The eastern road of Blackridge was wider than the market road, and busier. Stalls crowded both sides, the sounds of bargaining mixed with the noise of carts pushed over cobbled streets. Ash walked through all of it without slowing his pace, and Shiva followed behind him with lighter steps.
"So that purple blood of yours," said Shiva, "what caused it?"
"Don't know."
"Don't know, or don't want to answer?"
Ash did not answer. Shiva took that as an answer.
"Fine." Shiva jumped over a small puddle on the pavement. "Then where are you from?"
"Pinedale."
"Where is that? Is it far?" Shiva stared at Ash's back for a moment. "Did you walk from there?"
"More or less."
"More or less, more or less what?"
Ash did not answer again. Shiva let out a short breath but did not stop asking.
"That regeneration of yours, has it been long?"
"Long enough."
"Is it genetic, or because of something?"
Ash turned briefly toward Shiva, looked at him with an unchanged expression, then turned his gaze forward again. Shiva understood that look and chose a different question.
"What is your purpose in going to Ironclad?"
This time Ash truly did not answer. Not because he was ignoring, but because his eyes had already moved elsewhere.
On the left side of the road, a large-bodied businessman stood in front of his warehouse door, his hand raised and one finger pointing toward a porter who stood with his head slightly bowed. His words were loud and there was clearly no intention to keep his voice down.
"Watch your wheel, that cart's cargo is worth more than you, you know!"
The porter did not answer, his expression cold with suppressed irritation.
A few steps further, two workers pushed a cart loaded with goods up a small slope, their sweat already soaking through the backs of their shirts, and a foreman on the side of the road shouted for them to be careful with the incline of that small slope.
Ash observed all of it as he walked, his eyes moving from one point to another.
Shiva slowed his steps slightly, then looked in the same direction as Ash. "Do you understand now why I steal from people like them?"
Ash did not answer, but his ears clearly heard.
"That is how they treat the people beneath them." Shiva matched his steps with Ash. "Every day, not just when someone is watching."
Ash glanced toward him. "What do you mean?"
"This city looks alive and busy." Shiva looked at the row of stalls and buildings on either side of him. "Its economic wheel turns, people work, goods change hands. But if you look more closely, all of it turns only to benefit a handful of people."
Ash listened without interrupting.
"They buy harvests from village farmers at prices that barely cover the cost of planting. Rice, vegetables, livestock, all bought at very cheap prices under the pretext of transportation and market risk." Shiva nodded toward the large stalls on the side of the road. "Then those same goods are sold here at three to four times the price. The difference goes into the pockets of those businessmen."
"The farmers don't protest?"
"Protest to whom? This is the only distribution channel that exists. If they don't sell to the city wholesalers, their harvests rot in the warehouse."
Ash was silent for a moment. "Does the mayor know about this?"
Shiva let out a short sound from his nose, not a laugh, more like a reaction to a question whose answer was already too obvious. "He is precisely the one who arranges all of it. The big businessmen in this city pay him, and he protects them. Price regulations, distribution permits, all arranged so there is no opening for small traders to compete."
"The people just stay silent?"
"There were those who once protested." Shiva's tone dropped slightly. "But Aegis is here. Anyone who starts speaking too loudly will receive an unpleasant visit. No need to be arrested, just made afraid, and usually that is already enough."
Ash stopped walking.
Shiva, who was half a step behind him, nearly collided with his back. "Hey, why did you stop?"
"Aegis," said Ash.
Not a question, not an ordinary statement either. Just that word, spoken with a tone different from all the sentences before it.
Shiva studied Ash's expression from the side. There was something in that man's face that had changed, not obvious anger, but more like something that had been suppressed for a long time.
"If I were you, I would get out of this city immediately." Shiva continued walking slowly. "That Jason group is only one small unit. If the report about you has already gone up, what comes next will be far more."
"I will beat them all."
Shiva glanced toward him. "Like earlier?"
"Is there a problem with how I did it earlier?"
"There is." Shiva did not soften his answer. "You were too sloppy. You attacked with an axe without a pattern, easy to read, and Jason avoided you with almost no effort. If not for my help, you would still be chasing after him until now."
Ash's jaw moved slightly. "I was emotional earlier."
"A good fighter must be able to control his emotions."
"I could have incapacitated ten of his men with ease."
"Those were ordinary men."
Shiva looked at him for a few seconds, then laughed softly, not a mocking laugh, but the laugh of someone who found something funny without being able to hold it back. Ash snorted and resumed walking.
They made their way along a road that grew narrower as it approached the eastern side of the city, the buildings here older and more tightly packed, thick moss visible on several sections hidden in shadow and some of the alleyways between them were only wide enough for one person to walk straight through.
Suddenly Ash's hand was pulled hard to the side.
Shiva dragged him into one of those narrow alleyways, Ash's back nearly touching the wall on one side and his shoulder nearly touching the wall on the other. "What are you–"
Shiva's palm covered his mouth.
Shiva pointed out toward the main road they had just left with one finger, his eyes focused in that direction.
A group of men dressed all in black passed over the cobbled road on thin boards that floated several dozen centimeters above the ground, each holding a small handle in front of their bodies to control the speed and direction. They moved in a two-row formation, not speaking, their gazes focused on the road.
Ash and Shiva did not move until the sound of small engines from those boards disappeared along with the thin dust left behind on the cobbled road.
Shiva lowered his hand. "I already said it." His voice was quiet but his tone was clear. "They would surely hunt us down soon, and we were strolling casually through the middle of the city as if nothing was happening. From now on I am the one who determines our route out."
Ash stepped out of the alley, back onto the main road.
"Hey." Shiva followed him. "Did you hear what I said?"
"Why should I be afraid of people who cannot even hurt me.?"
"So stubborn." Shiva walked behind him, his voice rising half a note. "This is not about being hurt or not, this is about not creating bigger problems."
"Go away if you're afraid. Besides, why are you following me?"
Shiva opened his mouth to answer, but the answer did not come out. His eyes instead dropped, looking toward Ash's neck and arm in front of him.
"Wait." His voice changed. "What are those blue streaks?"
Ash did not immediately answer.
Along his neck, and spreading down his left arm visible through the tear in his burned clothing, thin veins of bright blue were visible beneath the surface of his skin, like cracks in dry earth beginning to fill with water, spreading slowly in irregular directions.
***
In the northern district of the city of Blackridge, a 3-story building stood in the middle of a neatly arranged garden. Its iron fence was tall and clean, the plants in its yard were trimmed regularly, and two guards stood at the main entrance with rifles on their backs. It was the official office and residence of the mayor of Blackridge.
On the 3rd floor, at the end of a corridor that could only be accessed by certain people, a middle-aged woman knocked on the mayor's office door twice before entering. Her hands carried several sheets of documents that needed to be signed before the afternoon.
Mayor Harven Dross sat behind his desk with a rigid back. His face was flat, but flat in a way different from usual, not flat from calm, but flat because of something he had been holding back very hard from before. His eyes stared at a point above the desk without truly seeing anything there.
His secretary, Mara, placed those documents at the corner of the desk and produced a pen without saying anything. She had worked for Harven long enough to know when it was time not to ask.
From the adjacent room, which was a private meeting room with a thick door and double locks, a sound was heard. Not the sound of a meeting, not the sound of discussion or debate. The sound that penetrated through that thick door was a loud moan that was easy to understand by anyone.
Mara did not lift her head from the documents. Harven did not move from his chair.
Both of them fell silent with different burdens.
The office door flew open roughly from outside, hitting the wall with a loud bang. A uniformed man entered with hurried steps, his eyes sweeping the room before stopping on Mara. "Where is Balton?"
Mara pointed toward the meeting room door beside it without uttering a single word.
The man walked there and opened the meeting room door with a push just as hard.
"Boss! There is an important report, someone has defeated Jason and his abilities are very–"
"Bastard." The voice from inside the meeting room was heavy and full of anger. "Do you want to die? Get out immediately!"
"But boss, that man can–"
BANG.
The sound of a gunshot thundered from behind the open door, then silence. The sound of a body falling was heard briefly, then it was gone.
Silence filled the third-floor corridor once more.
Then Balton's voice was heard from inside that room again, this time lower, with a completely different tone. "Right now you are the most important thing, Lucy. Oh darling ...."
"Ahh ... please stop! That hurts, I beg you!"
Mara stood very still in front of the mayor's desk. Her face that had been blank changed completely. Her eyes opened wider, her breath caught in the middle, and both her hands stopped touching the documents in front of her.
Lucy ... She knew that name.
Everyone in that building knew that name. The name that two weeks ago was still printed on a birthday invitation distributed to all the office staff, the name spoken with pride by the man who now sat silently in the large chair before her.
His daughter.
Mara did not dare to look at Harven. But she did not need to look at him to know what was happening on that man's face. The sound of the chair shifting slightly was already enough to describe everything, the small trembling of someone holding something too tightly because they did not know what to do.
Mara took those unsigned documents, tapped them neatly on the edge of the desk, then stored them back under her arm. "I will return later, Mr. Mayor."
She walked out of that room with steps quicker than usual, closed the door behind her softly, and chose to know nothing about what she had just heard.
***