Naegi wasn't sure what he'd expected Kirigiri to say that Ikusaba had done – but making an offer to betray the mastermind hadn't even been on the list. "You mean she'd work with us instead? She'd help us escape?"
"She might," Kirigiri stressed. "According to her, she's somewhat limited in what she can do without alerting the mastermind to her actions. She indicated that if the mastermind found out that we were receiving her assistance, the results could be – unfortunate for everyone."
The end of the last class trial flashed before Naegi's eyes – the firing squad, Alter Ego's shattered remains, Asahina's crumpled body. And when it came down to it, all that had only been for some fairly minor rule-breaking. Just how seriously would the mastermind take a bigger threat to their control?
"Yeah, she shouldn't risk giving herself away," Naegi agreed grimly. A thought occurred to him. "But – wait, wouldn't the mastermind know she was talking to you? Or are there not any cameras in the headmaster's office?"
"No, there were cameras in there just like the rest of the school," Kirigiri said. "But she seemed confident that the mastermind wasn't watching at the time."
"How could she have known that?" Naegi asked. "Are there limits on the way the mastermind can watch us?"
"If I understood her correctly, I think that may be right," Kirigiri said. "She knew a great deal about all of us – our actions, our conversations, things that a student in hiding shouldn't have been aware of."
"So – if she knows all that, then you think she's the one watching us through the cameras?" Naegi frowned. "I thought the mastermind was doing that themselves."
"That was the obvious conclusion," Kirigiri said, shrugging. "But it was by no means certain. It's possible that the mastermind has more critical tasks to accomplish, while Ikusaba acts as the observer."
"Then maybe the mastermind isn't in the school, after all," Naegi said. "I mean, if Ikusaba is working for them, they wouldn't even need to be here."
"Possibly," Kirigiri said. "But if that's the case, there's probably some kind of monitoring system in place so that the mastermind can check on Ikusaba – but no such system could be perfect. It would have to rely on some level of trust between the mastermind and their ally – a trust that Ikusaba seems willing to exploit."
The thought of encouraging betrayal sent an uncomfortable twinge through Naegi's conscience – but if anyone deserved to have their allies turn on them, it was someone as monstrous as the mastermind. How many friends had the mastermind's ploys turned against one another already? Every murder had seen trust brutally violated and loyalty undone.
Which brought up another puzzling question for Naegi. "But if the mastermind trusts Ikusaba with that kind of responsibility, she must have been part of this plan right from the start. Why would she turn on the mastermind now?"
"I wondered the same thing," Kirigiri said. "After all, it does sound quite unlikely that the mastermind's ally would turn on them now, immediately after we lost our last lead. It sounded highly suspicious to me – so I asked her about it."
"What did she say?" Naegi asked. "Was the mastermind threatening her, like with Ogami?"
"Nothing quite so simple," Kirigiri said. "She did work with the mastermind willingly, at least for a time – but she didn't start out believing in their cause." She looked away, tapping a pensive finger against her cheek as she spoke. "She claimed that she had been kidnapped a number of years ago, by a mercenary group called Fenrir."
"What?" Naegi stared at her blankly. "Why would a mercenary group kidnap a kid?"
"She didn't say," Kirigiri said. "But that much of her story did seem to check out. Fenrir is a real mercenary group – quite a well-known organization, if you're familiar with such things. All the members can be identified by a tattoo somewhere on their body of the mythological wolf Fenrir."
Somehow, Naegi wasn't all that surprised that Kirigiri would know details about shadowy mercenary groups. "And Ikusaba had one of those tattoos?"
Kirigiri nodded. "She raised the hem of her shirt just enough for me to identify it. I hadn't seen the tattoo in person before, but it matched what I knew of it. Ikusaba does seem to have been a member of Fenrir at some point in the past."
"Then does that mean they're the ones doing all this?"
"I don't think so," Kirigiri said. "Not the Fenrir group as it used to be, anyway. Shortly before we arrived here, the Fenrir organization ceased all mercenary work – no one has been able to confirm if it still exists at all. If Ikusaba is to be believed, the remaining members have been recruited into another group – the Ultimate Despair."
"Right – that's what you called Ikusaba before," Naegi said. "But I thought you meant that despair was her Ultimate talent."
Kirigiri shrugged. "Maybe it was – or maybe the name was simply a jab at the school's pretentious naming convention. Determining the root of the group's name wasn't my priority at the time. I was much more concerned with what Ikusaba's involvement with Fenrir had to do with her alliance with the mastermind."
Naegi nodded slowly. "Did she explain it to you?"
"She tried," Kirigiri said. "She went on for a while about brainwashing and military indoctrination and other things along those lines. According to her, it weakened when Fenrir broke up – and after weeks on her own, watching us day in and day out, the brainwashing snapped entirely. We want to get out of here – and so does she."
Well, that made sense. Naegi was pretty sure that if he'd been dragged from one evil organization to another and then shoved into a school to watch teenagers murder each other, he'd just want to leave, too. "Do you believe her?"
Kirigiri didn't answer right away, staring silently off into the distance like she was watching the scene play out again. After a long moment, she sighed. "The story she told me added up well – too well for it to be entirely a fabrication. The question is whether her offer of assistance is genuine – or if she's acting on the mastermind's orders. I don't know why the mastermind would want her to do such a thing, though."
"As a trap to distract us from a real escape attempt?" Naegi suggested. "I mean, isn't that why they gave us the data Alter Ego decrypted?"
"But the data never had any real information that we could use against the mastermind," Kirigiri said. "Ikusaba does. Even if the offer of aid is a fake, Ikusaba clearly knows a lot about the mastermind's plans – more than she's told me so far. Even if she's attempting to manipulate us, it's possible that by working with her directly, she could let something useful slip."
"And if she's telling the truth, this could be the chance we've been waiting for," Naegi said.
"Exactly," Kirigiri said. "It doesn't matter whether I believe Ikusaba or not – we can't let this opportunity pass us by."
