After Naegi's declaration, all eyes turned to Genocide Jill – but for once, she didn't seem to have anything to say. She glared back out at them, dark and angry, and the faint snip of her scissors sounded through the room.

"So – if you're right, and she had the plan already," Asahina said slowly, "then you're saying she brought the needles with her and stuck them in the bed right away? Without knowing for sure who would be there?" Her face went slowly pale. "But then – she couldn't have known who would sit where. She – she could have killed any of us that way."

But Kirigiri shook her head. "It's not as much of a risk as you might think. Those beds aren't very big, after all. If four people are going to sit on one, that would cover almost the entire surface. And as the first person in the room, she would have been able to choose her seat first, forcing the rest of you to seat yourselves around her."

"That's still a one in three chance," Ogami pointed out, frowning.

"No, I don't think it would have been," Naegi said, considering it. "Not if she was trying to control where Togami sat." He looked across the circle at the other boy. "If you had to sit on the same bed as Fukawa, where would you pick?"

"The place as far away from her as possible, obviously." Togami scowled at Jill. "Which apparently wouldn't be far enough."

Jill crossed her arms, staring back at Togami. "So even you're going to get in on this, darling? Joining forces with all the rest to try to kill off this big, bad murderer?" Her dark red tongue curled across her grin. "Well, if I'd known this was what it'd take to get your attention, I'd have tried it ages ago!"

Togami drew back, an expression of startled disgust crossing his face. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh, don't try to hide it, darling," Jill said with a laugh. "Jumping straight to trying to kill me is awfully forward – but I like a guy who knows what he wants." She leaned sharply forward over her podium. "But you'll have to try harder than that! You're saying Gloomy did this? Well, I think your puzzle is missing one very important piece."

Naegi frowned at her. "What do you mean? What's missing?"

"Aw, come on, don't tell me you aren't going to fight me for him, Big Mac," Jill said, sending a dark grin in Naegi's direction. "Or did you just not bother to take a look at that bottle you've got in front of you?"

The bottle – did she mean the poison? Naegi picked the heavy container up with a frown. What was she talking about? He didn't see anything wrong with it, even when he tilted the bottle to examine it from all angles, liquid still heavy inside –

Oh.

Naegi checked the bottle's cap more closely, then looked over at Jill. "I think I see what you mean. This bottle of poison is still sealed."

"You always get there eventually, don't you?" Jill said. "So go on then, tell me – how could anyone get poison on those needles without opening the bottle?"

Naegi frowned. That – that was a good question. It hadn't even occurred to him that the bottle of poison he'd found in the trash might not be the murder weapon – but now that he was looking, he could see that the cap on top still had plastic on it, sealing it to the rest of the bottle. But that didn't make sense, either – the way the poison had worked matched the label exactly. The murder had to have been done with this poison, even if he couldn't see how.

"You're assuming that was the bottle of poison the killer used," Togami said. Naegi looked up to see the other boy smirking as he pulled out a small plastic bag full of broken brown glass. "Unfortunately for you, we have proof that it wasn't. Asahina and Ogami found this in the kitchen – the pieces of a second bottle. And when I examined the chemistry lab, all the bottles of this particular poison were missing."

"Ooh, so you're coming at me with weapons and everything?" Jill's ragged laugh tore through the air. "You're just burning to see my corpse, aren't you, baby? Gotta say I'm flattered, but what kind of girl would I be if I gave it all up before the first date?"

"You're seriously still going to argue?" Asahina demanded, glaring at her. "We just proved there's no one else it could be!"

"No one else? I don't think so!" Jill's hand shot forward, her scissors pointing straight at Togami. "Sorry, darling, but you had just as much opportunity as me."

Naegi stared at her, startled. "What? No – Togami didn't have any needles. He couldn't have done it."

"Oh, please." Jill rolled her eyes. "If he asked right, he could get Gloomy to give up anything he wanted. A sewing kit would've been easy. And with the room key, he could've planted those needles any time he liked!"

"But Togami wouldn't have known I was going to bring the others in there," Asahina said impatiently. "He didn't even know Hagakure would be there."

"Maybe not, but he knew she would." Jill's scissors stabbed in Ogami's direction. "We've all heard him going on about how she's a dangerous traitor – looks to me like he finally decided to take her out for good!"

Togami glared at her. "Don't be ridiculous. I've already told you all that I have no intention of murdering anyone."

"Baby, I could listen to you talk all night long, but that won't mean much when morning rolls around." Jill smiled at him, dark and wild. "Prove it."

Togami rolled his eyes. "I don't need to. We've already proven it had to be you."

"Are you sure? Is everyone sure?" Jill looked around the circle, her frightening red gaze burning into each of their eyes. "Are you all ready to bet your lives on it?"

And looking around, Naegi could see flickers of hesitation from Asahina and Ogami.

Were they really taking Jill's claims seriously? Naegi knew Togami couldn't have done this – but he would need more than his belief to convince anyone else. He frantically cast his thoughts back over the evidence they'd discussed – the needles, the poison, the mysteriously opened door – but none of it specifically ruled out the scenario Jill had suggested. Nothing they'd discussed so far could rule out her version of events.

"Yeah, I thought so," Jill said, nodding in satisfaction. "You can all see it, too. There's not one single thing about this murder that points to me instead of –"

"You've got that wrong!"

Jill stopped mid-sentence, staring at Naegi in surprise.

"There is one piece of evidence everyone saw that wouldn't fit if Togami were the killer," Naegi said. "You all remember the way Ogami's room looked, right? You all weren't just unconscious on the bed – you were covered with blood."

"Oh, that's right – the killer hit Hagakure with something," Asahina said. "But – wasn't that just to hide that he really got poisoned?"

"That's what I thought at first, too," Naegi said. "But now I'm not so sure. I mean, if the culprit seriously wanted to hide that Hagakure died from poison, they would have put the needles somewhere other than the trashcan. They could have hidden those needles anywhere, but they were in one of the first places I looked. I'm sure the culprit intended for them to be found, and for suspicion to fall on Ogami." He looked around the circle. "Which means that there's no reason for the culprit to have hit Hagakure."

"That's true, it's very strange," Ogami said slowly, "but I don't see how that clears Togami of suspicion."

"Yeah – actually, it makes him look even more guilty," Asahina said, tilting her head as she thought it over. "I mean, Fukawa can't even stand to look at blood, right? She faints every time she sees it."

"Which is exactly why she would have had to do it," Naegi said. "You two had been knocked out by the partial dose of poison, and she'd pulled the needles out to make sure that she didn't accidentally overdo it. But she couldn't risk doing the same thing to herself – there wouldn't have been anyone around to pull the needle out. So if Fukawa was the killer, she would have needed a quick, reliable way to knock herself unconscious – and hitting Hagakure's corpse would do it."

"So – you think she used her own fear of blood to make herself faint?" Asahina looked disturbed. "She hit his body after he was dead, just to spill some blood? That's – that's awful."

"Yeah – awfully unlikely!" Jill grinned at Naegi. "Nice try, Big Mac, but I don't think so. I've seen plenty of blood splatters, and I can tell you this – that blood got spilled before he died."

"Huh?" Naegi stared at her, frowning. He'd been sure that was right! Could she be lying?

"I'm afraid I have to agree," Kirigiri spoke up. "With the quantity of blood, and the distance it spread – yes, Hagakure's heart was definitely still beating when he was hit."

"Still beating?" A thought occurred to Naegi. "But that doesn't mean he was conscious." He checked the poison bottle's label. "It says here that death will occur within five minutes, not instantaneously – so she still could have hit him after he was poisoned, but before he died."

"And you think five minutes is long enough?" Jill countered. "With everything she'd have to do? Waiting for the others to lose consciousness, getting the needles out of the bed, opening Ogami's sewing kit – you really think she could have done all that in just five minutes?"

"It does sound like a lot to accomplish," Ogami said, looking from Jill to Togami.

"Obviously she would have had to hit him first," Togami snapped, glaring at the others. "And then she just kept her eyes closed until she was ready to faint."

"Come on, White Knight, don't tell me you think that would actually work," Jill said, laughing. "Don't you know that the number one guaranteed way to make yourself peek is to know that you shouldn't?"

"I guess it would be pretty hard to keep your eyes closed all that time," Asahina said, frowning. "I mean, it would just take one wrong second of opening her eyes, and then she'd faint."

"She could have covered her eyes with one hand," Naegi said dubiously. Something was nagging at his memory, like there was something he ought to remember about this – but he couldn't quite recall what.

"That wouldn't be very effective," Ogami said. "And presumably she would have needed her hands to work with the crime scene."

"Wasn't there anything else she could have used?" Kirigiri asked, raising an eyebrow at Naegi. "Surely something comes to mind."

Naegi frowned. Anything else…? What was Kirigiri talking about? Was there something else that he'd seen at the murder scene – something that he'd forgotten? It seemed like there was, but even as he strained, he couldn't – quite –

Kirigiri rubbed at her wrist, idly wrapping her hand around it – and Naegi remembered.

"The hand wrap!" He looked over at Ogami. "I remember now! one of your boxing hand wraps was under the bed, on the other side from where the blood was – but I could see that it had blood splatters on it anyway."

Kirigiri nodded, giving him a faint smile. "And a hand wrap would be exactly the right size to use as a makeshift blindfold."

"She would have been able to hit Hagakure while he was still alive, and keep her eyes covered until she was ready to faint," Naegi said.

"It would even explain why she was stupid enough to leave the last poisoned needle behind," Togami added. "If she was operating on touch alone to retrieve the needles, she wouldn't have been able to find the one that was still embedded in the mattress."

"Which you definitely wouldn't have left behind, if you were the killer," Naegi said, nodding at Togami. He turned to Jill. "There's only one reason someone would need to get blood all over this crime scene – and only one person who would have needed a blindfold." He met her eyes, not flinching away from their bloody depths. "You did this."

Slowly, Jill's wild grin faltered, until at last it drained away. "Actually, I didn't." Her expression was oddly sad, looking out of place with her unsettling eyes and dangling tongue. "But – it seems like that doesn't matter too much anymore."