As the elevator began its slow descent to the depths of the school, Togami could almost believe he was standing there alone. With so few of the students left to take part in the mastermind's trials, the once crowded elevator now seemed vast enough that whole galaxies could stretch between him and any of the others. They'd all fallen into the same places they'd taken before every class trial… and from his position at the back, the empty center of the room drew his gaze like a gaping wound. Naegi had always chosen to stand there, surrounded by all the people he'd called his friends…

And now it was just another empty space that could never be filled again. It was no wonder that the surviving students had always shied away from standing where their dead companions had been.

The elevator dragged them deeper and deeper, sinking down and down and down until the descent had taken longer than any of the earlier trips. Was it just a trick to skew their perception, or were they going to a different location entirely? Maybe every trial had been in a different set of rooms — if the circle of podiums stayed the same from floor to floor, how would they ever know? Maybe the room where the elevator was taking them would be one that they'd never set foot in before.

Maybe it wouldn't be the one where Naegi had died.

Would that make the trial easier… or would it just be all that much worse? Both options hurt to consider, and he still hadn't come to a conclusion by the time the elevator doors finally creaked open to a dark room.

"Took you long enough!" Monokuma's voice rang out from the room. "I was starting to think I accidentally made the announcement for Senior Skip Day instead of the class trial!" He burst into obnoxious laughter at his own joke.

Kirigiri paid him no attention, already halfway across the room. The harsh clip of her heels never faltered, even as the bear's peals of mad laughter nearly drowned them out. She moved with the single-minded determination of a woman on a mission, and for the first time it struck Togami that this, this was the Ultimate Detective on the trail of a case. She would go wherever her quarry led her, if it brought her closer to the truth she sought — even if she had to go into danger alone.

Before he knew it, Togami found himself striding forward after her, leaving the dubious security of the elevator behind. He had the brief sensation of plunging into darkness, in the moment before his eyes adjusted to the shadowy lighting. Even then, he could see little more than the pale flash of Kirigiri's hair as she took her place at the circle of shapes he could only assume were podiums.

After five trials, he hardly needed to check the podium names to find his place. Using Kirigiri's position as a marker, he navigated around circle until he found the space he knew would be his, with portraits of Fujisaki and Celeste on either side. In the darkness, the sepia-toned pictures were impossible to see clearly… and knowing which portrait would be added to their number this time, Togami could almost feel a twisted sort of gratitude.

Other footsteps sounded through the room, darkness moving against darkness in the space around the circle. If he looked closely, though, Togami found that he could track the line of Ogami's hair and the flash of Jill's scissors as the two girls inched their way to their places.

Were they really meant to proceed with the trial in a room this dark? Arguing with voices that they couldn't put to faces? Togami narrowed his eyes, trying to peer through the shadows to his left. He knew Jill stood with a mere two podiums between them, closer to him than either of the other girls — but even so, he could only see a few glimmers of definition against her dark silhouette. He could probably tell if she smiled, if she frowned — but no more than that. Any nuances of expression would be invisible to him. And as for Ogami and Kirigiri across the circle —

"Do you really expect to prove anything by holding a trial in the dark?" Kirigiri asked, a flash of irritation coloring her words. "I thought you wanted the world to watch us. Don't tell me you've decided that you have something to hide after all."

"Hide? Me?" Monokuma's voice rang through the room. Even with his perception distorted by his limited hearing, Togami could still tell that the sound came from speakers all around them, not just the robot perched on a throne at the head of the circle. "Aw, and here I thought you could read me like a book!" He laughed, as if there had been a joke in the words.

Togami glanced across the circle to where he knew Kirigiri stood, but at this distance he couldn't tell what she was thinking. Had the taunt hit her like a blow the rest of them couldn't see, or had she ignored it as she did everything else she deemed unimportant? Was she standing strong, or had the doubt he'd seen creeping into her manner begun to make her falter? With darkness consuming the room, there was no way to know.

After far too long, Monokuma's laughter screeched to a sudden halt, as abruptly as it had started. "Well, fine, I guess I can make allowances just this once," he said brightly. "After all, I wouldn't want you to come crying afterward saying that I wasn't fair!"

And with that final word, light blazed through the room. Togami's breath hissed sharp through his teeth as he clenched his eyes shut a moment too late, pain shooting deep into his skull. Laughter roared through the room again, the mastermind's petty pleasure in causing them physical pain from flaring bright light against vision adjusted to deep darkness.

The laughter stopped before his eyes recovered from the assault, and the ringing silence left behind seemed even louder. Muscle by muscle, Togami forced his clenched eyes to ease enough that he could pry them open again.

Spots flared up again at the bottom of his vision, burning white hot against the dark — but Togami blinked several times in rapid succession, forcing himself not to retreat behind closed eyes again. After a moment, the light imprinted on his vision began to dissipate, letting the room come back into focus at last.

And finally, finally he could see the other girls, standing around the circle. He knew objectively that he'd seen them just a few minutes ago in the elevator, but even so, he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd just found them again after an eternity trapped alone in the darkness.

Although the darkness hadn't left them entirely, not yet. The shadows still drenched the room around them, almost tangible beyond the lonely circle of podiums in the center of the room. The only defense against the dark was a ring of lights, shining a narrow beam upward from each of the sixteen podiums. The beams of light were barely enough to illuminate each of the faces, human or picture, in the ring around him.

No… that wasn't quite it. With the three girls, it wasn't quite so obvious, but the portraits made it clear. Looking from image to image, Togami could see that the lights had been meticulously set to illuminate exactly half of each student's face. All the students had been split down the middle into light and dark, black and white.

And then his eyes fell on Naegi's portrait — on Naegi's innocent face, painted black and white in the mastermind's colors — and the room tilted around him until gravity lost all meaning. The sheer, obscene wrongness of the picture seized through his chest, knocking the breath from his lungs — but he couldn't look away, couldn't find the strength to tear his eyes from the image. It wasn't Naegi, wasn't anything like having him here in the circle, was actually worse than if there had been nothing but empty space where he used to stand — and Togami couldn't look away.

"Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?" That was Ogami's voice, he noted distantly, her words fierce with the outrage he couldn't quite feel.

"If you wanted to get some lighting, looks to me like we found the Wikipedia entry for a half-assed job!" And that one was Jill, too sharp and edged with a wild laughter that didn't spring from amusement.

"Aw, you mean you aren't a fan of the mood lighting?" Monokuma sang out. "And after I worked sooooo hard to get it just right!"

"It doesn't matter."

Kirigiri's flat dismissal cut through the room, jolting through Togami's entire body — and before he could think about it, he found his gaze snapping across the circle to stare at her. She stood with her arms crossed, one finger tapping impatiently against her elbow as she scowled at Monokuma. "I don't care about your decorations as long as we can see each other. We can start the trial now."

"Huh? You want to start now?" Monokuma tilted his head in confusion. "Before everyone's here?"

Togami frowned. What was that supposed to mean? All four of the surviving students had entered the trial room already — who was left? His gaze swept around the circle, confirming the girls were still where they ought to be. Jill, scissors snapping at the ready… Ogami, poised as if she expected to lunge into battle at any moment… and Kirigiri —

Kirigiri, frozen at her podium, one visible eye wide against a face bleached too pale in the beam of white light. The expression would be slight on anyone else, hardly noticeable on a more expressive face — but here, now, with her of all people, Togami could see the shock as if she'd written it plainly. Monokuma's words hadn't just confused her as they had the other three students — they'd hit her with the first blow of the trial, drawing blood before she'd thought to defend. Why had those words hit her? What had she heard in them that no one else could?

"Come on, everyone!" Monokuma called out in his cheeriest voice. "Let's give a big warm Hope's Peak welcome to someone who wasn't quiiiiiite as dead as we thought!"

Red gleamed through the room, sparks of light flying sharp and bloody from the floor. Lightning slashed across the middle of the circle, a jagged bolt of lightning as red as Monokuma's eye, its tip pointing straight at Kirigiri — until it began to spin.

Round and round it flew, too dizzying to track, a solid blur of motion, red on red on red —

And then it stopped, lightning blazing along the floor of the circle in a line that pointed directly at Fujisaki's podium… just as the portrait began to turn a familiar green.

"Um… hello? Can you all really hear me?"

Fujisaki's face glowed a moment longer on the portrait… and then it flickered for all the world like a computer screen. And when the image came back… Alter Ego was peering out at them.


Schedule note: No new chapter next week, due to Real Life stuff that will be happening. Next chapter will be on March 3, 2019. See you then!