Naegi stared at the strange paper he'd found in his pocket, head spinning from more than just exhaustion and injury. It seemed impossible… but even as he thought of every reason it couldn't be true… the class roster he'd seen in the headmaster's office flashed through his mind. He didn't want to see it… out of all the memories he'd failed to recall, he didn't want his brain to conjure up this one… but regardless of his wishes, the other student profiles emblazoned their images across his mind, as clearly as if he were looking at them now.

And yes… yes, that was it. This paper looked exactly like one of the profile pages from the class roster, he was sure of it.

Except… it couldn't be. If it had been any of the other profiles, he might have accidentally torn it out when he'd removed Asahina's profile — but not this one. He and Togami had been looking at Ikusaba's profile when Monokuma had popped into the office, and Naegi knew for certain that it had still been securely attached to the roster when Monokuma had snatched the book away. He could almost see the dark blue cover snapping shut on the picture of the dark-haired girl.

The picture… that wasn't on this profile. With his eyes aching and his vision unclear, Naegi could easily believe he might make a mistake about written words — but he knew he couldn't miss whether or not there was a picture on the profile page. Did that mean it wasn't the same profile from the roster? There had been so many other papers scattered around the office… he supposed he might not have noticed it lying amid the piles.

But that didn't explain how it had ended up in his pocket. Naegi's head ached from the questions that hammered away at his consciousness, but after so many trials and investigations, he couldn't stop them. He tried to turn his mind away from the paper and focus the little energy he had left on the problem of voting… but even his thoughts defied him, puzzling out the questions whether he wanted it or not.

Where had that paper come from? How had it ended up here, on the trial room floor? Naegi didn't see how he could have brought it from the office, whether it had been in the roster or not. With his injured arm, getting anything in or out of his jacket pockets was an elaborate ordeal. He'd only forced himself to do it a scant handful of times, for things he'd truly needed. A random piece of paper hadn't been among them.

Someone else, then? Togami would have had dozens of opportunities, every time he'd helped Naegi walk… except that those times had been before they'd visited the headmaster's office. He'd been so tired towards the end, nearly falling asleep on his feet — he'd left it to Ogami to help Naegi through the trial room to his place in the circle.

Could she have done it, then? No… no, she hadn't known about Ikusaba's identity until Naegi had told her. And even when the mastermind had been blackmailing her, she'd never been inside the headmaster's office, so she couldn't have gotten hold of a profile in the first place. No, if someone else had put the paper in his pocket, it would have had to be someone who'd been inside the headmaster's office and who'd been close enough to reach his pocket without alerting him, and no one —

the bathhouse locker room.

Naegi blinked as an image of the bathhouse flickered before his eyes. Why had such a thing popped into his head all of a sudden? It didn't have anything to do with the trial that he could see… maybe his mind was so overtired it had begun playing tricks on him, conjuring up images that didn't have anything to do with —

… before the trial.

Wait… that was right, he'd been in the bathhouse just before the trial. He and Kirigiri had needed to talk alone, unmonitored by the mastermind's cameras. That had been when she'd told him about her plan to reveal the mastermind's identity during the course of the trial… so maybe it wasn't completely irrelevant after all. But even so, it didn't have any connection to the strange paper —

… a supportive arm sliding around his waist, guiding him to a seat.

As the moment resurfaced in his head, Naegi felt a jolt of shock that hadn't happened when he'd first experienced Kirigiri's uncharacteristically kind gesture. But now, thinking back on it, it seemed unusual that she'd helped him cross the room even though he'd had the music stand pole to lean on, assisting him when he could have managed on his own — a stark contrast to the other times she'd walked ahead and let him struggle to keep up with her brisk pace. He'd thought nothing of the kind gesture at the time… but now it twisted in his head, shifting its meaning to something far more calculated.

With her arm around his waist, Kirigiri could easily have slipped a folded piece of paper into his pocket… and she'd actually been in the headmaster's office where the profiles had been kept. With those two facts taken together, it had to be certain — she was the one who'd given him this paper.

But why hadn't she told him about it? They'd been in the bathhouse, away from the mastermind's cameras, so she could have said anything she liked without fear of being overheard. So that meant… she'd chosen not to tell him. Why would she give him something and not want him to know? It was only chance that he'd unearthed the paper before the trial ended — with his injuries, it would have been more likely that he wouldn't have found the paper until he was undressing for bed that night.

I need you to be my failsafe in case something goes wrong.

He heard those words again, the ones she'd spoken just before leaving to enact Ikusaba's plan. She'd wanted a backup plan in case something went horribly wrong… and judging by the abrupt end to the trial, that was exactly what had happened. Was that the reason she'd left a paper with him in such a way that he wouldn't have found it until the trial was over — so that he'd be able to carry on without her?

His stomach seized up in a tangle of nausea that shuddered up through his throat, and if he'd eaten anything in the past few hours he would almost certainly have lost it. Kirigiri had intended him to find that profile page after something awful had happened — something that prevented her from using it herself. The thought of finding the profile under those circumstances…

No. He couldn't let himself focus on things like that. It hadn't happened that way. He'd found the profile now, before anything bad could happen. And maybe… maybe that meant he could use it now, to avert whatever tragedy Kirigiri had feared.

He raised his head again, just enough to see the paper a short distance away on the floor. The black spiderwebs that writhed across it had to be words, he knew it… but his eyes rebelled against his attempts to focus. His brain couldn't turn the tiny marks into comprehensible meaning.

But that wasn't good enough — not with the trial going wrong in every possible way. Naegi blinked rapidly and tried again, glaring at the paper until his eyes watered. He'd read it before, at least enough to see Ikusaba's name. He knew that much had to be on the paper, if he searched…

And yes, there it was, a small scrap of understanding in the midst of chaos… Mukuro Ikusaba. Her name wavered under the effort it took, but he could read it clearly.

Using her name as an anchor, Naegi tried once again to glean some kind of hint from the rest of the paper. If he didn't try to focus on any specific text… if he just let his eyes drift down from the name… the some of the incomprehensible scribbles turned into actual words. He couldn't read the entire profile… but he had to hope that the few words he could gather would be enough to help.

Soldier.

Kidnapped.

Fenrir.