"Quiet." Ash glanced briefly toward her. "Who are you calling boss."
Two people attacked from the left simultaneously, one with a rod and one with bare hands. Ash deflected the rod with his left forearm, letting the swing's force waste itself to the side, then his elbow reversed into the chin of the man attacking with bare hands. That man went down.
The one holding the rod tried a second swing. Ash stepped into the swing's radius before the rod could build momentum, and his fist drove into that man's solar plexus. The man folded forward and fell sprawling.
Another came from behind, Ash didn't turn, only shifted his right foot backward to block that man's step, then his right elbow drove backward into that man's face. The sound of a nose bone impact was heard and the man stepped back two paces before sitting down on the asphalt.
"Wow impressive! Oh watch out, Boss!" The elf woman's voice came from the cage again, this time accompanied by clapping. "Behind you!"
"Stop calling me boss." Ash had already turned before the sentence finished, his hand catching the wrist of the man who was about to hit him from behind, twisting it, and driving him into the side of the vehicle.
That man didn't get up again.
Ash stood in the middle of the road with breathing that was still steady, like when he had first stepped out of the eatery. All of Jason's men were sprawled around the vehicle in various positions, some unconscious, some trying to rise but not succeeding.
The door of a shop on the right side of the road opened, and Jason stepped out with his hands in his jacket pockets. His eyes swept the road in front of him, toward his vehicle, toward his men, and stopped there.
His expression changed, eyebrows that rose and a mouth that opened slightly. "Good grief." His voice came out quietly. "What happened here."
From inside the cage, the elf woman immediately pointed toward Jason. "Boss, he's the one who wants to sell me." Her tone was cheerful and didn't sound like someone who had just been caught. "He's the boss of all these idiots."
Jason heard that, his eyes moving from the elf woman to Ash, then to his men scattered across the road. He nodded slowly. "Apparently she doesn't work alone." His hands came out of his jacket pockets. "I can see that."
Footsteps were heard from inside the same shop, and another man came out following Jason. The heavyset man stopped right at the doorway when his eyes found Ash in the middle of the road, and his face immediately drained of color.
Bruno recognized that face.
He pulled Jason's jacket sleeve from behind, leaning slightly toward Jason's ear, his voice dropping to a whisper that was actually audible enough on the now quiet street. "That's him, Master Jason." His body trembled at the end of the sentence. "The man who killed someone at the eatery I told you about."
Jason didn't answer, didn't turn toward Bruno, didn't change his standing position. His hand moved to his right hip and drew a weapon whose shape was different from a pistol in general, longer, larger, with a barrel that needed two hands to carry comfortably.
He held it with both hands, its barrel rising toward Ash with a motion that wasn't rushed. "In that case," he said, "there's nothing left that needs explaining."
Jason pulled the trigger without warning.
BANG!
The gunshot shattered the noise of the marketplace, and the bullet pierced Ash's chest on the left side. His body staggered half a step back, then Ash cried out once, short and sharp, before his knees hit the ground. Blood poured heavily from the wound, falling onto the cobblestones beneath him, and the color was not red.
It was bright purple.
Jason stood still. Bruno beside him did not move either. Both of them stared at the puddle forming slowly beneath Ash's knees, a color that made no sense, too vivid to be called blood. The puddle spread for a few seconds before the ground absorbed it entirely.
Bruno swallowed hard. "Boss ..."
Jason did not answer. His eyes did not move from the figure kneeling before him.
Ash coughed, once, twice. His hands pressed the wound on his chest, then slowly he lifted his head. His breathing was still rough, but his body began to move. Not like someone who had just been shot, but like someone who had just taken a bad fall, slow, but certain.
Something pushed out from inside the wound.
The lead bullet emerged slowly at the surface of the skin, pushed from within like a foreign object being rejected, then fell to the ground with a small sound. The wound closed within seconds.
Jason stared at the bullet lying on the ground, then looked back at Ash who was standing upright. His expression changed. Not fear, not awe either. More like someone who had just discovered a problem far more complicated than he had expected. His fingers moved along the side of his weapon, pressing something, turning something. A mechanical sound followed, a series of precise clicks and movements that stopped abruptly as if a mechanism had locked into a new position.
The elf woman, who was still standing inside the iron cage a few meters behind Ash, leaned against the bars. "Hey. Are you alright?"
Ash did not answer.
He suddenly ran. "That hurt, damn it!"
***