Velvet Academy had seen many scandals.
The Great Soup Flood of Year 223, when the Culinary Club replaced all the fountains with broth. The Duelist-Arts Club Incident, when two rival love confession duels destroyed an entire wing of the library. The brief but terrifying reign of the Hamster King, a rodent possessed by a minor chaos spirit who seized student government by force.
But none of those events compared to this. Because pinned to the academy's grand bulletin board, right between the weekly meal schedule and the notice about overdue library fines, was a single sheet of paper glowing with ominous magical authority.
It was a photograph and not just any photograph. Rei, looking like he'd just been stunned by a thunder spell, cheeks faintly red, his collar slightly tugged down as though he'd been forcefully adjusted. His hair was tousled. His eyes glassy. His entire aura screamed hostage photos.
