The transition from the sterile white of the IAB headquarters to the chaotic evening streets was jarring. Ren and Sora stood at the edge of the industrial district where the kidnappings had occurred, the humid air thick with the smell of ozone and decay.
"Haruka used a brute-force Warp to minimize time," Ren stated, his gaze fixed on a scorched patch of asphalt. He was ignoring the wide, messy circle of Mana disruption left on the street. "Akira would have corrected for the Mana resonance instantly. The entry point must be mathematically perfect."
Sora snorted, already moving toward the debris of an overturned dumpster. "Math is boring. Look at the mess."
Sora was right. The site radiated a specific signature: the Warp Splatter. Haruka's Warp Jujutsu required an immense, chaotic volume of Mana to tear the space open, and no amount of precision could perfectly contain the residual energy.
Tracing the Chaos (Sora)
Sora closed her eyes, channeling her Kinetic Mana Augmentation. She wasn't looking with her eyes; she was sensing the high-frequency vibrations left in the air, the ground, and the very fabric of space where the massive energy had been unleashed.
"It's like an aftershock," she muttered, her hands flexing, a faint, shimmery outline of potential Concussion Webs appearing around her palms. "A massive power dump, fast and dirty. She didn't stabilize the whole portal, only the exit point."
She pointed north. "The Warp Splatter is heaviest here. Haruka tried to contain the initial surge, but the volume was too high. The Mana trail is chaotic, raw. We follow the mess."
Sora deployed a Concussion Web, not as an attack, but as a sensory instrument. She cast a wide, thin net of shimmering kinetic force that expanded silently over the street. When the web made contact with the residual Warp Splatter, it vibrated, instantly giving her the direction of the greatest Mana concentration.
"North. Fast. They had to move that energy in a hurry."
Reading the Lock (Ren)
"But the trail is unsustainable, Sora," Ren countered, stepping over the energy residue. His job was the inverse: tracking the Lock. "Haruka's raw power is useless for long-range tracking. We need the precision."
Ren stood at the very center of the Mana disruption, channeling his Snap Cast Mastery. He wasn't sensing the chaos; he was detecting the improbability. Akira, the former Master Enforcer, would never leave a trail that could be followed by raw power. He had applied a Neutralization Spell to the portal's exit, forcing Haruka's Mana into a hyper-rigid, temporary structure.
Ren deployed a tiny, almost invisible Snap Cast Tracking Spell—a Mana packet so perfectly formed that it instantly locked onto the complementary perfection of Akira's signature.
"There," Ren announced, pointing not north, but slightly northwest. "The chaotic trail goes north, but Akira's structural stabilization was focused here, at a slight angle. He forced the Mana flow into a new, smaller vector to minimize their spatial footprint. Haruka's chaos wants to go one way, but Akira's precision made it go another."
He looked at Sora. "We follow Akira's vector. It's the more efficient path, meaning it's the one they are still relying on."
The Converging Threat
Sora retracted her web, the sheer force imploding harmlessly back into her hands. "Fine. We follow the neat path for now. But that controlled Mana is dangerously close to a civilian hub—the Old Financial District."
Ren checked his IAB tactical uplink. "Correct. And according to Grandmaster Kenji's remote analysis, the Master Enforcer's specialty was always in systems, not fighting. He needs the victims' Mana for a high-level, long-term magical endeavor, not just a simple hideout. Why the Financial District?"
"If he's looking for power," Sora mused, "he'd target a place where the IAB has massive, layered magical defenses. He wouldn't hit the Treasury—too obvious. He'd hit something that mimics the Treasury."
Sora pointed to a digital marker on the tactical map: the Black Market Auction House. The structure was built on an abandoned IAB Mana Conduit, making its defenses both obsolete and extremely dense.
"Akira always wanted to prove he was smarter than the Bureau," Ren said, adjusting his sleeve. "If he wants to make a point about efficiency and control, he'll hit a symbol of our failure."
"He's going to steal something powerful to unify his group, or use that dense, old Mana Conduit to power his next move," Sora confirmed.
The two Enforcers broke into a sprint, Ren using his precise, Mana-efficient displacement to maintain silent speed, and Sora using her heavier Kinetic Augmentation to blast through side streets. They were heading directly toward the largest concentration of volatile, valuable magical assets in the city—and directly into a confrontation with the mastermind who valued their lives as nothing more than fuel.