Zonzai’s auditorium was prepared in an understated manner for the opening ceremony. Spotlights shine onto a stage consisting only of a podium decorated in frills and two chairs. Seating is organized by clubs, with the teachers sitting off in their own little group. Hushed whispers among the crowd fill the air as the students await their little girl principal. The Paranormal Club finds themselves in the last row of seats.

“I-Is this everyone?” Hotaru asks, taking his seat.

“Yes!” Kirie responds, sitting next to him. “We currently have around 80 students, but we’re still growing each year!”

“Growing? How many students were here last year?” Hotaru asks.

Kirie stops for a second to do the math, “Around 60? Your club was a huge boom to our numbers!”

“Well that might be true but it’s only been my club for a few hours. Plus we didn’t join on with the rest of them, so really it’s an assortment of people joining that boosted the numbers.”

Kirie looks at him with confusion. “That’s a lot of words to say that your club is big.”

“You know you’re also in this club too, right?” Yuudai asks her.

“Oh of course!” Kirie remembers, “I was in the Soccer Club for so long I forgot to count myself!”

“You said you were the manager of the club right? What exactly did you do?”

“Oh, this and that,” Kirie says airily before shushing him, “You have to be quiet now. The assembly is starting soon.”

Yuudai sits for a second completely befuddled by Kirie’s sudden mood swing and takes a look at the stage instead of deciphering her behavior. It remains empty as Yuudai turns back to Kirie, who shushes him a second time. He goes back to staring at the stage, completely unsure of what to do next.

Cerys taps on the shoulder of the student in front of her, a curly haired brunette with a small tuft of hair tied up with a ribbon, “Hey, what club are you in?”

The brunette turns around, “I’m part of the Idol Club.”

“So you guys are performing today?” Cerys presses on.

The brunette shakes her head, “No...We were supposed to but ‘Principal Roka’ wanted all of the attention to herself.”

“Afraid an all girls club was going to upstage her huh?” Cerys teases.

“We have a guy in our club!” the brunette pouts.

“Lemme guess, he’s the manager.”

“He’s actually our president!”

Cerys looks a bit more interested, “I bet he’s real cute then.”

“Maybe?” The brunette responds before sighing, “I just don’t get what people see in him…”

Before Cerys can prod more information out of her new friend, an official sounding fanfare blares throughout the auditorium as Roka walks out to the podium and disappears behind it, her bow barely visible. Not even a minute goes by before Lucy rushes out onto the stage with a footstool and places Roka on top of it, finally allowing the tiny principal to see the crowd.

“Good evening everyone!” Roka begins. The auditorium falls eerily silent as Roka does not continue. She finally gets irritated and leans back to the mic, “Now say it back!”

The crowd mumbles amongst themselves as a less than coordinated “good evening” makes its way back to Roka.

“Welcome to the third year of Zonzai High School! I am Roka Kurosaki and I’m your principal!” Roka smiles before turning a notecard over. “Our school was founded in 2017 by Kyouko Kumagawa with the intent of nurturing and caring for teenagers with unique abilities and skill sets that normal schools would not be able to help them master!” Roka fumbles her notecards, dropping them to the floor. As she jumps down to grab them all she notices that the crowd’s eyes have glazed over from her history lesson. She decides to leave her cards there, as she hops back onto the podium and grab the sides of it.

“As some of you know and some of you don’t, we’re planning to continue this year with new plans and funstuffs to help you better understand what’s going on in your bodies! Whether it’s mana, or the other stuff, or the other other stuff, or...or,” Roka continues trying to list them out, counting on her fingers as she goes, “Just how many different stuffs are there!?”

A lone cough echoes from the crowd. Roka pouts and clears her own throat, “Anyway, I’m sure most of you already heard that or don’t care about it so I’m going to talk about one more thing that isn’t about our school before I talk about our school! Across the world, there are a bunch of other schools like ours in places like America and the UK. Now we have schools open in Brazil and Egypt which brings our total to eight schools! Almost one on every continent!”

Someone shouts from the crowd, “What continent doesn’t have one?”

“Antarctica!” Roka proudly answers before Lucy walks over and whispers into her ear “I-I mean Australia!”

“So there’s a school in Antarctica?” another voice asks.

Roka ignores the jab and continues on, “No, Now back to our school! First off, we will be continuing the competition series from last year with all clubs starting with a clean slate...but we’re using the final rankings from last school year to start off this year! So the Soccer Club remains at the top, and our new club has zero points, so they start at the bottom!”

Akina smirks and crosses her arms, “Perfect. That’ll make beating everyone more enjoyable.”

There’s a longer than normal pause as Roka tries to quickly think of what to say next. Lucy steps forward and whispers into Roka’s ear, filling her with excitement. “Oh, right! Thank you Lucy!” She clears her throat. “Most of you already know the system, but let me explain the NEW system for this year!”

She takes a moment to scan the room with a proud gaze, but is met by the same thousand yard stares. “There’s a brand new club this year, which means we need to change the system! Since there’s nine clubs now, there needs to be a change in the club tiers, so as of now… only one club will be at the bottom! And there will be one at the top! And the rest will be separated into the other three tiers!” She shows both her palms to the audience, holding up nine fingers.

A tall girl with long black hair near the Paranormal Club stands up, “Is that the only change?”

“Of course!” Roka smiles back.

Another student stands, “Then why weren’t we told about this in your office?” The crowd latches onto that, murmurs stretches across the room as everyone echoes the sentiment.

Roka tries to maintain her composure, “I didn’t want to repeat myself that many times! So I did it here!”

A heckler shouts out from the commotion, “You could’ve just given us a pamphlet and saved us all the trouble!”

“You guys have to know the history of this school!” Roka fires back.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“That was the same speech as last year!” The same heckler prods further.

Roka slams her hands down onto the podium, a soft thunk only reaching the first few rows before being drowned out by the growing frustration of the crowd, “Everyone stop talking! This is my time to talk! I’m the Principal of this school not you guys!”

Lucy rushes to the podium and shoves the mic aside, quickly turning around with Roka so the two can have a private conversation. The students have fallen silent at this point, more interested in the meltdown that is occurring on stage.

“Oh my!” Kirika says, covering her hand with her mouth, “How uncouth of our Principal!”

After a few minutes pass, Roka returns to the podium while Lucy gathers the notecards off the ground, and hands them back to her.

Roka flips through her cards, seeing if she missed anything, “Well...that was everything I had listed out for you today. So let’s finish up by welcoming our newest club here at Zonzai, the Paranormal Club!” Roka cheerfully claps, as does Lucy from the back. The students and teachers slowly join in, still trying to process what happened on stage.

“A real hero’s welcome huh?” Rina says stretching out a bit in her chair, “I could get used to that.”

Cerys laughs “And what exactly are you the hero of?”

Rina remains unfazed by the taunt as she smirks. “I was a bully hunter at my old school! Yappy little punks like you were always fun to knock down a couple pegs.”

“Care to say that again?” Cerys asks, trying to lean over Akina to get closer to Rina’s face.

Akina shoves Cerys back into her seat before things get too out of hand, looking between the two of them, “It’s one thing to have a child as a principal, I don’t need two more to deal with.”

Rina sighs and turns back to the stage. Cerys crosses her arms and pouts as the applause dies down.

“And that concludes this evening’s assembly! Classes start bright and early tomorrow morning so be ready!” Roka says, seemingly more excited about being able to leave than anything else. The music returns as Roka leaves the stage and various students stand up from their chairs to stretch.

***

“Boy! That was...something,” Yuudai states as he walks near the front of the club with Yuuri, Saito, and Suzaka.

“Hm? What do you mean, Akiyama?” Yuuri asks as she leads the club around a corner.

“Yeah! I thought it was cool!” Suzaka throws a fist into the air.

“Which part? The boring history or her temper tantrum?” Saito snickers

“Let’s cut Principal Roka some slack.” Yuuri makes another quick turn, “She’s still just a child after all.”

Saito shrugs, “I was never the one to get along well with authority figures.”

Suzaka’s eyes light up hearing Saito speak, “Yea’! Ta hell with authority! Even if she was adorable…”

Yuudai scratches his head, “Didn’t you just say she was cool Suzaka?”

“Ah got caught up in the moment…” Suzaka says, looking down.

Hotaru and Kirie catch up with the leading group, the small blonde boy tugging on Yuuri’s shirt to get her attention.

“Miss....Yuuri?” Hotaru asks, still trying to catch his breath, “Are you...sure...we’re going...the right way?”

“We’re not heading to the dorm just yet,” Yuuri responds, earning some groans from a few clubmates within earshot, “We’ve got to go pick someone up!”

“Who?” he gets out between breaths.

“You’ll see…” Yuuri trails off before perking up at something.

“Ah! There she is!” She takes off running to a nearby lamp post. A short, thin redhead stands underneath it struggling to hold her suitcase up.

“Oh my God, I thought my arms were about to fall off holding this thing!” She says as Yuuri finally makes it to her.

The rest of the club joins the pair. “Oh! You must be Cerys Alcott!” Kirie exclaims, causing the vast majority of the club to stare at her.

“No, that’s me!” Cerys answers, walking up to stand next to the other redhead.

Kirie stares at both of them confused for a second before finally piecing it together, “Oh! Then that makes you…”

“Katsuki Kusaka,” the new girl replies, “President of the Paranormal Club.”

“That can’t be right…” Kirie thinks before pointing towards Yuuri, “She’s the President!”

Katsuki looks over at Yuuri who nervously laughs, “You’ve missed a lot today Katsuki.”

“You can fill me in later,” Katsuki responds, “Right now, let’s get to the dorms. I need to relax after lugging that thing around.”

“Of course!” Yuuri says excitedly before spinning around and taking off back towards campus. Yuudai steps up and takes Katsuki’s suitcase off of her, having no difficulties carrying it.

***

The four newcomers to the Club find themselves seated on the lone couch in the dorm as Katsuki, Yuuri and Mari stand across from them.

“These are our new recruits?” Katsuki asks.

“Yes!” Yuuri exclaims before pointing to the dark green haired girl on the left, “That’s Kirie Hoshikawa, Hotaru Fujinuma, Sus-I mean Suzaka Yuuma…” Suzaka furrows her brow for a moment, but decides to give a thumbs up to Yuuri’s quick correction, “And finally Rina Warren.”

Mari continues to look at the scene, brow furrowed in thought.

Yuuri sighs, “I...guess they’re the new recruits? Today was kind of rough.” She looks over at the 4, who seem to be in high spirits after everything that’s happened, “But I think they’ll fit in.”

“Good!” Katsuki says before turning to Yuuri, “Now what’s all this about you being the President?”

Before Yuuri can defend herself, Mari snaps out of her deep thought, “Ah know what this reminds me of,” She says, ahoge curling into a lightbulb. “A doujin cover!”

Katsuki blankly looks at Mari “I’m going to sleep now. Which room am I in Yuuri?” Her friend points to a nearby door as Katsuki walks over. She opens the door to find Yuudai and Saito in the room, causing her to promptly shut the door, "So did Roka assume Katsuki was a boy's name, and you guys didn't correct her?"

Yuuri avoids Katsuki’s gaze.

“Yuuri?” She asks, “What exactly happened today?”

Rina stands up. “Hold on now Prez, Yuuri’s been bustin’ her ass today trying to keep us all on track! And as for rooms, seeing as you weren’t here to defend yourself you just happened to draw the short end of the stick on this.”

Everyone looks over to Rina, shocked at her compliments.

Katsuki shrugs. “Oh well, I guess my luck stat isn’t too great. I’ll have to listen to what the President says then,” She says looking at Yuuri, a sly grin forming on her face.

“W-wait!” Yuuri stammers, “I’m not the President! I wouldn’t have had to do this if you were just on time in the first place!”

Katsuki turns away from her. “I uh...it wasn’t my fault.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I might...have skipped school.”

Rina snickers. “Our president skips school? Are you some kind of delinquent?”

“No! I was just hanging out with my mom and the first day doesn’t count anyways. I wanted to talk about magic stuff with her.”

A blood curdling scream cuts through the conversation. “Nothing I do can make this work! Why must I be cursed to live in such squalor!?” Kirika shrieks from her room.

“Guess I’m glad to be in the guys room now.” Katsuki walks into her room, “Better go take care of that President Yuuri. I’m going to sleep.”

Yuuri pouts as she heads into her own room to calm Kirika down.

Kirie stands up and bows to the other three. “I’ll be taking my leave then. Goodnight!” She says before heading off as well.

***

Kirie sits alone on the couch, hands neatly clasped in her lap, and watches the clock strike 3am. A beam of moonlight illuminates her in the darkness and a voice enters her head.

“How are things going Hoshikawa?”

“Everything is perfect,” Kirie says into the light. “I’ve met my new club today!”

“You have a new club?” the voice asks, “Tell me more!”

“It’s a large club but they’re filled with so many wonderful characters!” Kirie excitedly replies.

“Any cute boys catching your eye?” the voice teases.

“Well...there is one boy…”

“Now Kirie,” the voice grows stern, “You are an Angel and must not fall to temptation.”

“I won’t” Kirie says without hesitation.

“Good!” the voice grows cheery again, “Now don’t be shy, tell me all about him~”

Kirie gathers her thoughts. “Well I’ve only known him for a day. He does seem a little shy, but he’s so smart and mature!”

“He sounds like a real winner!” the voice says, dripping with jealousy.

“He does!,” Kirie says innocently. “I’ll let you know more once I’ve gotten to know him better.”

“I can’t wait,” the voice says.

“This is very fun, but wasn’t there an urgent matter to attend to?” Kirie asks.

“Huh?” The voice is caught off guard, “Well, er, it was attended to! Everything is as the Lord wills it.”

“Okay!” Kirie says, “See you soon. Go with God.”

“May the Lord protect you, Kirie!” and with that, the voice fades away. Kirie yawns before returning to her room, drifting off for the day as well.