Togami glared at Jill, her lackluster defense of Makoto even worse than if she'd stayed silent. As the only other person left with an intact memory, she ought to have far more effective arguments to marshal for his innocence. "You seriously expect us to believe that in the entire two years we all spent together, you saw nothing to indicate someone might be plotting against us?"
Jill shrugged, with far too carefree an attitude. "What can I say, darling? As long as my magnificent White Knight takes center stage, I'm not gonna waste my time looking at the supporting cast!"
Useless — but he shouldn't have expected any better, not really. She'd done nothing but stalk him throughout their entire time in the game, so why would he think she'd done anything differently back at Hope's Peak? Probably she'd been even worse, since back then there would've been no reason for her to keep her hands clean. He shouldn't have wasted a moment thinking that a crazed and cold-blooded serial killer would be any help with any memories other than her own disturbing fantasies about him.
Except… that wasn't quite true, was it? His memory nudged at him when he would have dismissed her entirely, bringing up flashes of those pain-blinded moments in the garden. Even the echo of that darkness made his stomach churn with horror, and if he moved his wrist wrong, he could still feel the jagged edges of his own despair slicing through his skin. He'd given up then, done his best to tear himself out of a world that had gone so wrong — and Jill had been the one to stop him.
She'd saved his life. A serial killer who took pleasure in seeing attractive men die, a stalker who'd been unhealthily obsessed with him, the one person who should have taken the greatest joy in his demise — and she'd saved his life. He couldn't just dismiss her as useless.
He narrowed his eyes at her, trying to see past the red eyes and leering grin. The shadows and dim beams of light changed the planes of her face if he stared, just enough that he could see a young woman not too different from the other students in the circle. She hadn't wanted to play this game any more than the rest of them… and if he was looked at her actions instead of her attitude, she'd done more to help them resist than many of the others. He had to admit that he believed she would fight against this if she could.
"Is there anything you do remember that might help?" he asked, before she could start chattering some idiocy that would erase the minuscule seeds of goodwill. "If you were paying attention to me, you must have spent some time watching Makoto as well. Did you notice anything that would prove that Kirigiri's theory is nonsense?"
Jill tilted her head, and for a moment he could see echoes of the Ultimate Novelist lingering in her. "Can't prove a negative, darling!"
"I don't need you to tell me that!" He knew how logic worked, of course he did — that was the problem with arguing for someone's innocence. It had been far easier when he could just attack a culprit with full conviction in their guilt. "How did he act back then? You should at least be able to say that!"
"That's an easy one — everyone knows you get the same Big Mac at any dining establishment!" Jill laughed uproariously. "Pretty sure a direct meteor hit wouldn't change our boy!"
"So you're saying that there was no difference between Naegi with and supposedly without his memories?" Kirigiri asked, slithering her way into a conversation that had almost been going well. "That's an interesting point."
"Yes, it's terribly strange that the same person would behave similarly over the course of two years." Togami rolled his eyes. "You say that's evidence now, but you'd say it proved the same thing if he'd had a major personality shift."
"Both would be unusual behavior," she agreed, without any shame at such a contradictory claim. "A dramatic shift in personality without a clear cause would mean that something significant had happened that no one else noticed — such as when Fukawa and Jill initially switched places before we fully understood them. But a lack of change over a two year period, during which he would have experienced a changing life far outside the realm of a normal high school student's world, is also suspicious."
"Then you mean… a normal person should have changed?" Ogami's eyes locked on Makoto, even though she spoke to Kirigiri — and the narrow light of the trial room etched shadows deep into her face. "He shouldn't have been the same, after — after everything that happened?"
Everything — meaning the whole two years they'd lost, not just that first year of a normal high school life. Icy fingers ghosted a chill down his spine as he remembered the rest of what Jill had told them. The world had fallen to ruin during those two years, lives destroyed and civilizations crumbling. Someone could plausibly remain fairly unchanged through high school — but could the same be said of the Tragedy?
Doubt gnawed through his stomach, just for a moment — a sour acid that ate through his insides to leave him mangled. When he saw the facts laid out so plainly like that, it seemed impossible. He could almost think that —
No. Togami gritted his teeth and clamped his fingers tight around Makoto's hand. No, he could not almost think that Makoto really had behaved suspiciously. He refused to do so. No matter how suspiciously Makoto might have acted back in those memories they'd lost, there would be a reason for it. He would make himself believe it if he had to.
"It doesn't seem realistic, does it?" Kirigiri went on. "Even apart from Jill's account, think about the conditions we're under now and all the strain the rest of us have been under. We've all been affected by what we've experienced, adopting different ways of thinking or altering our approaches to the world — but Naegi hasn't."
Her words snaked into his head in spite of his best efforts to ignore them, persistent enough to make him miss the trial when he'd had both ears deafened instead of just one. "You're accusing him because he didn't break under the pressure? That's ridiculous!"
"Is it? Or is it ridiculous to think that someone would react to betrayals and murders by insisting that we should all be friends?" Her lips seemed to twist just a fraction at that last word, so slightly that it might have been only a trick of the dim light. "He kept talking about trust and encouraging us to work together — and that's what let the mastermind's motives work every time."
He glared at her, trying to ignore how the logic resonated with the patterns of his own thoughts. He'd believed something similar during those first two trials, leading to his short-lived attempt at hiding in the library. Human interactions made the game more dangerous — and urging everyone to work together only put them all at greater risk.
"Then — then you truly believe it was on purpose?" Ogami's fists clenched at her side as she stared at Kirigiri, but the furious aura blazing from her was directed at someone else. The pressure of it pulsed across the circle, battering to get past Togami as it aimed for the innocent boy beside him. "That when he talked about — about friendship, and trust, and — and all of it — he only did it to get us killed?"
"No!"
But she didn't even seem to hear Togami's snarl, all her attention zeroing in on the tiny, fragile boy frozen in the wheelchair. "He did it on purpose?"
Was that really what she believed? After everything she'd said about believing Makoto to be good? Fury boiled up through Togami's throat, too fierce for any coherent words to break free. If he opened his mouth, he'd scream his rage at the girls across the circle, no matter how little good it would do.
"Man, if that's what you think, you really are going to get us all killed!"
Jill's wild laughter ricocheted through the room, a chaotic whirl of madness that broke through even Ogami's single-minded concentration. All eyes shot towards her — and even though she grinned back at them, no amusement at all lurked in her gaze. "Because if you all think Mahkyutie there is trying to trick you, you're crazier than your friendly neighborhood serial killer!"
"Is that so?" Kirigiri crossed her arms and met Jill's red gaze head-on. "I'm surprised to hear you say that, considering how many times we've seen him manipulate you."
