When we entered the dining hall, there were barely any students there. It seemed everyone still needed more time to sort out their thoughts.
A long while passed like that, and it wasn't until a little after 9 p.m. that everyone finally finished preparing themselves and gathered in the dining hall.
"..."
The others' eyes kept drifting toward us. At first, I tried to ignore it by force, but when those sharp, needling stares kept stabbing into us without pause, it was impossible not to feel uneasy.
"...We'll eat separately over there."
Not wanting to drag out this miserable atmosphere any longer, we moved to a table away from the others and started our meal.
The food was lavish, almost absurdly so, but I was wound so tight with tension that tasting it felt pointless. I just kept shoveling it into my mouth, and then Kyoko Kirigiri quietly asked me a question.
"Are you nervous?"
"Yeah... a little. I'm shaking."
"Hah. Says the guy who had no problem running around recklessly when his own life was on the line."
"Back then, it was only my life at stake... This vote has your life riding on it too."
"..."
At my words, Kyoko Kirigiri fell silent. She lowered her head and focused on eating. Beside us, Nanami watched the exchange, let out a sigh, and muttered to herself.
"K-kun really has it easy... I'm not very good at dating sims..."
"Huh?"
"It's nothing... Let's just eat..."
"...?"
And so the three of us spent a while eating in silence.
.
.
.
.
.
"Everyone's made up their mind, right? Today's vote is simple: can those three be trusted, or can they not?"
Once everyone had finished eating, Pigami began his address.
"If Nanami, Kyoko Kirigiri, and K win this vote, the three of them will be released from isolation. If they lose, their isolation period will be extended indefinitely."
With solemn gravity, Pigami pulled out the slips of paper and the ballot box he had prepared in advance.
"Then let us decide. Do we prioritize safety by excluding a few people, or do we accept some risk and choose to trust everyone?"
After Pigami finished speaking, silence settled over the room.
"All right, then..."
"Wait, what about Hinata? Hinata has to vote too..."
"Mr. Hinata... woke up briefly this morning, but he started complaining of severe pain again, so I gave him the sleeping pills we found in the supermarket. I wanted to wake him and bring him here if possible, but... right now, I think rest has to come first..."
"Hm. Then it can't be helped. He's already in pain as it is, so we can't force him awake. I should've asked which side he planned to vote for while he was up this morning..."
"...Fine. No more questions, I assume? Then everyone, take one of these slips—"
"Wait! Wait just a second! I have a question too!"
"Now what is it this time...? Y-you... You're—!?"
Pigami turned toward the source of the voice, clearly ready to snap back in irritation, but the instant he recognized who it was, he recoiled in shock.
"Upupupu... No way I'd miss an event this entertaining...!"
"M-Monokuma...? Why are you here...?"
Before anyone had noticed, Monokuma had popped up right in the middle of the dining table. Grinning, he tossed a question at Pigami.
"Anyway, I've got a question! You said the outcome of this vote will determine what happens to those three, right? So then... does that decision actually have any force behind it...?"
"It's a decision everyone agreed on. It has more than enough force—"
"Nope. It's all just for show, isn't it? What if someone conspires with the traitors and helps them escape from the old building? Or what if those three sneak out and murder someone?"
"...So what exactly are you trying to say?"
"What's more meaningless than a vote with no enforcement? So... I'll give it some!"
Bzzzzzzzt!
The moment he finished speaking, everyone's E-Handbook vibrated.
[Rule 12]
On the day this rule is added, a vote shall be held in the dining hall before 10 p.m. on the question: "Will you trust the traitors?" A yes vote shall be regarded as meaning the traitors can be trusted, and a no vote shall be regarded as meaning the traitors cannot be trusted.
[Rule 13]
In the vote described in Rule 12, if twice the number of no votes exceeds the number of yes votes, the traitors shall be permanently confined to the old building.
As soon as they saw the new rules that had suddenly been added to their E-Handbooks, the students broke into confused, anxious murmuring.
"W-What is this rule...!? We already decided the conditions for the number of yes and no votes...!"
"All that stuff about two-thirds of the whole group is such a pain, y'know? You get decimals, then you have to round them, and it's annoying! So I kindly remodeled the rules into something nice and neat!"
"W-Who gave you the right...!?"
When Pigami protested, Monokuma scratched his head and answered in a strangely timid tone.
"Upupupu...? Whether you use your rule or my rule, nothing's really changed, has it?"
"He does have a point. Out of the thirteen of us, they still need at least nine votes for those three to win..."
"Right, nothing's changed. If anything, I like that this gives the result actual force. If those guys lose the vote, doesn't that mean we never have to worry about the traitors again?"
"At the very least, no one can complain about the result now..."
"Hm. If that's how all of you see it..."
Pigami still looked deeply uncomfortable, but he accepted the others' reasoning and quietly set out the prepared slips and ballot box.
"Then... we will begin the vote now."
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.
.
.
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"Nine in favor, four against. Just as expected."
The vote ended more anticlimactically than I'd expected.
Just as we'd predicted, every student in the neutral camp swung over to the yes side, and everyone except the four holdouts cast votes in favor.
It was a vote that would determine all our fates going forward, so I'd been braced for something far more harrowing. The fact that it ended this easily left me with a strange, almost unreal feeling—but in the end, a win was a win.
"Congratulations! Let's all do our best from here on out!"
"Ibuki believed you guys would clear your names, y'know! Tonight, as a special treat, I'll put on a concert in the old building—"
"I was this close to voting no, but I held back and picked yes instead... so you'd better keep the promise you made earlier, K."
"Th-That's a relief... It was really closeee..."
The students who had voted yes smiled and offered their congratulations. It hit me harder than I expected; my eyes were starting to sting, when Owari blurted out something that smashed the mood to pieces.
"I personally voted yes for you, y'know! You happy? Just like you said, a man's tail gets happy when he's happ—mmph!?"
This was the disastrous aftereffect of me explaining to Owari yesterday—after she kept hounding me about a man's tail—that it was a body part that got happy when a man got happy.
I clamped a hand over Owari's mouth as fast as I could, but the look Kyoko Kirigiri gave me was anything but ordinary.
...Yeah. My life was probably about to get a lot harder for a while.
"Tch..."
"..."
"Well, the result's already decided, so there's nothing to be done. We'll just have to judge you by your conduct from here on out..."
"If Big Sis says so..."
The students who had voted against us still looked deeply dissatisfied, but maybe because they understood the rules had actually been stacked against us, they didn't openly vent their complaints.
"Then... I guess now we only have to worry about that crazy white-haired bastard..."
"Seriously... that guy isn't worth trusting at all."
"Still, keeping him tied up like that forever is a little..."
As the dining hall gradually transformed into a full-blown Komaeda gossip session, Pigami looked around the room and declared in a ringing voice,
"Then the vote is decided in favor of Nanami, Kyoko Kirigiri, and K—!"
"That's wrong."
The instant that voice cut in from the entrance to the dining hall, Pigami stopped cold. A look of horror spread across his face—and he wasn't the only one.
"K-Komaeda...!?"
"W-Why are you here...?"
"Ahaha... I'm terribly sorry for a worthless nobody like me to intrude on your vote, but..."
"I don't know how you got out of your restraints, but coming to us of your own accord was foolish. Men, help me subdue him again—"
"Wait, wait! I don't mind being tied up again... but before that, there's something I want to do."
Komaeda swiftly snatched up one of the slips of paper and a pen from the table, scribbled something down, and dropped the slip into the ballot box.
"Y-You... what did you just do...?"
"Why... I voted, of course."
"What...?"
"More precisely, I voted with the opposition. I voted for the side that says the traitors can't be trusted."
Komaeda's words froze the room solid.
"Even if you vote now, the count is already over—"
"Upupupu... The one who decides when the vote ends isn't Togami, it's the rules I made, okay? Until it's 10 p.m., the vote isn't over! Which means that vote just now totally counts!"
At Monokuma's declaration, the students erupted into frantic whispers.
"Th-Then what happens to the vote now...?"
"Until just now, it was nine yes and four no... so twice the number of no votes didn't exceed the yes votes. But if Komaeda's vote counts, then it's nine yes and five no..."
"Then twice the no votes exceeds the yes votes..."
"Th-Then those three are really going to be... permanently confined to the old building!?"
"Th-This is cheating!!"
When the students protested, Monokuma only laughed.
"Upupupu... There's not a single part of this that breaks the rules, y'know? Don't be such sore losers!"
Monokuma was right—technically, no rule had been violated. But Komaeda's nonstop sabotage had pushed everyone past their limit, and the fury in the room swung toward him all at once.
"Komaeda! How the hell did you get out of your restraints!?"
"Monokuma kindly untied me... Though if I'd wanted to, I could've gotten free on my own."
"Why would you do something like this!?"
"Because even if it's not all of you... nine Ultimates are drowning in despair right now, aren't they? I'm very excited to see what kind of hope you'll kindle from this despair..."
The others stared at Komaeda with expressions of pure revulsion, but he merely swept his gaze over them with rapturous eyes, as if he were beholding something sacred.
"Komaeda, the reason you do things like this is... ultimately because of hope, isn't it...?"
Breaking the long, oppressive silence, Kyoko Kirigiri spoke in a voice as cold as a scalpel. Komaeda smiled and answered her.
"Yeah... in the end, it is because of hope, I guess...?"
"Then why are you helping the Mastermind, the very source of this despair? If you truly want to see everyone hold on to hope, shouldn't you be taking the lead in helping us defeat the Mastermind instead?"
"Haha..."
"If you keep helping the Mastermind like this, then despair could actually win—"
"No."
Komaeda stopped laughing. Then he began to speak with eerie, fanatical seriousness.
"How could something like despair ever defeat hope? No matter how violently despair thrashes, no matter how pathetic and insignificant hope may seem—nothing more than a speck of dust in the void... in the end, the thing that wins is always hope."
"..."
"So... the more I help despair, the more magnificent the hope that crushes it in the end will become... won't it!? To witness that, I can join hands with the Mastermind, and I can throw away my own life without hesitation...!! Well? Does that answer your question...?"
By the paradoxical madness of Komaeda's hope doctrine, the tiny spark of hope had been driven right to the brink of extinction...
"Well then... it's almost 10 p.m.! So, traitors, hurry along to the old building—"
"Wait!!"
"Upupupu...?"
And then, as two figures burst through the doorway—
"Monokuma! This time, things are not going your way! Hinata-kun still has... his voting rights left!"
"Your statements..."
Miraculously, hope began to blaze back to life.
"Prepare yourself!!"
"I'll cut you down!!"