As soon as Togami rounded the bend of the stairs that took him out of Genocide Jill's line of sight, he sped up as fast as he could without tripping as he hurried down the steps. He should never have let her delay him so long, not when he didn't know where Ogami had taken Naegi or what she might be doing to him – but he couldn't let a murderer come trailing along after him, either. For all he knew, she'd seize the opportunity to finish the job.
Unless someone else did it before she got the chance. Yes, Ogami might have seemed eager to be helpful in the moment of crisis, but she didn't exactly have the best track record for holding to her convictions. With Togami unconscious and Jill occupied with her obsessive stalking, Ogami could have done anything she pleased. It would be all too easy for a slip of the hand to have tragic consequences – and anything that happened could be blamed on the injuries Jill had already inflicted.
As soon as he reached the foot of the stairs, Togami was running those last few yards to the nurse's office. He threw the door open to find Naegi lying pale and unconscious on one of the beds with Ogami bending over him, clean cloth and antiseptic in hand.
Togami crossed the room to Naegi's side in a blink, dropping to one knee beside the bed and reaching out to feel the boy's neck for a pulse again. He hung suspended in a breathless, terrible limbo – but no, there it was, proof of life beneath his fingertips. The fragile beats were weak, faltering – but they kept coming, over and over, because Naegi never gave up on anything. He wouldn't be defeated, not by something like this.
He could have sat there for hours, tracking every beat of Naegi's heart until the other boy woke and confirmed in his own words that he was all right – but Ogami's movements on the other side of Naegi's bed provided a constant reminder that nothing was over yet.
From what Togami could see, the collapsing bookcase hadn't been kind to the boy, leaving smears of old dust along with the injuries. That had to carry some risk of infection – who knew what kinds of filth might have been breeding in all that grime? Ogami seemed to be making good progress in cleaning Naegi's other injuries, using antiseptic and bandages to treat the lesser cuts and scrapes that dotted his exposed skin. Hopefully that would be soon enough.
Should he try to help her? Togami was about to offer – but then he looked down at his own hands. His stomach roiled as he focused on the red stain of his fingers touching Naegi's neck, still dark with the other boy's blood, and he had to look hastily away again. He needed to wash his hands, to get rid of the reminder of Naegi's injury as well as to make sure he didn't contaminate any of the medical equipment. He glanced around the nurse's office – but just as he'd thought he remembered, there didn't seem to be a sink on hand. What kind of second-rate excuse for a clinic didn't have running water in the room?
That meant the closest sink would be in the bathroom next door. It wasn't too terribly far – but the distance wasn't the problem. To get there, he'd have to leave the clinic – and Naegi. Every time he'd let Naegi out of his sight, something terrible had befallen the other boy – and that had been when Naegi was awake and alert. How much worse would the risk be now that he was unconscious?
Ogami's presence didn't do anything to reassure him, no matter how diligent she might seem in Naegi's care. Two minutes could be more than enough time for her to change her mind again. He remembered the girl he'd left sitting alone in her shadowy dorm room, the girl who'd told him that they couldn't protect anyone and giving up was the only option. It was all too easy to envision her sliding back into that cloud of gloom, deciding that helping Naegi wasn't worth the effort after all.
And if it came to that, Togami realized that he didn't even know why she'd changed her mind in the first place. He'd been so shocked by the bloody scene in the library, so startled by her appearance in the middle of it, that he hadn't thought to ask what she thought she was doing. There had been no time, not in that moment of immediate crisis – but there was time now.
"What exactly were you doing in the library, anyway?" Togami asked, narrowing his eyes at her. "It was awfully convenient that you just happened to decide to leave your room for the first time in two days right when there was an injury for you to treat."
"It wasn't convenient." Ogami didn't look up from where she bent over a long, shallow gash along Naegi's shoulder. "Jill told me what happened."
Togami frowned. He'd suspected that was the answer, since it was the only possibility that didn't involve an unreasonable number of coincidences – but that meant that Jill must have run straight to Ogami's room after he'd left her on the stairs. "Why would she do that?"
Ogami shrugged. "She found the situation beyond her ability to handle, and apparently she'd heard somewhere that I've had some experience with first aid. She insisted that I come upstairs to help without delay."
Togami could well imagine just how Jill had insisted, with threats and flashing scissors. "And so you came running to avoid being her next victim."
"No." Ogami's hands went still for a moment, cloth pressed unmoving against Naegi's shoulder. "It was just that when I was faced with the choice – I found that I couldn't bring myself to choose inaction after all. This still may end badly, if the mastermind decides to intervene – but if I had stayed out of it, that wouldn't have made it better. And whatever happened because of my inaction would have been my fault."
What could have happened – Togami shuddered, unable to stand the thought of such a thing. "So you've finally decided to use your head for something other than spewing useless drivel."
"Something like that." Ogami went back to cleaning Naegi's wounds.
Togami scowled, unable to avoid seeing the meaning of her words. Jill had brought someone with the ability to help Naegi, stopping Togami from removing those scissors in what he could see now would have been a disastrous decision. She'd bound Naegi's wounds to buy enough time for real help to arrive. She'd even told Togami where Naegi was both times he'd asked, without any arguments or lies. With all of it added up together – she'd probably saved Naegi's life.
He shook his head sharply. He refused to feel gratitude towards the girl who'd endangered Naegi's life in the first place, especially when Naegi was still unconscious.
At that thought, his gaze dropped to the other boy as though the forces of gravity were pulling it close. Did Naegi look a little better, or was it his imagination? Naegi had been in such a bad state already that it was difficult to tell what signs he should be watching for. Was it a bad sign that he was still unconscious, or was this just his body seizing the opportunity to recover from all the abuse it had endured over the past few days? Maybe he'd moved from unconsciousness to true sleep without waking up in between.
Sleep… why did he feel like there was something he should remember about that? He frowned, sifting quickly back through his memories, until –
"The school regulations!" Togami jerked around to peer into all the corners of the room, in case Monokuma might have been watching them from the shadows all along.
Ogami stared at him like he'd suddenly started speaking in tongues. "What are you talking about?"
"Sleeping anywhere other than the dorms is against the school rules," Togami said impatiently. Didn't any of the others bother to so much as glance through the rules after the first time they'd heard them? "Being unconscious must not count, since Fukawa never had any problems when she fainted – but we can't rely on that for something long term."
"Right." Ogami set down the antiseptic and cloth, glancing around the office with a frown. "We'll need to bring along anything we need to treat him, then. His room key should still be in one of his pockets –"
"No. Not his room." Togami had had enough of Naegi being out of his reach. "Put him in mine."
Ogami nodded. "All right, then. He shouldn't be alone until he wakes up, anyway."
"He won't be," Togami said with grim determination.
