Togami knew he didn't dare linger long in the wreckage of classroom 5-C. He couldn't hold his breath indefinitely, and the bandages he'd tied over his mouth and nose wouldn't do much to filter any remaining drugs from the air. He needed to cross the room, check the body, and leave again as quickly as possible, ideally before he'd had to inhale more than a breath or two of the tainted air.

But even so, he forced himself to take a moment to scan the room as he entered, checking for concealed enemies or suspiciously hidden areas. Avoiding the filthy air would do him no good if he focused so much on moving quickly that he left himself vulnerable to attack. And with the destroyed furniture scattered broken through the room, there were plenty of places where someone could stage an effective ambush…

Except that to do so, they would have had to wait here in the classroom, breathing the befouled air. It was just barely possible that someone might have heard him and Naegi approach and hurried to conceal themselves just moments before he entered, but it seemed highly unlikely that anyone would bother with such subterfuge when it would be so much easier to attack out in the hall.

With that in mind, Togami started walking forward before more than a few of his precious limited seconds could tick away. If he intended to go through with this, he had a great deal to accomplish before his breath ran out. He sent cautious glances to either side as he strode across the room, taking special care to look behind the piles of furniture — but the largest pieces had fallen near the front of the room. The space thinned out as he approached the area with the piles of chalk outlines — the area where the body still lay.

Even with the bandages covering his face, Togami refused to breathe this close to the body. His skin shuddered under the chilly caress of air currents stirring where they had no business moving, and he could hear a faint whirring that he could tell now was ever so slightly distinct from the sound of the air conditioning vents. So not only had the drug not dissipated, it seemed as though it was still being pumped into the room. His stomach seized up in protective spasms, and the only thing that stopped him from gagging at the thought was that he knew he'd have to suck in some of the poisoned air to do it.

He couldn't stay here, not with the air hanging dirty and disgusting all around him — but he couldn't leave either, not yet. Not when Naegi had only agreed to wait outside because he trusted Togami to find out whose body lay on the ground. And all the while, time kept ticking away, counting down the seconds until he no longer had a choice.

And Togami knew he couldn't go back out into the hallway and tell Naegi that he hadn't been able to find out the truth after all. The thought of seeing the shards of broken trust in Naegi's eyes was almost as bad as the knowledge that Naegi's reaction would be to try to enter the classroom and identify the body himself. Either of those outcomes would be unacceptable.

So before any more time could pass, Togami dropped to one knee beside the body. With the lantern in one hand, he could see other details now, tiny things that he'd missed in the shadowy darkness. He recognized the coat draped over the body as some kind of ankle-length lab coat, and above it the victim's head had been concealed by some kind of smooth gray helmet. And he could tell at a glance that it was definitely the huge knife from his air vent that had pierced through the corpse.

And more than that, he could see the body wasn't the only thing that had been stabbed. The knife pinned a piece of white, bloodstained paper to the corpse's chest, with the single word TRAITOR emblazoned across it.

Togami nearly forgot himself enough to gasp at the sight. The room seemed to grow a few degrees colder with that accusation scrawled on a dead girl's body. What did it mean? Who had made it? And, most importantly, who had been accused?

He couldn't delay any longer, not if he wanted to make it back to the hall without collapsing. A faint tremor in his hands as he reached out towards the body's head told him he was pushing it already — he had to act now or not at all. And with a message like that raising so many new questions, not acting wasn't an option. He focused all his attention, gripped the head, and turned it to face him.

Beep.

It was a mask covering the head, not a helmet, with huge mirrored eyes and an obscenely large grin. Naegi had said Ikusaba wore a mask, Togami remembered, but of course masks could be removed. That didn't tell him anything. He felt along the edges of the mask, trying to determine how to get it off.

Beep.

It didn't seem to have a zipper or other clasp. Could it just be pulled on and off? That seemed too simple, if someone had gone to the trouble of masking the victim, but maybe the culprit had assumed the drugged air would stop anyone from getting this far.

Beep beep.

The mask's reason for being there couldn't matter much, though. The important thing was to get rid of it. Togami slid his fingers beneath the edge of it —

And felt the presence of a trigger, far too late to do any good.

Beep beep.

The full meaning of the faint beeping finally registered, and he threw himself backwards, scrambling to get as far from the corpse as he could. How had he not recognized the sound sooner — the same beeping they'd all heard from Monokuma that first day in the gym, after Owada had been stupid enough to attack the robot in direct defiance of the rules?

Beep beep beep.

But the faster he tried to move, the more the room shook and spun around him, reflexes slowed by the side effects of the drug and his lack of sleep dragging at his limbs. He knew that too much space stretched between him and the door. How long had Owada held the robot before flinging it up to explode in midair?

Beep beep beep beeeeeeeeeeeep —

As the beeping turned to a screaming howl of noise, Togami abandoned the door and threw himself to the side, behind the nearest pile of overturned desks. His last thought as he threw his arms over his head was that at least Naegi had stayed safely out in the hall.

And then the world blew apart around him, and there were no thoughts in the darkness that followed.