Togami clenched his fists and glared at Kirigiri, his hatred for her seething along his skin like crackling flames. She'd hidden her past, both her connection to the headmaster and her all-too-relevant talent, and she'd been the only one to meet with Ikusaba before the girl had been killed. Her disappearance for a full thirty-six hours left her with no alibi at all. Even the murder weapon had been one of her own design. And now, in the face of all this evidence, she'd actually tried to turn him against Naegi in some cowardly attempt to avoid the truth of her guilt? A person capable of that deserved no mercy whatsoever.

"So you admit you're the Ultimate Detective," Togami said. "And you've been hiding it for the entirety of this game."

Kirigiri shrugged, looking bored. "Not all of us are as fond of talking about ourselves as you are."

He ignored the jab — she'd have to do better than that to distract him. "Yes, very modest. You failed to inform the people trapped here with you, your supposed allies, that you possessed a talent that could make the class trials easier on everyone because you're so humble."

"You seem awfully confident that it would have made a difference," she said. "But my abilities are the same, whether someone knows to call me a detective or not. Any evidence I found or deductions I made were just as solid regardless of whether I'd put a name to my talent."

"Oh, so it was some sort of professional pride? You just wanted us to judge you on your merits instead of your title?" Togami couldn't help but laugh at that, and he hoped the sound was as sharp and mocking as he'd intended. "Don't be absurd. We've done nothing but investigate murders since we were trapped in this godforsaken hellhole of a school — obviously it would have made a difference to know that one of us actually knew what she was doing." He narrowed his eyes at her. "Unless you had a real reason for keeping your mouth shut."

"This should be good." Kirigiri looked upwards and shook her head, as though she'd begun to roll her eyes but couldn't even muster the interest to finish out the motion. "Fine then, since you're so determined, let's hear it — what twisted reason have you invented for why I didn't mention my talent?"

"I haven't invented a thing I've said during this trial," Togami shot back. "And I'm not going to allow you to obfuscate the facts by acting as though they don't matter. The only reason you would have refused to use your talent to help us during the game must have been because you intended to use it against us from the start."

He didn't let himself look in Naegi's direction as he said those words, holding his head pointedly towards Kirigiri even as she and Ogami both looked towards the other boy. He knew what Naegi would be saying, and he didn't think he could stand to see the boy's desperate attempts to defend the backstabbing bitch he called a friend. Kirigiri had lost the right to let Naegi speak for her — the time had come for her to answer for her crimes herself. She couldn't be allowed to hide behind Naegi's soft heart any longer.

She knew it, too. Togami could see as much when she looked back at him, a regretful smile touching her lips as she met his eyes. This battle between the two of them had been coming ever since the start of the game… and now they'd passed the point when she could use Naegi to delay it any further. He knew it, and he could see that she did as well.

"So accusing me of this particular murder isn't enough for you," Kirigiri said at last, the veneer of boredom falling away to leave her expression sharp and cold. "You intend to blacken my every action from the start of the game."

"You did that yourself," Togami corrected. "You're the one who chose to keep silent, time and again when you could have spoken up. And let's not forget the timing — after all, the rest of us all shared our talents when we met in the entrance hall." He leaned forward, feeling the spark of the hunt in his blood. "Before we learned about the killing game."

It should have hit her. If the revelation about the headmaster had put visible cracks in her composure, then pointing a finger at the problem with her timeline should have turned them into bleeding wounds.

But the aggravating girl didn't so much as blink. He must have allowed her too much time to brace herself for the shock, preparing to keep her stoic mask in place. She'd even managed to put a gleam of confidence in her eye, in some absurd attempt to create the illusion that she was pleased with this turn of events. That sort of nonsense couldn't possibly fool anyone, of course, not in the face of the facts, but it annoyed him to see her even trying it.

"I see. So that's where you intend to take this discussion." Kirigiri tapped one gloved finger against her elbow, a steady black flicker that kept trying to draw Togami's gaze away from the words on her lips. "This accusation isn't just about the murders. You want to make it about the mastermind's entire plot."

She had to be mocking him with those words — Togami knew exactly how sarcasm could twist a sentence like that, using ridicule to turn fact to apparent fiction. "The victim was the mastermind's agent — I think the connection is obvious. It's been about their plot from the start. All I did was bring it to light."

"So you say." The tapping grew faster, black shadows writhing along Kirigiri's arms as her fingers flew in a staccato beat. "It sounds to me as though you've invented this entire idea. What proof do you have that any of it is connected to the mastermind?"

"Are you serious? Haven't you been paying attention, or is this some idiotic strategy of useless denial?" Togami demanded. "Either way, it won't work. Monokuma already admitted that Ikusaba was his agent — not to mention the fact that she was supposed to be hidden from the rest of us! The fact that the killer knew about her at all connects the entire trial back to the mastermind!"

"Mm. Perhaps." Kirigiri smiled, and a dagger of ice pierced through Togami's chest. "But before you start coming up with yet another oh-so-convenient document that supports your theories, let's remember that I wasn't the only one who knew about Ikusaba."

"You were the only one who met her," Togami said at once, trying to deflect this new angle before she took it too far. He didn't know exactly where she was going with it, but he didn't like the look in her eye.

"You mean I'm the only one who admitted it." Kirigiri reached up to tug at her braid again, a pale line twisting around her dark fingers. "I don't know what happened while I was searching the school… but it was more than enough time for someone else to encounter the mastermind's agent."

"Someone else?" Togami sneered, lip curling at her desperation. "So now you're going to claim that after weeks of staying hidden, Ikusaba decided to reveal herself to not one but two students in as many days?"

"No."

Togami glared at Kirigiri. He knew he couldn't have misread such a simple word — but he couldn't see any reason for her to have said it. He knew she couldn't be giving up her ridiculous attempts to delay her inevitable defeat… so what exactly was she doing?

"I doubt she decided to do anything," Kirigiri continued calmly. "But if she learned that another student knew about her, she would hardly have had a choice about meeting them. She would need to learn how much they knew and if her role was in jeopardy."

"And you had the nerve to accuse me of imagining things." Togami laughed sharply. "This alternate suspect of yours would have had to know about Ikusaba before we discovered her corpse — and they would have needed some kind of opportunity to arrange a meeting with her. No one else would have had the chance!"

"Yes, because of Naegi's accident," Kirigiri said, tugging on her braid with a thoughtful frown. "You all must have been together as you dealt with that. I'm sure it would have made any kind of meeting impossible."

"Exactly, so —"

"But," Kirigiri went on, cutting off the rest of what Togami had meant to say, "you all split up again afterward. You abandoned Naegi to Ogami's care and went off to the library."

Togami clenched his fists. "What exactly are you implying?"

"You still haven't worked it out? You're usually much quicker than this." Kirigiri dropped her braid and leaned forward, eyes flashing. "I'm saying that there was someone else who could have summoned Ikusaba to the room where she died."