Naegi reviewed everything that Ogami had told him about her interactions with Monokuma. It was interesting to know how the mastermind had tallied the votes, especially knowing that Ikusaba had been voting against them every time — but no matter how he thought about it, he couldn't see a way that it would have an impact on the murder. Maybe if the mastermind had been the one to kill her, it might have mattered… but if Togami was right about this death being part of the killing game, the question of votes wouldn't even enter into it.

"Is that everything you learned about Ikusaba?" he asked Ogami one last time. "Are you sure the mastermind didn't let any other hints slip?"

But Ogami shook her head. "They were very deliberate in everything they said to me. If not for the list of votes, I wouldn't have had any reason to suspect another student's existence."

Naegi sighed… but it had been a long shot. Considering that Ikusaba had been the mastermind's carefully concealed secret for weeks, they were lucky to have as much information about her as they did. After all, it wasn't as though any of them would naturally think that there might be other hidden participants in the game. If Ikusaba hadn't revealed herself to Kirigiri a few days ago, they would have been completely blindsided now.

"I'm sorry I can't be of more help," Ogami said quietly. Her gaze went back to the chair where she'd fallen unconscious. "I've been of no use in this investigation at all."

"It's not your fault you were drugged," Naegi told her at once.

"Isn't it?" A short, humorless laugh escaped Ogami's lips. "This is the second murder in a row that has happened while I was incapacitated in such a way. My guard is clearly not what it ought to be if I can be dispatched without even noticing how it was done."

Naegi frowned. "So… you didn't see anything?"

"Not so much as a motion out of place," she confirmed. "The last thing I remember is sitting at your bedside, watching to make sure you didn't shift the sling too much while you slept. I had a clear view of the door from that chair, and even if someone had concealed themselves in the room, they couldn't have approached without revealing themselves."

"I don't think they would have needed to," Naegi said. "This wasn't an injection like Fukawa used. I'm pretty sure this drug was in the coffee you were drinking. All someone would have had to do was get the drug into the coffee, and you would've dosed yourself."

But Ogami shook her head. "That was bottled coffee, not something from a pot that could have been tampered with. The bottles were sealed when I got them, I checked before opening them. I only had one bottle open at once, and I always left it sitting on the table beside me."

"Oh." Naegi frowned. The coffee had made sense when he'd been talking with Togami about it… but Ogami's explanation seemed to eliminate the possibility. "Did you eat or drink anything else?"

"No, I was concerned eating too heavily might make me sleepy," Ogami said. "The coffee was the only thing I consumed in this room."

Which meant that the coffee had to be the source of the drug… except that there was no way it could have been. Naegi frowned. He knew he had to be missing something, but he couldn't quite see what.

"Is there anything you noticed that seemed strange?" he asked, trying for a less specific question. "The culprit was definitely in this room at some point. Has anything looked different or out of place?"

Ogami frowned, turning to scan the room. "The box I carried everything in has been moved."

"Yeah, Togami did that when we were trying to figure out what happened," Naegi said. "He needed something to stand on."

"And he must have needed to move the thermoses to do it," she said, nodding. "In that case, I don't see anything unusual."

"Wait… what thermoses?" Naegi asked, puzzled. He tried to think back to when he and Togami had searched the room — or rather, when Togami had searched while he'd been occupied with figuring out if he could manage to stand and walk on his own. He didn't think he remembered seeing any thermoses, but then again, he hadn't paid a lot of attention to what Togami was doing until the other boy had climbed up on the box to mess with the air vent.

"The ones that I used to bring water back from the kitchens," Ogami said.

The memory clicked — not searching the room, but earlier, when Ogami had brought back supplies before the kitchen had closed. "Right, because the water was going to be switched off overnight."

"And after you lost so much blood, we needed to keep you hydrated," Ogami said. "I'm glad you decided to continue drinking the rest of the water even without a reminder. If you hadn't, you would be having even more severe problems with dizziness and fatigue."

"Uh… actually, I didn't remember," Naegi admitted, grimacing at the memory of how the stairs had knocked all the wind out of him. "I haven't drunk anything since Togami told me about the murder. There's been so much else going on, I guess I just forgot."

Ogami frowned. "Then what did you use all the water for?"

"Nothing — we didn't touch it," Naegi said. "Why?"

"It's gone." She gestured over to a jumble of empty thermoses near the table. "I brought as much as I could, far more than I expected you to drink, in case we needed it to clean your wounds again or something like that."

"But you didn't end up using all of it?" Naegi asked, staring at the thermoses.

"No, I barely got through half of one thermos," Ogami said.

"And Togami and I didn't use it, either," Naegi said slowly.

"Then… you have been wandering all over the school without hydrating properly?" Ogami sounded horrified by this idea. "You lost huge quantities of blood not twenty-four hours ago — you shouldn't even be out of bed, let alone exerting yourself that much."

"I know," Naegi said. "But… I don't know what else I could have done."

After all, even if he'd managed to convince Togami to go up to investigate the fifth floor again on his own… that would have left Togami by himself when the bomb went off. Alone, deafened, covered by fallen debris, there was no way Togami would have managed to douse the bomb's flames before they'd spread to the rest of the room. He supposed he could have given in to Togami's suggestion that they wait for Ogami to wake up before investigating further… but if they'd waited, would they have lost even more of their limited time before the trial?

"I suppose not," Ogami conceded with an unhappy frown. "But… are you still having problems with dizziness?"

"Well… yeah, a little," Naegi said.

"Then it might help if you try to drink something while you're here," Ogami said, standing up. "I believe I heard the morning announcement, so the water should be running again. If it comes directly from the tap, there should be no risk of a drug."

Now that Ogami mentioned it, a glass of water did sound appealing. And if it would help with limiting the dizziness, that could only be a good thing. "Well… okay, thanks," he said, smiling up at her.

Ogami nodded and headed into the bathroom, bringing an empty cup and straw. He watched as she began to fill them from the faucet — then paused, stared down at them for a long moment, and began scrubbing at them instead. In case any trace of drugs had gotten on them, Naegi realized. Well, after being drugged twice herself, it made sense that she would want to take additional precautions.

But even if water would help him, Naegi knew he didn't really have time to waste waiting for Ogami. While she bent over the sink, concentrating on her work, he picked up the music stand pole again and levered himself off the bed. His knees and ankles seemed to creak as his weight landed back on them, and his toes wanted to curl up in exhausted protest at the thought of walking any further… but Naegi did his best to push those sensations to the back of his mind as he headed over to the table across the room.

A collection of medicine bottles, cans, and medical paraphernalia cluttered the table, wrinkling and obscuring the neat white tablecloth that had been draped over it, but since they didn't look unusual, Naegi ignored most of them. Instead, he focused on the jumble of empty thermoses on the ground beside the table. There were about half a dozen of them, all fairly large, and they looked more like camping gear than just sealed mugs. If Ogami had filled them up completely, they must have held several gallons of water. What had happened to it?

"Naegi? Where are you?"

The sharp alarm in Ogami's voiced jolted him out of his thoughts, and he looked up from the pile of thermoses just in time to see her step out of the bathroom, looking around frantically until she caught sight of him.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly, as she hurried over to help support him back over to the bed. "I just wanted a better look at those bottles. I didn't mean to make you worry."

"I didn't expect to look up and find that you were no longer in my line of vision," Ogami said, her lips thin. "I thought perhaps your injuries had finally overwhelmed you… or something worse."

"I'm fine, though," Naegi reassured her. "You don't need to get upset about it."

"I promised Togami that I would keep you safe in his stead," Ogami said softly, her gaze piercing through Naegi as if she could see someone else in his place if she just stared long enough. "And… I have broken my word far too many times since coming to this school. I will not do so again."

Naegi frowned. He couldn't speak for anything that might have happened between her and Togami while he was unconscious… but he knew that he didn't like that idea at all. Their time here at Hope's Peak had been a long string of horrible events happening one after the other, even when they'd fought their hardest to stop it. His injuries might have left him needing more help than the others, but he didn't want Ogami to feel like she had to take on the responsibility of protecting him.

"You know that it wouldn't be your fault if something happens, right?" he said, looking up into her distant eyes and hoping his words would reach her. "The mastermind has been working against us from the start, trying to make us do horrible things to one another. If something happens in spite of everything… that's their fault for making this game, not yours for being forced into playing it. You can't blame yourself for doing your best in a situation where there was no right choice to begin with."

Ogami stared down at him, and Naegi couldn't tell if she was looking at him or some shadow of the friend that she could no longer see. "That only goes so far," she said at last. "There may be no right choices… but there are wrong ones. Do you think that this was a choice I made once and could never take back? I could have told you all about the mastermind's threats against me at any point… but day after day, minute after minute, I chose the coward's path. I continued to play by the rules the mastermind set out for me as long as I could, until the decision was taken out of my hands."

Naegi frowned. He'd never thought about things in quite that way. Everything that happened was ultimately the mastermind's fault — he still believed that wholeheartedly. They'd manipulated his friends into doing terrible things by creating desperate circumstances… but maybe that was just another part of their trap. If he kept saying it was all the mastermind's fault… then wasn't he just accepting the situation was exactly the way they presented it? Did that mean he was closing his eyes to other options?

It was too difficult a question to answer, especially now. "I just don't want you to feel guilty about me," he told her after a long pause, since being honest could only help.

Ogami nodded slowly, and Naegi got the feeling that she was looking at him again instead of some ghost from her memories. "I hope that I never have to."

The weight of her words was too much to bear. Naegi looked away, back at the rest of the room. "Well… we should probably keep investigating. There are still some things I want to check before the trial."

"Very well," Ogami said, squaring her shoulders. "Then I'll assist you, if you wish. I doubt you'll be able to investigate very effectively without two hands."

Two hands… Naegi gasped. "Jill!"

How could he have forgotten that the genocider was still stuck upstairs in the hidden room? He'd told her that he'd get her out right away, but then he'd let himself get distracted.

"What about her?" Ogami asked, looking taken aback by the outburst.

"She's trapped upstairs," Naegi explained. "She's… well…"

He paused, wondering what to say. He'd told Kirigiri that he wouldn't reveal the hidden room to anyone… but that had been before they'd realized how much the mastermind knew about it. It wasn't exactly a secret anymore, now that the mastermind had cleared out anything useful… and since Alter Ego hadn't been safe there, despite their best efforts, they couldn't even depend on the fact that it was a space without cameras that the mastermind couldn't monitor.

At this point, the only people the room was hidden from were his classmates. And with Jill trapped inside and unable to free herself, the location couldn't stay hidden much longer. Someone would have to let her out before the trial started, or she'd get in trouble for skipping. There really wasn't a way around it.

Naegi took a deep breath and tried not to feel guilty for what he was about to say. "There's a hidden room on the second floor, in the back of the supply closet in the boys' bathroom, and Jill has been stuck there since last night. The door doesn't have a lock, but someone barricaded her in. I couldn't get the door open one-handed. Can you go upstairs and let her out?"

"From a hidden room in the boys' bathroom?" Ogami said, looking confused. "I suppose I can do that… but will you be all right here by yourself?"

Naegi would have liked to say he'd go along with her — but he knew there was no chance, not when it meant approaching the stairs again. "I'll be fine. I can even lock the door if you want."

"Wait — you mean you have the key?" Ogami's eyes widened. "Togami gave you his key?"

"Er… yeah," Naegi said slowly, blinking up at her. "How did you think I got in?"

"I didn't think about it." Ogami shook her head slightly, a hint of a smile touching her lips. "Yes, lock the door behind me. I'll return with Jill as quickly as I can."

Before he could agree, another idea occurred to Naegi. "Actually… could you send her upstairs instead? Togami's searching the headmaster's office on the fourth floor, and I'd feel a lot better if he wasn't by himself."

He knew that Togami didn't especially like having Jill follow him around… but the genocider would definitely keep a close eye on her beloved white knight. When the bell for the trial finally rang, she'd be able to help him down the stairs if he needed it — and Naegi was pretty sure she wouldn't take no for an answer, whether Togami wanted help or not.

"All right," Ogami agreed, heading for the door. Naegi stood, following her as she went. "I'm sure she won't argue with that. Be careful until I return, and try to drink water as much as you can."

With that, she walked out of the dorm room. Naegi locked the door behind her and turned back to the rest of the room. He had more investigating to do.