BY the very definition of the expression, Asuka Azumaji had been born with a silver spoon in her mouth. The daughter of a company president, she epitomized privilege and wealth. Her peers had recognized this; throughout elementary school, Asuka had been the target of their affection and attention. Once she transferred to Sosei Academy as a Corporate Legacy student in middle school, however, all that adoration, that entitlement, ended abruptly.
Her father helmed an unremarkable company that was part of a larger though still unremarkable zaibatsu. Asuka’s older brother had been groomed to inherit the reins, so for a time, it seemed there had been nothing for her to do but live the good life, basking in all its pleasures while everyone around her toiled for her benefit.
But then the bad times came. Her father’s company began to falter, and there was a looming threat of its collapse or, worse, the possibility of losing control to an outsider. In a bid to preserve their standing, Asuka’s family had recognized her to be the key. She was their prized daughter, a valuable asset who could be married off to secure political favor and prevent the company’s downfall. Such tactics were neither cruel nor unusual in their circles. To enhance her appeal and potential alliances, her family promptly enrolled her in the prestigious Sosei Academy.
Asuka’s life changed completely almost overnight. Where she had once floated above the rest, revered and untouched, Asuka now found herself walking among the ordinary, just another girl in the hallway. Her opinions, which used to be taken as gospel, suddenly mingled undistinguished among many. Even if she had never been inherently selfish, she struggled to reconcile this stark difference between her past and current treatment. The bitterness of enduring these changes, combined with the knowledge that her only reward at the end of the line was a marriage she would likely neither desire nor approve of, swiftly led Asuka to vent her frustrations on the general students.
Sayaka Saionji’s situation was similar. Where Asuka’s father was a president, Sayaka’s was a managing director of a larger entity. Drawn together by their shared background, they formed a bond. Their friendship became a shield, a way to protect themselves by tearing down others. In their eyes, it was a necessary defense against a world that had turned its back on them.
Three years of middle school later, Asuka and Sayaka prepared to ascend to Sosei Academy’s high school division. Although Sosei technically allowed students from lower divisions to move up automatically, advancement exams were still held as a formality. On the day of these exams, which coincided with the entrance exams for external students, Asuka and Sayaka encountered Nonoka Hiragi—and the courses of their lives were irrevocably altered.
They hadn’t arrived at school that day with the explicit intent of finding new targets for their torment. Their true aim was to scout unsuspecting general students who were unaware of their reputations, hoping to sway them to their side. Despite their intentions, fate led them to antagonize Nonoka, and this unfortunate encounter placed them directly in the line of sight of Mio Sakurazaka.
Mio Sakurazaka, a lady of one of Japan’s big three zaibatsus came to perceive them as enemies. This had been Asuka and Sayaka’s greatest failing. It was an ironic twist of fate, for Mio possessed a protective nature toward the weak. Had Asuka and Sayaka played their cards right, they could have gained a powerful ally. Instead, they failed to recognize this opportunity, slamming shut the door to a potential guardian patron.
With one path closed, Asuka and Sayaka sought another. Desperation drove them to bow their heads before Rikka Yukishiro, pledging their allegiance. More accurately, they bowed not to Rikka herself, but a member of her entourage. As one could imagine, this meant that their position in Rikka’s entourage was exceedingly shaky. If Rikka were asked whether they were friends, she wouldn’t hesitate to say no. Their situation only grew more precarious as Rikka began to cozy up to Mio.
This budding friendship between Rikka and Mio was a threat that Asuka and Sayaka could not ignore. They knew that if it flourished, it could bring their misdeeds to light. Such a revelation would mean facing not only the wrath of Japan’s third-largest zaibatsu but the first-largest one as well. It would be social suicide, not just for them but for their families too.
Fortunately, Rikka had allowed them to demonstrate why they deserved to stand by her side. Asuka and Sayaka set off to work straight away to investigate Mio’s weaknesses. They stumbled upon the fact that Mio, purported to have been a descendent of true Sakurazaka blood, had been adopted and lived a commoner’s life just a few scant months earlier.
Asuka and Sayaka did not blow the whistle on this right away. Recognizing its potential to make peace with the Sakurazaka family, Sayaka proposed they bring it to Mio in good faith. However, Asuka’s jealousy festered. How dare a commoner by birth lord it over proper ladies as if it were her prerogative? Thus, Asuka decided to put it all on black. If their intel was reliable, Mio would be exposed as a fraud, and her adoptive family would be forced to disavow her. Not only that, but by knocking them down a peg, they would successfully curry favor with Rikka, gain enormous influence, and pave the way for a frictionless high school career.
By any objective measure, Asuka’s plan was full of holes. But at fifteen, she lacked the life experience to see the folly of her gamble. For that, both she and Sayaka paid the ultimate price. Their attempt to expose Mio backfired spectacularly. Mio’s reputation soared while they, having flown too close to the sun, plummeted back to the ground. It had all been an elaborate trap, designed from the very beginning to elevate Mio’s status.
As the dust settled, Asuka and Sayaka found themselves isolated and powerless. It was almost too predictable that they would become the next targets, an outlet of stress for the Corporate students above them.
At first, the harassment was subtle. In group activities, no one engaged with them, and classmates routinely began to “forget” to relay to them crucial announcements. There were frequent, seemingly accidental collisions in the hallways, the nagging suspicion that the laughter echoing behind them was aimed at them. Initially, they dismissed these occurrences as mere paranoia, but as such incidents accumulated, they had no choice but to acknowledge them—and do little else. They were powerless to stop such incidents. The two former bullies knew all too well that being in a position of weakness meant always being at the mercy of those above them.
Could they have named names and informed the teachers of what was going on? They might have considered it, but the two had just been suspended for attempting to frame another student. Would anyone believe their claims now? Who could say they weren’t attempting another deceit? Thus, Asuka and Sayaka chose to endure the bullying in silence, which only worsened the situation. The conditions were perfect for it to escalate—victims who wouldn’t retaliate, and no one around with a real interest in intervening. Some even might have viewed the harassment as justified, a deserved consequence of their previous actions against Mio.
Things escalated and escalated until one day, a pivotal incident occurred. A band of Corporate girls from the neighboring class snuck into Asuka and Sayaka’s class to vandalize their desks—only to be caught red-handed by Asuka and Sayaka themselves.
The culprits froze up for a second as they took in their unexpected guests. But upon realizing that it was their unsuspecting victims that had found them, that fear transformed into righteous anger.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” the ringleader sneered. “If it isn’t Ms. Sayaka and Ms. Asuka. Come to defend your honor? How utterly bold—and misguided.”
The high-handed leader of this group, Shina Urama, with her distinctive wavy blonde pigtails, was the daughter of the president of a company under the Sakurazaka umbrella. Despite her lofty connections, she was no more remarkable than the girls she targeted. Before their fall from grace, Asuka and Sayaka would have retaliated sharply, but now, stripped of their status, they could only silently endure, biting back their words and their pride.
On the other side of this confrontation, Shina was battling her own anxieties. She realized that if this conflict were to escalate, she might soon find herself facing the same downfall as Asuka and Sayaka. Her haughty demeanor was a projection of these insecurities—she could not afford to seem vulnerable, especially not in front of her entourage.
Fortunately for Shina, her facade seemed effective. Observing Asuka and Sayaka’s resigned silence, she felt emboldened. “Embracing humility at long last, are we?” she said. “You know, I feel vindicated. There was always something about you two that rubbed me the wrong way. All your petty tyranny over the common folk when you were hardly any better yourselves.”
“I…” Sayaka bit her lip. Asuka’s gaze was fixed on the floor.
The girls could offer justifications for their actions toward the general students, and indeed, there would even be some merit to their reasons. For instance, there was real tension and envy between the general and Corporate students, envy that often manifested in subtle digs and slights directed at the Corporate students who stood at the bottom-most rung—those perceived as easy targets. In a way, Asuka and Sayaka’s actions had been a form of self-defense, a preemptive assertion of dominance to ward off potential harassment. But for all that pretext, the fact of the matter was that they had still chosen to become bullies.
It was indisputably wrong to bully others. Shina bullying two former bullies didn’t make it any less wrong. But the girls couldn’t bring themselves to call her out on it. Not when now, after everything that had happened, Asuka and Sayaka fully realized the wrongness of their past behavior—they were guilty, and they deserved this.
Emboldened by their silence even more, Shina shoved Sayaka. She collided with Asuka, and both tumbled to the ground in a heap. “That’ll teach you to never mess with the Sakurazakas again,” Shina declared smugly, prompting laughter from her entourage.
Shina believed this would conclude the episode—a bit of what she saw as righteous retribution, a scene witnessed only by those present. However, just as she basked in her apparent triumph, a new voice cut through the noise. “Enjoying ourselves, are we, ladies?”
The figure of one Mio Sakurazaka, the very cause of Asuka and Sayaka’s current plight, stepped through the door.