Brilliant premise, and you execute it with real control. The “citation as moral panic” mechanic escalates cleanly, and the tone stays cold enough to make it feel plausible, bureaucratic, inevitable. Little details like the pagination discrepancy, the teacher’s handwriting, the “another source” voice, all sharpen the satire without turning it into a joke.

Also, the ending move works: removing the band reads like a quiet jailbreak. The line about influence being air is the right kind of philosophical release, earned after all that procedural suffocation.

One small note, even with the admitted guesswork: the meta apology at the end undercuts the spell a bit. If you keep it, maybe make it sound like an annex memo from the Ministry, or cut it entirely and let the unease linger.