So this room had belonged to the headmaster? Togami wasn't surprised, considering the location. Naturally the highest-ranked member of the faculty would be in possession of the corner room, with the greatest amount of space attached. He would have made that assumption without having Kirigiri spell it out, if he'd had the time.
But there was another piece of the puzzle that made him frown deeply. "So the headmaster's room is the only place in all this destruction that remains suspiciously untouched?"
"I'm aware of the implications," Kirigiri said, tension vibrating through her quiet words. "There was a deliberate choice here, even if we can't determine just what that choice was at the moment."
"Wait." Ogami looked from one of them to the other. "Wait… you're saying that this room belongs to the mastermind?"
"No." The word snapped out before Ogami had even finished her question. Kirigiri's eyes burned dark in her pale face as she met Ogami's startled stare. "No. The headmaster is not the mastermind. I don't know what else is going on here, but… I'm sure of that."
"Oh, yeah?" Jill stepped forward, not at all intimidated by the anger radiating from Kirigiri. "Maybe it's easy for you to have faith in Daddy Dearest, but the rest of us aren't gonna be bought off with ponies and picture books."
Kirigiri crossed her arms, and though the pose seemed relaxed, Togami could see how tightly her fingers dug into her elbows. "Don't call him that. He's made his lack of interest in the position clear, and I assure you that I do not harbor any unnecessary affection for such a man." She took another breath, shallow and too quick. "Nevertheless, I… I do not believe that the headmaster is the mastermind. I know I could still be wrong… but too many parts of this game wouldn't make sense if the headmaster were the one behind it."
"I agree," Togami found himself saying. He hadn't thought much about the headmaster since realizing the truth of that horrible trial… but now that he did, some pieces were clicking into place. "The mastermind… they knew we would be suspicious of Kirigiri once we learned about her connection to the headmaster. They used that to… to…" Tightness closed his throat, freezing the words unspoken.
"To create discord among us," Kirigiri finished, jumping in before he had to acknowledge his inability to say as much. "They wanted us to fight one another during the last trial, using in-fighting to distract us from the truth that was right in front of us."
"Those clues about the headmaster were an attempt to isolate Kirigiri," Togami added, forcing his voice back under control. "And while that doesn't make it impossible for the headmaster to be the mastermind… it does seem unlikely that the mastermind would use their true identity for a distraction, after going to so much trouble to hide it."
Jill's eyes darted from Togami to Kirigiri, scissors snipping absently through the air while she searched for whatever answers she expected to find. After a moment, she shrugged, scissors disappearing as swiftly as they'd appeared. "If you say so, darling."
"Then… who is the mastermind?" Ogami asked, brow wrinkling with confusion. "If it isn't the headmaster… then we don't have any way of knowing. Surely they will expect us to be able to identify them as part of solving the school's mysteries, won't they?"
"Undoubtedly," Kirigiri said crisply, mouth thinning to a white line. "Which is why we're investigating. I'm certain that there are clues to the truth somewhere — it wouldn't be a game if we had no chance to win. The trick will be uncovering the evidence we need, and understanding what it means."
Not that they had any evidence on this matter — none that Togami could see, at any rate. All the clues he could think of were nothing more than part of the mastermind's gambit to delude them. But even so, he didn't doubt Kirigiri's assertion that evidence would exist somewhere — that much fit with what they'd all experienced of the mastermind's twisted methods. That made it all the more vital to uncover new information — and more to the point, searching new places for secrets they hadn't yet found.
Kirigiri had mentioned a door, Togami remembered… a door that she hadn't been able to open. His eyes flew across the room… and yes, there on the far wall, he could see the outline of a hidden door near the computer desk. And there, he could see the keyboard on hand for electronic input… so it had to be the door she'd meant. He strode across the room to try it, more out of reflex than because he doubted Kirigiri's claim that it was locked.
Sure enough, the locked door only clattered beneath his fingers, refusing to move in either direction. He scowled at it for a moment, then turned back to the other girls. "It's obvious that there must be a room back here. And even if the headmaster isn't behind this game, the mastermind has been using him as a decoy. This room could hold the information we need — especially since they've gone to all the trouble of sealing it."
"Doesn't do us much good if we can't get at it, though," Jill pointed out.
Ogami examined the door, pressing a palm against it near the hinges to test the weight. "I suppose that if there are no cameras here… I could try to break it down."
"Don't," Togami said at once, before she could take that idiotic plan any further. "Cameras or not, we'd still be stuck with a broken door as proof that we'd ignored the school rules."
As he spoke, the memory of the other broken doors flashed through his mind — the headmaster's office, and Ogami's own dorm room. His long-held instincts flared, screaming at him to use the obvious vulnerability to burn his point in as deeply as possible — but he swallowed it back before the words could form. There would be no value in reopening the wounds of Asahina's death.
And it was unnecessary, in any case. Ogami nodded easily enough at his order, letting her hand fall from the door and stepping back out of range. The same result, but without the distress that would have come from using her friend against her. This was… better, surprisingly enough.
"We should avoid such drastic measures as long as possible," Kirigiri agreed, her eyes fixed on the closed door. "Our best chance of opening the door is to figure out the password. But… I will say that I have exhausted every possibility that occurred to me."
"Any chance Papa Bear was the type to leave his passwords stuck under the keyboard?" Jill asked, tapping her scissors against her palm.
Kirigiri grimaced, though Togami couldn't tell if it was at the suggestion or at the absurd nickname. "I've already searched the room quite thoroughly. If he were careless enough to leave such a reminder, it was removed before any of us could get here."
Meaning that their only option was to guess. Togami grimaced the range of possibilities. "The most secure passwords are entirely random."
"I'm aware," Kirigiri said tightly. "But very few people actually follow that particular security precaution. Most passwords have some kind of meaning to the person who chose them."
And a detective would certainly have reason to know that, regardless of any personal connection to the matter. Togami saw no reason to doubt her conclusion, at least for now. Still, it wasn't as though it did them any good. With the little Kirigiri seemed to know of her father, she would hardly be able to provide any more insight than the rest of them. After all, if any of them had even met the headmaster, it wasn't as though they would remember —
Togami froze, eyes locking onto Jill.
