Naegi trailed Togami to the dining hall, hoping that at least one of the others might have ended up there as well – but when they got there, the room was empty. Naegi eyed the food in the kitchen as Togami made coffee. He knew he ought to eat, but with guilt and anxiety churning in his stomach, all the food looked nauseating.

"Ready?" Togami looked over and frowned when he saw that Naegi's hands were empty.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Togami tilted his head consideringly for a moment, then turned back to the counter.

"What are you doing?" Naegi craned his head to see.

"Here." Togami turned back and handed Naegi a steaming cup of tea. "You should at least try to drink something."

Naegi peered into the cup, then gave it an experimental taste. It was a soft herbal tea, soothing rather than energizing – just about what he thought he could handle right now. "Thank you!"

"Just come sit down and drink it." Togami headed back out of the kitchen to sit at one of the dining hall tables. Naegi followed, taking the seat beside him.

"So everyone seemed really mad at us, huh?" Naegi said, staring down into his teacup like he thought he might find answers there.

"They're being entirely unreasonable about the matter," Togami said, scowling in the direction of the door. "Not that I expected anything better from most of them, but usually Kirigiri can at least muster up a little logic."

"She's still mad about yesterday," Naegi said glumly. "When I didn't tell her about what I heard that night." He sighed. "Maybe she's right – maybe I really did handle all this wrong. I didn't mean to make everyone so angry."

"Their stupidity is not your fault," Togami said flatly. "There's no point in wasting time thinking about what you could have done differently. The only thing worth thinking about is what we're going to do from this point on."

"Yeah, I guess." The magnitude of the problem facing them made Naegi's headache even worse than it had already been. "We'll need to talk to them, right?"

"Considering their reactions to even the most reasonable safety measures, I think it will be an unfortunate necessity," Togami said. "But we'll need a plan first."

"Sure." Naegi felt a little better now that they were actually trying to accomplish something. If he and Togami tackled this together, maybe they could find a way to fix it after all. "But how would we convince them?"

Togami's forehead creased as he frowned. "Convince them? What are you talking about?"

"Convincing the others that we all need to work together, and that Ogami really is our friend," Naegi said. He blinked. "Isn't that what you meant?"

Togami closed his eyes, pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose. "Are you serious?"

"Uh – yes?" Naegi blinked.

Togami sighed heavily. "Naegi, I want you to listen to me." He spoke very slowly and clearly, enunciating each word as if to a small child. "Ogami is working for the mastermind. That means she is not our friend. She is our enemy."

"I don't think that's true," Naegi said.

"Yes, I know, you heard her vow revenge and now she has your eternal friendship," Togami said, rolling his eyes. "Have you even bothered to spare a thought about what it means that the mastermind had a spy among us in the first place?"

"Uh – they wanted to know what we were doing?" Naegi frowned, thinking it over. "I mean, they must know there are places in the school the cameras can't film. I guess they'd want a spy to report about whether anything important happened in those places."

"And not just that," Togami said. "Monokuma told us that Ogami had orders to kill on command – not as a decision she made because she wanted to escape or if one of the motives compelled her."

"It must have been awful," Naegi said, looking down at his hands. "And if it started the first night, then she's been living with it every day since."

"Exactly," Togami said. "Her every move among us has been made with the awareness that she could be called upon to kill at any moment. Every time she interacted with one of us, she spoke knowing that she would have to explain herself to the mastermind later. Whatever you may think about her reasons or her supposed change of heart, that's all still true. She was never a player in the game – she was a loaded gun that the mastermind had pointed at us the whole time." He clenched his fists. "And it's incredibly unfair."

"Unfair?" Naegi blinked. That wasn't the word he would have chosen to describe the situation.

"The existence of a spy for the mastermind among us upsets the balance of the game," Togami explained impatiently. "We all treated her as if she were subject to the same pressures as the rest of us – but in fact she was a tool the mastermind could use to manipulate us further." He scowled down at his coffee cup. "It proves that this was never a balanced game from the start. The mastermind never had any intention of playing fair."

"Of course they didn't," Naegi said blankly. "They locked us up and tried to get us to murder each other. Why would they care about playing fair?"

"Well, why go through all the trouble of putting us into such a rule-driven game otherwise?" Togami countered. "If all they wanted was to force us to murder one another, why not just threaten us with a straightforward kill or be killed scenario? It would be much easier than hedging us in with all these rules and staging these elaborate class trials."

"I don't know," Naegi said. "But whatever their reasons are, the mastermind has definitely been trying to control us and keep an edge over us. That's why we all need to work together to beat them."

Togami shook his head. "Working with the others is one thing. The worst they can do is be useless deadweight. But a spy is another issue entirely. She's betrayed us once, and now she's claiming to have betrayed the mastermind. Either her loyalties are so changeable as to be worthless, or she's lying as part of a bigger plot."

"Then what is it you want to do?" Naegi asked. "I don't think the others will let you lock Ogami up again."

"Well, I still have her room key," Togami pointed out, tapping his pocket.

"And you're just going to keep it from her?" Naegi asked, horrified. "What about the rule against sleeping anywhere but the dorms?"

"I'm perfectly happy to let her back in to the room," Togami said, shrugging. "And it's not as though I intend to keep her key against her will. All she has to do is ask, and I'll give it back. I don't want to give her an excuse to target me, after all." He smirked. "Of course, if she does ask for the key back, that will prove she has something to do that she can't accomplish if we know where she is."

"Or just that she doesn't want to be imprisoned in her room forever," Naegi said. "She said she wanted to take on the mastermind – she can't do that from her room."

"No, of course not," Togami said. "And frankly, we can't assume she's actually secure in her room even if we get her in there. It's simply an added layer of security that I think we'd be remiss to ignore." He shook his head. "But unfortunately, the best way of neutralizing her seems to be the most difficult at this point."

"Neutralizing her? Why do you keep saying it like you're going to use a stun gun on her or something?" Naegi asked, grimacing.

"There would be no point in trying something so crude," Togami said. "She could easily avoid any kind of physical attack. No, the easiest way to keep Ogami from following the mastermind's order to kill would simply be for the rest of us to stay together in a single group. No one can be targeted if no one is on their own."

"Oh – that's all you meant?" Naegi thought it over. If everyone stayed together, maybe as they saw that nothing bad happened, it would start calming some of their suspicions. It would at least stop people from misunderstanding anyone else's motivations or thinking the others were plotting against them. "That's actually a pretty good idea."

"I know it is. That's why I suggested it," Togami said. "But it will only work if the others cooperate – and with the situation as it is, I doubt they will. They're all too caught up in their private grudges to see the big picture."

Naegi stood, a new wave of determination coursing through him. "Then we'll just have to convince them."