Togami stared at the strange girl who'd appeared in the circle, mind spinning as he tried to make sense of what was happening. How had he missed her approach? The darkness would have aided her, certainly, but he hadn't heard the elevator move. Had she been hiding in the trial room — or was there another entrance that he didn't know about?

And if so, how did she know? Who was she? The girl claimed to be Junko Enoshima, but his memories screamed that she wasn't. Or rather — that she wasn't the girl he'd met a few weeks ago, when all the student had introduced themselves for what they'd believed was the first time. That identification was remarkably easy to make — unlike the other shadowed podiums, a beam of light shone down on her throne to illuminate her with a bright halo. She was the only person in the room other than Makoto that he could see clearly — and he could tell that she wasn't the girl who'd gotten herself killed at the start of the game. It almost seemed like she could be telling the truth.

Except that she couldn't be. Even if her ridiculous claim of being Ikusaba's twin turned out to be true, why would they have switched places? What good did it do for the mastermind if the students in the game believed they had one sister with them rather than another? It would have taken an enormous amount of effort to fake something like that — effort that would be meaningless considering that the students would have had their memories of both girls erased anyway.

No, the girl's claim didn't make any sense, no matter how he turned it over in his head. This lie had to mark the beginning of an elaborate new plot on the part of the mastermind, and as long as they didn't give credence to anything she said —

"What are you doing here, Junko?"

Togami's head jerked back towards Makoto. The other boy was looking at the girl on the throne — was she really Enoshima? — with narrowed eyes, his body pressing ever so slightly back against the wheelchair, as if to put just a little more room between the two of them. But in spite of this show of wariness, he didn't seem inclined to call her out as a liar. No, he'd even used the name she'd claimed for herself — and considering that he of all of them had his memories back, he should certainly know.

"Aww, it almost sounds like you aren't happy to see me!" Enoshima stuck out her bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. "Don't tell me you're gonna hold a grudge that I showed up ahead of schedule!"

"You — what?" Makoto blinked a couple times. Whatever he'd expected her to say, that had apparently not been it.

She seized the opportunity to continue before he had a chance to gather his thoughts. "I know what you're thinking — who's gonna speak up for everyone's favorite mascot if I'm down here with you all! But it's okay — I've got us covered!" She held up the robot in front of her face, its paw dangling limply in the air. "Isn't it great that all my precious students can attend class together? Maybe it's a sign that we're gonna get past the remedial lessons!"

She burst into laughter — and ice shot down Togami's spine at the sound of Monokuma's cackle replicated in a teenage girl's voice. That laugh — he'd know that laugh anywhere, it would haunt his nightmares until the day he died — and no matter what voice it came in, he would recognize it as Monokuma's laugh.

And that, more than anything else, proved that she'd been telling the truth about at least one piece of her claim — she had to be the person behind Monokuma. She was the one they'd really been talking to every time they'd had to pretend that a stuffed bear could actually hold a conversation.

And if that much was true… what about the rest of it? Twins, switching places, everything Enoshima and Makoto had said still seemed impossible… but maybe it was just that he didn't have all the information yet.

"Have you been Monokuma's voice from the start of the game?" he demanded, interrupting Enoshima's attempts to contort the robot into Monokuma's favorite innocent pose. "Have you been here in the school with us the whole time?"

"Well, duh!" She had the nerve to roll her eyes at him, with the grating attitude of a teacher trying to bludgeon knowledge into a difficult pupil's head. "What, did you think I could've sneaked in partway through? Don't tell me you missed that great big lock we put on the front door!"

Apparently she really did have Monokuma's tendency to make stupid jokes at inappropriate moments, too. Why couldn't that part of the bear's persona have been an act?

"Then if you've been here all along, you must be the last of the sixteen students in the game," Kirigiri said, voicing the thought that was already running through Togami's head.

"Mm-hm…" Enoshima flopped over against one arm of the throne, propping her head against one hand as she stifled a yawn. "So?"

"So… wait." Ogami blinked, her forehead creasing in thought. "Wait, if there were only sixteen students… and Ikusaba was the one we met at the start instead of Enoshima… who was the victim in the fifth trial?"

"Maybe they had a few extras on hand for filler!" Jill suggested, with an utterly inappropriate level of cheer. "That set-up in the Bio Lab would've had the space for it!"

"And corpses don't count as —" Ogami stopped mid-sentence, horror crossing her face as she turned towards Kirigiri.

"Corpses don't count as people present in the school, due to the fact that the headmaster's body wasn't included," Kirigiri finished, as disinterested as if she were reciting a grocery list rather than referencing her father's murder. "Yes, that's one possibility, but I think it's unlikely — if that were the case, we'd have found too many bodies rather than too few. It's far more likely that one of the previous corpses was used in two murders."

"Recycling is an important way of giving back to the community!" Enoshima had lifted Monokuma to hide her face again, waving one of his paws as if to acclaim a speech. "No dead meat should ever go to waste!"

"Don't talk about her like that!"

Enoshima jumped at Makoto's furious shout, losing her grip on the robot. Monokuma fell to the ground with a clunk, the light dimming from his red lightning bolt eye as he collapsed into a heap.

Makoto didn't even look like he'd noticed, glaring at Enoshima with the fierce anger he'd only directed at Monokuma until now. "Mukuro was your sister — how can you say that about her?"

"I didn't say it was —"

"Shut up!" Makoto didn't let her finish the sentence. "She was your sister, and she loved you! How can you talk about her that way when you killed her?"

"Um… what?" Enoshima tilted her head, blinking at Makoto like she didn't quite follow what he was saying. "You care how I talk about her? Sheesh, could've fooled me!" She heaved a put-upon sigh. "Fine, fine, Mr. Tone Police, I'll dial back the sisterly rivalry — but only cause you asked!"

The exchange made Togami's skin crawl — but he couldn't quite pinpoint why. Maybe it was to be expected, though — after all, she was apparently a deranged murderer, even more psychotic than the genocider. He probably shouldn't be surprised if something about her conversation with Makoto sounded off.

Whatever it was that bothered him, the girls didn't appear to notice it. Ogami was frowning, her attention apparently focused elsewhere. "Then you mean that it was Ikusaba's body that was used twice?"

"Of course — hers was the only one that could have been," Kirigiri answered, her eyes fixed on Enoshima even as she spoke to Ogami. "The spear wounds that killed her during the first trial are the only cause of death that could match up with a later victim."

Togami nodded as he saw where she was heading. "The old wounds on the fifth victim's body — the one who was conveniently burned to the point of being unrecognizable." His eyes narrowed, and he spun to glare at Enoshima. "Which means that you sentenced Makoto to die as murderer of a victim who'd already been dead for weeks!"