As Togami led Naegi out of the dojo towards the stairs, he couldn't help but wish that he knew he was making the right decision. Until being trapped in Monokuma's killing game, he'd always been certain of his path. He'd spent his life hurtling unstoppably forward towards personal and public success, his every action a measured step on the road towards proving himself to be the best that his family had ever produced. He'd never questioned what he was doing — until Hope's Peak, he'd never even had anything to question.

No, not until Hope's Peak — until Naegi. The mere fact of being trapped here hadn't been enough to do it, not when the game had such a clearly defined path to victory. He could have won if he'd tried… right up until the moment he'd realized that he couldn't. Naegi had derailed his life from its steady progress to the top of whatever social order he'd found himself in, miring him in gut-churning swamps of uncertainty. With the other boy to consider, every decision seemed poised on the knife-edge of fear, with the threat of a future too terrible to contemplate if he chose wrong. The Togami heir might not be a person who could lose… but Naegi could, all too easily.

In fact, Naegi seemed to lose constantly, every encounter with another student leaving him worse off than before until he could barely walk down the stairs even leaning most of his weight on the music stand pole and relying on Togami's arm to steady him. Togami kept a close eye on the other boy as they descended step by snail-paced step, all too aware that any whisper of pain Naegi might make would never make its way through the rush of silence wrapped around him. He didn't see any new or sharp movements that suggested Naegi was near collapse again, but he did note the line of tension in Naegi's clenched jaw and the faint tremors the music stand pole made every time it hit the ground.

By the time they passed the halfway point between the fifth and fourth floors, Naegi's shoulders shook a little more with every breath, and the weight where he leaned against Togami's arm seemed just a little heavier. In spite of his best efforts, Togami could feel himself sway as they descended — unless that was just exhaustion roiling through his head and twisting his perceptions. He reached for the stair railing with his free hand, trying to anchor himself to something he knew was solid. But even with the polished railing firmly in his grasp, every new step sent fresh dizziness to assault his sense of balance.

When they finally neared the bottom of this first flight of stairs, Togami eyed the entrance to the fourth floor with a relief that he'd never expected to associate with any area of Hope's Peak. If he and Naegi kept trying to force themselves down the stairs in this state, sooner or later one of them would misjudge a step or lose their grip on the fragile balance they'd achieved… and he knew that neither of them was in any shape to stop a fall once it had started. Prevention was the only viable option.

When they passed through the door and entered the fourth floor, Togami stopped, rather than steering Naegi immediately across the hall to the entrance to the next flight of stairs. Naegi hesitated for a moment at this unexpected pause, starting to take another slow step in the direction of the next set of stairs — but when Togami didn't continue along with him, he stopped moving forward and edged back towards Togami's side. Maybe the extent of his injuries was finally sinking into his awareness, and he'd realized that he would need another rest before they tried to climb down another flight of stairs.

"Do you want to find a place to sit down?" Naegi asked, tilting his head up so that Togami could have an unobstructed view of his mouth. "We could go in one of the classrooms."

Togami had to approve of this evidence of a sense of self-preservation, even if he didn't think much of the idea of going into one of the classrooms, with Monokuma's infantile scribblings leering down at them from the chalkboards. The chairs would be better than sitting on the floor, yes, but helping Naegi back onto his feet after sitting was difficult enough without trying to deal with a tangle of desks getting in the way.

"The music room would be better," he said after a moment's thought, remembering the room's cushioned benches. Then he frowned. "If you think you can make it that far."

"Don't worry about me," Naegi said, giving him a determined nod.

Togami did his best to swallow back his skeptical laugh at the ridiculousness of that idea, but judging by the surprise and confusion that flickered across Naegi's face, he didn't quite manage as well as he should have. He wasn't sure if it was the exhaustion or the inability to hear his own words that had stolen his usual iron control from him — or maybe it was just that it was getting harder and harder to hide his true thoughts from Naegi.

He took a deep breath, gathering as much energy as he had left, and began walking with Naegi across the fourth floor. It was the same long stretch of hallway they would have had to travel across to continue downstairs, and every step of it seemed to take an eternity. He had no idea why the people who had built Hope's Peak had decided to scatter their staircases across the building instead of putting them all in a single sensible column. If he'd ever been presented with a building design like this, he would have fired the architect on the spot.

Togami slowed as they reached the fork in the path that would lead them down to the music room, the world around him feeling cottony and gray. With no sound reaching his ears, everything seemed a little too distant, a little further off than it should — especially the music room door, such a long way down the offset hallway. Intellectually, he knew that it was no more than a few yards, little more than the length of a room… but with the way he felt, it might as well have been an impassable desert. He stopped at the corner across from the hall, bracing one hand against the wall of the central area.

Naegi paused as well, blinking up at him. Togami had to force himself to focus on the other boy's face, trying to see the movements of his lips instead of pale blurs. By the time he was able to read the words, "Are you all right?" from Naegi's mouth, he knew it couldn't be the first time the boy had asked the question. Naegi's eyes were too worried, with fear deepening the lines of his already drawn face.

Fear for him. The knowledge seared its way through the gray fog that had been encroaching on his awareness, burning it away for just a moment longer. He refused to be an object of pity for Naegi, something that would only weigh him further down in his already-injured state. He had to present the other boy with an image of strength, something he could rely on — even if it was false. Naegi needed him too much for him to be anything else.

"I'm fine," Togami said, willing his words to remain steady and unshaken as they left his tongue. "I just stopped to think."

Naegi didn't appear convinced. "Are you sure? Because if you need to rest, I'm sure I can walk by myself now." He started trying to pull away from Togami's side.

"Don't!" The word tore itself from Togami's throat before he could think about what he was saying. He couldn't lose physical contact with Naegi, not now, not when he'd already been stripped of one of the ways he could keep track of the other boy. He wouldn't hear if Naegi called out for help… but as long as he could feel the other boy solid beneath his touch, at least he knew for certain that Naegi was safe.

But even though Naegi stopped trying to move away, Togami could tell that his exclamation had only made things worse. Naegi's eyebrows knit together in an anxious frown, and he was clearly spending far too much energy worrying over things that shouldn't concern him. Togami had to stop him, had to convince him that this wasn't the problem he seemed to believe. He glanced around, trying to find some hint of inspiration… and he realized that they were standing mere feet from the locked door of the data center.

"I didn't stop here because anything is wrong," Togami said, pouring conviction into his words. "I thought that before we head to the music room, we ought to check the new key in the data center lock."

Naegi eyed him for several long seconds, and for a moment Togami thought the other boy might object… but eventually, Naegi's lips huffed out in a small sigh. "Okay. If that's what you want."

Togami gave a sharp nod, which he immediately regretted as it sent another rush of dizziness aching through his skull. To cover up the pain, he pulled the key from his pocket, took a single step forward to the door. He would give the key a quick try, and then they could move on to the music room and rest enough to make it down the stairs to the dorms. Trying to make it look as if this had been his plan all along, he pressed the key gently to the keyhole.

It slid in perfectly.


Scheduling update: Scheduling update: Starting next week, there will be a new posting schedule. There will definitely be a new chapter on Sunday, and the new schedule will begin from there. I haven't decided what exactly it will be yet, but I should have it pinned down by then.

The reason behind this change is that I need more time to edit these chapters before I post them. We're probably looking at a little more space between each update, but on balance, the chapters themselves should be higher quality. You'll get the story a little more slowly, but what you get will move at a faster pace. Hopefully this trade off will work out for everyone!