As Naegi stared up at the monitors showing his friends' poleaxed expressions, all he could wonder was why he hadn't seen this argument coming. Of course Junko would take the position that he'd been the one to kill Mukuro. She had to, if she wanted to claim the last trial had been fair. But that didn't make it any easier to hear her say it.
And from the fury rising on his friends' faces, it had been even harder for them. Even split in half by the shadowed lighting, he couldn't miss the fiery blaze of Jill's red glare or the threatening battle aura pulsing from Sakura's tense muscles. Kyoko's head bowed sharply down at the words, shrouding her entire face in shadow, but even so the taut lines of her neck and shoulders were impossible to misread.
And Byakuya — god, Byakuya — Naegi couldn't even bring himself to look at the other young man now, not if he wanted to stay calm enough to watch the rest of the trial. He'd only gotten a glimpse of the shock and pain written across the heir's features before ripping his eyes away, but it had been enough to etch it irretrievably into his memory. However much Byakuya had been hurt already, Junko's accusation had just added a little bit more.
"Naegi did not do this."
Sakura was first to break the silence, her definitive words blocking the attack against her friends just as she might have tried to catch a physical blow. Her gaze locked on Monokuma, with the same look in her eye that had stared down opponents in fight after bloody fight.
Junko's laughter rang out for a moment, before Monokuma's cackles drowned her out. "That's not the way I remember it! Now, be absolutely sure to correct me if I'm wrong about this, buuuuuut… I seem to recall Naegi fessing up when the chips were down!"
Naegi's fingers clenched uselessly through the air, trying to curl together in a frustrated fist — but he couldn't quite complete the motion. Of course she'd bring up his confession, the desperate lie he'd told to keep her from slaughtering their friends. Of course she'd do her best to turn it against him.
"Like that second-rate excuse for a confession means anything!" Jill lunged forward over her podium to jab the points of her scissors as far as they could go towards Monokuma. "The votes already pulled the pin — what else was Makyutie gonna do but jump on that grenade?"
"If he'd kept protesting his innocence, it would have opened the door to letting you execute all of us for voting wrong." Kyoko's head lifted just enough to reveal her lips twisting up in a thin, dark smile. "I wonder why you didn't take the opportunity."
The challenge froze Naegi in place, horrified images of his worst nightmares flashing through his imagination. It had sounded like Kyoko wanted to taunt the mastermind about missed opportunities, to goad her into murdering everyone after all. And if Junko took her up on it —
Then it would be as good as an admission that Naegi's execution had been based on a lie. Even as he caught up to what Kyoko had to be thinking, he could hear Junko's huff of annoyance. "Ugh, seriously, if that's her opening act, this trial is gonna be a yawn!"
The words only sounded through the data center — for the first time since she'd headed into the control room, Monokuma didn't echo Junko's words. Not entirely sure it was a good idea, Naegi risked a glance toward the Monokuma door — and met Junko's eyes as she leaned back to grin at him.
His back slammed hard against the wheelchair as he instinctively jerked back, sending the chair wheeling ever so slightly in the opposite direction. She giggled, fluttering her fingers in a coquettish wave before bouncing back towards her control panel and out of his line of sight.
"Why indeed? Sure is a good question to ask!" Monokuma's gleeful cackle rang out, even though Junko hadn't laughed at all herself. "I guess it must be because the vote was right!"
"It wasn't."
The moment he heard Byakuya's voice, Naegi's full attention snapped away from the control room and back to the monitors. His boyfriend glared up at Monokuma, and Naegi just knew he was imagining the robot shredded down to its circuitry. He bit his lip, reminding himself that Byakuya was too smart to act on the impulse — and that surely, surely one of the girls would stop him from any potential lapses in judgment.
"There is no way that Naegi could have orchestrated Ikusaba's murder." Byakuya's eyes never wavered from Monokuma, but his hands clutched tight at the podium's edges, like it was the only anchor left to hold him in place. "During the entire time that the real killer would have been setting up the details of their crime, Naegi was unconscious from his injuries in the library. Between the exhaustion and the blood loss, he wouldn't have had the physical ability to perform the necessary actions."
"You think?" Monokuma spoke like it was a genuine question in a friendly debate. "But what if he was faking? I mean, that'd give him all kinds of opportunities, right?"
"Faking? Does that mean you're gonna accuse my beautiful scissors of being forgeries next?" Jill spun silver blades around her head for emphasis. "Not a chance! You'd better believe I know exactly where they go — and he took it all the way to the hilt!"
Only after spotting the faint twitch of revulsion in Byakuya's cheek did Naegi notice the innuendo hidden in Jill's phrasing. A hint of warmth crept into his cheeks, in spite of the hundred other worries that should've been occupying his attention. Fortunately, his friends were nowhere near as distracted by Jill's habit of inappropriate jokes.
"The wound was most definitely genuine," Sakura agreed, her mouth thinning to a grim line. "I saw it quite clearly, both when I first extracted the scissors and later when I bandaged it. No fake wound would hold up to such close scrutiny."
"And it was exactly as serious as it appeared," Kyoko added. "I didn't get a chance to inspect the library until after the trial — but once I saw the quantity and patterns of bloodstains, the truth was unmistakable. That blood came from an injury exactly like the one Naegi received — and it would have resulted in the exact symptoms of blood loss that he exhibited."
"Wow… I didn't expect so much corroborating testimony!" Monokuma looked slowly around the circle, as if meeting each and every one of the students' eyes — even the portraits of the friends who would never stand in the circle again. "Do you guys know what this means?"
He grinned, and Naegi could see Junko's gleeful smile behind her robot's gleaming fangs. "You've all been plotting to circumvent my trials by basing your arguments on an unprovable theory!"
