"Huh?!" Mizuno stared at the AE86 hurtling down from the hillside, his heart churning like a storm.
No, seriously, bro, since when could you actually fly?!
He had only gotten a little ahead of himself celebrating in his head. There was no need to slap him in the face this quickly, was there?!
The race rules did not forbid racers from leaving the official road, so taking a shortcut was technically allowed. The only condition was that if you failed, you bore the cost yourself.
After all, beyond the road, Back Mountain was all sheer cliffs and dense forest. Forcing your way through could easily end with the car wrecked and everyone inside dead. No normal person would ever risk a shortcut.
But Jei Chou had done it.
And worse, he had actually pulled it off!
Whether he had possessed that kind of skill all along or had simply been gambling, the AE86 slammed into the ground, bounced violently several times, then kept moving steadily forward. By using the course's height difference, he had pulled off a jaw-dropping overtake from behind!
"Mizuno, I'll be going on ahead." Jei Chou waved at Mizuno through the car window, then stepped on the gas and sped off.
"Cheats?!" Mizuno was dumbstruck. If he had not seen this scene in Initial D before, he would absolutely have thought Jei Chou was using hacks.
"Are we going to lose?" Mizuno gritted his teeth, unwilling to accept it.
But Jei Chou's protagonist luck, which might as well have been cheating, and the finish line less than a kilometer ahead were both proving the same thing: they could no longer catch up to Jei Chou. They were about to lose.
"How could..." Maruzensky, sitting in the back seat, realized it too. Her small mouth parted slightly, and her beautiful emerald eyes trembled uncontrollably.
She could not help asking herself:
Why?
Why were they going to lose?
Was it because their opponent was too strong?
No.
Jei Chou's skills were indeed impressive, but that was not the most important reason. If Maruzensky had been the one driving, then as someone who had once been number one, she could have done the same.
Then was it because Mizuno had not worked hard enough? Was that why he was losing to Jei Chou?
That was even more absurd!
From Mizuno's first day learning to race, Maruzensky had been watching from the side. She had seen with her own eyes how much effort he had poured in to fulfill her wish. She had watched him go from a complete newbie who knew nothing about street racing, through countless injuries and setbacks, until he transformed into someone who could now race even in a wheelchair...
Then why were they losing?
To put it another way, whose fault was it that they had failed to win?
"It's me..." Maruzensky lowered her eyes, her hand tightly clutching the front of her clothes.
If only she had not been so cowardly. If only she had driven the car in the race herself, instead of really letting Mizuno carry her to victory like some discarded cardboard box by the roadside...
If only she had been a little braver, endured the gazes of others, and used items to interfere with Jei Chou enough...
Then the ending surely would not have been this crushing...
So the one who had destroyed her own wish with her own hands was none other than herself!
"I really... still don't have the right..."
"Guh..." Maruzensky's ears drooped, and she curled up even tighter beneath the cardboard box.
Maruzensky had deliberately hidden her sigh. It was as faint as the autumn evening wind, almost impossible to notice. But that tiny sound, too soft to ignore, was still keenly caught by Mizuno in front of her, who had been paying close attention to her condition the entire time.
Mizuno frowned. He did not turn back to look at Maruzensky. Instead, he glanced at the steep slope beside them. A life-or-death idea welled up inside him.
"All right! If he can fly, so can I!"
As long as he charged down from here and bet his life the same way Jei Chou had, he still had a chance to get ahead of Jei Chou again and pull off an even more shocking counter-overtake!
But before carrying out that dangerous maneuver, Mizuno first had to make sure Maruzensky was safe.
At the very least, he could not let her stay in the back seat. Otherwise, with that seat connected only by spring rods, it would be hard to guarantee it could properly protect her while he took her racing down the slope with him.
"Maruzensky, next, please sit on my lap..." Mizuno said gravely.
Before this, he had never once taken the initiative to let a woman—especially an Umamusume—sit in his arms. But this was an emergency. There was no time to care about that.
"Huh?" Maruzensky was still secretly drowning in her grief. When she suddenly heard Mizuno's strange request, she was a little lost.
"Come on!" Mizuno reached his hand out to her.
Maruzensky's pupils trembled, hesitation flickering in her eyes.
Although she did not know what Mizuno intended to do, in the end, she still gathered her courage and took his hand.
"Hold tight!" The moment their fingers intertwined, Mizuno immediately yanked Maruzensky out of the cardboard box and settled her on his lap.
"?!" Before Maruzensky could react, Mizuno had already pulled her into his arms in something close to a princess carry.
Her rear was seated on Mizuno's thighs. Out of fear, both her arms were wrapped around his neck. Her long, slender, jade-like legs were exposed to the cold wind, and she shyly curled her toes.
A beauty lying in his arms, sweet fragrance lingering at the tip of his nose—it was the kind of dream any man would wish for.
Only, a certain someone's thoughts were not on that, but on the far more distant starlight.
A metallic ding rang out as Mizuno deliberately disconnected the spring rods linking the back seat, sending it and the cardboard box Maruzensky had shed tumbling onto the stretch of road they had already passed.
Everything was ready. Now was the moment to risk his life and fulfill their promise!
Fortune! Time to wake up and get to work! Mizuno silently called, holding the person in his arms even tighter. Then he drove the wheelchair straight toward the edge of the slope.
With a bang, the wheels crushed over the loose stones at the cliff's edge, kicking a smear of yellow dust and earth into the sky.
"!"
The terrifying height pulled Maruzensky's nerves taut. She was so scared she wanted to close her eyes, yet the fantastical sight beneath the night sky was so beautiful she could not bear to. Her heart, which had been weighed down by grief, gradually began to leap and cheer.
Thump...
In the neon-lit downtown far in the distance, several Tanabata fireworks happened to rise into the sky, turning into the drumbeat of a heartbeat and sinking into everyone's chest.
A few hundred meters away, the finish line lay straight ahead. On the giant central screen above the spectator stands, the image of the two of them soaring through the air was being broadcast live.
The fierce wind blew away the hood hiding his face, revealing the young man's resolute expression.
Above the universe, the Milky Way still shone in dazzling splendor.
With the girl in his arms, the young man fell through the bright, clear moon.
---
T/N: WOOOOOOOOOOAH
T/N2: heres ur bonus chapssss i forgetty teehee
bonus chaps
200 stones -> 1 chapter
400 stones -> 2 chapters
600 stones -> 3 chapters
and so on
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