The Emperor Inverted

Chapter 1: Faustian Bargain

Ryu was a seemingly ordinary young man. He had dark brown hair that usually obscured his surprisingly handsome face and he was skinny but not in an athletic sort of way. He was a second year student enrolled in university who consistently had good grades. He would have been top of his class if he cared enough to put in the effort, but he didn't, so he wasn't.

Other than school, he occupied his time with a job in the city. And when he wasn't involved in either of these, he would spend his time alone reading or playing games.

It was an unusually warm spring evening in Tokyo, Japan. Ryu was on his way home after his part-time job at the bookstore when he realized this rather annoying fact. He felt the sweat coalescing on his body and the gross sensation that came with it as he walked down the quiet street.

He decided to cut through the park on the way to the station. Even though the park was locked-up and abandoned, he knew his way around it like the back of his hand.

Nothing was going to keep him from the sweet feeling of a breezy air conditioner and a refreshing shower.

Little did he know that another being had also found itself in the park that evening, and that it was also looking for a relief that it would do anything to satisfy.

Ryu didn't notice the small black pool that bubbled up from the pond beside him, but it noticed him. The black sludge came ashore and stalked its prey from the treetops.

It followed the tantalizing body of the young man for a short distance. It could smell the intoxicating scent of a young and lively human close by, but it decided to patiently stalk its prey before making its move.

Suddenly, the disgusting feeling all over Ryu's back changed. What had previously been a minor annoyance he now realized was an unbearable suffocation and a strange feeling of violation like he had never felt before overcame him.

He felt the nauseating sensation creep towards his genitals and the feeling changed yet again. His whole body convulsed in pleasure and pain against his will.

It felt like his nervous system was going haywire trying to process all the strange information he was receiving. How could he possibly be experiencing such a pleasant sense of euphoria in the middle of this unwelcome and disgusting situation? He could just barely see the black sludge enveloping his body and trying to do the same to his head.

"Get off of me!" He shouted.

Though he didn't exactly understand what was going on in the heat of the moment, he didn't have to. Whatever this thing was doing to him, Ryu wanted it off.

He tried pulling at it, but that only increased the pleasure in those areas to near orgasmic levels. Each time, he would try to break free, a wave of lust would crash over his senses, his grip would loosen, and then the sludge would anchor itself deeper into its target's tantalizing body. And each time, the young man's resistance waned a bit more, until he could do nothing but lie there helplessly.

He felt it squirming into his ears and saw it covering over his eyes. The complete darkness terrified him.

Whatever this thing was, he thought for sure it was going to be the death of him. He could barely even register anything besides the good feelings that were engrossing his mind at this point.

In the brief moments of clarity before his death, he thought of his family. How he would never see them again. But, his final thoughts were not of his family. His thoughts turned to something else. He lamented the fact that he would die a meaningless death all alone, still so young. He never even so much as had a single girlfriend in his entire life.

"I can't die now!" Ryu stated with defiance as he clamped his eyes and mouth shut.

The disgusting film coated his nose and mouth and pried its way in. For a brief moment he could taste the sludge before the lack of oxygen made him faint. It finished smothering his defenseless body.

That was until Ryu opened his eyes again to find his body like nothing had even happened. He saw the black sludge in front of him slowly morphing into the shape of a human being, and not just any human, it was a carbon copy of himself.

"What's going on?" He asked it, not expecting it to say anything.

To his surprise, the sludge version of him answered. "My apologies. I noticed you there and I just couldn't help myself."

"You can talk? Then I assume, you're intelligent." He said. "What do you mean you couldn't help yourself? Explain."

"Very well." It agreed with a shrug. "I'm what you might call a parasite. I need a host in order to live my life to its fullest, but the only life form of interest I've come across so far since I've woken up is you." It went on. "However, I didn't expect you to be able to resist my control over your mind so thoroughly. In fact, if I were to try again, you would most likely reject me outright, and probably even end up killing me."

"I kind of like the sound of that. Why shouldn't I just do that and kill you right now?" He questioned.

The other Ryu frowned. "Isn't that obvious?" It said. "I want to live, and I find you quite fascinating, but I can't control you by force. I'm sure you also find me rather interesting. So instead, I'll offer you a deal: allow me residence in your body and mind, and in exchange, I'll grant you complete control over my powers."

Ryu tried to read his copy's face to see what kind of game his mirror image was playing. "And what are these powers of yours, exactly?" He asked.

"You are interested, good." It said. "I possess the ability to freely manipulate the minds and bodies of creatures, such as you humans, I believe you call yourselves."

Ryu was willing to entertain this sludge monster this far, he might as well keep it up. "But I assume there's a catch to all of this."

The other him pondered the question for a while and eventually gave him a slow nod with his eyes closed. "There is. I feed off of sexual stimulation, lust, so in order to keep me alive you will have to engage in such behavior frequently. If I understand you correctly, humans partake in sexual acts all the time for pleasure, so this shouldn't be too big of an issue." It said. "Especially not once you have access to my powers."

"I see." Ryu said. "So if you and I go through with this deal, you will gain access to my mind and body and in doing so I'll gain access to your inhuman powers. I'll also stop being human myself, correct?"

The monster was very prepared to answer this question. "Yes and no, you will cease to be purely human, but instead you will live your life as something more like human plus." It explained to the young man. "I'm telling you, if we've come to understand each other correctly, this will be a very prosperous partnership for the both of us." It said.

"A partnership, huh." Ryu let the term echo in his mind for some time. "If I'm going to enter a partnership with someone, I think I'd like to know their name." He said.

Ryu asked this one last question of his prospective new partner. "What's yours?"

The other Ryu seemed to understand the young man's sentiment. "I regrettably admit I can't seem to remember hardly any details about myself at the moment, but for our purposes you may call me Shroud."

"Very well." Ryu finally agreed. "I, Zushi Ryushin, agree to the terms of your deal, Shroud. Now, fulfill your end of the contract, and grant me your power."

Shroud held out his hand and Ryu accepted it. The young man felt the black sludge cover over him again like before, but this time it wasn't so forceful, and Ryu didn't fight back against it in the slightest.

The young man felt the ebb and flow of the sludge all over his body creating waves of pleasure that danced across every part of him. It felt like microscopic tentacles were piercing his skin and connecting with each and every one of his nerve endings, before being completely absorbed into his body.

He reveled in the feeling. It was the greatest high. An experience he would never forget about for the rest of his life.

After what was probably less than a minute of intoxicating bliss, Ryu came to his senses on the park ground. He could feel that the process had finished, and that he was now different. Most of Ryu's skin was cloaked in an opaque black film reminiscent of Shroud's sludge.

But he also sensed that something was wrong. Shroud had bonded with him and now they were supposed to be connected both mentally as well as physically. And yet, when he tried to make contact with the strange being in his head, nothing but silence returned.

The young man was momentarily worried. Was Shroud already trying to renege on the deal they had made? If all he needed was unfettered access to Ryu's mind, then that would make sense. But Ryu didn't even sense any sort of attack on his mind. His memories, emotions, and personality were all perfectly intact.

After a handful of minutes of trying to establish contact again, Ryu resigned himself to the thought that he might have inadvertently gotten the better end of the deal and his partner had unwittingly died or otherwise relinquished his power to the young man without much in return.

Though that didn't seem quite right either, this presence inside of Ryu was still, for lack of a better term, alive.

He decided to try out his new powers to see if he really did make a worthwhile trade off. His first order of business was trying to conceal the film on his body. He focused on the mental image of the film being absorbed into his skin, and after about a minute of intense meditation, the film began to slowly obey. Ryu felt the subtle pleasurable feeling that had been suffusing the affected area without him consciously realizing it, come to an abrupt end.

Now with his skin bare, he experienced blunt pain ripple across his body. In the fight for control, Ryu and Shroud had both expended lots of energy and dealt serious damage to each other. Ryu had previously surged with adrenaline that prevented him from feeling everything as it was happening, but now the rush was gone, and with the effect of the film that had been working as an anesthetic also gone. The young man felt the full force of the aftermath.

Ryu then realized that the presence he was feeling was indeed Shroud. It was alive, but very weak, weaker than him even. He could understand that, the sludge version of him had mentioned that it almost died trying to infect Ryu. It then turned around and attempted to do so again, but in a symbiotic manner in place of the failed parasitic method, which was probably even more taxing in its own way.

Ryu weathered the pain. In truth, his new body was much better at handling sensations like this, and the aftermath of the struggle was nothing compared to how it felt in the heat of the moment.

Eventually the pain was little more than a moderate ache, and by that point Ryu had made sure he looked more or less normal and continued on his way home. His body still produced some sweat to combat the hot night, but it was manageable.

And besides, a little sweat was far from his greatest concern at the moment.