Naegi stared at Jill as she curled her fingers tight around her scissors. Was that really it? Was she actually going to take it so calmly? He'd half expected the serial killer to attack them in a fit of rage at finding herself cornered, or to explode in a scream of furious insults. He hadn't thought that she might just – stop.

"So – you admit it, then?" he asked hesitantly.

Jill shrugged. "Well, I can't say for sure or anything – but it sounds to me like you've probably got it right. I know when I'm beat." She shook her head. "Man, I can't believe I'm getting nailed for a loser with zero sex appeal! But hey, if I gotta go down to someone, can't think of a better way than getting double-teamed by my White Knight and his boy toy. Hell of a lot better than what I'd find outside this place, that's for sure."

And with that, Jill spun towards Monokuma's chair, her scissors flashing out to point at the bear. "You hear that, or do you have honey in your ears? Let's get this thing started!"

"Huh? Is it time already?" Monokuma tilted his head, looking puzzled. "But that doesn't seem very fair, does it?"

"Nothing about this is fair," Naegi said, scowling up at the bear. "What are you talking about all of a sudden?"

"Oh? It doesn't bother you?" Monokuma grinned out at them. "All right then – I guess it's that time! Everyone, please use the lever in front of you to cast your votes! Will you make the right choice, or the dreadfully wrong one? What's it gonna be?"

Naegi frowned up at Monokuma for a moment. What had the bear been trying to get at? Something wasn't fair – something that should bother them all? He cast his mind back over all the evidence they'd discussed – but no, it still all made sense to him. Fukawa had to be the culprit. There was no one else who could have committed this murder. Monokuma was just trying to confuse them, like he always did.

He looked down at the levers, where all his classmates' faces stared back up at him in silent judgement. He hated to do this – but he knew he had no other choice. Naegi reached out and pressed the lever showing Fukawa's face, choosing her as the blackened.

He must have been the last one to vote, because as soon as he'd finished, the Monokuma Vote machine began its usual whirl of faces, flipping dizzily between the colored portraits of the living and the black and white pictures of the dead. And eventually, one by one, all three columns of images stopped to show Fukawa's face, with the word "guilty" flashing below it.

"That's right!" Monokuma sang out gleefully. "The killer this time was Toko Fukawa! You're absolutely correct!" He shook his head. "Aw, but I can't believe how cold you guys are. Accusing a girl who isn't even here to defend herself? How cruel!"

Naegi froze. He hadn't even really considered it until this moment – but it was true, Fukawa wasn't here. She'd been absent for the entire trial, and unlike all the other culprits, she'd never gotten the chance to speak for herself. Genocide Jill had done so, of course – but Jill wasn't the one who had committed this murder, not really. They'd voted Fukawa to her death, without even giving her the chance to share her side of the story. Guilt curdled through his stomach, twisting together with the remaining effects of the poison in a violent nausea.

"Aw, but you don't have to worry," Monokuma went on, beaming out at them. "Your favorite headmaster will always play fair, even if you don't – and I would never break one of my rules. We can't just execute people who haven't earned it, now, can we?"

Suddenly, the Monokuma Vote began spewing its usual bursts of confetti – but instead of letting it flutter harmlessly to the ground, this time it blasted the scraps of paper directly into Jill's face. She coughed at the onslaught, gasped for a breath – and sneezed.

When she looked up again, her eyes had reverted to Fukawa's light brown. She looked around the circle, confusion evident on her face – until her gaze settled on the Monokuma Vote, lit up with three of her own faces staring back at her. She stared up at the glowing images, all color draining from her own face until she seemed to be nothing more than a pale echo of the girl in the lights.

"So th-that's it, then," she said at last, her voice flat. "Did you even bother to have the trial, or did you all just v-vote for me as soon as you got the chance?"

"Of course we had a trial!" Naegi said. "We had to figure out what happened. We wouldn't vote against anyone without being sure."

"Yeah, I'm sure you spent a r-really long time talking about it," Fukawa said. "It must have taken nearly five whole minutes to decide none of your friends would have done it."

Naegi drew back a little at the venom in her voice at the word friends. She said it like she didn't include herself in the group – but that wasn't true. He'd always considered Fukawa one of his friends, just as much as any of the others. Hadn't she known that?

"Picking based on that kind of criteria would be an open door to failure," Togami snapped. Naegi looked over at the other boy, seeing his eyes cold with fury as he glared at the girl who'd tried to kill him. "We know exactly what you attempted."

Addressed by her white knight, Fukawa finally looked away from the Monokuma Vote, turning towards Togami with the slow pull of a moon trapped in orbit around a dying planet. "What do you know?"

"Everything," Togami said shortly.

"That's what I th-thought you'd say." Fukawa looked around the circle, eyes accusing. "You don't know anything."

"That's not true," Naegi protested. "We know that you didn't really want to kill Hagakure at all."

Fukawa's head snapped around towards Naegi, and he fought not to take a step backwards at the intensity of her stare. He took a deep breath and forced himself to continue.

"You didn't want to kill Hagakure, but you did want to murder someone," Naegi said, Fukawa's eyes burning into him as he spoke. "You were trying to kill Togami. You put poison from the chemistry lab on the needles from your sewing kit, and then dumped the poison bottle in the kitchen trash. You hadn't decided how to use the needles yet – but Asahina gave you an opportunity when she invited you to a meeting in Ogami's room. When you saw the open door, you assumed Togami had to be involved."

Fukawa's gaze flickered towards Togami at that point, her eyes shadowed. Togami glared back at her, vicious and unforgiving.

"But what you didn't know was that there was another way to get the door open," Naegi went on. "Asahina had gotten a screwdriver from me earlier in the day, and she'd passed it on to Ogami. The door wasn't actually unlocked – Ogami just unscrewed the hinges. Togami wasn't there at all – but you couldn't have known that. So while Ogami and Asahina were out of the room, you planted the poisoned needles in the only place anyone would be able to sit – the mattress. When Asahina came back with Hagakure, you must have realized your mistake – but by then, it was too late to stop."

Fukawa flinched at the words "too late," but she didn't say anything to confirm or deny the accusations Naegi was throwing at her.

"Ogami, Asahina, and Hagakure all got stabbed by the poisoned needles as soon as they sat on the bed," Naegi continued. "The girls only got enough to knock them out, but Hagakure got the fatal dose you'd meant for Togami. And then, before he actually died, you blindfolded yourself with one of Ogami's hand wraps and hit him with a weight. That left blood all over the scene, so that you could make yourself faint at any moment. You got rid of as much evidence as you could, hiding the needles from Ogami's sewing kit and putting the poisoned needles in the trash where anyone could find them. And then, after you'd finished altering the crime scene, you took the blindfold off so that you'd appear to be unconscious like the others when we found you."

Naegi looked straight at Fukawa, meeting her eyes directly. "You were the only one who could have done it. We didn't vote until we'd figured all of it out."

"Good for you," Fukawa said, clenching her fists. "I'm sure you're all proud of yourselves. You have all the a-answers, don't you?"

"No. Not all of them." Naegi bit his lip, watching her. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know this last answer – but she deserved the chance to tell them. He had to ask. "Why did you do it?"

Fukawa looked away instead of answering, her expression shuttered and unreadable.

"Well – it's kind of obvious, isn't it?" Asahina asked, tilting her head. "I mean – she wanted Togami, and he picked someone else. She found out he didn't want her, and she was angry. Seems pretty simple to me."

Fukawa's laughter cut across the circle, sharp and bitter. "I-is that what you think? You think I was jealous, like some empty-headed manga heroine who c-cries into her pillow? I'm not stupid. I knew he didn't want me." She looked up, staring straight at Togami. "And I didn't care. I wanted you, and that was enough."

"So you expect me to believe you've been stalking me out of some kind of selfless devotion?" Togami sneered, rolling his eyes. "Or was your attempt at poisoning me a way of showing how much you care?"

"N-no. If that were all, she would have painted the walls with your blood days ago." Fukawa clenched her fists. "I thought it was b-bad enough at home, waiting for the minute the police put all her crimes together and came for me – but this is worse. Locked up with people who don't want me around, waiting for someone to decide to get r-rid of me – I could only stand this nightmare until now because I could dream of something else instead. My white knight, handsome and perfect and untouchable." She fell silent, mouth twisting into an ironic grimace.

"So – that was why?" Naegi asked. "Because you couldn't see him as an untouchable prince anymore?"

"He wasn't the knight I wanted him to be – but he never stopped being untouchable," Fukawa said darkly. "That was the problem. For years, e-every boy I've ever wanted has turned up dead, murdered with a serial killer's signature style. I've had to live in terror, knowing that o-one day I'll be blamed for everything she's done. And now, when it would actually help to have a serial killer on my side – she isn't." She clenched her fists, staring at Togami. "She w-wouldn't kill you. Even though I wanted to leave, even though you weren't the knight I dreamed about, even though it would have been easy for her – she wouldn't kill you."

"Well – she did point out that killing someone here when we all know her style would be a pretty stupid move," Naegi said. "And she said she didn't want to kill anyone another way."

Fukawa spun towards him, and her glare was as poisonous as her needles. "She said? She said? D-did you talk about it while trading friendship bracelets and braiding each other's hair?"

"I don't think I've ever done either of those things," Naegi said, taken aback.

"Y-you might as well have," Fukawa said bitterly. "You said it before – you'd be her friend." She looked at Togami. "A-and you'd rather have her around than me." Her shoulders began to shake. "Outside this place, no matter how a-awful things got, no matter how much people hated me – at least I knew there was one person they'd hate more. Until you didn't."

"You mean… you were jealous of Genocide Jill?" Naegi asked slowly, the pieces slowly coming together in his head.

"She takes everything I want and destroys it," Fukawa said. "And now – when I f-finally wanted her to do it – she wouldn't. So I did it for her." A vicious smile spread across her face. "I h-hope she enjoyed waking up at the scene of a murder with no idea what happened."

"You tried to kill me to get revenge on your alter ego?" Togami demanded, looking outraged.

Fukawa's head snapped towards him. "I tried to kill you because I want you dead."

"That's not what she said, though," Naegi said, remembering Genocide Jill's explanation of the two girls' shared feelings. "She said she only wanted to kill Togami if she couldn't be near him – and she said that you and she always feel the same way."

Fukawa froze, her expression going brittle. At last, she shook her head. "But I couldn't." She closed her eyes. "Look, the trial's a-already over. You don't have any more arguments to win. There's no point anymore. This is the l-last time you'll have to fake caring what happens to me. After this, I'll be out of your hair."

Naegi would have protested, would have tried to convince her that he wouldn't fake that – but he didn't get the chance.

"Oh, then are you finished? Is everything all nice and fair?" Monokuma grinned out at them. "Then I think it's time for the blackened who disturbed the peace to pay the price. I've prepared a very special punishment for the Ultimate Writing Prodigy. Let's give it everything we've got – it's punishment time!"