The day started like a dare.
Hikari took the Kestrel-X out the way it was meant to be taken out - quietly brutal. The bike didn't so much accelerate as vanish and reappear farther down the lane with a line of sound under your ribs. Stripe-lights went liquid under her. She took the long first curve without drama, knee a respectful breath above the deck, then bled throttle into a drift so controlled the playback looked fake. Not a wobble, not a mercy. She leaned and the Kestrel answered like "yes, of course! I thought you'd never ask!"
On her second pass she clipped the inner radius until someone watching her held his breath and remembered how to exhale only when she straightened. By the fourth, she was riding the knife-edge between physics and nerve, flicking the rear in delicate smears of tire that would later make mechanics sigh and touch the marks like art.
