Balton reached to his belt again, two flash bombs in his left hand, the baton in his right, his eyes following Ash's every movement calmly.
Ash crouched and grabbed a rock the size of his head with one hand, throwing it hard toward Balton.
Balton swung his baton and the rock shattered into scattered gravel. He threw one flash bomb toward Ash in response, white light exploded between them, but Ash didn't stop moving this time, he had already grabbed a second rock before the light exploded and threw it in a slightly different direction, higher, directly at the side of Balton's head.
Balton struck that second rock too, but the impact forced him to twist his body to the left, and that was when Ash had already shot from a distance that seemed almost impossible to cover that fast.
Ash didn't aim for the chest or head. One fist drove into the right side of Balton's body directly at the ribs, with full force and no reduction from the movement before it.
The sound of the impact was different from everything heard before that night.
Balton's body lifted from his hovering board, carried sideways by the momentum of a blow there had been no preparation to receive, flying through the night air in a long arc that passed beyond the rocky boundary, past the edge of the city, and fell among the low buildings at the center of Blackridge with a sound that shook the surrounding walls.
Dust and gravel rose from the point of impact, spreading into the narrow streets around it.
Several residents still outside at that hour stopped moving, staring at the large man lying in the middle of the stone road with his iron baton fallen several meters beside him.
Ash stood on the rocks outside the city gate, the fire from the cracks in his skin moving slowly in the air around him. His breathing was long and heavy, each exhale carrying red light from inside his throat.
His eyes moved.
Not toward the city, not toward where Balton had fallen. Those two red points shifted slowly to the left, toward the dark forest, toward one point among the tall trees he had already recognized for some time.
Shiva didn't move on her branch, but her fingers tightened their grip on the trunk in front of her.
That gaze didn't blink. Ash stepped toward the forest.
One step, two steps, then his body shot forward and Shiva barely had time to react other than leaping from her branch to a tree trunk on the left.
"Hey hey hey, I'm not food!" Shiva gripped the tree trunk with both hands, her feet pushed off and her body swung to the next branch.
Behind her, the tree trunk she had been sitting on split from the middle with a sound like a board snapped over a knee, Ash had accidentally gripped it with one hand when leaping past it.
"Why are you coming after me, you idiot!" Shiva landed on a thick branch, turned to look down, and Ash was already on the same tree trunk as her.
"Good grief, you can climb too apparently!" Shiva leapt again.
She moved between those trees like someone who had memorized every distance, her feet landing exactly in the center of each branch, her hands reaching for the next one without needing to look.
But Ash moved not by climbing, he leapt from one trunk to another horizontally, striking each surface with enough force to leave crack marks in the wood.
The tree on Shiva's right side shook violently, its trunk snapping from the middle and falling onto the bushes below because Ash had struck it when passing through it.
"That was a very old tree, you know, absolutely no respect!" Shiva leapt to a higher trunk, her hands grabbing a branch above to gain more height.
Higher was better, if Ash needed more effort to climb then she would have more time to think.
But Ash didn't slow down.
He leapt vertically with ease, passing Shiva's position in a single jump, then fell from above toward her.
"What! Hey let me think for a moment!" Shiva threw herself sideways, falling freely for several meters before her feet hooked a branch below and her body swung in a rotating arc, landing on a different tree trunk.
Her breathing was already unsteady, her chest rising and falling fast, and what little remaining energy she had felt thinner still.
"Damn it!" Shiva pressed her back against the large tree trunk behind her, her hand reaching into the fold of cloth at her neck and pulling out a small crescent-shaped locket. Inside it, a clear bluish liquid moved slowly like something thicker than water.
"If it's come to this, no choice."
She opened the locket's cap with her thumb, tilted her head back, and let exactly two drops fall onto her tongue. It tasted like nothing she had ever drunk, cold when it touched her tongue but warm when it went down her throat, and within three seconds she felt something in her chest like air being blown onto embers that had nearly died.
Shiva closed the locket and returned it to its place. "Only 50 milliliters left. Don't waste it on something stupid, Shiva."
Ash appeared from the darkness above, jumping straight down toward her.
Shiva moved in a leap faster than before and kicked Ash directly in the face. The large burning body was instantly hurled far, slamming into a large tree trunk twice before Ash drove his claws into a tree trunk to stop himself.
Thin blue fire was visible wrapping around Shiva's entire body, her eyes glowing bright blue, contrasting with the green of her hair that lifted slightly as if blown by wind from below.
"This is the power of the moon goddess, only temporary for emergencies. But this should be enough to stop you." Both of Shiva's hands were also wrapped in thin blue fire.
***