admittedly curious vocabulary, but that was beside the point, and he did not know the answer to that question.
For a long and long time he stood there, silent, obliviously staring at the wildflowers with reddish orbs of total undeath, feeling the muffled, yet utterly baffling sensation of bones scraping against his bony fingers, and the slick, cool feeling of the golden, twisted staff gripped in his left hand.
He did not know what this Staff was; only that he felt himself becoming affectionate towards it, and consequently surged a sudden, mysterious sense of longing and sadness as he further stared at it, which didn't last long, due to his undead nature.
For another moment, one lacking any kind of eventfulness and distractions, Momonga stood quietly, staring indolently at his surroundings. And then, a very interesting thing – at least in his eye-sockets - happened before him.
A small rabbit ran from some place hidden in the gigantic expanse of green, darting itself through the grass with rapid hops. Its presence, utterly inexistent, its life pointless in the eyes of many, and its uncertain, useless future – it all captivated Momonga.
For as small its life it can be, it had purpose, it had a drive… something that just a while ago - that just felt like an eternity for the Overlord - he lacked. It was, thanks to such a small and powerless animal, that he then found the irresistible urge to solve a very huge mystery in his eyes:
'Why do I exist?'
He then made his first steps, as the urge then coursed through his hollow body, feeding into his core like blistering coals into a furnace.
'What is my purpose?'
The Staff's contact with the earth was silent as his own footsteps, but the vibration and the strength which he used to grip it was resonating from his arm towards his chest, and then his legs, and to his skull. Momonga stared at the sky again, this time now glaring at it with something similar to… determination.
The Overlord walked through the plain, as he mulled over that question, always coming with a lack for an answer, frustrated.
He didn't realize that, with each step he took towards the completion of his dilemma, he immediately ended the life surrounding the place where his foot made contact.
His mind was gradually whirling with magical theories and experiments, and something like the painting of a great castle, surrounded by equally large buildings etched itself at the front of his mind.
Yet he pushed the covered ambition down, deigning it as a shallow thing – a product of a wild, pointless imagination.
The Overlord, a walking contradiction, an oblivious hypocrite even to himself, kept walking through the plains, reflecting on his seemingly small existence as he destroyed many others with the care of someone stepping on an ant.
But if the question came as to what he felt that day… he'd say he felt himself even lower than an ant. Because ants serve to their queen, they build, they protect, they maintain, they grow and evolve.
While he had no one to serve, he felt pointless, he destroyed with each step, he was stagnant, he was the antithesis of grow and he didn't evolve.
Maybe that was because ants have a purpose, while he didn't have at that day.
He found, rather quickly, as he stared at the two children's pale and lax horrified expressions, that he did not feel anything towards this… disturbing stillness in them.
A stillness he felt he could impose on others rather easily, and was undoubtedly unparalleled in making such a thing.
The feeling of… the void in this conglomerate of still-people was strong, yet not suffocating. It was like… refreshing. Yet he did not know why.
Momonga was realizing he essentially did not know anything that was not directly part of him; the grass and the silk being obvious examples.
Which was something that worried him, feeling so… ignorant of things, he wanted to stifle that worry, to get rid of it through any means necessary.
And he was shocked of such fervor in a thing that he felt moments ago not so important.
The fire, however, was indeed an uncomfortable and very sudden revelation of his unknown state; he did not know what it was, and what it did, but he didn't like it, and as such, he stood away from it. And so he opted to push the corpses around with his Staff instead.
The still-people were heavy, and their lack of reaction was sowing uneasiness in him – it was not the fact that they were still, but that he didn't know why they were like that, and how. Momonga did not question such a thought process, considering it as something normal.
As normal as something as he could be.
The Overlord heard weeping behind him, and confronted with such a sad, heart-rending sound, he just turned around, rather stupidly-looking, and glanced around, looking for the source.
And he discovered it under a pile of still-people; another one, but the obvious difference was that they were not still at all, with these sobs racking their whole body and the way their lips trembled violently…
…and the way their eyes widened almost impossibly at the sight of him looming over them, eye-sockets glaring straight into golden eyes…
"D-Death…" The moving one said, and he cocked his head, curious despite his complete oblivious apathy towards their suffering and anguish, and he swiftly said, against his will,
"Death? What is that, but just another empty word? No, I'm not death, my name is Momonga."
The moving one did not know what to say against his abrupt answer, and he didn't blame them, feeling confused to his uncalled verbal retaliation, but ultimately not feeling regretful about correcting the moving one's assumption about him.
"Please," they said after an uncomfortable moment of silence, struggling under the ashes and weight of what must be like ten still-people, "Please, I beg of you, help me…"
In another world, where he may not be himself but the container of another soul, and another mind, he would say otherwise…
…but this Momonga, while he did not know what was right or what was wrong, he complied their request, just because he hadn't a drive through all the night. And he could serve this one, if they would let him, at least temporally; to give him something to spend his existence on.
He crouched down – a weird sight for sure, with the awkward way his knees bulged under his robes and his humongous shoulder pads being a bit problematic –feeding further disbelief into the moving one's mind and expression.
And as he made to grip their outstretched arm and to pull them off the pile… the moving one screamed, as scorching marks appeared on the very same place his fingers brushed their skin.
Momonga jerked back, shocked, and the moving one cradled their arm with their other hand, betrayal and growing hatred pooling in their eyes… and he felt the need to compensate his wrongdoing.
"I apologize," he said with most honesty, but the way his grim form eclipsed the Sun and his deep voice sounded, the moving one's restlessness was not very assuaged by his words.
Momonga looked at his hand, feeling confused and troubled. 'Why can't I touch them? Is this something inherent to me? Am I so powerful that I just vaporize anything at close range?'
But it didn't feel like that, and Momonga tried to look for another way to circumvent this complication. And he found the easy solution: a switch on his mind appeared as he stared at his wrist, and with trepidation, he flipped it down – and the complete sureness that he wasn't dangerous anymore instilled itself in his mind.
Unbounded by hesitation, Momonga tried to grip the moving one's shoulder again, undeterred by their attempts to get away from him. And without any harm done to them, he pulled them off the mountain of still-people.
But he did not expect for them to break on tears and to slump to their knees.
It was with this feeling of half-success and half-failure that he stared the golden crown of hair of the moving one's head, and he stood there, his presence muted yet not unquieting for them.
It would be a long time until noon before they would recompose themselves.
"I'm Enri," They said, after they cleaned their face of mucus and tears, and Momonga easily remembered the name, and attached it to the moving one's look for the coming future.
"And as I said before, I'm Momonga," he replied, just to be sure – though he didn't know why bother, it was like that name meant too much for him that he couldn't properly explain it.
The moving one, Enri, stole a few shy glances from their bangs, their hands wringing in their lap, and Momonga stood still as a pole, looking straight at their eyes, unknowing of subtlety and being suave.
They remained like that for a while, not knowing how to proceed – for her part because she didn't even expect Death to come at her razed village and for his part Momonga did not know anything.
Until with one, brief surge of braveness, she asked, "Why are you here?" And promptly cowered even more, shrinking into herself and expecting a long, painful death.
Momonga, breaking her expectations, replied with honesty, "I don't know."
She looked back at him, genuinely puzzled, "Why won't you? It doesn't make sense."
He nodded, and then elaborated, "I only woke up since midnight, and I don't know where this is, or why I'm here, or even what I am." He didn't feel any remorse of not doing so, but certainly he won't resign himself to live like that.
Enri now openly stared at Momonga, slack-jawed and floored by the Lich's unexpected honesty. She was no expert on magic or necromancy, but knew that undead were much known for being mindless and preying on the living with no rest.
But this… this Lich was different.
"W-well, I don't know what to say…" She said lamely, but Momonga just nodded his head and then stood there, unmoving. Understandably uneasy, Enri squirmed in the spot, and then asked, "What's wrong?"
"I don't know," Momonga said, and for the first time their conversation, he looked towards his hand, clenching it, and then said, "I don't know what I should do, or what I want."
Enri pursed her lips, the burden of loss and tragedy almost in the back of her mind as she stared at the Lich, "Well, do you even have an idea of…" She didn't know what she was even saying, "…no matter, I don't know what to do myself."
The fact weighed like lead in her stomach, and she gripped her hair with both hands. "I just lost my family, I don't have anyone else – I don't know what to do."
Momonga was silent, and after a moment, he said, "I do not know what it must feel like – losing a family, that is." He kept staring at her even though she wasn't looking at him anymore.
"But I think you should go on – I do not think you'd like to stay here."
Enri replied abruptly, "Well, I'd like to die here and right now!"
A moment of silence, and then, Momonga said, utterly serious, "Are you sure?"
She whipped her head at him, feeling dread at her foolish choice of words, especially considering what was before her, and she backpedalled furiously, "No! NO!... I – I don't want to die."
Momonga took a long moment staring at her again, and Enri was sure she'd be ignored and the undead would comply with his nature… but it didn't, and she calmed down gradually, as Momonga then cradled his chin.
"I know that many have an instinctual sense of survival, and you are no doubt one of these people," he started, much to her confusion, and he went on, "It is tightly bound to the wellbeing of others aside one's own, but it is too related to other attachments – whether they be spiritual, physical, or romantic."
Enri heard every single word, stunned by this Lich every time it talked, and Momonga then said, "I want you to think hard and through of what do you really want – do you want to die? Or do you have anything else to live for?"
The answer took time, but it ultimately came. "I – I think I feel something for someone," she felt complied to answer truthfully – what she knew if this undead was being serious in his questioning? What if it meant the difference between life and death?
Momonga nodded, and she knew she made the right choice. "Excellent, live with that."
'Because comparing myself with you, I don't deserve to exist, at least now.'
Both of them looked at each other, and it started as a seed, but it was there.
Enri didn't exactly believe of an unconditional friendship – that with the enmity between all the races… but until one day in the future, she may remember this, and we know what she may think about that.
Momonga didn't know anything about the meaning of understanding, until now.
"Why do we exist in this world? Are we bound to destiny, or is destiny just a means to give a sense of meaning to our existence? Many think that I'm unbounded to reality – and, inevitably, to destiny.
Somehow, looking back to what I was since the beginning… I can't say they are wrong."
My god, pretty much too many pretentious shit, but I wanted this fic to exist by any means.
So yeah! A Suzuki Satoru-less Momonga, and one character I can experiment with and one that can be entirely malleable to any kind of belief and reasoning. I think people should do this with other Avatars or hell, even NPCs.
See ya later folks! And happy late-Christmas!
Btw, could someone PM me? I'm in a dire need of a beta reader, seriously.
Burnt arm