Naegi watched Byakuya's eyes flicker across the voting buttons and then out around the circle of their friends, and icy fingers clutched his heart at the emptiness he saw there. He wanted to believe that his beloved boyfriend would never kill one of the others, not after they'd all gone through so much together to get this far… but he'd wanted to believe the same thing about each of his other friends. He couldn't deny that they could be hurt and broken enough to turn to murder… and now, at Byakuya's expression, he found his faith slipping out of reach.

"Don't hurt them." He'd meant to shout, to fling the words out with enough force to strike for what he wanted — but they came out as little more than a whisper, fragile and small in the vast darkness around them.

And he might as well not have bothered. Byakuya ignored the words, just like he'd ignored everything Naegi had said about the truth. His hand crept upward, inching closer to the buttons as slowly as if struggling against the tide. But did that mean that Byakuya was fighting to stop himself from making a terrible mistake… or to overcome his subconscious resistance?

"Huh? What's taking so long?" Junko's voice scraped across his already-raw nerves, tightening his shoulders till a warning jolt of pain shot down his arm. "I thought you were gonna help, not drag us down. Are you not ready to commit after all?"

Every word hit home, slamming into Byakuya's body with flinch after visible flinch. Naegi clenched his jaw, eyes burning furiously until the sight of his wavering boyfriend blurred. Why was he listening to her? She was just talking, no matter how smart she was. Naegi had poured everything he had into his pleas to stop, calling on every bond he and Byakuya shared — why hadn't it been enough?

"Wait a moment."

A scream would only have inflamed his panic further — but Kyoko's controlled, even voice cut through the roiling tangle of thoughts. He glanced her way just as she leaned forward, just a breath further into the narrow band of light. He'd thought he knew what her expression would be, all iron masks and cold determination — but something about the woman in front of him didn't quite match what his memory said she should be.

"This is still a trial, not an execution," she said, bracing her hands against the edges of the podium. "You agreed to give us a chance to uncover all the school's secrets, and we haven't failed yet." She smiled, without a trace of humor. "What will your audience think if you stop the show before it's over?"

"Who's stopping?" Junko giggled, and the every Monokuma surrounding the circle threw back its head in silent laughter. "Looks to me like our heart-throbbing battle between hope and despair is still on!"

Kyoko frowned. "But —" She stopped short, lips pressing into a thin line as her gaze flicked from the throne to the Monokumas. For a moment he thought that maybe she would keep talking, would come up with some brilliant idea that could stop everything from playing out according to Junko's plan — but she didn't say anything else after that. Of course she didn't — how could she, when she didn't even know whose plan this really was?

"It's not like fighting for despair is so bad, you know." All the emotion drained from Junko's body in an instant, and she slumped back against her throne with empty eyes. "When you look out at the world, it's the only side that makes sense. Not like there's anything else left to fight for — not for anyone here, at least." Her eyes shifted towards him, though the rest of her face never even twitched. "The mastermind made sure of that."

Nothing left to fight for — no matter how much he wanted to argue, it was hard to find the words to oppose her with knowledge of the Tragedy in his head. Against his will, Naegi recalled images of his ruined childhood home — not the brief glimpse from his video, but memories of tearing through the rubble in a desperate, futile search for any clue about his family's whereabouts.

And it wasn't just his own past that he'd seen shattered to pieces. When he looked across the circle toward Sakura, he recalled the wreck of her family's cherished dojo — toward Jill, the smashed bedroom with shredded manuscripts and scissors laid bare for anyone to find. He'd seen the Kirigiri family's closely-guarded secrecy torn away, faces and addresses plastered across the news broadcasts, and he'd heard about what happened as prison systems failed in nation after nation. And Byakuya — he would never forget the look on Byakuya's face when he learned what had happened to every other member of the Togami family.

Naegi's hand trembled against the wheelchair controls, and he couldn't have operated it even if he'd known where to go from here. With those memories in his head, how could he possibly tell his friends that they had a reason to keep fighting? He'd seen with his own eyes that none of them did.

How could he expect his friends to fight against despair, when he knew their hope for the world outside was just a cruel lie? He could he tell them that they ought to go on resisting, when he knew what was waiting for them if they succeeded? Not wanting them to die — not wanting them to kill each other — was that just his own selfishness talking?

No. No, he knew that wasn't true. It couldn't be. As long as they were still alive, that was enough. But — he couldn't think fast enough, couldn't move fast enough, couldn't reach across the darkness to make the others understand. The mastermind's darkness wrapped around them all in this pitch-black trial room, and he didn't have time to figure out how to break it. There were seconds, or even less than that, as Byakuya's hand moved forward, forward, shadows pressing all around them.

And then the room blazed.

He yelped, eyes slamming defensively closed against the sudden surge of harsh light. Beside him, Byakuya's startled breath hissed through his teeth, and three gasps of surprise came from around the rest of the circle.

No — four gasps. Including one from Junko's elaborate throne.

"If you're going to fight, you should do it fair and square!"

Naegi froze as Monokuma's voice rang out through the trial room. How could he be talking if Junko was here? The control room was empty, there was no one left to operate the robot. He forced his eyes open, cringing in the stark light that burned down through the trial room.

Another Monokuma stood in the center of the circle — the one Junko had been holding, until she'd lost interest and tossed away. But unlike the robots surrounding the circle, whose red eyes seemed much less bright with the room alight around them — this robot's lightning eye burned brilliant green.

Green — like Alter Ego's computer screen.