Naegi wished he had a good answer for Kyoko's question. Why would Junko save him? Even after all the time she'd spent talking at him, he couldn't figure it out. And any guesses he could come up with… he shook his head. "I don't know why. I wish I did."

Kyoko didn't say anything to that — which meant she was thinking hard. Eyes locked on him, maybe, but he had no idea what she was actually seeing. She knew so much more than he did, even with her memories gone and his intact — if anyone could work out what Junko had been planning, it had to be her.

"Wait… wait a moment." Sakura broke through his thoughts, her eyebrows knitting together. "The mastermind saved you… they let us all believe you were dead, but they saved you." Her breath faltered, slow and painful, as if trying to fight against the words she was about to say. "Then… if you're still alive… what about the others?"

What about Hina?

The question rang through the room, even though Sakura never spoke it aloud. Naegi winced at the terrible flickers of hope building in her expression. But still, he couldn't blame her for wondering. After all, if he was alive, why not any of the others?

He couldn't let her keep thinking that way. The longer Sakura let herself think there was a chance that her best friend might still return to her, the more painful it would be for her to hear the truth. He had to stop that hope from growing, before breaking it became more than she could bear.

"I'm sorry… but no one else survived."

It would have been easier if the words had made her cry. As much as tears would have hurt, they would have been better than the slow fall of shadow in her eyes. That was what Junko wanted from all of them, Naegi realized, his own eyes burning at the sight of Sakura's pain. For them to glimpse hope just long enough to believe in it… and then to learn it had been nothing but a cruel lie.

But Naegi believed his friends were stronger than that. They'd survived the worst nightmares a broken world had thrown at them. Even if they couldn't remember it, they'd found a way to live through it all.

And sure enough, Sakura took a last ragged breath and pushed her grief aside. It cost her to do so, Naegi could see that in the heave of her shoulders and the lines in her brow — but she dredged up the strength to do it anyway.

"I understand, Naegi. Thank you for telling me the truth." Sakura inclined her head towards him in a small, fragile nod. "Of course you were the only other student left."

"Except that's not quite what he said." Kyoko spoke before Naegi could even begin to think of what to say. She crossed her arms as she stared at him, tapping one finger against her elbow in an unrelenting beat. "No one else survived."

"Yes, we all saw the other bodies," Byakuya said, the corners of his mouth tightening with impatience. "None of them left room for doubt. What's your point?"

Kyoko glanced at him. "You wouldn't know, of course. You weren't able to enter the Bio Lab." A fraction of a smile crossed her lips. "If you're going to insist on my point — I'd like to hear Naegi's explanation for how it's possible that no one else survived when there were two missing bodies in the lab."

Junko. Naegi didn't know what his friends had seen in the Bio Lab, but he knew exactly what they hadn't. Junko's body would have been missing, too.

Except… would Kyoko have known that? As far as she remembered, the only "Junko Enoshima" she'd ever met had died before their first class trial. So then… what exactly was she talking about? He couldn't be sure, not when her trains of thought always outstripped his own by far… but then again, she knew that, too. She'd dropped a trail of enigmatic questions like breadcrumbs, a trail that he could just manage to follow behind her if he gave it his all.

She didn't know about Junko specifically… but that wasn't quite what she was asking. He met Kyoko's eyes again and gave her a single serious nod. "You're right. There's one more student who isn't dead yet — the mastermind."

Junko Enoshima.

He could hear the name ringing through his head, pulsing against his tongue — but when he tried to speak the words, his jaw clenched reflexively shut.

"What's wrong?" Byakuya's eyes narrowed, darting over Naegi as if he feared a new injury had appeared in the moments his attention had been elsewhere. "Did something happen?"

He would have liked to be able to say no, of course not… but… "I'm not sure."

Naegi bit his lip and raised his eyes to the black and white robot sitting on a throne across from him. He knew he wasn't looking at the girl he'd left in the control room… not her eyes meeting his or her mouth smiling bright and innocent… but even so, all he could see was Junko Enoshima.

"Did you do something to me?"

She laughed — her laugh, not Monokuma's, burbling cheerily even in the bear's robotic voice. "Aw, sweetie, you give me too much credit! What could little ol' me do to someone like you?"

… Which definitely wasn't an answer. Pinpricks of fear crawled across the back of his neck as he remembered how many times he'd been unconscious around her. He didn't know everything that had happened during the Tragedy, thank God, or even most of it… but he'd heard a few whispered horror stories about what members of Ultimate Despair could do.

"Sheesh, it was just a joke! Don't look so gloomy, you'll get wrinkles!" She giggled again, the Ultimate Fashionista again for a moment. "Come on, sweetie, you know it's no fun if I have to mess with your head to get anywhere! Nope, the only stuff in that little death trap is what you've put there yourself!"

What he'd put there? Naegi blinked, trying to understand what she meant. She wouldn't lie, not outright, that would be cheating… so she hadn't actually forced him not to name her as the mastermind. Which meant… he hadn't done so because… he didn't want to?

He didn't want to. The moment the thought crossed his mind, he knew it was right. Of course he didn't want to name Junko as the mastermind. How could he face the few friends he had left and tell them that one of their own had been behind this nightmare? He couldn't.

But he had to. They had to know. He tore his eyes away from Monokuma, looking back at the four students around him —

And found them all staring at him in shock. "What the hell was that?" Byakuya demanded, his grip tightening on Naegi's wrist.


Schedule Note: Between upcoming travel and other Real Life stuff happening in the next few weeks, the next chapter will be posted on June 16. See you then!