As the GT86 and AE86 rolled to a stop side by side at the starting point of Amakane Pass, silence reigned—oppressive and absolute, broken only by the metallic ticking of cooling exhausts and the faint murmur of wind rustling through the trees. High above them, the stars blinked cold and indifferent. This stretch of tarmac was about to become a crucible.
Beidou stood between them, her silhouette illuminated by the harsh white beams of twin headlight sets. She raised her hand—and the world held its breath.
Then it dropped.
Both drivers reacted like pistons under pressure.
Eula dumped the clutch, the rear tires of her GT86 lighting up in a quick chirp as the naturally aspirated FA20 engine screamed to life, climbing instantly into the torque band. The car rocketed forward with clean, immediate throttle response. The stiffer suspension setup bit down hard into the tarmac, minimizing weight transfer as she shifted into second, then third, in rapid succession—each gear shift crisp, surgically clean.
Collei's AE86 lagged just a hair at the launch—rear tires spinning momentarily on the loose surface before gripping. The 4A-GE engine didn't have the same raw torque out of the hole, but it came alive with RPM. Her tach needle surged past 7,000 as she slammed through the gears, heel-toe downshifting to maintain revs into the first sweeping left.
Inside the AE86, Collei gritted her teeth. The unassisted steering fed her every nuance of the road through the wheel—subtle vibrations, tire scrub, the texture of the worn surface beneath her. "Tch... she's fast, alright. But no matter what, I have to keep up."
Eula had the line. Her GT86 flowed through the first complex like silk over a blade—sharp, yet graceful. She downshifted into second, braking late, the car's weight rotating perfectly into the apex. The rear stepped out just slightly as she applied power on exit, dancing along the edge of grip with total control.
But something was wrong.
In the mirror, the AE86 was still there.
Closer than before.
Collei didn't back off for even a second. She matched Eula's braking points—adjusting the AE86's weight transfer with short, deliberate throttle blips. Every feint Eula used to set her rhythm, Collei copied. Every Scandinavian flick, every mid-corner throttle modulation—Collei mirrored it like a second skin.
Eula's blue eyes flicked to the mirror again. Her voice, breathy and disbelieving: "She's mimicking me?"
The pass twisted and narrowed, trees closing in like watching sentinels. The scent of scorched rubber clung to the air. Eula pushed harder, gripping the wheel tight, her pulse hammering. Her car was performing flawlessly—but the AE86 still hung behind her, impossibly close through the corners.
Collei's eyes locked ahead, pupils dilated. Her fingers tightened around the worn wheel, forearms taut. Sweat beaded at her temples as she absorbed every detail Eula gave her—entry speed, apex timing, throttle delay.
This isn't about the track, she thought, muscles tense. This is about her. If she can handle this course... so can I.
She didn't need to know the road.
She just needed to know Eula.
And she was learning—fast.
From the passenger seat of time, the AE86 became a ghostly echo of the GT86 ahead of it. Collei let her engine scream through the upper revs, the 4A-GE delivering its peak power high in the band, just where she liked it. She trail-braked into corners, tires howling at the edge of adhesion, rear end gently stepping out under her control—feathering the throttle mid-drift, reading the slip angle by feel and sound.
But even a shadow starts to blur at the edges.
Halfway down the pass, the rhythm began to take its toll. Collei's lungs were pulling in uneven breaths now, her chest tight with exertion. Her vision flickered—a momentary tunnel creeping in at the corners of her sight. The mountain lights, the vibrating wheel, the screaming engine—it all became a swirl of sensory overload.
"Shit… this feels like a goddamn roller coaster…!"
The corners came faster. Her heart pounded in her chest like it was trying to break free. Her knuckles whitened.
Back at the summit, Beidou stood with one arm crossed and the other holding a cigarette between her fingers. The distant flicker of headlights flicked through the trees. Her mouth curled into a grim smile. "So that's what she meant by 'If one can do it, so can I.' She's copying Eula's entire run in real time."
Seele stood nearby, arms folded, her brow furrowed in thought. "That mindset… it's a double-edged sword. You lose yourself trying to become the other driver. The second they fuck up or throw something unexpected at you... you're done."
Amber leaned against her Sileighty, arms behind her head. "Normally, yeah. But not Collei. She's not just copying—she's learning. Analyzing. She'll start making adjustments any minute now, you watch."
Below, the headlights grew closer. Collei was gaining.
Inside her AE86, her mindset shifted.
No longer simply mimicking—Collei began to deviate. She found better lines, tiny tweaks in braking zones, sharper transitions. The front tires gripped like claws as she pushed deeper into corners, initiating drift a fraction earlier, countersteering with tight, exact flicks.
The gap began to shrink, turn by brutal turn.
Eula's jaw tightened. Her hands moved faster now—steering inputs more forceful, less fluid. "She's catching up…"
Collei's eyes narrowed. Her lips parted slightly as she timed her breathing with every corner—inhale on entry, exhale through apex. She knew the GT86's limitations now. She knew when Eula feathered the throttle to maintain rear grip. She could see the slight correction mid-corner—predictable. Predictable meant vulnerable.
Time to move.
Far from the mountain, in Araumi, Ningguang sat at her dimly lit desk. Her laptop screen glowed with detailed maps of Yougou and Amakane Passes. Her eyes scanned telemetry data, victory conditions, loss patterns.
"Keqing's FD. Yelan's 930 Turbo. Silver Wolf's DC2…" she murmured. "All outmaneuvered. All outbraked. What the hell is with that AE86?"
Her fingers stopped over the map. Five tight hairpins in rapid succession.
Her eyes narrowed.
"…That's it."
Back on Amakane Pass—
A hard left approached. Collei flicked the wheel, entering a controlled slide. Her foot danced on the pedals—heel-and-toe downshift to second, left foot brushing the brake while blipping the throttle. The AE86 rotated perfectly into the turn, tires scrubbing at the edge of control.
Then—
"Shit!"
She was wide.
A misjudged weight shift. The rear end stepped out too far, the left rear tire nearly kissing the guardrail. Sparks flew from the exhaust tip as it scraped pavement.
The car's balance wavered.
Her arms snapped into action. Opposite lock. Quick throttle lift. The AE86's tail swung back into line—but not without protest. The rear tires screamed as they regained grip, the chassis pitching violently for half a second.
Inside, Collei's pulse went nuclear.
"Dammit! That was sloppy!"
She clutched the wheel hard, eyes wide, knuckles bruised against the rim. The momentary loss of flow hit like a gut punch. Her body screamed panic.
But her mind didn't.
Breathe.
She forced air into her lungs. The vibration of the engine. The strain in the pedals. The feeling of asphalt humming beneath her.
You're not done. Keep fighting.
The AE86 surged forward again, roaring with defiance. And in the mirror, for the first time, Eula felt the chill of pressure—not just from another car.
From a predator.
From a ghost.
From a girl who refused to lose.
And the next corner was coming fast.
Meanwhile, at the top of the pass, Beidou let out a deep sigh, shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. The night air was cool, crisp, but thick with the weight of tension. "The race is probably over by now," she muttered, eyes unreadable. "Eula's got this in the bag."
March shot her a sharp glare, her voice cutting through the quiet like a slap. "Don't say that, Beidou! Remember, no one ever expects Collei to win—until she does! She wasn't supposed to beat Keqing's RX-7, or Yelan's Blackbird, or Silver Wolf in that Deathmatch, but she pulled through every time!"
Beidou exhaled through her nose, slow and grim, her gaze still locked on the distant twists of asphalt. "That was different. Those were all at Yougou Pass. She's raced that road for five years. Every guardrail, every bump, every damn leaf on the track—she knows it like the back of her hand. This is different. This is her first time at Amakane. She's racing blind."
March's lips tightened into a thin line, the fire in her expression flickering with worry. "That's... a big difference, isn't it?"
Beidou nodded, the movement slow, heavy. "If she'd driven this course even once before, I wouldn't be so worried. But she hasn't. And that's what makes this so damn dangerous."
The silence that followed was suffocating, the mountain itself holding its breath.
But then—just as the dread began to settle in Collei's corner of the universe—something shifted.
Because down on the blacktop of Amakane Pass, as the night screamed by in a blur of headlight beams and tire smoke, Collei locked her eyes on Eula's rear bumper.
And finally… she saw it.
An opening.
Back in the heat of the run, the GT86 was still in the lead, its Rocket Bunny widebody catching flashes of silver-blue in the moonlight, slicing through the tight bends like a predator with a rhythm honed by years of practice. Eula's hands moved with surgical precision—steering inputs exact, throttle control seamless, her braking points locked in like muscle memory. She owned this mountain.
But Collei was still there.
Still behind her.
Still matching her move for move.
Collei's jaw clenched as she stalked the GT86 from the shadows of her high beams, her fingers locked around the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles had gone bone white beneath the leather-wrapped rim.
"Corner A105's coming up," she muttered under her breath, tone flat and focused. "If I can pull alongside her here, I can pass her…"
The AE86's engine howled as she pushed it hard into the upper rev band, the tach dancing past 8,000 RPM. Her right hand dropped down to the shifter, gripping the knob as the engine hit redline in third gear. Click-thunk—she slammed it into fourth with a snap, the 4A-GE barking in response.
Up at the A105 rest stop, just meters above the coming chaos, two locals leaned against their cars beneath a flickering sodium lamp, oblivious to the storm brewing just beyond the bend.
A man in a red NA6C Mazda MX-5, an old-school roadster nut, flicked his lighter, the flame briefly illuminating his smirk. "You here to watch the GT86 do its famous continuous drift?"
Beside him, a woman in a pristine Nissan Silvia S15 crossed her arms, chin tilted. Her tone was cool, but her eyes were sharp. "Yeah. That car's been dominating this pass for years. A105's her stage. If you can nail this drift, you've earned the right to call yourself a real driver. This corner's the soul of Amakane Pass. No half-assed technique survives here."
And then, the sound hit them—before the lights did.
A rising tide of mechanical fury, like two monsters shrieking down the mountain at full tilt. The howl of high-revving fury pierced the stillness, backed by the metallic rasp of a tuned boxer engine and the razor-sharp wail of a 4A-GE screaming in rage.
The MX-5 driver straightened, tension snapping into his shoulders. His cigarette dropped from his lips, forgotten.
"Shit… here they come."
The S15 driver's eyes widened as two cones of light broke through the curve, cutting a swath through the dark. First came the GT86—low, wide, and menacing—its tires shrieking as it entered the apex of A105 at high speed.
The S15's breath caught in her throat. "That's Eula's Rocket Bunny GT86. No doubt."
But then her gaze shifted.
Behind it—tucked close, impossibly close—was a white shadow with twin pop-up eyes blazing like fangs.
The MX-5 driver blinked hard. "Wait a fucking minute... Is that—an AE86?!"
The woman didn't answer. Her jaw clenched. Her breath hitched.
She knew that car.
Back on the pass, the tension hit its peak.
Eula slammed the brakes at the exact millisecond she always did, left foot dancing to heel-toe downshift from fourth to third, revs blipping precisely as her right hand flicked the wheel. The GT86's rear end kicked out, tires shrieking, the chassis yawing smoothly into her signature continuous drift.
She carved the line in one motion—elegant, calculated, and deadly.
But this time—Collei was ready.
As Eula broke traction and committed to the arc, Collei's eyes narrowed. She released the brake half a heartbeat earlier, keeping her speed just a touch higher. The AE86 shifted its weight as she yanked the wheel and popped the clutch—wham!—the rear stepped out in a controlled, razor-sharp drift. Left foot dancing, steering wheel sawing gently, the 4A-GE screamed at 8,300 RPM as the rear tires skated over the pavement like they were possessed.
She wasn't just following the GT86 anymore.
She was hunting it.
She swung out of Eula's slipstream—
Side by side.
Two cars.
Two wildly different chassis.
Two drivers, locked in a mirror-perfect dance on a knife's edge.
Eula's eyes flew open in disbelief. "What the hell is she doing?!"
The GT86's widebody flared inches from the AE86's front bumper. For a split second—eternity in racing time—they were perfectly aligned, tires shrieking, chassis angled into identical arcs.
The S15 driver on the hill gasped. "No way. No fucking way... That's Yougou's AE86!"
The MX-5 driver didn't blink. Couldn't. "They're side by side in the A105 drift… what the actual fuck?"
Collei's cockpit was chaos—engine howling, G-forces pressing against her ribs, the steering wheel vibrating like a live wire in her hands—but her focus was pure and lethal. She felt the moment Eula hesitated.
Just a split second.
Too much brake pressure. Too early.
And Collei didn't need to think. Her body reacted first.
She lifted off the brakes mid-corner, letting momentum do the work, letting the AE86 drift up into the space Eula had just vacated. Her tires were right on the edge of grip, balancing between chaos and control.
Then—
"NOW!"
She floored the accelerator.
The AE86 surged forward.
A screaming white ghost breaking through the inside line.
The sudden movement caught Eula off guard—her grip slipped. The GT86's front tires momentarily refused to respond. Understeer. The front end drifted wide as her grip evaporated for a heartbeat too long.
Eula's voice rang out in disbelief. "NO FUCKING WAY—"
But it was already over.
The AE86 sliced past her like a white-hot razor, the back tires gripping just long enough to hold the line before kicking out in a final flourish of throttle-steered violence.
The S15 driver stood frozen. "She just overtook Eula's continuous drift at A105. No one's ever done that."
The MX-5 driver shook his head slowly, stunned. "That was clean. Ice cold. No overcorrection. No panic. She read that shit like a book and rewrote the ending."
Eula's jaw clenched as her hands gripped the wheel like it might vanish from her grasp. Her breath came fast. Uneven.
"Goddamn it… I lost my grip for a second..."
But in a race like this, a second was all it took.
Collei's AE86 rocketed out of the corner, its taillights flashing like a war cry as she pulled ahead by half a car length.
The two cars screamed into the next straight, but they both knew—deep down in their guts—that it was done.
The pass was clean.
The pass was fatal.
The race was over.
At the top of Amakane Pass, the sharp night air bit at the skin, crisp and cold, laced with the faint tang of hot rubber and ozone. The silence was fractured only by the distant, feral echoes of two engines clawing through the final stretch—mechanical howls reverberating through the valleys like wolves in heat.
March, pacing restlessly at the overlook near the start line, suddenly froze mid-step. Her head snapped up. There it was—that unmistakable audio cocktail. The throaty snarl of a tuned FA20 flat-four colliding with the high-pitched scream of a 4A-GE revving past its redline.
Her breath caught in her throat. Eyes wide, she turned toward the others.
"Hey! I hear them! They're coming!" she shouted, voice cracked with tension and excitement.
Beidou, Seele, and Amber rushed over to join her, boots crunching gravel, their breath pluming white in the cold. All eyes locked onto the empty black ribbon of road below, illuminated only by the flickering yellow of old street lamps and the stars above.
And then—light.
Twin beams knifed through the darkness, slashing the void in two.
First came the GT86, its menacing Rocket Bunny kit silhouetted against the dim sodium glow. The low, wide front splitter and flared fenders gave it the look of a predator, an apex beast built for precision killshots. Its engine roared like a battle cry, backfiring once as it downshifted hard, flames licking from the twin exhausts.
But right behind it, glued to its tail with surgical precision, was Collei's AE86.
The Panda Trueno looked almost out of place beside the aggressive, modern weapon ahead of it—until you heard it. That 4A-GE screamed with the fury of a banshee, each downshift crisp, each throttle stab clean. The headlights—pop-ups now locked open and glaring—gleamed with a ruthless focus, never wavering.
They came in hot. Fast. Too fast for anything other than a proper race to the finish.
Beidou's breath hitched, and she took a step forward, eyes narrowing.
"I think they're gearing up for another run," she muttered, voice low, guarded. The tension in her chest twisted tighter. Her gut told her something different though. The energy was wrong—less like another battle and more like... a victory lap.
Then it happened.
Just before they passed the line, the AE86's window rolled down with a mechanical whine—and Collei's fist shot out into the night air.
Triumphant.
A beat.
Then the mountain erupted.
Cheers detonated into the sky. March whooped so hard she startled a pair of birds from a nearby tree, pumping both fists like a maniac. "She did it!! She fucking won!!"
Amber was the first to react, grabbing March into a full-bodied tackle hug, nearly lifting her off the ground. "Of course she did! That was spectacular!"
Seele, always the picture of cool under pressure, actually smiled—genuinely, teeth and all. She threw her arms around Beidou, who froze for half a second, caught off-guard, before letting out a breathy chuckle and patting Seele's back.
"The impossible is possible, Beidou!" Seele grinned, eyes gleaming with pure satisfaction. "Just because it's her first run doesn't mean she's going to lose!"
Beidou exhaled through her nose, the ghost of a smirk pulling at her lips. "Yeah… looks like I was wrong about her." Her gaze lingered on the AE86, now rolling into the lot like a quiet storm that had already done its damage. "Collei's got that fight in her."
The celebration was chaos. Raw, unfiltered joy. Laughter, high-fives, fists in the air. The mountain had turned into a coliseum, and its newest champion had arrived.
The two cars rolled to a stop in the small gravel lot near the lookout point. Their hazard lights blinked in unison—soft amber pulses in the dark, a silent acknowledgment between warriors. The GT86 idled low, its exhaust ticking as it cooled. The AE86's fan kicked on, whining gently under the hood as Collei popped it into neutral and tugged the parking brake.
The group surged forward.
Collei leaned out of her window, flushed, damp bangs stuck to her forehead, her knuckles still pale from how tight she'd been gripping the wheel. But her grin—gods, that grin was radiant. Wild. Free.
"That's gotta be the best race I've done yet!" she called out, voice hoarse from shouting over the engine.
Beidou stepped up first, arms folded, eyebrows raised, but her mouth curved into a broad grin. "How's it feel to win on a course you've never touched before?"
Collei laughed breathlessly. "It feels amazing!"
And then—Eula stepped out of her GT86.
Her boots hit the ground hard. She straightened up slowly, brushing hair from her face. There was silence, a moment where the mountain seemed to hold its breath.
No one knew what to expect.
Bitterness? Frustration?
But instead—Eula smiled.
She walked forward and met Beidou halfway. No hesitation.
Beidou extended a hand. "So. How'd it go?"
Eula took it, her grip strong and honest. "It was great. I actually had fun, you know?"
Beidou nodded, her grin softening. "Good to hear, Eula."
Just like that, the tension snapped and faded away, replaced with something lighter—mutual respect.
Hours Later — Base of Amakane Pass
The neon sign of a 24-hour convenience store buzzed faintly in the humid night air. The lot was quiet, nestled at the base of the mountain, away from the madness above. Streetlights flickered overhead, casting tired shadows over the cracked pavement.
A folding table outside the shop served as their campfire. Six mismatched chairs. Six steaming cups of canned coffee or vending machine cocoa. A post-race ritual.
Collei sat hunched over her cup, the warmth seeping into her sore fingers. Her eyes were half-lidded, the adrenaline crash hitting her in waves now.
Eula took a slow sip, the rim of her cup steaming in the cold. She turned to Collei, voice low but curious.
"So... how the hell did you have the courage to go side-by-side with me at A105?"
Collei blinked, letting the question hang in the air for a moment. She tilted her head back, staring up at the sky—stars like pinholes in velvet.
"Before tonight, we were watching from the rest stop. Saw you hit that corner. I watched how you handled it—how you initiated early, then let the rear hang out through the drift. I figured you'd brake sooner than usual tonight, try to bait me. But I didn't bite. I used it."
Silence.
Eula blinked once. Twice.
Then she let out a low chuckle.
"Damn... I gotta say, kid, you've got a lot of skill for your age."
She extended her hand again, this time without the gloves, fingers still slightly stained from gripping the wheel.
"Well, Collei—it's been a pleasure racing with you."
Collei swapped her coffee to her left and took it.
"Same here."
Their hands met—grime, sweat, and all.
That single shake said everything that needed to be said.
Around them, the others chatted, laughed, sipped their drinks. The buzz of vending machines hummed quietly, a lullaby for street racers. Overhead, a cargo plane drifted across the sky, blinking slowly as it cut through the atmosphere like a scalpel.
The mountain was behind them now.
But its voice lingered.
A voice that screamed through gears, echoed in revs, and whispered in tire smoke.
The mountain had spoken.
And Collei's AE86 had carved its story deep into Amakane's blacktop—permanent, undeniable, unforgettable.