That morning at the gas station, the air was sharp—crisp with a bite of early autumn and tinged with the familiar stench of gasoline, oil, and old concrete. A faint wind stirred the red and yellow leaves that clung to the curbs, scraping them along the ground like whispers of change. The canopy overhead creaked softly as a delivery truck idled nearby, diesel exhaust curling lazily into the blue sky.
Collei had just finished dropping the bombshell. Her voice had been calm, measured—but what she said hit like a sledgehammer.
"WHAAAAT?!" came the chorus, loud enough to startle a flock of crows from the treetops lining the roadside. The voices of March, Amber, Beidou, and Seele ricocheted off the nearby garage walls and echoed into the hills beyond.
March 7th exploded into motion before anyone else could blink, her boots skidding on the concrete as she surged forward, grabbing Collei by the collar in a blur of motion. Her eyes were wide, pupils dilated with the kind of panic and awe only March could deliver.
"Ningguang invited you to an expedition team?!" she shouted, voice cracking halfway through.
Collei didn't flinch. Her hands stayed at her sides, posture loose but grounded as she returned March's frantic stare. A small nod. Measured. Almost solemn.
"Yeah," she said. Her voice didn't carry much emotion—if anything, it sounded like she was still trying to believe it herself. "She said it'll last a year. Her plan is to race outside the prefecture. Break records. Leave behind something big."
Beidou's fists clenched. Not in anger—but raw, kinetic energy. Her shoulders twitched like she was ready to punch the sky.
"Dude, that's awesome!" she blurted, grinning wide enough to show teeth. "You should totally go for it!"
Amber was practically vibrating, unable to contain herself. She rocked up and down on her heels, eyes lit up like floodlights, voice breathless.
"I agree! This is a huge opportunity for you, Collei. Think about it—Ningguang herself, the Queen of Northern Slope, handpicking you and Clorinde for her crew? That's insane!"
But Collei didn't share their enthusiasm. Her eyes had drifted from the group, drawn—almost magnetically—to the silhouette of Mount Yougou in the distance. The mountain loomed in the morning light like a silent sentinel, shrouded in mist that clung to its summit like smoke. The very place where it all began.
"I'm considering it," she murmured. Her voice had dropped just enough that they had to lean in to catch it. "But… there are loose ends. I can't go without finishing something first. I'd regret it."
Seele's voice cut in, hard and skeptical. She crossed her arms, mouth twisting slightly as if the whole thing left a bad taste in her mouth.
"Hold on. Are we really just gonna ignore how suspicious this is? Ningguang wants to take Collei—the Hero of Yougou—off the map for a year? Feels like poaching to me."
Beidou hesitated. For just a moment, her brow furrowed. But then her usual fire returned, and she shrugged it off with a grin that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Nah. I think this is exactly what Collei needs. If she comes back even better than she is now? Hell yeah, I support it."
From the edge of the gathering, Lyney finally stirred. He had been leaning against a rusted barrel, arms crossed, an unlit cigarette dangling from his fingers. He looked like he'd been waiting for the perfect moment to speak—and now it had arrived.
"An expeditionary team, huh?" he said smoothly, like the words had been aged in whiskey. "That's something Arlecchino and I talked about years ago. Traveling out, learning new roads, mastering different terrain—it's the kind of trial by fire that forges real drivers. You should take it, Collei. This is how legends are made."
She didn't respond. Her eyes were still locked on the mountain, her mind drifting somewhere far beyond the edges of the gas station and its noise. The chatter continued—Beidou talking shop, Amber already daydreaming about international races, Seele still muttering suspicions under her breath—but for Collei, it all faded into a low, muffled blur.
By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, the laughter had died down. The truck had long since rumbled away. Beidou had gone back to tuning her S13, Amber and March had wandered off for ice cream, and Seele had disappeared without a word.
And Collei was gone.
She had slipped away sometime in the late afternoon, the Eight Six carrying her through the winding roads of Inazuma's backcountry like a ghost. Now she sat alone on the gravel shore of Lake Yougou, knees pulled to her chest, leaning back against the cool steel of her car's fender. The Eight Six rested quietly beside her, its freshly-waxed white paint catching the last threads of orange and crimson light from the sky.
The lake was still. Glassy. Perfectly mirroring the blazing sky above, where wisps of violet bled into fire-red clouds. Crickets chirped in the underbrush. Somewhere, a loon called out across the water.
She didn't move. Didn't speak. Just watched the sky burn.
And the memories came flooding back.
Last month.
Araumi's mountain was a black ribbon of death coiled in darkness, its corners tight and unforgiving. The road was barely two lanes wide, hemmed in by rusting guardrails and steep drop-offs that plunged into forest shadows. And Feixiao had been leading—his Lancer Evolution IX, painted gunmetal gray, slicing through the night with brutal speed.
Collei chased him down with everything she had.
The Eight Six's high-rev scream tore through the trees, the Silvertop 20V howling at redline as the tach needle hung just past the 8,000 RPM mark. Her hands were locked on the wheel, arms relaxed but firm, the way Arlecchino had taught her. Downshift. Heel-toe. Tap the clutch, let the engine sing.
Each corner was a battle. Feixiao's AWD grip gave him dominance on turn-in, but Collei danced the Eight Six through every curve with surgical precision—feathering the throttle, letting the rear step out, catching it on instinct alone. Her tires screamed in protest but never lost contact. Every downshift was crisp. Every apex clipped by inches.
Then came the final straightaway.
She floored it. The throttle stayed buried. The engine strained—howling, rattling, living on the edge. Feixiao surged forward, his turbocharger shrieking like a banshee. But Collei didn't lift. Her gaze flicked between the speedo, the tach, and the vanishing point in the dark.
And then it happened.
BANG.
The sound was deafening—metal on metal, something tearing apart deep inside the block. A choked cough from the exhaust. Then silence.
The Eight Six lurched. The rear wheels seized for a split second, the whole car bucking like a spooked animal. She fought the wheel, but it was too late. The rear broke loose. The car spun out with a violent snap, tires skidding across the cold asphalt.
Smoke exploded from under the hood, thick and black, billowing through the air vents and around the fenders. Oil splattered across the road in a messy trail. The scent was acrid—burned metal, hot rubber, something terminal.
Collei somehow managed to limp it into an emergency layoff—a gravel pocket meant for breakdowns or deaths avoided by inches.
When the car finally stopped, she sat still. Frozen.
Then she unbuckled, popped the door, and stumbled out. Her legs barely held her weight. Knees hit the gravel. Hard.
She watched the smoke rise.
The engine was dead. Not dying—gone. Rods bent, pistons shattered, a whole fucking legacy torn apart in a heartbeat.
She didn't cry. Not then.
But in that moment, with smoke curling into the stars and the mountain road falling quiet behind her, Collei felt something deeper than grief.
She felt unfinished.
The memory faded like vapor from her mind, leaving Collei motionless beside the lake. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused, staring through the reflection of the sky until it blurred into nothing. She exhaled sharply, breath catching in her throat, then inhaled through her nose like it might clear the residue of what she'd just relived. Her hands trembled faintly against her knees.
Then—she blinked.
Her shoulders rolled back. A quiet, grounded determination crept into her expression like steel hardening beneath skin. Collei stood, brushing stray leaves and gravel dust from her skirt, and pulled her phone from her pocket with purpose.
Inside Ningguang's estate, keystrokes echoed against lacquered wood and marble. The soft clack of a mechanical keyboard rang out in neat rhythm, punctuated only by the occasional mouse click. Behind the wide desk, Ningguang sat composed, fingers dancing across the keys, eyes locked onto spreadsheets and telemetry.
Then—her phone vibrated. Once. Twice.
She paused and picked it up.
"Hello? Collei?" she asked smoothly, her voice calm but edged with curiosity.
"Sorry to bother you, Ningguang." Collei's voice came through steady, but there was a low tension humming beneath the surface—like she was holding back the tide. "This isn't about the team initiation. I'm still… thinking about that. But I wanted to ask you something else."
Ningguang's fingers stilled. She leaned back in her chair, eyes narrowing ever so slightly. "Of course. What is it?"
Collei's voice hesitated, the static between them stretching for a moment. Then: "I'm looking for Feixiao. I want to know if it's possible to race her."
A flicker passed over Ningguang's face. Not surprise—more like a measured acknowledgment of something inevitable. "Feixiao?" she repeated, lips curving in a knowing smile. "Yeah. I can make that happen. We go way back. Where do you want the race?"
"If possible… her home course," Collei said. Her voice had sharpened, the hesitation stripped away.
A soft laugh escaped Ningguang, rich with quiet approval. "Jakotsu Pass in Yashiori. Bold of you to ask for it. But be warned—it's brutal terrain. And Feixiao isn't the type to pull punches on her home turf."
"I know," Collei replied. "But I need this. Thank you, Ningguang."
"I'll let her know you're coming," Ningguang said, her tone warm but serious. "Good luck, kid."
With a soft click, the call ended.
Collei lowered the phone, exhaled slowly, and turned toward her car. The streetlights bathed the Eight-Six in a dull amber glow, the fresh paint catching just enough of it to gleam along the fender. She opened the door, slid into the driver's seat, and gripped the suede-wrapped wheel with fingers that no longer shook.
Key in. Clutch down. One smooth turn of the ignition—and the rebuilt engine growled to life.
It wasn't the same voice the car once had—it was deeper, fiercer, hungrier. The 20-valve 4A-GE Silvertop idled with a refined aggression, each piston firing like a heartbeat finally returned to rhythm.
Collei stared at the illuminated dash, her face lit in greens and reds. Her seatbelt clicked into place.
"Time to see what Jakotsu Pass is all about," she muttered, eyes narrowing.
The Eight-Six rolled out of the lot, its low beams cutting through the mist ahead.
By 8:45 PM, she crested Jakotsu Pass.
The summit was quiet—too quiet. No spectators here. Just the open blacktop, the night air laced with mountain cold, and the sharp symphony of insects humming in the trees. She pulled into the turnout lot and stepped out, stretching briefly before leaning against the roof of her car.
This was it.
Jakotsu Pass—the real one.
Not the misnamed uphill near the foot of the mountain, but the infamous one-way descent. A course with a reputation among the underground racers as merciless. It was pure downhill—tight switchbacks carved into stone, blind apexes, and sudden drop-offs with nothing but guardrails and gravity between you and death. To complete a run, drivers had to first circle around the base via a connecting uphill route that mirrored the descent—a loop designed to test endurance as much as precision.
Collei studied the layout in her mind as she walked to the edge, her eyes tracing invisible lines along the darkened path below. She climbed back into the driver's seat, adjusted her gloves, and set her hands on the wheel at ten and two.
The Eight-Six eased forward, crawling into the straightaway.
The opening stretch was deceptively forgiving. A long ribbon of tarmac wide enough for confidence to build—only to be ripped away by a vicious hairpin at the end. She braked late but clean, heel-toeing a perfect downshift from fourth to third, the rev-matching seamless. The engine snarled, then howled, torque pulling her into the curve.
The chassis pivoted with the light touch of a fingertip. She countersteered smoothly, rear tires breaking traction just enough for a controlled slide. The Eight-Six glided through, tires screeching but not screaming.
Another corner came fast. Collei shifted weight, flicked the steering slightly, and initiated the drift earlier—feeling out the balance with uncanny grace.
"This road's insane," she muttered to herself, eyes narrowing as the road twisted again. "No wonder she made this her home turf."
A tighter turn snapped into view—a right-angle hairpin with almost no runoff.
Collei didn't lift.
She braked late, trail-braked into the apex, and yanked the handbrake—just a tap. The rear end swung out, the front wheels countered instantly, and the car snapped sideways. Gravel spat under her tires as she clipped the edge but didn't lose control.
The car screamed out of the drift clean.
From a turnout further down, two figures stood in the shadows.
"Yo… is that the Eight-Six?" one murmured, disbelief thick in his tone.
"No way," said the Evo III driver beside him, grabbing his phone. "That's gotta be her. Call Feixiao. She needs to see this."
Collei didn't hear them. She didn't need to.
She was lost in the run now—one with the car, the road, and the tension winding tighter with each second. Her body leaned with the curves, her hands worked in rhythm, her eyes scanning two corners ahead at all times. Sweat beaded at her temple, but she didn't blink.
The finish line approached. She blazed past it without a pause, downshifting hard and throwing the car into a 90-degree slide to connect to the uphill return loop. The Eight-Six rotated beautifully—rear tires skimming the edge of traction as the engine roared back up into the powerband.
She was already climbing back to the top, engine screaming through the gears as her heart pounded in sync.
At the summit, Feixiao closed her phone with a soft snap. Her expression was unreadable in the shadow of the cliffside, the wind tugging strands of hair across her face. Her Evo IX sat silently nearby, its black paint almost invisible in the dark.
"So she came back," she murmured. "And the Eight-Six... it's fixed."
She stepped forward, eyes on the horizon. The sound of the car still echoed faintly off the walls of the mountain.
"She took that run like it was the real thing," Feixiao said to no one. Her tone wasn't cold. It was something closer to awe. "She's not over it yet… but maybe this is her way of moving forward."
Meanwhile, back in Araumi, Keqing pushed open the door to Ningguang's study. The room was dim except for the glow of data streams scrolling across the laptop screen—telemetry, dyno graphs, engine parameters.
At the center was the schematic of a high-revving 4A-GE Silvertop.
"Hey, Ning," Keqing said softly, stepping inside.
Ningguang turned her chair slightly. "What is it?"
Keqing crossed her arms. "I heard Collei's down at Jakotsu. Someone said she's out there challenging Feixiao."
"She is," Ningguang said plainly, her smirk returning. "Sounds about right."
Keqing's eyes widened. "And you knew?! You didn't tell me?"
"I suspected," Ningguang said with a small shrug. "Didn't want to interfere."
Keqing moved closer, voice lowered. "Is she doing this out of vengeance? Or guilt?"
Ningguang leaned back, fingers steepled under her chin. "Honestly… I don't think it's either. It's not about revenge. It's about proving something—to herself. The engine failure on that exhibition run... it wounded her pride, sure. But more than that—it left her with unfinished business."