Momo Kisaragi's Greatest Hits

Momo Kisaragi's old idol dreams were childish. Bright screens and speakers in dark rooms had taken little her away to wild dreams and fantasies. And when all those pretty older girls told her that she could fulfill her dreams if she just believed in them and herself, she followed them without question.

As for when she started asking questions about those dreams and guides, it was when the sea had taken her loving father away and spat her back out like she was too icky for Death's guts. Maybe her father had wanted her to live, but idols never caused their loved ones to die, right? By the standards she held herself up to, Momo Kisaragi was a failure.

Of course, Momo Kisaragi didn't want to spend so much time looking at herself as a failure. Her mother insisted that she wasn't a failure, that what happened was an accident. But it wasn't her mother's belief that convinced Momo to stop sulking. Instead, Momo didn't want to feel any more responsible for her family's sadness.

Desperate to escape that feeling, Momo doubled up on doing her best.

"That's a pretty ugly drawing for a light novel illustration, but I guess it is pretty meme-worthy..."

"Have you heard how the writer who asked for her drawing's a lolicon?"

"Come on, don't make her feel any worse! Kisaragi's mother's already a widow, and her brother's outranking her skills at everything, if what I've heard's true!"

And then Momo got what she expected...though a little too easily. She knew she did, and she believed that she deserved the gossip. She vowed to herself to never undertake commissioned work again, then. Along with that, she kept herself at home whenever school and family didn't ask her to go out, and she got herself a punching bag, which she asked for as a birthday gift, to practice her self-defense. Other than that, she'd just spend time lazing around in the digital world.

That was Momo Kisaragi's life after her father's death and before high school. She thought that she wasn't much of a bother to society, especially her family, by being a loner, but...

"She already said it herself: She sucks at art! What do you guys see in her, then?"

"Well, she is pretty cute...and hot..."

"I'm not gonna stand for being outranked in popularity by this bimbo!"

How Momo still consumed idol things, even though they were more of the 2-2.5D kinds than anything else, seemed like quite a miracle to herself whenever she had to go through such horrible experiences. Maybe it was her accursed desire for attention, reliance, and love, which brought her trouble every single day she had it. Her classmates treated her like a dumb animal or a mindless object, her neighbors liked to make humor at her expense, her mother would work herself too much, and her older brother would remind her that he never needed her at all. Even worse was when she realized that she couldn't see herself letting go of that desire.

So when Momo was street-scouted to become an idol as she entered high school, she secretly considered it her deathbed, hiding that negativity under the pretense of wanting to help her family and inspire other people. Yet somehow, she kept on running whenever danger called.

And then she met Tsubomi Kido. And then the Mekakushi Dan. Her brother's grown-up self came along, too, and so did her brother's long-lost friends. Her life had changed in the span of a few August days.

Whether it was for better or for worse, though...well, she wasn't sure yet. At the end of those days, she was still considered the "Devil's Idol," complete with honestly crappy effort-over-skill music, and her image would have to live with that reputation even after she died. At the end of those days, the Mekakushi Dan outdid her at practically everything, eye powers included. That one time she helped everyone get to that sentient insomniac Snake? Almost got them killed and/or tortured if not for her older brother and her definitely future sister-in-law. And speaking of her older brother, she still remembered her delayed realization of how she beat him up like crazy, something that came about when Mary defended the supposedly sleazy guy Momo still called "Onii-chan." How could they still bother to lovingly live with her even after all that?

"We'll be your classmates, Momo. We'll take care of you."

"Yeah, dude! Isn't that cool?"

"Looks like you got quite a reputation here, huh? We definitely get that, and we definitely won't leave you alone."

"I won't be here just for myself now! I'll be here for all of you!"

Momo knew that she should've appreciated Kido, Seto, Kano, and Mary's sympathy and help, but she ended up feeling pissed off at all that.

"How could you...care for someone as useless as me?"

But she couldn't bring herself to completely hate her loved ones. After all, they really were giving her what she wanted all those years: attention, reliance, and love. She felt that she didn't deserve them all, but considering how they gave those things to her, she had to have done something right somewhere, right?

And then Momo cried hard and let it happen when her four friends, who had just become her new classmates, made a group hug with herself in the center. Her tears were a complicated mixture of emotions, too.

If she had to be honest, Momo would admit that she still had a hard time believing in how she may have done something right somewhere. But she was just a simple girl with simple fans, or maybe a monstrous girl with monstrous fans, and if beings like them could truly love and be loved, then couldn't she chase after such wild dreams and fantasies?

"I guess I'll try to accept my inevitable death as an idol a little better, then," Momo then declared past her tears with a jovial tone.

How her huggers laughed at such a horrible joke, well...Momo would need more time to figure all that out.

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Author's Note: How I haven't realized even more of these golden character development opportunities sooner...well, I think I understand: I was obviously way more immature back then. And I still have a lot more maturing to do even now.