Naegi looked across the circle at Kirigiri, wishing yet again that she would let him see some indication of what she might be thinking. Now that it had occurred to him that she might have been Ikusaba's target, it put his conversation with her in the bathhouse in a whole new light. The mastermind was targeting her, that was what she'd said… and maybe she'd meant more than what would happen in the trial. After all, Togami had believed from the start that Ikusaba's claims of an alliance were nothing more than a trap. It looked like the other boy had been right to be so suspicious.
But if that was the case… if Ikusaba really had planned to kill Kirigiri… then why wasn't she speaking up about it? Naegi couldn't believe that the clever girl who'd been several steps ahead of him in every trial so far wouldn't know exactly what had happened. Sure, she didn't like to spell her conclusions out to the others herself — but usually she asked key questions and encouraged him to share his ideas.
But not this time. Now she was silent, her gaze devoid of any warmth as it crossed the distance between them. She seemed to be waiting for something… but without prompting, Naegi wasn't sure what she wanted him to do. She wasn't telling him anything —
No, wait. That wasn't quite true. Maybe she wasn't telling him anything now — but that was because she'd already done it.
By the end of this trial, I intend to unmask the mastermind.
That was what she'd said in the bathhouse, confident and calm. She hadn't told him her plan… but did she really need to? She'd assured him that she had one, and that she believed it could work. And then, at the very last moment… she'd asked him to trust her. She had to know that he already did… but she'd asked him to reaffirm it anyway, like she'd thought he might have some reason to say no.
As if he ever would. Kirigiri had fought harder than any of the rest of them to find a way out of Hope's Peak, never getting distracted or sidetracked. She'd helped him find answers during the class trials, believing that he would eventually fumble his way to the truth. And after that very first trial, when he'd nearly been convinced that Maizono had only wanted to use him as a scapegoat for murder from the start… Kirigiri had proved to him that it wasn't true. She'd made sure he understood that Maizono had cared, giving him a reason to keep believing in his connection to the pop star even though it wouldn't impact the trial. Kirigiri might be mysterious and a little stand-offish, but she'd still been his friend ever since they'd arrived.
She'd been his best friend.
The thought made Naegi blink in surprise — but it felt right. He felt like he could trust Kirigiri, like he could rely on her, and he wanted to do the same for her. He hadn't really had that kind of friendship before, even with the other friends who'd drifted in and out of a more casual sort of "best friend" position over the years. He'd liked them well enough, but he wouldn't have trusted any of them to take on the mastermind just because they'd said they thought they could.
But when Kirigiri said it… he believed her.
Naegi looked across the circle one more time, met Kirigiri's eyes, and nodded once. Yes, he'd follow her lead. Yes, he'd do what he could to support her plan. Yes… he trusted her.
And as he nodded, he could see the tension in her shoulders relax, just a little. A small smile crossed his face at the realization that his support had made her feel a little better about what she had to do. If it helped her, then he was glad she knew he was behind her in this, and that they'd been able to understand one another. If she was going to go up against the mastermind, she'd need all the support she could get.
But he couldn't just tell her that he was on her side. He knew he had to follow through.
"Ikusaba's intentions probably don't matter much for now," Naegi said, breaking his gaze away from Kirigiri to look back towards the others. "I mean, she never got the chance to follow through with whatever she was planning, so we should probably try to think more about what actually did happen."
"Sounds pretty obvious to me!" Jill said, one hand on her hip. "Someone caught the toy soldier mid-plan and jumped on the chance to steal her thunder!"
"Yeah, maybe," Naegi said, shrugging. "But we don't know for sure. Isn't it better to try to fit together the facts we have before we do too much guessing about the things we don't know?"
"An excellent point," Togami agreed, crossing his arms. "And if we're going to talk about facts, it seems to me that there's quite a glaring one that we haven't addressed yet."
At those words, Kirigiri's attention snapped back to the other boy, a faint smile touching her lips. "You're talking about the cause of death, aren't you?"
"Of course," Togami sneered. "You couldn't possibly have thought that I'd miss it."
"Miss what?" Ogami asked, frowning as she looked between the two. "Were we not just discussing how Ikusaba was stabbed with the knife she stole from Togami's room?"
"That's the problem," Naegi explained. "Sure, she was stabbed with it — but we don't actually know that the knife is what killed her. After the bomb, we couldn't tell for sure if it was a fatal wound or not, and the Monokuma File doesn't say either way."
"And that's not all it says," Togami added. "Or have the rest of you already managed to forget the other potential means of murder the file mentioned?"
"According to the Monokuma File, Ikusaba was also exposed to a fatal dose of poison," Naegi said. "It doesn't say if that was the actual cause of death, either — but from the way it's worded, it sounds just as likely as the knife."
"Then… do you mean that the knife blade was poisoned?" Ogami asked, frowning. "That hardly sounds necessary for a knife of the size you've described."
"Hey! If you're not even gonna listen when my White Knight speaks, what're you even using your ears for?" Jill demanded, her scissors stabbing out as she pointed in Ogami's direction.
"What are you talking about?" Ogami eyed the silver blades warily, as though she half-expected them to come flying her way.
"I already said that I first found the room filled with poison gas," Togami snapped, giving Jill an irritated look for the interruption. "That's the poison the Monokuma File means."
"And it sounds like a yawn-fest to me," Jill added. "Sure, you can stab a corpse all you like, but who'd bother giving it to something that's just lying there getting ready to rot? If you're not gonna get the blood all hot and fresh from their veins, you're just wasting your time!"
Naegi grimaced. "Yeah, that's a good point," he said, doing his best to ignore Jill's colorful way of describing the murder. "The culprit wouldn't need to poison Ikusaba and stab her. Using two weapons would mean they'd risk leaving twice as many clues for us to find."
"Not necessarily," Togami said. "There was poison in the room when I first found the body — but by the time you and I returned to inspect it a second time, the poison was gone."
"That's right!" Naegi had nearly forgotten about that part. "Because someone used a reagent from the chemistry lab to neutralize the poison."
"Exactly." Togami leaned forward, eyes glittering sharply behind his glasses. "If I hadn't entered the room earlier, we might never have known that the poison gas had been present at all. The only murder method we'd have seen would have been the ostentatious knife piercing the corpse."
"And after the bomb went off, there wouldn't have been any clues left to tell us the body had ever been poisoned," Naegi finished, nodding slowly. "The culprit might have set it up that way hoping that we'd believe the knife was the only thing they used."
"But surely they couldn't have expected to get away with such a ploy," Ogami said, frowning. "After all, even if none of us had noticed that Ikusaba was poisoned, it's quite clearly stated in the Monokuma File."
Togami shook his head. "The Monokuma Files have never been written to give us new information — in fact, whenever they refer to a detail critical to the murder, they're deliberately vague. If we hadn't found clear evidence that the body had been poisoned, I'm sure the report would have left that detail out." He crossed his arms and glared up at Monokuma. "Well? That's what you would have done, isn't it?"
"Huh? I'm being called to the witness stand?" Monokuma tilted his head, looking puzzled. "I've heard of kangaroo courts calling talking parrots to the stand, but what kind of trial do you think we'd get with a talking bear?"
At this, Togami looked back with a raised eyebrow, but Naegi had to shake his head apologetically. "He's not answering."
Togami glared up at Monokuma's innocent face. "It doesn't matter — not after we've seen him do it with the other files. We all know I'm right."
"Course you are, darling!" Jill said, when Togami finally gave up on glaring and looked back at the others. "So what's your point?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Togami said. "The knife was just a decoy, meant to distract us from the fact that Mukuro Ikusaba really died by poisoning. The culprit wanted desperately to hide the real cause of death from us — because it would point all too clearly to their identity."
