Togami frowned, considering Naegi's question. Even fighting a losing battle for a girl who'd deceived him, the other boy still made a good point. The poison had been quick-acting, but his own survival was proof that it didn't kill instantaneously. Why hadn't she been next to the door when she'd succumbed?

While he was lost in thought, a flash of silver drew his attention, and he looked over to see Jill twirling a pair of scissors with bored exasperation. "Oh, come on, Big Mac, it's not like we're talking about the Ogre! Once the poison took the fight out of her, the killer could've had their way with the super soldier anywhere they liked!"

But Naegi was already shaking his head before she'd even finished speaking. "No — I don't think they could have. The first time Togami found the body, the room was still full of all the poison gas. And with how fast Togami said it starting taking effect, I don't think someone would've had time to move the body before the gas starting affecting them, too."

"Exactly!" Togami said, a flicker of pride warming his heart in spite of the fact that Naegi was still technically arguing against him. "The body was already on the far side of the classroom when I went in there the first time. The culprit might have had the chance to sneak in and make a few adjustments if they were fast, but moving the body that far would be out of the question. No, the place where we found Ikusaba has to be the place where she died."

"But why was escape not her top priority?" Ogami asked, her brow furrowing. "Was there perhaps another exit on the other side of the room?"

"No." Kirigiri was the one to answer, so immediately after Ogami finished that Togami wouldn't have caught the words if the two girls hadn't been standing directly beside one another. "I checked that room thoroughly when the fifth floor first opened, and I'm certain that the only way in or out is through the main door." She smirked in Togami's direction. "Which was apparently stuck."

Hate wasn't a strong enough word for the wildfire that blazed through Togami at the sight of her scorn. How dare she mock his memories of the murder scene? Everything he'd said so far had been a significant contribution to the progress of this trial — what had she done but snipe at other people's conclusions from the sidelines or undermine perfectly reasonable trains of thought?

"That door did stick," Togami snarled, feeling his voice vibrating almost painfully deep in his throat. "No matter what you say, you're not going to change that fact. You're just going to have to deal with the fact that I caught you out on it!"

"Is that so?" She quirked an eyebrow upward, like she was a teacher quizzing a terribly slow student. "And what exactly is it that you think you've uncovered? After all, you managed to open this supposedly stuck door — are you going to tell us you're stronger than a master class mercenary now?"

Togami didn't allow himself to look up to meet her eyes, knowing the cold sparks of amusement he'd find there would only make him hate her more. His jaw ached from how tightly he clenched it, and his nails dug sharp gouges into his palms where his fingers curled into fists. He forced himself to take a deep, slow breath, fighting against crushing sense of pressure that seemed to weigh in on him from all directions. He had to master this. No matter what she said or did, he couldn't allow her to shake him from his pursuit of vengeance against her.

"She must have decided not to open the classroom door for some reason," he said at last, once he was sure he could speak without screaming. "Something must have distracted her, or —"

But he stopped short, realizing the others weren't looking at him anymore. Their gazes had all jerked sharply aside — towards Naegi. The other boy's eyes were alight with realization, and as soon as he saw Togami looking in his direction, the words bubbled out of his mouth.

"It was the locked door rule — it has to be! If Ikusaba really was another student, then the rules must have applied to her just as much as the rest of us. It's hard to tell the difference between a stuck door and a locked one — and if she'd thought it was locked, she couldn't have opened it without breaking the locked door rule!"

Togami nodded slowly. That did make sense, now that he considered the possibility. "And after the mastermind's treatment of Ogami, Ikusaba would have known that she couldn't expect special treatment in regards to the rules just because she'd been their agent. She had to abandon the possibility of escaping from the poison —"

He stopped short, his eyes automatically seeking out Naegi's as comprehension dawned across both of their faces.

"So she had to get rid of the poison," Naegi finished the thought for him, his gaze never wavering from Togami. "She was on the other side of the room because she wanted to stop the humidifier from poisoning the air."

"Great theory, darling," Jill said, the toss of her braids drawing Togami's attention her way. "Now you've just gotta tell us why she didn't."

"That's true," Ogami said. "As you described this device, she would merely need to turn off the fan to disable it. Surely the poison couldn't have overcome her so quickly that she was unable to do such a simple action."

"Well, maybe not!" Jill tapped her scissors against her chin, hard enough that the skin went white beneath the points. "The whole thing might've worked if the whole fanny pack deal was hidden somewhere — cause hey, if you're gonna be a cheating sneak of a poisoner, why not go all the way and keep it out of sight, too?"

"Oh, it was out of sight, all right," Togami said. "But the culprit didn't have to hide anything — did they, Naegi?"

He had to lock his expression in place to stop himself from cringing at those words. The question had popped out before he'd had the chance to think it through, before he could realize that asking one of his opponents for support was a ridiculous idea.

Or it would have been, if he'd asked anyone other than Makoto Naegi. The other boy barely paused for a moment at the question before launching into a response the same way he always had. "No, not really. The fan would've been sitting out in plain sight — except that no one could see it. The lights weren't working in the classroom."

The mastermind themselves couldn't have stopped Togami's lips from curving up into a faint, warm smile at the way Naegi hadn't so much as hesitated at his question. So not even Kirigiri's web of lies could turn Naegi against him, even if she'd tricked the innocent boy into trusting her so much that he'd fight on her behalf. Her machinations had failed in that respect, at least. He gritted his teeth, more determined than ever to ensure that she would fail on every other front, as well.

But it was too much to feel himself smiling like that — it left him too open, too vulnerable. He tore his eyes away from the lines of familiar Naegi's face, forcing himself to look at the other girls instead.

And it was just in time, too. Ogami had apparently been speaking, and he was only able to make sense of the tail end of her words.

"— cut the power somehow?"

Jill shrugged. "Pretty sure none of us can get at the generators — they're all locked away tight."

"They wouldn't have needed access to the school's power source," Kirigiri said. "When I went to inspect the body and found the lights weren't working, I noticed that the lightbulb seems to have been removed from the lights. The classroom ceilings aren't unusually high. All it would take would be one of the more stable chairs from the wreckage, and any one of us would have been able to reach the lightbulb."

Togami narrowed his eyes at Kirigiri, but she just stared off into the distance behind his shoulder, her gaze locked onto the distorted reflections in the mirrors around them rather than looking at him directly. What was that girl thinking — why would she add to the arguments he was making against her? Was she trying to disconcert him and throw him off her trail by pretending to act innocent? Or… was this part of some deeper scheme?

Naegi didn't seem to notice the inconsistency of Kirigiri's answer, picking up the thread of her argument as easily as ever. "So if the room was dark, Ikusaba didn't know exactly where the fan was. And with so much broken furniture and stuff in that classroom, she must not have been able to find it in time to turn it off."

Togami was about to respond, but a sudden movement from Ogami's direction distracted him. She'd leaned suddenly forward, her eyes darting around the circle from face to face. "I don't understand," she said, a strange sort of apprehension coming across her face. "All of you keep talking about wreckage, and broken furniture, and other things — as though this room was some kind of disaster area. I thought that all this had happened before the bomb went off and destroyed the scene. If that's so, then how did the room come to be destroyed?"