Work Text:
It’s Tuesday, though it could be any day, and it’s 9:32, though it could be any time, since the metal plates over the windows are as sturdy as ever, just as the fake trees are still gray and cold and immobile. Ishimaru is demanding attention from the other students. Hagakure is in the kitchen. Naegi stares into his mug. In the dark, mud-like mess of his black tea, he can just barely see his reflection, distorted across the huddle of tea leaves hiding at the bottom.
The thud of baseballs hitting Kuwata’s stomach echo in his ears. If it were him – and it would never be him, he has already decided, because besides the promise he has made himself that he will never be responsible for another death in the school or otherwise, he would never risk execution by luck – he guesses the worst part would probably be that everyone was watching. The privacy of death is something he’s sure everyone can appreciate. Nobody wants to die with all their friends watching. What a way to go.
Friends, though, he can’t say that they were friends. That’s not right. Then, is it better or worse for complete strangers to watch?
“Naegi-kun,” he thinks he hears someone say. “Naegi-kun – can you hear me?”
He tips his head down, squeezes his mug tighter and feels the heat throb through his fingers, acutely aware of his heartbeat; he sees her and then the crane. That damned crane – he considers it a beat too long, mind racing through all the threads of the spiderweb that led him to this point, and 11037, that gift with which she repaid him for his kindness. He dreams momentarily of what would have happened had he never intervened. He would have faded into the background again. If they had remained relative strangers, maybe she wouldn’t have picked him.
A hissed breath rushes between his teeth, chest squeezing, and he closes his eyes. This is the hardest Naegi has ever thought about something at 9:32 in the morning. For the millionth time, he wishes he had never come to this school.
“Naegi-kun,” another voice repeats, similar but not the same. The freezing cold leather covering the hand that comes down on his arm feels somehow heavy. It shocks him back into his own mind. “What are you doing?”
“Kirigiri-san,” he says. It comes out all at once, less like a word than a breath. “I – I’m just drinking tea. Hagakure-kun’s making me some toast.”
She folds her arms, clearly doubtful, but doesn’t pry any further. “Okay.”
He keeps talking, uncomfortable under the weight of her silence that forces him to fill in all the gaps in their conversation. “D-do you want any? Or, like, a muffin or something… an English muffin… I dunno if we have any butter, though… ”
“No, that’s fine. Oogami-san prepared some miso soup yesterday, correct?” She glances back over her shoulder at the massive girl, who nods. “I’ll have whatever’s left over.”
“Are you sure? I feel like that’s not filling enough. I bet I could find some rice.” Naegi stands, tugging at the collar of his shirt.
Kirigiri’s cold eyes lock onto him. It feels a little like being the animal looking up the end of a rifle. “It’s fine. Sit down.” He sits down.
Eventually Ishimaru starts his spiel about putting the previous day’s events behind them (as if) and exploring the new parts of the school that seem to have made themselves available as a reward for their ingenuity the night before. It’s a nice distraction, in all fairness; there’s even a pool, on the second floor. God knows how the plumbing on that one works, Oowada remarks offhandedly, to which Naegi nods nervously because he has not yet forgotten how just one punch knocked him unconscious. He hopes Oowada never decides he needs to get out of the school.
It hasn’t slipped his attention – or anyone else’s, judging solely by the nervous and admiring glances the others have been sending her way all morning – that Kirigiri is basically the sole reason they survived the trial last night. It makes sense; she stayed grounded while he fumbled his way through the case, holding his hand the entire way. Even that last, decisive clue (he doesn’t begrudge Maizono her choice of medium or language, despite the embarrassment of how long it took them to figure it out: he can’t imagine the amount of willpower it must have taken to write those few letters, let alone the characters for Kuwata’s name) was all thanks to her. Though she won’t tell him, he supposes it must be some kind of inhuman talent that allowed her to perform so well. That or she’s just brilliant. It could be either. More likely both.
Naegi goes back to his dorm and lies down on his bed and tries to stop himself from picking up the lint roller and inspecting it for a forgotten strand of blue hair. After a while he gets up; walks to the school store, spins the MonoMono Machine, and gifts Asahina an expensive swimsuit he has no use for. Togami is nursing a cup of coffee in the library as he stares at a book, apparently so deeply entranced that he can’t bring himself to lift his eyes from the pages as he snaps, “Go away , Naegi. Your presence makes it impossible to concentrate.”
“A-ah. Sorry,” Naegi stammers, backing out. Togami scoffs and lifts his chin higher so he’s looking down his nose at the thick book.
Naegi makes it a few more steps before practically jumping out of his skin at the sound of Fukawa hissing sharply from around the corner, “D-d-did you see him… ? Did you see B-Byakuya-sama?”
Recovering as much composure as he could, Naegi hurries to answer, “Sure thing, he’s right inside!” Fukawa starts mumbling under her breath. She seems to be composing a pros and cons list of approaching Togami. He makes a beeline away and heads for the first friendly face he sees; Hagakure ropes him into a conversation about a crystal skull from some American movie that he swears has some kind of supernatural property (“It’s not magic, though! I don’t believe in all that occult shit!”).
The rest of his day passes like this. He and his classmates mill around, scattered in various places through what they’re allowed to explore of the bunker-like, claustrophobic school. It’s not just the windows being locked down under iron plates or the gates stopping them from further investigation; even the air smells wrong, thick and dusty and almost sickly sweet.
It all adds to the feeling of being trapped, the emptiness and the long, meaningless days. Naegi shivers under multiple layers.
Not everybody shows up to dinner. He assumes the rest of them must prefer to eat earlier or later. He picks at a bowl of roasted vegetables and rice that someone burned (state of the art facilities that must have cost billions of yen and nobody bothered to buy a rice cooker?), listening to Ishimaru and Oowada snipe at each other like – well, he supposes they’re acting exactly the way a hall monitor and delinquent should, which is a little comforting in its own way.
“Good night, everybody,” Naegi says after washing and drying his dishes and putting them back in the cupboard. “See you in the morning.” It’s a tiny plea. Please be there when I wake up. Please don’t disappear in the night. He smiles at the chorus of “Good night, Naegi!”s he receives in return and goes back to his room.
Monokuma’s nighttime announcement comes long after he’s already out. Whatever comes in his sleep, he’s forgotten by the time he wakes up.
They receive their motive the next morning.
Naegi blinks at the slip of paper in his hand. Neat black printing spells out the incriminating secret he’s apparently supposed to kill to keep. Naegi Makoto wet the bed until fifth grade. Could that really be all? He glances at Monokuma. The bear is examining a sharp, gleaming claw and feigning disinterest in whatever’s happening.
Relief swells in his chest; he turns to the others. “Isn’t this sort of silly?” Maybe that’s not the right word. Trivial? Childish? “I mean, nobody’s really going to commit a murder or anything over it, right?”
He’s met with a wall of silence. Nobody will meet his eyes. Relief is replaced with a sinking dread. “Guys… ?”
“Y-y-you… ” Fukawa’s voice trembles as she wraps her arms around herself, rocking back and forth. “Someone boring like you – a-a-acting like you’re a good person just b-because you’re ordinary! Y-you have no idea – the things – ”
“But – it’s not like that,” Naegi falters. Dimly in the back of his mind he registers that he really has led a boring life, for something like this to be his darkest secret. “I only meant that it can’t be worth killing somebody.”
“Don’t presume to understand anybody else’s life. You couldn’t possibly imagine the things that require hiding in the real world,” Togami snaps, sharp syllables clipped between his teeth. His eyes are like shards of ice. Naegi stops talking.
Somebody suggests revealing the secrets to each other so that they have nothing to be afraid of, but nobody likes that idea, and soon the conversation devolves into angrily jabbing at one another about who has the most to cover up. Fujisaki is crying by the time they leave the gym – and it’s not like that’s abnormal, really, and at another time it wouldn’t bother him, but it’s so quiet and the air is vibrating with tension. Her sniffles echo inside the sealed walls until Naegi can’t stand it anymore and flees to a random classroom. He doodles on the blackboard for a few hours until hunger pangs drive him back to the dining hall.
He sits at the end of the table after finding some food and tries not to draw anyone’s attention. Kirigiri notices him anyway.
“Hello, Naegi-kun.” She picks at her meal. “How was your day?” Her dry tone underscores just how much she doesn’t care. He isn’t sure if that’s intentional or not.
“It was fine. Um, how about yours?”
She doesn’t answer, but tilts her head slightly. He doesn’t know how to take that, but given that she’s not pursuing the topic any further, he assumes it wasn’t much of anything.
They sit in silence. He listens to the others talking amongst themselves.
“So how about that motive, huh?” Naegi says helplessly. “It’s pretty crazy, but I still feel like talking about it would make everyone feel better. Don’t you?”
Kirigiri looks at him and says flatly, “Are you trying to get me to reveal my secret?”
He tries not to put his face in his hands. “N-no! I was just… making conversation.” Has he always been like this, or is it just when he’s around Kirigiri? His reasoning is that she’s so smart that it makes him feel stupid; thus he acts stupid. “I don’t mean to come off as, like, ignorant, but shouldn’t we at least try to prepare for them to be revealed?”
“Actually, I think you should count on the secrets staying secret,” Kirigiri says.
Naegi gapes at her. “You can’t mean that.”
“Can’t I?” She folds her hands, places her chin on them, and studies him. “The people waiting for us outside will also be hearing our secrets. That’s more than enough to push someone with a lot to lose to desperate measures.”
“Nobody’s going to kill anyone. Not after we all saw what happened to Kuwata-kun,” Naegi says. He sounds less firm than he wants to. “Everybody knows better than that.”
Kirigiri sighs and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “If you really believe that’s true, you’re even more naive than I thought.” It doesn’t sound like she’s joking, but there’s a certain lack of gravitas to her tone, like she’s looking down on him. She isn’t afraid at all, so there’s no reason to have any strength to her opinion. It makes sense; nothing seems to faze her, so why would this?
Naegi can’t guess what words would cross the huge gap between them. He settles for saying, “I guess I am,” and they continue eating without speaking.
After dinner he repeats, “Good night, everybody. See you in the morning.”
Kirigiri is the only one who answers, wearing an unreadable expression as she says, “Good night,” but nobody dies that night, so he’s more than okay with being ignored.
Then they find Fujisaki strung up in the locker rooms. He and Kirigiri work their way through the mystery, discovering multiple of those life-ruining secrets as they go, and Oowada tells the story of how he accidentally got his older brother killed – how he would have done anything to hide it – and Naegi realizes for the first time how entirely out of his element he is. That he’s among the best of the best of the best. People with fans and careers and companies. People who hold more lives in their hands than just theirs, who are acutely aware of the futures draining between their fingers with each day trapped inside that passes by.
He remembers Maizono’s shaking voice, her arms wrapped around herself. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve had to do.
She visits him that night. Hovering before him, her sapphire-blue eyes gleaming brighter than they ever did in life, she sings him a song with her rosebud mouth. Do you promise to be there for me no matter what? Do you promise to be by my side? He says yes, of course, and instead of finding her the next morning painted red, she pulls the knife from behind her back and rushes at him. He awakens right before the blade meets his skin, lovely face like a paper doll’s melting into a ruined dripping waxy mess. He awakens right before she kills him, so he doesn’t think about how he didn’t try to run.
Naturally, everyone swears to each other that they have more than enough money for Monokuma’s stacks and stacks of uncountable bills to be meaningless. It’s not like anyone would say that they really were considering it, and nobody wants to be that person questioning people about their financial situation. But still. Money is money is money. Everybody wants it. It would be stranger not to. Even Naegi’s mouth went dry when he first heard that massive sum.
It seems wrong that Togami would be the only person Naegi doesn’t think he has to worry about, considering his involvement (a generous descriptor when he really just inserted himself into the situation) in Fujisaki’s case, but he can’t imagine someone with a net worth of over a billion yen stooping to killing for barely a fraction of that. Maybe worry is the wrong word; he doesn’t want to suspect anybody when there’s no need for it. It’s still possible that they could decide this is a ridiculous, shallow motive for murder.
But he keeps making friends with people, and he keeps getting invited to their rooms to talk about private things, and everytime he goes he can’t stop his heart from thumping and his mind from chattering away about how Kuwata also thought he was just going to talk about private things right up until he got a knife shoved in his face.
“I have promoted you to C-rank, meaning if we escape,” Celes says, sitting primly on her bed, hands folded in her lap with a tiny glossy smile, “if we escape, you will become my knight. Correct?”
Next to her, Naegi tries to decide how to respond. “I… I guess so, yeah. Would I have to, like, fight people?” He pictures himself in a suit of armor with a sword. It’s not flattering.
“Hm… if the need arises. Mostly it means you will stay with me for the rest of our lives.” Celes twirls a lock of hair around her finger. “I suppose you may have to engage in combat. The world of underground gambling is a dark, nihilistic hell.”
He doesn’t like the sound of that, but Naegi is the kind of person who hates to make situations awkward, so he’s opening his mouth to say yes and then suddenly he remembers another promise he made to protect a friend no matter what. The answer dies on his tongue.
“Can I get back to you on this one?” he says instead, because he doesn’t want to make any more promises he can’t keep.
Celes looks disappointed. He wants to apologize, but he can’t find the words.
Naegi breaks the nighttime rule and goes to the communal bathhouse.
He tucks a bottle of shampoo into his pocket, flipping his hood up as if it’ll protect him from the piercing gaze of the mastermind watching through the security cameras as he hurries through the shadowy hallway. He doesn’t want to be caught by anyone – especially after agreeing to stay in his room like everybody else – but at this point he doesn’t have another choice; he can’t refuse to bathe like Fukawa. And he can’t open the door.
The bathhouse is dark and empty. He flicks on the light and, after carefully avoiding Alter Ego’s line of sight and shutting the door to its wooden locker, starts neatly folding his clothes into a pile to be deposited in another locker against the wall. Thankfully, Kirigiri only ordered the laptop to shout if Yamada or Ishimaru came near. It would be embarrassing to say the least if he were caught now.
He pushes through the wall of heat that explodes forward over the entrance to the baths, waving away thick clouds of white steam, and settles on a stool to wash his hair. It’s dead silent inside except for the water gently lapping at the gutters of the bathtubs. He hums to fill the quiet, but the sound is odd and tinny, echoing in the tiny space.
The soap bubbles run down his face, stinging his eyes and staining his tongue bitter before puddling on the tile below. The water is hot – hot enough, almost, to burn, but not quite – and he relaxes into it, the line of his shoulders softening. He’s never been in the bathhouse alone before; the light is bright overhead and the bathhouse is huge and filled with steam and the clean, sharp smell of chlorine and soap. It’s nothing like the bathroom tucked into the corner of his dormitory, which is the most important part.
Still, he’s tired from a long day of doing nothing, and he can feel his eyes fluttering shut as he leans his head against the wall, so he hurries up and finishes showering before he can fall asleep right then and there. It only takes a moment of him imagining how ridiculous it would look if anyone were to find him the next morning to get him up and back to the lockers, pulling his clothes on before they can dry. The cooling water bleeding off his skin and seeping through his hoodie leaves his arms and legs erupting with goosebumps.
Naegi makes his way back through the hallway, and he’s only a few steps from his door when he hears a familiar voice reprimand, “You should really be more prudent.” It echoes unbearably loudly across the boxed-in space, and Kirigiri appears, boots clacking on the floor, out of the shadows. For a second, he thinks – with her long, straight hair and short pleated skirt – but no. Of course not.
Her brow is creased, arms folded as she sizes him up. Naegi sucks in a breath, one hand clutching his heart. His stomach hurts. “Jeez, you scared me. What are you doing out here?”
“What are you doing?” she asks. She has that habit of answering a question with another question. Since he’s recognized it, he should be able to combat it, but apparently his quick instincts don’t function outside of life-or-death situations.
“Um. Visiting Alter Ego,” he says.
She doesn’t reply, and he follows her gaze to his damp hair. He sighs, nervously tugging at the zipper to his hoodie. “I – I was just taking a shower.”
“In the bathhouse?” Kirigiri’s mouth quirks slightly. “Why?”
“I don’t like that there’s security cameras in our personal bathrooms,” Naegi says after a beat. Good answer, but not good enough. She looks down at him, those two inches she has on him highlighted dramatically. “I mean – there’s more privacy in the bathhouse, since the heat fogs up the cameras, right?”
“Right,” Kirigiri says, “except I don’t think that’s why you really went, is it?”
Naegi’s mouth opens and closes, like a goldfish. “Um, well… why would I lie?”
Kirigiri doesn’t answer that. The grip on her sleeves tightens. It doesn’t feel like he’s deceiving her, not really, not when it’s not hurting anybody. A white lie. He’s about to say goodbye and go back to his dorm with the thick nausea still collecting in his stomach – and the guilt of hiding things from her when, to be honest, he really shouldn’t feel that way because she’s never had any qualms about hiding anything from him – and then she says, louder, “Naegi-kun.”
“What is it?” he says. It comes out harsher that time. He doesn’t mean to sound like that, like he’s angry, but it’s late and Kirigiri is standing there in the dark and he can’t see all of her face and something is freezing over the inside of his chest slowly.
“Why aren’t you showering in your own room?” Kirigiri stares at him, her features shadowed. “Do I need to be worried? Should I have told Alter Ego to scream if it saw you, too?”
Naegi’s eyes blow wide, and his hands come up like he’s shielding himself from her. “No – no! That’s not it at all! I didn’t go anywhere near Alter Ego.”
“You’re planning something else, then?” she asks. If asked, he wouldn’t be able to pinpoint any one quality that stops it from sounding like an actual question. “Why would you go to the bathhouse alone, late at night? You must not respect Celes-san’s rule. I’m surprised, Naegi-kun; I thought you were more cooperative than that.”
“I’m seriously not trying anything weird,” he says helplessly, and it doesn’t go over his head that it only makes him sound more suspicious. “I… I didn’t want to shower in my own bathroom. That’s all it is. Really.”
“Why?” Kirigiri sounds angry, but she hasn’t moved. Her arms are still crossed tightly over her chest.
“Because, after she – ” Naegi swallows a ragged breath. It aches in his throat. “After what happened – ”
“With Maizono-san?”
He nods, a quick, jerking movement. “Just being in my room, it’s like I’m walking over her grave, so – so I can’t go back in there, not where she – you know? I can’t go back, because she’ll see me, she’s still there, and I promised to be with her no matter what. I promised to be by her side.”
Kirigiri steps closer, and he can finally see her fully. She has this expression on her face like she’s seeing something both immensely pitiable and a little disgusting, a small animal of some kind, maybe, and then it’s like she’s seeing all the way through him and past him and towards something far in the distance, just to avoid looking at him any longer.
“I promised,” Naegi says faintly, weak justification.
Her face softens, and it’s like that repulsed look was never there at all. “You can’t keep going like this.” She sounds as gentle as she’s ever been, which is to say not very gentle at all, and even the small kindness of her wrapping her words in a kinder tone doesn’t alleviate their blunt edge. “You understand that, don’t you?”
“What else am I supposed to do?”
In response, she points him towards the door labeled with his name.
He takes the key from his pocket with a trembling hand and opens it slowly. Part of him wonders if she’s about to kill him in his own room, which would make a total of two people murdered in Naegi Makoto’s room during this killing school life. That has to be some kind of record. Maybe he’ll be awarded a prize posthumously.
They step through the doorway together. The light is on, shining bright overhead. Naegi’s eyes instinctively flick over the floor and walls, searching for slashes in the wallpaper and carpet caused by the fight days ago. He had mulled over how Monokuma cleaned the mess up during the few hours of Maizono’s trial (without leaving the courtroom, no less). It’s probably better this way; if it had been he who had to handle it, his dorm would probably be in the same boat as his bathroom, the scene of the crime he could have prevented. He can’t imagine bringing himself to touch the golden sword or the marks it left behind.
Kirigiri is watching him intently. He stumbles on unsteady legs over to the bathroom, stops in front of it with his hands knotted in the hem of his hoodie, his knuckles blanching with the effort of keeping them from shaking.
“I’ll open it first,” she offers, again with that strange, doubtful kindness.
Naegi doesn’t argue. He sinks to the ground, falling into a crouch, and presses his hands over his ears so he doesn’t have to hear the sound of Kirigiri jostling the broken lock; the door creaking wide open, and the clicking of her heels on the tile. He misses his mother and his father and Komaru, not for the first time but in a way that he hasn’t since that very first day with the motive video. It’s an aching deep in his chest that takes his breath away. He had talked about Maizono before, with Komaru. She called herself a Sayaker. What will he say if he ever sees her again? What have I been up to? Well, among other things, I met your favorite idol in the world, Komaru, and she tried to frame me for murder.
In the back of his mind he knows it’s much more likely that he won’t see her again, but he doesn’t want to think about that. He doesn’t want to blame Maizono – can’t blame Maizono – because that motive video also inspired the same burning need to escape no matter what. He’s only human. Not brave enough to actually do anything about it. Unwilling to stop seeing his classmates as humans too.
His hands go from his ears to his eyes as Kirigiri stares through the bathroom. Water drips from the shower head to the ground in a ceaseless loop of sound that sounds like a single discordant piano key. He looks into the endless black of the shadows trapped between his palms and face and sees neon shapes he’s just imagining forming themselves in the darkness.
She says something muffled he can’t hear, and when he doesn’t respond, turns around and steps out towards him. “What are you afraid of?” she asks. He remembers that time she told him she could hear the footsteps of death and wonders if she’s listening for them now.
“Nothing,” Naegi says with all the breath he has in his lungs. “I’m not afraid, I just – ”
“Then go inside,” Kirigiri says, her voice hard.
He exhales, inhales, devotes everything he has to maintaining that cycle so that he doesn’t hyperventilate, doesn’t lose control in her presence. It happens anyway. Fear paints the inside of his chest red, and his voice breaks, scraping painfully when he says, “I can’t do it.” He wants to tell her to go away, to leave him alone, close all the doors and let him sit on the floor, head bowed, shut off from where something could reach out and grab him and pull him down.
Kirigiri looks disappointed. “There’s nothing in the bathroom,” she says, hovering before him, an apparition he wishes would disappear.
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” he repeats, gasping, rocking back and forth with his head in his arms. “She’s gonna, she’s gonna find me – she’ll kill me – ”
“Naegi,” she says. He swallows a wheeze of air. “I’ll go with you. You have to look.”
“Don’t make me,” he pleads, and knows he’s already lost.
Kirigiri doesn’t make him. She waits out the long, drawn-out heartbeats while he stands up, balling his fists so that he can feel his unclipped fingernails digging into his palm. Tiny discolored crescent moons bloom across his skin as he steps into the bathroom.
She was telling the truth, of course. There’s no reanimated corpse waiting for him with arms outstretched. But it flickers before his eyes a few times, disappearing when he forces his tired eyes to focus and stop seeing her slumped and bloody on the floor. The tiles are white and pristine and shining.
When he’s finally sure that he can open his mouth without throwing up or screaming, he steps forward and turns the shower faucet to the left. It stops dripping.
“Do you think… he buried her?” Naegi whispers, swaying back and forth slightly.
“Maybe,” Kirigiri says thoughtfully. “In my opinion, it’s more likely he cremates the bodies, seeing as so far we haven’t found a burial plot or anything that could function as one.”
It takes effort for Naegi to stay on his feet. He bites the inside of his cheek and uses the stab of pain to anchor himself in his body, choking down bile as he presses his fist to his mouth. But he stays where he is, the tension forcing his body into a rigid line ebbing away bit by bit, until it disappears entirely, and it’s not fear guiding his footsteps to turn and move away.
Kirigiri follows. Naegi leaves the door open, so if Maizono’s vengeful spirit suddenly appears with the intent of strangling the life out of him, she can do as she pleases. It must be a good sign that he’s capable of remembering her now without having a panic attack.
Though he isn’t looking, he knows her eyes are on him. “Maizono-san wasn’t your fault.”
“You really think so?” he says blankly.
“It wasn’t,” she reiterates. “She did what she did because she was scared and backed in a corner. You couldn’t have changed that any more than you could have opened the door in the main hall and let her leave.”
Naegi considers. He wishes more than anything that he could have done that for her. Set the crane free again, so to speak. “And Kuwata-kun?”
“It’s an impossible situation,” Kirigiri says. “You can’t blame yourself for what’s already happened, or you’ll never be able to move forward.”
He wants to take it to heart. After a long pause, Naegi lets himself look back at the bathroom. In the dark, it’s a huge, gaping hole in the wall. “Maybe we can have a funeral,” he says, “when we’re out of here. We can invite her parents and her friends.” He hopes the motive videos were fake and that she still has friends to invite. “Do you think Fukawa-san would be willing to write a eulogy?”
“Mm… good question.” Kirigiri smirks. “I’m sure it would be exceptionally well-worded, but it’s still Fukawa-san, and we do go to a funeral to honor the dead.”
Naegi grins a little. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Then, if her parents let me, I’ll do it. Since… we were friends.”
Kirigiri seems pleased with this, at least until she says with a furrow in her brow, “What about the others? Enoshima-san, Kuwata-kun, Fujisaki-san, and Oowada-kun? Do they deserve funerals too?”
“Of course!” Naegi blanches. “I didn’t mean that they shouldn’t get one. I was only saying Maizono-san ‘cause, you know… ”
Kirigiri waves a gloved hand, looking slightly amused. “I’m just teasing.”
“O-oh.”
Naegi stares at the floor. Kirigiri puts her hand under her chin, looking past him.
“I called you naive before,” she says, almost absentmindedly. “I don’t think that was fair of me. I’m sorry about that.”
“Huh?” Naegi blinks through bleary eyes. “I mean, thanks, but… ”
“I suppose I meant… more along the lines of sincere .” Kirigiri blinks, long eyelashes fluttering. “They’re related, but not the same.” She cracks a small smile, touches his shoulder lightly with just the very tips of her fingers, as if anything more would be too much. “You’re brave, Naegi-kun. Don’t forget that.”
It’s too late for him to understand anything she says, but he looks up and thanks her anyway. Then she disappears into the hallway, leaving behind a lingering scent of perfumed shampoo, flowers or berries or something equally sweet. Her retreating silhouette belongs solely to her.
Naegi goes to his bed and lies down. Of all the people he could encounter in the dark with nobody around, he’s glad it was her. Hours later, a more unfair thought comes, as he stares up at the ceiling; a prayer that Kirigiri never decides to kill somebody. She would be an untouchable blackened. Without her help, Naegi thinks, they would never survive another trial.
He stays in his room most of the next day, sitting at his desk and reading a book he got from the school store with the bathroom door wide open. Maizono’s ghost doesn’t come kill him. When he goes to dinner, Asahina gives him a lumpy, charred attempt at a cake donut. It disintegrates like dust in his mouth and has the same taste, but he still finishes the whole thing and tells her it was good.
“Don’t lie to me,” she says, rolling her eyes. “But I’m gonna try again tomorrow. Sakura-chan found real cocoa powder in the back of the cupboard, so I don’t have to use a hot chocolate packet!”
Naegi actually laughs at this, and Asahina looks offended for a moment before it melts into a sheepish smile. “Yeah, it is funny, isn’t it?” He eats with her and Oogami; Kirigiri disappears into the kitchen and putters around with the coffee machine.
When he’s done, he stands up, pressing the heel of his hand into his eyes. “Good night, everybody. See you in the morning.”
Celes offers a little princess wave from where she’s sitting by Yamada, who dutifully bears a cup of royal milk tea and a tiny stirring spoon. The armored silver ring on her finger glints under the fluorescent lights. A smile tugs at her lips. “Good night, Naegi-kun.”
Nobody dies in the night, but by the same time the next day, they’re both gone. The cocoa powder goes untouched.
Naegi’s head is still throbbing from the blow he received after being Kirigiri’s bait in the mastermind’s hidden room when he sees Oogami fighting Monokuma. Rage ripples off her in waves, blows shaking the floor. He thinks at first that the head trauma caused him to hallucinate, or maybe that he simply imagined the whole thing, because why would someone like Oogami be doing something so risky?
He wants to have imagined the whole thing. He doesn’t want to consider what it could mean. He doesn’t want to ask about the truth behind Monokuma’s taunts about Oogami’s hostage situation.
But Kirigiri sees straight through him, because why wouldn’t she, when she sees through everyone else? She corners him in the music room, tells him about how she knew the mastermind could see him through the security cameras and assumed he could handle whatever came next. He ignores the way that stings.
She eyes him and his closed mouth, apparently deciding to move on from sharing. “... It’s your turn now, so let’s hear your secret.”
“Secret?” Naegi swallows.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
No, not really; it’s Kirigiri, after all. But even though he wants to get it off his chest, hand it over to somebody else smarter and make it their responsibility instead, Oogami is still supposed to be his friend. He can’t turn on her based on speculation. He stays quiet.
“What is it?” Kirigiri prods.
Naegi squares his shoulders. “I can’t tell you yet… I-I’m sorry.”
She looks surprised for a second, then disappointed, then just angry. “So that’s your answer?”
He can’t look at her, so the icy edge in her words comes as a surprise. He can hear the scowl through her voice. “It’s cowardly to ask someone to share their secrets without giving anything back. Don’t you agree?”
He doesn’t know how to convince her that he’s not withholding the truth of what he saw in the gym to hurt or deceive her – that he’s just so exhausted of doubting the people he knows he should be working with, of those people killing and being killed in front of him. Most of all he’s struck by the irrational feeling that telling her what he really suspects, that Oogami is the traitor working with Monokuma, will speak it into reality. Even though he knows in the back of his mind that he’s not really doing anything wrong, he still tries awkwardly to justify it. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you,” he attempts to explain, looking up, “I just can’t… ”
She’s glaring at him with the most emotion he’s seen from her since the day they met, something stormy brewing in her pale purple eyes, and below the anger there’s something else, something colder, and he’s struck with a sudden explosion of guilt. “I’m sorry. Really.”
“Okay.”
“I’m really not trying to hide anything dangerous.”
“Okay.”
“Are you mad at me?”
He’s aware that he sounds like a whining child, but the idea is catastrophic. Kirigiri has come to be a steady, stable presence in his school life, the person he goes to for help when he’s lost, which at this point is more often than not. Her lips press into a flat line. “No. I’m going to go now.”
“Kirigiri-san… ”
She turns on her heel and stalks out, letting the door slam behind her. Naegi stands with his fists jammed into his pockets and the heavy feeling that he’s made a terrible mistake.
He thinks maybe she’ll stop being angry when Monokuma reveals that yes, Oogami was the traitor, and amid the chaos and Oogami’s desperate apologies he tries to tell her he just wanted to believe in their friend. Her eyes flick momentarily to the side and then back to him in what he later realizes is her own little eye-roll, and she says, “You made your choice. You can’t go back on it now.”
“I said I was sorry,” Naegi repeats, this time with a spark of irritation, which is quickly extinguished under her cold glare. He gives up, sensing that this can only get worse, and goes to Oogami. He’s not used to lying, so he’s not very good at it; when he says that everybody knows she was forced into the role of the traitor and nobody will blame her, she stares at him as if he’s making a bad joke.
“Naegi. I’d appreciate it if you would stop trying to speak for the rest of us,” Togami intones, somehow able to indicate that Naegi is the root of all stupidity in the world without a hint of emotion in his voice, “when nobody agrees with you.”
“Come on. Her family is being held hostage.” Naegi looks back to Oogami, who has her head bowed. “She didn’t have any other options, you know?”
Togami smirks. His glasses hide his ice-blue eyes. “All I’m saying is not to be surprised if Oogami turns up as the next killer. Or perhaps someone will set their sights on her?”
Naegi steps back at the same moment as Asahina charges forward, face twisted with fury and shouting, “Go fuck yourself!” Fukawa squawks something unintelligible. During the commotion, Kirigiri leaves the room.
Sometimes he thinks he would like to be in the sort of denial that Hagakure maintained for the first few days; continuing to believe this is an ordinary school life, and – what? That all his dead classmates are just on an extended vacation, a long break to somewhere nicer and prettier where the air tastes clean? Sometimes he thinks any moment now he’ll open his eyes and this will just be one long terrible dream. But that won’t happen, since Naegi’s brain never produces dreams any more detailed than showing up to school without his pants on.
Dinner for the next few days is a subdued affair. Oogami is nowhere to be seen, while Togami and Fukawa have joined them and are sitting far away from the rest of the table. Hagakure sits near Naegi and Kirigiri, having chosen the people he finds the most trustworthy at the moment. Asahina eats with a glare on her face, spoon and chopsticks rattling violently against her plate.
“W-what’s wrong, Asahina-san?” Naegi says finally, though he knows. Kirigiri eyes him.
She jumps at the chance and snaps, “I just think it’s unfair that thanks to a few cowards – ” here she raises her voice, shooting daggers with her eyes towards Togami, Fukawa, and Hagakure – “one of our friends feels like she can’t even eat dinner with us. You agree, right, Naegi?”
Naegi opens his mouth and closes it a few times before finally deciding to say what he actually believes. “... Yeah. I think it’s pretty unfair.” Fukawa makes a sputtering sound that he guesses was supposed to be a “Tch!” before being interrupted by her stutter.
“Poor Sakura-chan,” Asahina says, suddenly wilting into her seat. “She must be so lonely and hungry, sitting alone in her room… feeling like nobody even cares about her.”
Togami snorts. Nobody acknowledges it.
“I’m sure she’ll be okay,” Naegi offers. “Maybe you can bring her some food later?”
Asahina ponders this. “Yeah, I guess so. She was so guilty about what happened, she didn’t even eat lunch. I feel terrible.”
“Nobody ever died from missing two meals, though,” Hagakure says, massaging his temples sagely as he delivers his wisdom. “The ogre will definitely be fine.”
Asahina’s eyes flare. Kirigiri and Naegi tense simultaneously for the inevitable conflict, but she only turns her back on him, saying delicately, “Naegi, can you grab me something to eat with for Sakura-chan? I’ve decided I’ll just give her all of this food. I’ve lost my appetite.”
Relieved that she’s not going to lunge over the table and throttle him, Naegi nods and goes to retrieve utensils from the kitchen. He returns with chopsticks and a spoon for the curry they’re eating that night. “Is this good?”
“It’s great,” Asahina says. “Thanks.” She accepts the spoon, turns around again, and throws it at Hagakure’s head.
He screams. Fukawa dives under the table. Kirigiri stares at Naegi with what looks like admonishment. He considers attempting to calm everyone down before resigning himself to finishing the last two bites of his meal and going back to his room, since he’s probably used up all his luck choosing a spoon instead of a fork or knife.
Nobody is paying attention by the time he’s done washing his dishes and placing them in the drying rack; he slips out of the dining hall with Togami’s attacks on various parties’ intelligence and Hagakure’s prayers for mercy ringing in his ears. Sleep comes easily, the exhaustion and stress of the day washing over him thickly. He doesn’t dream.
When they finally break into the rec room and see the full, terrible picture of Oogami sitting in her chair, hunched over with her arms resting on her knees and a smile breaking the stony mask of her face, his first thought is that maybe it’s because he forgot to say good night. Forgot to ask to see them in the morning.
The trial is a mess; Naegi has to shout down no less than three of his classmates, two of them claiming to be completely innocent, the third demanding to be voted guilty. At the end, Alter Ego is crushed and excavated to death, which Naegi never really thought was a viable method of killing somebody (something?), but here they are. He wants to mourn for the AI the same way he would mourn one of his human classmates and at the same time he wants to be happy that only one person has died this time.
Person. Naegi bites down on his lip. A drop of blood spills down his chin. Maybe it looks similar to the blood they found on Oogami’s face, cheerfully scarlet under her resigned smile, though Naegi isn’t wearing anything close to that expression.
Kirigiri approaches him. “You’re bleeding.”
It takes him a moment to process what she’s saying, and then he touches his mouth and his fingers come away red. “Oh. I didn’t… ”
“It’s okay.” She produces a white handkerchief from her jacket pocket. It has purple lace around the edges. It’s more feminine than he would have expected from her. “Here.”
There’s an awkward moment where she watches Naegi wipe at his face, wincing at the red stain on the white fabric when he hands it back to her. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. That’s what it’s made for.” She pockets it again.
He’s relieved she’s talking to him again – and, as always, incredibly grateful for her help in solving the murder – but he doesn’t really know where to start. “You were good,” he says clumsily. “During the trial, I mean, when you shut Togami-kun down like that.”
Kirigiri doesn’t visibly respond to his compliment. “Thank you. It was necessary for me to go to extremes during a case of this difficulty. I didn’t know Asahina-san had it in her.”
Neither did he. He hopes it won’t change how he looks at Asahina in the future, and he wants to admire the strength of her resolve, but it’s a little hard when it comes coupled with an unyielding willingness to get them all killed. “Yeah, I was surprised, but at least now we’re all closer for it. I don’t think there’ll be any more killings this time.” This time will be different, he repeats as always, but this time it feels true. A tiny relief in the horror that was the last twenty-four hours; the last twenty days.
Kirigiri’s expression hardens. “Things are just going to get harder from here,” she says. “We’re in the endgame now.”
The implication hits a nerve inside him. Before he can stop to hold them back, his words fly out of his mouth, more pointed than he intended. “It’s not a game .”
She looks surprised, glancing over at him and opening her mouth. Naegi doesn’t quite regret it, but he’s preparing for another you’re too naive to understand that he’ll have to brush off like sand, as if the way she refuses to believe in any of them doesn’t hurt. But then, as if a switch has been flipped, she softens noticeably. “You’re right. It’s not.”
“Kirigiri-san… ”
“No. I was out of line.” She nods, closing her eyes. “Naegi-kun, I want you to promise me something.”
Promise, again. But if it’s her, because it’s her, it’s not the same. “What is it?”
“These next few days are probably going to be… some of the most difficult we’ve had here. The mastermind is struggling, since they know nobody else will kill now.” He can tell she’s choosing her words carefully. “So if it comes down to it, put your faith in me. Okay?”
Does it count as killing somebody to vote them guilty, knowing what will happen? But for that to happen, it would obviously require a murder anyway. Naegi nods. “Okay. Thanks, Kirigiri-san.”
“Don’t thank me.” She glances away, lips flattening. “It’s my duty. I’m just learning that now.”
“What do you mean?” he starts to ask, but she’s already leaving. He doesn’t move forward, and she doesn’t look back.
The night is full of vivid dreams that don’t hold ghosts but don’t hold anything more comforting; bubbling and twisting colors painting the horizon with black clouds and red fog and a sickly shade of pink he’s never seen before, streaking in thick brushstrokes across the sky. He knows he’s dreaming, but can’t force himself awake.
Naegi opens his eyes to see a shadow in a mask and robe, looming over him and clutching a military knife.
Dizzy with terror, he tries to scramble away and doesn’t move an inch. His skin is heavy like a blanket and burning up. It feels like it’s going to melt off him and puddle between the sheets and leave just his skeleton behind. The low, crackly breathing of someone not getting enough air could be either of them. He’s shivering, sweat pouring down his face. This is probably how he’s going to die. It’s futile, but he screams as a last resort, knowing the rooms are soundproofed and locked from the inside, and even though he doesn’t know how they got in here or who they are, he does know that screaming won’t stop them. There’s nothing he can do.
But then there’s a deafening crash and he slips back into the cloak of sleep and the next time he awakes it’s a different obelisk in the darkness.
She’s standing at the end of his bed and she’s silent. For a moment he’s afraid that maybe Maizono’s come back at last, incorporeal, but he needs to learn to tell the difference between the alive and the dead. Her eyes are fixed on him, unmoving spotlights, and he almost thinks she’s going to kill him. Any moment now, she’ll pull that jagged knife out of her pocket and stab him to death and no one will ever know who did it. Was it her in that mask, or did she chase them away just to claim his murder for herself?
“Kirigiri-san,” he says, between heaving breaths, “please – ”
He doesn’t know what he intended to ask – don’t hurt me, stay with me, stop looking at me like something you put under a microscope – but when he blinks, she disappears, and the terror clouding his vision vanishes like it was never there in the first place. He goes back to sleep.
It becomes excruciatingly clear, more so than ever before, that they are little lost lambs in the challenge of life and death without Kirigiri’s assistance. She stands back and shows off her gloves while they spend far too many minutes deconstructing Hagakure’s idea that she’s some kind of opaque ghost. It’s strange; she’s not slowing them down at all or offering any false evidence, but that self-assured smile as she begins to put together the pieces of the case never appears, and she stays silent when not directly spoken to.
He catches himself thinking she’s acting more like Oowada than Kuwata or Celes, arms folded over her chest stoically – wondering if she’s sweating behind the high collar of her purple jacket – and silently scolds himself. It’s not fair to suspect her like that. She saved him that night, after all. But it’s entirely possible that saving him involved that stolen knife they found stabbed into the midsection of the mysterious victim. Then, is it okay for him to suspect her? Won’t she be angry at him if he chases her after she killed for his sake?
Even as he reasons with himself, he knows he can’t worry about something like that in a place like this, that for Togami’s and Asahina’s and the others’ sakes, he can’t let his heart dictate his choices. And she hasn’t done anything truly suspicious yet. There’s no fatal mistake like a dying message or an account of something that she shouldn’t have known.
But suddenly Kirigiri lies – really lies, the kind of lie to which he has a refute stored somewhere, and without thinking he’s locking and loading it and preparing to start the long battle to the end of the trial, where she’ll be executed and they’ll go back to promising another murder will never happen. It’s horrible, what she did, because he really did believe it this time.
He realizes he’s already decided. That one singular lie has changed everything. She’s not innocent anymore. She’s just another killer.
Naegi looks up at her. She’s tilting her head sideways so her hair catches the dim light, and she’s frowning, leveling her gaze at Togami. “If you vote for me, and I die here, the mystery of this school will stay hidden forever.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Togami spits, but the blood rushing in Naegi’s ears doesn’t allow him to hear anything past that.
He knows. He could tell the truth; he could use his last, decisive clue and sentence her to death. There’s nobody else – and even though this trial is wrong, fundamentally wrong in its processes and its base, the victim that no one can identify and in Monokuma’s silence as he watches them fight to find the killer in a case that shouldn’t have begun – despite all of that, they have to pick somebody or they’re just choosing to die.
He told her he would trust her. He told her he would trust her. He weighs Kirigiri’s life against everyone else’s, against his own.
The scale dips. His chest hurts.
He doesn’t want to make any more decisions. It would be so easy just to stop himself. It would be so nice, after talking and talking and talking, to go quiet. To leave it up to somebody else and go along with whatever happens. If I die here, the mystery of this school will stay hidden forever, Kirigiri says. If it comes down to it, put your faith in me.
Most importantly, he has failed his friends nine times. He looks over at her, seeing a ghost hovering behind him in the reflection of her irises. This promise he can keep.
Naegi decides, closes his mouth, and squeezes his eyes shut.
It’s an eternity later when they reopen at the bottom of the chute. The air is clogged with the stench of garbage and each breath feels like a prayer. Naegi stares up at the locked door cutting him off from the friends who have just sent him to his death without a second thought and waits for his savior. She comes; the grip of her leather gloves on his arms tugs him back down to earth, an anchor, too heavy and helpless to ever let go.
They stand together underneath a red sky dappled with black clouds, taking in the scene before them. Naegi looks over. “Kirigiri-san, can I ask you a question?”
She doesn’t return his gaze. “You can do whatever you like.”
He hesitates before speaking. Looks down at the black dress shoes he’s been given to replace his favorite red sneakers with stains he couldn’t see. “Did you know Alter Ego would intervene?”
Her silence is enough of an answer.