Brightness streamed down through the trial room as Naegi smiled down at Alter Ego at his side — and for the first time, wheelchair or not, he felt like he could stand firm again. The shadowy void of the circle vanished, chased away by the faint buzz of cheap fluorescent bulbs, and a wash of stark bare-bulbed light exposed the hidden corners of the room.

Rough concrete surrounded them, plain and unadorned as an unfinished warehouse. The other trial rooms had been elaborately decorated with pinpoint irony, ornamental stages meant to showcase despair to the entire world — but this could have been the forgotten corner of any school basement. This trial room had never been meant to see the light of day…

But here they all stood, regardless. Here they were, beyond the stage sets and the scripted drama, with their true opponent facing them head on. That had to be a good thing. No matter how many plans and traps Junko might still have waiting for them, the game had gone beyond what she'd expected. She'd lost the complete control of those early days… and however unlikely it seemed, that had to mean they still had a chance.

A chance… and nothing more. The light let him see the shape of the room that Junko had wanted to hide from them… but it also showed the circle of Monokuma robots wrapped tight around the cluster of surviving students. Seeing the robots clearly didn't make them any less menacing — in fact, considering the horrors he'd seen during the Tragedy all adorned with that same black and white face, it was even worse. He didn't know what those things had been programmed to do, but it had to be something lethal.

Wait… programmed? Naegi's breath caught in his throat, and he tore his gaze from the red-eyed bears surrounding them to the green-eyed bear next to him. "Alter Ego — do you think you can —"

"Reprogram the other Monokumas?" Junko finished the sentence before Alter Ego could get a chance to open his mouth. "Oh, don't worry about that, sweetie — we're safe for sure. Now that I know what he's up to, I'll blow them all before he gets a chance."

Blow them — and all the other students along with them. He'd seen just one of those bombs tear apart the ruined classroom on the fifth floor. The thought of a whole ring of them going off now, so close to his last surviving friends, twisted through his stomach in a nauseous tangle.

"That's right… I don't think I'd be able to break into their code fast enough. I was only able to get into this one because it was still linked with the control room." Alter Ego's head drooped down in dejection. "I'm sorry I can't do more."

"No — you've done a lot!" Naegi tried to lean forward enough to catch Alter Ego's eye, but twinges in his arm and chest warned him against so much sudden movement. "You could have stayed quiet and let the trial go on — but you didn't. You knew interfering again could mean the end for you, but you came to help us anyway. You saved us, and stopped…" His eyes flickered back to the podium where Byakuya still stood, hands fallen away from the buttons as he stared back. "And you stopped him."

He would have liked to believe that it hadn't been necessary — but he knew what had been happening. The despair of the game, the days of grief, the emotional turmoil of the trial, the darkness of these last few moments… it would have been enough. If Alter Ego hadn't disrupted Junko's manipulations, it would have been enough for Byakuya to kill the other survivors.

"That's right — you stopped what was happening."

The calm force of Kyoko's voice cut through his thoughts of how narrowly they'd avoided disaster. Naegi blinked away visions of what could have been, turning towards the opposite side of the circle. She stood as expressionless and unruffled as ever, staring back at him and Alter Ego through narrowed eyes. She could have been a statue at her podium, stern and immovable, if it weren't for the slow, steady tapping of her index finger against the elbow of her crossed arms.

"You stopped it," she repeated, the words heavy with another meaning that Naegi couldn't decipher. He knew it could be another attack… but the words struck a familiar chord inside his head. She'd always been so much smarter than him, both before their memory loss and during the game — but she'd never quite left him in her dust. She'd taken the time to leave hints, the outlines of a path that he could fumble along to follow her brilliant deductions.

And now… it almost sounded like she wanted him to find another clue. Like she'd paused one last time, waiting at the brink of revelation for him to catch up.

"Oh? It's stopped, is it?" Junko asked, flopping back in her throne and flinging a careless leg over the armrest. He hastily looked away, but not before she flashed him a wink. "That's too bad, sweetie. I really thought your boy at least had enough spine to get through a little snag like this." She sighed. "Here I was rooting for a happily ever after, too… but I guess in real life, love doesn't conquer all."

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" Byakuya snapped, the taunt jolting him from his confusion as predictably as clockwork.

"Hey, I get it — this is a big step for any relationship," Junko said, slathering her words with false condolences. "It's a whole lot of commitment! If you're not ready to take it to that level, I'm sure he'll understand."

"You — shut up!" Byakuya glared at her, fist clenching in a spasm of rage, and for a brief moment of horror, Naegi thought he meant to smash his fist into the buttons all at once just to prove he could. "Stop interfering!"

"What? Me?" Junko's eyes grew wide, trembling with tears like a five-year-old who'd dropped her ice cream cone. "But I thought you wanted to be with your true love! I was just trying to help you!"

"No," Kyoko cut in, breaking through the conversation before Byakuya could answer. She ignored him, turning to stare straight at Junko. "You were trying to get him executed for murder."