Togami felt himself drifting forward through time in haze of solitude, gazing upward at the ceiling without actually seeing it. Somewhere far away, he had the vague idea that things like hunger, thirst, stiffness, and other kinds of discomfort existed… but they weren't strong enough to reach through the fog enveloping him. It was almost peaceful, with his consciousness too distant to be touched by the world around him. It was empty and lonely, yes… but it kept the pain at bay. That was the best he could expect.

The room around him shifted, the pattern of shadows altering along the ceiling… but that didn't matter. He knew, in that far off part of himself almost entirely muffled by the fog, that this fact ought to be significant, that it would once have caused him serious alarm… but he let the fog carry it away beyond his notice. What was the point of alarm, if he'd failed to protect the only thing worth worrying about?

But instead of disappearing entirely from his awareness, the changes in the room only grew more insistent. The air current shifted along his body, proof of motion around him that he couldn't fully ignore. And as much as he tried to keep himself wrapped in the fog, as desperately as he clung to the illusion of peace it provided… he couldn't avoid the sounds that trickled into his head.

Not just sounds… words. There were words in the room, poking and prodding at his mind with demands to be understood. He didn't want to give in to them, didn't want the knowledge of the present they would force on him… but their mere existence was enough to keep him tethered to room where they occurred. But even so, even with the prodding and the awareness… even so, he didn't have to give in to them. He could still refuse to acknowledge them, staring upward without moving to encourage them to leave him to his solitude.

Or at least he could until a large hand settled on his shoulder.

Instinct took over, reacting to the unwanted physical contact without input from his brain. He twisted away from the touch, shooting upward and grabbing the wrist to hurl the potential attacker away.

But Sakura Ogami didn't budge, other than a slight lift of her eyebrows at his reaction. She paid no attention to his hand gripping her arm, and instead met his eyes with a determined gaze that left no room for escape.

"You have to get up, Togami."

She spoke the words slowly and clearly enough that he could read them from her lips as well as hear them in his right ear. Even though she must not have thought that he could hear, her voice was still full of a firmness that couldn't be ignored and a gentleness too terrible to bear. The words closed off the possibility of retreat, preventing him from returning to the fog, at least as long as she stood there.

Even so, he didn't have to give in to her. His eyes narrowed, and his lips tilted downward in a dark frown. "No."

But she seemed to take the words as some sort of encouragement, rather than the dismissal he'd intended. "Ah… so you can understand me. That is a relief. I wasn't certain you were still able to respond. Are you aware you've been nearly catatonic for most of the day?"

Togami stared blankly at her. Why was she telling him something so meaningless? What did it matter to her if he spoke or not? It wasn't as though he had anything to say to her.

Or… was that true? A deeply buried thought shifted in the depths of his brain, struggling to make itself heard…

"You need to treat your hands before they get infected," Ogami went on, before the thought could fully surface in Togami's mind. "And afterward you should try to eat something, if you can. And…" her eyes flickered down, "and you should think about trying to shower and change into clean clothes."

At that reminder, he found himself conscious of the rough, gritty movement of his clothes against his skin. He glanced down at himself… and he could hardly recognize the garments as his own. Stained with blood and oil and soot, torn and creased and shredded, his clothes had been so ravaged by the events of the last two days that nothing in the laundry room would have a chance of salvaging them. They were filthy, and he could feel his shoulders shift in discomfort at their continued touch.

"I brought you new clothes from the storage room," Ogami said. "Since your own aren't an option right now."

Not an option…? Togami didn't look up at her, continuing to frown at his clothing as memories of the previous night drifted back into his head. He remembered swaying outside his dorm room door, key shaking in his hand… remembered trying to slide the key into the lock over and over to no avail, until it fell from his nerveless fingers. It hadn't worked… the key hadn't worked, not even when Ogami had picked it up and tried it herself. His dorm room door hadn't opened.

Because it had been the wrong key. He'd given Naegi his key, when he'd stayed to search the headmaster's office while the other boy returned to the dorms. And that key… he'd pocketed that key while helping Naegi sort through his overloaded pockets during their investigation. The key he'd tried to use last night had been Naegi's.

His head shot up to glare at a startled Ogami. "Where is it?"

She blinked, startled. "I — I don't know what you —"

"Naegi's key — where is it?" His grip on her wrist tightened until it hurt his injured hands more than it could have caused her any pain — but he didn't care. He'd thought nothing could matter again, but this, this, this — this did. Naegi was gone, but he'd left one thing behind, one thing that Togami could touch and hold and keep, and he was not going to let it slip through his fingers.

"It's there, on the nightstand —"

Before she could say another word Togami dropped her wrist and lunged across the bed for the place she'd indicated. And there — next to a stack of weights, dropped carelessly near the edge — there it was, sitting out in the open with no regard for its worth. He seized it, snatching it close to his chest as if it could be ripped away from him at any moment. And for all he knew, that was the truth. Why would Monokuma let him keep something precious, after destroying so much else that he valued?

"I wasn't trying to keep it from you," Ogami's voice came from behind him, her voice quiet and strange, as though the words took more effort than usual. "I thought you'd find it there when you woke up, I —" She stopped. "Oh, that's right, his hearing. He can't —"

"I can hear you." His voice sounded strange in his own ears, twisted and thick and distorted. "But I don't know if I believe you."

"You… what?" She sounded confused, as if she had no idea what he was talking about.

He felt his mouth curl into a sneer. "Don't pretend not to know!" With the key in his hand, he could feel his thoughts clicking back into their proper places, the broken gears of his mind beginning to spin once more. And as they did, the memories flooded back, the horribly unfair end of the last trial and everything it had meant. He turned so he could look her in the eye as he spoke. "You stand there acting like you're on my side, telling me all these useless things you've done to help me — but you haven't told me the only thing that matters!"

She had the gall to look as though she didn't understand him. "I'll tell you whatever you wish to know —"

"Then tell me if it was you!" Togami snarled with a fury that had seemed impossible mere minutes ago. "Someone voted for him yesterday — someone condemned him to die in that pit! Someone did that to him, and I want to know if it was you!" His fingers tightened around the key, its sharp metal ridges biting into his hands to aggravate the existing wounds anew. But that didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was watching Ogami for her reactions, finding the truth in whatever response she chose to give.

Because he would find the truth about this. There was no other option. He was going to find out which of the other students had voted for Naegi… and he was going to kill them.