Story: Ryuunosuke Alone

 

Ryoko Mendo is about as close as a human being can get to being a demon. This was not because she breathed fire, or commanded lightning, or had ever been exorcised by a monk with any degree of success. It was subtler than that. More alarming.

Demons, as Ryuunosuke understood them, were creatures of entitlement. They took what they wanted because the world, by definition, belonged to them. They did not ask permission. They did not justify themselves. They assumed.

Ryoko Mendou did all of that, and she did it with perfect manners. She was born into power so absolute it might as well have been supernatural. Money, influence, generations of old blood soaked so deeply into the foundations of her family estate that the place felt less built and more conjured. Servants appeared when she wanted them. Disappeared when she didn’t. Problems did the same. Reality bent around her expectations with disturbing reliability.

If demons existed, they would envy that. Ryoko didn’t need to threaten anyone. She didn’t need to raise her voice, or bare her teeth, or even admit to wanting something. Her desires were quiet, polite things—and the world scrambled to fulfill them anyway, as though terrified of disappointing her.

That was the truly unnatural part. She carried about her this air of menace, not because she was strong or threatening, but rather because she had the power to absolutely crush you flat with a word or a gesture. Using the weight of her family, whispering in her father's ear, throwing an endless stream of wealth to absolutely bury you flat before you could even conceive of fighting back.

And the worst part was that she almost never did.

A demon that destroyed you outright was crude. Obvious. Almost honest. Ryoko Mendou preferred options. She preferred to own you—your circumstances, your future, the shape of the world you were allowed to move through. If you suffered, it was incidental. If you prospered, it was because she had permitted it.

That sort of power didn’t need to be exercised often. It only needed to be known.

Ryuunosuke had grown up under a tyrant of a different sort—loud, physical, impossible to ignore. Her father’s cruelty had been blunt and immediate. You could scream at it. You could punch it. You could run from it, even if running never really worked. Ryoko was nothing like that. Ryoko Mendou smiled, and the world rearranged itself so she never had to raise her voice.

Standing in her presence, Ryuunosuke always had the faint, crawling sensation that she was being weighed. Not judged—judgment implied standards, morality, rules. This was closer to appraisal. Like a collector examining an object they hadn’t yet decided whether to acquire.

It didn’t help that Ryoko’s attention felt sticky. Once it landed on you, it lingered. Followed you. Remembered things you’d hoped were forgotten. Weaknesses you didn’t know you’d shown.

And she'd just forced a kiss on that pretty mouth like it was no big deal. But as close as she was to being a demon, Ryoko wasn’t actually one. She did not have supernatural powers. She could not bend reality with a thought, or curse a name, or rewrite fate itself.

She had the greatest power available to mankind: money—and the will to use it with ruthless efficiency to get what she wanted. It was a tremendous power. An unbeatable one, in the human world. Nations had risen and fallen to it. Laws bent. Wars ended early or dragged on longer depending on where the money flowed. Entire lives could be shaped, elevated, or quietly erased without a single drop of blood ever touching her hands.

But among demons? Money was an object, and nothing more. Demons did not value currency. They valued desire. Appetite. The slow, delicious leverage of want. They didn’t purchase obedience—they inspired it, compelled it, rewrote it. Where Ryoko Mendou had to invest, negotiate, or threaten by proxy, a demon could simply reach inside you and turn a dial.

That difference mattered. It mattered because, for the first time in her life, Ryoko Mendou was standing on the edge of something her wealth could not buy. She could fund research. She could hire experts. She could bury witnesses under non-disclosure agreements and comfortable new lives. She could shape the narrative, control the fallout, and ensure that whatever happened remained discreet. What she could not do was stop the change itself. Ryuunosuke Fujinami’s transformation—slow, creeping, undeniable—did not care how rich Ryoko Mendou was. It did not pause for contracts or permission. It followed rules older than bloodlines and deeper than vaults.

Ryuunosuke was looking at this girl with something she'd not really felt before. Desire. She could feel the sins burning within her soul. Greed, envy, pride, wrath, sloth, gluttony and lust. Oh yes, she burned with all of them, but not in the sense that one might imagine.

Greed, first and loudest. Not for money—she’d never cared about that—but for control. For ownership of her own life. Every scrap of agency that had ever been denied to her, every stolen choice, every forced path. She wanted it all back, and she wanted more on top of that. More than her share. Enough that no one could ever take it from her again.

Envy, sharp and bitter. Envy of people who had grown up without chains. Of people who didn’t have to fight just to exist as themselves. Of Ryoko, standing there so effortlessly powerful, born into a world that bent for her without ever asking her to bleed for it. Ryuunosuke hated herself for that envy—and hated the world more for making it reasonable.

Pride, rigid and defiant. The unyielding certainty that she had endured. That she was still standing. That whatever was happening to her now, whatever she was becoming, she would not break. If this transformation was a test, then she would pass it on her own terms or die refusing to bow.

Wrath, simmering beneath everything else. Not explosive—focused. Directional. A lifetime of anger compressed into something dense and dangerous. Anger at her father. At fate. At the universe for thinking it could shape her without her consent. Whoever or whatever had started this change would answer for it eventually.

Sloth, creeping in around the edges. Not laziness, but exhaustion. The temptation to stop fighting. To let go. To accept that resistance hurt more than surrender, and that maybe—just maybe—it would be easier to let the current carry her wherever it wanted. That thought frightened her more than any monster ever had.

Gluttony, not of food, but of sensation. Of feeling. The heightened awareness, the sharpened emotions, the way everything seemed more vivid lately—she wanted more of it. More intensity. More life, even if it burned. Even if it consumed her.

And lust. Oh yes, so much lust. Not for bodies. Not for sex. For the sake of want itself. Lust for freedom. For power that didn’t require permission. For the ability to look at the world and have it answer back. A craving to become something that could no longer be cornered, no longer be dismissed, no longer be told what she was allowed to be.

It was the sin of reaching. Of desiring beyond boundaries. Of wanting more than a human was supposed to want. In the classical Christian medieval interpretation, lust was not the sin of desiring sexual intercourse, but rather the most obvious outlet for the true meaning: The sin of desiring beyond boundaries.

"That was quite intense," Ryoko breathed heavily, leaning into Ryuunosuke. "Yes, I can see how you have gathered all of those others under your control."

"My control?" Ryuunosuke replied. Something deep in her soul growled in anticipation. "I ain't controlling shit. I just... kinda know what they want, is all."

"I see," Ryoko sniffed. "Yes, I think I understand now. This is why your father was insistent on keeping you confused about your gender."

Ryuunosuke tilted her head. Huh? What did she mean by -

"It was a means of keeping this power in check," Ryoko said. "You... Are so seductively potent. You've accidentally enticed and ensnared the hearts of the most attractive people around you, unconsciously turning them into your slave~"

"I did?" Ryuunosuke asked. But it was strange, she felt like she could easily tame Ryoko, right here, right now, with another kiss. That's all it would take, and then - 

She felt something slam right into the back of her head. Her body went limp and she collapsed at Ryoko's feet.

"You did," Ryoko said. "And... Noooooo, please let her go I need to sit on her face and give her my soul, and -"

"Lady Ryoko," one of her servants said. "You instructed us to do this if you fell under her influence."

"Well, now I'm ordering you to -" Ryoko began, but then an ofuda was attached to her forehead. "Ohhh! My word. That was quite dangerous. Even now, I feel the need to exchange my immortal soul for a mere ten seconds of pleasure. Have her taken out of my sight, and prepare the most ludicrously expensive sex toys you can find. Deliver them to my room, and then ensure that the soundproofing is working, while that girl is put somewhere safe for us to study."

Ryoko is, indeed, very close to being a demon. As close as a human can get... but remember, dear reader, that as dangerous as a real demon can be, if they're not fully expecting a fight, they'll most surely lose.