Chapter 17: “The Exhibition Race”

  Scene 1: “Opening Ceremony”

  —-: Ren

  The sky above Hinode Academy was unnaturally blue, like someone had polished it for the occasion. It stretched wide and impossibly clear — a dare to fly, a challenge hung above every airship hull gleaming in the sunlight.

  Down below, the festival grounds were pandemonium wrapped in steam and satin. Colored awnings rippled in the spring wind, vendor carts hissed as pressure valves released the scent of fried dough and meat buns, and students buzzed like bees in custom-stitched uniforms.

  Ren stood in line with the other teams, his collar stiff and his throat drier than a copper gear left in desert sun. The Silver Dart sat behind him, buffed to a shine, whistling faintly from the last-minute coolant fix Grandpa had definitely not approved by anyone with a license.

  Above the crowd, the floating platforms gleamed with seated VIPs — sponsors, alumni, former champions, and what looked like a representative from the Ministry of Aerodynamics, his monocle catching the light like a tiny sun.

  From the front podium, Headmistress Aoi stepped into the breeze. Her navy cloak flared as the brass-belled mic whirred and popped. She didn’t smile. She never did.

  “For 120 years, Hinode Academy has trained minds to build, hearts to race, and hands to shape the skies. Today, we honor those who flew before — and those who will rise after.”

  She gestured, curt and deliberate.

  “Take to the air. And don’t be boring.”

  The mic cut with a hiss.

  Then came Saki.

  She bounded up onto the commentator’s perch — mic headset secured, clipboard fluttering, braided hair looped with gears for style. Her voice boomed over the academy:

  “WELCOME TO THE 120TH ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITION RACE! Four teams, one sky, and approximately one hundred parents watching from extremely expensive air balconies!”

  The crowd roared. Firecrackers popped. Somewhere, someone released three paper dragons that immediately entangled in a windmill.

  Saki’s voice kicked back in:

  “Representing Crimson Gale — reigning school leaders and fliers so smooth they probably butter their wings — CAPTAIN RIN KAGURA and CO-PILOT AYAME!”

  Rin stepped forward, expression stone-still, but Ren saw the flicker in her brow — a faint heat that hadn’t been there before.

  “Next! Iron Blossom — steady, deadly, and still using analog gears because ‘they trust steel, not luck!’”

  Two upperclassmen girls nodded like war generals.

  “Then… Wild Tempo! Flashiest engines, loudest uniforms, and zero known ability to turn left!”

  Kazuki did a backflip off his ship’s prow. It squealed under the weight.

  “And finally… newcomers to the league, forged in misfires and held together with half-believed prayers — THE SILVER DART! Ridden by Ren Lawson and the girl who could glare a boiler into bursting, Rin Kagura again!”

  The crowd laughed. Ren didn’t.

  Because just as they stepped up to their ship, the Silver Dart’s steam whistle let out a shriek that sounded like a banshee caught in a pipe organ. Everyone flinched. One nobleman spilled his drink.

  And then—

  POP.

  The whistle coughed. Went silent.

  Ren stood frozen. Rin didn’t blink.

  From the crowd, one person clapped slowly.

  “GRANDPA,” Ren muttered through his teeth.

  “Effective,” Rin said beside him, a faint smirk curling on one side. “I think you got their attention.”

  Ren grinned back. Just a little.

  Then the flags dropped.

  The race began.

  Scene 2: “Ships Rise”

  —-: Ren

  There’s a silence before flight. A hush that settles in the chest, deeper than breath, louder than thought. Ren had never felt it until now.

  The moment the flag dropped, time slipped.

  He didn’t hear the crowd.

  He didn’t feel the tension in his arms.

  He only felt the slight tremble of the Silver Dart’s deck beneath his boots… and then, the surge.

  All four ships lifted at once.

  Crimson Gale rose first — its blood-red envelope smooth as silk, fins gleaming with polished brass, movement seamless. Rin had flown it before, and it showed: Ayame at the helm didn’t jerk or rush. They ascended in perfect formation, like a dance choreographed by the wind.

  Iron Blossom followed — heavy, imposing, older in design but uncompromising. Its twin stabilizers flared like folded petals, then locked into place with a satisfying clang. The ship hovered a moment, puffed steam in two clean jets, and started its climb in a gentle arc, as if the sky was already theirs.

  Wild Tempo blasted off third, all flash and noise. Kazuki whooped from the front of the cockpit, his goggles slanted, his scarf flapping like a runaway banner. The envelope shook with every pulse of power as their ship fishtailed mid-ascent, wings tilted like it wanted to do a backflip.

  And then… them.

  Ren exhaled slowly.

  "Rin, are we—"

  "We're late already," she said. "Let’s not be boring."

  The Silver Dart shuddered as its crystal core ignited, gears clicking into motion like dominoes made of steel.

  A puff of blue steam hissed from the rear.

  Then—

  VRRRRRRMMMM—POP!

  The steam whistle wailed again.

  “WHY IS IT STILL ATTACHED!?” Ren yelped, gripping the throttle as the Dart lurched off the ground like a startled cat.

  Rin didn’t respond. She was too busy adjusting pitch.

  The crowd below lost it — laughter, cheers, someone actually clapped in rhythm with the whistle.

  And Grandpa?

  Front row in the bleachers.

  Holding a cardboard sign that read in hasty brushstroke:

  “SOUND DESIGN IS PART OF STRATEGY!”

  Ren considered aiming the Dart at his head.

  But then they were airborne.

  The ship steadied.

  He felt it in the rudder lines, in the slow pulse of the crystal engine beneath the deck — they were climbing fast, but not too fast. Just right.

  Rin, behind him, murmured:

  “Throttle back a hair. Let the wind breathe.”

  He obeyed without thinking. The moment clicked. They rose higher, just ahead of Wild Tempo now, just below Crimson Gale, skimming the side of the central floating arch that marked the first major curve.

  Ren tilted his head slightly, watching the sky open before them like a blooming gearflower.

  The crowd was already rising to their feet.

  Scene 3: “The Race Begins”

  —-: Ren

  “Three… two… one…”

  A mechanical chime echoed across the valley. Somewhere behind them, Saki’s voice rang over the intercom system with far too much energy for someone not in the sky:

  “AND THEY’RE OFF! Let the 120th Anniversary Exhibition Race of Hinode Academy—ignite!”

  The crowd roared below — a wall of cheering and gasps rising with the steam. But in the cockpit of the Silver Dart, it all melted into static.

  Ren felt only the push.

  The pressure slammed into his spine like a freight piston. The Dart responded with a hungry surge, shooting forward as if it knew this sky had waited far too long to remember its name.

  First obstacle: the low-hanging arches.

  Crimson Gale took the clean middle line — conservative and precise. A silver-blue ribbon of air trailed behind them, undisturbed.

  Iron Blossom tilted slightly, forcing their larger frame through a wide gap. You could hear their stabilizers straining even from this distance. Reliable, but not graceful.

  Wild Tempo — of course — went high, then nosedived into the second arch upside down. Showoffs.

  “Ren,” Rin said calmly, “your plan?”

  “I was gonna—uh—” His hands moved faster than his mouth. “Thread the gap behind Wild Tempo, pivot under Blossom’s draft line, and swing us right through the slipstream."

  She blinked. “That’s either genius or suicidal.”

  “Why not both?”

  They dived.

  Steam burst from the left vent. The airship tilted like a blade dropped sideways into wind. Rin adjusted the ballast before he could shout at her to. The Dart slipped under Iron Blossom’s wider frame by barely a meter.

  “Hold!” she snapped. “Too close!”

  “Trust me!”

  They skimmed the second arch with an eeeeeeek! of strained rivets. The vapor trail from Wild Tempo’s recklessness gave them just enough pull to slingshot out the other side.

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  They burst through into the next segment — rotating ring gates.

  Each was a different color, rotating on thick chains suspended from floating gantries. Crimson Gale was already slipping through their designated red ring with professional ease.

  Iron Blossom struggled with alignment — missing their color ring and hitting a lower-value one.

  Wild Tempo ignored the gates entirely and went for speed.

  Rin snapped: “Blue ring, ten degrees high, turning clockwise!”

  “Got it!”

  Ren angled the Dart — but the ring twisted faster than expected.

  “Too late—!”

  The Dart’s nose dipped. Steam jetted from the starboard vent. Ren pulled back just in time to clip the outer edge of the blue ring.

  The ring dinged. The crowd reacted. And the Dart came out the other side with a glimmer of blue mist trailing from its tail.

  “Two points!” Rin called.

  “That was three!”

  “Nope. Only if you go through dead center. That was borderline.”

  Ren groaned. “I hate math in the air.”

  “Then fly better.”

  But Rin’s voice… it wasn’t annoyed. It was sharp. Energized. Competitive.

  She was having fun.

  Ren could hear it in the clipped edge of her words. The way she didn’t over-correct anymore. The way she trusted his tilt without barking instructions.

  They were syncing.

  He tightened his gloves.

  “Next turn,” she called. “Cut under the bridge. Let’s show them something they won’t forget.”

  Ren grinned.

  “Oh yeah. Let’s give ‘em wings.”

  Scene 4: “Midair Brilliance”

  —-: Rin

  Trust him, she thought, hands hovering over the auxiliary controls.

  That was the first real mistake of the day.

  Not that she’d say it out loud.

  From her seat behind Ren in the Dart’s dual cockpit, Rin could feel every twitch of the controls — every gut-turning dip, every pulse of the thrusters. The whole airship felt alive now. Not like the stiff test flights or the barely-held-together runs of the past few weeks.

  This was flight.

  This was hers, and not.

  The crowd had become a blur — just background noise, filtered through the goggles she now wore low over her eyes. Her reflection shivered faintly in the glass as the Dart sliced cleanly between two vapor checkpoints.

  Colored mist curled in their wake — blue on one side, gold on the other.

  Then came the suspended garden bridge.

  Rin saw it the moment the Dart tilted for the next series of turns — the half-ruined skybridge that spanned the track, decorated with vines, hanging lanterns, and fluttering paper charms from the festival.

  Most teams were slowing, taking the safe line beneath it.

  Ren didn’t slow. His hands twitched forward.

  “You’re not—” she started, but the jolt of the left stabilizer caught her words in her throat.

  The Dart dove.

  But not forward.

  Down and around.

  Her stomach flipped. The underside of the bridge rushed into view — vines whipping past like green whips. Lanterns blurred. Paper wishes spun in their slipstream.

  And Ren twisted.

  He pitched the Dart into a rolling dive — a spiral so tight she could hear the bolts in the frame hum. Not groan. Not snap. Sing.

  The airship spun once — twice — and then, impossibly, straightened just before it would’ve clipped the support struts.

  They surged out beneath the bridge like a silver needle threading the eye of the sky.

  Cheers exploded below.

  Saki’s voice burst over the loudspeakers:

  “WHAT WAS THAT?! Did they just—ladies and gentlemen, that was not on the planned flight path—Hinode Academy, please welcome the birth of the Reverse Dahlia!”

  Rin exhaled sharply. Her pulse was racing.

  She hated it.

  She loved it.

  He flies like a storm with too much charm, she thought, trying not to smile. Failing.

  She glanced down at the controls. Everything was within margins. No burnouts. The new stabilizer bracket Hana helped install was holding.

  Then, as Ren leveled out, she whispered, “Next time, tell me before you try something insane.”

  He answered with a cocky grin over his shoulder.

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  Rin rolled her eyes. But her fingers didn’t let go of the secondary throttle.

  Scene 5: “Wild Tempo Goes Down”

  —-: Ren

  Ren barely had time to steady the Dart before the explosion rippled across the sky.

  Not theirs — thank the gears.

  Wild Tempo.

  One second, Kazuki's ship was doing a double barrel spin over the colored vapor track like it was born to show off, the next... a blast of white steam shot backward like a geyser. It twisted midair. The crystal bag on top bulged unnaturally, sputtering violet sparks along the seams.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa—” Ren muttered, adjusting trim as the shockwave nudged the Dart.

  Wild Tempo spiraled, the shrill whine of overpressure echoing off the cliffs.

  Kazuki’s voice cracked through open comms.

  “Kill the rear burner! Kill it! It’s—hot—!”

  Then came the hiss. A long, wet, shrieking hiss.

  And the entire crowd gasped as Kazuki’s sleek, dark-red flyer dipped nose-first — veering past the checkpoint ring and straight toward the ornamental koi lake below the north viewing stands.

  SPLASH.

  A tower of water and steam erupted like a geyser.

  Ren blinked behind his goggles, heart hammering. He hadn’t realized how tight he was gripping the controls until he eased off and felt his fingers throb.

  "Is he—?" he started.

  “Alive,” Rin confirmed behind him, voice tight. “Parachute deployed at the last second. He’s soaked, not dead.”

  Ren exhaled, the adrenaline dragging a shiver down his arms. The crowd was on its feet, a mixture of cheers, cries, and laughter rippling outward from the impact site like heat distortion.

  Wild Tempo’s ship bobbed half-submerged, steam still hissing out of every punctured line.

  “Overheated the rear coil,” Rin said, scanning the feed. “Didn’t swap in a secondary coolant delay. Idiot.”

  “He was trying to showboat,” Ren muttered. “Pushed too hard for speed before the crystal stabilized.”

  “He always does. And it always gets him headlines.”

  A beat passed. Then Rin added softly, “But not this one.”

  Ren adjusted course toward the next ring gate, frowning in thought.

  “You ever think,” he said slowly, “how close we all are to... just falling out of the sky?”

  Rin didn’t answer.

  But she didn’t have to.

  Behind them, Wild Tempo’s airship groaned and tilted sideways as salvage crews raced toward the lake in support barges, dragging smoke-trailing repair drones behind them.

  The sky might lift you.

  Or it might drop you.

  No promises.

  Scene 6: “Mei’s Mystery Move”

  —-: Ren

  The vapor rings ahead shimmered in layered arcs — green above, red mid-track, and blue just skimming the top of the trees. The crowd had just begun to settle from Wild Tempo’s dramatic exit, the shock rippling back into silence broken only by distant murmurs and the low whine of passing engines.

  Ren's breath came quick but controlled. The Dart held steady in a backline hover just behind Crimson Gale and Iron Blossom. Rin leaned in slightly from her position behind him, fingers adjusting the lateral stabilizer as they drifted around a slow curve in the course.

  Then Mei’s voice came through the private intercom channel — barely a whisper, as if she wasn’t sure she should even be speaking.

  “There’s a thermal lift forming west-southwest. Past the archbridge. Behind the second sculpture platform. You can skip Ring 11 and 12 if you arc now.”

  Ren blinked.

  “What?” he whispered, confused — but his fingers were already twitching on the controls.

  Mei didn’t repeat herself. Didn’t need to.

  He risked a glance to the side of the course, to where the late afternoon light caught a shimmer in the haze — a telltale signature of rising heat, swirling air caught between the dark bronze arches that supported one of the school’s sky-garden platforms.

  Rin caught the same glint. Her voice sharp in his ear.

  “That’s not on the official route.”

  “It’s still within boundary. The rings are optional, right?”

  “…Only if we make up the points elsewhere.”

  “Trust me.”

  A breath. “Don’t say that right before we die.”

  Then Ren kicked the throttle.

  The Dart banked hard left, slicing through the ring path and dropping altitude with a flutter of canvas. A few gasps rose from the bleachers as the Dart dove dangerously close to the sculpture platform — a swirling metal tree wrapped in a hundred glinting mirror leaves.

  The air grew warmer. Thinner. The heat shimmer twisted upward.

  They caught it.

  The Dart lifted like a bird finding a hidden updraft — no strain, no pressure, just glide.

  Rin’s mouth dropped open. “Did we just—?”

  The ship soared past Rings 11 and 12 — skipping the messy zig-zag path the others were still grinding through — and popped up directly into Ring 13 with an audible whoosh of compressed steam and crystal-glow flaring faintly blue beneath the bag mounts.

  The crowd didn’t cheer at first.

  It was too unexpected.

  Then the stunned pause cracked open — and the roar hit like a sonic boom.

  “Did Mei just… predict the wind?” Ren said aloud, his chest rising and falling like he’d just sprinted across campus.

  Behind them, Mei said nothing.

  Just a faint static buzz.

  But Hana, watching from the sidelines, mouthed the same question Rin now spoke aloud:

  “…How the hell did she know that?”

  Scene 7: “Final Showstopper”

  —-: Rin

  The final leg of the course opened wide — a stretch of open sky above the academy’s lake, dotted with floating marker rings and anchored steam-buoy platforms bearing the last checkpoint colors. Crimson Gale was out front, as expected, carving perfect arcs through every 3-point gate with zero wasted movement. Iron Blossom followed, tighter, more aggressive, aiming for a speed finish.

  And then there was the Silver Dart — trailing a shimmer of blue-white vapor, its patched seams glinting under the sun, its whistle mercifully silent.

  Rin’s fingers hovered over the auxiliary trim levers, feeling every minute tremble of the hull. Ren’s hands were steady now, confident. Not reckless. Not even cocky. Focused.

  She hated that it impressed her.

  “We can’t win by points,” Ren muttered. “But maybe we can finish better.”

  Rin scanned the layout. “The last two rings are staggered — red at eighty meters, green at thirty. You want the red?”

  “No,” he said. “I want both.”

  “…That’s physically impossible.”

  He grinned.

  She groaned.

  “You’re going to try something stupid again, aren’t you?”

  Already, he was dropping throttle.

  Not cutting speed — coiling it.

  They dove — not in a clean arc, but with a half-roll that left her stomach somewhere above her lungs. Rin’s left hand slapped the stabilizer override.

  The Dart pitched sideways like a door slamming open in a storm.

  Wind howled through the vent seams. The forward crystal core flared, a brief spike of energy that sparked blue and flared gold, the pressure release vent snapping open in a hissing swirl of heat.

  They sliced through the red ring on their side, rolling like a screwdriven blade.

  Rin’s hair whipped across her face — and then they leveled at thirty meters in under two seconds, riding the coiled momentum.

  Straight through the green.

  And the crowd— lost its collective mind.

  A thunderclap of gasps, cheers, and one audible “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!” from Saki over the loudspeakers.

  Behind them, two rings now shimmered in a perfect offset — one high, one low — but in the path of the steam that trailed behind the Dart, a swirling image emerged.

  Blue-gold vapor, shaped by the spiral of their twin cuts, blooming out like wings unfurling from the sky itself.

  A single gasp echoed across the field.

  “…It looks like wings.”

  The crowd exploded.

  Scouts stood up in their seats. Pens flew across pages. Photographers scrambled to capture the vapor trail before it dispersed.

  Rin let go of the throttle, chest heaving. “You did it.”

  Ren blinked.

  “You helped.”

  “…Don’t tell anyone.”

  “Too late.”

  The crowd was already chanting.

  “Silver Dart! Silver Dart!”

  Scene 8: “Sky-Etched Names”

  —-: Ren

  The moment the Dart touched down, a wash of steam burst from the auxiliary flares, bathing the platform in a thick hiss of white and gold. The ship creaked, strained — but stayed upright. Ren exhaled.

  And then—

  BOOM.

  The crowd detonated into applause. Cheering, stomping, clapping — one girl somewhere in the stands was screaming like they’d just landed a warship on the moon.

  The Dart’s skin still shimmered faintly, echoes of that winged shape lingering in the sky like a dream someone forgot to forget.

  Ren looked over at Rin, who was already unbuckling with practiced indifference.

  “Do not get used to that,” she muttered, tugging off her gloves. “One good flight doesn’t make you a legend.”

  He blinked, stunned. “Did we just make a wing symbol in the air?”

  Rin shot him a look. “We?”

  Grandpa barreled out of the hangar before Ren could reply — his tool belt swinging, his suspenders loose, a metal whistle still clamped in his mouth. He blew it three times like he was calling in an air raid.

  “THE SKY SAW IT!” he howled. “You little steam gremlins actually flew poetry!”

  Behind him, Taiga was literally hopping in place, waving at a group of second-year girls with one hand and trying to high-five a scout with the other.

  “Did you see it? Did you see it?! They did the swirl cut! The vapor bloom! The Reverse Dahlia 2.0, steam-sigil edition!”

  Ren’s feet hit the ground a little too fast, knees buckling. He steadied himself on the Dart’s strut just as four different officials, two reporters, and one flustered assistant from the Kanto Regional League converged on him.

  Microphones. Notepads. Business cards.

  “Name?” “Pilot certification number?” “Was that a planned maneuver?” “How long have you two been flying together?” “Is that a new ring strategy or a performance art piece?” “Did you mean to paint wings in the sky?”

  Ren blinked. “Uh…”

  Rin stepped in without missing a beat. “We test innovations mid-flight. Efficiency through adaptation. I was backup throttle. He executed the maneuver. It was… unplanned.”

  The reporters scribbled furiously like she’d just delivered an imperial address.

  “Team name?” asked a sharp-faced woman with a velvet coat and silver-rimmed goggles.

  Ren blinked again. “I… don’t… know yet?”

  Rin nudged him, hard. “Say something cool.”

  Ren stared at the reporters, the crowd, the rising smoke, and the lingering shimmer of steam-blown wings.

  Then said, loud enough to carry—

  “We’re not the fastest yet. But we aim for the sky.”

  A hush. Followed by more scribbling.

  Rin groaned under her breath. “You’re lucky I didn’t kick you out of the cockpit.”

  Behind them, Saki was already pushing through the crowd, waving her notebook in the air like a battle flag. “SILVER DART CLAIMS THE SKY: WINGED WONDERS SHOCK REGIONAL SCOUTS!”

  “Not the headline!” Ren yelled.

  “TOO LATE!” Saki cackled.

  And then the bell rang.

  The crowd began to disperse. Students flooded back to the grounds. The exhibit booths reopened. Lanterns floated up into the late afternoon sky, flickering gold against a backdrop of fading steam.

  But everywhere Ren looked — bulletin boards, tablets, even a floating holo-banner outside the main building — one name kept flashing:

  Silver Dart.

  It wasn’t just a ship anymore.

  It was them.