Seiji Fujiwara was sitting on the enormous black leather sofa in the center of the living room.
He wore a deep blue silk lounging robe, the collar carelessly open, lounging back with his long legs crossed.
In his hand he held a glass of rich red wine, watching her with evident interest, like someone appreciating a piece of art that had just been delivered and met with his approval.
Kaguya's heart sank hard. That gaze, the kind that examined her as an object, sent a shudder of humiliation through her.
But she still forced herself to maintain the bearing expected of the eldest daughter of the Shinomiya Family.
She walked to the center of the living room, stopped at a safe social distance, gave a slight bow, and said in a steady voice:
"Mr. Fujiwara. Good evening."
"Have a seat, Miss Kaguya." Seiji gestured to the sofa opposite, his tone as casual as if he were addressing an old friend who had come to visit.
Kaguya sat down as told, her back ramrod straight, her hands folded gracefully on her knees, presenting an impeccable negotiating posture.
She organized her thoughts and was about to speak, to deliver the arguments she had prepared the whole way over.
At that moment, Seiji raised his hand and, in that same casual tone, addressed the shadow not far away:
"Tea."
"Yes, Master."
A voice so familiar that it sent a tremor through Kaguya's very soul came from the shadows.
Kaguya jerked her head up, her red eyes blown wide with shock in an instant, staring in disbelief in that direction.
A girl in a custom-made maid outfit, carrying an exquisite silver tray, walked out slowly with steps as textbook-perfect as could be, neither hurried nor slow.
She had a head of beautiful long blonde hair, smoothly arranged in a side ponytail.
Her face wore flawless, refined makeup, but those deep blue eyes that had once always sparkled with cunning and confidence held only a dead, numbed silence, like two sapphires buried under a thick layer of dust.
It was Ai Hayasaka.
It was Ai.
Kaguya's mind went blank with a buzzing roar, and in that instant every thought, every line, every plan was smashed to pieces.
She stared blankly as Ai walked to the tea table, bent down with grace, and with near-perfect etiquette placed a steaming cup of black tea reverently in front of her.
Through the whole process, Ai did not glance at her once.
As though she were nothing more than an unfamiliar guest in need of "service."
Mistress and servant, their gazes met.
In those eyes that had once been so full of life and spirit, Kaguya could see her own reflection clearly.
A pitiful reflection in a Shuchiin uniform, her face pale as paper, her eyes filled with terror and despair.
And in Ai Hayasaka's eyes, on that dead, still lake surface, Kaguya's appearance had finally produced the faintest, near-imperceptible ripple.
A flash of pain, a sorrow that went to the bone, and... the resignation of having given up the struggle entirely.
Then the ripple vanished, swallowed once again by endless numbness.
"Lady Kaguya, please enjoy your tea."
Ai said it in a tone devoid of feeling.
Kaguya's body shook violently, and the curling steam rising from the hot tea on the table blurred her vision.
She wanted to stretch out her hand and grab Ai, but her hand was heavy as a thousand catties, as though bound by invisible chains, unable to lift even a fraction.
She understood.
She understood everything.
"Dealt with." So that was what it had meant.
To turn the partner she trusted most, the only pillar she had, into a beautiful maid with no thoughts, no feelings, who would only obey commands.
It was ten thousand times more cruel than just killing her.
Seiji had not needed to say a single word, had not needed to lift a single finger.
He had merely allowed Ai Hayasaka to appear before her in this form, and the last fantasy in her heart called "negotiation" had been mercilessly ground into dust.
...
Time seemed to freeze.
The living room was terrifyingly quiet, with only the regular, cold ticking of the antique pendulum clock on the wall.
Each tick was like a small hammer, striking with precision against Kaguya's already fragile nerves.
Her gaze was locked firmly on Ai Hayasaka before her.
Tears spun wildly in her eyes, but she forced them back with astonishing willpower. She knew that if she cried here, it would only please that man more.
After setting down the teacup, Ai took two steps back, turned, and stood like a beautiful lifeless statue behind Seiji, her head lowered, her line of sight cast to the floor, no longer looking at Kaguya at all.
That deliberate distance was like an invisible blade, cutting again and again into Kaguya's heart.
She was in such pain she could barely breathe.
It took her a long time to find her voice.
"Mr. Fujiwara..."
Her voice was hoarse and dry, carrying an unmistakable tremor she could not suppress.
She forced herself to pull her gaze away from Ai Hayasaka's heartbreaking back and turn it once again to the judge sitting on the sofa, the man who held the power of life and death.
"About... the cooperation between our two families... I think we could..."
Before she finished her sentence, Seiji cut her off with a small laugh.
"Cooperation?"
He took an unhurried sip from his glass, the motion as graceful as someone enjoying a magnificent opera.
"Little Kaguya, I think you've got something wrong."
He set down the glass and leaned forward slightly.
The simple movement instantly closed the psychological distance between them, and an enormous pressure swept over her.
"Cooperation is their business."
Seiji's finger pointed casually toward the ceiling, as though gesturing to those so-called "Shinomiya Family elders," the family patriarchs who had once seemed like behemoths in her eyes.
Then his gaze locked onto her ashen face once more.
"You, however, are my business."
A single line.
A simple line, yet it cracked like a thunderbolt of boundless force inside Kaguya's mind.
Cooperation is their business.
You are my business.
This line, in the most brutal and unquestionable way, had stripped her clean of the identity "heir of the Shinomiya Family." In that moment, she was no longer the negotiator who could represent the family's interests, no longer a partner of equal standing.
She was just... his possession.
An object.
A spoil of war.
Kaguya's body swayed violently, and all color drained from her face in an instant.
Watching her teeter as though she might shatter at any moment, the smile on Seiji's face only deepened.
He seemed to enjoy this process of cornering his prey bit by bit, savoring the look of despair on their faces.
Turning his head, he addressed the head maid standing nearby.
"It's getting late. Take Miss Kaguya to her new room."
He paused, then added, "Have her luggage moved in as well."
"New room?"
"Luggage?"
Those two words drove like a pair of poisoned daggers into Kaguya's heart.
She stared at Seiji in disbelief, then looked at the head maid who had already come to her side, who was making a gesture of "please" with not a flicker of emotion in her eyes.
It was only at this moment that she finally understood the real purpose of being called here tonight.
This was not a meeting. Not a negotiation. Not even a one-off humiliation.
This was... an imprisonment that declared ownership.
He intended to cage her, the same way one cages a canary, the same way he had treated Ai Hayasaka, forever in this magnificent, sunless prison.
"No..."
Kaguya shot up from the sofa, and with the violence of the motion she staggered two steps back, bumping into the tea table behind her.
Like a young animal cornered at the edge of a cliff, she let out her last desperate howl.
"No... I can't stay here!"
"I am a member of the Shinomiya Family! I am Kaguya Shinomiya! You cannot do this to me!"
She screamed it hysterically.
Holding up the pride and glory of "the Shinomiya Family," that thing the family had drilled into her from childhood, as her final shield before her.
But this shield, stacked together from vanity and history, was as fragile as a piece of thin paper soaked through with water before Seiji's absolute authority.
Watching the violent surge of emotion, Seiji smiled.
He spoke, unhurried.
This was the new ability the system had granted him: [Voice of Order].
"From today on..."
He spoke slowly, his voice penetrating straight through Kaguya's eardrums and echoing clearly inside her mind.
"...you are simply Kaguya, who lives here."
"Forget the Shinomiya Family."
A roar tore through her mind.
Kaguya felt as though her brain had been struck by some invisible force.
Every thought of resistance, every grievance and anger, all the pride that belonged to "Shinomiya," before this absolute mental pressure, melted away and evaporated at a visible pace, like ice and snow under a blazing sun.
The strength drained from her body in an instant. Her knees buckled, and she nearly collapsed to the floor.
Two maids who had been waiting nearby stepped forward in time, supporting her boneless body from either side.
Kaguya's consciousness was already blurring. Everything before her had become spinning blocks of color.
In her last moment before losing consciousness completely, what filled her field of vision was Seiji Fujiwara's gently smiling face, and behind him, Ai Hayasaka's despairing face with no expression at all.
So this... is hell.
The princess's iron cage, after she gave her final soundless cry, slowly closed.
...
...
The next day, Shuchiin Academy.
The atmosphere in the Student Council Room was strange enough to suffocate.
"Strange... Kaguya-san didn't come in today either?" Chika Fujiwara looked at the empty seat and tilted her head in confusion, her pink ahoge bobbing with the motion.
After Kaguya had been picked up yesterday by a black luxury car Chika had never seen before, she had not returned at all.
Chika had sent over a dozen messages, things like "Are you okay?" and "Want to have lunch together tomorrow?" and made five or six calls, all of which sank into the sea without a single reply.
A bad premonition began to spread through her heart like a creeping vine.
"Maybe she wasn't feeling well and took the day off," Yu Ishigami said in a low voice.
That was what he said with his mouth, but the way his eyes shifted and the way he instinctively moved farther from Kaguya's seat showed he had sharply sensed a whiff of danger and wisely chosen the "if I don't know, I won't die" strategy.
For three days running, Kaguya Shinomiya did not appear again.
Her seat sat empty, as if silently announcing the permanent absence of its owner.
Chika could not sit still any longer.
She contacted Kaguya in a frenzy, only to discover in despair that all of Kaguya's social media accounts had been deactivated, and her phone number was now disconnected.
It was as though the world had pressed a delete key on her, vanishing her into thin air.
...
On the weekend, unable to suppress her anxiety any longer, Chika rushed straight home.
Her father was the current Prime Minister, the very peak of the Japanese political world.
If there was anyone in this country who could possibly know what had happened to the Shinomiya Family, it had to be her father.
In the study, the father who had always doted on her and even played silly children's games with her listened to her question, and his expression instantly turned graver than she had ever seen it.
"Chika."
In an extremely severe tone, he warned his daughter:
"From today on, do not bring up the name 'Kaguya Shinomiya' again."
"Anywhere, to anyone, do not mention her again."
"Stay away from anything connected to her."
"Why?!" Chika stared at her father in disbelief, her eyes reddening on the spot. "Kaguya is my friend! She's gone missing, and I..."
"She has not gone missing!" her father cut her off sharply, then sighed softly. "She has only... gone to where she ought to go."
He paused.
His tone softened as he tried to console her. "Chika, forget about her. This is for your own good, and for our entire family."
Looking at the dread written all over her father's face, Chika Fujiwara felt for the first time the coldness and strangeness of this world.
She did not understand what could have happened that could frighten even her father, a man with sway over the entire political establishment, to such a degree.
All she knew was that Kaguya Shinomiya had been forcibly erased from her world by some enormous, dark, terrifying force she could not begin to comprehend, without so much as a goodbye.
...
Kaguya's "leave of absence" stirred up a silent tsunami in the upper echelons of Japanese society.
At first, there were still some families in the dark guessing whether the Shinomiya Family had thoroughly enraged Seiji Fujiwara over the Ai Hayasaka matter, resulting in the heir being secretly "disposed of."
But very soon, more concrete news spread through hidden channels into the high-society circles.
The Shinomiya Family's heir, the princess known as "Princess Kaguya of the Ice," had not been disposed of.
She had been openly taken in as a "kept woman" by Seiji Fujiwara.
That news shocked every family more than her death would have.
What did it mean?
It meant that Seiji Fujiwara's power had swollen to an inconceivable degree.
He was no longer content with control from behind the scenes. He was beginning to display his desires and his possession nakedly, without any concealment, before the eyes of the world.
He had dared to grind one of the four great conglomerates of Japan, the Shinomiya Family, under his heel without an ounce of mercy, and let everyone see it.
It meant that the rules of the old era had been thoroughly voided.
At a secret cocktail gathering attended by a few top conglomerate heads, the atmosphere was crushed to its limit. A white-haired elder who controlled a vast financial empire held his glass and spoke in a voice like a sleep-talker:
"The times... really have changed."
"Before, with the Fujiwara Family, we could still talk marriage alliances, talk cooperation, feel each other out at the table. But now... that new king of the Fujiwara Family has flipped the entire table."
Another family head took up the thread bitterly. "Yes. What he wants is absolute submission. He doesn't want a wife. He wants a trophy."
"The Shinomiya princess is the trophy he's hung on the city wall to display to everyone."
Everyone fell silent.
The top-grade liquor in their glasses tasted now as bitter as gall.
They all understood.
The possibility of a marriage alliance with the Fujiwara Family no longer existed.
The only road left was one.
That was to actively offer up the finest, most beautiful daughters of their own families, to send these girls as "gifts" with all due reverence into that palace called the Fujiwara Residence, to become one of the collection in that new king's vast harem.
Only by doing so could they secure their families' survival and protection in this new era.