The darkness Naegi had tried so hard to resist surged through his mind, obliterating every conscious thought except the one he didn't want to acknowledge. Kirigiri had a master key, one that would let her move around the school at will. It wasn't true, he couldn't believe it, she wouldn't hide such an important discovery from the rest of them… but no matter what objections fluttered uselessly through his head, the facts made too much sense to deny.

Kirigiri had been places she shouldn't have been able to go. She'd opened locked doors without violating the mastermind's rules. And she'd spent time alone in the headmaster's office… the one place such a key might be located.

The headmaster's office… where she'd gone the night after the fourth class trial, the night she'd said she met Ikusaba. But that had been a lie, nothing but a lie, he knew that now. She hadn't met anyone there, not anyone at all. The only things she'd found had been a torn piece of a profile and…

The most dangerous weapon in the school.

Togami's words rang through his head, discordant against the rest of the questions spinning round. A weapon… he'd said that a weapon had been taken from the headmaster's office, he'd stayed to search for clues about it… but there'd been nothing. It had been stolen away before they got there… except that the door had been barricaded, they'd only gotten in because he'd used a trip ticket. But still, still, the weapon had been taken…

The key had been taken.

The two thoughts bled into one another until he couldn't pick them apart any longer. A stolen key, a stolen weapon… only a brief moment when the door had been open…

Could a key be a weapon? No, of course not, what was a key against all the other weapons in the school? How could it be more dangerous than knives and dumbbells, hammers and poisoned needles?

What if no one knew you had it?

He hated the question as soon as it slithered its way into his brain. It wasn't right, it couldn't be right, it was just a passing thought that didn't mean anything and he didn't want it in his head.

But he couldn't un-think it. His mind spiraled out from that starting point, whirling through a thousand ways a brilliant young woman could use a key when her companions all believed a locked door could keep them safe. It would be easy, too easy…

It would have been so very easy for Kirigiri to commit a murder.

He'd known it from the start, known it as his mind linked the puzzle pieces together without his conscious thought. He hadn't wanted it to be true, hadn't wanted to let himself accept the possibility… but somewhere deep within himself, he'd known what the picture he was putting together would be. Kirigiri could have killed Ikusaba.

It was like being in that horrible first trial all over again, his belief in Maizono crumbling to dust as he realized what she'd been planning. He'd thought they were friends… and she'd used his trust in her against him. She'd planned to kill Kuwata, and only a fatal misstep on her part had given Kuwata the chance to kill her after defending himself.

Defending himself… a victim and culprit changing places after he'd defended himself…

Maybe betrayal wasn't the only reason his mind had gravitated back to Maizono's death. Because after all… hadn't Ikusaba been plotting a murder of her own, too? Kirigiri's story had been a lie, but still, Ikusaba had crept out of hiding to steal Togami's knife and try to frame Ogami for it. They'd figured that out independently of Kirigiri's lie, so it was true, it had to be. And he'd wondered earlier if perhaps Kirigiri had been the one Ikusaba had meant to kill.

Kirigiri wouldn't murder someone as part of the game, Naegi couldn't believe that… but would she do it in self defense? It wasn't the same as Kuwata, not quite the same, because he could have walked away and Maizono wouldn't have been able to try again… but Ikusaba had been an elite soldier working for the mastermind. Even if Kirigiri had thwarted a first attempt, what was to stop Ikusaba from continuing until she succeeded?

Or until she was taken out of the picture.

Naegi wanted to be sick, nausea fighting for control of his stomach... but it couldn't wipe away the ideas. No matter how terribly he ached, it couldn't stop his thoughts from churning through his head and producing these horrible conclusions. It could be true. It made sense. Something had to be true, and if not this, then what? How could he ever know?

Kirigiri had lied to him. He'd trusted her, and she'd lied to him. Grief and confusion and pain all howled through his mind, each screaming their own questions and thoughts and phrases from the inaccessible pit of his memories, twisting into one another until he didn't know what he could believe any longer. She had lied to him. She'd lied.

She'd lied to conceal this. Togami had been right… every time he'd said not to trust Kirigiri, every question he'd asked about her motives, every accusation he'd sent her way… he'd been right. Kirigiri had been deceiving him with every word she'd spoken over the last two days, using his trust to set a trap for…

To set a trap…

A trap…

Naegi's thoughts ground to a blessed halt, clarity flooding into the mental silence left in their wake. Kirigiri wasn't the one setting a trap in this trial — the mastermind was. He'd lost track of that, in the hurt that had stabbed through him at discovering the truth of Kirigiri's lies. He didn't like that she'd deceived him… but really, it wasn't so far removed from other ways she'd gotten him to help without explaining herself.

No, Kirigiri might have told him a few lies, but the real person who was deceiving them all was the mastermind. She was the one who'd been behind the greatest betrayal of all, and nothing Kirigiri could say or do would ever come close.

And he'd nearly forgotten that. He'd nearly let the mastermind manipulate him into turning on his best friend, giving up on her at the very moment she'd needed his trust most. Because if he hadn't realized what was going on… if his thoughts had driven him onward to the final conclusion they'd been headed towards… he could have made the mistake of voting for Kirigiri.

It would have sealed her fate if he'd done it, snapping the trap closed around her beyond any chance of escape. The vote was going to split, he knew it would split, with the circle broken right down the center. His vote could have tipped the balance, breaking the stalemate that had dominated the trial… and he knew that was the worst thing he could possibly do. The stalemate was the only way to delay the mastermind's plot, to stop whatever horrors they'd put in motion. He couldn't let his vote shatter the fragile stasis.

But he had to vote, didn't he? He couldn't just lie here forever, the mastermind would force his hand if he tried. He had to do something…

I couldn't vote to condemn any of you. I voted for myself in each of the trials so far.

Ogami's words whispered through his mind, a ray of light glimmering in the darkness. That was right… the trial had framed matters as a choice between Kirigiri and Togami, but that didn't mean their actual voting options were limited. He could still make a different choice. He could still try to find another way.

Slowly, so slowly, Naegi forced his hand up onto the top of the podium, and he pressed the button that bore his own face.