First period ended only two minutes earlier.

I stood just outside the door to Fushineko-sensei's room as the rest of the class filed out behind me.

"Good work, Kazeyama-san," said the nekomata with a dark chuckle. "Careful what you wish for, eh?"

She walked by with one eyebrow arched like every Saturday morning cartoon villain I grew up watching. Honestly? I couldn't blame her.

Up and down the Crescent Moon Academy hallway, everywhere I looked, madness and chaos erupted like an angry volcano.

And I felt just like Pompeii.

"Well, that certainly didn't take very long, did it?" asked Yuki.

I shook my head.

"How did it go south so quickly?" I asked.

Yuki shrugged.

"Go south? What do you mean?" she asked, confused. "We're on an island in the Sea of Okhotsk. That's hardly in the south."

I sighed and looked at the lunacy unfolding around me.

Everywhere I looked, it was like someone had smashed a vending machine full of yokai tropes and cosplay accidents all over the school.

One of the tanuki boys was covered in glitter and holding a smoke bomb like he was cosplaying Final Fantasy meets drag brunch. Behind him, a kappa with a ring light strapped to his forehead was livestreaming his "best angles" and muttering something about influencer marketing.

Natsumi stood outside the Hans Bellmer Memorial Art Room.

It was eerie how much she reminded me of her mother as I watched her trying to vape into the smoke alarm like she was speedrunning an expulsion.

"Well, you're really in the thick of it now, old sport," said Inego as he stepped out of the Literature room behind me.

I wasn't surprised to see Hotaru clinging to his arm like a neon-candy accessory.

"Oh, wow," she said as she looked around.

Someone—I think it was the vending machine spirit again—had set up an impromptu photo booth with a cursed Polaroid camera that printed selfies and death dates.

Half the school was already lining up.

The other half were getting in line for the actual school photo. At least, I think that's what they were doing.

They could've been standing in line for Twisted Sister tickets and no one would've blinked twice.

Hotaru laughed, a sound that I would normally have described as sounding delightful if it hadn't been directed at me.

"My sweet gods, Ryu-san. I'm so glad this wasn't my idea. I mean…" she gestured around with her free arm.

"Yeah, that's not a good look," Inego agreed.

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Yuki snorted.

"You were more than happy to ride Ryu's coattails in Literature class, Hotaru," Yuki said.

Hotaru ignored her, choosing instead to sigh wistfully while looking up at Inego.

"I know you can hear me, Hotaru. Your cousin's an exorcist, and you study with the same clan," Yuki continued, annoyed.

I was about to chime in, but then I saw her.

Azuki Konami.

Or, as the chaos gods probably call her, patron saint of bad ideas and perfect timing.

She was barefoot, obviously.

Skipping, full-speed. Her red-plaid skirt was two-sizes too small and clinging on for dear life. Behind her, heads turned to see the cheeky tanuki.

"Hey Ryu-sama! I love your idea, it's the be-est!" she screamed when she saw me.

She had a Sharpie mustache drawn on her lip and was holding a pair of broken scissors like a prop. Probably from the arts and crafts room. Probably not hers. Probably stolen.

And she was grinning like she just won a Nobel Prize in Being a Complete Chaos Gremlin.

No sooner had she landed in front of us than a gruff voice cut through the hallway.

"Oh, it was his idea, was it?"

Everyone turned to see the grossest, most foul and festering thing to ever have set foot on Crescent Moon Academy: Skuzz the zombie.

And then we heard it.

Schlurrrp. Slap. Schlurrrrp. Slap.

The unmistakable sound of Skuzz the zombie—dragging one foot, leaking from multiple orifices, and moaning happily to himself like he'd just walked into the world's filthiest art gallery.

He came down the hallway with his usual wet crunch, his left eye spinning loose in its socket until he jabbed it back into place with a finger the color of infected pee. His body moved like a corpse held together by resentment, duct tape, and an entire office supply store's worth of staples.

"Oh-ho-ho, it was your idea, was it?" he rasped, his voice like cigarette smoke gargling glass.

I didn't answer.

I couldn't. The hallway had gone still—not quiet, but still—the way a crowd goes still when someone lights a firework indoors.

Skuzz grinned.

Which was unfortunate, because part of his cheek fell of, revealing blackened gums and something that may have been a tooth or part of his lunch.

He didn't care. He just stapled the cheek flap back on, still smiling.

Beside me, I saw Yuki gag.

"Oh, Ryu, keep it away from me! The smell!" she said, backing away.

"Yuki, you're a ghost. How can you smell?" I asked.

She simply shook her head.

"I can still imagine, and that thing's horrible."

He stopped right in front of me, arms crossed—even though one of his shoulders popped out of socket with an audible squelch.

"Kazeyama," he said with pure joy, "you've done it. You've finally done it!"

I took a much needed step backwards.

"Done what? Made Chernobyl look like amateur hour? Brought the school to below Manson-Family level insanity? Skuzz, I don't know if I want to hear this," I said.

But he laughed, a sound that reminded me of stepping on a cockroach.

"This yearbook?" he began. "This glorious, diseased, unforgivable piece of cursed media? It's gonna make the Necronomicon look like a travel brochure."

I swallowed.

He held up a stack of yearbook photo negatives—a handful of grainy, half-possessed stills. In one, a tanuki's head was spinning 360 degrees while throwing a peace sign. In another, Natsumi appeared to be mid-vape and mid-exorcism.

And in the corner of one photo, I'm pretty sure the vending machine spirit was flipping off God.

"This is art," Skuzz said reverently. "Pure, unfiltered degeneracy. I'm gonna press so many copies they'll have to ban this school from history."

That's when I realized:

This had gone way too far.

I'd lit the fuse.

And now the bomb was laughing in my face and calling it a masterpiece.

I had to stop this.

I turned to Inego, hoping my best friend was ready to spring into action, but he was no good to me.

I spotted him halfway inside the Literature classroom, his face buried so deep in Hotaru's lips it looked like they were trying to merge souls via oral osmosis. Honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised if her tongue came out of his ear and tied his brainstem into a love knot.

Totally into each other.

Totally useless.

Okay… who the hell could help me?

Hotaru was useless. Yuki was distracted trying to ghost-shame her and Inego. Natsumi was… vaping into the fire alarm again.

Azuki?

Livestreaming Inego and Hotaru and absolutely being part of the problem.

And then—

WHAM.

A classroom door slammed open with the force of divine wrath and teenage angst, and Shion Kurozawa marched out like she was late to punch destiny in the face.

Her long black hair whipped behind her like a cape. She moved like she owned the floor. Green eyes sharp, skirt swishing, and black combat boots shining like a Terminator's skull.

No words.

Just pure, gothic fury in motion.

And at that moment, I knew.

If anyone could help me stop this cursed yearbook madness—

It was Shion.

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