Togami couldn't help but feel some measure of relief as he and the other survivors left the fifth floor behind. While none of the school floors had been particularly pleasant, the uppermost one had definitely been the worst. Nothing positive had ever happened up there, and he could breathe a little easier now that they'd taken the stairs back down a level.

Not that the fourth floor was much better.

Togami knew where they were heading even before Kirigiri turned away from the path to the stairs down to the third floor, and he took advantage of those extra few seconds to school his face into the little stoicism he could manage. It was pathetically little… but at least he didn't obviously flinch when they came face to face with the door to the data center.

He kept his eyes locked on Kirigiri as she confirmed the door was locked. Watching her every movement let him keep the memories of his last visit to the data center at arm's length, distant enough that he would be able to enter the room without screaming.

Or at least that was what he thought — right up to the moment when the door refused to open after the master key unlocked it.

Kirigiri froze, key still embedded in the lock. Togami knew her mind had to be whirring away at lightspeed in the brief moment before she tried again. The click of the lock rang too loud for comfort in the otherwise silent hallway, but the door itself refused to budge an inch.

"Guess we know where the resident rat is holed up!" Jill gave the door an alarmingly speculative stare as she twirled a pair of scissors in one hand. "Think they'd wanna come out and play?"

"I doubt you'd get more than a visit from Monokuma," Togami said, before she could take that line of thought any further. "And I for one have had more than enough of him."

Ogami frowned, glancing from the door to the other survivors. "So you're saying the mastermind is behind this door? And — the key turned, so — so it isn't locked?" She started to take a step forward, before hesitation overcame her and she looked back at them for support. "Then should I try to break it down?"

"No!" Togami ordered sharply — at the same time that Jill sang out, "Yes!"

Kirigiri sighed, pocketing the key again. "Not right now. We can't be certain it isn't a trap of some sort, trying to lure us into breaking down a locked door without realizing it. I don't believe the situation is dire enough to warrant that level of risk at the moment."

"Except that the whole locked door deal only matters as long our little rat is the one running the show," Jill countered, scissors flashing bright in a silver whirl. "We get in there and have a little four-on-one action, and maybe we can set a few rules of our own!"

"That's one possibility." Kirigiri shrugged. "But more likely, we'd be killed before we even got a chance." She shook her head. "Besides… I don't think that any of us are prepared to face the mastermind at the moment. There are too many questions we need to answer before we'll be ready."

With that, she turned away from the door and began walking towards the stairs down. Ogami seemed content to follow without argument, but Jill didn't move immediately.

"You sure you wanna keep playing detective, darling?" she asked after a moment. "Don't get me wrong, I'm up for any game you're into — but a little blood and gore might be the cleaner option here!"

The thought of making the mastermind suffer for once did have its appeal… but Togami knew better than to give her any encouragement. He shook his head firmly. "No. I agree with Kirigiri — the risk right now is too great." He glanced at the nearest camera, still trained on them as unblinking as ever. "If we really had a chance, they'd have stopped us before we could try."

"So that's a no to getting it over with once and for all?"

Jill looked at him for a moment that went on just a little too long, and his eyes began to narrow with the suspicion that there had been more to her question than what she'd asked aloud. But before he could demand an explanation, Jill's mouth curled back into her signature grin, wider than ever. "Just making sure!"

She spun and darted after Kirigiri and Ogami. Togami blinked for a moment — but he wasn't about to let the girls wander away while he loitered in front of the mastermind's lair. He followed, doing his best to look like he wasn't actually hurrying, and caught up to them on the stairs down to the third floor. Kirigiri's brisk pace didn't falter in the slightest, but she did catch his eye and nod as they crossed the floor to the next set of stairs.

As they entered the second floor, Togami's shoulders tensed. He could feel the library's presence looming to his left, the intensity of so many memories with Naegi pulsating out from its heavy doors. He found himself lagging a half-step behind the others, and then a pace further than that, feet growing impossibly heavy while so close to everything the room represented. Seeing everything in there again would only hurt, he knew that… but turning away from it would hurt even more.

No one noticed that he'd turned in the opposite direction from the stairs until the low creak of the library door wrenched its way through the hall. Togami could hear their footsteps pause, but he pushed aside the distraction and stepped into the room.

Silence washed over him as he entered, softening the rest of the world to a bearably muffled level. Somewhere in the back of his mind, memories of psychology essays whispered about tricks of mental association and illusory comforts, but he tuned them out. Even if the blessed moment of quiet was nothing more than a product of his own mind, he would take the scraps it offered.

A day ago, even a few hours ago, the idea of standing calmly in the room where Naegi had nearly died would have made him sneer… but now here he was. And as he stared down at the spot on the ground, all he could think about was that this was a moment when Naegi hadn't died. It could have been the end, could have been the last moment he'd seen his lover… but it hadn't been. They'd had another day, just one single day, not enough to make a real difference in the outcome… but enough that he'd had the chance to reconcile with Naegi after their stupid fight.

It was almost enough to make him feel grateful, in a twisted sort of way. He would have laughed at bizarreness of his own situation, if he'd had the strength to pry his clenched teeth apart.

And then the click of heeled footsteps broke the silence. Togami looked behind him to see Kirigiri following him into the library, while Ogami and Jill hovered at the doorway.

"I know — we don't have time for this," he said, before she could try whatever painfully awkward interruption she had in mind.

But instead of seizing the opening to drag him out, Kirigiri stood at his shoulder and looked down at the place on the floor that had first drawn his gaze. "So many terrible things happened to him… more than any of the rest of us. There were so many times he could have died."

So she finally understood what Togami had been saying to her from the start. There should have been at least a dull sense of triumph that she'd conceded the point at last… but he couldn't summon the energy for that kind of vindictive glee. He just stood there next to Kirigiri in silence, a little of the tension easing from his shoulders at the knowledge that her thoughts were running along the same track as his own. He wouldn't have to fight with her about Naegi ever again.

After a few seconds ticked past, she drew a long breath and drew her eyes away from the place where Naegi had fallen and bled. "I won't make the same mistake again — I can promise you that much. I won't let the mastermind manipulate me again."