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Dust coated her throat and Ulti coughed, annoyed. How dare dust get through her pink face mask?! They'd barely gotten here and already she wanted to leave. Yamato, her older 'brother' (and how she hated the term, her real brother was right beside her like he always was) took off the moment they'd parked.
Scowling, she followed Kaido's large frame as he cut through the crowd. She held onto Pay Pay's sweaty hand, while in the other he clutched his large green dinosaur plushie. Adults swarmed around them and her violet eyes squinted in irritation. They better not run into her or Pay Pay or else they'd get it!
Kaido finally arrived at some raggedly old set of bleachers, stomping up the steps he found a spot and began to unpack. Ulti watched silently, the ground beneath her feet cracked and dry in the summer sun.
"Uh." Pay Pay tugged on their joined hands. "Shouldn't we go up there sis?"
"No," she answered immediately. Ulti forced them both to whirl around and marched to the fence a few steps away.
Rage boiled within her without an outlet as she looked out at the crappy dirt track. It was just an oval circle, nothing terribly interesting. When Kaido (and she refused to call him dad) had mentioned that they were going to the racetrack she'd been far from thrilled.
That opinion hadn't changed upon their arrival.
Still, her newly adopted parental figure was as bullheaded as he was tall; he hadn't cared at all when she threw a fit. Just scooped her up and deposited her in the car, Pay Pay gingerly climbing in after her, shooting her concerned looks as she howled her fury.
None of it had mattered, they were here and they were going to watch the races.
Sunlight reflected off something, hurting her eyes before she tilted her head with interest. Cars were beginning to gather off the track.
"Whoa," Pay Pay said with awe.
"Ulti! Page One!" a gruff voice yelled over the ambient noise of the crowd. Ulti was tempted to ignore it but Pay Pay had already looked back. Sighing with defeat, Ulti started for the now-packed bleachers, Pay Pay following close behind.
Kaido had a lot of the bench saved with a blanket, his arms folded over his broad chest. "Sit down," he ordered.
Behind her mask, Ulti snarled but before she could say anything, Pay Pay squeezed past her and moved to sit next to Kaido. The one eye not hidden by his mess of purple hair looked at her meaningfully before patting the spot next to him in invitation and wrapping both arms around his dinosaur. Huffing, Ulti threw herself next to him, kicking her feet and ignoring the glare from the person she'd 'accidentally' hit.
Their seats were pretty high up so she had a good view of the cars as they began to come out onto the track in rows of gleaming colors.
They were unlike any Ulti had ever seen before.
Each sat only one person, barely visible in the driver's seat, with what looked like a cage of metal surrounding them. They didn't even have windows! Instead, the drivers all wore helmets that gleamed in the sun. Great steel sideways wings stuck out of a flat top. They looked silly, almost like badly designed toy cars and Ulti's nose wrinkled, unimpressed.
"They're called sprinters," Kaido leaned over to mutter as the mass of cars revved for a few seconds at a time before settling down.
It was almost like a pack of great beasts, she thought, piling up at some invisible gate.
A great roar filled the air so loud it hurt and she screamed with confusion as she slapped her hands over her ears.
The crowd around them exploded, as if in answer to a war cry, their voices easily overlapping hers as the sprinters took off. Tires spun up dirt and the mass of cars took the first turn together, bumping up against each other.
For a few dizzying seconds, Ulti struggled to make sense of what was happening. She was dimly aware that Pay Pay had started crying, his voice a high-pitched wail that broke in between the noise of everything else, but in her own terror, Ulti couldn't comfort him while being so overwhelmed herself.
Slowly, the terror started to fizzle out as a flash of light caught her attention and her eyes widened, hands leaving her ears.
One car was furiously trying to break through the line that the first and second place sprinters had taken. The other two kept blocking it and it weaved back and forth, trying to find a weakness in their barrier.
It was beautiful in the way that anything with that bright shade of purple and pink is to her. Ulti instantly decided it was her car and it needed to win.
Ulti turned to Kaido, scooching her way down the bench to tug at his sleeve. While she'd been distracted Kaido had picked up Pay Pay and put him into his lap, the younger boy clinging to his shirt, tears still in his eyes but calmer now.
She ignored all that. "That's my car," Ulti shouted at Kaido confidently as she pointed it out. "It's gonna win."
Kaido chuckled, deep enough to be heard over the constant cheering and rumble of the cars. "Is that so? Best cheer for it then, or else it might get out-raced."
"No, it won't! It's got a '1' on the side, that means it's the best!"
Another roar from the crowd had her whipping back to see her car finally break through. Her voice joined the rest as it took the lead.
Excitement beat through her. On the next lap, she saw a man waving a checkered flag and her heart flew into her throat with expectation. She knew what that meant, despite never seeing a race before. The last lap, whoever crossed the line now was the winner. Her car was racing towards it, cars butting up against it but right at the last second it broke free and when it crossed the line, flag waving, she was on her feet with a scream of victory.
Large hands grabbed her and hoisted her up. Eagerly Ulti allowed it, the better to see her car take a lap of triumph while the rest headed for the pits as if cowed by their failure and disgrace. She laughed happily.
Hours later, Ulti was back in the car, eyes heavy as they attempted to make it out of the packed parking lot. Pay Pay had already fallen asleep, dinosaur falling out of his arms. Ulti leaned forward to pick it up and shove it under his arm.
Kaido was muttering under his breath darkly behind the wheel as Yamato prattled on about his night.
Her throat hurt from all the screaming and her limbs were tired from running up and down the bleacher steps when she and Pay Pay got bored. Her stomach was full of hot dogs and candy.
It was a good night , she reflected with a small smile, the car warm and snug. As she drifted off, Ulti decided maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have a little more family than just her brother, if they were just like this one.