"Tiga's still chasing me! Goddammit!"
Mizuno cursed under his breath and didn't dare look back at all.
The light behind him was even brighter than a flashbang going off right in your face—and it was continuous, too. He absolutely could not spare a second glance backward, because one extra look and his eyeballs were going to explode!
Under those conditions, the rearview mirrors that were supposed to help drivers keep track of vehicles behind them had instead become accomplices in wrecking the race. Once that light reflected off the glass, it burned the driver's eyes even more fiercely.
Fortunately, though, this didn't actually affect Mizuno all that much.
Because his wheelchair didn't have rearview mirrors to begin with.
The only one who had to worry about being blinded by reflected light was Jei Chou in the AE86.
Besides, Mizuno was out in front. There was still Jei Chou between him and the Tiga cosplayer in Shining Form, so if the Tiga cosplayer was going to attack anyone, Jei Chou would be the first one to suffer for it.
So all Mizuno had to do now was wait for Jei Chou and the Tiga cosplayer to get tangled up with each other. Once the snipe and the clam started fighting, the fisherman could profit—he'd be able to dash all the way to the finish line without interference and take first place in style.
And things did indeed play out exactly as Mizuno had expected. The Tiga cosplayer really did go after the closest target.
"Jei Chou!" the Tiga cosplayer shouted excitedly, recklessly accelerating as he closed in on Jei Chou.
Although his girlfriend Camearra was also unable to open her eyes because of how blindingly bright he was, leaving her unable to throw any items at Jei Chou, the Tiga cosplayer no longer needed her help anyway.
As long as he got close enough to Jei Chou, the light pouring off him could reflect through the rearview mirror and blind Jei Chou outright.
The only way for Jei Chou to prevent that was to shut his eyes.
But if he closed his eyes, he wouldn't be able to see the road ahead, and naturally he'd have no choice but to stop and give way.
So no matter how you looked at it, the demon king Jei Chou was going to be completely defeated by him, the messenger of light!
"Heh heh~" The Tiga cosplayer chuckled to himself, already imagining the scene of defeating Jei Chou and going on to win the race.
Unfortunately, his fantasy was full and rich, while reality was painfully skinny.
Just as the Tiga cosplayer, wrapped in that impossible-to-look-at glare, closed to within fifty meters of Jei Chou, the passenger-side window of the AE86 rolled down.
Thunk~
A sharp striking sound rang out as a golf ball flew out of the window and smashed toward the Tiga cosplayer behind them.
"Ow!" Caught off guard, the Tiga cosplayer took the golf ball straight to the cheek and nearly flipped the car in panic.
Luckily, he grabbed the wheel in time and stabilized the car, avoiding the fate of the other eliminated racers.
"A golf ball?" The Tiga cosplayer was baffled, utterly unable to figure out where it had come from.
"Don't forget about me!" At that moment, Jei Chou's girlfriend, Uehara Mika, stuck her head out from the passenger-side window.
She was wearing sunglasses, a golf club in hand, and called out sweetly to the rear, "I said I'd help Jei win. I wasn't joking."
With that, Uehara Mika swung again.
How she was managing to play golf inside such a cramped car was anybody's guess, but somehow she really could use that club to drive golf balls right out the window.
Thunk~
The golf ball traced a perfect arc through the air and smacked the Tiga cosplayer square in the face.
"Wah!" This time the shot was powerful enough that the ball jammed itself into the plastic left eye of his costume head, sealing off the vision on his left side.
Thunk~
The next second, another golf ball flew over and shattered the plastic eye on the other side too, leaving him completely blind to the outside world.
"Gwah!" Now the Tiga cosplayer couldn't see the road ahead at all, and his girlfriend Camearra still couldn't open her eyes because of the light coming off him, so she couldn't take over driving for him either.
And so, naturally, those two blind people drove straight into the mountainside. Their vehicle was badly damaged and could no longer continue the race.
As the Tiga cosplayer passed out, the light radiating from him gradually faded away, finally revealing a costume that had turned gray from overexposure, like a stone statue that had lost all vitality.
"You were amazing, babe~" Jei Chou took off his sunglasses and praised Uehara Mika.
Good thing he usually kept a few stylish pairs of shades in the car for the sake of looking cool. Otherwise, that could've gotten ugly just now.
"Hehe~" Uehara Mika pulled herself back into the car and gave Jei Chou a sweet smile.
"Incredible! Team 1's Uehara Mika took down Team 6 with just three exquisite golf shots!" the host shouted excitedly.
"Holy crap, there's another monster?!" the crowd gasped.
Everyone knew Jei Chou was a street-racing prodigy, but who would've thought his girlfriend Uehara Mika was this much of a badass too?
Judging by the power and accuracy on those golf balls, calling her the number one support player in the nation wouldn't be an exaggeration, right?
"Huh? It's over already?" Mizuno, who had been listening to the battle behind him with his ears the whole time, grew visibly more serious. He really hadn't expected the Tiga cosplayer to go down that fast.
He'd thought they could at least stay tangled up for a while longer—just a few more corners, and tonight's win would've practically been in the bag.
But now, with only half the race over, the rest of the field had already eliminated each other in their wild brawl, leaving only him and Jei Chou.
Judging from the real gap in strength between the two of them, even though Mizuno was still more than two hundred meters ahead, the situation was far from settled.
Thanks to Fujiwara-san's instruction, Mizuno's drifting was already quite good. If he entered a race, he'd probably rank near the top.
But compared to a freak talent like Jei Chou, it still clearly wasn't enough.
Every time he took a corner, Mizuno had to conscientiously follow the techniques Fujiwara-san had taught him—brake, decelerate, turn, boost—using a standard drift to get through safely while preserving as much speed as possible.
Jei Chou, on the other hand, was different.
No matter what kind of turn it was, no matter how sharp the angle, he could use the surrounding environment to create outside leverage and pull off a perfect drift without slowing down at all.
Gutter runs, pendulum drifts—if you could think of it, he could probably do it.
"Gh—!" Mizuno was left staring in disbelief.
Hey, hey, hey! How are you using other people's ultimate moves like basic attacks? That's just unfair!
Just like the old saying went: anyone can floor it on a straight, but true speed is speed in the corners.
And because of that, every time they hit a turn, the gap between Jei Chou's AE86 and Mizuno's street-racer wheelchair shrank.
So for Jei Chou, closing a mere two hundred meters on Mizuno was only a matter of a few corners.
Especially with Miss Uehara Mika over there, whose attack accuracy was currently sitting at a perfect hundred percent.
And so, one minute later, when the distance between them had narrowed to roughly a hundred meters, the passenger-side window of the AE86 rolled down once again, and Uehara Mika leaned out, squinting as she aimed at Mizuno up ahead.
"Here it comes~"