In the Shinomiya Residence, Kaguya sat silently on the large bed.
The entire room was empty. Aside from some exquisitely crafted, old-fashioned furniture from the last century, there was nothing extra.
The most modern piece of equipment was the computer on the desk.
However, Kaguya did not know how to use a computer very well, so this high-spec computer, which would make any otaku envious, was nothing more than decoration here.
Kaguya had been grounded, unable even to attend Shuchi'in Academy.
And Kaguya knew very well that this was not grounding at all. It was pure house arrest.
Yes, she had been placed under house arrest by her own brothers. Not one brother, but three.
With her father still alive, she, the young lady of the Shinomiya family, had become such a joke.
How ridiculous!
And the reason she had been placed under house arrest was because Kaguya had heard that the next head of the Shijo family, the Shinomiya family's former branch family, Mikado, wanted to marry her, the former young lady of the main family.
The Shinomiya family was already in trouble, just one last spark away from causing the entire family to collapse.
Even a vast empire could only accept the arrangements of fate when faced with an insurmountable opponent.
Moreover, although the Shinomiya family was one of the largest zaibatsu in Japan, it was still only one of them. Facing those terrifying opponents in America, especially in the financial sector, the Shinomiya family was almost powerless to fight back.
Kaguya was also a genius. At the very least, compared to ordinary people, her intelligence was higher, and her learning ability was very strong.
Thanks to the Shinomiya family's elite education, Kaguya had already mastered a great deal of knowledge in high school that ordinary people would find difficult to access.
Therefore, Kaguya knew that those financial giants in America had used financial methods to force the Shinomiya family to lower their heads and beg for mercy.
The core of any large zaibatsu, especially one involved in finance, had to be banking.
It was precisely because of this that attacking this core business could cause a massive zaibatsu to fall apart.
Those American financial groups were very powerful. They had countless ways to dismantle a behemoth, just like the disintegration of that great country decades ago.
They used various propaganda campaigns to lower the Shinomiya family's credibility and cause their stock prices to plummet.
These rumors would then cause panic among the public, leading to bank runs on the banks controlled by the Shinomiya Zaibatsu.
When all of these appeared at the same time, they made the Shinomiya Zaibatsu precarious.
Not to mention the former Shijo family leading the charge, frantically attacking the Shinomiya Group, and those hungry wolves in Japan who had smelled blood and vowed to take a piece of this feast.
Under such circumstances, how could a so-called next heir of the Shijo family save the tottering Shinomiya Group with just a marriage?
The so-called heir of the Shijo family could not possibly have such ability. How could a young boy possibly resist the greed that had brought down countless zaibatsu?
Did Mikado think he was Toru?
Thinking of Toru, Kaguya felt a strange pang in her heart.
Regarding that heir of the Fujiwara family, that outstanding man, in fact, during her interactions with him and after hearing news about him, Kaguya had already developed a secret admiration for him.
It was just Kaguya's personality that made her unable to express those feelings. She did not like taking the initiative, or rather, she stubbornly wanted to take control of this relationship.
So she had been waiting for Toru to come to her first.
However, what Kaguya did not know was that the man she was facing was someone who was not lacking women and would never grovel to them.
Therefore, Toru had always maintained a lukewarm attitude toward Kaguya. Although he occasionally showed concern for her, there were no deeper feelings.
Kaguya was not actually anxious about this. She believed victory would still belong to her.
Her greatest confidence came from the engagement between the Fujiwara and Shinomiya families.
In Kaguya's view, no matter who won or lost this emotional struggle between them, they would eventually end up together. This was the absolute confidence of a fiancée.
However, who could have imagined that things would always develop in unexpected ways? The eldest daughter of the Shinomiya family had actually been rejected for marriage, and the once prosperous Shinomiya Zaibatsu, which had looked like a behemoth no matter how one looked at it, had actually fallen into the crisis of an empire collapsing in a very short time.
"What an incredible life this is."
Kaguya lay spread-eagled on her large bed.
It was the height of a scorching summer, and the central air conditioning in the room was strong. She looked out the window with a cold gaze, a hint of envy flashing in her eyes.
After all these years, she had never even been to Japan's famous fireworks festival once.
She had thought that after having a fiancé, she could attend this year's fireworks festival with the man she liked, so the Shinomiya family would no longer have an excuse to stop her from going out.
But who could have imagined that before the fireworks festival even began, everything had already turned out like this?
Kaguya shook her head, trying hard to forget that figure.
She thought about the current situation of the Shinomiya family.
She had met Mikado, that arrogant little brat the same age as her, who expressed his so-called love for her as soon as they met.
Was Mikado's love real? Kaguya did not know, nor did she want to know.
Even if that love was real, Kaguya did not like him.
"My three brothers cannot possibly be unaware that the situation the family is currently facing cannot be resolved by a so-called engagement at all."
"If I were married into the Shijo family, when the Shinomiya family collapses, perhaps only I could be saved."
"No, Kaguya, you cannot be as naive as you were before. You cannot be saved either. Everything you have now is because you are the eldest daughter of the Shinomiya family."
"If the Shinomiya family is gone, who will care about you? No one will care about you."
Kaguya felt a wave of sadness.
As the family faced a crisis, she began to examine her past, which made Kaguya realize that besides her identity as the eldest daughter of the Shinomiya family, she actually had nothing.
She was just a useless woman.
"But the most tragic one is the Shinomiya family, isn't it? To think there would be a day when they need to sell off the women of the family to grasp at an almost impossible victory. My three brothers have completely gone mad. I just don't know if Father will be angered to death by this. The doctor said his health is already very poor."
Kaguya tossed and turned in bed. She wished she could just fall asleep like this and wake up to find that it had all been a dream.
But the stark reality forced her to face it head-on.
"Hayasaka..."
She subconsciously called out her maid's name, and her eyes quickly dimmed.
Hayasaka was no longer here. She had left long ago and was no longer her maid.
Compared to the crisis of the Shinomiya family, what Kaguya actually cared about more was Hayasaka still being by her side.
Just as Kaguya was restlessly rolling around in bed, a smiling male voice suddenly came from beside the window.
"Kaguya-sama, what are you doing?"
(To be continued.)
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