Slave Life

On the surface, Reido Private Academy was a prestigious private school attended by the children of the wealthy.

Plenty of beautiful boys and girls walked its halls, and it enjoyed a strong reputation as a glamorous, gorgeous campus.

Among them, three girls stood out in particular, both for their looks and for the prestige of their family names.

Kanan Kazami, daughter of a tycoon who controlled a host of major corporations.

Yumi Tsuchiya, daughter of an old, established financial conglomerate.

And Eclair Feradria, an exchange student said to be the princess of a small European nation.

Without exaggeration, the three of them were the objects of every student's admiration at this academy.

But these girls had a hidden side they couldn't show to the public.

"… Haah, haah, haah…"

It hurts… it's painful… it's awful.

Why am I trading blows with this guy I have no real grudge against, putting myself through this much suffering?

… But I have no choice.

I, Naoto Akai, was Kanan Kazami-san's slave, sworn to absolute obedience.

I had no option but to obey her commands…

"Now, Naoto. Do it. Punch!"

"… Yes!"

Just as my master, Kanan Kazami-san, ordered, I wound up and threw a straight right.

"Dodge!"

But on the other side, Yumi Tsuchiya-san snapped out the matching instruction to Shogo Shiraki.

At the order, Shiraki-kun evaded my punch with a beautiful sway-back.

"Counter, Shogo!"

"Yes, Yumi-sama!"

Shiraki-kun answered cheerfully and fired back with a counter-punch of his own.

I had never realized it before being forced into these grotesque brawls, but apparently my dynamic vision was pretty good.

I could see Shiraki-kun's punch coming.

But…

WHAM!

I neither dodged nor blocked it. I took it square on.

… Because Kazami-san hadn't ordered me to dodge or block.

She probably left it alone on purpose, as punishment for letting my own punch get dodged.

"Gh… ha…"

It hurt. The pain was so bad it felt like my insides were about to come up out of my mouth, and all I could manage was a groan.

"… Tch. Come on, counter-attack, Naoto!"

"Gh, yes… you…!"

The instruction finally came, and I grabbed the arm buried in my stomach.

Damn it. I don't have any grudge against Shiraki-kun, but I'll at least try to land one in return…

… Or so I wanted to think, but the moment I actually gripped his arm, I was useless. I had neither the resolve nor the technique to snap it, and I just flailed in vain.

"Shogo, kick!"

And there came Tsuchiya-san's next instruction.

THUD!

"Gah!"

He must have trained in martial arts, because Shiraki-kun's knee strike landed beautifully, right into my flank.

"… Ngh… ha…"

The blow must have caught my diaphragm, because I couldn't even breathe.

"Oh, come on! What are you doing, dodge it!"

… Kazami-san's order came too late.

"Shogo, finish him!"

"Yes!"

WHAM!

A fist slammed into the opposite side of my stomach from the previous knee, and my breath stopped again.

The strength drained from my legs…

… Thud.

I collapsed.

"Hey, don't you dare fall!"

What came down on me as I lay sprawled was an even more brutal command.

"Come on, get up! Naoto! What are you doing, hurry!"

… I can't…

I knew I had to obey her commands. But I couldn't move when I couldn't move…

"That's it, the match is over. The winner is Yumi's slave, Shogo Shiraki."

… At last, the referee's voice came down.

"Well done, Shogo!"

Shiraki-kun basked in Tsuchiya-san's praise.

"What are you doing, you trash?! Garbage! You useless Naoto Akai!"

Meanwhile, what rained down on me was hysterical abuse…

Kanan Kazami-san, with her large, sharply slanted eyes and her flawless figure, was called a girl of unparalleled beauty. But when she screwed up her face like that and shrieked at me, I couldn't feel any of that beauty in her at all…

"Now then, I'll have you announce the scoring results. Sario."

The girl who had been refereeing while clearly enjoying the fight between us…

The owner of dazzling blonde hair, large, elegantly shaped, brilliant blue eyes, and a beauty no one could find fault with, Eclair Feradria, gave the order to her aide, Sario.

"Yes, Eclair-sama."

Sario, who looked at first glance like a cool beautiful girl but was actually a beautiful boy, announced the results in a flat tone.

"Yumi-sama's slave, Shogo Shiraki: two violations. At twenty seconds in, he guarded against an attack without being told to. And at sixty seconds in, he stepped back to evade an attack without instruction."

"… My apologies, Yumi-sama. It was reflexive…"

Shogo Shiraki bowed his head, an apologetic look on his handsome face.

"… Honestly, be more careful. I won't forgive you if this costs us a loss against Kanan."

Yumi Tsuchiya scolded Shogo Shiraki with her lips pursed.

With her droopy eyes and gentle expression, she looked soft at first glance.

… But, like Kazami-san, she was a woman who kept a large stable of slaves and handed down her orders without mercy.

"Kanan-sama's slave, Naoto Akai: four violations. At three minutes in, he failed to obey the order not to fall. At five minutes in, he failed to obey the order to dodge. After that, he again failed to obey the order not to fall. He failed to obey the order to stand. He failed to obey the order to hurry."

… All of those were unavoidable.

But Kazami-san grew more irritated with every item listed.

"Factoring in the win-loss point, the score is minus one to minus four. Yumi Tsuchiya-sama wins."

Sario reported the scoring results in a flat voice, no expression on his face.

"Well done, Shogo."

Yumi Tsuchiya-san beamed as she praised Shogo Shiraki. Meanwhile…

"What do you think you're doing, you idiot?! Trash! Useless!"

Kanan Kazami-san hurled one-sided abuse at me…

"Damn right, you piece of trash!"

"Damn right! Bringing shame on Kanan-sama! You should die to apologize!"

Joining the chorus were Kanan Kazami-san's other slaves. They were my fellow slaves, but I was on bad terms with most of them.

… I wanted to argue. Every one of my supposed violations was unavoidable.

This grotesque "slave battle," where slaves were forced to fight each other, actually had rules in place that just barely qualified it as a game.

In a normal fight, there wasn't a shred of a reason someone like me, with no martial arts background, could beat Shiraki-kun, who had training.

But in slave battles, there was a rule that you could only move on your master's orders.

If you obeyed your master's commands, no points were deducted, but if you failed to act when ordered or moved on your own, points came off.

Since the win-loss itself only counted for one point, losing without a single command violation actually scored higher than winning with two violations, which could flip the result.

That meant since all my violations were unavoidable, as long as Kazami-san hadn't given me commands I couldn't follow, we'd have won this match.

… But there was no one here who'd point that fact out.

… Kanan Kazami's other slaves went along with her mood and cursed me out.

Yumi Tsuchiya, Kazami-san's rival, and her own slaves were obsessed with beating Kazami-san to show Eclair that they were the superior side, so of course they wouldn't offer that kind of advice.

And Eclair, entertained by this grotesque show, just watched my pathetic collapse and Kazami-san's hysterical screaming all as one big amusing spectacle, a look of pure delight on her face.

"Fufu, today was fun as well. Kanan, please handle the cleanup."

"Yes, Eclair-sama. I'm sorry to have shown you something so disgraceful today. Next time, without fail…"

"Yes, I'm looking forward to it, Kanan."

Eclair retreated with Sario at her side.

"… Fufufu. Even if he was picked by lottery, having someone that useless end up as your representative is just a tragedy, Kanan. Why don't you cut a worthless slave like that and gather slaves with looks and ability, like my Shogo? Oh dear, but maybe a vulgar nouveau-riche family like the Kazamis doesn't have those kinds of connections…?"

Once Eclair was gone, Tsuchiya-san looked down her nose at Kazami-san.

"… Shut up, Yumi! It's just that Naoto is pathetic! It's not like you could do anything but run when your opponent is Kensei…"

"Haa? Yamagata-kun is a professional mercenary. That's cheating! If I wanted to bring in pros, I could bring in as many as I liked too!"

"You're wrong! Kensei is, above all else, a slave who's pledged loyalty to me!"

The two of them quarreled.

"… Hmph. In any case, the one who'll win Eclair-sama's favor is me. A nouveau-riche upstart like the Kazamis shouldn't dream of beating an old, prestigious family like the Tsuchiyas."

"… Hah! Says the moldy old has-been! Eclair-sama's favor will be mine!"

… Do you get the gist of how this all came to be?

Whichever family Eclair took a liking to got to monopolize trade with the Kingdom of Feradria.

Because of that, Yumi and Kanan were fighting a proxy war on behalf of the Kazami and Tsuchiya families.

And the way they fought, thanks to Eclair's hobby, was a slave battle in which the slaves the two families held were pitted against each other.

Kazami-san protested all she liked, but the one who won today was Yumi Tsuchiya.

She brushed off Kazami-san's comebacks as the howling of a sore loser and walked away with her eight slaves in tow.

Left behind were Kazami-san and her own eight slaves.

"… You useless thing. Thanks to you, I had to suffer such a humiliation. Listen here. The condition for my papa to keep funding your parents is that you give me your absolute obedience. Got it? If you can't make yourself useful… we'll go back to the original plan, and I'll have your sister become my slave instead. Okay?"

That was what Kazami-san spat at me as I lay collapsed on the ground.

"…! M-my apologies, Kazami-san… please, please, not Setsuna, I beg you…"

Once I'd rested long enough to move my body again, I desperately pushed myself up and pressed my forehead to the ground in a dogeza.

… Yes, that was my weak point.

My parents were researchers and ran a research-and-development company.

But they had no head for management, and with the recent recession, the company was quickly going up in flames.

The ones who reached out to help were the Kazami family.

… But the condition was that one of their children would become Kanan's slave.

My little sister, Setsuna Akai, was at the national level in violin. On top of that, she had a delicate, gentle, transcendent beauty and a kind disposition, and was an absolutely flawless beautiful girl.

For someone with no real talent like me or our parents, it was as if a kite had given birth not just to a hawk, but to a phoenix.

The one the Kazami family really had their eye on was almost certainly Setsuna. I was probably nothing more than a tag-along.

But I, who had been approached first, was so desperate to keep Setsuna from becoming a slave that I rubbed my forehead against the ground and begged that I'd do anything if they'd just spare my sister.

… The condition Eclair set for the slaves gathered for her slave game was that they had to be people who would obey for reasons other than money.

In that sense, having a child handed over in exchange for funding a family was, by the rules, a gray area.

But me, willing to obey from the heart for Setsuna's sake, apparently fit the bill.

So, on the condition that I obey, Setsuna was spared from becoming a slave.

… But this slave life was even more painful and miserable than I'd imagined.

"Hah! Did you really think your half-assed dogeza was going to make up for embarrassing Kanan-sama?! Huh?!"

STOMP!

… My head got ground underfoot.

… One of my fellow slaves, Yuma Ishiguro-kun. He looked like a delinquent at first glance, but apparently he was a young master from a fairly respectable family.

In his case, it seemed he obeyed Kazami-san from the heart, trying to win her favor.

"… Yuma. Masayuki. Strip his top off."

"Yes. Hey, get it off!"

"Yeah! Hey! Hurry up and strip already!"

The other one she called on was Masayuki Nezu-kun. A small man with a name and a face like a mouse's.

He sucked up to anyone he saw as above him, starting with Kazami-san, while taking pleasure in viciously bullying anyone he saw as beneath him… yeah, he was trash through and through.

… The order was to strip me, but instead of actually doing that, the two of them just kicked me around to roll me across the floor.

In the end, I had to roll around on the floor and strip my upper half myself.

"Point deductions… how many was it?"

"Yes, four points, Kanan-sama."

The one who reverently presented the whip was Sawako Aozawa-san. She had big, round eyes and was a remarkably beautiful girl in her own right. But she held no envy or rivalry toward Kazami-san, and she seemed to have sworn loyalty to her from the heart.

"Then, four times."

Kanan raised the whip overhead.

"…!"

I braced my whole body for the impact about to come.

CRACK!

"Aaaagh!"

Searing pain! Unbelievable pain!

The whip crashing down on me sent sharp, intense agony across my entire back.

… They say that since ancient times, whips have been used to make slaves obey.

… Yeah, of course they were. With pain like this, you'd do anything you were told just to avoid being whipped again.

"Guaaah…!"

I groaned in pain and rolled around on the floor.

"… Don't move! Noda, hold him down."

"Y-yes! Kanan-samaaa…"

With a "buhi!" the fat, greasy Masaomi Noda-kun pinned me down.

… Heavy. I couldn't move… and on top of that, the slick, oily feel of him was awful.

Just being grabbed by Noda-kun was its own form of harassment.

CRACK!

"Guuuuuh!"

CRACK!

"～～～～!"

CRACK!

"～～～～!!"

While I was unable to move, three more lashes were driven into my back.

"… Hmph! Let this be a lesson to you. Don't you dare make a fool of yourself like that again! … I'll leave the cleanup to you, Haru."

"… Yes, Kanan-sama…"

Then, leaving me and one other behind, Kazami-san left with the remaining six in tow.

"… Naoto-kun… a-are you… okay?"

The last one left was Haru Midoriya-kun. He was another fellow slave of Kazami-san's, like me.

Haru-kun was a beautiful boy who, at first glance, looked for all the world like a beautiful girl.

Sario, Eclair's slave (or rather, her aide), was also a beautiful boy with a beautiful girl's face, but the type was different.

Sario was the cool, dignified type, while Haru-kun was the delicate, gentle type.

And… of all the eight slaves Kazami-san had, he was the only one I genuinely considered an ally.

Kazami-san seemed to have a certain kind of charisma. People who initially obeyed her against their will, bound by obligation or money, eventually fell for that charisma, or maybe it was just that they were masochists who got aroused by being ordered around by a beautiful girl, and they ended up obeying her from the heart.

The remaining slave, Akira Ichinose-kun, was that type.

But me, I could never get used to this life, much less come to enjoy it.

And maybe that was why Kazami-san and the other slaves bullied me so harshly.

Through all of that, the only one who was kind to me was Haru-kun.

It was probably because, just as he looked, he was a boy with a kind heart.

… Being meek and cowardly, he could never face Kazami-san head-on and stand up to her.

If Kazami-san ordered him to hit me, he'd have to obey.

Even so, just knowing that he did it reluctantly, that he felt sorry for me, was a great comfort.

"Ah, thanks… I have to put on my shirt…"

"… Y-you can't, your blood will get on your clothes if you stay like that. I'll put some bandages on you first…"

"… Thanks…"

The skin on my back must have been split open… no wonder it hurts.

Just thinking about how, for the next several days, the searing pain in my back would keep me from sleeping on it, I felt heavy.

Well, I guessed it would be better if I slept on my stomach…

I had Haru-kun bandage me up and then pulled my shirt on over it.

"… Ow, ow ow…"

"Naoto-kun…"

"… I'm okay. Let's hang in there, Haru-kun… it's just till graduation."

I forced myself to put on a brave face.

There were still two more years until graduation, though… it made me want to black out just thinking about it.

We were absolutely not allowed to leak anything about our slave life to the outside world.

I had to grit my teeth through the pain and live a normal school life.

… It was truly depressing.

Even though I was in agony, I had to put on a normal face and take my seat in the classroom.

"Akai-kun, good morning."

Someone called out to me, with a brilliant smile, even to someone like me.

"… Good morning, Yukishiro-san."

A single, lovely flower blooming sweetly amid these hard days.

The class president, Maika Yukishiro-san.

Her family background wasn't bad in itself, but they weren't extravagantly wealthy like Kazami-san's group, so she didn't draw quite as much attention at school.

But her looks were in no way inferior.

… No, in my eyes, knowing the ugliness inside those other girls, Yukishiro-san shone as the most beautiful one of them all.

Yukishiro-san, with a quiet, demure beauty that embodied "pure and lovely."

Not only was she beautiful, but she had a kind heart and treated everyone equally.

In other words, she even spoke gently and with a heartfelt smile to a plain, gloomy guy like me.

When you do things like that, a dark-haired loner is going to mistake it for affection and fall in love. That's just how dark-haired loners work.

There must have been countless guys in love with Yukishiro-san, and I, like everyone else, was one of them.

These hard, painful days…

I held on, sustained by my feelings for Yukishiro-san.

"…? Akai-kun, are you not feeling well? You look pale. Should I take you to the nurse's office?"

Yukishiro-san was kind, and she paid attention to everyone in the class.

She seemed to have noticed something off about me, too.

She said that and tried to take my hand to lead me to the nurse's office.

… But, sorry. I couldn't go to the nurse's office and have my injuries discovered.

The reason I obeyed Kazami-san was that there were benefits in it for me… for my parents and Setsuna. If they found out I leaked information outside, the funding would be cut. If that happened, it would all be over.

And I really didn't want to drag Yukishiro-san into trouble.

Earnest and kind as she was, Yukishiro-san would, if she learned the truth, try to fix the situation by going to the police if she had to. And if she did, Yukishiro-san herself wouldn't get out of it unscathed. Those three had that much power.

"N-no, no. It's nothing. I'm totally fine… I just played a bit too many games and didn't get enough sleep…"

"… Geez, Akai-kun. You have to be careful. Sleep is the basis of life."

Yukishiro-san chided me.

… Ah, the truth was, ever since this slave life started, I'd barely been able to play those games I used to love so much.

"Ahaha… thanks, for worrying."

"Fufu, of course. We're classmates."

Yukishiro-san smiled like that.

It wasn't "of course." Just because you're classmates, you don't normally treat people that warmly.

Yukishiro-san truly was a special, kind, wonderful person.

… Which was exactly why it pained me to deceive her with a lie.

Honest as she was, she took my lie at face value and let go of my hand.

As her hand, slightly cool, a small sign of the warmth in her heart, left mine, I felt a draft blow through my chest even colder than that.

"Grrr…"

I suddenly noticed a sticky, oily glare.

Noda-kun, also a classmate and a fellow slave, was glaring at me.

… Ugh.

I couldn't do anything reckless while he was watching.

If I tried to confide in Yukishiro-san about anything, he'd immediately rat me out to Kazami-san.

And if that brought Yukishiro-san to Kazami-san's attention… I wouldn't be able to die in peace even after dying.

I had to be careful not to attract any unnecessary attention…

Yukishiro-san spoke to me a few more times after that, but each time I had no choice but to give a vague reply and cut the conversation short.

During break, while Yukishiro-san was away, Noda-kun closed in on me with surprising agility.

"… Gohh～, gohh～. Don't get cocky. The lowest of Kanan-sama's slaves, like you, has no business being looked after by a top-tier beautiful girl on Kanan-sama's level, like Yukishiro-san… know your place…!"

THUD!

"Guh!"

Whether or not he even understood my situation, Noda-kun landed a kick on me with his stubby leg.

Even when the knee was round with fat, a heavyweight knee strike still packed a punch, and I ended up doubled over and retching.

… What's with this guy? Could it be that he's mistakenly decided I'm close with Yukishiro-san and gotten jealous…?

Yeah, right. That's only my own delusion.

In reality, no one knew better than I did that Yukishiro-san was just kind to everyone equally.

… Still, did this guy admire Yukishiro-san too?

… Well, given how repulsive his face was from being so fat, the only one who would even smile and speak to him was Yukishiro-san, so it was only natural he'd fall for her.

Even Kazami-san, who called her slaves by their first names, only called this guy "Noda" by his last name.

… In that sense, I might have felt a faint kind of kinship with him.

So this guy's words, "Yukishiro-san, a top-tier beautiful girl on Kanan-sama's level," qualified as the kind of remark that would enrage Kazami-san. Which meant if I tipped her off, there was a chance this guy would get whipped…

But it wouldn't make me happy in the slightest if this guy got whipped, so I didn't bother snitching.

I agreed with him, after all.

Still, Noda had a fundamentally nasty personality, his looks were gross, and if he liked Yukishiro-san then he was a rival on top of that… I really couldn't bring myself to like him even a little bit.

… The comforts in this life of mine were Haru-kun, Yukishiro-san, and one more.

That was the whole reason I stepped into this life: my little sister, Setsuna Akai.

"… Onii-chan, are you thinking about something?"

My little sister, Setsuna, was a first-year at the same Reido Academy. She and I got along well, and we went to school together every morning.

"Nah, it's nothing. If I'm thinking about anything, it's just that Setsuna's so cute."

… Even if she was my own sister, she really was cute, so I deflected with a line like that.

Setsuna really was cute. It wasn't just brotherly bias at all. Smooth, bobbed short hair, big, gentle eyes… and her figure, too. No decent guy could leave her alone. Without question, she was the most beautiful girl in the first year.

Of course, I had no intention of looking at my sister in any weird way, but…

"Geez, Onii-chan."

Setsuna laughed at my casual joke.

This smile. For the sake of this smile, I…

My poker face was pretty practiced, too. The truth was my back hurt and ached, and I was on the verge of tears every day, but…

Setsuna didn't seem to notice my suffering.

But that was fine. My happiness was Setsuna's happiness.

I didn't want her to notice something was wrong with me and ache over it. If that happened, that would be my defeat.

Setsuna was a talented violinist, and she had gotten into this academy on a violin recommendation. So her tuition was waived… but it wasn't as if no tuition meant no expenses at all. Instrument costs, tutors… studying music seriously really did cost money.

For Setsuna's education, our household had to be reasonably well-off.

For that, our parents' company had to keep running smoothly, and for that, the Kazami family's funding was indispensable…

And so we came back around.

In the end, for Setsuna's sake, I had no choice but to keep up this life.

"Onii-chan, fencing club really doesn't suit you, does it? You might even get hurt. Even now, you could switch to a cultural club instead."

The fencing club was a cover for the secret club Eclair ran. The only members were Eclair, Kazami-san, Tsuchiya-san, and their slaves.

I had been roped into it as well, and on paper I was a member of the fencing club.

That way a few injuries could be played off.

I didn't want my sister to find out…

"N-no, no. I'm a guy too, you know. I'm fine. I have to train my body properly…"

I summoned up my best forced cheer.

"… If anyone's bullying you, Onii-chan, tell me, okay? Just so you know, I'm probably way stronger than you think."

That was what Setsuna said.

"Ahaha… no, no, I'm fine. More importantly, Setsuna, you've got to focus on your own stuff. Your violin competition is coming up, too…"

"… Onii-chan…"

Setsuna kept watching me with a worried look, but in the end she chose to take me at my word that I was fine.

… Lying to such a kind little sister hurt, too.

How long will this suffering of mine continue…?

… For Setsuna's sake… as long as Setsuna can keep smiling…

Ah, but it hurts. My back hurts. My heart hurts. It's miserable.

No matter how hard it got, I never felt the slightest resentment toward my sister.

But if this life kept on going, wouldn't I, eventually, end up resenting my dear Setsuna, too?

… That would be more painful than dying.

In the end, all I could do was keep agonizing over it.

… Never dreaming that this hell, in the very next instant, would turn upside down and vanish entirely.

There was no warning.

The very moment Setsuna and I stepped through the school gate together…

The ground beneath our feet gave way.

"Eh?"

"Eh…"

We both let out witless little sounds.

WHOOSH!

Just like that, we plunged headfirst into the abyss.

"Kyaaaa…! Onii-chan…!"

"Uwaaaaaah…! Setsuna…!"

I hurriedly stretched my hand out toward Setsuna. She had been right next to me, but my hand cut through empty air, and in an instant, I lost sight of her.

She had… vanished into the darkness.

"Setsunaaaaaa!"

And then I followed. Around me, total darkness. I couldn't tell left from right.

I just kept falling, and falling…!

When I slept at night, I sometimes had a dream like this. A dream of falling endlessly down a hole.

But this isn't a dream. This is reality… or it's supposed to be.

Or is this all a nightmare?

If so, then at least, when I wake up, I want to wake up in a reality completely different from this one.

… That's what I was thinking, in the moment my consciousness cut out.