Togami didn't even dare to breathe as he stared at Jill, in case the idea settling in his mind might flutter out of reach like a startled butterfly. They needed to understand the headmaster better in order to guess what password he might have chosen, needed the memories that the mastermind had stolen from them if they had any hope of solving this riddle… and Jill's memories hadn't been wiped.
It only took a few seconds for Jill to realize she had his full attention. A wide grin curled across her lips as she met his gaze. "What's the matter, darling — see something you like?"
He paid no attention to her nonsensical chatter — he needed answers from her, not games. "Did you ever meet the headmaster?"
"Oh, that's all you're after?" Jill heaved a sigh of dramatic disappointment. "Well, not like I'm gonna say no to you, darling! Sure, I met him once or twice, even if I had to fake it as boring Miss Gloomy the whole time."
"You… you're saying that you met the headmaster?" A deep frown creased Ogami's face as she tried to make sense of it. "Before you came to Hope's Peak?"
"This was far from the ideal way to share that particular revelation — but there wasn't much choice. With the password to uncover, they no longer had time to dance around the idea. "The mastermind erased our memories to conceal the fact that a great deal more time has passed than we believed."
"Oh." Ogami blinked, then glanced down at her own arms. She touched a hand to one bicep and nodded slowly. "Oh… yes, I see. I'd wondered why…" She took a slow, shaking breath, then shook her head as if to clear it. "Then only Fukawa's memories were erased?"
"Guess so." Jill's expression darkened, fingers squeezing tight around a pair of her scissors. It didn't take a genius to see that she had to be thinking about the other time Fukawa had lost her memories.
Nothing good could come of dwelling on that. The last thing any of them needed in this situation was for the genocider to go back to the half-mad state she'd been in after losing her other half. Togami crossed his arms, reaching back into his memories for his best attempt at the imperious attitude that always got her attention. "The headmaster," he ordered sharply. "Tell us, now."
Jill's eyes flickered towards him, and for a moment he thought he saw grateful relief twist across her face. But then he blinked — and it was gone, her mouth spread wide in an exuberant grin. "Gotta love a guy who knows what he needs! Okay, darling, since you asked so very nicely, I'll give you anything you like!"
She tilted her head and thought for a moment, light flashing round the room as she spun her scissors idly around one finger. "Not like we spent a whole lot of time chatting, though. I knew better than to get up close and personal with anyone — too much risk I'd get stuck in a hardcore bondage cell with no way out! Only times I saw him were when I couldn't steer clear."
"Did he have any interests?" Togami pressed, refusing to let the lack of an immediate answer discourage him. "If you know the ways he chose to spend his time or the topics that drew his attention, it might give us a direction."
"If you're talking interests, I'd say he seemed like an all work and no play kinda guy to me," Jill said, shrugging. "No idea what he kept behind closed doors, but out where I could see him it was all schoolyard business."
Kirigiri sighed. "Passwords related to Hope's Peak were one of the first ideas I tried. None of them got me anywhere."
Jill put one hand on her hip and shook her head. "Then I hate to run out of steam when you're still good to go, darling, but that's all I've got. The teacher's favorite pet might've had more to say if she could remember any of her Daddy-Daughter bonding time, but I'm out."
Togami was about to try to jog her memory again when the words she'd said actually registered. Teacher's pet…? Daddy-daughter bonding…? As impossible as it sounded considering her apparent attitude, there was only one person that Jill could be referring to. His eyes shot to Kirigiri almost of their own accord — and the stony mask that concealed her face told him that she'd come to the same conclusion.
"Are you suggesting that I spent any amount of time engaged with the man who left the Kirigiri family behind? That I allowed him to go back on his decision to abandon everything we represent?" Tension coiled through her words, shaking as the pressure behind them rose. Togami wouldn't have expected her to be so willing to give them a glimpse of the emotions behind her iron mask… but the idea that she might be unable to conceal her feelings on the headmaster, of all possible topics, was even more disconcerting.
Not that anything about it disturbed Jill in the slightest, of course. She tossed her braids back and gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Dunno about any of that stuff! All I know is that every time I saw the head honcho, he had you right there along with him."
Kirigiri would keep fighting against Jill's argument — Togami could see the rejection of it burning in her vicious glare. Once, not so very long ago, he would have taken a sadistic glee in seeing such obvious proof that her icy mask concealed a girl as fallible and human as the rest of them… but now, a twisting pit of fear began to open in his stomach at the sight.
Did the mention of her father really strip away her defenses so thoroughly, when so many other painful topics couldn't? He didn't want to believe it was possible. Yes, old wounds most often cut the deepest, but how bad could her past relationship with her father really be? Surely not terrible enough that she'd risk losing everything just to deny him any presence in her life… surely not. The girl who'd bet all their lives on her ability to defeat the mastermind had to be stronger than that.
She was stronger than that, even if she'd lost sight of it at the moment — and they didn't have time for her to pretend otherwise. Togami narrowed his eyes and cut off her attempt to ignore the real point. "What you think right now doesn't matter."
Summoning the knife-sharp ice he knew the words needed took more effort than he'd expected, even with his own current state of weakness — but it was more than worth it when Kirigiri spun to face him with shock overcoming the anger in her eyes.
"We're talking about two years that neither of us remember," he snapped, jumping onto the offensive before she could respond. "Whatever you think might be possible, the truth is that you don't know what happened. You can't know, not for sure. And as long as you refuse to consider one of the possibilities, you might as well hand the mastermind the weapon to use against you."
Her eyes widened at the mention of the mastermind, and she drew a breath as sharply as if he'd struck her. Good — if he'd managed to drive home the reality of their situation, he'd take even so meager a win without complaint.
"I… I understand," she said, one hand curling into a fist at her side. Her gaze dropped to the ground in front of the door, rather than meet any of their eyes. "I don't speak of my father at all, if I can avoid it. And knowing the mastermind knew about this…" She shook her head sharply, lips thinning to a tight white line. "I would only have chosen to share information as personal as this with a very trusted friend."
"The mastermind has certainly proven themselves more than capable of learning our darkest secrets before now," Togami reminded her grimly.
"Yes… that's right, isn't it?" Kirigiri seemed as though she was talking to herself, rather than any of the other people in the room. "They knew all our secrets, not just mine. Secrets no one wanted to entrust to anyone here… secrets some of us would kill to protect. Somehow they knew all of it… and they used it to hurt us."
"They knew exactly how to exploit my own weaknesses against me as well," Ogami spoke up, her shoulders stiff and tense. "I'm glad that at the very least, you've spotted the trap before repeating my mistakes."
"The trap…" Kirigiri reached up to twist her fingers through her hair where her braid had been. "This is one of the mastermind's traps, isn't it? And if that's the case… if this is about the mastermind rather than the headmaster…"
She didn't complete the thought, turning on her heel and striding over to the computer.
"What are you doing?" Togami demanded as she bent over the keyboard.
"There's still one password I didn't try," she answered. "It… it wouldn't have been a choice the headmaster would have made for himself… but if this is a trap the mastermind set for me…"
Her fingers flew across the keyboard in a handful of staccato taps, too loud in the quiet room. Togami opened his mouth to insist she explain herself properly, but before he could —
The locked door swung open.
