Chapter 431 - IT’S HIM

Two weeks passed before Akira found a solid lead on Kaito and the meeting he had before he disappeared. She almost jumped up as she looked at the footage of a man in the red light district standing at a corner on the screen. 

"It's him. It's him." She said with an emotional tremor in her voice.  ​​

Rai looked at the young woman working beside him with nȧkėd concern in his eyes. She had been moving from one computer to the next with quick hands and red eyes for almost twenty hours without rest. She looked drained of energy. 

He found the image of her worn-out face quite pitiful because he knew she did not like hacking though she was quite gifted at it. When she was teaching him, she told him that he had to become better than her because she hated being stuck behind screens all day. 

But for that man, she had been working without rest, afraid that he would miss something important. In addition, she read every report given by her team, even though they were unnecessarily pedantic. He had an inkling that the group was trying to punish her with the long reports. 

He pulled his chair to the paused image on the security footage on her computer. 

Rai frowned as he stared at the shadowy image of a man with his back facing the computer. A hat was pulled over his hair, and his clothes looked worn out and even dirty. In essence, the figure on the screen was a nondescript man after work. 

"Akira, are you sure? There are no distinguishing characteristics on this man." Raiden said gently. 

"I know it's him," Akira said stubbornly. 

"How did you find this footage? And where is this?" He asked, unwilling to agitate her. 

They had been running Kaito's image through their systems, and they had gotten no hits. They expanded their search to cover almost the entire city without any positive identification. It was strange that Akira had suddenly made a breakthrough. 

Akira turned from the screen and looked at Rai with a happy smile on dry lips and moist, red eyes. He stood up and got her a bottle of water from the mini-fridge under his workstation. 

"I know you think I am crazy but I know it is him." She said after gulping down the water. "I realised that Kaito was a bit sėnsɨtɨvė to security cameras, but he did not avoid them in an obvious manner such that his behaviour would strike observers as suspicious." 

"It is also useless to run his image through facial recognition because he can disguise himself quite well. So, I wrote a search algorithm based on behaviour patterns. If he was meeting an unknown person, it was unlikely he would walk up to them directly." 

"He would probably wait and observe the person to ensure it was not a trap. It is what I would do. I also chose geographical locations where he would not be remembered by anyone. He would not want to go to a place where he would attract attention." 

"High-traffic and low-end neighbourhoods like red-light districts experience a lot of movement, so they are ideal for a clandestine meeting. One is less likely to be remembered if the customers are not the same crowd every day." She added.

Raiden found that the logic was quite sound. An ȧssassin would not be so careless to walk and allow his face to be on security cameras without care. Still…

"How do you know this is him?" He asked. "He does not face the camera and looks like a normal loiterer." 

"I know him," Akira said with confidence. "Plus, after waiting for long on the street, he crossed the street and probably went in the bar across the street. That is not regular behaviour for a common loiterer." 

She played the footage of Kaito crossing the street. After a few seconds, he disappeared from the camera which had caught his figure for a while. She smiled again. Once she had the blurry figure, she could follow his movements.

"He stays in the bar for a while before he appears on another camera down the street later." She said before showing Raiden a man staggering a little but not overly so.

"Are you sure this is not just another drunkard? He does not seem to be acting." Raiden asked sceptically. 

"He is that good," Akira said with some pride. 

Raiden looked at the young woman, who was only slightly older than him, with worry. He had known her for so long that she was like his elder sister. She had taught him everything he knew and protected him when his life as the Chief's son became a little hard. 

He always thought he would have a chance to protect her. But he was not sure if he understood her. Perhaps she had told him so many stories about heroes of justice, working hard and fighting for good that he could not grasp her choice. 

"You are really set on this ȧssassin?" He asked. 

Akira looked up in surprise. "Why are you asking?" 

Raiden hesitated. "I don't know. I always thought that when you decided to date someone, it would be a person in the white. I pictured you going out with like a righteous soldier or a philanthropic businessman. Someone kind and nice like Double M." 

He knew that Double M and Akira were friends, and he had even hung out with them. He thought they would make a nice couple. Plus, he felt reassured because he knew that Double M was a good guy. Kaito was a literal global villain. 

If it were not for Akira, he would not even be allowed to say the name by his father. He was still not allowed to look at the background of this ȧssassin. Based on what he learned from a few sneaks in the super-secret database before he was caught, Kaito was a truly dangerous killer. 

Akira smiled with a hidden look in her eyes. "I have never wanted to date a nice guy. I am too fragile to be with a nice guy." 

"What are you talking about? If you are fragile, the rest of us are twigs." Raiden rolled his eyes. 

"It is not a matter of physical strength." She paused. "I don't want a nice guy because they will constantly struggle between choosing me and doing the right thing. Sometimes, those two things will be contrary. I have had enough people let me down in this life. I don't want a person who will struggle with putting me ahead of everyone else." 

"And I am also not one of the nice guys too. Everything I have done in this life has been out of selfishness. I was forced to be part of the Immortal Sword Brigade. And I worked day and night to learn everything and rise as far as I could just so that I can leave this life." 

Raiden felt like his spirits were dampened. Akira noticed his low mood and smiled a little. 

"If you want a simple reason why I am with Kaito, I can only put it this way. He saw me, the real me. And with him, I do not have to be composed or cold or cute or nice. Since I met him, I feel like I stopped putting up a front. I became the person I really am." 

"Does that make sense?" She asked.

Rai thought about the previous Akira. She was like his elder sister, but she was always closed off as if she was going through the motions. She smiled when appropriate and only spoke when it was necessary. 

She was a little bit like a robot. 

Now, she was completely transformed. 

"Yeah, it makes sense." He nodded with a smile. "So, what do you plan to do after this?" 

Akira looked back to the screen. "I will check out the bar later in the evening and try to find out where he went after leaving the streets. It is my only lead since that port seems to have been cleaned out completely without leaving a trace."