Togami frowned as he knelt down beside the deactivated Monokuma, giving it a thorough visual inspection. While he'd been close to Monokuma before, he hadn't really gotten the chance to look at the bear. In the brief periods that Monokuma appeared to address the students in person, Togami's focus had always been on what he'd been saying. Monokuma's words were too dangerous to ignore, especially given his fondness for loopholes and tricks. Any examination of the technology used to communicate those words had been a secondary consideration. But now, with Monokuma finally silent, Togami could switch his attention to the bear itself.

Monokuma might be oversized for the stuffed toy that he appeared to be, but he wasn't actually all that large. His presence might expand to fill whatever room he was in, but in reality he was no more than two and a half feet tall – which was a remarkably small amount of space to hold whatever technology was used to operate him. Togami knew a good bit about the current state of technology and what various types of electronics were capable of – and he could tell that the bear in front of him had to be an incredibly advanced device.

And that wasn't the only unusual thing to jump out in Togami's initial assessment. For all that Monokuma liked to brag about his glossy fur and well-crafted physique – well, repulsive as the claims were, Togami had to admit that he seemed to have a point. The bear's fur shone with the silkiness of fine cloth, prized as much for its feel on skin as for its beauty – the kind that he wouldn't have disdained on one of his possessions. He couldn't see the stitches holding it together, even when he looked where he knew they had to be, which was a mark of very skilled craftsmanship.

So taking into account the materials, the technology, and the level of work that would have been required to put this creation together, Togami could only conclude that building Monokuma must have been a considerable investment on the part of the mastermind. It wasn't just a piece of technology – it had been almost lovingly crafted to appear to be an expensive stuffed toy, when it would have been much cheaper and easier to let the robotic components show. If this was what the mastermind had chosen to create to speak to the students, that meant they didn't just value the function of what Monokuma could do – they put a very high price on the illusion he represented. And that made it all the more bizarre that Monokuma should be standing here unattended and inactive.

When Togami felt confident that he'd learned everything he could from a purely visual inspection, he knew it was time to move on to the obvious next step. With every one of his nerves alert and prickling with adrenaline, he reached out to press a hand flush against Monokuma's back.

And however much effort the mastermind had put into the elaborate ruse that Monokuma was nothing more than a magically operated stuffed toy, touch was where the illusion fell apart. Togami could feel only the thinnest layer of fluff beneath his hand, nowhere near enough to mask the cold curve of metal and the twisting coils of wires. He'd known that such things had to be there, of course – but the fact that they were so flimsily hidden from a tactile investigation suggested that the mastermind had never intended that any of the students get the chance to try.

Slowly, Togami ran his hands over Monokuma, not letting a single inch of the bear go unexplored. He kept his touches as light as he could, making sure to do no more than test to see what was there. If by some chance there was a button or switch anywhere on the bear that could reactivate him, Togami definitely didn't want to press it by accident. And aside from potential dangers like that, there were also more obvious threats to avoid, like the wickedly curved claws he knew Monokuma had hidden in his paws. If those sprang out unexpectedly while his hand was in the wrong place, he wouldn't be surprised to find he'd lost a finger.

He exercised equal caution as he circled around to examine Monokuma's face, since it was all too easy to envision that grinning mouth snapping forward to bite his exploring fingers. Still, with the versatility Monokuma's expressions had always displayed, Togami couldn't justify ignoring this part of the bear. He traced the length of Monokuma's mouth and muzzle, noting that this section was almost entirely composed of joints and connections rather than solid metal. The red lightning bolt on the black half of Monokuma's face was actually a clouded crystal panel, embedded neatly into the jointed metal so tightly that he couldn't find more than a hairline showing where it had been attached. And the other…

The other eye could be unscrewed.

Togami ran his finger over it several times, just to make sure that he really had felt what he thought he had – and yes, his touch confirmed it every time. The round black button of an eye that sat on the white half of Monokuma's face had a thin groove through the center, just the right size for a screwdriver to fit. And around the bottom of the eye, he could feel the hint of a seam.

So that was it, then – an avenue that he could pursue to learn more about the real workings of the mastermind's contraption. The reason he'd gone back for his toolkit, the purpose of this entire investigation. This was what he'd wanted to find – and it meant that it was time for him to make the decision he'd been avoiding.

"What's wrong, White Knight?" Jill asked, bending sideways to peer over his shoulder from a twisted angle. "I thought you wanted those tools so you could play engineer! What's stopping you?"

Togami rolled his eyes and was about to send a vicious slew of sarcasm her way in return for that failure to note the obvious – but then he paused. Jill hadn't appeared on the scene until the middle of the second trial, well after everyone else had understood Monokuma's game. She'd seemed to pick up the situation fairly quickly – but she hadn't been around to see Enoshima's attack on Monokuma or its bloody aftermath. And if no one had thought to mention it to her…

"Have you read the school rules in your e-handbook?" Togami asked.

"Huh?" Jill blinked, pulling her handbook out of her skirt pocket to frown at it. "There are rules in this thing?"

"Yes," Togami said, scowling up at her. "As you would have known if you'd bothered to examine it. And the fifth rule is the one with some bearing on this situation."

Jill scrolled through the handbook sections until she apparently reached the rules. "Violence against headmaster Monokuma is strictly prohibited?" She laughed. "Man, lucky break for me that I didn't go at him with my scissors, huh?"

"It's a fatal offense," Togami said, even less amused by her sense of humor than he usually was.

"Guess that rules out using the hammer to bust him open like a melon!" Jill said.

"That option was never on the table," Togami said. "Something like that would obviously count as violence – and the mastermind has proven just how little patience they have with rule-breaking." He looked back at Monokuma's shiny black eye. "The question is whether any other kind of disassembly would count as breaking a rule."

"Does it matter?" Jill asked, putting one hand on her hip. "I mean, he can't complain you broke one of his rules if he's in pieces on the floor, right?"

"Maybe not, but it wouldn't stop the mastermind from using one of their other weapons to deliver punishments," Togami said. "Monokuma is only the mastermind's proxy, not the mastermind themselves."

"Huh, really?" Jill frowned. "I did think it was kinda weird that a robot was the one holding us hostage."

"Well, it wasn't – at least, not on its own," Togami said. "But it's possible that it does contain some clues about the people who are behind it."

"Got it." Jill nodded. "So what are you gonna do?"

That was the question, wasn't it – the one he still couldn't answer. He'd come here prepared to investigate, knowing that Naegi would have wanted him to find any answers he could – but he'd never been willing to take things to the point of actual rule-breaking. He remembered the fear on Ogami's face as she'd reminded him of the potential consequences of getting caught – and of what it would do to Naegi if this happened while he was unconscious. Whether or not Naegi returned his love, Togami knew the soft-hearted boy would be devastated to think he might have been the impetus to send someone he cared about to a senseless death.

But on the other hand – would it end in death? Togami thought about the rule again, considering the exact wording Jill had just read. Violence against headmaster Monokuma is strictly prohibited. Ogami had said that she thought disassembling the bear sounded violent – but was that really the case? After all, a screw could be both opened and closed without the use of force. That wasn't violence – that was its intended purpose. Of course, he hadn't forgotten the way Monokuma had modified the dorm room door hinges to prevent exactly this kind of loophole – but didn't that just mean that the loophole was valid? And now that he knew how the mastermind had gotten around the loophole once, he could be on the watch for it to happen again. As long as he didn't actually break anything… he was fairly sure the loophole should hold.

Togami reached for his toolkit and pulled out the screwdriver. "I'm going to investigate."