Togami sat in the cafeteria, scowling down at the half-eaten remnants of the late lunch he'd put together for himself, and tried to decide what his next move should be. It had been all well and good to storm out of Ogami's room in a haze of righteous anger, determined to find some leverage that he would be able to use against the mastermind – but all the determination in the world didn't mean much unless he could figure out some way to translate it into action.
And he'd tried – everything he'd thought might work, and several things he hadn't. But all of it had come to nothing. He'd even rechecked all the locked doors in the school, on the off chance that one of them might have reopened somehow – but of course they hadn't. Even the headmaster's office remained stubbornly closed, in spite of the fact that the mastermind hadn't managed to repair the damage that Ogami had done to the door. The broken lock didn't seem to make much difference with a heavy barricade blocking the way.
The thought of all those locked doors turned his stomach, and Togami finally shoved away from the table in disgust, taking his plates to dispose of in the kitchen. He hated sitting around here counting off the wasted seconds when he could have been doing something more useful. He knew there had to be a clue somewhere in the school, or the mastermind wouldn't have bothered locking any of the doors – and it burned that he couldn't get at it.
The memory of the obstinately closed door of the headmaster's office frustrated him the most. It had been open earlier, and he couldn't shake the feeling that if only he'd been just a little faster, he could have seen whatever the mastermind had squirrelled away in there. It had to be something useful, he knew it, or they wouldn't have made such a point of barricading the door after Ogami had broken it.
Barricading – not relocking. Togami stopped short in his tracks in the middle of the dining hall. The lock on the door to the headmaster's office had been broken so thoroughly that it couldn't be used again – meaning that even though the door was currently impassible, it wasn't technically locked. Did that mean that the rule about locked doors wouldn't apply any longer?
It was a critical question to answer, since Monokuma had already demonstrated just what could happen if they played too hard and fast with loopholes in the school regulations. Asahina had been caught in a gray area of the rules, one that could have been interpreted in multiple ways – and Monokuma had chosen the most damning one. If that was the case, then Togami knew he would have to be very sure that he was operating within the exact wording of the rules if he wanted to try anything with the headmaster's door. He probably ought to go upstairs and verify the state of the door one more time, before he made any serious plans.
But instead of leaving the cafeteria, Togami hesitated, looking around the empty room one more time. He'd been sitting there for nearly an hour, lingering over his meal, with the vain hope in the back of his mind that if he stayed long enough, someone else might show up, too. It was a reasonable assumption – everyone needed to eat, after all. Even if they'd all given up on the breakfast meeting, as this morning suggested they had, no one could avoid meals entirely. Staying in the cafeteria during regular mealtimes seemed like it ought to bring him into contact with one of the other students eventually.
He certainly hadn't managed to find them any other way. For all that he'd seen as he searched the school today, he might as well have been the only person left. He hadn't expected to see Ogami out and about after leaving her festering in her own grief in her dorm room – but the other three remaining students still should have been somewhere in the school. He wasn't too bothered by not seeing Kirigiri or Genocide Jill – but the fact that he hadn't caught so much as a glimpse of Naegi was really starting to worry him.
He'd managed to dismiss his concerns after leaving Ogami's room that morning, trying to convince himself that he was being realistic instead of letting his emotions run away with him. He'd gotten no answer when he'd finally nerved himself up to try Naegi's bell – but the boy had been so exhausted the previous day that maybe he'd just slept through the noise. In fact, it might have even been better if he'd decided to sleep in instead of dragging himself out to the early breakfast meeting, since that would be an indication he understood that he needed to take better care of himself.
Of course, he still hadn't answered when Togami had gone back to try the bell again before heading to the cafeteria – but it still might have been all right. It had been nearly noon by that point, so Naegi might have just gotten up and left. It didn't necessarily mean there was any reason to be alarmed.
But as more and more time passed without letting Togami see the other boy, it was much harder to come up with reasons not to worry. The knowledge that he hadn't seen Naegi since yesterday, nearly fifteen hours ago now, filled his chest with a hollow ache that he couldn't quite ignore. He wanted to be near Naegi again, so that he could finally get the chance to listen to what the boy had been trying to tell him – and not just that.
Togami was starting to find that the longer he spent away from the other boy, the more acutely his feelings of affection hammered at him, to the point that the anger and pain of their fight was beginning to dull in comparison. Rather than focusing on what it had felt like when he'd believed that Naegi had rejected him, he found himself thinking about the way Naegi smiled at him, open and warm, his eyes bright with trust even after Togami had made an empty threat to kill him. Naegi hadn't smiled at him since they'd fought – and Togami couldn't believe how much he missed it. There was something bleeding and raw in his heart that wouldn't heal until he saw Naegi smile at him again, free from pain and distress.
He had to admit that he'd come to the cafeteria at least partially with the intention of waiting here until Naegi finally showed up, or at least until one of the others appeared who might know where the boy had hidden himself. If he left now, even if it was only for a few minutes to look at the headmaster's door again, he'd be running the risk of missing any of the other students who might stop by. And if he didn't find anyone today, he wouldn't know for sure whether Naegi was actually all right or not. The thought of spending another day in this limbo, with matters between the two of them still unresolved – it was intolerable.
But on the other hand, would it be any better to waste his time sitting around waiting for something that might never happen? That was exactly the sort of thing that he'd decided only a few hours ago that he wouldn't do any longer. Yes, he wanted to be sure Naegi was safe – but if he let that stand in the way of pursuing a potential lead, then he'd trapped himself here more thoroughly than the mastermind ever could have.
Naegi wouldn't want him to make that choice, especially not in his name.
That decided it. Togami turned for the door and headed out of the dining hall, striding briskly towards the stairs. He would go up to the fourth floor, examine the headmaster's door again, and then return to the dining hall to wait while he thought about possible plans. He always appreciated the opportunity to multitask.
But he was only halfway up the first flight of stairs when he heard a riot of steps above him, clattering down from the second floor at full speed. He only had a moment to dodge to one side before Genocide Jill came tearing around the corner, barely avoiding a collision.
Jill screeched to a halt as she recognized him, spinning towards him like a homing beacon – and Togami froze as he got a good look at her. Splatters of blood stained the genocider's pale skin, gleaming wetly on her hands with every spasm of her twitching fingers and tangling through the hair straggling from her normally tidy braids. She didn't seem to notice, staring at him with wild eyes than seemed even less stable than she normally did.
"What happened?" Togami forced the words out through numb lips, taking a step towards her before he could even register that it might not be a good idea.
Jill's eyes seemed to look straight through him – like she was so preoccupied with her own thoughts that he wasn't even on her radar. "I – I didn't want to do it."
Togami went as cold as if she'd thrown a bucket of ice water over him. "What do you mean?"
"I just wanted him to stop talking," Jill said, a pleading note entering her words.
Him. There was only one other him left in the school.
Togami lunged forward and seized Jill's shoulders, forgetting for the first time that this was a serial killer he was manhandling. "What did you do?"
Jill trembled in his grip, though he couldn't tell if the emotion causing it was fear, shock, or something else entirely. "He wouldn't stop. He kept telling lies, and he wouldn't stop." She stared up at him, blood and bruises stark against her pale face. "So I made him."
