We sat down on the chairs in the locker room and started talking.
"Whew... Kyoko Kirigiri, what the hell was all that? You told me to play along no matter what you said, so I just improvised and acted the part..."
"There was a reason I said all that this morning."
So Big Sis Kyoko Kirigiri really did have a plan.
"First, it let us minimize the fallout from your secret."
That was true. Thanks to Kyoko Kirigiri's bombshell, the severity of my own secret had been partially buried. If Byakuya Togami and Celestia Ludenberg hadn't barged in, I might've been able to explain it away without too much trouble.
"In that sense, I should praise you for catching Monokuma off guard back there. By blurting out your secret first, you threw his plan off balance. Thanks to that, my secret became the highlight, and the shock value was amplified to the limit."
"Th-Thanks... I guess... but why go that far...?"
"Because I needed to help you as quickly as possible. I told you earlier, didn't I? I made a bet with Celestia Ludenberg. And if I lost, there was an added rule that I'd be Executed if I refused to obey the winner's orders."
"Yeah... you did..."
"That was far too reckless."
Kyoko Kirigiri's voice was flat. Absolute. Final.
"You're holding the key to ending this killing game, aren't you? From now on, instead of trying to solve everything by yourself, how about thinking of asking for help first?"
Her tone was icy, but the words underneath it carried unmistakable concern. Making Kyoko Kirigiri worry about me... what kind of worthless follower did that make me? I gave an awkward smile and answered.
"Thanks for worrying about me... Next time, if something like that happens, I'll talk to you first. I promise..."
After hearing my apology, her expression softened a little. Kyoko Kirigiri cleared her throat, then continued.
"...As long as you understand. Anyway, there's another reason. I want us to have meetings like this more often."
"Meetings like this...?"
"Yes. This is the only place without CCTV or listening devices. If we need to discuss something the Mastermind can't know, we have to come here. But if the two of us keep showing up here together without any obvious reason, people are bound to get suspicious."
She had a point. The last time I met Kyoko Kirigiri alone in the locker room, Monokuma had clung to the issue with creepy persistence. Maybe Junko Enoshima had started suspecting me back then—suspecting that I knew the secret behind the killing game.
But if Kyoko Kirigiri and I were a couple, that changed things. Even if we came to the locker room together, people would be more likely to assume we were sneaking off somewhere private for romance.
But still...
"I get that, but... Junko Enoshima isn't normal. Even if we say we're dating, I don't think she'll stop being suspicious..."
"...That's the part I need to discuss with you."
"Discuss...? About what?"
"From now on, you and I need to act like a couple as convincingly as possible when we're outside."
"...!"
My heart dropped straight into my stomach. Me? Pretending to be someone's boyfriend? I didn't even have a single scrap of dating experience. The pressure alone made my face twist up.
"Why? You don't want to...?"
"N-No, no! That's not it! I mean... uh... are you okay with this!?"
I was so flustered I blurted out a question so stupid it wasn't even funny. Kyoko Kirigiri let out a sigh and answered.
"We agreed to cooperate as much as possible, didn't we? I can manage a little acting. Of course, that's assuming you handle yourself properly."
"Y-Yeah... okay...! I'll do my best...!"
I nodded quickly, then started laying out the information I hadn't been able to tell her before.
"First, the people we need to be most careful about right now—aside from Celestia Ludenberg, who lost to me today—are Byakuya Togami, Mukuro Ikusaba, and Sakura Oogami. Byakuya Togami is enjoying this killing game, just like you know. Mukuro Ikusaba is the Mastermind. And Sakura Oogami is a spy right now."
"Wait. Sakura Oogami is a spy?"
"Yeah. The people at her dojo are being held hostage by the Mastermind. She's probably being pressured to commit murder even now."
"How do you know that?"
"Uh... I happened to see her resisting the Mastermind and refusing to obey..."
I had seen it while playing the game, sure, but technically speaking, I'd still seen it.
"She hasn't killed anyone so far... but if things keep going like this, there's a real chance she'll become the first murderer."
"Then is there any way to deal with her?"
"Well... we try to persuade her...?"
Kyoko Kirigiri stared at me like I was hopeless, then sighed and spoke.
"...I'll take that to mean you don't have any real plan yet. Fine. Then explain the other two in detail."
"Mukuro Ikusaba has combat ability worthy of the title Ultimate Soldier. Sure, she'd lose to Sakura Oogami in a barehanded fight, but if weapons are involved, she's strong enough to fight her on equal footing."
Come to think of it, when the killing game first started, I'd assumed Mukuro Ikusaba would wind up in danger almost immediately. But nothing had happened to her so far, and lately she'd been interfering with me in these strangely deliberate ways. That probably meant the original plan had changed.
In the game, Junko Enoshima decided Mukuro Ikusaba was no longer necessary and killed her instead of merely locking her away, which meant she got eliminated pretty early.
The fact that she was still alive now probably meant Junko Enoshima still considered her useful. If that was the case, then I'd have to revise my original plan—"protect Mukuro Ikusaba from Junko Enoshima's attack and rehabilitate her."
The moment Junko Enoshima orders Mukuro Ikusaba to kill, someone will die. At this point, I can't think of her as someone to save anymore. I have to think of her as someone to stop.
"As for Byakuya Togami... he's an insufferable jerk, but in terms of intelligence, he's almost on your level. I mean, you're smarter, obviously, but still..."
Even if Byakuya Togami fell a little short of Kyoko Kirigiri, he was still one of the sharpest minds in the group. The problem was that right now he kept using that brain of his to troll everyone into the abyss.
"So you're planning to keep both Mukuro Ikusaba and Byakuya Togami in check from now on?"
"No... I mean, I'll still try to persuade them too... probably...?"
Kyoko Kirigiri gave me such a glacial stare that I started stammering on reflex.
But persuading them really was necessary. Even if I'd more or less decided to treat them as enemies for now, Mukuro Ikusaba was still someone who could potentially be redeemed. If there was any chance of talking her down, then of course I had to try.
As for Byakuya Togami, in the end he reforms and becomes one of Makoto Naegi's strongest allies in the original story. After that, he keeps playing a major role. So somehow, some way, I had to get through to him too. I just had no idea how.
"People can be fixed. It's just that fixing them is hard. And right now, we need to pull in as many allies as we can, even if it's only one more. If that's what we need, then obviously we have to at least try to fix them."
After hearing that, Kyoko Kirigiri stared at me for a long moment, then finally spoke.
"You really are... an idiot."
"H-Huh...?"
"...It's nothing. Anyway—"
Just as Kyoko Kirigiri was about to say something else, a voice rang out from outside the locker room.
"Heeey, you two~! Did you rent out the whole locker room or what!? I wanna take a bath before bed, so how long are you planning to make me wait? I'm coming in!"
Damn it. Mukuro Ikusaba. She'd probably come to keep tabs on us. If she interrupted us like this every single time we came here, that would be a serious prob—
"...!"
Kyoko Kirigiri suddenly threw herself into my arms.
"What the hell are you two even doing in the locker—"
Mukuro Ikusaba's jaw dropped. She froze in the doorway, still holding the locker room door open.
"Uh... um... Junko Enoshima...? C-Could you maybe close the door...?"
"....."
Mukuro Ikusaba had died standing up. So in this case, who counted as the blackened? Wait, no—did that mean there were two blackened now?
"Huh...?... What...? Seriously...? You two were actually... like that...?"
Thank God. It didn't look like a Class Trial was about to start after all. Mukuro Ikusaba just stood there with her face bright red, staring at us and muttering to herself.
"Excuse me, you're in the way. Could you leave?"
The instant Kyoko Kirigiri snapped that at her, Mukuro Ikusaba nodded frantically and shut the door. Then, in the very next moment, Kyoko Kirigiri stepped away from me.
"...Haa. There will probably be many situations like this from now on, so you'd better prepare yourself. I think we should stop here for today. You should go out first."
"...Okay."
I had a feeling I wasn't getting any sleep tonight.
.
.
.
"Of course, this was also to deceive the Mastermind, but..."
Watching the boy hurry out of the locker room, Kyoko Kirigiri thought to herself.
"With this, I'll probably know for certain what this feeling is before long."
The Kirigiri family was a line of detectives who pursued objective truth regardless of good or evil. If the emotion she felt every time she looked at him really was what she suspected it was...
"Then..."
For a detective, someone who had to make objective judgments, feelings of that kind were fatal. A detective tainted by subjectivity lost her light—that was what her grandfather had always said. Remembering those words, Kyoko Kirigiri sank deeper into thought.
"When that time comes..."
Even though the answer was already decided, Kyoko Kirigiri still couldn't bring herself to reach it today.
.
.
.
.
.
In the dead of night, while everyone else slept, a giant girl sat alone in her room, meditating.
The girl had her eyes closed in silent meditation, but when she sensed a presence, she slowly opened them.
"Upupupu... It's hard to do spy work when the kids are taking turns standing watch, huh...? If it's really that hard, you could always just commit murder... Upupupupu..."
"Today will be the last day you laugh like that. I have decided that I will no longer obey you."
"What, what? So the traitor's betraying me again? I guess you're not worried about the people at your dojo anymore?"
"Today's vote made me realize something. Even if I act wrongly, everyone else will still move toward the righteous path in the end. To crush people with convictions like that just to protect those at my dojo... that would only bring them shame."
"Haaah... what are you, some shonen manga protagonist? Well, I figured you might say that, so I prepared a little something!"
"...What?"
A beam of light shot from Monokuma's eye, and a video began playing across the wall of the room.
"...!"
In the footage was Kenichiro, the only fighter Sakura Oogami had never been able to defeat, lying in a hospital bed.
"Y-You... bastard...!"
"Upupupu... It's a little early to get angry just yet...."
Then the scene in the hospital room changed. The room had been utterly wrecked, with signs of violent resistance scattered everywhere. And the bed was drenched in blood.
"Well? What do you think of the gift I prepared for you...?"
"I... will not... forgive you...!"
The instant Sakura Oogami, consumed by fury from head to toe, charged at Monokuma, he flashed a vicious grin and exploded.
"...!"
Sakura Oogami avoided the blast with superhuman reflexes, but when she saw the swarm of Monokumas appearing all around the room, she swallowed down a groan.
"Listen, if you keep resisting, the life of your precious Kenichiro is over! If you're fine with that, then go ahead and do whatever you want! Upupupupupupupupu...!"
With that, Monokuma tossed a sheet of instructions onto the floor, mocked Sakura Oogami one last time, and vanished.
Sakura Oogami picked up the paper, read the instructions, then slowly crumpled it in her hand and muttered in a grief-stricken voice.
"Kenichiro... what am I supposed to do...?"
And so, until dawn finally broke, Sakura Oogami was unable to find an answer either.