Togami sent an annoyed frown in Ogami's direction. What did the girl think she was doing with a question like that? Didn't she realize that sending the discussion careening off on another useless tangent would only give Kirigiri more time to craft her web of defensive lies?

But of course Naegi was already responding to the question, with more patience than Togami would have believed anyone could possess. "Oh, sorry — I guess we never actually told you where we found the body, did we? It was in Classroom 5-C."

The confusion on Ogami's face only deepened. "I don't see what that has to do with it. Why should the classroom number matter?"

At that odd question, several memories sparked through Togami's mind. He saw Ogami slumped broken and defeated on the dark floor of her room — then bending over Naegi's unconscious body to provide what measure of care she could — then knocked out in a chair with drugged coffee pooling at her feet. When he thought about those events and considered everything that she'd done since the end of the previous trial…

"You haven't been to the fifth floor at all, have you?" Togami didn't need to see Ogami's answer to his question — he knew he was right. She'd hardly cared about anything enough to stand after seeing her friend executed, let alone climbing five flights of stairs and exploring a new area. Naegi's injuries had shaken her out of her spiral into despair — but they'd also kept her close by the boy's side to nurse him as best she could. There had been no opportunity for Ogami to venture up to the fifth floor and view the ruined classroom there for herself.

"Oh… well, if you haven't been up there yet, I guess you wouldn't know." Naegi had clearly caught on to the same train of thought. "The third classroom up there, classroom 5-C, is… well, it's pretty horrible." The boy's already-pale face grew even more drawn at the memory, and Togami found himself recalling how Naegi had collapsed the first time he'd tried to enter the room.

"It was apparently already the scene of multiple murders," Togami said, taking over for Naegi to allow the other boy time to compose himself. "The first time I entered the room the morning the fifth floor opened, most of the destruction we're referring to had already occurred. The entire room was splattered quite liberally with old blood and —" His eyes flickered in Naegi's direction, and the hint of clamminess to the other boy's complexion made him revise what he'd intended to say. "Well, suffice to say that there was sufficient evidence to show us that a number of people died there at some point before we were able to enter the room."

"That's right." Naegi seemed to have gotten a grip on himself, at least enough to continue speaking. "When Kirigiri and I got there the same morning, the room already looked like it had been that way for ages."

"Is that right?" Jill's eyes lit with a hungry sort of interest that Togami didn't like at all. "So you're saying there's been a goldmine of a room up there on the top of the mountain this whole time we've been screwing around with swimming pools and game tables? Man, why didn't anyone tell me we had a real masterpiece sealed up with us?"

"I doubt you'd appreciate it," Kirigiri said, with the gall to look uninterested in the entire conversation. "There are only chalk outlines now. The bodies were removed before we were allowed access, and the remaining blood is long since dried."

"Hey, being committed doesn't mean I can't appreciate the view — especially after someone went to all the trouble of giftwrapping it up for us in here!" Jill threw back her head, her face distended by the wild laughter that had to be filling the room.

Togami rolled his eyes and looked away from the crazy genocider, turning back to the other girl who hadn't known about the ruined classroom. Unlike Jill, Ogami appeared horrified by the revelation that they'd spent all this time locked in the same building as the scene of a mass murder. Her eyes had gone wide and unfocused, and she leaned forward on arms braced against her podium until her shoulders trembled from the weight. Seeing her so stricken by the explanation… it sent a strangely unpleasant shiver of distaste through Togami. Not as though he were annoyed that he had to see her reaction… but as if he didn't like that it was happening to her at all.

Which was absurd, of course. What the hell did he care about Ogami's reaction to a simple description of a room, as long as it didn't hinder her ability to participate in the rest of the trial? Togami pushed the unsettling thoughts to the back of his mind and resolved to carry on with matters.

"At any rate, that was the room where we found Ikusaba," he said, in the hopes of hurrying the others past their useless shock. "And since any earlier murders would have no bearing on this particular situation, we might as well disregard them."

"But… so many other deaths, right here in this school?" Ogami seemed unable to move past the idea. "How could such a thing have happened? Was it —" She turned to finish the sentence, and Togami couldn't read the rest of it — but with her eyes fixed on Monokuma's absurd throne, he could guess what she was asking.

Rather than watch the robot's nonsensical antics as it flailed about in a mockery of innocence, Togami raised an eyebrow in Naegi's direction. Monokuma said useful things during trials just often enough that he didn't dare ignore it — and he certainly didn't trust any of the others to translate the bear's blabbering accurately.

Naegi gave a one-armed shrug. "It's what Monokuma told us before, when we asked about what happened — he's not the one who destroyed that classroom. All he did was seal it off until the fifth floor opened."

Togami remembered that conversation all too well — it had happened right in the worst of his fight with Naegi, and Monokuma had taken malicious glee in rubbing it in at every opportunity. The vicious little bear had even done his best to make things worse, revealing Naegi's naive agreement to participate in Kirigiri's murder plot and —

The murder plot. Monokuma had revealed the murder plot. Togami froze, losing focus on the other students standing around him as the memory resurfaced and found its way into the collection of other facts he'd been assembling. He stared blankly out at cracked mirrors, meeting a bulging and distorted version of his own gaze as he tried to piece things together.

Kirigiri had tried to argue for her innocence by claiming that she'd freely revealed her murder plot to him — but that wasn't true. Monokuma had been the first to spill the secret, and she'd only confessed once she'd had no other options. If Monokuma hadn't shared that information… it was possible that her scheme with the poisoned humidifier would never have come to light. Naegi had foolishly agreed to go along with her plan without knowing the details, and he'd hardly be likely to share the little he did know with Togami while the two of them were in the middle of a fight caused partly by Naegi's clouded view of Kirigiri.

But… why would Monokuma reveal something that would hurt Kirigiri's chances at committing a successful murder? Aside from anything specific to this situation, the bear had never shown any inclination to protect the students from murder — if anything, he was much more likely to do the opposite. And surely Monokuma, the mastermind's mouthpiece, would want to help Kirigiri of all people —

No. Wait. That wasn't right, was it? Monokuma might be the mastermind's mouthpiece… but that didn't necessarily mean the mastermind was the one speaking. In fact, Naegi had said they weren't — he'd said that Mukuro Ikusaba was the one who'd been speaking to them through Monokuma, at least up until the point that she was murdered.

Which meant that at the time Kirigiri's murder plan had been revealed, Ikusaba would have been the one operating Monokuma.

Togami felt a small hint of a smirk begin to curl across his lips, and the mirrors around the circle all leered back at him with jagged, sharp-toothed grins. He'd known that girl was guilty from the moment he'd identified the victim as Ikusaba, and all the evidence they'd found had only confirmed his beliefs. And now, with this revelation, he'd finally found the one piece of proof he'd been missing for his case — a motive.