Naegi smiled nervously as the whole circle turned to look at him after Togami's question. He hadn't actually meant to tell them all that he'd been careless enough to poison himself, at least not in the middle of the trial – but he should have realized Togami would be sharp enough to catch any reference to it.
"I just sort of figured it out during the investigation," Naegi said, hoping that they could just breeze past it and get back to the main point of the trial. "When we found the needles."
"Figured it out?" Togami stared at him. "You were stabbed with one of the needles."
"Uh…" Naegi hesitated, not sure if he should confirm it or not.
"You found one of the poisoned needles by getting stabbed with it." Togami's voice was very calm and even, and it was starting to make Naegi worried. He would have felt better about it if the other boy had shouted or something. As it was, the only hints of emotion Naegi could see were Togami's pale face and white-knuckled fists.
"That's right," Naegi said at last, figuring that he couldn't really deny it at this point. "But look, that's not the important part –"
"Did you fall unconscious?"
"Well – yes, for a little while," Naegi admitted. "But –"
"How long?"
"Not that long," Naegi said. "Kirigiri said it was only half an hour or so."
"Oh, she did?" Togami's gaze swung around to her. "Only half an hour, is that all? What does it take for you to think something is serious, a coma?"
"Don't be melodramatic," Kirigiri said, crossing her arms. "The girls were stabbed as well, and they're perfectly fine."
"That's right," Naegi agreed hurriedly. "Honestly, I'm fine."
"You don't look it," Togami snapped. "You look like you could collapse at any moment." He glared at Kirigiri. "Strange how that seems to happen every time he's alone with you."
Naegi didn't like the look in Togami's eye at all. "It wasn't her fault I got stabbed – it was an accident!"
"Oh, really?" Togami said, anger beginning to show in his voice. "Because just a moment ago, you said that you didn't remember what happened!"
Kirigiri raised an eyebrow. "Are you suggesting that I deliberately caused Naegi to be poisoned?"
"Getting him injured seems to be your favorite plan!" Togami snarled
"Look, this isn't important right now!" Naegi said, trying to derail the argument. "We need to focus on what happened to Hagakure, not on this."
"Not important?" Togami's hands clenched so tightly they trembled. "We could have ended up investigating a double murder!"
Staring across the circle at Togami, Naegi could see the emotions he was trying to hold back, and it sent an ache through his chest. If things really had gone badly – if that needle had actually been coated with a full dose of poison – how would that have affected Togami? He'd known that Togami wanted him to stay alive – but he hadn't realized just how much the possibility of his death would shake the other boy.
"That wasn't going to happen," Naegi said, as firmly as if he were making any other argument in the trials. "Kirigiri made sure it wouldn't. She got the needle out and cleaned off the poison, and now I'm okay."
Togami's lips tightened as he studied Naegi intently. "I want to see your hand," he said at last. "Show me where it stabbed you."
Naegi sighed and held up his hand. "It was in the middle of my palm – well, you probably can't see from over there."
"All right, then." Togami started to leave his place in the circle to head around to where Naegi was standing.
"What's that? You're trying to leave your assigned seat without a hall pass?" Monokuma asked, sounding shocked. As he spoke, a mechanical whirring sound came from up above them, and when Naegi looked up, he went pale at the sight of a huge machine gun lowering itself from the ceiling.
"But if you do that, someone might mistake you for absent," Monokuma went on, smiling out at them. "You wouldn't want that to happen, would you?"
Jaw clenched, Togami stepped back to his podium. "Fine," he said through gritted teeth.
"It's okay now, really," Naegi assured him. "But look, how I got stabbed isn't the point. The important thing is that everyone we found in that room must have been stabbed with at least one needle." He looked around the circle at Ogami, Asahina and Jill. "The rest of you only had a partial dose, but for Hagakure, it was enough to kill."
But Ogami shook her head. "I don't see how that could have happened. If someone had approached me with any weapon, even one as small as a needle, I would certainly have noticed their intent and blocked the attack."
"But that's just it – with these needles, they wouldn't have to approach you," Naegi said. "The first one we found wasn't just lying around on the floor – it was stuck into the bed. We couldn't even tell it was there until I pressed down on the mattress in the wrong spot."
"So you think everyone who sat on that bed got impaled with something sharp that released a nasty liquid inside us?" Jill threw her head back and laughed. "I like the way you think, Big Mac! But gotta say, it sounds like you're just fantasizing. If some killer really did use those needles to stick it to us, where were they when we woke up?"
"That's a good point," Asahina said, frowning. "Shouldn't the needles still have been stuck inside us when you found us?"
"No, I don't think the culprit could risk that," Naegi said. "The dosage for injection is a pretty small amount, and if they left the needles in place for too long, everyone might have ended up dead. Every person is only allowed to kill two other people, so a mistake would've gotten them immediately disqualified."
"Then what happened to the needles?" Ogami asked. "You did say you found them, didn't you?"
"Yes, that's right," Naegi said. "We found five needles in your trashcan – Kirigiri, you have them, right?"
"I do." Carefully, Kirigiri pulled out the poisoned needles, setting them out on the wooden railing in front of her. "These five were in the trashcan, while the sixth one was still in the mattress."
"That yellow stuff on them – is that the poison?" Asahina asked, drawing away as if it could stab her again.
"I think it has to be," Naegi said. "It looks like the same stuff was on all of them, and the one from the mattress definitely knocked me unconscious."
"But why would that needle still have been in the mattress?" Ogami asked, frowning. "Surely the culprit should have removed all the needles."
"Who cares?" Jill said, twirling her scissors. "It didn't kill anyone, did it? Who'd bother with something as boring as a murder weapon that didn't even get used?"
"Maybe they got interrupted before they could find it?" Asahina wondered.
"Well, I still don't see how you think any of this rules out Ogami," Togami said, crossing his arms. He still had an icy darkness to his eyes when Naegi met his gaze, but at least for now, he'd moved on from harping about Naegi's injury. "If this theory is right, then the culprit would have needed time to plant the needles in the bed. Who else would have had the chance?"
"The issue isn't about the opportunity. There's another problem with the needles." Kirigiri glanced across the circle and gave Naegi a faint smile. "You've spotted it, haven't you?"
If Kirigiri was talking about the needles, then there was only one thing she could mean. Naegi nodded slowly. "Yes. When we searched Ogami's room, we didn't find six needles – we found twelve."
Togami stared at him blankly. "And?"
"Oh – I guess you wouldn't know," Naegi realized. "The sewing kits only come with six needles each." He looked over at Ogami. "When we first figured out that the needles were involved, I checked your sewing kit right away."
"It should have been in my desk drawer," Ogami said. "I've never even opened it."
"Maybe not," Naegi said. "But someone did. All six needles were missing. And when Kirigiri and I searched the room, we both found needles in different places."
"That's right," Kirigiri said, pulling out the jar of cotton swabs. "In addition to the five poisoned needles Naegi found in the trashcan, these six needles were hidden in the bathroom." She tilted the jar so that everyone could see them. "Unlike the ones Naegi found, these don't appear to have any poison on them."
"So you believe Ogami is innocent because there were too many needles for her to have supplied them all herself?" Togami asked, frowning.
"It's like with the toolkits – the sewing kits are the only place to find sewing supplies in the school," Naegi said. "And since we found twelve needles, the culprit must have had access to two sewing kits."
Togami nodded slowly, mouth twisting in an ironic smile. "Well. Now that you've shared the rest of what you found, I see your point. So putting the poisoned needles somewhere as obvious as the trashcan was a feint – the culprit intended for those to be found. Emptying Ogami's sewing kit of needles would put the suspicion on her."
"Right," Naegi agreed. "The culprit must have assumed no one would search for any other needles once we found the ones in the trash."
"Hang on." Asahina looked around the circle, frowning. "But – if you're saying that the culprit had to have two sets of sewing needles –"
"That's right. There's just one person who could have done it." Naegi looked across the circle to meet Genocide Jill's blood-red eyes. "You're the only one!"
