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Momo the Ripper | Book 4 - Chapter 1
🕑 Added 2024-01-22 11:38:18 +0000 UTCMomo lay with her face to the damp grass. Her mouth tasted like dirt and hot saliva; her arms ached, her back ached, her chin ached—which she didn’t even know was possible.
It was the kind of full-body pain where it stopped becoming pain, and entered into the realm of utter numbness. She was no longer a person, she was no longer a girl or a demon: she was simply an arrangement of parts, a tied together suit of limbs which screamed, in heavenly concert, to never, ever exercise again.
In other words, Momo was experiencing the joys of a regular cardio routine.
“Get up,” Nia commanded.
The assassin stood above her like a gargoyle. They were standing in the middle of a wide open field, flattened grass for miles and miles. The sky was blue and perfect, the clouds out of a painting. Everything was surreally beautiful, almost mockingly so.
“I don’t wanna,” she muttered into the dirt.
“Get up.”
“I—Nia, my everything is cramping.”
“That’s how you know it’s working. Now, up.”
Nia shoved her boot under Momo’s stomach, rolling her onto her back like a tipped cow. She winced as the full force of the sun beamed down on her. She was wearing nothing but tight exercise shorts and a tank top, but it still felt blistering.
She groaned. “We have a perfectly nice cold, underground cellar to practice in, you know.”
“Summer’s heat turns rough rocks into diamonds,” Nia said, in that faux-poetic, sneering way she did sometimes. “And, with practice, it might turn sedentary queens into barely-athletic human beings, too.”
Momo was quite certain she just enjoyed seeing her in pain.
Ears ringing, she fished the grass blindly for her sword; eventually, seconds or hours later, she found its hilt, stinging hot. Then, gripping it tightly, she hauled herself upward on wobbling legs, until she was vertical once more. The green fields spun like a dreidel.
Standing before her was Nia, dressed in sun-eating black, and apathetic as ever.
“You look like a twig that’s about to break off its trunk,” Nia remarked with a raised eyebrow. She pressed a hand roughly to Momo’s chest, and watched the way she struggled to keep balance, her knees wavering. “See? Terrible form. We’ll have to work on that.”
Nia wore mana-depleters on both wrists, but, unfortunately for Momo, that did nothing to suppress her physical prowess. Her body had a myriad of purple-brown bruises to show for it.
“On guard stance,” Nia said coolly. “Give me half of X formation.”
No energy left to complain, Momo obediently shifted her feet, and bent her knees, positioning her sword forward. Nia had insisted that she only train with one of her rapiers to start—a gimmick that Momo thought they would abandon a week in—but, as Nia claimed, she hadn’t earned the privilege of a second sword yet.
It had been seven weeks now since they started training, and, by Nia’s indication, Momo had gotten no closer to a breakthrough than a dog who offered its paw when it was supposed to bark. Her body was still as limp and useless as it was the day she got afflicted with Mana Disease; she could only run for up to three minutes, or fly for seven. The heaviest weight she could carry was Dusk, who she had begun to use as a barbell.
But nothing—not running, not weightlifting (for as much as you could call bench pressing a cat weightlifting)—frustrated her more than this exercise.
“You ready?” Nia asked, craning her arm back. She wore a black, magically-enhanced brace on her left hand, protecting her fingers and forearm. “If you want to back down, just say—”
“Shut up,” Momo groaned, then began to count down. “Three, two, one…”
At once, Nia thrust her hand forward, and Momo sliced with her sword; the two collided with a sizzle of black energy, just holding each other, arm-wrestling. An all-powerful rapier versus Nia in a glorified bite sleeve, and it took all of Momo’s strength just to keep Nia from overpowering her. She cried out, eyes closed, teeth biting down on her lip. Wind swirled around them like a mild hurricane; crackling energy surged from the place their weapons met.
Nia began counting up. The ringing in Momo’s ear got louder and louder, her wrists felt numb and weak, but she persisted.
“Six seconds, seven seconds, eight seconds, nine seconds, ten—”
“Ten seconds?” Momo said, gasping for breath. “That’s a new—”
The wind rushed from her lungs. A hundred sparkling stars ran across her vision.
“Record,” Nia finished with a sigh, catching Momo in her arms before she fell into the dirt.
For the second time that day, Momo had fallen completely unconscious.
“Right,” Nia said, rolling her eyes as she lifted Momo into her arms, bridal-style, and began walking towards the city once more. “I think that concludes sword practice.”
—
Momo awoke, hours later, to the smell of sea-salt tea. Her eyelashes fluttered open to find the familiar white-coated ceiling of Sumire’s apartment staring back at her. Their apartment, as of a few months ago, when Sera toppled Momo’s former highrise home like a domino.
The pirate loomed above her, frowning softly, cup of tea already in hand. Her braids tickled Momo’s cheeks as she placed the mug on her chest. It was warm, but not hot, just like Momo liked it. She brought it up to her lips and sipped casually.
“Fainting twice a day doesn’t look like rest, Momo,” was the first thing out of Sumire’s mouth.
Momo winced. The tea might not have been scalding—but her tone was.
Sumire took a seat on the couch next to her, resting her head to stare at the ceiling. Momo, never one to let tension simmer, nudged her with her foot, until she was facing her again.
“But I hit ten seconds today,” Momo whispered proudly. “That’s my best yet.”
Sumire rolled her eyes, but a proud smile did creep up her lips.
“That’s not the only form of progress worth measuring, idiot. For instance, I count your wins based on how many times Nia is delivering you, knocked out, to our living room.” Sumire sighed, then took a sip of her own tea. It clouded up the pirate’s reading glasses endearingly.
Momo deftly changed the subject. “How’s the rebuilding project going?”
Sumire’s eyes brightened, but then narrowed.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” she said, slapping Momo’s foot. “But reconstruction is going well. We should be able to let people back into the capital soon. Not to mention that most of the chicken electricity lines are back online.”
“That’s great.”
“It is,” she said, pointedly. “It’s something you should be proud of. Your queendom has survived multiple attempts on its life, and yet, she persists.”
“I wish it was so easy to put me back together,” Momo muttered into her tea. “I wish I was made of bricks. And cement. That would be so much more convenient.”
“Sure, if I wanted to date a house,” Sumire groaned, and Momo laughed. She had a point. “Don’t be stupid. You’re a human being. It’s going to take time. I just…” Sumire softened. “I want you to be able to appreciate what is improving. Not just fixating on what isn’t.”
“Yeah, no, that’s great… I’m sorry.”
Momo brought her knees to her chest, and rubbed her temples in aggravation.
“The queendom matters way more than me losing my stupid little powers. It’s funny, I just—I used to never have powers, like not even in the supernatural sense. I couldn’t even do algebra. I didn’t realize how attached I was…” she paused. “To necromancy. To being able to tap into the Nether like I did. And I can still feel that connection, like some kind of phantom limb, but I can’t … I can’t access it. I used to be able to innately sense my limits, you know? But now I just ram my head directly into the wall, head-first. Like cannonballing into concrete.”
“You mean constantly passing out into another woman’s arms,” Sumire jabbed, cocking her head to the side and narrowing her eyes. “Which I won’t classify as cheating, but it’s straddling the line pretty close—”
Momo laughed, pushing at the other woman’s chest. “You’re ridiculous.”
“No, you are ridiculous. The medic said the only way to recover would be to recover. You need to do something that isn’t magic, that isn’t lifting your cat, or arm wrestling Nia—you need to find something that makes you stress less, not more,” Sumire pressed, her eyes wide, beautifully brown and vulnerable. But that vulnerability quickly changed to something sweeter—enamoration. “Come on, you idiot. Didn’t you used to have hobbies?”
Momo went quiet, blinking silently. Her mind went to her notebook. She had died an art major, after all. Not one with a degree to prove it—but still.
“I guess I did,” she mumbled. “I would draw celebrities from television shows I liked. And my cat.”
“There we go,” Sumire said, pinching her nose. “I was worried you were going to say no for a second. So,”—she clapped her hands together, and pressed her face closely to Momo’s, so close the tips of their noses almost brushed—“screw Nia. I’m taking over this training program, and I have a better idea of what’s going to get you to that breakthrough.”
She got up from the couch and walked over to her set of drawers, opening one that required a small key. It was a thin drawer, one that could only hold several sheets of parchment. From it, she pulled out a map, wrinkly, worn and old.
“Back when I was a sea scavenger, we dug up a lot of old treasure maps. Most of them were bullshit,” she explained, folding the map out on the coffee table. Momo leaned over to look at it. It spanned the entirety of Alois, with several red symbols dotting the landscape. “Even so, Akram and I spent a lot of time hunting down the marks on the slim chance that one might be genuine. This map was one of the rare ones—we nearly got rich off of it.”
Momo’s eyes glowed with interest, and she subconsciously leaned ever-closer to the woman. Her favorite thing about Sumire was always her storytelling; she could make anything—really, anything—seem like a grand, popcorn-worthy tale. She once told a story about locating a bathroom that kept Momo glued to the edge of her seat.
“Nearly being the key word here,” Sumire said sorely, scowling; it was clear it was still a subject of deep-seated annoyance for her. “A group of pirates from the Elven Empire beat us there, but, whatever. Who cares. It wasn’t the treasure that really mattered anyway. It was where each gambit was buried. The landscape was… utterly, disgustingly beautiful. The guy who buried all this treasure was a painter—and you can tell. He picked the best landmarks this planet has on offer. I forced Akram to finish the map with me for that reason, even though I knew the chests would probably be empty. He was mad at me the whole summer, but it was so worth it.”
“That sounds beautiful,” Momo said warmly, a genuine smile taking over face. For the first time in weeks, she had been taken somewhere else—even if it was only in her mind, she felt the muscles of her body relax simply by envisioning Sumire charting that course. Sailing past mountains and deserts and rocky cliff sides. “So, are you inviting me on a cruise across Alois, or something?”
“You wish,” Sumire grinned cheekily. “No. Someone needs to run this city. And that person is, of course, the vastly more competent Vivienne, but someone has to watch her run this city, on the slim chance that she tries to turn it into a Sera-worshiping hellscape.”
Momo snorted. “I’d admire her commitment if she tried, though. Third time’s the charm.”
Sumire rolled her eyes. “Knowing you, you’d pardon her again, then put her in charge again. Which is why I’m not going anywhere. But you,”—she pressed a finger to Momo’s chest, the same place that Nia had, trying to show Momo her own vulnerability—“are going to get out of dodge for a bit. Just a bit. Like, a week. No grand, world-sweeping quests where I don’t see your ass for half a year. No. I have just one place in mind.”
She took a quill, dipped it in ink, and circled a specific place on the map. It was in the west of Aloysius, in the middle of a ragged pouch of mountains. Momo had only been to that area of the continent once before, and it was in the valley, not the mountains. That’s where Valerica had her little experience farm full of mindless undead. A soft, lovely memory.
“There are these two parallel mountaintops there. The Twin Ivories,” Sumire continued, hoisting up two fingers. “It’s the one landmark I didn’t get to see. And since I can’t come with you, I’m trusting you to capture it,”—she grabbed a fistful of art supplies from under her desk, and an empty, untouched journal—“you can bring this, your swords, and a backpack. Oh, and Dusk. That’s it. No one else. Especially not Nia.”
Speechless, Momo shakily gripped the thin fabric of the notebook. It had a stunning cover. It was dyed blue, and it was embroidered with little sail boats, bobbing up and down through a leather sea. It was obviously hand-made.
“You’re sure I can have this?” Momo said softly, pressing it to her chest.
“Yes,” Sumire said, then leaned in, pressing a kiss to Momo’s cheek. “But that better be one hell of a drawing. Now,”—she rose from the couch and yawned—“I have to go check on the progress of the tower rebuilding. You can focus on breaking the news to your cat. This trip is as much for her as it is for you. She’s getting incredibly overweight off that high-price tuna.”
“Overweight? She’s literally a skeleton,” Momo complained, but Sumire was already out the door, and Dusk was encroaching on the couch. The cat had a difficult time adjusting at first to the new apartment—it was a lot smaller of a domain than she was used to ruling—but she had soon come to like the cozy setting. It had a lot more furniture to ruthlessly scratch.
Leaning down to catch her, Momo hoisted Dusk far above her head. Somehow, despite looking exactly the same, maybe Sumire was right. Her bones seemed… more dense.
“Did you hear Mire? You and me are going on an adventure, buddy,” Momo informed her. Dusk meowed annoyedly in response, swatting her paw lightly at Momo’s nose. “Don’t give me that. Of course I’ll pack enough tuna.”
That seemed to settle the cat.
“Yeah, that shut you up real fast,” she mumbled, shaking her head. How spoiled. “And, you know, I’m actually pretty… excited. It’ll just be you, and me, and a notebook. It’ll be just like the old days with Luna back in highschool.”
A flash of memory crossed her mind—curled up with her calico cat, buried under her comforter, sketching endless doodles as the television droned on.
“You never met Luna, but I think you two would get along. You’re both stubborn, and hungry, and constantly complaining, but she had a lot more fur, and… less exposed vertebrae.”
It was only several moments after Dusk started whining to be put down that Momo even realized what she had been doing. Her mouth dropped open just a hair—speechless. It had been a struggle for her to lift Dusk for even a few seconds just a day before. In fact, she had been keeping a notebook on the table next to her, which she reached for, heartbeat pounding.
Day 1: 4 seconds
Day 2: 4 seconds
Day 3: 3 seconds
Day 4: 5 seconds
Day 5: 6 seconds
Day 6: 4 seconds
…
Day 40: 7 seconds
Day 41: 7.2 seconds
Oh my god.
She kept Dusk lifted in her hands for as long as she could manage, even as the cat’s complaints grew louder. It wasn’t until her elbows started buckling in that she finally let the cat down.
Breathing heavily, she reached for her pencil.
Day 50: ~40 seconds? A minute?
She stared at the page, unable to look away. Only when she became fully self-aware of how peaceful she had been in that minute, did the ringing in her ears return, full force, like a jet engine. It was almost like it had never left. But she knew it had, no matter how fleeting.
For the first time in months, her brain hadn’t been an endless loop of: I have to get my powers back, I have to get stronger, I have to rebuild the capital, I have to find Valerica, I have to save Morgana, I have to get back to the Nether. All she had been thinking about was her childhood cat, and a particularly awful sitcom episode.
She sighed, stood, her knees wobbling, and grabbed her backpack off a hook on the wall.
“Come on, Dusk,” she said, lowering the backpack so the cat could jump inside. “We have to leave before I have to tell Sumire she’s right.”
Comments
JHD
That week vacation will turn into a months long adventure. We know this, Sumire knows this and deep down Momo knows this.
jalapenochips
Yay more romance and low stakes fun with Dusk!
sebsebs
Let's goo Thanks for the chapter !
