As the rain came down harder, Keqing keyed her radio, voice sharp and composed.
"Another race is about to unfold. Get ready."
The announcement hit Jinren's base like a spark in gasoline. Word spread fast—Ganyu's S2000 vs. the infamous Eight-Six. Spectators who had started drifting toward the exits turned on their heels. The hillside buzzed again, rain be damned. This was something they didn't want to miss.
Silverwolf leaned against the guardrail, water dripping from her hood. Her gaze didn't waver.
"An uphill in the wet, then straight into a downhill battle? Brutal. But I'll put money on the Eight-Six." She tapped two fingers on the rail in rhythm with her thoughts, scanning both machines like she was reading lines of code.
In the middle of the road, Yelan stepped forward. Her soaked coat hung heavy, but her stance was steady—commanding.
She raised her hand, palm cutting the air.
"Alright! Countdown begins now!"
FIVE!
FOUR!
THREE!
TWO!
ONE!
"GO!"
Her arm sliced down like an executioner's blade.
Engines screamed. Tires shrieked. Both cars launched off the line, spraying arcs of water from beneath their fenders like twin jetboats slicing across asphalt seas.
Collei's AE86 bogged for half a heartbeat. The soaked pavement spun her rear tires into a frenzy—no grip, just wheelspin. She feathered the clutch, modulated throttle—left foot blipping, right foot stabbing for traction. The engine howled at the edge of redline before finally catching.
That split-second stumble was all the opening Ganyu needed. The S2000's VTEC hit like a war drum at 6,000 RPM, and she surged ahead—short-shifting to avoid spinning out, power pouring into the soaked tarmac through carefully measured throttle. She was already setting up for the first high-speed right-hander.
Inside the S2000, Ganyu's expression was ice. Hands at nine and three. Steering input smooth, no sudden jerks. She breathed through her nose, her footwork crisp—brake, clutch, downshift, match revs—perfect. She turned in, apexed late, let the tail dance for a half-second on entry before correcting the slide with precise countersteer and throttle modulation.
Behind her, the Eight-Six was chasing hard.
Collei's eyes were narrowed, fingers twitching on the wheel. Her breathing was measured, not even labored. She wasn't trying to pass—yet. She was watching. Memorizing. Calculating every shift in Ganyu's chassis, every hesitation, every flourish.
She sent the Eight-Six into the corner late, trail-braking deep, blipping the throttle while heel-toeing on wet pedals, keeping engine and transmission harmonized through the transition. The Trueno's rear twitched on corner exit—predictable, controlled.
In the backseat, March was getting mauled.
"Ugh—Collei, this is insane!" she shouted, arms flailing for any handhold. The back seat offered no stability. Every transition tossed her like a ragdoll.
Collei didn't reply. Her focus was absolute. Ganyu's driving style was elegant, almost textbook—but elegant didn't mean infallible. She was waiting for the mistake.
Back at the line, Beidou was fuming.
"Damn it! The S2000's already pulling ahead!"
Seele, calm and unreadable, just tilted her head.
"You don't get it, do you?"
Beidou frowned. "Get what?"
Amber stepped in, arms crossed, rain dripping off her bangs.
"Think back to Amakane Pass."
"…Yeah?"
Amber's grin widened. "Same move she pulled on Eula. Hold back, observe, strike when the moment's right."
Beidou's eyes widened.
"Shit—you're right! I should've seen that!" She slapped her forehead, groaning.
Seele smirked, eyes still locked on the headlights below.
"The real race hasn't started yet."
On the course, the next hairpin was approaching fast—tight left, downhill gradient, and the rain was turning that stretch into a goddamn mirror.
Ganyu went in first, braking early. She was careful—engine braking paired with soft pedal pressure, weight shifting forward as she initiated the turn. But the surface betrayed her.
The rear tires lost cohesion.
The S2000's tail kicked out, fishtailing sharply.
Her steering inputs turned frantic, fingers feathering the wheel while her right foot danced on the gas. She didn't panic—just let the slide play out, then reeled the car back in with surgical throttle work. The recovery was textbook, but the slippage cost her time.
Collei saw it.
The AE86 came in hard—faster, sharper, committed.
She didn't brake where Ganyu did. She waited. Waited even longer. Her left foot snapped to the brake just before the apex, throwing the weight forward while her right hand slammed the shifter from third to second. Clutch out—rev match clean—steering input snapped.
The Trueno entered a perfect four-wheel drift.
Not just a rear slide. All four tires screamed, carving a path through the water like blades on ice.
It was aggressive. Brutal. Art in motion.
From the crowd, gasps cut through the rain.
"Did you see that?!"
"That Eight-Six is glued to the damn road!"
"She's drifting in the fucking rain like it's dry out there!"
"Unreal control. Unreal balls."
Inside the AE86, March was barely holding herself together—physically or mentally.
The chassis jolted, weight shifting violently as Collei yanked the car into yet another drift. March's shoulders slammed into the door as G-forces wrapped around her like a vice. Every pothole, every twitch of countersteer, every sudden pitch of the cabin sent her stomach lurching.
"She's like a completely different person," March thought, gripping the edge of the seat with both hands, knuckles bone-white. "Even with me screaming in the backseat, she doesn't react at all. It's like... she's not even human."
Collei's eyes were locked forward, laser-focused through the storm. The rain blurred everything into shadows and streaks, the road vanishing into blackness just meters ahead, swallowed by the downpour. But her hands were steady—fluid on the wheel, always correcting, always adjusting.
The headlights cut through the fog like blades, and the wipers struggled to keep up, flailing uselessly against the sheet of water. Yet the Eight-Six danced through it all like it had night-vision and grippy tires forged in hell.
"It's like we're driving into a fucking black hole," March whispered. "And she's just... calm. Like she's driven this course a hundred times before."
DING-DONG.
The speed limiter chime cut through the cabin, shrill and unrelenting.
March froze.
Her eyes snapped to the dash.
"Wait—that sound… we just crossed 100 kilometers per hour?!"
In a torrential downpour. On a mountain. Mid-corner.
Before the shock could settle, the next bend lunged out from the gloom like a viper.
Collei didn't flinch.
She yanked the wheel with sharp input, weight transfer loading the front tires as she stabbed the brakes with her left foot—just enough to unsettle the rear. Her right heel blipped the throttle mid-transition.
Downshift. Second gear. Clutch out. Slide in.
The AE86 snapped sideways into a hard drift. March shrieked as the inertia launched her into the seatbelt again, her head nearly bouncing off the C-pillar.
Collei kept her body low and loose, arms dancing with the steering wheel, feathering countersteer through the apex. Her fingers moved like she was sculpting the car's path with invisible thread.
"Time to turn up the pressure," she muttered, voice low, wicked—almost amused.
March blinked, heart slamming against her ribs.
"Turn up the pressure?! What the hell has she been doing this whole time?!"
Collei's right foot buried the throttle.
The engine responded with a furious snarl, naturally aspirated fury rising to 8,000 RPM. The rear tires hydroplaned for a second—just a second—before clawing in, biting into the waterlogged pavement with razor-sharp intent.
The Trueno surged forward, harder than ever. Every shift was a gunshot. Every slide was a scalpel.
Ahead, Ganyu thought she had it.
The S2000 was precise. Smooth. Elegant. Her lines were sharp, calculated. She wasn't just driving—she was composing a song, apex to apex, every brake point hit with metronomic consistency.
The VTEC roared, the engine spinning beautifully in the upper band.
"This time," she whispered, breath hot in the cabin, "I'm going to beat the Eight-Six. I don't need Ningguang. This is my win."
And then—
Headlights.
Two angry beams. In her mirror. Closer than they had any right to be.
Ganyu's stomach dropped.
"No way…"
The AE86 was right behind her. Practically glued to her bumper. It had gained all that ground. In the rain. Uphill. No fucking way.
She checked her dash—everything read normal. Tire pressure. Oil temp. Traction indicators. Nothing wrong.
But her confidence—that was what was slipping.
She pressed the accelerator harder, the S2000 howling in response. It surged—but the Eight-Six stayed there. Like a shadow. Like a predator.
At the next right-hander, her rear tires gave again—sudden oversteer. She tried to modulate the throttle, but it was a heartbeat too late. The tail stepped wide, and she had to countersteer hard to save it.
She did. But she bled momentum.
And Collei? She didn't make the same mistake.
She was still right there. Calculated. Controlled. Deadly.
At the following hairpin—tight, technical, the kind of corner that eats momentum like a black hole—Ganyu went defensive. She braked hard. Too hard.
Her car dipped forward, the nose biting down. The rear went light.
Just a fraction of hesitation.
Just enough.
Collei saw it. Felt it. Reacted before it even finished happening.
She shifted down, slammed the throttle wide open, and let the rear loose.
The AE86 surged out of the racing line—sideways but composed. The rear tires spit rooster tails of water behind them as she powered out of the drift mid-corner.
She passed Ganyu cleanly on the inside.
It wasn't brute force. It wasn't reckless.
It was precision timing. Execution. A kill shot.
Inside the S2000, Ganyu's pupils dilated.
"No way. No fucking way. She's beside me?!"
And then—
She was ahead.
Just like that.
The Trueno tore past, engine snarling like a wild animal unleashed, its tail dancing but never stepping out of line. The moment it cleared Ganyu's front bumper, it tucked in tight to the racing line—sealing the overtake with brutal finality.
The crowd exploded.
"Holy shit! Did you SEE that?!"
"She passed her in the fucking rain—drifting like it's a dry day!"
"That Eight-Six… that's not a car. That's a monster."
Ganyu gritted her teeth. The wheel slipped slightly in her hands.
"I can't… I can't keep up…"
Corner by corner, the gap widened.
Even if Collei made a mistake now—it wouldn't matter.
She had already broken Ganyu's rhythm. Broken her tempo. Broken her spirit.
This race wasn't just over. It had been decided the moment Collei got serious.
The Eight-Six had won.
Over the radio, Yelan's voice cut through the static like a blade.
Cold. Precise. Unapologetic.
"The race is over. The Eight-Six takes the win."
No fanfare. No commentary. Just a statement of fact that carried the weight of a gunshot.
Down by the observation curve, the crowd reacted like a shaken beehive—buzzing voices and shuffling feet. But for Keqing, sitting alone in her FD, it was silence that rang the loudest.
A soft tap against her window broke it.
She rolled it down without a word, fingers slow, deliberate, like she was still trying to convince herself this wasn't real.
The engine idled behind her, low and steady—a pulse in the quiet night.
Yelan leaned in, one arm resting casually on the door frame.
Her smirk was subtle. But the glint in her eye was unmistakable—sharp with satisfaction.
"Your girl lost."
She didn't say it to taunt. She didn't need to. The words carried their own weight.
It was a kill report. And Keqing knew it.
The Liuyue driver exhaled slowly through her nose, the breath fogging faintly in the cool mountain air. Her lavender eyes never left the darkness ahead.
She had expected this. But it didn't soften the sting.
Yelan didn't linger. She pulled away with the same ease she always moved with—grace like mercury and danger beneath the surface. She turned on her heel and slipped into her Porsche Blackbird without a sound.
The engine barked awake, a low snarl that rumbled through the pavement.
Twin red tail lights flared, then vanished into the descending mist of the mountain road, swallowed by the dark.
Keqing sat there for a moment, unmoving.
The rhythmic tick of the FD's engine cooling was the only thing that dared to fill the silence.
She leaned forward, elbows on the wheel, mind still spinning in the wake of the race.
The storm had passed—but something heavier lingered.
"No matter the rain… the Eight-Six always wins," she muttered, barely audible. Her fingers drummed against the wheel once. Twice.
"But Ningguang… Ningguang will take the victory in two days' time. I have no doubt."
Her voice was calm. But beneath it lay a quiet fury.
At the summit, word of Collei's win spread like fire across dry tinder.
No one shouted. No one needed to.
The tension had broken, and what remained was reverence.
Groups of spectators still huddled under umbrellas or stood in the drizzle, whispering in disbelief.
"Did you see that overtake?"
"An AE86 in the fucking rain. Unreal."
"She just... powered through like the road was dry."
It wasn't just admiration. It was fear, too.
By the guardrail, Beidou stood with arms crossed, her jacket soaked through, steam rising off her shoulders like smoke off cooling metal. The storm didn't faze her. But the race? That left a dent.
Seele leaned against her Z, arms folded, lips tight. No wisecrack this time.
Just a low whistle under her breath.
Pela was the quietest of the group, hoodie up, arms hugging herself as she tracked the last echo of the Eight-Six's exhaust down the mountain.
She spoke without looking up.
"This… was just practice. Ningguang's the real threat."
Amber looked back toward the course, eyes catching the gleam of wet pavement under the floodlights. The faintest smirk tugged at her lips.
"Another win for Collei."
Beidou huffed, not with anger, but with the weight of acceptance.
"Rain or shine, she gets it done. No surprise there."
The group fell silent again, tension unwinding in the humid night.
Amber was the first to turn, already heading for the parking lot.
"Let's go. We've seen enough."
The others followed, their footsteps soft against the wet concrete.
Amber's SilEighty waited for them, engine still warm, windshield fogged slightly, as if it too had held its breath watching the race unfold.
The low burble of the engine rumbled through the air, blending with the last of the night's distant thunder.
There was no celebration.
Just a quiet understanding:
Two battles had ended.
Two victors had emerged.
But from two very different corners of Narukami Prefecture.
And the real war—was just beginning.