Energy Detection

His limbs felt weak, his mind heavy. The first thing Sato did when his consciousness awakened was instinctively assess his surroundings—the noise, the chaos, and the scorching heat that came rushing at him.

Having just advanced to a Gold Rank Killer, he immediately forced himself to open his eyes and stay alert to everything around him. What came into view was a detached villa engulfed in flames, familiar yet strange.

"You're awake! Little Sato is awake, my poor child!" An old grandma with white-haired hair was both shocked and overjoyed. She hugged Sato and was about to cry out in grief.

"Bang!"

No one had ever gotten close to Sato in over twenty years. His left hand instinctively shoved her away roughly, while his right hand naturally reached for his lower back, where the partner bound to his life should have been.

"Hmm?" Sato frowned. His lower back was completely empty; even the Battle Belt every Trainer needed was gone. A flash of panic and ruthlessness crossed his eyes. He was about to escape when he caught sight of the old grandma getting to her feet.

Why was she... so tall? "Little Sato, I know you're hurting too, but the dead cannot come back to life. If you don't mind Grandma..." As she spoke, she wrapped him in another full embrace, holding the stunned Sato in her arms again and softly comforting him.

Sato blankly turned to look at the villa in the flames. A memory buried deep in his mind suddenly surfaced, slowly overlapping with the reality before him.

"This is... my home?"

"Little Sato... wuwuwu..." Hearing that, the old grandma hugged him even tighter. Without explaining anything, she simply kept crying.

Sato tried hard to stretch out his hands. A pair of fair, tender little hands entered his view. There were no scars left from executing missions, nor were there calluses built up through all kinds of training. They looked so unfamiliar, nothing like his own hands.

Are these my hands?

Sato suddenly understood. He had been reborn! But why? Even with another chance, he was still alone...

Looking at the villa, already more than half burned down, Sato's reason told him that no one could have survived under such circumstances. His memories of his parents had already become blurry, and even now, he still could not see their faces clearly.

After struggling free of the old grandma's hands, Sato searched through the scattered fragments of memory in his mind. The person before him seemed to be his neighbor. Her son, like his parents, was a somewhat famous businessman in Saffron City. Because the adults had all been busy with work, this old grandma—whose name Sato had forgotten—seemed to have taken very good care of him when he was young.

Rebirth, the fire, and the companions who had been with him for years, Zoroark and the others... For a time, even Sato, with his exceptionally strong mental fortitude, was overwhelmed by tangled thoughts and left at a loss.

Wait! Dark Power!

Sato closed his eyes and silently sensed everything within his body. A stream of pure black energy was quietly mobilized. His eyes instantly turned pitch-black, then quickly returned to normal.

Sato sighed softly. Dark Power was still there, and even its strength was exactly the same as before his rebirth.

Wait, exactly the same? If he had been reborn, why had Dark Power not changed in the slightest? After a long while, unable to find any explanation, Sato could only keep the question in his heart and set it aside for now.

Beside him, his neighbor grandma's nagging continued to enter his ears without pause. Yet when Sato activated Dark Power, he vaguely discovered that a trace of special energy seemed to be remaining within the burning villa.

"Hey, Little Sato, come back! It's dangerous there!" The neighbor grandma anxiously tried to stop Sato as he ran toward the villa, but her age prevented her from succeeding. However, the fire had drawn more than just her. Seeing this, the surrounding adults all stepped in, trying to stop Sato.

"I'm not going inside!"

Judging from when this incident had occurred, Sato was not yet ten years old. He clearly understood the gap between himself and adults, so he merely moved a little closer before stopping. This instead left the adults rushing over unsure whether they should grab him or not.

Ignoring everyone else, Sato silently mobilized Dark Power from an angle no one could see. His eyes turned black again. Through Dark Power, he clearly sensed a familiar emotion of disdain, which gradually calmed afterward.

Sato took another step forward, wanting to examine it more closely. The people following him nervously stepped forward as well, afraid the child might do something rash and rush into the flames.

Unfortunately, the remaining energy was extremely weak. Within moments, he could no longer sense it. Sato withdrew Dark Power. Before he had time to think deeply about it, he saw a circle of strangers surrounding him. He felt a little moved, but before his rebirth, as a killer, he had never known how to thank people. He could only silently step back and no longer approach the fire.

"Little Sato..." The neighbor grandma's nagging started again. Sato did not say a word. To others, it looked as though he could not bear the blow of losing both parents, but twenty years of darkness had been enough for him to rapidly adapt to everything in a short period of time. At that moment, he was thinking about something else.

Could this fire have been deliberately set by someone? The special energy he had just detected with Dark Power could not have been an illusion! The first extended ability of Dark Power was Energy Detection. Dark Power, a Dark-type power, was extremely sensitive to the energies of six types—Dark, Psychic, Ghost, Bug, Fighting, and Fairy—and the corresponding emotions it released were excitement, disdain, and disgust. Simple and direct.

The remaining energy just now had caused Dark Power to feel disdain. That meant it had definitely been left behind by a Ghost- or Psychic-type Pokémon. Either one would be an expert at silently killing people and setting fires!

At last, the police barely arrived when the house was almost burned away. A firefighting team made up of numerous Water-type Pokémon began working. Skills such as Water Gun and Hydro Pump were unleashed one after another, and the fire was quickly extinguished. Four Golduck carried two stretchers out of the smoke-filled villa. The neighbor grandma hurriedly covered Sato's eyes, refusing to let him see this scene.

He did not reject her kindness, but another aura that he found extremely unpleasant was slowly approaching. Bypassing the hands covering his eyes, Sato silently watched Officer Jenny walk over. His long life underground had made him exceptionally sensitive to this sort of "righteous aura."

However, in everyone else's eyes, he was merely—and could only be—an innocent child. Suppressing the disgust in his heart, Sato met Officer Jenny's gaze and silently questioned her through eyes that were still remarkably clear.

"I'm sorry. The road to this neighborhood suddenly collapsed, so the rescue arrived late. Please accept my condolences!" Officer Jenny did not know why, but as she looked into Sato's clear yet slightly stubborn eyes, she began awkwardly explaining herself before even releasing her aura to question him.

Sato lowered his head, not letting Officer Jenny see the strange look in his eyes. He was certain that, in both his previous life and this one, there was absolutely a reason behind his parents' deaths. But Officer Jenny had not come merely to apologize. Without giving Sato time to think, she stated her purpose.

"Sato, given your current circumstances, I can help apply for you to live in an orphanage specially established by the Pokemon League, where you can complete your education. Once you reach adulthood, your parents' inheritance will be transferred to you."

"Okay."

"Don't worry, we... That's good, then."