A play away from freedom

Prologue

After classes, you met with Ritsu to discuss more ways to bring back the gala and the laurel crown to Darkwick. As always, you met him in the diner, and when you entered, Ren greeted you with his absolutely disinterested look.

"Your not-so-true detective is already waiting for you." As you went past him, he added in a quiet tone, "Don't forget about the raid in the evening."

"Got it," you answered and sat down at Ritsu's table, where a hot coffee was already waiting for you.

"I took the liberty of ordering beforehand as I was a little early," Ritsu stated, taking a sip from his coffee. Then he took out some papers from his suitcase and put them on the table. "We definitely have to get rid of the observation status. I have a few ideas I wanted to discuss with you." Directly to the point, no small talk.

Just as you took a look at one of the papers, which seemed to be a promising mission, you heard the door open and three cats ran in, each carrying an official letter in their mouth. They handed them to you, Ritsu, and Ren and disappeared as quickly as they appeared. Ritsu and you looked at each other and immediately opened the letters.

Ritsu began reading out loud.

"Dear Ghouls of Darkwick Academy, I would like to inform you that as of today, all of you are under curfew. No more Tokyo passes will be issued for the time being and missions outside the school grounds may not be carried out except with strict exceptions by the captains of the houses only. It has not escaped the school management's attention that the houses still treat each other with hostility rather than camaraderie. Additionally, due to recent events, we have come to the conclusion that the ghouls must prove they can work together again before they can regain their privileges. Memoria will announce the details shortly. Yours truly, Cornelius."

"Wait, what...?" you mumbled in confusion. You felt Ritsu's eyes on you. Even Ren looked up from the counter and stared at you in disbelief. You hoped they'd see you were just as confused as they were. Then you realized there were two letters inside your envelope.

"Dear Memoria, please meet us immediately in my office. There is a new task for you. I will explain everything to you in a moment. Yours truly, Cornelius."

"They can't just lock us up here. That violates at least nineteen regulations," Ritsu stated in disbelief.

"That might be true for ordinary students, but I think there are some rules explicitly for ghouls that override exactly that," you replied, lost in thought, as you quickly finished your coffee and got up to set off.

"You might have a point there. But wait, where are you going? Aren't you supposed to explain the details about all this?"

"Sorry, but I don't know about this procedure myself. The headmaster is calling me to his office to explain everything to me... or so I hope," you stated and grabbed your purse. "At the moment, I don't know much more than you do."

You went to Ren and paid for your coffee.

"But shouldn't they have told you before they sent the letters to everyone?" Ritsu asked while putting the papers back in his suitcase.

"They definitely should have..." you answered and left the diner.

While you headed directly to Cornelius' office, you prayed that there was no other ghoul around to ask you questions you couldn't answer. They must be really mad, you thought. Luckily, there was no one on your way, and when you arrived in the office, Cornelius, Professor Hyde, Moby, and Dante were already waiting for you. While Cornelius seemed a bit stressed, Professor Hyde made a rather amused impression.

"I don't want to beat about the bush," Cornelius began. "There is now an official curfew for the ghouls. We simply cannot allow events like last year to happen again. However, there are indications that tensions between the houses have flared up again. That's why we have to take action now."

Before you could comment, Professor Hyde immediately added, definitely too amused, "And this is where you come in, our esteemed inspector. Or should I rather say director?"

"Professor Hyde, you're getting ahead of yourself! We should first explain how we intend to give the ghouls a chance to prove that they can also work together and..." before Cornelius could finish, Hyde interrupted him.

"Pah, details, details, details. Let's get to the funny part already."

"Professor Hyde, this is not the time for..." Cornelius began when he was surprisingly interrupted by Professor Dante.

"We want you to organize a school play. The rules are simple. At least one ghoul from every house has to participate. You have two weeks."

"Wait, a school play? In two weeks? Me?" You had more questions than you wanted answers to. "Why me? How am I supposed to get a whole school play organized in just two weeks? And above all: There is a curse that requires my attention. If the ghouls can't go on missions, my curse..."

"No need to worry, Memoria, of course we thought of that. That's why there are exceptions to this rule. As you may remember, I'm a coriphobe in the field of anomaly research. If something comes up that we can't solve without ghouls, we will of course send them out," Professor Hyde stated enthusiastically.

"And you also don't need to worry about finding the right play for the young men. We already picked something nice for you. Of course, you should also participate," Cornelius said while handing you a pile of paper, which seemed to be the script.

"The Count of Monte Cristo...?" you asked incredulously as you flipped through the pages.

"Revenge, betrayal, and redemption. What better topic could there be?" Hyde grinned mischievously. Seems there's no way out of this.