Kurogane Night Academy didn’t look cursed from the outside.

It looked old.

Stone walls.

Iron gates.

A bell tower in the center that was taller than it had any right to be.

Kaze Ryuto stood in front of those gates with one duffel bag and a lie in his mouth.

“I’m here for a fresh start,” he’d told the admissions office.

What he didn’t say: _I’m here because everywhere else I see her die._

_Echo Sight._

That’s what the doctors called it before they stopped calling him back.

Nine seconds.

Nine seconds before someone dies, Kaze sees it.

The fire.

The fall.

The knife.

The blood.

He saw his sister die 9 seconds before the fire took her.

He didn’t move fast enough.

He wasn’t going to be late again.

The gates opened by themselves.

---

*ARRIVAL*

“New transfer?”

The boy leaning against the gate had black hair, a bandage around one hand, and a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Ren,” he said. “Class 3-A. You’re late.”

“Kaze.”

“I know.” Ren pushed off the gate. “They told us to expect you. Come on. Headmaster wants to see you before curfew.”

They walked.

The courtyard was empty.

No students.

Just the tower.

The bell in it was big. Dark. Silent.

Carved under it, in stone worn smooth by years:

`The Bell Tolls 9 Times. The 9th Toll Takes One.`

Kaze stopped walking.

Ren noticed.

“Yeah,” Ren said quietly. “That’s the rule.”

“What happens on the 9th toll?”

Ren didn’t answer.

The Headmaster’s office smelled like old paper and tea.

Headmaster Hoshizaki was not old.

That was the first wrong thing.

She looked maybe 30.

Black hair.

Red eyes that didn’t blink enough.

She was writing when they came in.

She didn’t look up.

“Kaze Ryuto,” she said. “Echo Sight. Survivor of the Hachino Fire. Sister died. You lived.”

Kaze’s jaw locked.

“How do you—”

“I know everything that happens in my school.” She finally looked up. “Sit.”

He sat.

Ren stayed standing by the door.

“You’re the ninth,” Hoshizaki said.

“The ninth what?”

“The ninth student chosen this year.” She slid a folder across the desk. Inside: eight photos. Eight names.

Mizuki Aoi.

Ren Kuroda.

Yui — no last name.

And five others Kaze didn’t know.

“Nine students,” Hoshizaki said. “Every nine years. One dies before graduation. That’s how the school stays alive.”

“That’s murder.”

“That’s tradition.” She smiled. It wasn’t kind. “You’ll get used to it.”

The bell tower tolled once.

_DONG._

Ren flinched.

Hoshizaki didn’t.

“First week,” she said. “First toll. You have eight left.”

Kaze stood.

“Where’s my room?”

“Room 32,” Hoshizaki said. “With the others.”

---

*ROOM 32*

It was supposed to be a dorm for two.

There were nine beds in it.

Mizuki was braiding someone’s hair.

She looked up when Kaze came in.

Her eyes were too calm.

“Kaze,” she said. Like she’d been expecting him.

“How do you know my name?”

“I saw you in a dream,” she said. “You were standing in the garden. Alone.”

Ren dropped Kaze’s bag on an empty bed.

“Don’t mind her. She’s like that.”

In the corner, a girl was folding paper.

She didn’t look up.

Yui, Kaze assumed.

The one the school didn’t know existed.

She was folding cranes.

Hundreds of them.

Hanging from the ceiling.

“Don’t talk to her too much,” Ren muttered. “She talks back.”

The bell tolled again.

_DONG._

Everyone in the room froze.

Except Yui.

She kept folding.

“That’s two,” Mizuki whispered.

“Two weeks,” Ren said. “Two tolls.”

Kaze felt it then.

The cold.

In his chest.

Like someone put a hand over his heart.

_Echo Sight._

He saw it.

Nine seconds.

A hallway.

Dark.

A girl with long hair.

A shadow behind her.

A hand.

A scream cut short.

Then it was gone.

Kaze was on his knees, gasping.

“Who—”

“Who was it?” Mizuki was beside him immediately.

“I don’t know her face,” Kaze said. “I’ve never seen her before.”

Ren looked at the door.

“Then we have nine seconds to find her when it happens.”

The bell didn’t ring a third time.

Not yet.

---

*NIGHT ONE*

Kaze didn’t sleep.

None of them did.

At 3:17 AM, the bell tolled.

_DONG._

Third toll.

Kaze shot up.

_Echo Sight._

Hallway.

Second floor.

The girl from before.

Long hair.

She was turning a corner.

The shadow was already there.

“Second floor,” Kaze said, already running.

“Which hall?” Ren was right behind him.

“East wing!”

They ran.

Nine seconds.

That’s all they had.

The hallway was empty.

Too quiet.

Then —

A sound.

A choked gasp.

Room 14.

The door was open.

Inside: the girl.

On the floor.

Breathing, but barely.

A dark shape standing over her.

It didn’t have a face.

Just a shape where a face should be.

Ren moved first.

He grabbed a desk and threw it.

The shape turned.

Looked at them.

And smiled with no mouth.

Then it was gone.

Like smoke.

The girl was alive.

Barely.

Mizuki was already there, hands glowing faintly as she pressed them to the girl’s chest.

“Hold on,” Mizuki whispered. “Hold on.”

The bell didn’t ring again.

Headmaster Hoshizaki was in the doorway when the ambulance people came.

She looked at the girl.

Then at Kaze.

Then at the empty corner where the thing had been.

“Interesting,” she said. “The Veil missed.”

“What was that?” Kaze demanded.

“The 3rd toll,” Hoshizaki said. “It always takes something. Tonight it took a little life instead of all of it.”

She turned to leave.

“Oh. And Kaze?

Good job.

You have six tolls left.”

---

*MORNING*

The girl lived.

Her name was Aoi.

Not Mizuki.

Another Aoi.

She didn’t remember anything.

Class 3-A didn’t go to class.

They sat in Room 32 and didn’t talk.

Until Yui spoke.

She hadn’t spoken before.

“ It’s not the bell,” she said.

Everyone looked at her.

“The bell doesn’t take anyone,” Yui said, folding another crane.

“The Headmaster does.

The bell just counts.”

Silence.

Ren swore.

Mizuki closed her eyes.

Kaze looked at the ceiling, at all the paper cranes.

_The Bell Tolls 9 Times. The 9th Toll Takes One._

“But we can change it,” Mizuki said suddenly.

“How?”

“We take the 9th death ourselves,” Mizuki said. “One of us.

So no one else has to.”

“No,” Kaze said immediately.

“You don’t get to decide that,” Ren said.

“Neither do you,” Mizuki shot back.

The bell tower was quiet outside.

For now.

Kaze looked at his hands.

They were shaking.

_Echo Sight_ had shown him 9 seconds.

But it didn’t show him how to stop it.

Not yet.

He looked at Mizuki.

At Ren.

At Yui and her cranes.

Eight tolls left.

Eight chances to be wrong.

One chance to be right.

“Okay,” Kaze said.

“We figure it out.

Together.”

Ren nodded.

Mizuki exhaled like she’d been holding her breath.

Yui just kept folding.

Outside, the bell tower stood silent.

Waiting.

_DONG._

Somewhere, far away, the 4th toll was coming.

And Kaze had 9 seconds to be ready for it.

*END CHAPTER 1*

The school didn’t breathe after the third toll.

It waited.

Kaze didn’t sleep.

No one in Room 32 did.

Nine beds.

Nine people.

One room that was supposed to hold two.

The paper cranes above them didn’t move.

Yui was curled in the corner, folding even in her sleep.

Ren sat on the floor with his back to the door and a knife in his hand.

Mizuki stood at the window, watching the bell tower.

It was dark.

It was silent.

For now.

Kaze counted his own breathing.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

If he could count that, maybe he could count the space between now and the next time his chest went cold.

“Did you see her face?” Mizuki asked.

She didn’t turn around.

“No,” Kaze said. “Just the hair. Long. Dark.”

“There are two hundred girls with long dark hair here.”

“I know.”

Ren shifted.

“Then we watch all of them.”

“For six more weeks?”

“We don’t have a choice.”

The bell didn’t ring.

Not that night.

The quiet was worse.

Morning came through the windows like an apology.

Headmaster Hoshizaki sent for all nine of them before first period.

Room 32 emptied out and walked together down the hall.

No one talked.

Her office smelled like tea and old paper and something metallic underneath.

Hoshizaki was writing when they came in.

She didn’t look up.

“Sit.”

Nine chairs.

In a circle.

The other five candidates were already there.

Kaze didn’t know their names.

A tall boy with glasses that kept sliding down his nose.

A girl with short hair and scarred knuckles.

Twins who didn’t speak and sat too close together.

And a boy who kept looking at the door like he was measuring how fast he could run.

Hoshizaki set her pen down.

“The rules are simple,” she said. “The bell tolls nine times. Once a week. On the ninth toll, one of you dies. The school feeds. We all live another nine years.”

“That’s not a rule,” Ren said. “That’s murder.”

Hoshizaki smiled. “Call it what you want.”

She slid a paper across the desk.

Nine names.

Nine photos.

Nine birthdays.

“Our candidates,” she said. “You’re marked. The Veil knows you. That’s why it comes for you first.”

“What about the rest of the school?” Mizuki asked.

“They aren’t on the list. Yet.”

The word _yet_ landed like a stone.

“The fourth toll is soon,” Hoshizaki said. “I suggest you use the time.”

She stood.

Meeting over.

As they filed out, Kaze saw it.

Yui’s photo.

Tucked behind the others.

Her name wasn’t on the list.

But her face was.

They didn’t go to class.

Class 3-A spent the day in the library because it had the most exits.

Mizuki read about curses and wards.

Ren read about weapons.

The twins didn’t read anything.

Yui folded paper.

Kaze watched the doors.

Every time someone walked past, his chest went cold.

_Echo Sight_ flickered and died.

False alarms.

“Stop doing that,” Ren muttered.

“Doing what?”

“Looking like you’re going to die every time someone coughs.”

“I can’t help it.”

At night they moved.

Never alone.

Never in the same place twice.

It didn’t matter.

The cold hit Kaze in the stairwell.

_Echo Sight._

Nine seconds.

West wing.

Stairs.

The girl with short hair and scarred knuckles.

She was climbing.

Alone.

Above her, a shadow with too many hands.

“West stairs!” Kaze shouted.

They ran.

Nine seconds.

They hit the third floor landing in seven.

The girl was there.

Frozen.

Looking up.

The shadow was above her, reaching down.

Ren threw a knife.

It went through the shadow and hit the wall.

The shadow turned its head.

It didn’t have a face.

It reached.

Kaze grabbed the girl and yanked her back.

The shadow’s hand closed on nothing.

It screamed.

Not with a mouth.

With the sound of every bell in the tower.

Then it was gone.

The girl was shaking.

“Who— what—”

“It’s okay,” Mizuki said, already kneeling. “You’re okay.”

Footsteps.

Hoshizaki.

She looked at the knife in the wall.

At the empty air.

At Kaze.

“The Veil missed,” she said. “Again. How disappointing.”

She pulled the knife out.

Handed it to Ren.

“You’re making this difficult.”

She left.

The girl’s name was Sora.

She cried for an hour.

Then she asked if she could stay in Room 32.

No one said no.

After that, they weren’t allowed to leave Room 32 without an escort.

“To keep you safe,” the announcement said.

“To keep us contained,” Ren said.

They ignored it.

They made a schedule.

Two people awake.

Always.

Watching Kaze.

Waiting for the cold.

It came at four in the morning.

_Echo Sight._

Nine seconds.

Bathroom.

First floor.

The boy who kept looking at the door.

He was at the sink.

In the mirror behind him, a shadow was smiling.

“Bathroom. First floor!”

Eight seconds.

They broke the door down.

The boy was staring at the mirror.

The shadow reached out of the glass.

Ren smashed the mirror with his elbow.

Glass everywhere.

The shadow screamed and pulled back.

The boy fainted.

Hoshizaki was there before the medics.

She looked at the broken glass.

At Ren’s bleeding arm.

At Kaze.

“You’re interfering,” she said.

“Good,” Kaze said.

Hoshizaki smiled.

“Then I’ll make it faster.”

The boy didn’t wake up for two days.

That night they met in a circle on the floor.

“The bell is speeding up,” Mizuki said. “She’s scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“Of us not dying.”

Kaze was staring at his hands.

“It comes nine seconds before,” he said. “Every time.

That means I can see it coming.

If we use those nine seconds, we can move the target.”

“What?”

“If the Veil wants one person, and that person isn’t there...”

“It takes nothing,” Mizuki finished.

“Exactly.”

“So we rotate,” Ren said. “No one sleeps in the same place.

No one walks alone.

We make it impossible.”

Yui stopped folding.

“It will adapt,” she said.

“How?”

“If you keep moving the target, it will stop aiming at people.

It will aim at all of you.”

Silence.

“Then we’re ready for that too,” Kaze said.

They had no better plan.

It came at noon.

In the courtyard.

In front of everyone.

_DONG._

Kaze felt it in his chest like ice.

Nine seconds.

Courtyard.

All of them.

One shadow.

Bigger than before.

Too many hands.

One mouth.

`NINE.`

`ONE.`

It spoke in their heads.

“IT’S COMING FOR ALL OF US!” Kaze yelled.

They ran, but there was nowhere to run.

The shadow rose from the ground.

Ren threw knives.

Mizuki’s hands lit up.

The twins linked hands and pushed.

Yui threw a crane.

It burst into light.

The shadow hit the light and staggered.

Kaze grabbed Mizuki’s hand.

And Ren’s.

And pulled them into the light.

The shadow shrieked and collapsed.

The bell cut off mid-ring.

Silence.

Hoshizaki stood at the edge of the courtyard.

Clapping.

Slow.

“Impressive,” she said. “Really.”

She looked at Kaze.

“You’re ruining tradition.”

“Good,” Kaze said.

Her smile vanished.

“You have four tolls left. Let’s see how long that lasts.”

They didn’t sleep in Room 32 that night.

They slept in the garden.

All nine.

In a circle.

Kaze stared at the stars.

The tower was dark above them.

“You think we can make it?” Ren asked.

“Make what?”

“All nine tolls.”

“I don’t know.”

“But we have to try,” Mizuki said.

Yui was quiet for a long time.

Then: “It’s not about surviving the tolls.”

“What is it then?”

“It’s about who rings the ninth bell.”

Everyone went still.

“The Headmaster said the ninth toll takes one,” Yui said. “But she never said who rings it.”

Kaze sat up.

“You think someone has to—”

“I think someone has to choose,” Yui said. “And whoever does, dies.”

Mizuki looked at Kaze.

“No,” Kaze said.

“You don’t get to—”

“I’m not saying I will,” Mizuki said. “I’m saying we need to be ready.”

Kaze looked at the tower.

At the silent bell.

Four tolls left.

He thought of his sister.

Of being nine seconds too late.

He wouldn’t be late again.

“Then we break the bell,” Kaze said.

Ren grinned.

“Now that’s a plan.”

They spent the next day planning.

How to get into the tower.

How to break the bell.

What to do if Hoshizaki stopped them.

That night the bell rang.

But not a toll.

A single low note that shook the windows.

No vision came.

No attack.

Just a voice in their heads.

`I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE PLANNING.`

Hoshizaki.

`TRY IT.`

Silence.

It came at three in the morning.

_DONG._

Kaze was already on his feet.

_Echo Sight._

Nine seconds.

Hallway.

Third floor.

The twins.

Separate.

Two shadows.

“Third floor! Split up!”

They ran.

Kaze and Ren took the left hall.

Mizuki and Yui took the right.

Nine seconds.

Kaze hit the corner and saw it.

One twin, pinned against the wall.

A shadow with hands around her throat.

Ren threw a knife.

The shadow turned.

Kaze tackled the twin out of the way.

The shadow screamed and lunged.

Mizuki’s light hit it from the other side.

It turned to smoke.

The twin was breathing.

Alive.

The other twin was fine too.

Barely.

The bell stopped.

Hoshizaki was waiting in the hall.

She looked at all of them.

At the smoke.

At Kaze.

“You’re learning,” she said. “Pity.”

She walked away.

They didn’t talk for a long time after that.

Room 32 was quiet.

The cranes above them didn’t move.

Kaze sat on his bed and looked at his hands.

They weren’t shaking.

Not this time.

“We need to get into that tower,” Ren said finally.

“Before the seventh toll.”

“How?”

“We find a way in,” Mizuki said. “Tonight.”

Yui was folding.

Faster now.

“Be careful,” she said without looking up.

“The bell remembers sound.”

Kaze nodded.

Outside, the tower stood silent.

Waiting.

Three tolls left.

And Kaze had nine seconds to figure out how to stop the next one.

He closed his eyes.

Breathed in.

Breathed out.

Not late.

Not this time.

*END CHAPTER 2*

The tower didn’t have doors.

That was the first thing Kaze noticed when they stood in front of it at midnight.

Stone.

Dark.

A bell hanging in the open at the top like a wound.

No way in.

“Of course it doesn’t,” Ren muttered. “Why make it easy.”

The nine of them stood in a half circle on the grass.

No one had slept.

No one had said they would try.

They just all showed up.

Mizuki was holding a paper lantern that wasn’t lit.

Yui had a stack of folded cranes in her arms.

The twins were holding hands.

Sora, the girl with scarred knuckles, had her fists clenched.

The glasses boy kept pushing his glasses up even though they weren’t falling.

The boy who fainted was still pale, but he was standing.

Kaze looked up.

The bell was still.

It didn’t look big from down here.

It looked inevitable.

“We need to get in,” Kaze said.

“There is no in,” Ren said.

“There has to be.”

Yui stepped forward.

She held out one crane.

It twitched in her hand.

Then it lifted.

On its own.

And flew up.

Straight at the stone.

It hit the wall and flattened.

And stayed there.

A faint line appeared around it.

Like a doorframe drawn in dust.

“The bell remembers sound,” Yui whispered. “And paper remembers doors.”

Mizuki lit the lantern.

The light was soft.

It made the line in the stone glow.

Ren pressed his hand to it.

Cold.

He pushed.

The stone moved.

Not much.

But enough.

A crack.

Then another.

Then the wall slid inward, an inch.

Enough for air to come out.

Old air.

The smell of rust and something sweet underneath.

“Okay,” Ren said. “Now we have a door.”

They went in one at a time.

Inside was a spiral staircase.

No rail.

Just stone steps going up into dark.

The air was colder here.

And quieter.

Like sound didn’t want to live in this place.

Kaze went first.

His chest was tight.

Not from _Echo Sight_.

From waiting for it.

Step after step.

No one talked.

The only sound was breathing and the soft shuffle of feet.

Halfway up, the lantern flickered.

Mizuki stopped.

“Did you feel that?”

“What?”

“The air moved.”

It hadn’t.

But Kaze’s chest did.

Cold.

_Echo Sight._

Nine seconds.

Stairwell.

Above them.

A shadow.

Not on the stairs.

In the wall.

Reaching out.

“Above!” Kaze said.

They didn’t run.

There was nowhere to run.

The wall rippled.

A hand came out.

Then an arm.

Then a head with no face.

It dropped onto the stairs above them and started coming down.

Ren threw a knife.

It passed through.

The thing didn’t stop.

Mizuki’s hands lit up.

The light hit the shadow and it hissed.

But it kept coming.

Yui threw a crane.

It burst into light midair.

The shadow recoiled.

Kaze grabbed Mizuki’s arm and pulled her back a step.

Then another.

“Down,” he said. “We go down.”

They retreated.

Fast.

Back to the door.

The shadow didn’t follow.

It stopped at the halfway point and sank back into the wall.

Outside again, everyone was breathing hard.

“That’s not going to work,” Ren said.

“No,” Kaze agreed. “Not like that.”

Yui was looking at the wall.

At the faint doorframe.

“The bell remembers sound,” she said again. “So we give it something else to remember.”

She took all the cranes from her arms and set them on the ground in a circle.

Then she sat in the middle.

Closed her eyes.

And started to hum.

It wasn’t a song.

It was a sound.

Low.

Steady.

Like a bell that hadn’t rung yet.

The cranes lifted.

One by one.

And flew at the wall.

They didn’t hit it.

They sank into it.

And the wall lit up.

Veins of light spreading out from where each crane had gone in.

The door opened.

All the way this time.

Yui opened her eyes.

She looked tired.

“Now,” she said.

They went in again.

This time the stairs were lit.

Not by the lantern.

By the light in the walls.

From the cranes.

They climbed faster.

No shadows.

No sound.

Just the stairs and the light.

At the top was a room.

Circular.

Stone.

And in the center, hanging from nothing, was the bell.

It was bigger up close.

Dark metal.

Cracked down one side.

And it was humming.

Not ringing.

Humming.

Like it was waiting.

Under it, on the floor, was a circle carved into the stone.

Nine segments.

Four of them glowed faint gold.

Five were dark.

Kaze’s chest hurt.

“The mark,” Mizuki whispered.

“Yeah,” Kaze said.

Ren walked around the circle.

“There’s nothing here to break it with.”

“There doesn’t have to be,” Mizuki said. “We just have to stop it from ringing.”

“How?”

No one answered.

The bell hummed louder.

Kaze stepped into the circle.

The moment his foot crossed the line, the cold hit him.

_Echo Sight._

Nine seconds.

This room.

The bell.

It rang.

Once.

And the floor under them cracked.

And the light went out.

He jerked back out of the circle.

Gasping.

“What did you see?”

“It rings,” Kaze said. “If we stay, it rings. And something happens.”

“So we leave,” Ren said.

“We can’t,” Mizuki said. “The seventh toll is coming. If we’re not here, it will find us somewhere else.”

The bell hummed.

Louder.

Yui stood.

She walked to the edge of the circle and held out her hand.

The air above her palm shimmered.

A small bell appeared.

Bone white.

Cracked.

The one from the Headmaster’s office.

“I took it,” Yui said. “From her desk.”

She placed it in the center of the circle.

On the stone.

The big bell’s humming stopped.

For a second, everything was quiet.

Then the small bell cracked further.

A line running down its side.

And the big bell rang.

Not loud.

Soft.

_DONG._

The sixth toll.

Kaze felt it.

Nine seconds.

The room.

All of them.

The shadow came from the walls this time.

Not one.

Nine of them.

One for each of them.

“Scatter!” Kaze yelled.

They did.

The shadows moved fast.

Kaze grabbed the glasses boy and pulled him behind a pillar.

A shadow passed over where he’d been standing.

Ren was fighting two at once with knives that did nothing.

Mizuki’s light was keeping three back.

The twins were back to back, pushing with whatever that power was.

Sora was punching one in the face.

It didn’t help, but she was doing it.

Yui was standing in the center, by the small bell, and the shadows weren’t touching her.

The bell rang again.

_DONG._

Not the seventh.

An echo.

The shadows paused.

Then they all turned and went for Yui.

“No!” Kaze ran.

He got there in six seconds.

He put himself between Yui and the shadows.

They hit him.

Not with hands.

With cold.

With weight.

With the feeling of falling.

He hit the floor.

Couldn’t breathe.

Hands on him.

Mizuki.

Ren.

Pulling him up.

The shadows were gone.

The bell was silent.

Yui was on her knees, holding the small bell.

It was in two pieces now.

“It took it,” Yui whispered. “The echo. Instead of us.”

Kaze coughed.

His chest hurt.

But he was breathing.

Footsteps.

Hoshizaki.

She stood in the doorway.

Looking at the broken bell in Yui’s hands.

At the big bell above.

At Kaze on the floor.

“You broke it,” she said.

“We didn’t,” Kaze said.

“You did. You gave it something else to take.”

She walked in.

Picked up the two pieces of the small bell.

“I’ve been doing this for two hundred years,” she said. “No one has ever done that before.”

She looked at Kaze.

“You’re making this interesting.”

She turned and left.

The door closed behind her.

On its own.

No one moved for a long time.

Then Ren swore.

“Did we just win?”

“No,” Mizuki said. “We just bought time.”

Kaze sat up.

His chest still hurt.

But the cold was gone.

“How many left?”

“Three,” Mizuki said.

“Three tolls.”

They went down the stairs.

The door closed behind them.

And the wall sealed again.

Like it had never opened.

Back in Room 32, no one slept.

They sat in a circle.

Kaze was in the middle.

Because his chest still hurt and no one said it but everyone knew.

“The bell remembers sound,” Yui said. “We gave it a different sound.

But it will learn.”

“How long do we have?”

“Not long,” Yui said.

Kaze looked at his hands.

They were steady.

For now.

He thought about his sister.

About nine seconds.

About being too late.

He wasn’t going to be late again.

“Okay,” he said. “Then we plan for the next one.

And the one after that.

And the one after that.”

Ren nodded.

Mizuki took his hand.

Yui started folding again.

Outside, the tower was silent.

For now.

Three tolls left.

And somewhere in the school, the Headmaster was smiling.

Kaze closed his eyes.

He could feel it.

The next cold coming.

He opened them.

“I’m ready,” he said.

No one answered.

They didn’t need to.

They were all ready.

The bell would ring again.

But this time, they would be waiting.

*END CHAPTER 3*