Chapter 53

They approached the church with sirens off, as per Kirigiri's instructions. It didn't matter, she knew, as Hope's Peak had probably detected her coming, but it would help get across the danger of the situation to Asahina and Oogami. They had no idea what they were dealing with and she couldn't explain; however, Asahina was nursing a grudge over the death of her coworkers. It meant she would have Kirigiri's back, but also put her at risk of launching an unwise attack.

Oogami shifted the car into park. "We are here."

Asahina cracked her knuckles. "Let's kick their butts."

From the backseat, Kirigiri grabbed Asahina's arm as she reached for the door. "Stop. Listen to me closely. We are not going to run in there with guns blazing. You will let me handle this. If necessary, we'll take them out, but I need to scope out the situation first. Komaeda may not had returned yet."

"I know, I know," Asahina said. "Sheesh, you treat me like a little kid."

"Kirigiri-san forgive me, but I still do not understand," Oogami said. "How did you figure out Komaeda Nagito kidnapped him?"

"There's no other explanation," she said. "Makoto had a gun. It was for Komaeda Nagito."

"What do you mean?" Asahina asked. "Isn't he carrying that around because he's a cop? Naegi-kun wouldn't go around shooting people."

Oogami side-eyed her. "Do you mean to say that you carry your firearm when you are off-duty?"

"No, I'm not that stupid. Togami would have my ass," Asahina said. "But Naegi-kun is Kirigiri-san's partner, so I bet he has tons of enemies."

"Makoto doesn't usually carry a weapon for self-defence," Kirigiri said, frustrated because that was so obvious. "He was going after Komaeda Nagito."

". . . Now I'm confused," Asahina said. "There's no way that's right. I don't even hate them that much and this is Naegi. What could Komaeda have done to piss him off so much?"

"He's in charge of Hope's Peak." Kirigiri said that like it was obvious, and then remembered that it wasn't to them. "We can start with Owada Mondo and Fujisaki Chihiro."

"But neither of them were murdered," Oogami said.

"They were!" Her nails dug into the shoulder of the driver's seat like claws. "Hope's Peak murdered both of them."

"Didn't Fujisaki-kun die of a brain aneurysm?" Asahina asked, her head tilted to one side.

"Which they gave to him," Kirigiri snapped. "Not directly, but through that scripture of theirs. Fujisaki wasn't prepared to read was inside and it destroyed his brain. That's the truth. It's what happened to Owada-kun, too."

Asahina stared at her for a long moment, then tugged on Oogami's sleeve and whispered, "Sakura-chan, I don't get it."

Oogami didn't answer Asahina, instead asking Kirigiri, "Naegi-kun agrees with your version of events?"

"He. . . I might not have told him," she admitted. "I thought he might have been a traitor at the time. He is a traitor, but I'm not abandoning him to them."

"How is Naegi-kun a traitor?"

"Because he's with them!" The very memory made her heart sting, made her ribs tighten and an iron collar squeeze around her throat. "When he betrayed me and went to Togami-kun behind my back, I thought he had done so because I had been acting irrationally. I thought he was acting in my favour, but I was wrong. He let them mark him while I starved in a cave, and then had the nerve to lie when I escaped. That's why I threw him out."

She said that last part in a single breath that was a pant. Even though her actions made sense, a good chunk of her rebelled at the memory. Her stomach lurched with a feeling so nauseous she almost threw up. Eyes closed, she muttered that last sentence again to beat her rebellious side into submission.

Oogami reached for her. "Kirigiri-san . . ."

"We've wasted too much time!" she snapped. "I'm going in."

She stepped outside the car and shut the door in the middle of Asahina and Oogami's exclamation. Halfway to the church, she checked behind her. Good. They were following. Usually, having others around was a burden, but in this case, she was glad for the backup. Maybe Komaeda would hesitate before pulling out his unearthly bullshit.

The front door was unlocked – naturally, it wasn't like they had anything to fear from the outside – and she flung it open. The sound of the door slamming into the wall echoed in the vast hall. She stormed inside, passing under the archways decorated with their jagged, taunting writing. The fibres of the inky-black carpet scratched her ankles. She walked up to the chancel and glowered at the purple and black – the Atua-like – monstrosity engraved on the stained glass. Tonight, she would surely have pleasant dreams of throwing a rock through it.

"Komaeda!" she hollered. "Where are you?"

The last syllable of her demand echoed. She stood upon the chancel like a queen, but only Asahina and Oogami were there as her witnesses. Was Hope's Peak ignoring her? Did they honestly believe she would give up and go home?

She called out two more times before someone finally arrived. Kamukura emerged from the staircase, blinking owlishly. He sighed when he saw what was happening.

"I told you Nagito's busy," he said. "If it's that important, tell me and I'll pass it on to him."

"You know exactly why I'm here. Where is he?"

Kamukura scowled. "Why does everyone assume I have a tracker with Nagito's name on it?"

"Not him. Makoto!"

Kamukura schooled his expression. "I can't tell you that. Aren't you the one that always knows?"

He was playing dumb. Fine. She could work around that.

The gun slipped into her hand so easily when she pointed it at Kamukura. Asahina and Oogami made noise, but Kamukura himself simply frowned. He studied the gun, then her

She grinned in triumph. "You're not afraid."

". . . What?" Kamukura said, not having figured out her trap yet.

"There is only one reason not to fear a gun: you know it won't affect you." She stalked toward him. "Makoto shot something, and it didn't die. It didn't appear to be hurt, which means it also isn't affected by bullets. Do you see what I am saying? You've just proven that Hope's Peak kidnapped him!"

She raised the gun again and leveled it at his forehead. "I could pull the trigger, and you wouldn't die. That's the proof I need."

Kamukura was silent. He edged sideways so he was out of the gun's sights. She moved her arm to follow him.

Or she tried to, at least. But something large and powerful snapped shut around her wrist and yanked it the other way. She thought Komaeda had finally reared his head, but her attacker was none other than Oogami.

"That is enough," Oogami said.

"What are you doing?" she hissed. This was not part of the plan!

"Kirigiri-san, you. . ." Oogami looked away and steeled herself. "This needs to stop. You need to calm down."

"Would you calm down if Asahina-san had been kidnapped?" she demanded. "Don't try to say you have the moral high ground."

"I would be upset if something happened to her, but you have gone too far," Oogami said. "There is no evidence Hope's Peak had anything to do with his disappearance. There is not even evidence that he was kidnapped."

"Is this a joke?" Kirigiri said. "We watched the surveillance video together."

"Indeed. But what I saw was Naegi-kun falling down the stairs and sliding off-camera. I will admit that it was bizarre, but there was nothing to suggest anyone else had a hand in it."

"He was there!" Kirigiri shouted. "I saw him moving in the shadows!"

"There really wasn't anyone there, though," Asahina said, raising her hand as if they were in school.

"Because you were looking for something human." With her free hand, she pointed at Kamukura. "That thing is a monster!"

In the aftermath of her declaration, she panted. Her finger remained pointing. Oogami and Asahina were eerily quiet, while Kamukura looked like he wanted to bang his head against a wall.

"Let me go," Kirigiri said.

Oogami shook her head. "I cannot."

Fine. She dropped the gun, only to quickly grab it with her other. She brought it up anew, aiming so that his head was right in the sights –

Oogami grabbed her arm and twisted. The flash of pain was so hot and heavy that her legs gave way. Before she could do anything more, a rock-hard arm locked around her neck. She knew this hold. She knew what it meant, but she couldn't do anything as the hold tightened and cut off the blood flow to her brain. She knew she had mere seconds left but it stretched out to an eternity.

I'll kill you, she mouthed to Kamukura. She couldn't tell if he had read her lips, as his expression never changed. As her vision darkened, the last thing she saw was his clinical stare, and Enoshima as she slunk near and sidled up to her boyfriend.


She didn't know why she woke up in a hospital. The unconsciousness that resulted from that hold shouldn't last too long, and she didn't think even a traitorous Oogami would lose that much control. This was not her room though, and unless Oogami or Asahina had decided to leave her in their bedroom, she couldn't think of another place that had a bed for her to lie in.

She didn't understand what she was doing here. Until she tried to move and the handcuff bit into her wrist.

She stared at it. It was real. Okay, she had been acting violently. Maybe Togami just wanted to be very sure she wouldn't leave before they talked. It seemed like something he would do if he was frustrated enough.

Or maybe it wasn't any of those things. Maybe after she had fallen unconscious, Kamukura and Enoshima had seen it fit to take out Oogami and Asahina. They could have dragged into the shadows like they had Naegi and made her a captive in body instead of just mind.

She needed to get out of here. If Hope's Peak had taken her here, Naegi could be nearby as well.

She tugged and tugged, but the cuffs were metal and didn't give. There were no loose wires sticking out of the mattress, her pockets had been emptied and she was wearing a hospital gown instead of her regular clothes. . . Those bastards had seen her naked!

With a cry of rage, she slammed her fist against the rail. This wasn't over. Her opening would come.

She didn't know how long she waited for that door to open, but it was much too long. She vaguely remembered this woman. She had been there during one of her hospitals visits.

"Um, hello, Detective Kirigiri. How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine. I have no headache, or light-headedness, or. . ." She listed off the things she knew the nurse would ask her.

"That's good," Tsumiki said. She stood there.

Kirigiri rattled her chain. "Unlock this."

"I'm sorry, but I'm not sure that's a good idea. I need to wait for the doctors' approval."

"Unlock these now," she snapped. "I have important business to attend to."

Tsumiki shrank back. "I'm sorry, but you're not allowed to leave!"

She glared at Tsumiki until she yelped and covered her head. "You can't keep me. I know my rights."

"You can't leave yet," Tsumiki insisted. "They haven't evaluated you yet. Please forgive me!"

". . . This is the psychiatric ward," she murmured. No. They wouldn't have stooped that low.

"I'm sorry, but the police department submitted an application to hold you. B-but it's a very nice place," Tsumiki said with a forced smile. "I promise to take good care of you."

"I don't believe this. Where's Togami Byakuya? Does he know about this?"

"Um, I can call him for you," Tsumiki said. "I think he wants to talk to you anyways."

"Of course, he does," she said dismissively. "He'll have the heads of whomever filled out that paperwork."

Togami took his dear sweet time to arrive, though it could have been the boredom talking. He had his professional face on. Good. People listened to him more when he was like that. Instinctively, she tried to stand, but the handcuffs wouldn't let her.

"What happened?" he said.

She explained everything she could. Togami listened, not asking questions, nodding occasionally. That was exactly what she needed right now, and her lips formed words even faster. She manually had to stop herself to breathe.

". . . And that's why you need to tell them to bring me the key," she concluded. She pulled again at the cuffs, hissing in rage.

"I don't understand this. What are they?" Togami wondered aloud.

"Monsters," she said. "That's all I can tell you. And they have Makoto. Get me out of here."

"Get you out," he muttered. "And then what?"

"We storm the place," she said. "We grab all the officers on reserve, conduct the biggest raid this country has ever seen and make sure Hope's Peak can never rise again."

Togami tugged at his wristwatch in an unusual display of nervousness.

"Come on," she strained at her restraints again. "I don't know how much time we have."

". . .No."

"You have a better plan?"

"No . . . There's no proof. It's ludicrous."

"Don't," she said. "You may not have witnessed it personally, but you've been close enough to Makoto and me to know I'm telling the truth."

"There was no one else on the video. There's nothing to prove what you are saying is true." He avoided looking at her, staring at the wall instead. "It's the first case you've been completely unable to make progress on. Your dad is in town, too, and Naegi and you just broke up. . . It's stress. You are unable to deal with the stress and you're having a nervous breakdown."

"What the hell are you talking about?" She would have thought Hope's Peak had messed with Togami's head again, but she had seen the aftermath of that once; she knew what to look for, and this wasn't it. She could hear the truth, too: the hitching of his breath, the breaks in his voice. This was fear she heard.

"There's not going to be a raid," he said. "There's no proof suggesting they had anything to do with this, I will file a missing person's report. We will handle this the same way we handle every other missing person's case."

"Togami-kun?" Something inside her was trembling. "What are you doing?"

"You need to recover," he said. "You need to calm down and . . . think about what you're asking for. I'm sorry I did not intervene earlier."

"Togami-kun, stop!" The chain rattled and rattled as she fought it. "Stop! You can't do this!"

"I will request regular updates from the doctors," he said mechanically. "I hope you recover soon."

"Togami!"

He shut the door behind him, leaving her to this fate. She screamed and pulled at her chains, until the metal tore into her skin and blood dribbled down her wrist. Her teeth sliced into her lips and tasting that blood finally knocked her out of her rage. Togami had abandoned her. He had abandoned Naegi. There was nobody to help her.

Nobody would save them.


She didn't eat their food. She dumped the water they brought her down the sink. Later that night, Tsumiki, flanked by a couple of bodyguards, unlocked her cuffs. Kirigiri kept herself in check; they were expecting her to attack. She laid awake most of the night, listening to the patrols outside and judging their frequency, or scouring her room for tools. Unfortunately, other inmates had a habit of self-harm, and her jailers were exceedingly skilled at removing anything useful. Certainly, she didn't have anything that could cut through those bars on her window or batter down the door. They'd even gone so far to pad the edge of her room's small table and weld down the top of the toilet seat. When she slept, it was with the fitful rest of prey who knew the hunter was near.

Morning came. She rose with the sun like a zombie. Her imprisonment felt more real than it had the night before. Yet she could barely focus on her own predicament, instead consumed by concern over where Naegi was and what they were doing to him.

Nothing happened until an hour after lunch. The door opened and Kirigiri looked as usual to see how many people there were. Too many, again. One of them stayed behind with her though.

"Kirigiri?"

"What are you doing here, Jin?" she asked.

"I heard rumours, but I didn't believe it . . ." Jin said, face pale. "What are you doing here?"

She told him. She told him exactly how Komaeda had played her and Togami had chickened out. Halfway through, her father wavered on his feet and had to sit. She didn't. She was too angry, pacing around the room like a tiger, beating her fist against the door once or twice.

"You believe me, right? I know what you saw the day grandfather threw you out. You need to get me out of here."

"I'm not sure that's the best idea," he said. "You're very agitated, and I don't think that's a good combination. . ."

"Don't you dare! I don't care if leaving me wasn't your fault. You don't get to play my father now!"

She barely even got an opportunity to bask in the petty victory. The nurse approached her room once more, opened the door, and deposited a new visitor. She and Jin were quiet, staring.

"What do you think you're doing here?' Fuhito asked.


Review Response:

Guest: Oh, I know what you mean. I was just teasing!