Naegi hadn't forgotten the puzzle of how Ogami had been drugged, but it had slipped to the back of his mind in the midst of other, more pressing problems. But now… thinking about it again, he frowned. Ogami had certainly been drugged by the time Togami had come down from the fifth floor to find her unconscious. How could it have happened?

Across the circle, Togami was already shaking his head. "You must have missed something. You brought in quite a few bottles before the kitchen closed. One might easily have been adulterated before you took it."

"No, I checked quite thoroughly for that," Ogami said firmly. "We'd just seen someone die of poison only a few days ago, after all. And…" Her eyes flickered up towards Monokuma's throne for a moment, and she swallowed visibly before continuing. "Well, with the mastermind missing, I felt I ought to take as many additional precautions as possible. I made certain that the bottle hadn't been tampered with in any way before I drank it."

"Maybe you were dreaming up something way more interesting than staring down at a sleeping boy all night!" Jill suggested, a wide grin curling across her lips. "Come on, you know that all those hours by your lonesome just make the fantasies better! And hey, all it takes is one little moment of inattention to lose it all, you know?"

"It's not a question of attention," Ogami said, looking rather put off by having Jill's leer directed at her. "Even if I'd been distracted, I would have noticed if someone had entered the room."

"That's right — you said you can feel it when people get close, didn't you?" Naegi said, remembering the conversation he'd had with her on the topic. "It's part of your martial arts training."

"More or less," Ogami agreed. "It isn't infallible, of course, but someone would have to be quite skilled indeed to sneak past me. And after spending so much time around the four of you over the last few weeks, I'm familiar enough with your movements that I'm sure I would have noticed if one of you had entered the room."

"And even if someone got through the door, they'd still have to get across your field of vision without any cover if they wanted to get near something you were going to drink," Naegi added, thinking over the layout of the room. "You had the bottles on the table next to the bookshelf, right? So someone would've had to walk across all that empty space right in front of you to get to it."

"That does sound like it would be difficult to miss," Kirigiri said pensively.

"But obviously not impossible," Togami snapped. "Naegi wasn't drugged, so it can't have been something that spread through the entire room — it had to be unique to you. And we found the bottle broken at your feet while you were unconscious. If you're certain that's the only thing you drank, then it must have been the vehicle for the drug. Perhaps you're simply not as observant as you believe you are!"

"Or maybe we're all missing something," Naegi said, breaking into the conversation before things could deteriorate further. After all the sniping he'd been doing with Kirigiri, Togami definitely didn't need to make another one of the girls mad at him. "I mean, you were sitting with me for an awfully long time. Did you ever get up or walk around or anything?"

Ogami shook her head. "Too much movement seemed like it could disturb you. I occupied myself with some minor strength training exercises that can be done while sitting, so that I could keep an eye on you."

"Oh. You mean… you were just watching me sleep?" Naegi wasn't quite sure how he felt about that idea. He knew she would never do anything to him while he slept, but… even so, there was something disconcerting about it.

"You were unconscious after a possibly serious head injury," Ogami reminded him. "So yes, I was watching you for any signs of danger. I'm not sure I would have been able to help if anything had happened… but even so, it would have been worse to miss a warning."

"Right." Naegi swallowed, dropping his eyes to the ground instead of looking across the circle. He kept his face directed towards Togami, but he found that he couldn't bring himself to look the other boy in the eye when faced with a reminder of how very close Naegi had been to dying. "So… I guess you weren't moving around much."

"But that isn't the right treatment for a head wound," Kirigiri said, frowning. "If you were genuinely concerned about the head wound, you should have been waking him up every hour or so to check for any signs that he wasn't thinking clearly."

"She did, at least a few times," Naegi said, thinking back to the somewhat groggy handful of times he'd been woken up. "She asked me about names, dates, where we were, stuff like that."

"He showed a little bit of disorientation at first, but it seemed to clear up as time passed," Ogami said. "I don't think it was anything to be worried about."

"That wasn't what I meant." Kirigiri crossed her arms, tapping one finger against her elbow. "If you were following the standard procedure for watching someone with a head injury, that would have meant that there was one moment every hour when someone could count on you to be distracted from anything else in the room."

"So you're suggesting someone chose to sneak in when there would be two sets of eyes to observe them instead of one?" Togami asked, lip curling up in disdain. "Half-asleep or not, Naegi is more observant than he seems."

"True… I've certainly learned not to underestimate him." Kirigiri glanced in Naegi's direction, a hint of a smile flickering across her lips so briefly he almost missed it. "It would have been a risk, and I don't believe our killer is the type of gamble without some kind of insurance." She studied Ogami for a moment. "Describe exactly what you did when you woke Naegi."

"All right, if you think it will help." Ogami frowned for a moment. "I was seated in a chair beside the bed, turned so I could watch both Naegi and the rest of the room. I didn't have an alarm on hand, so I kept an eye on the clock and woke him once every hour. I thought it would be best if he rested as much as possible, so I tried to have everything ready and on hand before waking him up."

"And what exactly do you mean by everything?" Togami demanded.

"Nothing too unusual," Ogami said. "Water, food, medicine, things like that. After all the blood Naegi lost, I was very concerned about keeping him hydrated, so I had him drink a glass of water each time he woke."

"But the water was shut off after the nighttime announcement," Kirigiri pointed out.

"I'd brought a few thermoses from the kitchen," Ogami explained. "But I washed them out first, then filled them from the tap. I don't think those could have been drugged — not unless our entire water supply has been contaminated."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Jill said. "Makyutie's not the one who got a dose of the good stuff!"

"There's nothing wrong with eliminating possibilities," Kirigiri said calmly. "So you had a supply of water prepared before the announcement. Very forward-thinking of you."

Ogami shrugged. "Well, Togami came down from the second floor and sent me to get supplies. It seemed like a reasonable thing to have on hand."

Kirigiri's gaze never wavered from Togami. "I see. That was quite unexpectedly thoughtful." She tilted her head to one side. "Or perhaps not, considering what you had at stake."

"Do you have a point, or are you simply trying to derail the trial by being irritating?" Togami was clearly doing his best to look bored and untouched by her remarks… but Naegi could see that it bothered him. Why was Kirigiri making digs about their relationship now? He'd thought that she'd gotten over that after they'd resolved their argument at the end of the last trial… had he misunderstood? Was something still upsetting her?

"Believe me, derailing the trial is the last thing I intend to do," Kirigiri told him, before glancing back at Ogami. "So you were saying that you poured the water before waking Naegi up?"

"That's right," Ogami said. "I wanted to have everything on hand. I got a cup of water, prepared the supplements, and set out a dose of pain killers."

A sharp frown crossed Togami's face. "You were giving him supplements?"

"Just iron," Ogami hastened to assure him. "I thought it would help with the blood loss. I checked the bottle's seal, and I was very careful to measure the dosage of the powder when I mixed it."

Naegi frowned. Something about that was nagging at him… "So wait, you were mixing this over at the table?"

"Hmm?" Ogami blinked. "Oh — no, it was a little messy, so I mixed it over the bathroom sink."

"Right… I remember watching the first time you made it." Naegi bit his lip as he thought. "It took you a couple minutes, didn't it?"

"Yes, but I knew I'd notice if you'd been in any distress," Ogami said. "I still had a perfectly clear view of the bed."

And then it hit him. "But not of the table!" Naegi's eyes shot open wide, and he leaned forward towards the startled Ogami. "When you're in the bathroom, you can't see what's happening on the other side of the room. Someone could have gotten in and drugged a bottle of coffee on the table while you were mixing the iron supplements!"


Scheduling Update: The winter holiday season is nearly upon us, far sooner than I expected! At some point in the next couple weeks, I will probably take another break. However, I'm still pretty busy now, and I'd like to put off the break as long as possible. With that in mind, I think that I'm going to be posting shorter chapters through the rest of December, until whatever point I go on break. Hopefully it won't be too noticeable! Have a lovely winter, and happy holidays!