At last! The monstrously long multi-chapter story I'd been working on for 0mn is now finished and ready to share! Mayakuro Nobles AU! Set in a much older time period in Japan, where status is everything, as you'll soon find out. There are a lot of emotions to be felt ahead, but to start off, you must know the backstory of our heroines...
Disclaimer: I do not own Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight.
T/W for this chapter: Mentions of attempted suicide, abuse, neglect.
In A World Of Secrets, Love Is Blind
Chapter 1. An Unseen World
In a time where society was divided into classes strictly based on social status, it was an unwritten rule known to all that things were to proceed in a certain, unspoken, but vastly-understood manner.
Here, in the Empire of Seishou, the guidelines for living were clear, and those who made an effort to ignore or defy them would perish - typically in a social sense. One wrong move, one incorrect word or gesture to those of a higher class than your own, and it was a simple feat to have an entire family of nobles hounding and harassing you until you either apologized in the form of free labor, or exiled yourself from the nation.
Status was everything. Status was life. Rules needed to be followed.
One could argue that the unwritten rules of the class system held more weight than official law, in some cases.
Of course, commoners who lived in poverty suffered most greatly in this primitive system. But though they were abused and taken advantage of the most, there was one thing the commoners possessed that even some nobles could never obtain in quite the same fashion.
Freedom.
You see, the commoners may have been the most susceptible to blatant abuse, illnesses, and all other forms of injustice. But when a commoner was being chased down by the horse-backed nobles and their hunting dogs, he could flee into the forest, across the creek, and hide out in the mountains for a time, until the nobles found someone else to be the target of their ire. Then, the commoner could creep back into the slums of town and continue living his humble life.
The commoner had the freedom to run, to escape, to play dumb under the guise of poor education, to milk pity from those few gullible wealthy by feigning sickness or idiocy. The streets were vicious places, and the people who lived and breathed the slums day and night were hardened, clever masters of their own craft. Poor, but wise in their own ways.
And they were free. Shackled only by a lack of money, but not by a lack of territory. Their lives were dangerous, yes, but they were also majorly lawless and unmonitored - for better and for worse.
Whereas, some might argue that some nobles suffered more from their safe, clean, candle-scented houses, than some commoners did from their grimy, maggot-ridden sewers.
Because nobles couldn't run.
Perhaps the wealthiest of the wealthy had the jurisdiction to do whatever they pleased. After all, the richest families were essentially those that decided the laws, and may as well have run the empire themselves by paying into the government's pockets.
Those nobles, at the very top of the food chain, could do as they pleased, and no one would dare to question them. Threats of execution or seizure of property were common with the mud-slinging politicians and the nobles who supported them. Where the commoners were below the law, the wealthiest nobles were above it.
But it is not those nobles who live in the fullest of luxuries who suffer. Rather, it is the "poorer" majority of nobles, so to speak. Those who were handed their status through family inheritance, which was limited, rather than the more powerful families who gained a constant flow of riches by exploiting the lower working classes. The families that owned food processing and distribution, or controlled the excavation of fuels, or maintained control over any other industry essential for the empire's survival could do as they pleased.
But the families who merely inherited their wealth had many restrictions placed upon them, and many rules they needed to follow if they wished to maintain their noble status - lest they sink into the slums.
And living as the youngest of three daughters in such a family, Saijou Claudine knew these rules and restrictions more intimately than anyone else in the empire.
As was true in the case of every family that held the same precarious social status as her own, her parents had wanted sons. Boys were held at a much higher value than girls were, and were worth at least ten times more on a social level. A "poor" noble family who birthed even one son was worth more and held in higher regard than a same-status family who birthed five daughters. It wasn't uncommon to hear stories of families that would try to bribe others or even steal infant boys in order to raise them as their own sons solely for the sake of reaping the social benefits.
Claudine's own parents hadn't been cunning enough for any of that; being caught in such a farce would result in the immediate stripping of their status, and possibly exile. And so, they had taken their chances with having their own biological children - and each and every time they had lost that gamble.
Their first daughter was a mild disappointment, but at the time the couple had still been young and hopeful, and so they had tried again a few years later.
The second time they gave birth to a girl was immensely more disheartening than the first. Caring for a child was expensive business, and caring for a daughter was even more so.
Where parents would spoil a son and give him anything he desired in order to nurture the future riches he would bring them, daughters were three times as expensive. Since their social value was significantly less than a boy's, their only true value came in the form of one day being married off to a rich husband.
Once a daughter was married off, her parents would receive a monthly stipend payment from the groom's family; not so much as a gift for giving up their daughter, but more so as a gift for her fertility, and the chance of her bearing a son for her wealthy husband.
So for the Saijous to give birth to two daughters was a significant burden to their already precarious financial status.
But even so, they did everything they could to keep their infant daughters healthy, educated, and beautiful, so that they would grow up into desirable young women who would be appealing to any rich nobleman.
They hadn't planned on any other children. At that point in their lives, the couple had been feeling the weight and stress of their years living as they had been, even though they had only been in their mid-thirties. But one night of mutually taking out their frustrations in the form of pleasure had later resulted in another pregnancy.
They had decided to roll the dice one last time, to believe that since they'd lost out twice already that the odds would be in their favor for a boy this time.
But, oh, how terribly wrong they'd been.
Not only had Lady Saijou later given birth to a third daughter, but one that would cause them the greatest inconvenience of all.
They had named her Claudine, and as a newborn she had shown no definitive signs of lameness in any way. She had been a lovely baby, with a curly, sandy-blonde hair color, which made her unique from her darker-blonde sisters. Her parents had been hopeful that this rare hair color would make even this daughter appealing to the noblemen of the empire, as not many women adorned a natural hair color of that particular shade. This was due to the Saijou's half-French origins, which had lain dormant in the other children.
And so, the couple had decided to do their best to raise even their youngest daughter into a respectable noblewoman like her sisters. But within only the first few years, it had turned disastrous.
A single moment of neglect had resulted in the infant girl crawling to where the servants had been mopping the floors. A maid who hadn't been paying attention had knocked into the bucket of disinfectant and doused the child in chemicals. Claudine's mother had bathed her instantly, but the redness in the baby's eyes remained sickeningly evident for days to come.
After that, it quickly became clear that Claudine was defective.
Unlike her sisters - who were two and three years older than her - due to the incident, Claudine had been unable to perform the basic motor skills that her sisters had when they had been her age. Claudine would frequently bump into furniture around the house, even when she was still crawling. Her parents hoped that once she was able to walk that she would avoid these obstacles, but to their dismay, it only got worse.
Throughout her infancy, Claudine stumbled and fell and collided with every object and person in the house. She was constantly getting in the maids' ways when they were cleaning, and had broken several vases and knick-knacks. Important visitors and guests who were delighted at the presence of the two oldest daughters would sneer and turn their noses up at the clumsy little one.
Claudine's odd behavior quickly became a topic of gossip amongst the nobles, to the point where it drove the Saijous to call upon a doctor to inspect her - something they hadn't bothered to do directly after she'd been afflicted.
The diagnosis was simple and tragic. Claudine's vision, which had started out as strong as anyone's at birth, had been drastically deteriorating ever since the disinfectant had doused her.
By the age of only 3, she'd gone completely blind.
It was irreversible, and far too late at that point for anything to be done to salvage her vision. The only possible hope would have been to seek out a magical healer, but they were far too rare to come by, and their services were astronomically expensive.
This was an unexpected blow for the Saijous. A blow even more devastating than bearing a third daughter. Had they known from the start that Claudine was defective, they likely would've left her to die in the forest, or sold her on the black market. But since it had already been 3 years, too many outside people knew of Claudine's existence, and though getting rid of a lame female child wasn't unheard of or uncommon, the Saijous still feared what it could mean for their reputation.
In addition to that, a particularly shrewd guest had offered a fair point; how some men would prefer a blind girl for her vulnerability. Perhaps she would never be fit to be married off, but there were plenty of noblemen with more money than they knew what to do with who would leap at the chance to purchase a mistress for a night of entertainment. All the better if she was defenseless on top of being beautiful.
So in the hope that they could at least earn money by prostituting Claudine off when she became old enough, her parents decided to keep her.
Of course, there may have been some kind of medicines or treatments that may have been able to assist or improve her vision to some degree, but the Saijous didn't even consider spending more money on their blind daughter than was absolutely necessary. Nor did they bother to pay for her classes in etiquette and education like they did for her sisters.
At the very least, they still made sure Claudine had a basic level of knowledge. And they did provide her with the bare minimum for her condition - a walking cane, simply so she wouldn't injure herself to the point of scarring, which would lessen her potential value in the future.
However, in spite of her cane and how well she'd learned the layout of the house over the years, there was no shortage of cruelty from the people around her.
While her parents provided the basics for her, such as food, clothes, and a bed, they didn't really have much else to do in her life. They spent all of their time with business partners, deepening their relationships with wealthier families while putting most of their attention into their eldest daughters. So long as Claudine looked pretty, performed her chores, and didn't interfere in their work, they were content.
However, her sisters had loved nothing more than bullying Claudine since the day she was declared legally blind. They would often steal her walking cane just to laugh and watch her stumble around in an effort to locate it. They would break things and blame it on their clumsy blind sister, or dirty up the plates she had just finished painstakingly cleaning. Even the servant children would join in and blame unfinished tasks or broken objects on her.
One of her sisters' favorite pranks was to rearrange the house's furniture on Claudine, so she would fall or bump into something that she knew wasn't normally supposed to be there. They'd sometimes spill things and deliberately stain her clothes the night before so the materials would dry and Claudine wouldn't realize they were stained. She would then walk around doing her chores and greeting guests while looking like a slob, which would embarrass their parents and earn Claudine scoldings and punishments in the form of more cleaning and chores.
But so long as Claudine wasn't scarred by her injuries, her parents didn't care what her sisters did to her. Bruises and cuts that would heal were all fine, so anything short of permanent bodily harm was fair game.
This, of course, included the psychological and mental abuse - the cackling and name-calling and degrading comments that were hurled at Claudine day in and day out.
How she was a disgrace to the Saijou name.
How she was useless.
How no one would ever want her, except maybe for a laugh.
How she'd be better off dead.
And even as a young child, Claudine had considered ending her own life many times. The pain and the cruelty were simply too great for her to handle. She'd thought about it many hours of many nights.
In spite of their abuse toward her, she couldn't help but feel obligated to her family. So if she made her own death look like an accident, it wouldn't reflect poorly upon them.
She thought about making it look like a simple kitchen incident; a slightly-askew cut of the knife that would graze and open up her wrist. Or an understandable stumble down from the top of the staircase. Or even just a simple drowning in the bathtub.
She considered them all. She'd even tried a few times.
But each time, she ended up backing down at the last second, allowing her basic survival instincts to kick in and spare her miserable life.
Throughout her childhood, Claudine was abused and treated as such.
But through it all, there had been one thing Claudine had become aware of in her younger years around the Saijou house. One thing that had made her smile.
Theater.
Even though she was completely blind by the age of three, Claudine had shown an early interest in theater and the arts. She always loved listening to the radio, or the passing street performers. Her inability to see had never been a hindrance to Claudine in that sense. No matter how terribly her sisters and the staff treated her, or how sorely her parents ignored her, Claudine could always find some comfort in music or dancing.
Though she couldn't read, she would listen to performances or the recital of narratives on the radio. And when she was only seven years old, one of her sisters' tutors discovered that Claudine had quite the singing voice, and a rather impressive talent for dancing and the performing arts.
And of course, all of this was made to be even more impressive due to the fact that she was blind.
When her parents became aware of this, they dictated a new task to Claudine.
From then on, when she wasn't performing chores, she was used mainly as a source of entertainment in the Saijou household. While her sisters were off being educated by private tutors in the arts of how to be a proper wife to their future husbands, Claudine was cleaning and cooking with the maids. At the very least, she was made to do basic household chores, so she would have some value to a potential buyer.
But whenever the Saijous had company, Claudine was made to entertain them. She would either sing, dance, recite poetry, or act out small skits, occasionally by request.
Being blind for all of her memorable life, Claudine's body had naturally compensated for the lack of vision by enhancing her other senses. Her sense of touch and balance were incomparable, allowing for flawless execution of any dance movements.
Her voice was second-to-none, and she accumulated plenty of time to learn various instruments enough to master them. Over the years, she'd heard enough recordings to have confidence in her knowledge of most plays and musical numbers.
All of these factors ensured that Claudine's skills in entertainment were nothing short of phenomenal.
Since the performing arts were a luxury only enjoyed by the wealthiest of people, the Saijous' guests were endlessly entertained to get such high quality acts for free upon visiting - and from a beautiful blind girl, no less. A girl the Saijous never declared was their daughter.
Though her sisters only teased Claudine and told her the people only came to see her as though she were a freak at the circus, Claudine knew better.
Perhaps that was the case for some guests. But she could tell by the wonder and awe in some of their voices that a few guests had been genuinely enthralled by her performances. And in this cruel, colorless, shapeless world, that tiny spark of awe she incited every now and then was what made life worth living for Claudine.
Performing for the guests soon became what Claudine lived and breathed for. Because when she was given the parlor area to act in front of her small audience, there was no way for anyone to interfere, or misplace furniture in front of her, or catch her by surprise. Her sisters wouldn't dare to make Claudine look bad in front of guests, because that would only result in making the entire household look like a joke, so they had no choice but to refrain.
When Claudine danced and sang for the guests, she felt safest, and truly alive.
By the time she was ten years old, almost every noble in the empire knew of the Saijous' young blind dancer. And to their utmost surprise, the couple started receiving offers for her even before they received offers for their older daughters. Although they didn't market Claudine as their own child due to shame, they were owners of the house she lived in, so anyone interested in purchasing or marrying her would go to the Lord and Lady Saijou.
It turned out that the wealthy noblemen of the Seishou Empire were more interested in the appeal of an exotic young girl than they were in the thought of an everyday noblewoman wife. They wanted Claudine for her beauty, her talent, and her vulnerability.
It was the assumption that she was young, impressionable, and couldn't fight back. Many men saw the value of such a girl, and their thoughts were all the same; the sooner they marry her, the more children she could bear for them. And in spite of the risk of the offspring also being blind, the suitors saw no issue with selling off the defective infants and trying as many times as it took before Claudine could produce them a proper son.
This was an unexpected development the Saijous had never anticipated. They'd never assumed Claudine would end up being desirable to the noblemen, and especially not more so than her sisters. In only a few years, they were given many appealing offers for Claudine to be sold or married off.
But the couple didn't simply accept the first good offer they were given. Instead, they fed into their greed and denied every offer, which of course started the game of playing hard to get. For every offer they denied, someone richer would make an even more appealing proposal. It even got to the point where the Saijous started receiving "donations" from other households in the hopes that such money would heighten their chances of winning this auction.
The Saijous played this game for over a decade. They boasted of their incredibly talented and beautiful blind dancer, and claimed they would only sell her off to the highest bidder. From this game, they received multiple donations to help sway their decision.
Of course, this turn of events in which Claudine somehow became more desirable and valuable than them caused her sisters to become disgustingly jealous.
Their mistreatment of her only worsened over the years. When the older two would attend banquets or events and try to make moves on the young suitors, many of the men turned them down, commenting that they would rather have Claudine.
Every time one of her sisters was rejected, by no fault of Claudine's own, they would come home and take it out on her. They would steal or break her walking cane, hide her belongings, ruin her clothes, overturn her room, make deliberate messes in the house that she would be forced to clean.
Once, they even got hold of a stray dog, which they smuggled up to Claudine's room while she was asleep and locked it inside with her. Claudine had been bitten and scratched, and her bedsheets and carpets had been shredded and destroyed.
That was the only instance when the sisters had been mildly scolded for the bullying, because their parents had feared the dog bite on Claudine's stomach would leave a scar. But after shrugging it off as the damage already being done, they'd let their older daughters off with nothing more than a sigh.
And so, for over two decades, Claudine endured this life. A life of darkness.
Where her parents haggled with the richest people of the empire to get the best price to sell her off for.
Where her sisters abused and tricked her in every way possible, with every chance they got.
Where the servants and staff ignored her, or fooled her into doing more chores and labor.
Where the best moments of her life were when she became a spectacle, performing for guest entertainment. She got perhaps ninety collective minutes per week when she had her safe space in the parlor, where no one could trip her or ridicule her in front of the visitors.
In those moments, she could sense the space and the distance of the room and its objects around her so she could move without restriction.
She could dance in the nicest of her dresses; dresses her mother would confirm hadn't been stained or ripped the night before so she would look lovely for the guests.
She could let out her voice, which was inarguably beautiful, angelic in its echoes around the parlor.
She could smile - and mean it - when she heard the music on the record player or radio, songs she herself had selected to dance to.
After 21 years of abuse, neglect, and being a prize to be haggled for, trapped in the confines of her unalterable circumstances, it was in those few moments of singing, dancing, and acting when Claudine could relish the feeling of the commoners.
In those few moments, she was truly free.
A/N: A lot to take in. The Saijous in this story are an awful family for a change, and poor Claudine is the blind Cinderella. She lives a terrible life, and performing is her only reason to keep on going. In any universe, Claudine will excel in what she does best onstage, but this world is definitely one of the worst for her...
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