"Are you feeling alright, Kirigiri-san?"
Her wearily zoning-out eyelids flitted open from the desk she'd been sitting stiffly at as she took in the concerned voice of Makoto Naegi, Super Highschool Level Luckster, her occasional crime-solving partner and one of her most trusted classmates and friends (perhaps more). The first one she would have called if she'd had her phone that night.
Thanks to a boundlessly-forgiving personality and a wallet lined with a completely ordinary budget in spare pocket change, he'd been one of the odd students -within class 78 or otherwise- who hadn't contributed to that ridiculous 'reward' pot which contributed to her issuing that ridiculous challenge mere days ago.
(he probably would have liked for the class to either leave things as they are despite the tension it would leave hanging in the air, talk it all out despite so many failed attempts, or give their gambling classmate another undeserved chance; he was mostly ignored)
After far too many blurry, fragmented hours in that miserable state drifting through semi-consciousness, Celestia -whom the sleuth suspected from the animated pace of her breathing may not have been sleeping at all but instead laying there listening serenely to the muffled whimpers seeping through her room all throughout the night- had seen fit to wake earlier than usual, before the sun she avoided so very frequently had risen.
(feeling shaky heels meet solid ground, she could only faintly recall a relief quite like being freed from that excruciating, overwhelming tension that would have made anyone lacking her pain-tolerance pass out many times over; but just as all minor victories confined to Celestia's wicked games were short-lived at best, her release from the prison made for the game's loser was no exception)
"Impressive: you held up rather well, Detective... now, get out of my room" she remembered hearing alongside sights still covered as she was given her disgraceful coup de grace to finish off the graceless night; a literal boot in the ass out the door.
(the gambler had taken care to do so while removing the saliva-soaked gag swiftly enough that she had no time to throw back some biting remark; her worn down mental facilities may not have allowed it anyway)
Whatever aberrant sort of mercy Celestia may have found to release her so early in the morning when no one was around to find her in such a state, she hadn't found enough to take off the tear-stained black sleeping mask along with the gag or unbind her languid wrists.
(no matter how much she would thrash and claw throughout the night, their collective knots seemed to defy her at every frustrated twist and turn with their collective refusal to loosen; her sleek-as-all-hell gloves had no doubt further-complicated the task's already-infuriating difficulty).
Thus she was forced by her merciful captor's uniquely ridiculous whims to make the unbelievably-embarrassing march on numbly-tired legs back to her dorm room effectively blind without the chance given nor the possibility of readjusting her panties from the ridiculous height they'd riden up to, leaving their tortured-elastic hanging in absolute indignity from the waistline of her tightly-waisted skirt. The single modicum of freedom she had left in this torturous setup -her voice- only made things all the worse by those same high-riding panties and their insistence on mercilessly grinding into her sorest places with every delirious step and hurried stride, prolonging her grief with the grueling ordeal of quieting all but her most tortured whines so as not to wake anyone or arouse unwanted attention.
Just as Celestia had intended by waking earlier than usual and then ungagging her; not that Kyouko, in her state at the time, would have known that. She had only figured it out in retrospect.
(one thought which crossed her mind sometime during the night was that her overstretched-yet-intact underwear would probably have eventually ripped had her habit of skipping meals during investigations not left her so light; or perhaps if she'd decided to rebel against her usual preference for practicality and instead chosen a less durable brand).
Both girls knew her unbelievably-embarrassing, absolutely-undignified march through the dim halls would surely be caught on the school's many security cameras, but the dimness dotting her sweat-soaked clothing allowed some paltry silver lining in her over-lengthened undergarments being too black to show up in the feed; the same couldn't be said for the silvery dotting of satin that was the handkerchief still shackling her wrists. Adding to that, both girls knew that even if he found out, Kyouko would never go seeking help from her father, the Headmaster; not if her very life depended on it. And as anyone -detective or otherwise- could have predicted, that fact hadn't stopped some of the other teachers from asking what specifically had happened that night.
(she guessed Fujisaki, with a more invasive personality, could probably have taken a look at the embarrassing and undignified footage too; she was grateful for the Super Highschool Level Programmer's strength of character in respecting other people's secrets)
Suffice it to say, she'd been left exceptionally vexed by the exceptional persistence with which the subject that she would prefer be dropped completely had been vexingly pressed - by her usual clientele among the staff in particular.
Naturally, Kyouko had to report back to her fellow classmates with her failure as she was pressed on the matter at school - by Togami in particular. She completely, absolutely refused to give any specifics on how, exactly, she'd failed, other than that most basic fact that she'd indeed failed; no one had a response to that.
(the Super Highschool Level Detective's reputation as one of the most gifted minds in the Ultimate school had forged an assumption about her talents carrying into a different match of wits, creating a plan of attack that could presumably be called failure-proof; in hindsight, a foolish presumption by all parties involved)
At least a few of the more observant students -Naegi especially- noticed how strangely she was walking away as the discussion closed, with her normally-elegant gait maintaining a similar level of inelegance throughout the rest of that week. The one thing which was lost on no one was how the otherwise-unflappable sleuth seemed to be subtly avoiding Celestia to the point of even evacuating the room as soon as the gambler was nearby, while said gambler made no attempt at hiding her contentment at said sleuth's endless discontentment.
(Celestia meanwhile would always remind anyone who asked that unless they were betting on her winning, sending a 'hitman' her way because of any problems they might have with her attitude only to later guage her response was quite the disrespect; whether Kyouko was right about she herself engineering it all from the shadows, no one had a response to that either).
In testament to his Junior detective-like perception opposed to her tight-lipped desperation to keep it hidden, only Naegi managed to pick up on the way she would occasionally wince during Phys Ed or wince harder whenever she sat down; her small winces peppered throughout the last school week had been what had prompted him to walk up and speak with her in the first place as she arrived in class and took her seat; wincing again, of course. Even when the other students left the topic alone -knowing both girls' capacity for keeping secrets- it was simply in his nature that he couldn't help worrying for a friend.
Her head turned away as an unmistakably rosy scarlet crept upon her heating cheeks, an already rare sight from the usually-stoic girl made no less obvious by her pale complexion. "Naegi-kun... just drop it... please..."
(she should be allowed at least one plea to be acknowledged, right?)
Even as the rumors and curiosity within the 78th class of what had happened during the match of wits between two of its members faded, one thing was for certain: from that point onward, no one -in any class- dared challenge the Queen of the Liars in her own field ever again.