Naegi couldn't believe that he'd forgotten about the drugs in the air — but the explosion had completely blown the more subtle dangers of the classroom out of his head. But he shouldn't have let himself forget, not after Togami had told him about the powerful knockout drug that had nearly made him collapse when he'd first found the body. Naegi should have been working to get the both of them away from the tainted air in here, not sitting around to breathe in more of it.
But… it couldn't have taken Togami more than a couple minutes to examine the body, since he hadn't even had a chance to try to identify it. This time, they'd both been in the room far longer than that. With the lingering weakness from his existing injuries, Naegi knew he didn't have the strength left to resist a strong drug for long, especially not while trying to douse the fire — and if Togami had lost consciousness even for a moment after the explosion, the drug should have ensured that he wouldn't wake up again. Why hadn't either of those things happened?
There was only one reason that Naegi could think of. The drug must have lost its potency somehow, between when Togami had been in here the first time and now. He wasn't sure how that could have happened, though. Would a knockout drug just stop working? Could gases do that? He tried to think back to his last chemistry class, but all the facts seemed to tangle together in a mess of confusion.
Well, he could try to work out why it had happened this way later. What was important now was that the drugged air hadn't taken them down while they were distracted — and that meant they had time to get out of the classroom and away from the threat.
He tried to lean on the music stand pole, attempting to lever himself off the ground — but it wasn't strong enough to take all of his weight. Without a second hand to brace against the floor or grip some handhold, he couldn't get back to his feet by himself.
Before he could so much as look up, let alone ask for help, an arm wrapped around Naegi's side, giving him the support and balance he needed. Naegi was just about able to struggle to his feet with that extra leverage, but he couldn't help but notice the way Togami's arm trembled against him, proclaiming a weakness that the heir would never admit to aloud.
Naegi hated that he had to rely on the other boy to support him, just minutes after Togami had been through a terrible ordeal… but he knew there was no way he could stand on his own without help. He shouldn't have let himself drop to the ground in the first place, knowing that he couldn't stand again by himself — but the realization that Togami was alive had driven the thought from his head. No matter what he did, he just kept making mistake after mistake… and the people he cared about kept getting hurt because of it. Maybe it was time to stop worrying so much about getting answers, and start thinking a little harder about how to keep people safe.
But when Naegi finally made it to his feet and glanced up at Togami, ready to move towards the door so that they could go somewhere safer, just like Togami had suggested in the first place — he realized in shock that the other boy was already turning towards the far end of the room, where the burned body lay.
"What are you doing?" Naegi started to ask, before realizing that Togami wasn't looking in his direction. He shrugged one shoulder sharply against Togami's side.
That brought Togami's attention sharply back to him. "What's wrong?"
"It isn't safe here," Naegi said as clearly as he could, trying to use words Togami would find familiar. "We should leave."
"Not yet." The cold ice of fury burned in Togami's eyes, made all the worse by the way it was blunted in his tone. "Someone set two different traps to stop me from getting a good look at that corpse. I'm not leaving until I know why."
Naegi blinked. He hadn't quite thought of it like that — but Togami was right. The knockout gas could possibly have been explained away as part of the murder, but a touch-triggered bomb was something else altogether. He looked down at the corpse in front of him, reassessing it from that perspective. Was there something about the body that the culprit hadn't wanted them to see, something that the burns had concealed?
"But… the explosion burned the body," Naegi pointed out, in case Togami hadn't realized. "Really badly. There might not be anything left to see. And if the drugs aren't really gone, we'd just be breathing more of them while we looked."
"I told you that I'd identify the body for you," Togami said. "I will not let some common killer force me to alter my decisions. Another few minutes won't make a difference at this point." Togami eyed him for a moment. "You can wait in the hall —"
"Not without you!"
A hint of a smile ghosted across Togami's lips at Naegi's immediate response. "Then be careful, and don't touch anything. That trap triggered when I moved the body's head."
Naegi bit his lip, trying not to worry as he and Togami headed back towards the body. He wanted to get out, to take Togami somewhere safe where he could recover in peace — but to his disgust, another part of himself wanted to do the opposite. He did still want to find out whose corpse that was, to know which of his friends had been so brutally destroyed. How could he make a choice like this, between two things he needed so badly?
Well, it wasn't as though he even had a choice to make at the moment. Togami didn't want to leave, and Naegi knew he didn't have the strength to force the other boy out of the room against his will. The only thing he could do to get Togami to safety faster would be to look at the body and try to identify it as quickly as possible.
Naegi sighed to himself as they reached the body, trying to ignore the feeling that he was choosing one side over the other. He had to put those thoughts out of his head and focus on who the corpse might be.
There was nothing to see in the wreck of the victim's face, so Naegi didn't even try to look. Instead, he turned to the bottom half of the body, the part that hadn't been burned quite so badly. The body seemed to be dressed in a long white coat, big enough that it could easily conceal either Kirigiri's distinctive boots or Jill's long skirt. It made sense that the culprit would have hidden the body in a coat like that, if they wanted to stop an investigation… but there was something else about it that bothered him, something he knew he should remember…
And in a flash of recognition, his last conversation with Kirigiri echoed through his memory. While she'd described her meeting with Ikusaba in detail, she hadn't been able to do the same for Ikusaba herself — because Mukuro Ikusaba had concealed her appearance with a mask and heavy coat.
A twisted mix of hope and fear began to curdle through Naegi's stomach as he considered the possibility. Could this really be Ikusaba, and not either of his missing friends? But… he couldn't tell for sure, not when clothes were the only clue he'd seen so far, and they could just as easily have been used to conceal one of the missing girls. There had to be something else, something that would tell him the truth either way. Because if this body was either Jill or Kirigiri, that would be bad enough, sacrificing yet another one of his friends to the horrors of the killing game. But if it wasn't, if it was Ikusaba, then that brought up an entirely different question — who could have killed her?
Being very careful not to disturb anything, Naegi circled around to view the body from the other side, hoping to see something that he'd missed. He did his best not to look at the scorch marks near the head, where the bomb must have been hidden — and as he looked away, a glint of light drew his gaze further down near the victim's waist, where the flames had only been beginning to burn. Some sort of small metal object lay on the ground beside the victim's hand, as though she'd dropped it when she'd fallen.
And on the back of her right hand, not entirely obscured by the burn marks, he could just make out the outline of a large, circular tattoo… and the image in the center might have been a fierce wolf growling up at him.
Scheduling Update: And I guess that will have to be a good ending note for the next week and a half. I'm going to visit family, and I don't expect to have much time to write while I'm gone. Next chapter will be posted on Tuesday, August 9. See you all then!
