Trigger warning: As of this chapter, there is a trigger warning in effect for discussion of self-harm. If that's something you would prefer to avoid, you should steer clear of the next two chapters.
Togami hardly knew where he intended to go as he stormed out of the dormitory hall — all he knew was that he had to get as far away from Kirigiri as he could. Nowhere within the claustrophobic walls of the school could possibly be far enough, he knew that… but even so, once his feet began moving he didn't know how to stop them. He let them carry him on and on, up staircase after staircase, as though he might be able to leave the whole world behind if he could only move fast enough.
But of course that wasn't true. All that happened was that he found himself with no stairs left to climb. The last few sparks of adrenaline fizzed through his veins, then faded away to leave only cold, empty exhaustion in their wake. He shouldn't have climbed so high for no reason, all the way to the fifth floor —
The fifth floor…
His head jerked to one side, and suddenly he was staring down the hallway leading to that nightmarish classroom where Ikusaba's corpse had started it all. Why had he come back here to face that scene again? Hadn't he seen enough yesterday, when he'd failed so miserably to uncover any helpful answers? Didn't he know there was nothing left to find?
He spun away from the hallway, turning away and groping blindly for the first door he could reach. He didn't care which one it was — anything would be better if it would lead him away from that sight.
He let himself fall through the doorway, landing hard on his knees in the middle of a garden path. Greenery hid the walls of the prison, and the false sky arching overhead created the illusion of a world beyond the school. He knew it was nothing but a lie, of course, he hadn't lost himself so completely as to forget that fact… but the lie was better than any of the realities that waited for him outside.
Every moment trapped in this school drove frozen daggers through his chest, bitter with the knowledge that he was still stuck in the middle of the game that had murdered Naegi. Memories of the other boy's bright smile and kind eyes lingered in every corner, inescapable and unbearable. The thought of staying here another second made his fingers curl into painful fists, in spite of the protesting aches from his injured hands. Staying in the mastermind's clutches was very nearly the most horrific fate he could imagine…
The only worse option would be leaving.
Returning to the world outside, letting his old life reclaim him… mouthing his way through the lies he'd have to tell about Naegi, feeling the grime of betrayal sink into his veins as he turned himself into a monster that Naegi would have hated… Togami could see every hideous moment of that life stretching out ahead of him, and he hated it all.
It didn't matter whether he stayed in this nightmare or left to find a new one… there wouldn't be any difference in the end. He had no goal left to fight for, no future to strive towards… no hope that he could ever pick up the broken pieces of his life again. Even if Kirigiri succeeded in her plan to defeat the mastermind, it would be too late for him. He'd already lost in every way that mattered.
Even now, even as the thoughts ran through his mind, he knew he was only making it worse. The longer he lay here crumpled and miserable on the ground, with no nearby students to justify the obvious show of grief, the less believable it would be that his feelings had been a lie. He would have to do more and more to convince his family that the weakness had been false… and doubts would linger on in their minds no matter what he did. He would never be free of the consequences of these weeks trapped in the mastermind's game.
How had he brought this hell on himself? There must have been a point when he could have avoided it, if only he'd been a little smarter… but try as he might, he couldn't pinpoint the moment. The only thing that might have saved him was if he'd never fallen in love with Naegi in the first place… but that thought was even more unbearable than any of the others.
He might have stayed there on the ground for hours, consumed by the nightmares screaming in his head… but warning twinges from his knees began making themselves known. The way he'd fallen wasn't exactly a comfortable position… very far from it, in fact. The longer he stayed like this, the more aware he became of the pain shooting up through his legs. It hurt… and it was only getting worse.
He ought to move so that the pain would stop, he knew that… but even as he thought it, a perverse part of his mind whispered that maybe he shouldn't bother. With his life in broken ruins around him, why not embrace the destruction wholeheartedly? Maybe it would even make the emotional pain easier to handle if he could distract himself with mere physical injuries.
He knew that thought should horrify him. Once, not so very long ago, it would have. But now… there was a kind of twisted, knife-sharp comfort in the idea of letting pain wash his world away. If he'd really believed such a thing could work, he would have leapt at the chance without hesitation.
But it wouldn't work. Not really. Even if it gave him a few brief seconds of respite, what difference would that make in the end? He would still resurface eventually back into the same terrible situation he was in now. There wasn't much point in stopping the pain… but there wasn't a point to letting it continue, either.
Slowly, hands trembling like an old man's, Togami braced himself against the floor and levered himself back up to his feet. As he stood, he looked around the garden again, taking in the stretch of plants surrounding him. The bright leaves and cheerful flowers looked obscenely out of place in this school, as though they'd been plucked from some other world where murder was an unknown impossibility. They might even have been pretty, if he'd encountered them elsewhere.
Would Naegi have thought they were pretty?
Probably he would. He'd had an uncanny gift for finding bright spots in the darkest of situations. He would have been able to see the beauty here in spite of the horrors around them.
A jagged blade of regret stabbed through Togami's chest as he thought of those hours he'd squandered during his stupid fight with Naegi, when they'd each explored this floor alone. What would it have been like to walk through this garden with the boy he loved at his side? To act like a real couple for a few minutes, to forget about anything else in the world but each other? Would it have been like the date in the park that Naegi had imagined for them?
As those questions ran through his mind, Togami began walking around the perimeter of the room in a slow, swaying loop. What would it be like if Naegi were here with him? How would the other boy move, when would he smile or frown? Would he speak, or even laugh? The questions hurt more than any physical pain could match… but even so, he clung to each stab through his broken heart as fervently as if it were Naegi himself. This pain was the closest he could get to feeling some shred of Naegi's presence, and he couldn't bear to let it go.
The only sound in the garden came from his feet crunching along the gravel path, past the chicken coop, out of reach of the monstrous central plant. Other than that, it was silent… too silent, in a way that a real garden wouldn't be. No buzzing insects, no chirping birds… even the chickens stayed uncannily quiet unless actively disturbed. He'd found quiet places peaceful once, when he'd lived another life… but now it was just another reminder that no matter what fantasies he conjured up from his pain-fueled imaginations, in reality he was alone. He would never be free of that truth.
He stumbled onward, completing the circuit as he reached the tool shed, off to one side. As if on autopilot, his feet carried him forward further, to the shed's shadowed interior. There was nowhere left to go from there, though, and the walls put an end to his mindless movement forward.
He glanced around the shed, but there wasn't anything more of interest here now than there had been when he'd first investigated it. Gardening tools, that was all… just to hammer home the cruel illusion that this was really meant to be a place for tending plants. But of course that wasn't true, not really. It was all too obvious that the gardening implements here had been chosen for their functionality as potential murder weapons. The pickaxe would cleave in a skull easily enough, even in the hands of someone with limited strength. The gardening shears gleamed sharp enough to slice through human flesh as easily as greenery. And —
The garden shears… Togami's eyes focused on them, staring at the bright long blades as if they were the only real objects left in the world. They were sharp enough to cut… oh, yes, they certainly were. The mastermind had seen to that.
He could see the shaking reflection of a boy in the blades, dirty and disheveled and broken… and he reached out to close his hand around it. The blades pressed sharp and bright into his hands as he carried them out of the shed… but now he welcomed the pain. It bloomed through his heart with the promise that there was a way to escape this nightmare, after all… a way to escape this wreck of a shattered life. All it would take was a little more pain… and at least it would all finally end.
