Sleep nearly claimed Naegi too many times to count as he and Junko kept watch over the walls of monitors. He thought he might have dropped into a light doze once or twice, but the murky depths of unconsciousness blurred together with the hazy silence of the data room until it took all his focus to tell the difference. All he knew was that the bathhouse door that held his attention both awake and in dreams didn't change.

Until it did.

The faint tap of approaching footsteps echoed out from one of the monitors, so quiet that it would have been impossible to catch if there had been any other sounds in the room. Naegi's breath turned to lead in his lungs, weighing down his chest until no motion was possible. He stared up at the screen showing the bathhouse entrance, searching for some hint that everything really was going to be okay. But there was nothing to see, nothing but the closed bathhouse door —

And then the door swung open, and Byakuya stepped out into the hall.

The sight flooded through Naegi like pure, clean water. It was Byakuya, and he was safe and whole, he was fine, he was —

"Wow, looks like he did a pretty good job cleaning up the blood," Junko said, swinging her feet around so that she was actually sitting in her chair correctly as she peered up at the screen. She shook her head with a dramatic sigh. "Rats — if only I'd realized that the bathhouse could provide an easy loophole to the limitations on using water at nighttime, this could all have been prevented! Oh well, too bad." She tapped one long nail against her lips. "Do you think we'll need to get some kind of blood testing equipment so the girls have half a chance at the trial?"

Naegi did his best to ignore her, even though Junko's voice had a way of worming past any attempts to tune it out. She didn't know what she was talking about, not really. There was no proof about anything that had or hadn't happened while Byakuya and Kyoko had been out of range of the cameras. Junko just wanted to scare him into envisioning a series of horrible possibilities, to make him doubt Byakuya and what he might have done.

But he wouldn't let himself think that way. He wouldn't. Not unless there was proof.

And there wouldn't be. Naegi studied Byakuya carefully as the young man paused outside of the bathhouse door, eyes darting between the dorm rooms on his left and the gate leading to the rest of the school on his right. He didn't look happy, of course, and the tired lines of grief etched into his face stabbed through Naegi's heart… but at the same time, he was almost grateful to see that misery.

If Byakuya really had taken steps to commit a murder… then grief wouldn't be the first thing on his mind any longer. His eyes would flash with calculations about how best to survive the upcoming trial, cold confidence radiating off him with every cleverly planned move. He would have looked like a fighter, ready to take on the world and win. But instead… he just looked lost, unable to make the simple choice between two paths.

Naegi bit his lip as he stared up at the hesitation written across his boyfriend's face. Byakuya had never acted like this, even when the world around them had been at its darkest. Even when the only choice was about which variety of horror to face, he'd moved forward. But now… it was like he'd forgotten how to do it.

He just needed someone to help him remember. Naegi would have given anything for the energy to stand and leave this room, to run to the side of the man he loved, to show him the way back to the person he used to be. It couldn't take much, not really. Just a presence at his side, a hand on his shoulder, and —

A hand landed on Byakuya's shoulder.

A gloved hand.

Naegi's eyes widened in almost incredulous joy as Kyoko stepped out of the bathhouse door, one hand firmly caught around Byakuya's arm. She was okay, every bit as well and whole as when she'd disappeared from view. She was alive.

And that meant Junko had been wrong. Even in the aftermath of Naegi's execution, even with misery bearing down on him from every direction, Byakuya still hadn't been driven to the point of murdering a girl who'd been his friend. Yes, he'd thought about it… he'd even gone so far as to bring a weapon into their secluded meeting… but that didn't matter in the end. He hadn't taken the final step, the one that could never be taken back — and the knowledge broke across Naegi's face in a brilliant smile.

He turned towards Junko, fully expecting to see the same joy spreading to touch her as she came face to face with proof that the world wasn't as dark and terrible as she'd believed. She had to see the hope in this moment, had to understand that there were other choices in the world than despair, had to —

Laugh.

Junko was staring up at the screen like she'd forgotten anything else was in the room, a crooked grin splitting her face wide as a wild flood of laughter gushed free. Naegi could hear all the cackling madness of Monokuma at his worst — and more than that, he could hear a spiral into dark depths that the bear's robotic voice had never touched. He knew that laugh… not from the time they'd been friends, either as classmates or as refugees from despair… but from those last blurred moments when she'd turned on them all. It echoed through his mind as well as in his ears, the two sounds blending together in a crashing cascade of terrors.

But… what was she laughing at now? Was it just another symptom of the despair that had infected her, spilling out in a form that made no sense to anyone else… or was there something he was missing?

"Wait — not yet."

Naegi had to strain his ears to catch Kyoko's quiet words, barely audible through the flood of Junko's manic laughter. He thought there might have been some undercurrent of tension there, threading through her voice with an unusual anxiety… but her tones were hard to read even when he could hear her clearly.

But understanding Byakuya came to him as easily as reading a poem, especially when he shook Kyoko's hand from his arm with his iciest glare. "Don't touch me."

Kyoko had never been fazed by those glares, not in either of the times they'd all met one another… but now she seemed to find it worrying in some way. Her eyebrows snapped together as she crossed her arms, rather than reaching out to grab him again. "We weren't done here."

Silence flooded the room, even louder than the laughter had been. Naegi risked a glance in Junko's direction — but after seeing the maddened brightness to her eyes as she stared up at the screens, he wished her hadn't.

"Is that so?"

Naegi looked back up at the monitors just in time to see Byakuya raise an eyebrow, a ghostly reminder of one of his haughty expressions. "So walking out of the room wasn't enough of a clue for you to detect that I disagree?"

Kyoko didn't even react to the jab. "I didn't understand what you meant before. But now that I do — there's more we need to discuss." One finger tapped an uneven beat against her opposite arm as she stared at him. "I don't think you should go off alone."

Naegi wasn't quite sure what she meant by that… but Byakuya must have. He drew himself up a painful attempt at dignity, unaware that it only underscored his obvious fragility. "What I do is none of your concern. I told you that I wouldn't stop you from doing what you want — now I expect the same from you."

"No." She didn't even hesitate to snap out the contradiction. "I can't do that — not when it's obvious you won't be all right."

Naegi blinked. Did that mean… that she was worried about Byakuya? Well, anyone who could see him now would be worried, of course… but she was actually going to act on her concern? A small tendril of warmth curled through his chest at the thought that Kyoko might be working to restore the friendship she and Byakuya had once shared.

But Byakuya's mouth curled into a trembling sneer that mocked her efforts. "So what — you expect me to believe you care? That how I feel matters to you?"

"We should continue this discussion inside," she said flatly, eyes darting up until she was staring directly out of the screen. For a brief, disorienting moment, Naegi could almost believe she was looking at him, before realizing she'd meant to indicate the camera.

But even though he must have seen the gesture far more clearly than Naegi could, Byakuya barely seemed to register that she'd tried to interrupt him. "If you're so concerned about me, then why did you tell me anything in the first place?"

"This isn't the time!" She tried to step forward and grab his arm again.

He knocked her hand away with far more force than necessary. "If you're so determined to help, then why did you tell me all about how you manipulated Naegi to his death?"


Schedule note: No chapter next week again, sorry! I'm trying to move this month, and it's taking up most of my time. Next chapter will be up on June 24. See you then!