Togami let his eyes flicker in the direction of Jill's pointing scissors for only a moment before his lip curled up in a sneer. "If you're going to lie, at least try to come up with a more believable story."
Ogami frowned at him. "But weren't you convinced that was indeed the way Kirigiri voted?"
"Yes, I'm sure she was more than happy to stab her friend in the back yet again," Togami snapped, bitterness twisting through the accusation. "But anyone capable of simple math would see she wasn't the only one. Naegi could only have ended up with the majority of the votes if both of you voted to condemn him."
"You sound quite certain about that," Kirigiri said, one eyebrow raised. "I didn't expect you to be the one arguing that this trial was fair."
"Fair?" Laughter burned at the back of his throat, dark and hysterical, and Togami didn't dare let himself speak until he'd swallowed it back. "Nothing about this sham of a trial was fair. But just a few hours ago Monokuma made it quite clear that fair or not, the voting followed the rules."
"And you believed him?" Kirigiri asked, staring at him with her usual unnerving lack of expression.
Togami shrugged. "The math works."
"I suppose it does." Kirigiri turned aside and walked over to one of the tables that hadn't been upended in the struggle, sinking down into the nearest upright chair.
It was probably nothing more than her attempt to convince them all she'd given up on escaping. Togami didn't move from his post in front of the doors.
"Hang on, darling!" Jill bounded past Ogami with an almost inhumanly high leap, landing directly in front of Togami. She leaned toward him with her hands on her hips, tongue curling far too close for comfort. "I told you once already — your math doesn't work at all."
"Repeating yourself won't change anything," Togami said, steeling himself not to flinch at the genocider's proximity. "Ogami and I voted for Kirigiri, meaning that the rest of you —"
"You and the Ogre?" Jill's startled exclamation drowned out the rest of what Togami had intended to say. "Come on now, baby, don't tell me you've been doubling up with some other girl on the side, cause that'd just break my maidenly heart!"
"Are you just spewing nonsense, or was that supposed to mean something?" Togami demanded.
"It means no way the vote went down that way," Jill shot back. "Maybe you voted for Nancy Drew, but the Ogre can't have."
"She did." Togami didn't even have to think about that one — in a choice between Ogami and Genocide Jill, he knew exactly whose story was more credible. "Ogami and I voted for Kirigiri, you and she voted for Naegi, and the mastermind broke the tie. That means —"
"What."
Kirigiri's voice broke through his impatient explanation, so flatly spoken it could hardly be called a question. Togami shot a dark glare in her direction, but it wasn't as though she could see him — she hadn't even bothered to look in his direction when she spoke, staring statue-still at the wall in front of her.
"Stop trying to derail the conversation," he told her. "Just because you're incapable of saying —"
"No." She underscored the word by thumping her open palm against the table, leaving her five gloved fingers splayed out in front of her. "You said that the mastermind broke the tie. Tell me what you meant."
Togami rolled his eyes. "So now you're going to pretend you didn't know about the voting rules all along?"
But even as he said so, it occurred to him that this particular piece of information could put a stop to Jill's attempts to argue with his math. He shrugged. "Fine, if you really insist on hearing me say it — while Monokuma was trying to convince us the voting was fair, he also told us about tie-breaking. If there's no clear majority, the mastermind gets the deciding vote — and that's what happened here."
"The mastermind decided?" Kirigiri's voice was so soft that Togami had to turn his good ear towards her to catch the words. "They had the opportunity to vote for either Naegi or myself… and they chose him?"
"Obviously." Togami sneered in her direction, burying the jolt of fresh grief her words had caused beneath a sharper attack. "What else did you expect?"
She didn't answer, staring down at her black-gloved hand against the table.
"So you were getting your numbers direct from the head honcho?" Jill's words brought Togami's attention snapping back towards her, just in time to see her tapping scissors thoughtfully against her fingers. "Yeah, okay, with another vote in the mix I guess the Ogre's claim adds up after all. But darling, there's still one part of the problem I don't get." She lunged forward until her face was mere inches from his own. "Why are you still calling me a liar if you know so much about how the votes went down?"
Togami jerked his head back by reflex before conscious thought kicked in. "Back up immediately!"
Jill heaved a put-upon sigh as she took a small step backwards. "Only for you, baby! So?"
Apparently she was going to insist, no matter how stupid the question was. Togami rolled his eyes and addressed her as if she were a small child, since anything more complex was clearly beyond her. "Ogami and I both voted for Kirigiri — that's two." He held up his left hand with two fingers extended. "Kirigiri hasn't denied her vote," he raised the index finger of his right hand, "but that's still one short of a tie. One vote… and only one person left." He raised a fourth finger while looking her square in the eye. "Four people, four votes. If you can't work out the rest, you have even less sense than I thought."
Jill looked from one hand to the other, frown deepening. "Uh… darling? Don't you think you're forgetting something?"
"You're not going to distract me by —" Togami stopped mid-insult as the strange silence of the room crept into his awareness. None of the girls were talking for once, that was hardly a problem… but the expressions on their faces sent shivers of ice down the back of his neck. "What are you staring at?"
"Sure, it works out the way you're saying when you count up four votes," Jill said, her usual energy visible only in the rapid clicking of scissors, too loud in the quiet room. "But baby… you know that's one short, right?"
Togami froze. She couldn't be suggesting what it sounded like… not really, not as a serious possibility. It was ridiculous, completely beyond the bounds of belief.
"You're wrong." He made sure to say it coldly and sternly, as viciously as he could… so the tremor of emotion shaking through the words had to be a mere trick of his damaged hearing. "It doesn't matter if there was another vote. It can't have made a difference in the totals. You're only claiming otherwise to hide from your own guilt."
Jill shook her head. "Come on, White Knight, you should know by now that murder by proxy isn't my style. If I wanted to take out your sleeping beauty, I'd've been way more upfront about it than a sneaky voting trick."
She was right… except that no, no, she couldn't be. The situation twisted through his mind like a maddening optical illusion, each pathway becoming impossible as soon as he looked at it from a different angle. He knew there had to be a way it would all make sense… but no matter what he tried, the answer eluded him. There had to be something he was missing, some fact he didn't know, some way to prove that —
"Naegi wouldn't do that."
The words echoed Togami's thoughts so precisely that it took him a moment to realize he hadn't been the one to say them. He looked toward the table where Kirigiri had gone… and found her gaze frozen on the genocider.
Jill spun towards Kirigiri, tensing like she was prepared to launch herself across the cafeteria at the slightest provocation. "You're gonna say that after the way you played him during the trial? Anyone who heard you talking would've bet their whole bundle on a two-way tie between you and my white knight! What'd you think our sugar-sweet little Macaroon would do if he couldn't be sure his vote would nail the real killer?"
The iron grip of terror clenched around Togami's chest at the words, pressing against his ribcage with enough force that even the shallowest breath required painful effort. Naegi… oh, god, Naegi, kind and honest and so terribly trusting… faced with such an impossible choice, what would he have done?
"It wouldn't be in his nature," Kirigiri said calmly, apparently unperturbed by Jill's verbal assault. "If we've learned anything about Makoto Naegi during the mastermind's game, it's that he is sincere to a fault. A dishonest vote would not occur to him as a possibility without outside interference."
That was true, wasn't it? Togami could hardly believe he was thinking such a thing about words from Kirigiri's mouth… but it was true. She'd described Naegi perfectly. Lies never came naturally to him, and even in a dire situation they wouldn't be his weapon of choice. He wouldn't have done this, of course he wouldn't — Jill didn't know what she was talking about, that was all. The weight crushing inward on his lungs began to ease until he could finally take a clear breath again —
"You're right," Ogami said slowly. "He wouldn't think of it… without interference."
Togami looked sharply across the room to where Ogami stood, gray pallor tinging her face. What was she talking about? Why did her words send ice stabbing through his chest?
"But someone did interfere," Ogami went on, voice quiet and relentless. "When he asked me about votes from the earlier trials… I told him that in order to avoid voting for another student, I voted for myself instead."
Schedule note: I'm going to try out a new writing schedule for the next couple weeks. Rather than one chapter each week, I'm going to try to write a double length chapter and post it two weeks from now. Depending on how it goes, I may make it a permanent change. So the next chapter will be posted on Sunday, November 26. See you then!
