Note about updating from now through the end of the month: So the Christmas holidays are nearly upon us (for those of us who celebrate them), and I will be traveling again starting tomorrow. I won't be able to manage daily updates while traveling, but I don't want to stop completely, either. I'm trying to figure out an update schedule that I think I can maintain.
I will try my best to get another chapter posted tomorrow, but it may not happen until Saturday. Whenever I can get it posted, that chapter will have a final update schedule from now through the end of December.
The problem with trying to convince people to work together was that they had to be available to listen first – and none of the other students were. Kirigiri had apparently finished her business in the bathhouse while Naegi and Togami were in the dining hall, leaving the room empty except for Alter Ego.
"No, I couldn't see which way she went after she left the room," Alter Ego said, when Naegi asked if he knew where Kirigiri had gone. "She looked pretty upset, though. I don't think she liked what I found out in the data analysis."
When they went to check the dorm rooms, Togami would have blown right past Fukawa's door if Naegi hadn't stopped to try the bell there.
"Good," Togami said, when there was no response to the bell. "We're better off without her wild fantasies, anyway."
"You know, she's really not as awful as you keep saying she is," Naegi protested. "She's got a pretty impressive imagination to be able to come up with all those different scenarios she talks about all the time."
"Impressive is one word for it," Togami said sourly, turning his back on Fukawa's room and heading further down the hall. "But if you heard some of what she says when she can catch me alone, you might call it something else."
Stopping in front of Hagakure's door, Togami grimaced at the portrait of the older boy for a moment before pressing the doorbell. When nothing happened, he pressed the bell again, harder than before.
"Maybe he's not there," Naegi said, as Togami jabbed at the bell a third time with vicious impatience. "He might have gone out to one of the other floors."
But just then, the door finally cracked open, and Hagakure stuck his head out.
"Finally," Togami snapped, glaring at him.
"Huh?" Hagakure looked from one boy to the other, his eyes widening in alarm. "You two? Oh, man, I knew it!" He leapt backwards and slammed the door in their faces.
"Yes, that's about what I'd expected." Togami sighed. "Maybe this is all a waste of time."
"You mean – you just want to give up?" Naegi asked, horrified.
"No, of course not," Togami said. "But we need to rethink our approach." He crossed his arms, drumming his fingertips against his forearm as he thought. "With emotions running this high, we may need to allow the others some time to themselves until they can react rationally again. It's hardly ideal, but I don't see another option."
"So – what, you think we need to wait for the breakfast meeting tomorrow?" Naegi asked, frowning. "I guess that would give everyone a chance to sleep on it."
"It might be for the best." Togami shook his head. "Well, if we aren't going to resolve this now, then there's something else I want to look into. Come on."
Without checking to see if Naegi was following him, Togami turned and headed for the stairs. Naegi hurried to catch up, sighing to himself as he realized that Togami apparently intended to climb all the way up to the fourth floor.
"There are too many stairs in this school," Naegi said, pausing for a moment to catch his breath at the top of the staircase. His legs ached after all the climbing he'd been doing every day, and his body was starting to feel too heavy to lift. Maybe skipping breakfast had been a bad idea after all.
"And we're not done with them yet," Togami said. "There are still at least two closed off staircases, and maybe even more in areas of the school we haven't visited yet."
"I can't even think about that right now." Naegi grimaced. "Hopefully we never have to see them." Despite his limbs screaming in protest, Naegi forced himself to stand up straight again and head down the hall with Togami. "So where did you want to go?"
"Apparently we missed the most interesting room on this floor," Togami said, stopping in from of the chemistry lab.
"Here? The room Asahina said had all the protein?" Naegi asked, following Togami inside. He noticed that there was a stool in front of one of the tables, and so he headed over to sink gratefully down onto the seat. He was pretty sure that if he tried to stand any longer, his legs might give out on him.
"Not just protein." Togami headed over to the huge cabinet standing against the back wall and began examining it, opening the different doors and rummaging around inside.
Naegi remembered what else Asahina had said she'd found in the chemistry lab. "Is there really poison just sitting out there?"
"It looks that way," Togami said, kneeling to get a better look at some of the bottles. "Protein on the far left, reagents in the middle, poisons on the far right." He pulled out one of the bottles from the rightmost cabinet, holding it up to the light as he considered it.
"Be careful with that!" Naegi protested. "What if you get some on you?"
"Then I'll wash it off," Togami said, rolling his eyes. "It isn't a contact poison."
"How can you be sure?" Naegi asked. "That sounds like exactly the sort of thing Monokuma would put where anyone could pick it up."
"Because it says so on the label." Togami tapped the bottle. "Fatality guaranteed within five minutes upon consumption, injection, or inhalation. Nothing in that about physical contact." He frowned at it. "Nothing about it that's at all identifiable, for that matter. It doesn't sound like any poison I've heard of."
"You would be an expert in poisons."
Naegi and Togami both turned to see Asahina standing in the doorway, glaring at them. "What are you two doing in here?" she demanded.
"I don't see how what we do with our time is any of your business," Togami said coolly, putting the poison bottle down and getting to his feet. He crossed the room so that he stood at the table by Naegi's side, close enough that his arm brushed Naegi's shoulder.
"It is when you decide to go messing around in the poison cabinet," Asahina snapped. "Just what were you going to do with that stuff, huh?"
"Oh, man, they were getting poison?" Hagakure appeared behind Asahina, horror written across his face. "I knew it – I knew they were planning to strike! Didn't I tell you how they tried to kill me?"
"You haven't sh-shut up about it since it happened," Fukawa said from beside him. She looked into the room and smirked when she caught sight of Togami. "So you c-couldn't even pull off a murder attempt, could you? I guess you a-aren't very good at this game after all, huh? You can't win even when you're trying."
"You must be joking," Togami said, glaring at the group crowding into the chemistry lab. "Neither Naegi nor I had the slightest intention of attacking any of you. We simply wanted an opportunity to talk to each of you after everyone had a chance to think over what happened this morning."
"Oh, we've thought it over, all right," Asahina said, clenching her fists. "We've thought all about your lies and your tricks and your games."
"We just wanted to talk to you," Naegi said. He tried to meet each of his friends' eyes, but one by one they looked away when he sought their gazes. "Honestly, we aren't playing games!"
"Not anymore you aren't," Asahina said. "We aren't going to let you."
Naegi didn't like the sound of that at all. Looking at Asahina's angry determination, Fukawa's barely contained grin, and Hagakure's fearful trembling, a chill of apprehension slid down his spine. This wasn't a coincidence, was it – not when they'd all appeared in the doorway to have this conversation at once.
"And just what do you think you can do to stop us?" Togami asked, raising his eyebrows.
"I think we've found a way," Kirigiri said, stepping forward. She brushed past Asahina to stand in front of the others, her expression impassive as she looked between the two boys.
"Wait – Kirigiri?" Naegi stared at her, startled to see his usually level-headed friend standing with the more excitable group. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that you two have done nothing but act as a force for disruption and distrust over the past couple days," Kirigiri said. "You've made unfounded accusations, terrified people, and made critical decisions on your own. We can't trust the two of you together." She crossed her arms. "So we're going to separate you."
