"That's not true!" Togami snapped, scowling at Kirigiri. "You know perfectly well that it isn't. She," he jerked a hand towards Jill, "went through an execution, and I think we can all agree she's still breathing. Not to mention that Ogami survived her execution, even though the guns were ostensibly aimed at her."

"Well, sure — I can't go around killing whoever I want." Enoshima managed to answer before Kirigiri could, in spite of her slow and dragging tone. "Only Toko Fukawa tried to kill anyone, I told you that already. I had to have a method that could take her down without anyone innocent, or it wouldn't be fair. Same with the Ogre — if the verdict says Hina's getting punished, I can't exactly bust someone else for that same crime."

"Meaning that you admit that at least two of the executions were designed to let people survive them." Kirigiri nodded. "And both demonstrated very clearly that the purported victims hadn't actually been killed when the execution stopped. Once again, the methods left no uncertainty regarding the outcome — only Naegi's was different."

"Wh-wh-whuh?" Jill tilted her head as if this statement had confused her, though Togami doubted that was actually the case. The genocider had proved several times that she was much smarter than she liked to pretend… and her eyes gleamed far too sharply for his liking. "Are you saying that we've been calling these things 'executions' all this time when there was really an option to chicken out on the real killing deal?"

"Not for everyone," Kirigiri corrected. "Out of all of the students in the game… only Naegi had the chance to live. And our hidden sixteenth student made absolutely sure that he would."

"I getcha, I getcha!" Jill began tossing a pair of scissors up and down, not even looking to make sure she caught them safely. "You're talking about whatever went down after the trial — when Bubblegum up there dragged him out and took him home like a lost little puppy!"

A single nod was the only response Kirigiri gave.

The scissors flew up again in a flashing arc. "When they played a serious game of doctor to make sure he survived."

Kirigiri dipped her head once more, and this time she didn't raise it again. Shadows spilled across her face until her expression was completely obscured.

Up and down, up and down, the scissors spun with a wild madness. "When she saved him — while Master Byakuya thought he'd died."

Her head snapped towards the two boys — and her blood-red eyes chilled Togami to the bone as they landed on Makoto. His instincts screamed to yank his fragile, injured boyfriend out of that glare, to pull him close and wrap him in a protective embrace that could shield him from any danger — but he forced his arms to remain still. Moving Makoto now would only hurt him further… and it wouldn't do anything to dispel the threat aimed at him.

"All that time that my darling White Knight was falling apart, when he walked through the school like he was the one who'd become a ghost, when he tried to go where I couldn't follow him — Makoto Naegi was alive."

No nickname — she hadn't used one of her ridiculous nicknames this time. And for some reason, that sent a fresh spike of terror through Togami's heart.

"Of course Makoto was alive," he sneered, shoving the fear back behind a veneer of arrogant sarcasm. "He's here now, isn't he? So where else do you imagine he would have been a few hours ago?"

Jill shrugged a shoulder, never missing a beat with the bladed death flashing around her. "Sorry, baby, but the tough questions aren't my thing. You want someone to figure out the past, better give Nancy Drew there a call! Only thing I know is where he wasn't."

Her hand snapped forward in time with her words. "He wasn't in that elevator when that execution ended — when you couldn't even walk out of that trial room without help."

She snatched her scissors from the air as they fell one final time. "He wasn't in the cafeteria when we needed help to figure out what happened during that train wreck of a vote — or when you lost it after we found out the answer."

And she lunged out, jabbing her scissors straight at Makoto's heart. "And he sure as hell wasn't in that garden, when you needed his help the most."

Togami felt Makoto's flinch through his fingers, jolting through his entire body like a shared electric shock. "He couldn't have —"

"I had to find you!" Jill slammed both hands against the front of her podium, leaning further out over it than she should have been able to manage without collapsing. "I had to find you broken, bleeding inside and out, ruined and hurting in a way that wasn't beautiful at all!"

A powerful emotion trembled through her, though he couldn't quite pinpoint what. She clutched at the podium like a lifeline, leaning out into the open air beyond it like she wanted to leap across the circle and damn the consequences. This girl didn't act like the laughing, cheerful genocider they'd all met back in Owada's trial, the girl who'd hardly seemed to care about anything but murder. She acted the same on the surface, yes, but now she'd gone somewhere beyond it… somewhere desperate.

But what right did she have to look at him with any kind of desperate demand, just seconds after she'd flung yet another terrible accusation at Makoto? Who did she think she was to Togami himself, that she could throw all his failures and griefs back in his face? She'd helped him in the garden, but that did not give her a free pass to join in the malicious attacks against his boyfriend.

"Nothing you've said adds up to a speck of real proof." He met Jill's blazing red eyes with a vicious glare, pointedly running his thumb across the back of Makoto's hand in an obvious gesture of support. "It sounds to me like you're just another delusional girl attacking the boy I picked instead of you."

He'd expected an explosion, an attack, flinging sharp words and possibly even scissors across the circle as she lashed out against the truth he'd thrown at her. But instead… she slumped down against the podium, looking at him with eyes that on anyone else he would have called sad.

"Oh, darling… I really wish you were right this time." She shook her head, and that simple gesture was somehow even more frightening than her cackling laughter. "I'd walk through fire if you needed me on the other side… and you know, up till now I thought he would do the same." She straightened slowly, curling up to her full height. "But when push came to shove, he didn't. And I'm thinking his snooping detective friend there has nailed down the reason why."


Schedule Note: The holidays are upon us again, and I will not have time to write till we're through the new year and all my associated travel is complete. Next chapter will be up on January 12, 2020. Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it, and Happy New Year!