Japan, 2020. Fujieda Neri lives a modest life in the poor district of the Ring Area—the developing corridor that surrounds Tokyo Bay. When her father vanishes without warning, the only thing he leaves behind is a letter with a single instruction: go to Kaikyuu Academy. The school is a prestigious private boarding institution for the children of Japan's elite. It also operates under a rigid and openly enforced social hierarchy: at the top is the Queen, with near-absolute authority over the student body; below her, the privileged class known as "The Roses in Full Bloom"; below that, the ordinary student majority called "The Nameless Honeybees"; and at the bottom, "The Ignored Stones"—students treated as servants by everyone above them. Opposing the entire structure is "The Resistance." Neri arrives from outside every one of these categories, and the truth her father was protecting her from starts to surface.