Togami stood frozen at his podium, the world spinning in dizzying circles around him. Remembered words and forgotten feelings clamored for his attention, each fighting to overwhelm the other until he couldn't tell any individual thought apart from the whole. He could only stand still and alone in the madness, eyes locked on the line of Makoto's fingers against the shadow of the wheelchair.
"You trust me."
The words Makoto had said to him, the breaking point that destroyed the last of his resolve to kill — they echoed through his head again, woven throughout the rest of his tangled mind. Makoto had eviscerated him with those words, torn his layers of armor away to leave his heart unprotected and vulnerable. Could an ordinary high school boy, a commoner with nothing more than luck on his side, have come up with such an effective attack?
But he'd realized already that Makoto had never been as ordinary as he first appeared. Not really.
He'd known how to argue in the trials. Yes, Kirigiri had coached him in piecing together his logic — but that was all she'd done. The rhetoric, the timing, the force behind it all had been his own. None of the other students had been able to argue their cases so effectively, spinning the trials to end as they'd wanted. Everyone had listened to Makoto.
They'd all listened… and not just during the trials, either. Time and again, Makoto had urged them all to work together and to fight against the mastermind. He'd asked them all to avoid killing, in a situation designed to have them at one another's throats. No one could be so kind and selfless in this kind of situation, Togami had understood that as soon as the rules had been announced. The students would turn on one another sooner rather than later, and any attempts at a ridiculous friendship would only lead to death. After the first death proved it, the other students should have treated Makoto as a fool. His word should have been less than meaningless.
Except that the exact opposite had occurred. The more time passed, the more murders occurred… the more trustworthy Makoto had seemed to be. Even when the pair of them had been under suspicion of some sort of conspiracy involving their discovery of Ogami's blackmail, it had only taken a few days for the students to begin to listen to Makoto again.
How much power would that be, to be the only person whose words could be trusted?
Togami couldn't raise his gaze from Makoto's hand as the questions whirled through him. What would he see on the other boy's face if he looked? He didn't know — he didn't know — and ice snaked through his chest to grip a frozen heart as horrific possibilities whispered through his head. The thoughts squirmed deep into the recesses of his head, under the control of some force other than his own mind —
Or rather, the force of his mind as he'd been, before he'd met Makoto.
He recognized the pattern of calculation, the paranoia and the suspicion, the what-if scenarios he'd had to evaluate to survive life in his ruthless family. He knew what his mind had begun to do, as clearly as if he'd seen it written out, even as he choked at the thought of applying that suspicion to Makoto.
And what did that mean, that he didn't want to do it? Because there would be nothing to worry about, nothing to find, if he were looking at someone innocent. So why did he want so desperately to look away? Was it proof that something had gone terribly wrong with him?
Or was it possible that the person who'd gone wrong was —
No. Impossible. Makoto had been kind when he could have been cruel, brought happiness and warmth when he could just as easily have caused pain. He'd had power, yes, but he'd used it for good. He'd cared for the people around him, even when they'd been enemies. Even when it caused him pain.
He'd been exactly the sort of person that Togami had never believed could exist. And every moment he'd been there, been real, acting on beliefs that no sane person could hold, Togami had felt his walls slip down a little further.
Staring at pale fingers lying still on the dark wheelchair, Togami felt his throat muscles tighten, clenching back a scream of bottled fury. Do something — do anything! Look at me, talk to me, smile at me, do whatever you need to make me listen! Tell me it isn't true!
But Makoto didn't move, and in the silence Togami could feel his own heartbeat thrumming too loud in his ears. What was he supposed to do? With even his own mind turning against him and joining in the chorus of accusations, with a thousand little moments reminding him that they looked just a little too perfect, with the resounding nothing coming from the boy at his side — how could he possibly figure out what to do?
As slow and inevitable as the tide creeping up the shore, he turned away from the wheelchair, lifting his head to look back across the circle. Four sets of wary eyes stared back at him, even Enoshima from her throne. Had any of them been talking? He thought that perhaps they had, but he hadn't been able to hear them over the argument screaming in his head.
He didn't want to hear it, either. Whatever words they'd meant to inflict on him, he was not going to sit back and let them add damage on top of pain. "It wasn't just here, during this game. I might not remember it, but our relationship started long before the game ever did. Whatever you think might have happened here, you can't say the same about when we first met."
The other girls blinked, but Kirigiri was already shaking her head before he'd even finished speaking. "You don't know, either. Unless you're going to tell us your memory has conveniently returned, as well." A skeptical lift of her eyebrow warned against any attempt to derail the trial with such a lie.
Not that he wanted to. Not that he could, when the need for truth beat through him with all the drive of a second heartbeat. "Don't be stupid. I don't have to remember, not when someone," he gestured at Jill, "already told us that much."
Jill shrugged. "Sure, I knew you two were a thing back in the day, but it's not like I got to read every word of that story. It looked pretty much the same, all sugar and sweetness — but what the hell, I look like your basic boring schoolgirl. Looking sweet doesn't mean much."
Which was true, damn her. He knew not to put much stock in superficial appearances. But even so… he shook his head. "Then — what? You're saying Makoto was manipulating me from the start? For two whole years? That's ridiculous! He'd have to be brilliant, at a level no one else could even conceptualize. He'd have to be —"
Smarter than me.
Anyone who could do that would have to be smarter than Togami knew himself to be.
And as he realized that much, a shadow of admiration began to spark in the darkest part of his soul.
