Chapter 25: “Kyokuto Qualifier: Part II”

  Scene 1: Redline Recovery

  —-: Hana

  The alarm was screaming.

  No — the entire ship was screaming.

  Hana slammed open the fuse hatch and ducked under the control console as the Dart’s core vented heat like a dragon trying to chew through its own ribs. The smell hit first — scorched copper and melted insulation. Then the glow: pulsing red veins across the engine conduit like something alive and angry.

  “COME ON, COME ON—” she gritted, yanking out the fried relay.

  “Crystal's gonna blow!” Ren’s voice crackled from the intercom above, panicked but trying to hide it. “We’ve got maybe ten seconds before—”

  “SHUT UP AND FLY,” she shouted back, breath hitching as she jammed a salvaged cable into the exposed socket. It didn’t fit. Of course it didn’t. Mei’s old flight cables were from a different model—prestandardized, braided with carbon-thread wrap and—

  —Still better than nothing.

  “Grandpa’s override,” she muttered, scanning the emergency panel. “Where is it where is it where—AHA!”

  She slammed her fist onto a small bronze switch labeled only:

  ‘Oh no you don’t.’

  The sound that followed was... strange.

  The Dart coughed. Literally coughed — a deep mechanical wheeze like it had inhaled bad soup and was reconsidering its life choices.

  Then it caught.

  The core lights dropped from seizure-pulse red to a low, urgent gold. The backup line — frayed, slightly melted, and definitely not street-legal — thrummed as the energy rerouted.

  “System stabilizing,” Mei’s voice said from her custom diagnostics charm in Hana’s pocket. She’d rigged it to read outputs like a whisper. “Flight possible. Don’t die.”

  Hana let out a shaky breath and sagged back against the wall. “No promises.”

  She didn’t even realize she was laughing until the tears smudged grease on her cheeks.

  From above, the Dart’s engine screamed again — but this time it wasn’t panic. It was rage.

  The kind of scream that said:

  We’re not done.

  Scene 2: Final Path

  —-: Ren

  Ren couldn’t hear the crowd anymore.

  Maybe they were cheering. Maybe they were gasping. Maybe someone had fainted again — he was pretty sure he’d seen Saki’s hands slap over her mouth as the Dart dove toward the canyon split. But all that sound? Gone. Swallowed by the wind rushing past the canopy like a live wire whispering go deeper, go faster.

  The canyon narrowed ahead — twin walls of black rock chiseled by time and steam. A sliver of sun carved a path through it like a god’s scalpel, sharp and unforgiving.

  No other team had gone this way.

  Because no other team was this desperate.

  Ren’s knuckles were white on the control grips. Rin was behind him, legs braced, one hand on the auxiliary throttle, the other… was that her hand on his shoulder?

  “Fly it like it knows the way,” she said.

  That was all.

  He didn’t respond. He couldn’t. The ship was breathing now — not purring, not roaring — breathing. Every piston compressing like lungs, every shift of the rudders timed to the beat of his heart and hers together. The Dart had become something more than a ship.

  It was them.

  The canyon entrance loomed. No more time.

  Ren pulled up just a hair — just enough to skim over the crumbling ridge at the mouth of the gap. Sparks skittered as the undercarriage scraped rock. The Dart wobbled, screamed once in protest—then slipped between the walls like a thread through a needle.

  He exhaled through clenched teeth.

  “Status?” Rin asked, her voice low and calm now. She was with him. All the way.

  “Alive,” he muttered. “Stupid, but alive.”

  Wind knifed through the narrow vertical shaft, bouncing them like a marble in a glass tube. Every turn was a dare. Every gust a punch to the gut. The sensors were no use down here — Mei had warned them. This route wasn’t mapped. It wasn’t even a “route.”

  It was a decision.

  Rin leaned in, her breath warm near his ear. “Two seconds more. Then spiral out left.”

  Ren trusted her. He had to. He wanted to.

  He counted. One. Two. Slammed the ailerons. The Dart twisted sideways, rolled once, then burst out of the canyon like a shot from a rail gun.

  For a half-second, nothing.

  Then the crowd roared.

  Like they’d just seen a ghost scream from the mountain itself.

  Ren grinned through gritted teeth. “We’re not ghosts.”

  Rin’s hand tightened on his shoulder.

  “No,” she said. “We’re storms.”

  Scene 3: Kyokuto Falters

  —-: Rin

  The sky was too clean.

  Rin hated skies like this — flawless, unbroken, a painter’s backdrop with no room for error or forgiveness. The wind didn’t curl or dip. It cut. Straight lines. Brutal edges. And that was exactly how Kyokuto flew.

  Onikaze streaked ahead of them like a knife thrown by a god — no wobble, no hesitation. Its black chassis barely shimmered against the blue sky, and if you blinked, you missed its shadow.

  “They’re perfect,” Ren muttered.

  “No, they’re predictable,” Rin snapped, eyes narrowing.

  Her fingers ghosted over the secondary controls, tracing Kyokuto’s flight line — exact down to the centimeter, their wings gliding the edge of the regulation lanes. Rei was flying the lead, flanked by two wing pilots who hadn’t deviated once.

  Until—

  Rin saw it.

  A twitch. Barely there. The left wingman’s vertical fin shimmered against the light, like he’d clipped a micro-current.

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  “Gotcha,” she whispered.

  “What?” Ren blinked.

  “He doesn’t trust the crosswind. They’re not adjusting — they’re forcing.”

  She tapped the controls, nudging the Dart’s nose into a faster lane. The engine whined, but held.

  Up ahead, Kyokuto shifted. For the first time, not as a unit.

  The left pilot banked slightly slower than the lead, and the right overcompensated, adjusting the angle — not in sync, but out of instinct.

  “They’re unraveling,” Rin said. “A machine doesn’t falter. Pilots do.”

  Ren glanced at her. “And what are we?”

  She met his eyes, her voice low. “Something they can’t program.”

  The Dart surged forward — crooked, noisy, alive.

  Scene 4: Final Ring

  —-: Ren

  The wind howled through the cockpit vents, tugging at Ren’s collar and screaming past his ears like it was trying to rip the thoughts out of his head. The world narrowed to two things: the pulsing beacon of the final ring gate — a tangled convergence of color-coded vapor trails — and the girl sitting in front of him, shoulders squared, back rigid, eyes locked.

  “Final ring coming up,” he said, though his voice barely reached his own ears.

  “I know,” Rin murmured.

  The last gate wasn’t just one. It was three, intersecting like a spinning halo — blue, red, and gold — rotating slowly on gyroscopic rails. It was meant for show. No one was supposed to hit more than one.

  But Rin… Rin tilted the stick just slightly. Just enough.

  “No, no, wait,” Ren stammered. “That’s gonna—”

  “Trust me,” she said, and suddenly his hands were guiding with hers.

  The Dart banked hard, crystals flaring a brilliant cyan against the sun. Steam vented from its sides like wings bursting free of molten metal.

  Everything slowed.

  The world folded in around the ring — vapor trails thick like silk ribbons, swaying from their own turbulence. Ren felt the tilt in his stomach, felt gravity yawn sideways, and then—

  WhoooOOOSH.

  Blue. Then red. Then gold.

  The Dart sliced through all three rings in a perfect diagonal lean, just skimming the edge of each color. The airflow sang in protest. The ring’s sensors flashed.

  Down on the commentary tower, Saki screamed so loudly into the mic that feedback screeched across the arena.

  “—a TRIPLE POINT OVERLAP!? I—I can’t—Rin and Ren just—WE NEED A NAME FOR THAT!”

  In the stands, the crowd didn’t cheer. Not at first.

  They gasped.

  Then a roar began — a rising wall of disbelief, giddy awe, and fevered chaos.

  Ren grinned, chest heaving. “We’re gonna die, aren’t we?”

  “No,” Rin said calmly, hair whipped wild. “We’re going to land.”

  “Same thing,” he muttered, but didn’t pull back.

  She didn’t either.

  Scene 5: Photo Finish

  —-: Rin

  The final stretch wasn’t smooth. It never was. Racing wasn’t about perfection—it was about refusing to crack when everything else did.

  The Silver Dart bucked as it hit the wake turbulence from the Kyokuto ship. Their lead pilot, Rei, hadn’t broken formation, but a second ship had drifted—hesitated. The ripple tore through the airflow like a blade.

  Rin gritted her teeth. “Compensating for drag,” she muttered. Her hand found the vertical throttle stabilizer—she hadn’t even realized she’d moved.

  Ren was behind her, fingers ghosting over the side balance valve, not quite touching it.

  They didn’t need to speak. They just flew.

  Kyokuto’s ship gleamed ahead, a ghost against the clouds. Sleek, silent, impossibly still.

  But it wasn’t feeling the air.

  Rin felt everything. The slight yaw of crosswinds off the distant cliff face. The strained rhythm in the Dart’s rear turbine. The way Ren’s heartbeat pulsed in sync with hers—not through the ship, but through the air between them.

  She leaned forward, like that alone could will the Dart faster.

  The finish gate loomed ahead: a crescent of golden mist ringed in flickering sensors.

  The crowd on the edge of the cliff was standing now. All of them. Scouts with their pens down. Classmates with mouths open. Saki had abandoned the mic completely and was leaning out over the commentary rail like she might just fall.

  The Onikaze hit the line—

  And the Dart surged forward.

  The finish light strobed—

  FLASH.

  Then silence.

  For a moment, all that existed was the trailing steam from the two ships, curling into the air like dueling signatures.

  Rin closed her eyes. She didn’t need to look. She knew.

  They’d done it. Maybe not first. Maybe not clean. But they belonged.

  Ren’s voice came soft behind her. “Did we…?”

  She didn’t answer.

  The speakers crackled. “Official time pending. Finish differential: 0.08 seconds.”

  The crowd didn’t wait for the verdict. They already knew.

  The Dart flew like it belonged.

  Scene 6: Post-Race Silence

  —-: Ren

  The cheering faded first.

  Then the buzzing, the pressure in Ren’s ears, the roar of wind and flame and rattling bolts that had carried them through the gauntlet—gone. Replaced by the hum of cooling metal and the faint click-click of the Dart’s crystal pressure valves winding down.

  They touched ground like they were afraid to break it.

  Ren stayed in the cockpit for a breath too long. His fingers were still curled around the control grip, sweat-damp, twitching from adrenaline that had nowhere left to go.

  Rin slid out first. She didn’t speak.

  The moment her boots hit the tarmac, the other teams started moving. Iron Blossom clapped. Wild Tempo whistled like lunatics. Someone somewhere yelled, “DID YOU SEE THAT?!”

  Kyokuto didn’t move.

  Their ship, the Onikaze, touched down like a falling shadow—no steam, no sound. Just presence. Rei Kurosawa stepped down in slow, sharp movements, mirrored by his entire team. A ripple of perfect choreography, faces hidden behind those silver-glass visors.

  Ren climbed out of the Dart. His legs didn’t wobble, but he could still feel the tremor in his chest, like the engine was still running inside him.

  He met Rei’s eyes—at least, the mirrored sliver of where his eyes should’ve been.

  Rei took three steps forward. Pause. Looked to Rin.

  Then, with all the gravity of a trial judge, he said:

  “You are your mother’s daughter, after all.”

  No congratulations. No handshake. Just that.

  And then he turned and walked away.

  Ren stood there frozen. The others stayed back. Even Saki held her breath.

  Rin didn’t speak. Her hands clenched, relaxed. Clenched again. She nodded, once.

  Then looked up.

  And for the first time in weeks, she smiled. Just a little. But real.

  Ren blinked. “Was that a compliment?”

  Rin exhaled through her nose. “For him? That’s practically love poetry.”

  They watched the Onikaze disappear into the clouds, leaving no trail behind—no sound, no mark.

  But the Silver Dart still steamed beside them, humming like it had something left to say.

  And Ren knew: they hadn’t just raced today.

  They’d challenged gods.

  Scene 7: Birds of a Feather

  —-: Rin

  The wind had changed again.

  Rin could feel it tugging at the collar of her jacket, tugging the last of the engine soot from her sleeves like it wanted to clean her up just to mess her up again.

  She needed the silence.

  After the noise. After the cheers. After him.

  She’d walked out alone, slipping behind the hangars, where the cliffs met the sky and the wind never stopped talking. Her muscles still ached from the flight, her throat raw from yelling numbers and altitudes and *pull now!*s. But her mind was worse—buzzing, tangled, afraid to let the stillness in.

  She didn’t expect anyone else to be here.

  But Mei was.

  Sitting on an overturned crate, back to the metal siding, gaze fixed on the horizon. Her hands were folded in her lap like she wasn’t sure what to do with them now that everything was over. That made two of them.

  Above, a flock of crows wheeled in the air. Loose, uneven. Spiraling wide in chaotic loops that Rin knew from flying meant nothing was chasing them. Just wind and instinct.

  She stopped beside Mei, but didn’t sit.

  They didn’t speak.

  The silence stretched, comfortable in the way a storm cloud can be—charged, waiting.

  Then Mei asked, softly, “Do you ever feel like you’re the only one flying alone?”

  The words caught Rin off guard. Not in their meaning—but in the way Mei’s voice carried them. Not as a complaint. Not as a question looking for comfort.

  Just a truth, offered plainly.

  Rin looked up at the crows, the way they darted and dipped, always just slightly out of sync. She let the silence hang again. Then said, barely audible:

  “No. I just feel like I’m the only one watching.”

  She didn’t explain. Mei didn’t ask.

  The crows circled once more, then scattered like broken black petals on the breeze.

  The two of them stood there in the fading gold light, the air heavy with dust and distance and things neither of them were quite ready to say aloud.

  They didn’t need to.

  Not yet.

  Scene 8: Letter to Home

  —-: Ren

  The dorm was finally quiet.

  No clanging wrenches, no shouting over steam leaks or Taiga’s latest “combat squat thrust” idea. Just the faint creaking of floorboards, the occasional hiss from a pipe too old to behave, and the soft, rhythmic scratch of pen against paper.

  Ren hunched over his desk, elbows smudged with graphite and grease, a half-finished schematic rolled up beside his untouched dinner.

  The letter in front of him wasn’t the first draft.

  It might’ve been the fifth.

  His hand hovered above the parchment for a moment longer, then pressed ink to paper with a kind of slow finality:

  “We didn’t just win.”

  A breath. He tapped the pen once, twice, against the edge of the desk. Thought of the way Rin had leaned into that last turn like she was the airfoil. Of Mei’s voice in the comms guiding them through heat columns invisible to every other pilot. Of Hana’s hands steady on the rigging despite the strain, and the look she’d given him when it all held together. Barely.

  He underlined didn’t just win.

  “We earned the sky’s respect.”

  The ink bled slightly. He didn’t blot it.

  He leaned back in the creaky chair, stared up at the ceiling where a single flywheel fan spun too slowly to be useful, and felt a weight settle in his chest that had nothing to do with failure.

  Not fear.

  Not exactly.

  Just... awareness.

  Of what came next.

  Of how big everything had just become.

  He leaned forward again, pressed the final line onto the page:

  “But I think we also made enemies with gods.”

  He stared at it for a long time.

  Didn’t sign it.

  Just folded it, sealed it, and set it by the window, where the draft from the cracked pane tugged at the edge like the wind wanted to read it first.

  He whispered to no one, “Guess I better start flying like I believe it.”

  And turned out the lamp.