Before Naegi could change his mind, Monokuma sprang forward to snatch the trip ticket from his outstretched hand.
"Excellent choice, Naegi!" he said, beaming up in a way that sent Naegi's stomach plummeting through the floor. "One thrilling day with a serial killer, coming right up!"
A loud burst of staccato explosions sounded from just inside the library, sounds that were all too familiar after the last trial's executions. Naegi jumped away from the door, too many questions running through his head. Were there guns somewhere in the library? He hadn't seen any, not like the ones in the locker rooms or the entrance hall – but he wouldn't put it past the mastermind to hide weapons, either. But even if there were hidden guns in the library, why were they firing now?
A chill snaked through his blood as a horrible thought occurred to him. There was only one person in the library right now, after all. What if Monokuma had used his request as an excuse to whip out the weapons – and unleash them against the person Naegi had named? What if he'd made Jill a target? What if –
The library door swung slowly open, letting out the stench of burnt wood and scorched paper as the door's movement forced the splintered remnants of the bookcase out of the way.
Naegi blinked at it, stepping forward through the library door to get a better look. He could see bullets lodged in the bookcase and floor around it, and it looked like they would have hit at just the right angles to fracture it. And once it had been in pieces, the bookcase hadn't been sturdy enough to stand against the weight of the door, breaking the barricade and letting the door open.
Had the gunfire really just been Monokuma's way of honoring Naegi's request? That seemed bizarre – and it left Naegi even more worried about what he'd gotten into than he'd been a moment ago. He turned around to face Monokuma again –
Just in time to see the library door slam in his face. Naegi reached for the doorknob – but he was a little too late. The lock clicked into place just as his fingers closed on the handle, leaving him to rattle at the door as uselessly as when he'd been on the other side.
Naegi leaned his forehead against the door, trying not to groan as he finally made the connection, now that it was too late to do him any good. The ticket had specifically stated that it was good for an all-day trip. Monokuma had even repeated it before opening the door. So if he could use the ticket to get Monokuma to open the door for him, of course it could be used against him, too – to force him to spend the rest of the day on the "trip" he'd asked for, whether he actually wanted to or not.
"Looks like someone doesn't know how to take a hint."
Naegi lifted his head away from the door and turned towards the other side of the library, where Jill was staring at him with cold red eyes. She hadn't produced a pair of scissors yet, hands crossed in front of her instead, but Naegi didn't find the lack of obvious weapons as reassuring as it should have been.
"I – uh, I just wanted to see how you were doing," Naegi said, wishing that he'd thought this plan through a little more before he'd decided to use Monokuma's trip ticket to enter the library.
"Yeah? Well, take a good long look!" Jill flung out her arms to pirouette, long skirt flying out as she spun to show legs covered in even more bright red tally marks than he'd seen yesterday. "I'm running at one hundred and ten percent of amazing, no doubt about it!" She stopped short, braids whipping around her from the momentum. "So get lost."
"Well – I don't think I can," Naegi said. "After Monokuma got rid of your barricade, he locked us in. Neither of us can get out now, not without breaking the rule about locked doors."
"Is that so?" And without warning, Jill leapt forward to land at his side, hurling herself over the remnants of the bookcase with an unnatural strength that Fukawa had never shown any hint of possessing. She grabbed the door handle and shook it until the hinges squealed in protest – but it didn't budge any more for her than it had for Naegi.
"I'm sorry," Naegi said, sighing. "I didn't realize that would happen when I asked Monokuma to open the door. I wouldn't have done it if I'd known it would get both of us stuck in here."
"Oh, you're sorry?" Jill put one hand on her hip and narrowed her eyes at him. "If you really want to make it up to me, you can stay the hell out of my way." She leaned forward, tongue rolling out of her mouth to curl lasciviously in front of his face. "Or I might just have to show you what being sorry really means." And with that, she bounded back over to the larger walls of bookcases, sending a storm of paper scraps fluttering up from the floor as she went.
Naegi looked after her, wondering if he should try to follow her and press the issue – but he could see the telltale silver flashes of her scissors as she wove her way through the shelves. He raised a hand to his cheek, fingering the bandage from when he'd annoyed the genocider yesterday. Maybe if she wanted to be left to trash the library in peace, he should just let her. After all, slashing up inanimate objects wasn't exactly the worst thing she could be doing with her scissors.
He took a few steps away from the door, looking around for an out-of-the-way place to sit until Jill calmed down enough to talk to him – and he frowned as his foot crunched down on the cover of one of the destroyed books. Some part of him objected to treating books that way, even if the book in question had already been ruined beyond recognition. He bent down to pick it up, figuring that he could at least toss it in the trash if there was no point in putting it back on the shelves – but then as he got a better look at the cover, he froze.
The name Toko Fukawa blazed up at him, stark and unforgiving on the shredded cover. It looked like there had been a picture of a man on there once, staring off into the distance with wistful grace – but his handsome face had been obscured by the deep slashes in the cover, carved in the shape of a fanged mouth in a wide, monstrous grin.
Naegi set the book gently on the corner table, then picked up another of the scattered books. Sure enough, Fukawa's name stared back up at him again. The only difference was that this time, a string of Xes and Os marred the cover, like a child's offering of hugs and kisses.
Instead of putting the book aside immediately, Naegi flipped this one open. Nearly half the pages had been ripped out, and most of the ones that remained had been torn or defaced in some way. Bright red ink had been scribbled through the book, sometimes in random designs and sometimes with vicious words. One of the pages, which had included a scene steamy enough to make Naegi blush, had the word LIAR scrawled across it, the ink bleeding through the paper to stain the pages beneath.
Goosebumps crawled along Naegi's neck as he stared down at the page, giving him the distinct feeling that he'd looked into something never meant for his eyes. He'd had the same feeling once, a couple years back, when he'd accidentally caught a glimpse of his sister's diary – like he'd looked uninvited into someone's soul. He hastily closed the book and turned back to the table, planning to put it down without examining it any further –
And he came face to face with Jill, sitting on the table with the first discarded book dangling from one hand. She caught his eyes in her cold red gaze and gave him a sharp grin. "Read anything interesting lately?"
