"In the streets we fly, in the sky we fight."
Neo-Kyoto pulsed like a broken circuit board. Graffiti veins lined every building, LED screens cracked under rain and ads and rebellion. The sky was an electric bruise, split with neon bolts and satellite wires. Down in Sector 7—kids didn't walk home from school. They launched.
Skates screamed against concrete, hoverboards buzzed above storm drains, bikes bounced over railings, and nobody wore helmets. There were no curfews. Just corporate drones, locked zones, and speed. Trick-racing wasn't a hobby here. It was a protest. It was an expression. It was an escape.
The schools hated it. The government criminalized it. And that's why it fucking thrived.
The mag-lev track north of Sector 8 was a dead rail now, shut down after a city-wide ban on underground speed events. But like most dead things in Neo-Kyoto, it got better with decay. Now the Neo-Kyoto Skyrail belonged to the underground. And tonight, it hosted the biggest heat of the semester: the Heiwa Rush.
Winner gets the entire semester's supply drop: rare mod parts, new AI gear, and a database leak rumored to contain dirt on the school board's corruption. Stakes were high. Losers go viral for the wrong reasons. Or worse—get tagged by drones.
Rain spattered against Ran's goggles as he adjusted the strap of his hoodie. His locker buzzed open with a palm print and hiss of ozone. Inside, nestled like twin serpents, sat the Ghost Sparks—electric teal with golden flame grooves etched along the wheels, still dripping after his last run. They weren't just skates. They were memories. And ghosts.
He slipped them on like armor.
The race route lit up on Ran's HUD. Drones patrolled the inner spires. Signal jammers glitched the feed. The only safe way through was up, across rails, rooftops, and wrecked track zones. The finish line? The Heiwa Spire—a half-built government surveillance tower now tagged with rebel tags and LED kanji: "No God. No Law. Just Grind."
The countdown began. Kanji numbers strobed red: SANKYUU. NI. ICHI—
They launched.
Miu's Drag Drive hit first gear with a mechanical snarl. Her front wheel bounced over a broken mag-coil, sparks kissing the air like fireworks. She swerved around a collapsing billboard, kicked off it midair, and hit the upper rail with a landing so smooth it looked CG.
Joji carved sharp with Axel Breaker, skimming a monorail beam with barefoot precision. His posture was all calm, like a Shaolin monk at full tilt. He leapt off the edge of a vending unit, kickflipped through a dead signal tower, and shouted a single word—"FLOW!"
Kana soared above them all. The Skyfang left a trail of emoji vapor as she dove from a rooftop, nosediving with AI-precise momentum. Her avatar flickered to life in Ran's goggles—a pixel-haired anime girl with demon wings. She winked.
"You're slow as hell, Ran-kun."
He grinned, wind roaring against his teeth.
"Then let me show you hell."
Ran activated the Ghost Sparks' booster cores. A blue flare ignited behind his heels. The track curved into a steep incline, barely visible through the smog, but Ran's eyes were dialed in. He backflipped off a broken girder, spinning midair, grabbed the side of a rusted skytram wire, and slingshotted himself between the others—like a glitch in real life.
Back in his grandfather's ruined dojo, balance was sacred. His training wasn't martial arts—it was air awareness. Wuxia for the urban age. "You don't fight gravity," the old man said. "You ride it."
Ran's signature move wasn't a trick. It was a statement.
The Wind Kick of the Six-Tailed Dragon.
As Kana surged toward the mid-spire rail jump, Ran dropped behind her, legs crouched. He inhaled. The Ghost Sparks' wind cores synced with his stance.
He launched.
In one movement, he spun midair, kicked upward with his entire soul, and detonated forward—a blue cyclone spiraling from his kick. The wind pressure knocked a drone off course. Kana gasped as Ran blazed past her in a ribbon of stormlight.
Three drones appeared over the Heiwa Spire's spine—silver orbs with red ocular beams. Their rotors hummed like screams. Targeting locks engaged. Maeda's voice crackled into every racer's feed.
"You had your fun, kids. Time to log out."
The drones began EMP pulsing.
Joji's board exploded in sparks as his HUD glitched out. He tumbled into a rooftop pond. Kana's feed pixelated. Miu shouted across the link:
"Fascist fucking bastards!"
Ran ground down a shattered billboard beam, eyes locked on the ascending tower and the last jump: a ruined antenna mast.
He skated straight at the vertical incline.
The storm broke.
Rain exploded sideways. Wind turned weapon. Ran and Kana burst through the clouds like rockets, the city spinning below them. Kana arced left, teeth bared in a grin. Her Skyfang unleashed its reserve boosters. The wind carved symbols in their wake—old kanji like spells.
They weren't racing anymore.
They were fighting.
Kana kicked her hoverboard at Ran's leg. He dodged, spun upside down, and lashed out with his skate—sparks flew midair. They clashed over and over. Punches. Kicks. Tricks-as-attacks. The backdrop? A glowing spire, pulsing like a boss fight.
Kana laughed. "Beat me and I'll leak the school files. Including why your grandpa got ghosted."
Ran didn't flinch. "Then I fly like his ghost."
He hit the tower wall with one last spin, wind kick engaged, ready to land—
—and missed.
His fingers slipped.
The sky swallowed him.
Then—
Kana's hand caught his wrist.
She held tight, eyes burning.
"You fall alone, you die alone. But if we fall together… we fly."
They dropped together.
The next morning, Ran sat on the school rooftop, hoodie soaked, bandaged cheek stinging, Pocky in his mouth, and victory in his heart. Kana sat beside him, legs crossed, streaming live from her phone under a "GRIND GODS" sticker.
They watched the city wake.
Rain still fell. Drones still hovered. School still sucked.
But the spire was tagged now: A massive anime-style angel skating through fire, flipping off a giant drone. Below it, in kanji made of spraypaint and light:
WE RIDE. WE FIGHT. WE GLITCH THE SKY.
Maeda sat in his darkened office. His visor blinked red as a file decrypted on an old drive:
"NEON BLADE PROJECT – TERMINATED: SUBJECT KAGAMI RAN"
He lit a cigarette.
"He's not just a punk. He's the fuse."
[END]
(I might turn this into a full fledged story one day)