The other students turned to stare at Naegi in confusion after his sudden exclamation.
"What are you talking about?" Ogami asked, frowning. "I don't recall seeing a student roster."
"No, it's not something the rest of you would know about," Naegi said, taking a moment to look around the room at the girls. Ogami looked rather puzzled, Jill was eying him with a little too much interest, and Kirigiri's eyebrows had tilted upwards above her stony face as she watched him.
For some reason he couldn't quite pinpoint, Naegi felt his stomach twist a little at their expressions — almost like a twinge of guilt. It wasn't right that they should be confused about what had happened. He should have told them about this before now… but there hadn't been time, not with the countdown to the trial ticking away behind them.
Well, the only thing he could do about it was to tell them now, and hope they didn't mind too much. Naegi made himself turn away from the girls' stares, reorienting himself so that Togami could understand him. He just had to hope that the girls didn't react too badly while he couldn't quite see their faces.
"Togami and I found the headmaster's student roster earlier today, when we got the chance to search the headmaster's office," Naegi explained, doing his best to watch the other students out of the corner of his eye. The only one he could see clearly from this angle was Jill, and she didn't seem terribly perturbed — but then again, it took a lot for something to really bother Jill. "Monokuma took it away, so we couldn't bring it with us to show you, but it listed everyone who would have been in our class at Hope's Peak. There were exactly sixteen students — the fifteen of us from the entrance hall plus Ikusaba."
"Sounds like our mastermind likes to stick with a theme!" Jill said. "If you're going the schoolroom route, might as well do it all the way, right? This whole murder deal was just about our class right from day one. Why toss anyone else in when there's a perfect set of sixteen all ready to go?"
"I suppose that would make sense," Ogami said, nodding slowly. "The mastermind has always seemed very committed to the idea that this is meant to be some kind of normal school life here."
"So there's no reason to suspect your pack of mysterious other students are participants in the game," Togami said, acid burning through his tone as he glared at Kirigiri. "An official list of new students wasn't released to the public, but the headmaster would certainly have known definitively who would be attending — he would have sent the invitations and received the acceptances himself. Or do you expect us to believe you're unaware of that much?"
Kirigiri shrugged, as unconcerned as if the words had bounced off without so much as pricking her interest. "Naturally the headmaster would know the students who were planning to attend his school — I never said otherwise. We've yet to hear anything more than Monokuma's word about the actual number of students who are in the school with us. But a book listing profiles for only the sixteen students we know to be involved in the game already is certainly suggestive."
"Huh? You think some lame old book that no one's even seen is more believable than the adorable bear sitting right in front of you?" Monokuma gasped in shock, his expression the image of hurt feelings. "What a cruel thing to say! And worse, it's just plain wrong! After all, I've never told any lies. Can any of you say the same?" His red eye glinted as he looked around the room.
"What's he going on about now?" Togami asked Naegi, pointedly turning his back on Monokuma when the bear looked his way. Monokuma's grin widened at the unnecessarily petty reaction.
"Uh… he just said he's not lying about anything," Naegi said, eyes darting between Monokuma and Togami. It looked like the bear was more amused than annoyed by Togami, but it could be hard to tell when he was genuinely angry about something. "I think he means all the stuff he said about how there are sixteen players in the game."
"Exactly!" Monokuma sang out brightly. "You know, it's really too bad you don't trust your beloved headmaster more! He'd never lead his precious students astray!" The words didn't sound like much of a joke, but he threw back his head and laughed anyway.
"So you don't lie when you tell us information?" Kirigiri ignored the cackling as she narrowed her eyes at Monokuma, studying him like she was trying to read something from the robot's expression. "We should take your words as evidence?"
"Of course!" Monokuma cut his laughter off mid-chortle, switching back to his usual cheery mode in the blink of an eye. "I only tell you all these things out of the kindness of my soft and fuzzy heart — because I want you to learn! It's the headmaster's job to be smarter than his students, you know! After all, you'd have to be a pretty terrible headmaster if you couldn't even manage that!"
Kirigiri stared at Monokuma for a long moment, her steely eyes unreadable. Finally, her mouth twitched in what wasn't quite a smile. "That's true. All right, since you've assured us so thoroughly that you wouldn't lie to us, that seems to put an end to the idea that there might have been other students in the school."
"Of course it does," Togami snapped. "If you're going to invent ridiculous daydreams instead of making a meaningful contribution to the discussion, maybe you should keep your mouth shut. We don't have the time to waste on chasing down unproductive nonsense."
"I thought it was quite productive," Kirigiri said calmly. "And it's important to eliminate every possibility when searching for the truth."
"It's also important to talk about things that actually happened," Togami countered.
"True enough." Kirigiri smiled, an icy sliver curving across her face. "If you put so much value on the actual events, then perhaps that is exactly what we should discuss."
"Right — that's a good idea," Naegi agreed quickly, before Togami could respond with another barb. Togami and Kirigiri had never really gotten along, but their disagreements had never bled over into the actual class trials before. He wasn't sure exactly why they were sniping at each other so much this time, but he really hoped they managed to resolve it soon — otherwise, how were they going to come to any kind of agreement about Ikusaba's death?
"Yes, I would like to have a better understanding of exactly what happened to Ikusaba," Ogami said, frowning. "You've mentioned bombs, poison, knives… it all sounds very excessive for a single girl, even one who was part of a mercenary group. How was she killed?"
"Well… we don't know," Naegi admitted. "Not for sure. The bomb only went off after she was already dead, but there were a bunch of other injuries listed on the Monokuma File that could have been the cause of death." He frowned, remembering that he'd had to leave his copy of the Monokuma File back in the data center, since he hadn't had a free hand to carry it. "Togami, did you bring your copy of the file?"
"Of course," Togami said, pulling out the familiar-looking document. "It's not very informative, but you all might as well hear it." He read out the text. "Due to severe injuries suffered during an explosion, the body's identity is unclear. The explosion occurred after the victim's death. Two knife wounds in the chest area extend all the way to the victim's back. The second wound occurred after the victim's death. There are also signs that the victim was exposed to a fatal dose of airborne poison. There are also signs of many other wounds on the body. However, these are old wounds that were not inflicted in the last few days." When he'd finished reading the file aloud, he looked back up at the other students.
"And is that the entire document?" Kirigiri asked, quirking an eyebrow in Naegi's direction. "Does it sound accurate to your recollection?"
"Huh?" Naegi blinked. "Sure, that's the whole thing. Like he said already, there wasn't much to it — the file describes the injuries but not which one killed her. And since we still didn't know for sure who the body belonged to at the time we got the file, it doesn't even say her name on it."
"That's right, Kirigiri was still missing at the time, wasn't she?" Ogami said.
"Yeah." Naegi swallowed back against the tightness in his throat at the memory of that fear. "We knew it had to be one of the two, but — well, it took us a while to figure out for sure which girl it was. The bomb really made a mess of the body."
"Sounds like a waste of a perfectly good murder scene to me," Jill said. "How are you supposed to check their technique if you blow it to bits? Whoever did this needs to learn the art of subtlety!"
Togami's eyebrows shot up. "Are you suggesting you have any idea what that word means?"
"Oh, come on, White Knight, you know I'm all about the tiny details!" Jill flashed him a wide grin. "Good bladework takes a delicate touch — you can't just hack away like you're sawing through an overcooked steak! You don't get the perfect artistic effect if you aren't precise about it!"
"I don't think the culprit was as concerned about artistic effect as you are," Naegi said, trying his best to be diplomatic about it. He didn't particularly like it when Jill talked about murder techniques — but as long as she was content to confine herself to talking, he didn't want to discourage her.
"Of course not!" Jill tossed her braids. "Anyone who'd blow their finest work to smithereens instead of showing it off obviously doesn't care about the art of corpse arrangement!"
"But the explosion did destroy the evidence of how the injuries occurred," Kirigiri pointed out. "With the body burned and ruined by the bomb, there was no way to confirm anything about the death by examining it. And the Monokuma File is equally unclear. It only specifies that one of the stab wounds occurred after death. Other than that, it leaves things unresolved."
"Did either of you see anything before the bomb went off that might tell us more about what happened?" Ogami asked, glancing from Togami to Naegi.
"Actually, I didn't go into the room until after the bomb went off," Naegi said. "So I guess Togami's the only one who was able to get a good look at the injuries."
"Really? Well, come on, baby, don't hold out on us!" Jill said, her tongue curling out towards Togami. "Let's hear how it went down!"
Togami scowled. "It's not as though I had the opportunity to make an in-depth examination," he told them. "When I first discovered the body, the room was still full of poison gas. I had to leave almost immediately to escape the effects. And when I returned, I was trying to move quickly to identify the body, since I'd assumed the gas would still be a threat."
"So you didn't observe anything useful?" Kirigiri asked, raising a single eyebrow. Togami wouldn't have been able to hear the hint of scorn in her words — but with the faint smirk twisting her lips, he wouldn't need to. "You managed to look at that corpse twice without noticing a single thing that might be relevant to this discussion?"
A sneer curled its way across Togami's face. "Oh, I noticed quite enough. It only took a glance to realize that some of the elements of this murder were a little too familiar."
"Oh? So you don't plan to omit the fact that the knife was the same one that you confiscated from that very room a few days ago?" Kirigiri asked.
Togami narrowed his eyes. "And how would you know that?"
"Naegi suggested that I go upstairs to examine the body before the trial started." Kirigiri gave him a bland smile. "The additional time was very helpful in gathering information for the trial."
"I'll just bet it was." Togami's words sounded unaccountably venomous, considering that as far as Naegi could tell, Kirigiri hadn't said anything too unreasonable. "Well, as long as you're gathering information, take note of this — I never intended to hide that I recognized the knife. It certainly is the same one I took possession of, and the fact that someone was able to retrieve it is a vital clue to this murder."
"Is that so?" Kirigiri tapped one finger against her chin. "Your hiding place for it must not have been very good."
"My hiding spot was fine," Togami snapped. "It was perfectly secure hidden in my room — until I had to leave the door unlocked so Ogami could take care of Naegi when he was injured."
"Wait — are you saying that's what happened when I was knocked unconscious?" Ogami asked, horror dawning across her face. "The culprit entered the room to get the murder weapon?"
"And that's not all they did," Togami said grimly. "The culprit left behind evidence to make it look as though you were the one who stole the knife and killed Mukuro Ikusaba."
