Note: Short chapter this week because I came down with the plague. I'm better now, so next week should be back to normal. Thanks for your understanding!


Togami hardly had an instant to regret the agreement he'd just made before Kirigiri seized the opportunity, launching the conversation he'd been trying to stop. "I know you've considered the possibility that the mastermind has been among us from the start of the game. Regardless of your opinions on my theory, you've thought about the possibilities it would open to the person running the game."

And he could hardly deny that, not when the answer was so obvious. "Of course. It would give them a more direct observation method than the cameras, a way to interact with their players as the situation changed moment to moment. They could manipulate events more easily with feet on the ground." He shook his head sharply. "Though the obvious con is the incredible risk it would be to place themselves among their murder-bent players."

"With an accomplice to watch the cameras, getting killed themselves wouldn't be too high a risk," she pointed out. "They'd know who was doing what at any given time, and it would be easy enough to avoid getting caught in a killing trap."

"But that isn't the only risk. The greater one would be giving themselves away." Togami frowned, trying to recall how he'd debated the question with himself before this trial brought it into the open. "It would only take one slip of knowing more than they should to start looking suspicious."

"True enough — if they slipped. Would the person who designed every detail of this game really make such an obvious mistake?" She shook her head. "No. A person like that would have the confidence in their own skill that they could avoid any errors. For that kind of potential payoff, they would be willing to take a calculated risk."

A calculated risk for an incredible reward… the idea hit home in far too many of his own memories. How often had he done that very thing in his own past, as he fought to win the position of Togami heir? He'd taken equivalent risks to this, risks that he'd beaten with his own hard-earned skills… so how could he call it impossible for the mastermind to have done something similar?

He could feel his thoughts skittering down a dangerous path with those ideas… but even so, he couldn't see a point where the logic didn't make sense. This much did fit together, no matter how much he might want to disagree with Kirigiri just on principle.

"But just because they could have been among us, it doesn't follow that they were." It almost hurt to drag the words out, his chest heavy and tight with a tension he couldn't quite understand. "I may have considered the possibility that one of the students could be the mastermind, but I never found any definitive evidence. It's not as though anything happened that could only have occurred through direct manipulation."

"Evidence of manipulation?" She raised an eyebrow. "And what would you count as proof, considering that effective manipulation would be all but invisible?"

"The act might be invisible, but the effects wouldn't be," he said. "If someone were manipulated, it might be visible in their altered behavior." He shook his head. "But since none of us have a baseline understanding of one another's behavior, we can't exactly make a valid comparison in how anyone has changed."

"Not quite. Someone would be able to tell if the behavior they observed was their own."

"You think your behavior has changed?" The idea sounded vaguely plausible, except… "You said your memories were completely erased. That sounds like reason enough to explain any other alterations."

"I wasn't talking about my behavior," Kirigiri said, her words calm and deliberate enough to send a chill down his spine. "I meant yours."