Naegi looked around the circle at his friends, taking in the other five faces of his friends. They all looked back with varying degrees of determination, fear, and resignation.

"Well, we might as well start with the obvious point," Togami said, when no one else seemed inclined to say a word. "Out of all of us, there's only one person who has recently gotten a motive to kill." His gaze zeroed in on Ogami. "You've been the mastermind's tool from the start, and now they've called you to action."

Ogami dropped her gaze. "I… I understand why you would accuse me, but I did not do this."

"It's easy for you to say that now," Togami said. "But do you expect us to believe you'd really be that strong if the mastermind waved their hostage at you again?"

"It's true that I do value the hostage the mastermind has been holding over me." Ogami looked up from the floor, eyes intense as she looked around the circle. "But I value all of you, as well. I can no longer sacrifice one to save the other. Even if I did decide to kill in a moment of weakness, I would admit to it rather than let all of you die accusing me."

"Very noble," Togami sneered. "But you're forgetting one thing. Hagakure died in your room – a room that I locked. If you can't explain how he got in there, then it can only be because the mastermind helped you. Either they turned a blind eye to your transgression of the rule against breaking down locked doors, or they opened the door for your themselves."

"You seem awfully willing to speak for the mastermind," Kirigiri broke in, crossing her arms. "But aren't you forgetting something?"

Togami glared at her. "What?"

"A reason why the mastermind wouldn't have been the one to open the door," Kirigiri said. "After all, the question of locked doors has come up already."

Naegi frowned. When else had they talked about locked doors? There had been the morning after the fourth floor had opened, when Monokuma had created the new locked door rule, but other than that he hadn't been around much. The last time they'd seen him was when he'd called that assembly – wait.

"You're talking about when Ogami didn't show up for the emergency assembly, right?" Naegi said. "Monokuma told us that the only way he'd open a student's door would be as part of an investigation. That means he wouldn't open the door to help someone commit a murder."

"That's right!" Monokuma sang out, beaming at them. "Getting your headmaster to help with your graduation exam would be a big no-no!"

"And if that's the case, I think this is the first question we need to discuss," Kirigiri said. "How did three people get through the door to Ogami's room after it was locked?" She looked over at Asahina and Ogami. "You two were there. Do you have an explanation?"

But neither girl said a word. Naegi frowned. He couldn't understand it – why were they both staying silent? Even if it really was one of them, shouldn't the other still be willing to speak up?

He sighed. He'd hoped that one of them would admit what had really happened, since keeping quiet about it looked suspicious. He didn't really want to have to force anyone's hand – but Kirigiri was right. They had to answer this question before they could move forward.

"Asahina." Naegi looked her in the eye, giving her one more chance. "Are you sure you don't know what happened?"

Asahina squared her shoulders like she was preparing for a fight. "I told you already – the door was open when I tried it."

"No, I don't think that's true," Naegi said. "These doors don't lock automatically – you have to use a key no matter what side you're on. So if the door hadn't been locked properly last night, it should still have been unlocked this morning. But when Kirigiri tried it, the door was locked."

"She could have been confused," Asahina insisted. "Or maybe Togami came back and locked it again."

"I did nothing of the sort!" Togami snapped.

"Well, it's true we can't prove what anyone didn't do," Naegi said slowly. "But I think maybe we can prove what someone did." He kept his eyes on Asahina as he spoke. "When I closed the door to Ogami's room, I noticed that it was kind of wobbling. None of the other doors move like that."

"Meaning that it was actually broken, as I said," Togami said, nodding.

"Unlikely," Kirigiri said. "Up to this point, the mastermind has taken great care in the rules we're given. I don't believe they would have created a new rule just to ignore it a few days later."

"Then what exactly are you suggesting?" Togami asked.

Kirigiri smirked. "The new rule specifically forbids breaking down locked doors. It doesn't mention any other interference."

"You can't be claiming someone picked the lock," Togami said. "Or have you forgotten that these locks are unpickable?"

Naegi frowned. Something about that didn't sound quite right. The locks couldn't be picked, at least according to Monokuma, and the rules forbade breaking a door down. But remembering the way the door had moved, he was sure that something had been done to it – something that wasn't either of those things.

The way the door had moved…

"No one would have needed to touch the lock," Naegi said, drawing the circle's attention back to him. "Someone could open a locked door without breaking it down – if they unscrewed the hinges."

"Oh, could they get around my rule that way?" Monokuma asked pensively from his throne. "I wonder…"

Everyone looked at him for a moment, waiting to see if he'd continue, but he just grinned out at them.

"Whether it violates the rule or not, that isn't the problem," Togami pointed out, shaking his head. "Unscrewing the hinges would require a screwdriver."

"Yes, it would. And that's exactly what we found." Naegi pulled out the screwdriver and held it up for display. "This was hidden in Ogami's room."

Togami's eyes narrowed at it. "That's one of the screwdrivers from the toolkits in the boys' rooms." He looked sharply at Naegi. "Then are you suggesting that Hagakure opened the door?"

"No. It isn't Hagakure's screwdriver," Naegi said. "It's mine." He looked across the circle. "Isn't that right, Asahina?"

She clenched her fists. "I – I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yesterday, when I was trying to do laundry, the dryer door got stuck," Naegi explained to the group, though he kept his gaze locked on Asahina. "I tried to use my screwdriver to get it open, and it got scratched." He pointed out the gouge marks on the side.

"And why would you expect Asahina to know about that?" Ogami said quickly, before Asahina could respond. "If you discarded it after it was damaged, anyone might have picked it up."

"But that's just it – I didn't throw it out," Naegi said. "Asahina saw that I was having trouble fixing the dryer, so she did it for me. In exchange, I sewed up a tear in her jacket for her. And since we were both better with each other's kits, we traded her sewing kit for my toolkit – including the screwdriver."

"So not only was she in possession of a screwdriver, she's been attempting to conceal the fact," Togami said, a dark smile crossing his face. "I see."

Ogami glared furiously at Togami. "Asahina did not do anything wrong! She –"

"It was me." Asahina's sharp words cut through Ogami's protest. Naegi looked over to see her glaring out across the circle. "You're right," she went on, speaking so hastily she almost sounded out of breath. "I was lying before. I didn't just find the door open. I wanted to talk to Sakura, so I used Naegi's screwdriver to take her door off the hinges. It was all me."

Naegi frowned. Everything that Asahina had just said did actually sound like what he'd thought must have happened – but there was something strange about the way she was saying it. And why was she admitting it now, when a few minutes ago she'd been denying it so vehemently? There was something strange about her confession, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what.

"So you're saying that you opened Ogami's door?" Kirigiri asked, raising an eyebrow. "From the hallway?"

"That's right," Asahina said, nodding decisively. "That's exactly what happened."

"Sorry, but I don't think so." Kirigiri looked over at Naegi. "You can see it too, right? The reason that Asahina couldn't have opened that door the way she's claiming?"

"Huh?" Naegi frowned. Kirigiri was saying that Asahina… couldn't have opened the door? But she'd been the one with the screwdriver, and he was positive that the door had been opened using the hinges. So why couldn't it have been Asahina? He knew the hinges on the door were big enough to unscrew easily, since anyone could easily see them all the way from across the room –

Oh. Naegi looked up at Kirigiri. "You're right – Asahina can't have done it. The hinges are on the inside of the door."

Monokuma laughed. "Of course they are! If it was that easy to get into someone's dorm room, your school life would be over before we reached our first trial!"

Naegi frowned. So… if the hinges were only on the inside of the door… then that meant….

He looked across the circle, and Ogami met his gaze head on with straightened shoulders and a raised chin.