"Take this—!"
No one knew who shouted first, but in the next instant, Poké Balls, fireworks, toy carrot knives, and all sorts of other items started flying in from every direction at Jei Chou, determined to focus-fire the demon king off the field.
A barrage of items clanged and thudded against Jei Chou's AE86, keeping him pinned inside the encirclement and leaving him in a difficult spot for a while.
Of course, not every team was thinking of taking Jei Chou out first.
For example, Team 5 hadn't joined the siege on Jei Chou at all. Instead, they sped up and went straight after Mizuno's wheelchair up front.
"Go! Go!"
Mizuno was happily racing along in first place when a red dot suddenly landed on the back of his head.
Bang!
A shot rang out, and a bullet barely grazed past Mizuno's ear. It hadn't blown his head off on the spot, but even the sonic crack of it passing by made his eardrums ache.
"?"
Mizuno stiffly turned his head, utterly stunned.
He saw that Team 5—a couple dressed in camouflage—was chasing close behind him about a hundred and fifty meters back.
The camo-clad woman was driving, while her boyfriend, also in camouflage, was holding a sniper rifle. A wisp of white smoke was still curling from the barrel.
"Damn..." Seeing that he had missed, the camo man let out a disappointed sigh, reloaded, and once again aimed the red sightline at Mizuno's head.
"Huh?" Mizuno was dumbstruck.
Why does he have a gun?!
Wasn't this supposed to be an item race? Lethal weapons were obviously banned, right? This was blatant cheating!
No, wait...
This wasn't the United States either! Even outside an item race, carrying a gun was illegal, okay?!
"Relax, it's not a real bullet." Seeing Mizuno stare at him for a long moment, the camo man seemed to realize he'd gotten the wrong idea and raised his voice to explain, "It's just a paint round fired from a compressed-air gun. It won't kill you. It'll only hurt a tiny little bit."
Bang!
To prove it, the camo man fired another shot at Mizuno.
Only his aim was a bit off this time. Not only did he fail to hit Mizuno, he didn't even come close—he hit a tree branch several meters away instead.
Crack!
A branch as thick as an arm gave a pitiful snap and broke clean off.
"See? Just a tiny little bit of pain."
Mizuno: "?"
That did not look like a tiny little bit of pain!
That looked exactly like a real bullet!
If something with that much power hit a person, they'd be put into permanent sleep on the spot, okay?!
...
Meanwhile, in the audience area, the giant liquid-crystal screen in the middle of the venue was using drones tracking the racers to broadcast the race in real time.
"Team 1, Jei Chou and Uehara Mika, are under siege from four other teams! The assault is extremely fierce—they probably won't be breaking free anytime soon!"
"Team 4 is also under sniper fire from Team 5! Those gunshots sound loud—if one of those hits, it'll be bad!"
"The whole racecourse is total chaos right now!"
"What about Team 8? Where's Team 8?" the host asked.
The screen flashed, and the view quickly switched to the drone filming Team 8.
About a kilometer from the starting point, the "owner's command" duo of Team 8 had both already collapsed to the ground, and the dog-man serving as the mount was even foaming at the mouth from exhaustion.
Though honestly, that was about what everyone had expected.
No matter how strong he was, he was still just a human, not some four-legged animal that could run fast on all fours. Crawling along like that was already exhausting enough, let alone carrying another person while trying to race cars.
So after hauling his owner about a kilometer, the dog-man had completely run out of steam and was sprawled on the ground, unable to rise again.
What no one had expected, though, was that despite lying there gasping for breath, the dog-man had a deeply satisfied smile on his face.
So they really had just come here to play out some kind of kink!
"Team 8, clearly throwing the race, has gone down early! Let's turn our attention back to Team 4, currently under sniper attack in the distance!" To keep the younger audience members from learning the wrong lessons, the host hurriedly switched the screen back to Mizuno.
The moment the picture cut over, everyone saw Mizuno jerking his wheelchair left and right, weaving and juking as he tried to dodge the bullets from the camo man behind him with a serpentine pattern.
Because his mount was a wheelchair, the whole scene looked absurd, like a spinning top being whipped into motion.
Still, ridiculous as it looked, it really was working.
Mizuno's erratic movements made it impossible for the camo man to line up a shot at his head, and several bullets in a row all missed.
"Damn it!" Seeing the distance between them stretch wider and wider, and realizing he'd never catch up if he didn't pull something, the camo man slammed a button in the car in frustration.
Ding~
["Super Aim deployed."]
"?" Mizuno froze for a second when he heard that, glancing back at the gun in the camo man's hands, now glowing red, with absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do next.
Come on, man, why does your gun have auto-aim too?!
How am I supposed to race against that?!
You can have the win if you want it that badly!
"Heh heh~" Seeing Mizuno stop weaving in shock, the camo man gave a smug little laugh.
Of course, his so-called Super Aim was fake. They were ordinary civilians—where would they get the kind of auto-targeting weapons only the military had? The so-called Super Aim was just a scare tactic he used on other racers. As long as the opponent got rattled, he could strike while they froze.
"Gotcha!" The camo man pulled the trigger.
Bang!
A paint round with a "sleep-inducing" effect shot through the air straight toward Mizuno's forehead.
And just when everyone thought Mizuno was about to get his head blown open—
Clang!
A crisp metallic sound rang out.
A frying pan had suddenly appeared beside Mizuno's head and blocked the lethal paint round for him.
"Nice one!" Mizuno snapped out of it and praised Maruzensky in the back seat.
"Mhm..." Having been praised, the Umamusume ears poking out from the top of the cardboard box twitched happily.
Naturally, the frying-pan bullet block had been her doing.
Because Maruzensky was too scared to look at anyone except Mizuno, her aim when throwing items was hopeless, so Mizuno had never planned to keep using her as an attacker in the first place. Instead, he had her switch over to defensive support.
Just like the difference between a tank support and an enchanter support in a MOBA: the hard support started fights, while the soft support's main job was protecting their teammate.
If Maruzensky couldn't look at other people, then all she had to do was focus all her attention on Mizuno.
After several days of practice, anything that wouldn't hit Mizuno she ignored—but anything that might hit Mizuno, she would block with perfect precision.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Several more bullets came flying in from behind, but every last one of them was blocked by Maruzensky.
"Good girl~" Mizuno praised her again, but he didn't stay idle. He immediately activated the attack method he had prepared.
He had no desire to fight with anyone.
But since the other side insisted on attacking him, then they couldn't blame him for hitting back.
Whoosh—!
A slick sheet of oil spilled out from behind the wheelchair, coating the road Team 5 had to pass over.
"Ahhh—!"
The camo woman at the wheel had no time to dodge. Her tires rolled straight over the oil, their grip vanished, and the car instantly began to skid.
At two hundred kilometers an hour, the sports car was like driving fast over an icy northern road in winter—when an emergency hit, there was simply no way to turn or brake in time.
"This is bad bad bad!"
BOOM!
Three seconds later, Team 5's sports car slammed head-on into a tree by the roadside. The camo couple were knocked unconscious by the impact, their faces buried in the airbags, and were out of the race on the spot.