Before Togami moved away from Naegi, he reached over to retrieve the music stand pole from where it had fallen when Naegi collapsed and set it beside the injured boy's right hand. "Use that to get my attention if you need anything," he instructed. "And don't wait to try to decide if it's important enough to interrupt me. Anything."
Only after Naegi had given him a small nod of agreement did Togami take a couple steps away, back towards the remains of the humidifier. He made sure not to turn his back on Naegi, though, and even with the pole, he kept glancing over to check that the other boy was still okay every few seconds. He'd missed the signs of one problem already, and that had only made things worse. He didn't know how Naegi would make it through another case of something going wrong — so he'd have to catch any other problems before they could occur.
But he'd told Naegi that he still needed to check things, and the other boy would start to get suspicious if all Togami did was watch over him from further away. But fortunately, it hadn't been entirely a lie — there was still another empty bottle that he needed to examine.
He knelt next to it and pulled out his pen again, tapping carefully at the small green bottle to rotate it so that he could read the label, just as he had with the poison bottle. He didn't think this was another container of poison, since there weren't supposed to be any others left in the chemistry lab that could be used by inhalation, as this one apparently had been — but even so, being cautious never hurt. Even if it wasn't another bottle of poison, it could still be something just as dangerous.
When he finally turned the green bottle enough that he could read the label, he frowned. Monokuma Neutralization Agent… what was that supposed to be? He highly doubted that the name meant that it was actually a bottle full of something that could neutralize the horrible little robot bear, much as he would have liked to have a liquid like that on hand.
It looked like there was another section of the label wrapping around to the back of the bottle, though. Togami took a moment to glance up and make sure that Naegi was still all right. Once he'd assured himself that yes, Naegi appeared fine, was breathing peacefully, and had closed his eyes to rest, he went back to the bottle and began rotating it again until he could read the back label.
"One dose of Monokuma Neutralization Agent can be combined with an equivalent dose of poison to create a boring nontoxic saline solution. Warning: use only in case of fatal lack of spine."
Togami blinked down at it. So… there was a way to neutralize the poison, after all. It hadn't just dissipated on its own. That would explain the second sponge, at least.
And… his memory flashed back to his investigation of the chemistry lab during the fourth class trial, when the three bottles of poison hadn't been the only things he'd found missing. Someone had taken another bottle from the middle cabinet, the one with the reagents, although they'd arranged the cabinet contents so that it was impossible to tell what was missing without a list of inventory. That cabinet was certainly the one place in the school he'd expect to find an item like this.
But if it had disappeared before the fourth trial — did that mean Kirigiri had taken it as part of her idiotic plan to pretend to murder Naegi? She hadn't mentioned anything about neutralizing the poison — but with her, that never meant anything. He wouldn't be surprised to find out that she'd squirreled away an antidote to the poison that only she would know about.
Except… no, the label didn't say that the reagent could be used as an antidote, did it? It said it could neutralize the poison, which wasn't the same thing. It looked as though it would have to come into contact with the poison before anyone got a fatal dose in order to work. It sounded quite dangerously useful, and he could see several ways someone might use it to craft a murder without even stopping to think hard.
Not that it mattered now, with the bottle empty. Most of it must have been used up getting rid of the poison gas in the air, and the rest had to be pooled on the floor by the fan. He didn't think he'd seen any other bottles like this in the chemistry lab, either, though it wouldn't hurt to confirm that with another check of the cabinet when he had a moment.
But that would have to wait for some later time. He didn't want to drag Naegi down to the fourth floor in this state without a very good reason, and he certainly had no intention of leaving the injured boy alone and defenseless at a murder scene. He'd already had some sort of attack bad enough to make him collapse once — what if it happened a second time, without someone nearby to help? Or worse, what if the murderer decided to return?
That wasn't a thought Togami cared to dwell on for any length of time. He glanced back at Naegi to reassure himself once again that the boy was still all right. He couldn't see much improvement, but at least Naegi didn't look worse. That was probably as much as he could expect at the moment. Still, he'd prefer to give Naegi a few more moments of uninterrupted rest if he could — not that he thought for a second that Naegi would be willing to go along with it if he realized that was what Togami was doing. Was there anything else he could do to give Naegi a little longer?
Well, he supposed that checking the body again couldn't hurt, and if he did it, that meant Naegi wouldn't have to force himself to try yet again. Maybe he'd even find some clue they'd missed that could say once and for all who this body belonged to.
Togami carefully circled around Naegi, giving the boy as wide a berth as possible to avoid disturbing him. He couldn't quite tell if he made any noise or not, but he did his best to set his feet down gently and avoid obstacles. It seemed to work, since Naegi didn't so much as open his eyes as Togami passed him to head back over to the body.
Or what had been a body, at any rate. It was hard to think of it that way now, after the fire and bomb had destroyed any possibility of identifying the girl's face. Togami grimaced and looked away from the upper body. Any clues that had been there were long since destroyed. If he wanted to find something, he'd need to look lower.
Not that the rest of the body was any more help, covered with the draping coat as it had been. Togami's fingers itched with the urge to pull it off and check whether the corpse was wearing Kirigiri's clothes — but after what had happened the last time he'd thoughtlessly handled the body, he wasn't going to try that again. That coat might hide another bomb trigger, or any number of other nasty surprises. Anything he learned wouldn't be worth the risk — especially since clothes could be changed so easily.
But there was at least one important area of the body that he could see clearly without touching anything. Togami circled around to the far side of the body, where the girl's tattooed hand lay palm down on the ground.
