Naegi watched Ogami regretfully as her face twisted with painful recollection. Guilt twisted through his stomach at forcing her to think back to the times the mastermind had threatened her, especially when he knew how much her betrayal of her friends haunted her… but what else could he do? This murder hinged on the mastermind and Ikusaba, that much was clear, and Ogami had been the first one to get a glimpse of what was happening behind the scenes of the mastermind's plan. With so little to go on, even the smallest scrap of information that she could offer would help.
But that didn't make it any easier to see the pain on his friend's face. The circles beneath Ogami's eyes seemed to darken, and lines of tension carved their way around her mouth as she pried her lips apart. "All right. I'll tell you what I remember."
"Thank you," Naegi said, offering her an encouraging smile. "And whatever happened when you were talking with the mastermind, I won't get mad at you about any of it, I promise."
A grim sort of smile twisted Ogami's lips. "I know. You won't think the worst of any of us, even when you should."
Naegi shifted uncomfortably at this assessment of his personality. "Look, I'm not sure how long we have before the trial starts… so we probably shouldn't waste too much time."
The glimmer of a smile vanished as Ogami nodded. "Of course."
She started to move towards the chair beside the bed — then stopped short and reversed herself, choosing to sit on the far edge of the bed instead. Naegi supposed he couldn't really blame her for not wanting to sit back down in the chair where she'd sat drugged into unconsciousness for hours on end… but it was a little weird to find himself sitting on the same bed as a girl. He was pretty sure the polite thing to do would be to stand up and take the chair instead, so that she wouldn't feel awkward… but he didn't think he was up to that kind of movement. And besides, Ogami clearly had much more on her mind than the normal sort of proprieties… so if it didn't bother her, there was probably no point in worrying about it. Not when they had so much else that needed their attention.
Naegi waited for a moment as Ogami stared down at the floor in heavy silence. Did she not know where to begin? Or… was she sliding back into the flood of despair that had nearly overwhelmed her a few days ago, when Asahina had been killed? She'd been so horribly certain that they were all lost, that there was nothing any of them could do to defy the mastermind… Naegi couldn't let her dwell on that again. Maybe it would help to get her started with a question, something specific that she could do to help.
"When did you first realize there was a sixteenth student?" he asked. "Was it the first time the mastermind approached you?"
Ogami blinked, as though the words had jolted her free of whatever downward spiral she'd found herself stuck in. "No… the first time was the night we arrived, when Monokuma appeared in my room to threaten me. He only talked about my family's dojo, not about anyone here in the school."
"And after that?" Naegi prompted, nudging her away from the dark path of those memories. "Did he say something the next time he appeared in your room?"
"No, he didn't come back to my room again," Ogami said. "After the first time, I had to go upstairs to report to him in the middle of the night. Even before we could reach the higher floors during the day, the gates on the stairs would be gone whenever he wanted me to go up to the fourth floor."
Naegi frowned. "The fourth floor? Wait — do you mean the data center?"
"Yes, that's right," Ogami said. "I shouldn't be surprised that you worked it out. I believe that's the room the mastermind uses to keep tabs on us, with the feeds from the surveillance cameras."
"It is," Naegi confirmed, unable to avoid a nervous glance up at the security camera currently filming them as he spoke. "Togami and I actually found the data center key, and… well, it's a long story that didn't turn out to have very much to do with the murder." This had to be the worst time to delve into the horrors of the data center now, when he'd just reminded Ogami so vividly of all the terrible acts she'd been forced to do under the cameras' glare. It would be better to wait until later to explain, maybe when he could tell both Jill and Ogami at the same time.
Ogami didn't seem inclined to press the issue. "Well, that's where Monokuma waited for me, sitting in a big chair in the middle of the room with all the monitors around him. I knew I would see all of you if I looked up at the screens that showed the dormitories… and after I got to know you more, I couldn't bear to watch."
"So you looked somewhere else instead," Naegi surmised. "Some of the other screens? Did you see Ikusaba moving around while we were all asleep?"
"No… nothing so obvious," Ogami said. "I wasn't even sure of what I saw at first — I had to ask Monokuma to confirm it meant what I thought."
"What was it?" Naegi asked.
"A list of the student votes after the second trial," Ogami said.
"The votes?" Naegi blinked. That hadn't been what he'd expected her to say. "Monokuma showed it to you?"
"No, but it was sitting on the desk beside him when he called me to report in that night," Ogami said. "I recognized it almost immediately — it had a list with the same portraits that are on our dorm room nameplates. And next to each portrait, there was a mark noting how that person voted."
"But… we've all agreed every time, haven't we?" Naegi asked, puzzled. "I mean… we've always worked out what happens, and the culprits have all admitted to it. What would anyone need to count?"
"I couldn't say what the mastermind's reason was for keeping such a list," Ogami said, shrugging. "I only know that I saw it. But… the votes weren't as unanimous as you believe."
Naegi frowned. "Well, I guess it would be too much to expect someone to vote for their own execution…"
"Owada did," Ogami said. "Ishimaru was the one who couldn't. He chose to vote for himself instead of for his friend."
"Really?" Naegi looked down at the ground, remembering the heartbroken look on Ishimaru's face after Owada had admitted his own guilt. So in the end, even knowing that being wrong would condemn them all, he hadn't been able to turn against his friend. There was something terrible in the potential consequences of such a choice… but there was a kind of strength in it, too. Only a few days, and their friendship had already grown so strong… Naegi swallowed in a too-tight throat, wishing he could have seen what a connection like that could have become if they'd been allowed to explore it.
"There's nothing preventing it," Ogami said. "We're required to vote, but there is no requirement that we must vote in accordance with any specific principle. Voting for oneself is the obvious choice to refuse to participate — I used the same method myself."
"You voted for yourself in the second trial?" Naegi frowned. "Why? Did you think we were wrong when we all figured out that Owada was the culprit? But… you didn't say anything, even when he admitted it."
"I was convinced by your arguments," Ogami said. "But I didn't feel that I had the right to vote to condemn any of you during the trials, not when I was working against you. It would have been dishonorable to send someone to death, when I was conspiring with the mastermind to ensure the murders occurred. I have voted for myself in each of the trials so far."
"Oh…" Naegi wasn't sure what he should say to that. He didn't blame Ogami for the way the mastermind had blackmailed her… but he knew she still blamed herself. If refusing to take part in the executions had helped her cope with her pain, then how could he tell her she shouldn't have done it? The decision of how to vote was her own, and she'd clearly made it with her eyes open to the consequences.
But for himself, Naegi couldn't imagine deciding to throw away his vote and let the others pick the culprit. He'd argued to uncover the truth in all the past trials, even when it had meant fighting against his friends. It felt as though that gave him a kind of responsibility to the people whose crimes he'd helped uncover — like he owed it to them to follow through with a vote proclaiming his beliefs. How could he ask the others to bear that burden if he couldn't stand to vote for the culprit himself?
Vote for the culprit…
Naegi blinked. "Wait, the list of votes told you that there was a sixteenth student? Then are you saying that Ikusaba has been voting in the trials all along?"
"If she's the sixteenth student, yes," Ogami said. "That was what I noticed. The list of votes was laid out in a four by four grid, and with only fifteen students, the final space should have been blank — but instead, it had a question mark where the portrait should have been."
"Well… I guess that if she really was just as much a participant in the killing game as the rest of us, she would have had to vote, too," Naegi said, thinking it over. "But it seems strange that someone who could have watched the murder on the security cameras would be part of the vote. I mean, she'd know who the real culprit was."
"If so, she didn't use that knowledge."
"You mean… she opted out, like you?" Naegi asked.
"Not in quite the same way," Ogami said. "Both times, she chose the incorrect alternatives that came up during the trials. She voted for Genocide Jill in the second trial… and for you during the first."
"So she wanted us to lose?" Naegi couldn't keep the horror out of his voice. "Why would she have wanted that?"
"I can't speak for what she thought," Ogami said, shrugging. "Monokuma refused to provide me with any information about her when I asked. All I know is what I saw on the list."
Naegi shivered at the thought of someone they'd never met adding a vote they didn't know about to the list. He supposed it wouldn't really have mattered in any of the cases so far, since they'd managed to pinpoint the culprits pretty definitively before beginning the vote. The rules said that all they needed was a majority, so even with Ogami opting out and Ikusaba apparently trying to sabotage them, they'd still been safe. But if they'd ever had a case where they'd been unable to come to a unanimous agreement… if the group had ended up evenly split…
He shook his head sharply, trying to knock the unsettling thoughts away. "I guess the way she voted doesn't matter anymore. It's not like she can vote in this trial. It's just the five of us now."
"I suppose it is." Ogami stared forward at the wall, looking past it to a vision in her own mind. Asahina, Naegi realized — she had to be remembering Asahina.
"Sorry," he said, cringing at his careless remark about how few of them remained. "I shouldn't have reminded you of her."
But Ogami shook her head slowly, as if moving under the pressure of a great weight. "You can hardly remind me when I never forget. Even when I don't think about her consciously… even when she isn't in the forefront of my mind… part of me always remembers. Even if I manage to stop thinking about the actual moment, the consequences linger. Loss can't ever be entirely put aside."
"But… I don't think it's the loss that you can't forget," Naegi said, frowning as he looked up into her shadowed eyes. "It's the friendship you two had — that's why the loss matters. Every time we connect with another person and start caring about them, it changes us into something a little different — a person we wouldn't have been otherwise."
"You think she contributed to the person I am now?" Ogami's hands clenched around her knees like vises.
"Of course she did," Naegi said. "And the part of you that's different because you met her — that's the part of you that can't forget. I don't think that's something that can ever go away. Once someone has affected you that way, nothing can take that from you. Even when you stop remembering, it will always be there inside you."
Naegi trailed off, thinking about the person Asahina had been by the end of the fourth trial… the girl who had been so determined to speak to her friend that she'd gambled with breaking one of the school rules. And then when she'd finally understood the consequences of her actions, she'd even argued that breaking the rule had been her crime, not Ogami's, pleading for her best friend's life while knowing the price of success would be her own death. That girl wasn't the same person he'd met in the entrance hall, before any of them had gotten to know one another. Ogami had created that strength in her, from the friendship they'd forged.
"That is a far more positive way to think of it" Ogami said softly. "And… I think she would have liked it." A sad smile brushed the corners of her lips. "Thank you. I know we don't have time for this, not with a trial on the way… but thank you for remembering her with me."
Naegi tried to smile back, though he couldn't help the twist of sorrow that changed the expression into something else. "How could I forget?"
