Elsewhere.
In a residential area somewhere in Japan.
Horikita Suzune was teaching her daughter how to do her homework.
Horikita Maki pouted, holding a marker as she scribbled away on a sheet of A4 paper on the table.
Horikita Suzune stood beside her with her arms crossed, holding a bamboo switch for rapping knuckles as she supervised her daughter's homework.
She swayed the bamboo switch in her hand back and forth.
Her daughter shrank her neck in fright and sped up her homework even more.
Horikita Suzune was not usually this strict with her daughter. She even spoiled her a little.
Until some time ago, when her daughter's kindergarten teacher, Ichinose, had secretly whispered to her:
"I gave your daughter a small mock exam some time ago. She got a zero, and she was dead last in the class."
Horikita Suzune could not help clenching her fists.
Competitive all her life, she did not want her daughter to lose at the starting line.
At the very least, she could not lose to other women's children.
That was why Horikita Suzune had become so strict with her daughter, enforcing a supervision policy.
In other words, watching her do her homework.
Horikita Maki lowered her head and did her homework with the marker twice as fast as before.
Her little aggrieved eyes were still brimming with tiny pearls of tears.
She felt terribly wronged.
Her mother had never treated her like this before.
Usually, whatever she wanted to eat—
Her mother would make it for her.
Horikita Maki had been spoiled rotten by both Horikita Suzune and Akasaka, developing an innocent personality.
She was nothing like her mother, nor was she like her father.
Children born in peaceful times were all like this.
Having never experienced certain things, they were naturally innocent.