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“T-The Sky Casino’s General Manager!?” Atsushi stutters, once the name clicks; it took a moment to remember, and he can't quite place when or where he learned of the Sky Casino, but now that the knowledge has pulled itself to the front of his mind... “Why’s a person like that here!?”
Kunikida frowns. “It is odd. Apparently they haven't descended from the casino even once in the three years since they took their position. It must be important.”
“Huh...”
It’s really terrible timing. All their efforts are going into the Decay of Angels Case’s completion. They’ve put all their other projects to the side and won’t be accepting any other cases till its done. Had it been anyone less important than the Sky Casino’s General Manager—that’s like, a big deal—who requested their audience, they would have been dismissed right out of the gate.
Apprehension churns in his stomach.
“Well,” Kunikida says, and his voice is even, shoulders straight, but Atsushi is coming to learn that Kunikida isn’t usually so unaffected as he likes to act, “there’s no use in delay.”
He presses open the door, and they step one after the other onto the luxury vinyl of Cafe Uzumaki’s flooring.
The Sky Casino’s General Manager is sitting at the bar, legs crossed, one arm rested on the counter, long piano fingers delicately holding a coffee cup. A large cloak is laid over the back of their chair, hem draping against the floor. They’re tall; even in the tall bar chair, their shoes reach the ground, heels tilted against the floor. Bright sunlight falls in from the cafe’s window and hits platinum on the half-white of their hair, glinting gold on their earrings when their head turns to look at Atsushi and Kunikida.
They look…
Otherworldly, almost. Cut from a different cloth. Their entire existence, sleek and classy, clashes near-comically with Cafe Uzumaki’s warm, homely atmosphere.
“You’re the Sky Casino’s manager?”
They nod, small smile. “Sigma, yes. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance…?”
“Kunikida Doppo,” Kunikida says. Then, “I understand that you requested to see us, but we’re incredibly busy right now. We aren’t accepting new cases.”
“Of course,” Sigma says, not faltering in the slightest, “I understand that. I’m here because I have information relevant to that case.”
Atsushi blinks, startled. “O-oh.. Really? We only received the case this morning.” It’s barely past noon.
Sigma just nods, though. Enigmatic smile. “Do you have a more private room?”
Their voice is mild, calm, but not small.
“...We do,” Kunikida answers, after a moment.
“Thank you very much for the accommodation,” Sigma says, slipping easily from the chair, heels clacking against against the vinyl. They’re carrying a manila folder, Atsushi realizes belatedly. “I appreciate the consideration.”
“Ah...” Atsushi says, “it’s not problem...”
The walk back up the stairs into the Agency feels awfully long. Nobody talks the entire time, and instead, Atsushi observes Sigma from the corner of his eye. They walk in long, confident strides, each step punctuated by the clack of their heel. There’s a palpable presence to the way they carry themself.
He’s...honestly, he’s not sure if they line up with how he’s imaged them in the past. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t remember ever imagining them in the past. And that—it’s just a little weird. It seems like the kind of thing he would’ve passingly wondered at least once…
They all step into one of the Agency’s private rooms. Kunikida closes the door behind them.
It’s a plain room. Small. One couch, a chair, and between them, a coffee table. Some bookshelves lining the room’s edges. Faint smell of lavender from the air freshener. A coffee maker. No windows. Sigma settles into the chair easily, legs crossing, one over the other.
Atsushi tries, “Do you want anything to drink..?”
Sigma glances at him, eyes sharp as steel and the stormy gray of monsoon-season skies. They shake their head.
“No thank you,” they say, and take the folder from where it’s stayed tucked against their chest. They place it on the coffee table. Kunikida sits opposite them, taking the folder.
“This is…?”
“I figure it’s easier to let you read it yourself.”
Kunikida nods, opening the folder. Barely ten seconds, and his eyes widen. Visibly taken aback. Tense. Almost disbelieving. What…? “This is...”
“I’ve tried to be concise.”
Kunikida mutters something under his breath. Atsushi shifts weight between his feet, fingers fidgeting, feeling awkward. He’s still standing. He inches closer, tries to bend over and look at the folder’s contents, but—
“Atsushi-kun, call Ranpo,” Kunikida says, eyes not even lifting from the pages.
“A-Ah okay!” Atsushi nods, fumbling with his phone for a moment, clumsily unlocking it and clicking to Ranpo’s contact. The phone rings, and Atsushi excuses himself from the room, leaning against the wall just outside it. Ranpo picks up on third ring.
“Atsushi-kun?”
“Ranpo-san! Um, Kunikida-san asked me to call you—we just got, a tip? I think? I don’t know, the Sky Casino’s Manager came in, and they just gave this folder to Kunikida-san and I didn’t see what was in it but Kunikida-san looked at it and like immidiately told me to call you so—” he falters, “that’s what I’m doing, I guess… yeah,” he finishes, lamely.
A beat. Slight static over the line.
“...I’ll come back.” Ranpo sounds uncharacteristically...serious? Unsure? No, not unsure, just...almost puzzled, except Atsushi’s never heard him puzzled.
“Okay!”
“Go back in the room. I’ll be there soon. Don’t hang up.”
“Understood, Ranpo-san!”
He goes back inside. Kunikida is still reading through the folder’s contents. Everything is dead silent. Phone static and the distant whir of air conditioning. Minutes pass like that, only sound being the scrape of paper against paper as Kunikida reads through. Atsushi can practically see Kunikida overthinking, stress painting the lines of his shoulders, jaw.
Atsushi inches closer. Peers at the papers. It’s..
Oh.
Members, origins, long terms plans, short term plans, mechanisms, background information. There are five members, but only information on three of them. Multiple pages dedicated to...Fukuchi Ouchi. The national hero. The framing of the Agency. It’s ridiculous the amount of information Atsushi gets at a single glance. It’s also..frankly horrifying. Vampires? He thought this was a normal-ish murder case.
Suddenly, he understands Kunikida’s tense disbelief.
The door slams open carelessly. Atsushi flinches at the noise. Ranpo strides in, glasses on, and snatches the folder from Kunikida with characteristic disregard for social convention. He plops himself on the couch, legs criss-cross.
“Is it true?” Kunikida asks him.
“...Probably,” Ranpo says.
Kunikida grimaces. He looks at Sigma, says, “Where did you get all this?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Sigma says. What?
“You know more than you put in the folder,” Ranpo says. He discards it on the couch beside him. Unease pools in Atsushi’s stomach.
What?
It must be true, because it’s Ranpo, but Sigma doesn’t flinch at the accusation. Atsushi expects them to deny it, defend themself but—
“That’s true,” they admit, and—that easily!? There’s no falter in their steady tone, nothing bashful, no give. “Is there an issue?”
“You shouldn’t withhold information,” Kunikida says. That unease morphs itself into a tension that pricks at Atsushi’s skin. If the room was uncomfortable before, it’s now almost hard to breathe.
Sigma leans back, slightly, hands knit in their lap. Their tone is professional. “I can’t tell you more.”
Kunikida’s fist clenches. “This involves people’s lives! The whole world’s!”
“Unless your Agency is less competent than I thought,” Sigma says, and for the first time, their voice almost bites, has this hard edge, “the information within that file should be sufficient.”
The air is stifling.
“It’s the principle of it!”
Sigma doesn’t falter, “The casino acts in the casino’s interests, and I act in will of the casino. I got involved in this case because it would have impacted the casino, and nothing more.”
“But—”
“Mm that’s useless, you know!” The voice is loud and cheery and new and Atsushi nearly jumps out of his skin, heart lurching against the cage of his ribs, yelp tearing from his throat. Kunikida’s frame jumps. There’s a man across the room, arms rested against the back of Sigma’s chair, face grinning widely. “Sisha knows that already! Their moral compass is just wack!”
“G-Gogol—!?” Sigma actually does flinch away, stutters a little, expression slipping from alarm to a full on grimace. It’s the first expressions they’ve shown that aren’t placid and polite, and feels distinctly like the break of a mask that Atsushi hadn’t even realized was there. “I don’t—I don’t want to hear that from you!”
“Ehhh?” The man—Gogol?—leans forward, over the chair’s back, into Sigma’s space, albino-white hair falling around his face, single visible eye blinking. Fake-innocence. “My moral code is perfectly normal though!”
Sigma pitches their voice high, mocking, “‘My moral code is perfectly normal though’!”
“It is!” Gogol protests, making some broad motion with his hand that Sigma has to shift to avoid getting hit by, “I just actively go against it! There’s a difference!”
Sigma’s expression goes through all five stages of grief. Through the pulse in his ears, and his heart settling back into its place in his chest, Atsushi feels a pang of sympathy. It seems like they know each other? So it should be...fine?
“I—oh for fucks sake,” Sigma mutters. Grimaces again. “Why are you here right now anyway!? We agreed I was the only one going in!”
“That was what I said in the past!” Gogol pulls back, standing to full height, all whites and blacks, cape following his movement with dramatic flair. The complete change of Sigma’s demeanor, and just—the situation in general, is giving Atsushi serious whiplash.
Sigma twists to look at him. “That was what you said less than an hour ago!”
“I’m a different person now,” Gogol says, seriously, emotionally, sounding almost pleading—“I’ve changed.”
It’s said like a bad social media apology.
“Less,” Sigma punctuates, eye twitching, “than an hour ago.”
“Wowwww,” Gogol says, “so you don’t believe in character development?”
Sigma opens their mouth, looks like they’re going to argue, but—
“Um...” Atsushi says, and when both their faces snap to look at him, he wants to sink into the floor. The tension of the room has dispelled, thanks to the clown(? what kind of outfit is that—) but that doesn’t make suddenly interjecting himself any less awkward—“Who are you…?”
Gogol beams. “Great question! Here’s a quiz: who am I!?”
“That’s what I just asked—”
“Incorrect! The answer...” Gogol’s grin stretches thin across his face, up to the edge of his card-mask, visible eye sharp as the blade of a knife, “is Niko—wait no, not that. Oh boy, old habits do die hard! Where was I? Right—Gogol Nikolai! Third member of the Decay of Angels~!”
Atsushi’s blood freezes in his veins. The room’s temperature drops all at once.
“Why,” Sigma groans, hands pressing over their face as they lean back, tone exhausted, hand slipping away and to their sides, “are you like this.”
It’s not a refute of Gogol’s words. The previously dispelled tension is back, and twofold. It’s syrup-thick in the air, clots in Atsushi’s lungs, and it’s hard to force his tongue into compliance.
“...What?” he finally manages.
“You didn’t hear me?” Gogol props himself against the side of Sigma’s chair, half sitting on its arm, “I said—”
“You’re the one who carried out the murders,” Ranpo says, flat. Observational. Factual. It takes a moment to process the meaning. The one who carried out the murders.
Images surface in Atsushi’s mind. This morning, they all saw each image of the bodies, heard the descriptions of how each victim died. It was graphic. It was disgusting. Nauseatingly cruel.
The one who—
“The one and only!” Gogol winks.
It happens fast. Kunikida stands to his feet, fast, shoes clacking against the tiled floor. He draws his gun, points it at the other, and—
“Ah-ah!” Gogol gasps, hand drawing to his mouth. “Oh my! That’s a dangerous weapon, you know! You could really hurt someone with that! How scary~! Why don’t I just—”
one moment to the next, and just like that, Kunikida’s gun is spinning around Gogol’s fingers. He handles it with ease, silver steel a blur in his handling before it snaps into stillness, pointing at the ceiling. A spatial ability? Not good—
This is escalating way too quickly. They’re in the Agency’s heart; the cafe is right below them and all the noncombatant staff right here and— there’s panic knotting in Atsushi’s chest. He has to—has to do, say something—
“How could you do such terrible things!? If you’re—if you’re the one who killed those people… why do you kill in such cruel ways!?”
“Ugh,” Gogol makes a face, nose wrinkling. His wrist goes limp, and he lazily drops the gun into Sigma’s lap. Sigma catches it mid-fall, seems to consider it for a moment, then tosses it across the coffee table, back to Kunikida. “That was practically months ago. You expect me to explain myself from way back then? I barely remember who I was yesterday.”
Kunikida’s jaw sets. “The most recent killing was less than a week ago.”
“Blah blah whatever.” Gogol rolls his eyes and makes a vague gesture with his hand, like he’s flicking the subject aside. “Anyway Edo…Edogawa-san? Your friend’s fine. A little bloody but ehhh,” another hand wave, “more importantly! Half of what’s in that folder will probably be useless-ish within days so you should probably like, get on that.”
“Do you even know what’s in the folder?” Sigma grumbles, looking the slightest bit annoyed.
“Of course!” Gogol beams at them. “I checked them over!”
“You scribbled doodles in the margins and I had to reprint everything!”
“Details, details.”
“You are so lucky I’m good at huge amounts of short notice work,” Sigma grumbles.
“These files will lose value that fast even with two key figures turning traitor?” That’s Ranpo, frown slight. It’s...disconcerting, to see him troubled by anything that isn’t public transport.
Gogol laughs. “Hah! That’s a good one! A bit of advice—” he smirks, dangerous edge, “if Dos-kun’s plans fell apart just because one or two people acted outside his predictions, they wouldn’t be Dos-kun’s plans.”
A cold feeling washes over Atsushi. It’s perhaps the most genuinely serious that Gogol has sounded this entire time. There’s a weight to his words.
Dos-kun?
As in, Dostoyevsky?
“Right..” Atsushi mutters. Remembers Cannibalism. The rules cannot be changed.
Gogol slumps against the back of Sigma’s chair. He lets out this long, heavy sigh. “Ugh. I’m bored without Fedya..he’s always interesting. If—”
“Don’t start,” Sigma interrupts, hint of warning.
Don’t start? Start what?
“Ehh?” Gogol blinks. “Don’t start what? Sayyyy...the Sky Casino’s view is good, do you think me n’ Fedya—”
“No,” Sigma says, and actually cringes. They nudge Gogol off the back of their chair, and he barely budges. “Absolutely not! No, no both you and Dostoyevsky are permanently banned.”
Gogol actually startles into proper standing. “What did I do!?”
“You want an itemized list? Sure—” Sigma brings a hand in front of themself, lifts one finger, “you trespassed in staff-only areas—”
“Is that really a bannable offense—!?”
“—trashed a kitchen in an unauthorized baking project—”
“I gave you some of the cookies after and you liked them—!”
“—spilled deadly chemicals all over the bathroom which hospitalized two people before it was cleaned up—”
“That was one time—!”
“—cheat at every game you play—”
“You don’t have proof!” Gogol sticks his tongue out. “You’ve never actually caught me!”
Sigma’s eye twitches. They raise another finger. “Hid a corpse in a cleaning supplies closet and traumatized the staff member who found it.”
Gogol pauses at that.
“...Okay yeah but you know he wasn’t actually a patron ‘cause I killed him before he registered in and I did it on the plane so technically I didn’t kill him on casino property. So like, I didn’t break any rules.”
“Actually!” A serene, customer-service smile takes Sigma’s face. “Section four clause B, you broke the rule against littering organic compounds! Which you would know, if you read the rulebook.”
“…Fine so maybe I’ve broken a fewww rules,” Gogol says, “but why’s Fedya banned too!?”
By context, Atsushi assumes Fedya is Dostoyevsky. And—it’s weird, hearing a demon like that referred to so...familiarly? Affectionately?
Sigma gives him a flat look. “Where he goes you follow.”
Something incredibly dark flashes over Gogol’s face. It’s enough to make the hair on the back of Atsushi’s neck rise, goosebumps down his arm, body bristling on animal-instinct. Gogol’s expression turns cheery within moments, but cold still slips down Atsushi’s spine.
“I’m hurt,” Gogol says, “my own friend doesn’t want me at their place—”
Sigma physically cringes. “Never say that again.”
“Ehh we’re friends though, right?” Gogol’s smile stretches wide. “Don’t worry, it’s not like that’s bad or anything!”
“I’ve never heard less reassuring words in my entire life!”
“Woowwww,” Gogol draws out the word, rolling his eyes, “monologue about killing your bestie one time and suddenly no on wants to be friends with you!”
What?
“Actually,” Sigma says, “it’s been every other day for the last several months, and you attempted it!”
“It was consensual!”
Sigma throws up their hands. Pitches their voice high and mocking, says, “’Noooo you don’t get it, your honor. It was consensual murder, your honor. He agreed to my weird fucked up disaster death game!’”
Gogol beams. “Exactly!”
There’s a long pause. Sigma looks on the edge of breaking. Atsushi doesn’t even try to pretend he understands what they’re talking about at all. It’s as if they’re in a whole room of their own, with the way they’ve been going on among themselves. Atsushi seriously can’t figure out their relationship. Earlier...Ranpo implied that Sigma’s the other Decay of Angels member that was omitted from the folder, right?
Sigma breathes in, deep. For the first time in many minutes, they look across the coffee table, to Kunikida and Ranpo and Atsushi. Another deep breath.
“Apologies,” they say, polite, “I must excuse myself for a moment to attend personal matters.”
And with that, they rise from their seat, open the door, walk out, close it behind them, and…
a muffled scream of pure, undiluted frustration sounds from beyond the walls. Gogol snickers.
All at once, Atsushi feels another wave of acute sympathy for Sigma. That’s...probably bad, or something, considering they’re like, an actual terrorist who seems to get along(? maybe not the right term but Atsushi doesn’t know what is—) with the awful murderer who carried out such brutal deaths. Atsushi has never claimed to be an amazing person, though.
The door opens, again. Sigma walks back in, looking absolutely serene. The door closes behind them.
“The matter has been attended to,” they say, settling back into their seat, amiable smile on their face. “Thank you very much for your patience.”
Gogol snickers, again.
Sigma takes a deep breath. They twist around to face Gogol, and say, “I never wanna see or hear another thing about you and Dostoyevsky’s fucked up relationship again in my life.”
“Wow,” Gogol says, frowns, voice taking this odd, dramatized quality, almost fragile, disappointed, let-down, lost, “I didn’t...I didn’t know this about you...”
Sigma squints, brows furrowing. “What?”
“Me and Fedya’s fucked up relationship, you said,” Gogol sighs, “for my own friend to be homophobic…! How sad, how sad.”
Homophobic? What? Gogol and Dostoyevsky are..?
“I’m not—” Sigma scowls, “no.”
“You’re homophobic!”
Sigma looks like they’re spontaneously developing a headache. They rub a hand against their temple, pulling down the skin of their face, over their eye. The hand drops. “You’re the worst queer rep ever.”
“Expecting minorities to be rep in their day to day lives!?” Gogol gasps. “Respectability politics shift blame away from oppressors, you know! It’s inherently bigoted! See! Homophobia! Homophobic!”
Sigma’s composure breaks, again, genuine stress cracking across their face. “That’s not what I—”
“Homophobic!” Gogol pokes their shoulder. Then pokes it again, and again—“Homophobic homophobic homophobic homophobic homophobic homophobic homophobic homophobic homophobic homophobic—”
Sigma’s hand grabs Gogol’s by the wrist, stopping the poking. “One day,” they say, and it lacks bite, sounds almost exasperated, “I am going to throw you off Sky Casino’s roof.”
Gogol opens his mouth, looks like he’s going to protest, but—then he closes it. Looks almost considering. “Hey wait actually that sounds kinda fun.”
Sigma drops his hand. “Ugh.”
A beat, two. Atsushi is still trying to process...whatever that was. Homophobic. As if, as if Gogol and Dostoyevsky are involved and it’s hard to imagine Dosyoyevesky involved with anyone, but even harder to understand why Gogol would be doing this if that’s the case. If Atsushi had someone…
“...You know,” Gogol says, “I can’t be thrown off the Sky Casino’s roof if I’m not there… does this mean I’m unbanned.”
“...No.”
“Awww,” Gogol pouts, once again leaning into Sigma’s space. “What if I obey the rules and don’t bring Fedya am I allowed back then.” He bats his visible eyelashes. Puppy-eyes.
Sigma sighs, heavily. They look away, stormy gray eyes aimlessly wandering the bookshelf before flicking back to Gogol. Their shoulders slump. “There’s always a job there, if you want it.”
Gogol pauses, seems almost taken aback, startled, then beams. “I knew you cared about me, Sisha!”
“Sure sure whatever,” Sigma waves their hand to the side, gaze returning across the coffee table. It makes its way slowly over each one of them, Kunikida, Ranpo, and finally, Atsushi, where it lingers just a moment longer. Something complicated settles subtly over their face. Something almost self conscious rises in Atsushi; what kind of look is that? A slight frown pulls at Sigmas lips, and, finally, “You’re all welcome for visit, too, after this mess is over.”
Eh? Seriously? It’s a nice gesture. But—“I don’t think we have the money for that kind of thing… thank you for the offer though!”
Sigma exhales, quietly. “It’s fine. You get a free pass.”
Atsushi blinks. “Huh..?”
“You’re welcome at my casino. I suppose you could consider it...” Sigma trails off, seems like they’re testing words on their tongue. “You could consider it a payment of debt. You seems like kind people, that’s all.”
And there’s something about the way they say it, soft, a little conflicted, that makes Atsushi feel distinctly like he’s missing something.
“Ohhh,” Ranpo says, lighting up, “so that’s it.”
It sounds like he’s realized something. Knowing Ranpo, it’s probably several steps ahead of what everyone else is trying to piece together. Atsushi asks him later, when both Gogol and Sigma have taken their leave, but he refuses to answer. Says he’ll probably know in a few months, after spending more time with Sigma. That’s a big assumption to make, considering Sigma is the manager of the world’s most important casino, and an ex(?)-terrorist, but still—
they don’t seem like a bad person.
He’s not sure about Gogol, but… ah it’s really not the thing to be thinking about, though. Even with the sheer amount of information in the folder, there’s a lot of work to do, and he’ll be busy for weeks.