Togami watched Ogami carefully as understanding spread across her face, deepening the lines of grief around her shadowed eyes. It looked real enough, as though she genuinely felt sorrow for everything that had occurred — but he couldn't be certain, not after the unexpected verdict. Someone had lied, had cast a vote that hadn't matched their arguments, had manipulated the trial to get an innocent student convicted… and so he needed more solid proof than an initial impression of relative honesty before he could eliminate anyone.
"Of course I didn't vote for Naegi," Ogami said at last, the words choking their way out of her throat. "I wouldn't have — even if he hadn't had me promise, I —"
"What promise?" Togami interrupted sharply. "He didn't tell me about any promise." There was so much Naegi had never told him — secrets and dreams and unanswered questions, so many conversations they'd never get the chance to have. It was wrong, wrong, that Ogami should have gotten the opportunity to hear some of Naegi's thoughts that he hadn't.
But at least she seemed to recognize that, since she didn't hesitate to explain. "Naegi had me promise not to throw away my vote during this trial. I — well, when I was the mastermind's agent, I — I never voted against any of the rest of you. I couldn't."
Togami's expression hardened. "And you thought that kind of meaninglessly sentimental gesture would balance out your betrayal?"
"No," Ogami said, dropping her gaze as guilt apparently overwhelmed her. "I know that nothing could. Nevertheless, that is how I voted — and when I told him about it, right before the trial, Naegi asked me not to do that this time. He wanted me to vote for the person I really thought had killed Ikusaba."
Throwing another voter into the mix without even trying to sway her in one direction or another — it was such a ridiculously Naegi thing to do that Togami had to squeeze his eyes closed for a moment, forcing back the trembling wave of darkness that threatened to drag him back into broken oblivion.
But he couldn't let it — not when he still had so much left to uncover. He swallowed back the grief clogging his throat and forced his eyes open again, doing his best to act as though the moment had never happened. "So you expect me to believe you kept your promise?"
"I hope you will," she said quietly. "I tried my best to understand what happened, but… it was difficult. Everything was confusing, and the rest of you think so quickly that I couldn't always keep up. But… I'd promised him. So I tried."
He had to admit that it did make sense for Ogami to have had such a promise driving her during the trial. She'd never participated much in the earlier trials, waiting for the rest of them to work out a solution… but this time, she'd tried to reach a conclusion herself. She'd asked questions, made arguments, chosen sides — all the steps that would let her do as Naegi had asked. It all seemed to make sense…
Or it would have, if it weren't for the way the trial had ended. Togami narrowed his eyes at her, preparing himself for any potential deception. "All right, if you worked as hard as you could to find an answer, let's hear it — who did you vote for?"
Ogami raised her head slowly until she could look him in the eyes again, and he could almost believe that he saw real pain in her gaze. "Kirigiri."
It was the right answer, the answer that matched what he'd guessed she'd do back during the trial, the answer that matched her actions… but at the same time, it was the wrong answer. Togami's lip curled up in a bitter sneer. "You're lying."
She sighed, looking at him with an expression that he couldn't quite understand. "No. I'm sorry, but no. I'm not lying. I wasn't completely convinced by your arguments, but none of the other options seemed plausible. I didn't want to make a choice… but when I had to, she was the only one I could pick."
"Do you actually believe I've lost the ability to do simple math?" Togami snapped. "If you'd done as you claim, then she'd be the one who isn't here now!"
"Math?" Ogami blinked. "You mean the vote counts? But… why would that have gotten Kirigiri executed?"
Togami rolled his eyes. "I know you're an athlete, not an intellectual, but it's a bit much to act like you can't even add up to five. If you, Naegi, and I," he held up one condescending finger as he spoke each name, "all voted for Kirigiri, then that would be three out of five — a majority. Even if the other girls both betrayed Naegi at the last minute, it wouldn't have mattered. The three of us would still have won."
"The… three of us." Ogami stared at him blankly, and for some reason, a knot of tension began to tangle through his stomach. "You believe that Naegi would have voted for Kirigiri, as well?"
Ice gripped Togami's chest, freezing the defensive words that wanted to rush to his lips. Up until that moment, he would have said yes — of course Naegi had voted for Kirigiri. She was the culprit, the only possible choice, and surely even with their supposed friendship obstructing his reason, Naegi would have been able to find his way to the truth when it mattered.
Except that it wasn't the truth that had won the day. Not only had Ikusaba's killer walked free, she'd succeeded in adding another death to her tally. And when he held that up against the rest of the evidence, all the ways that Ogami's claims made too much sense to ignore… there was only one conclusion he could reach.
"No… he didn't vote for her." Togami's fingers tightened around Naegi's sharp, cold key, painful to hold in more ways than the mere physical. "She deceived him right up until the end."
"Wait — you mean you still believe she was the culprit?" Ogami blurted out, too startled to speak as gently as she had before. "Even after the way the trial ended?"
"Of course I do. You said it yourself, there were no other possibilities." Togami scowled. "Don't tell me you've actually bought into the idea that Naegi was behind this."
But she was already shaking her head before he finished the sentence. "No, of course not. Naegi might have managed to move around a little for the investigation, but no one who saw him in the aftermath of Jill's attack in the library could consider him a serious suspect. But that wasn't what I meant. Togami…" She hesitated, frowning at him as though she actually thought she would be able to read something from his expression. Normally, Togami would have scoffed at the very idea… but with the wounds of the trial still bleeding in his soul, it was just barely possible she might be right.
So before she could see something he would prefer to keep hidden, he sent her the darkest preemptive glare he could muster. "If there's something you intend to say, get on with it before you waste any more of my time."
The glare didn't cow her as he'd normally expect, but it did at least produce a reaction. Ogami sighed, eyebrows drawing together in a sharp crease as she looked at him. "Well… I suppose you have the right to know what the rest of us heard during the trial."
"Heard?" Togami's eyes narrowed as he quickly flipped back through his memories of the trial, searching for moments of conversation that he might not have been able to understand. "Are you talking about some of that rubbish Monokuma said?"
"Not exactly," Ogami said. "That is, he did say something that I don't think you would have heard — after the verdict was announced, when none of us could believe it. He asked if any of us wanted to challenge the verdict."
"He what?" Togami had to clench his fists into balls of agony to prevent himself from being stupid enough to attack the ultimate martial artist where she stood. "He gave you a perfect opening like that — and you didn't even try to protect Naegi?"
"I intended to do so," Ogami said. "But… I never got the chance. No one did. Naegi spoke up before we could."
"Naegi did?" He hated the way his voice shook at the question, sounding weak and vulnerable… but it didn't matter, not anymore. He'd already revealed his vulnerability to the world. "He tried to defend himself?"
"No." Ogami swallowed hard. "He did the opposite. He said that the verdict was right… and that he was guilty."
