Arriving at his room an instant later left Momonga free to let out a sigh of relief. For good measure, since one sigh was not enough, he peeled off his mage robes, tossed it aside, and put a hand to his chest to exhale an even larger sigh a second time. He went to the mirror of his room and looked at his reflection. "You'll have to get used to this. Even as good as this looks," he put his hands on his hips and then ran them over the curve of concealed leg, "I can only feel so confident for so long before I need a break. At least I don't have. To. Do this for…" Momonga trailed off as realization dawned.

He relaxed his disguised human face into the blankness of a doppleganger, "Wait… No. I'm going to have to do this for the rest of my life!" He shivered as the realization hit him, and even though it was impossible, he could have sworn that dopple blankness paled a little with his spirits.

"The rest of my life." He repeated the words.

"The rest of my life." He repeated it again.

"And all my friends. At least before I thought they might come or I might see them again… but now?" He thought of the glances of Gazef's warriors, the way they clustered together, rode together into danger, following his lead… 'True comrades… I had that, once… they were ready to fight and die together…' He closed his eyes and sat down, not on the bed, or in a chair, but on the floor with his back against the end of the bed. The skirt slid up as he drew his legs to his chest.

"The NPCs… they seem alive, and they must be… but their programming… I can't think of them as comrades. They were created as servants. They'd never see me as an equal, as a comrade…"

The more he thought, the more he said, the worse it sounded, and the deeper he fell.

He recalled the relief on the faces of grown men that knew they were going to live, 'I made that face when HeroHero appeared and I thought the others would follow him. Just one more time.' A doppleganger couldn't weep, and so he restored his more familiar human face, and let himself just feel for a time.

As if they were dead and gone… all at once.

Momonga didn't know how long he stayed like that, the truth was he didn't want to know, his arms clung tight enough around his legs that he could have easily crushed a normal human, but for him it was just the comforting pressure of a self embrace as liquid grief ran away from his face.

"No. They wouldn't want me to live like that." He realized in an instant, looking down at the floor between his knees, "They wouldn't want me to sit around all weepy, grieving forever. They were my friends, and they left the game a long time ago. I should have gotten over it before now." He sniffled loudly and wiped his nose, "They can never be replaced but… I made friends before, maybe it will be different but-" He snapped his jaw shut and raised his head to glare into the mirror.

"No. It will be different. I know that. Guys… all of you, if you can hear me somehow, I'll miss you, all of you like I always have. But I know you wouldn't want this for me. That you wouldn't want me to just be alone forever… damn it! Making friends is hard. Losing them is harder. Starting all over again is hardest." Momonga said and thought back to the declining days of the guild, the exodus beginning with one or two, but spreading as time went on, and the ranks were never replaced.

'First we went out as forty-one… then as forty. Then as thirty-eight. And Thirty-five… it was like a countdown, a countdown to the last days. Till the last raid when it was just three of us. Ulbert, Touch Me, and I… then it was just Touch Me, and we didn't even raid. We just sat in the hall with the maids, with Albedo, he gave me his things and left us all behind. Left me behind. I should be glad at least HeroHero appeared.' Momonga squeezed his eyes shut as tight as if they'd been glued that way.

"Now here I am, the world is beautiful, even I can see that, but dangerous… I need-" Momonga stopped his words and began to open his eyes, staring ahead as if he'd never even seen his reflection before.

"I need to rebuild. I can rebuild the guild! I can make new friends who will make this place safe for my late friends' children. I'm easily stronger than anything out there, aren't I?" Momonga asked, briefly putting a hiccup on his realization. "There may be stronger foes, I suppose. I need knowledge. I need to know more, and I need, no, if I want to honor my guild, I can't let it languish with me alone, I have to make it something like it used to be! I have to find people worthy of embodying the traits of all those who made it!" Momonga shouted and began to rise to his feet as his vision began to take shape.

All forty-one seats, empty for so long save for himself, filled again with men and women who embodied the traits of every one of his friends as he remembered them. From Pero the Horny and Buku the cute, to Ulbert the Merciless and Touch Me the Just. "I don't have to stand at the top alone, I can stand with new friends, in a renewed guild, something that has its glory stamped all over this world and that would make every single person who ever mattered to me, proud to say that 'we made this together'. Inheritors of their will… even if they aren't as strong, at least not at first. That can change. As the gods are my witness…" He turned his eye toward the mirror and shouted loud enough that he wondered if despite the privacy enchantments, the whole world could hear him…

"Nazarick will rise again!"