Chapter 15: Trails

'6:17.A.M.'

In the guest room in Sora's apartment, the alarm clock that sat in the corner of the room displayed the time.

"Finally I'm done." An exhausted Sora dropped the screwdriver in his hand and wiped the line of sweat on his face as he looked down at his finished work.

Sitting on the floor was a small metal box that had different colors to it. With it being made out of different parts of different machines, it had a few sections of it that had a blue or different color.

He moved it towards the main desk in the room. On top of the desk lay a dark blue monitor that he managed to salvage some time ago from old parts.

He fixed the metal box underneath the table in a way that it wouldn't cause discomfort to whoever sat down in front of it.

Reaching into one of the table drawers, he got out a bunch of black and red wires. He identified each of them and used them accordingly until the monitor was properly connected to the box.

He looked at his finished work with a tired smile as he took a sip from a water bottle within reaching distance.

'It's finally finished. It's not portable but that's work for another day. Who the hell throws away a high speed processor?' He thought as he pushed a button on the box causing it to glow a dull blue color.

He then switched on the monitor which took a few seconds to start up. It took a full minute for everything to start up but that didn't diminish the smile on his face.

In front of him was a fully functional computer system with enough power to do more than what he needed to do. It had more power than the computer at the cafe.

He might need to make a few updates and add-ons later but it was perfectly acceptable. He immediately uploaded the footages to the system to analyze properly.

'Now, time to see what actually happened.' He thought as he pressed play.

In the first footage, nothing suspicious seemed to happen. The girls who were said to be missing weren't even seen yet.

Though the camera view couldn't show everything, from what he could see it was just people going through their daily routine.

'Out of the three girls that were kidnapped, the only one who would be able to give me a lead would be the most recent one who was said to be last seen in this area.' He watched as the video ended and moved to the next one that showed the area from a different angle.

Like that, five hours passed as he scanned through each footage. To speed things up, he had to increase the video speed or he would be searching for days.

'I'm getting nowhere with this!' He thought in frustration. Just when he was about to pause the video, something strange caught his attention.

So far from what he had watched, he hadn't seen any girl matching her description. He switched the footage and watched carefully.

A girl walked on the road and out of the camera's view. He switched the footage to the one that should showed the view where the girl should be walking into.

She didn't appear in view.

There was no turning or other road that she could have taken that would cause her to avoid the camera's view.

'Judging from the speed she was walking, it would take her about 1.5 seconds to enter the next camera view but she didn't. What could have happened so quickly and silent within that time frame?' He thought, pondered over the footage.

'It's possible that it could be a speedster. There's a lot of them in this world.' He thought as he slowed down the video to the lowest speed possible but still found nothing.

'Wait. What's that?' He questioned as his attention was drawn to an oddly shaped shadow on the floor at the edge of the camera view.

Increasing the quality of the video took a minute but it was worth it in the end. With the sharper images, he was able to see the shadow which was only reflected due to the timely and opportune ray of light from the street lamp.

From what he could see, the body of the shadow had sharp edges and was beastly in appearance.

More importantly, it was even larger than a grown man. As if it wasn't all, there were some shapes that weren't possibly human. It appeared for a brief second and disappeared along with the girl.

'That's definitely not human. It looks like…I don't know what it looks like.' He thought, trying to identify the creature.

He sighed as he went deep into thought.

'Is this really the same guy. Other than using the same pattern of one kidnapping a day, I can't think of anything else that would help me figure out his next move.' He thought, wracking his brain for answers or clues.

'He's not human so the only other possibilities I can see are meta humans, mutants, aliens or some failed lab experiment and there are no grounds to say that this is any of them either.' He really felt like pulling out his hair at this point.

He had been at this for hours and the only thing he had figured out was that whoever or whatever was involved in this wasn't human.

'Or he could be human in an oddly shaped disguise. There are too many possibilities here!' He mused in frustration as he got off the chair and exited the room.

'There's only one thing left to try but it's a stretch.' He thought, immediately leaving the room but not before locking it and tossing the key in his inventory.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sora was back at the scene of the crime in a disguise. He took the appearance of a ten year old boy with brown hair and eyes of the same color.

He made sure to fake a look of curiosity on his face to help further the image of a normal child. He walked towards the area where the video camera cuts off before leading to the next view.

'All beings that have abilities must have something that powers those abilities. The same way chakra powers mine, they must have a source of energy.' He thought as he made a show of inspecting the pavement.

'Stamina, Mana, Ki…this will help me narrow my search. Although I can't tell the difference between them, mana and the others are things that can be used externally. Stamina on the other hand….' He thought as he tried to feel his environment with his physical senses.

Closing his eyes to shut down his other senses and amplify the none physical ones, he reached out with metaphorical feelers into the environment.

He didn't know how long he stayed there but he knew what the feeling of success was as he felt something form in his body. Just like the eyes see and the hand feels, something akin to an organ took form in him.

An organ specifically made for feeling energy, supernatural or not.

[*Ding!*]

[Due to special action you have gained 'Energy Sensing'!]

He fought the grin that tried to force its way out on his face but failed as his lips widened into a mad grin.

'I did it!' Realizing that the grin looked out of place on the face of the ten year old that sported it, he quickly covered it.

Now that he had acquired this skill, it seemed like his sense were opened more than before. He was also aware that the 'organ' that formed wasn't something physically but energy based.

With Energy Sensing, he could feel the particles of energy in the air around him. It was faint but he could feel it.

It seemed to lesson by a tiny amount with each passing minute but Sora who was paying close attention noticed the drop in particles.

'It seems that it fades or dissipates as time passes. If I was even a day late, there would be no trace left.' He thought with a small amount of relief that he had gone through with his hunch.

'Now, let's see where this trail will lead me.' He thought as he heard the electronic sound signaling the skill's first level up.

His sensing range grew bigger and more refined with the level up, causing his smile to resurface.