Naegi stared down at the tattoo on the corpse's hand, his thoughts whirling as he tried to process what this had to mean. When Kirigiri had told him about her encounter with Ikusaba, she'd said that the other girl had revealed a wolf tattoo as proof of her ties to Fenrir. And then last night, when Naegi had repeated the story, Togami had confirmed that members of Fenrir really did get that tattoo. And that wasn't all — he'd said that the tattoo's existence wasn't common knowledge, that he only knew about it because of his family's position. Only a member of Fenrir or someone very close to the organization should have known about it.
Which meant that his suspicion at the sight of the corpse's clothes must have been right — this body didn't belong to Genocide Jill or Kirigiri. This had to be Mukuro Ikusaba, the mastermind's ally.
It should have been a relief. He should have been glad and grateful that he'd finally found confirmation that his missing friends were still okay, or at least that they weren't dead and burned into an unrecognizable wreck. After he'd spent so long fearing the worst, trying to convince himself that this had to be someone other than Kirigiri, praying that he hadn't helped her walk off to a horrible death… the realization that it was true left a hollowness gaping where he'd expected joy to bubble through his chest.
Maybe it was just that there was no room left for joy in him when he had to look down at such horror. Even if Ikusaba had been working for the mastermind, even Togami was right that she hadn't really been trying to help Kirigiri after all — that didn't make it any easier to see this done to what had once been a living person. If she'd really been on the mastermind's side, then of course he wanted her stopped… but not like this. There was no justice or fairness here.
A hand pressed against his good shoulder, warm and steady, pulling him out of his thoughts. Naegi looked up to see Togami frowning down at him in concern.
"You saw it, didn't you?" Togami's words were still too loud and awkward for his usual knife-edged subtlety… but it almost sounded like he was trying to be gentle. "Her hand?"
Naegi started to nod, then stopped the movement abruptly when he realized it would probably make it hard for the other boy to read his lips. "Yeah. Is that…" He paused before naming the tattoo as a mark of Fenrir, glancing warily up at the cameras. "Is that what we were talking about earlier?"
"It looks close, from what I can see through the burns," Togami said. He eyed Naegi for a moment. "And… you know what it could mean?"
Naegi blinked, not sure why Togami seemed to be dancing around the issue so much. "Well… it means that this isn't Kirigiri," he said slowly.
"Not quite," Togami said, fingers tightening slightly on Naegi's shoulder. "Think about what we discussed."
Naegi couldn't help but give the other boy a puzzled look. Everything he remembered of their discussion proclaimed that this had to be Ikusaba. Maybe he hadn't spoken clearly enough for Togami to read his lips correctly. "I was trying to say that this is someone else, not her."
"I understood you perfectly." Togami scowled at him. "I meant that you're drawing an unwarranted conclusion."
"I am?" Naegi frowned, thinking back over what he'd said. What had he said that could have been wrong? For a moment, he had the same dizzying sensation of hearing different arguments flying past in the midst of a class trial, except that the logic he was reexamining was his own.
The body had a Fenrir tattoo on it — well, it had some kind of tattoo, anyway, and Togami had agreed it looked like the Fenrir wolf. Only members of Fenrir had that tattoo, and Ikusaba had shown hers to Kirigiri to identify herself as a member of the group. As far as Naegi could judge, it all lined up pretty well. Ikusaba had a Fenrir tattoo, and here a corpse was with the same marking, so that had to mean —
Wait. Naegi froze, seeing the shaky part of his string of assumptions, the one that Togami must have zeroed in on already. The tattoo only identified a member of Fenrir — it didn't necessarily prove anything else about the person's identity. And yes, the tattoo might be a secret, but if someone already knew what it was supposed to look like…
"You think it might be a fake?" Naegi asked, glancing back down at the marked hand. "Something that the real culprit put there to distract us?"
"That's one possibility," Togami said. "But there's another one, too." He crossed his arms, studying Naegi for a long silent moment… and Naegi almost had the feeling that the other boy was evaluating him somehow.
"So… if you don't think it's the mark we were talking about before…" Naegi said slowly, when it didn't seem like Togami was going to continue. "And you don't think the culprit put it there… you think the victim did it themselves? But Kirigiri always has a good reason for everything she does, and I don't see how making a fake mark would help her."
"No, that's true," Togami agreed. "A fake wouldn't accomplish anything. Even if she found the materials to create a genuine replica here in the school, it would look obviously new. And according to you, she only saw the real version for a few seconds at most — hardly enough time to memorize the details. I doubt she could have managed a good enough fake to fool anyone, let alone someone who knew what it was supposed to look like."
Naegi frowned. Every time he thought he understood what Togami was driving at, the other boy showed him a reason that couldn't have worked. And the only possibility left was just… absurd. "So… if you don't think it's a fake…"
"I think we have to consider the possibility," Togami said grimly. "Naegi, you've spent the most time with Kirigiri out of anyone else left. Have you ever seen anything to prove that she didn't have this mark on her hand all along?"
Schedule Update: And I'm back! Sort of. I didn't get as much writing done on vacation as I'd hoped, so I'm skipping tomorrow's post. Next chapter will be Thursday, and then we'll resume the Sunday-Thursday posting schedule next week.
