Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This is crazy…

The first impression that Zuikaku had of the gloss white Lancia was that with its bodywork and the blue-red stripes it packed, punctuated by the ‘Martini’ emblems on the doors, it looked no different from half of the heavily modified cars she’d raced against on Tokyo’s C1 Loop in that midnight blue Z of hers.

Unlike her competition on the streets however, the car’s resemblance to the original Lancia Delta, was only purely superficial. Under its guise of a mini city car, the Lancia, specifically an old Delta S4 was a pureblooded rallying machine, its interior spartan, with almost no trace of fabric or leather in sight, save for the driver and co-driver’s seats and the silver gleam of bare aluminium and the yellowed tan of exposed kevlar. The space where the rear passenger seats would have been was taken up by the engine itself, a tiny 1.8 liter four-cylinder block with both turbo and supercharger bolted on, boosting it to a monstrous 550 horsepower, with much of the remaining space taken up by the cooling system that pretty much prevented the engine from turning into a hi-power hand grenade should whoever that's behind the wheel decide to push it hard.

However, this particular Delta S4 wasn’t the car Souryuu had driven back in her rallying days – that one had been totalled in her last rally before she had retired. This one was a spare chassis from a privateer team that faded into memory as the years went on which had been left to gather dust in a warehouse but was painstakingly restored back into full racing condition.

And the last thing Zuikaku expected is for her senpai to let her go for a run behind the wheel of this Sardegnan rocket-sled. And it wasn’t up Mount Haruna at the crack of dawn, no. Rather, Souryuu had arranged for them to go somewhere further north the day before.

Which is how Zuikaku finds herself tearing down the gravel roads of the Hokkaido countryside on a chilly spring morning somewhere near the outskirts of Sapporo city under a light cover of fog.

The Lancia feels so much lighter and sprightlier than her Z, the forest outside blurring by in green streaks while each tap of the accelerator draws an immediate surge of power through all four wheels, punctuated by the supercharger’s whine and the fluttering of the turbo. Yet despite the fact that the car has power going to all four wheels, Zuikaku, even with her superhuman reflexes and strength befitting that of a KANSEN, finds that holding on to the Delta S4’s proverbial reins is proving to be… challenging, to say the least, as Zuikaku finds herself struggling to keep the car on-track in the corners and not clip a tree or spin out.

“You’re holding back too much.” Souryuu says, not even looking up as her right hand glides across the open pages of her notebook, hastily scribbling her pace notes with that same calm demeanor Zuikaku’s often seen when Souryuu’s deep into her hanafuda matches. “Nervous?”

“500 horsepower on something that’s 400 pounds lighter than my Z and goes faster than I can think? What’s not to be nervous about?” Zuikaku’s words quaver, earning a muffled chuckle and a shake of the head from Souryuu next to her.

“Come on, you’ve handled cars with more power than this thing.”

“Well yes but not on dirt!”

“Relax. I used to drive these things. I’ll talk you through it.”

And right as if on cue, the track starts to curve left, meandering along until the road dips sharply behind an outcrop in a hairpin turn.

And just like she’d done on the touge passes near the base, Zuikaku hits the brakes (yet the Delta S4 doesn’t feel like it’s actually slowing down) and with a flick of the wheel, uses the car’s momentum to propel it through the curves and around the hairpin.

“Keep your foot on the throttle and just flow with it. The car will do the rest.”

There’s no fighting the S4, unlike that old Fairlady Z. There’s very little of that synchronicity where the car will go where the driver steers it to, compared to the Group C cars she’d raced at Le Mans. All Zuikaku can really do is just give the S4 a nudge in the right direction as she’s about to enter the turns and then do as Souryuu says and keep her foot planted on the pedals, flooring the throttle once she’s at the apex of the hairpin. Immediately, the car surges forward upon exit as if it was tugged forward by an invisible string, leaving a massive cloud of dirt and gravel in its wake and Zuikaku’s grip on the wheel tightens even more.

“Jump incoming. Hold on to your helmet.” Souryuu says, in that casual tone of hers, still not looking up from her pace notes. Zuikaku doesn’t respond verbally, instead keeping the Lancia pointed straight as it crests the jump. And for the span of two seconds (which felt like an eternity in the haze of adrenaline), the crane feels almost weightless – until the rebound from the car landing back on its wheels jolts her from her near-reverie.

The following minutes fly by in a blur. Zuikaku finds herself slumped back in the driver’s seat, arms quivering from exertion as she’s trying to catch her breath.

“You alright?” Souryuu asks, looking up from her notes for what seems to be the first time in memory.

“Y-Yeah.” Zuikaku nods.

“Such is the power of these beasts… At least before Group B died.” Souryuu says, her calm, collected tone turning wistful with each word.

“Group B… Shoukaku-nee always talked a lot about it and those times she drove with Akagi-senpai in the WRC back in those days.”

“You should have been there. It was every bit as mad as it was awesome. Consider yourself lucky I myself was a Group B racer back in the day.”

Zuikaku can swear she sees a glint of sorts in her senpai’s cerulean eyes behind those glasses.

“My turn.” Souryuu says. They swap positions without so much as a word after Zuikaku kills the engine and then Zuikaku finds Souryuu’s notebook landing in her lap.

“Let’s take five before we go.” Souryuu adds. She reaches for her pipe from the glove compartment, lighting it and taking in a quick drag. Souryuu closes her eyes, leaning so far back as if she’s molding her back into the shape of the bucket seat’s rest. Time seems to pause as her thoughts drift.

Losing herself in her racing thoughts, Souryuu finds herself still in the driver’s seat. It’s another chilly morning like this but the sea of pine trees and the dirt roads were no more, having given way to weather-worn tarmac, on the edge of a scrub-dotted cliff with glimpses of the ocean in the distance.

She’s definitely not in Hokkaido anymore, that’s for sure. No… this oddly familiar mountain pass is somewhere near the Mediterranean. Corsica? Monte Carlo? Souryuu can’t tell.

Souryuu’s flying down the sweeping turns of a mountain road, the wheels of the Delta S4 just mere inches from going off the tarmac with literally nothing to stop the car should Souryuu go just a few degrees too wide in either direction or fail to brake in time. It doesn’t take her long either to realise it’s not Zuikaku next to her too, but her own sister, Hiryuu in the co-driver’s seat, with the roaring of the Lancia’s engine being the only thing she hears, drowning out Hiryuu’s rattling off the pace notes over comms.

A left turn in the road. Surely an easy one to navigate.

Yet as she attempts to slow down, Souryuu finds that pressing on the brake pedal feels like she’s stamping on a sponge.

And then lifting off the gas does little to slow the car down.

Souryuu attempts to flick the wheel, to use the car’s inertia to make the turn yet somehow she goes too wide and within the blink of an eye, everything suddenly feels weightless.

Souryuu feels the car tumbling instead of hearing the sounds of its composite body panels crumpling. And as if frozen in place, she can only really brace for impact as she sees and hears the windshield cracking in starburst patterns with each roll…

Someone’s calling out to her. It’s not Hiryuu. No, it makes no sense for her own sister to address her as Senpai.

It’s someone else’s voice.

Souryuu blinks. She’s back in Hokkaido. The car is unscathed with barely even a scratch on its windshield and her pipe is still in hand. Zuikaku’s looking up at her with a mix of curiosity and concern.

“Souryuu-senpai… You spaced out. Are you alright?”

“Yeah.” Souryuu takes in a much longer drag, then releases the smoke after a few seconds in a drawn out sigh.

Zuikaku notes that Souryuu’s got a certain faraway look in her eyes – the usual sign of someone having seen things that others wouldn’t believe, but she doesn’t press any further. Until Souryuu speaks up, sensing her junior’s curiosity.

“The day Group B died was the day I decided to walk away from rallying for good.”

---To be continued---

Chapter Text

"Tell me about the day Group B died."

"That day? The writing was on the wall way before that fateful day. We were just too concerned with finishing and moving on to notice."

“This is crazy.” Souryuu grumbles under her breath.

She’s got one hand on the Delta S4’s wheel, the other on the shifter as she’s flooring it. The trail ahead, originally an outcrop of rocks, scrub and gravel is now a virtual sea of people, with spectators literally spilling over on to the track itself. There had been four cars in the starting queue: Akagi and Shoukaku’s comparatively sleek Lancia 037 at the start of the line, Souryuu and Hiryuu’s Lancia Delta S4 in second, along with an Audi Quattro in third, piloted by the Ironblood’s finest – Graf Zeppelin and Peter Strasser. The final car in the queue was a bright white Peugeot 205, with the Vichyan contingent consisting of Jean Bart and Foch.

Even with her focus fixed on the road ahead, Souryuu can see them waving, cheering, and even more disturbingly, some were reaching out as if trying to play tag with the Delta as it streaks by.

 “Hard left, 30… unbelievable!” Even Hiryuu’s distracted by the spectacle – until an admonishment from Souryuu makes her look back down on the pace notes. Behind the wheel, Souryuu feels like she’s Moses parting the Red Sea at exactly 110 kilometers an hour as the crowd scatters like cockroaches under lights, just barely in time for the car to slide past.

Oh the irony, Souryuu thinks. Her fellow drivers, her sister and herself had spent the previous decades of their lives protecting humanity from the Sirens, yet now in this era where the factions of old have moved on from the Siren threat to fight each other on the track with gasoline, tires and clenched teeth instead of riggings, cannons and bombs, two of humanity’s finest are now trying their damnedest not to lose control of this pocket rocket of a rally car and plow into the humans lining the track.

Yet despite having spent years away from combat and sparring, her reflexes are sharp as ever, both arms crossed in full opposite lock as she swings the car around, missing an overly-intrepid spectator who leaps out of the way at the very last millisecond. Each rattle and bump is already unnerving enough, especially in a section as packed with people as this one. Souryuu chooses to ignore the bumping noises. Hopefully those are rocks she’s hitting and not something else entirely.

She grits her teeth, keeping her focus on the wheel. Her senses at this point are already sharper than the edge of the tanto dagger she often carried into combat in the old days alongside her katana, both now half a world away in Yokohama.

“Ah kuso!”

Souryuu hears a muffled thunk – a sign she’s clipped something as the Delta S4 straightens itself out. She takes a quick glance in the mirror, spotting a figure in the dust dropping to their knees to pick up the remains of something, most definitely a TV camera, attached to a now-snapped tripod, which undoubtedly left a big dent in the car’s composite bodywork, just out of view of both driver and co-driver

“Long, easy right. 50. Who the hell did we hit?” Hiryuu raises an eyebrow, glancing in the direction of the sound.

“Someone’s recording gear.” Souryuu deadpans.

Hiryuu can’t help breaking into an amused chuckle after as for a second, the mental image of a TV reporter struggling to recover something actually useable from what’s left of the tapes in their mangled camera flashes across her mind’s eye.

“Foolhardy bastard deserved that one.” And just as quickly, Hiryuu switches gears back into co-driver mode. “Straight, 500 then hard left, 200 after. Straight on to finish! Go! Go! Go!”

Out of the turns and into the final stretch, full throttle upon exit. Yet the sight of a car approaching at breakneck speeds while trailing ochre dust behind it does little to deter the people on the track with only inches of air seperating them from the speeding Delta S4.

“Oh kami, I can’t even see the finish…” Out of reflex, Souryuu flashes the car’s headlights, which does little to make the crowd scatter any faster – until the boards with chequered flags come into view suddenly. And then Souryuu goes through the motions of lifting off the gas then slow down to a crawl.

Souryuu and Hiryuu collectively draw in a deep breath, right as the car comes to a halt and then Souryuu flips the engine’s kill-switch.

Both sisters share a look of relief. Relief that the madness is over, for now. Souryuu shakes her head.

“That should never have been allowed to run.”

-

It’s nightfall when Souryuu visits the huge tent that served as a makeshift garage for the Lancia team.

Separated from both her Delta S4 and Akagi’s 037 by security tape and six feet of distance, Souryuu can only really watch the team mechanics swarm over both cars with spanners and mallets under the bright white glow of floodlights, pounding dented panels back into shape and dismantling the engines for rebuilding while the muffled popping and rattling of a generator resonates in the distance.

This isn’t the first instance where Souryuu’s final stage time has lagged behind that of Akagi’s yet it never fails to sting every time despite their 1-2 finish for the team. The close calls from earlier in the day, in the sea of people on the ending half of the stage only really serves to rub salt in the wound.

It’s a natural reaction to want to reflect on the events of that day, to think that just maybe if the track was clear, all those precious seconds wasted trying to avoid running people over would have kept her stage time above that of Akagi’s. And more importantly, she wouldn’t be feeling such an odd sense of anxiety, wondering just what kinds of horrors would have happened if she went just that little bit too fast or went just an inch too wide in the final turns.

 But there’s little point in dwelling over what could have been or the various what-ifs, Souryuu tells herself. At least the fact that her team is still leading by points is comfort enough.

Just next to the Lancia tent is that of the Audi team’s. Mechanics are all over the front of Zeppelin and Strasser’s Quattro, hauling out its engine which was almost literally bleeding oil from half a dozen gaskets.

And as Souryuu passes the Peugeot tent, what catches her eye is the gruesome sight of a long, thin trail of blood running along the outside of the starboard intake behind the driver’s door. A mechanic is bent over the cooler at the end of the intake, shaking their head before removing something off the cooler face with gloved hands and placing whatever grisly thing it was into a black plastic bag.

Souryuu looks away. Brushing aside her curiosity, she makes her way to what passed as the ‘common area’ for drivers, which was pretty much a collection of crates and footlockers arranged around a lantern that lit up the immediate area in a pale yellow glow.

Someone thrusts an amber colored bottle into her hand with the cap already popped off. Souryuu looks up, right into the eyes of Hiryuu, who’s also got her own bottle, as did half the other drivers surrounding them. Souryuu’s never really liked beer but tonight she’ll make an exception. She needs a drink, as much as the others do, if not more.

No one raises their bottle, no one toasts. It’s just silence along with the distant sounds of ratchets and impact wrenches from the bigger tents. At least until one of the drivers speaks up.

“To think we went from protecting humanity just decades ago to threading the needle around these fools without running them over… there’s a reason I never wanted to join Rally de Portugal in the first place.” Akagi mutters, pinching the bridge of her nose as she’s grimacing. “We may be in the lead now but something will happen at some point. And it will not end well.”

“If only Lancia didn’t make us come. Portugal’s the last place I’d rather race at. Just… those people on the sides of the track and in the middle…”

The Sakuran contingent turns to look at Shoukaku with varying degrees of surprise as this is the first time in memory anyone’s actually seen and heard her agree with Akagi, of all people.

“Only the gods know how many people we came close to mowing down earlier today.” Souryuu is the next to speak up. “Today it was a TV camera. Tomorrow? Who knows.”

“Still better than taking someone’s fingers off…”

And now the spotlight is on Jean Bart. So that’s what the Peugeot team mechanics found…

“As we all know, the intake lips on our Peugeots are sharp as hell. Me and Foch, we were right in the middle of the track! We never went wide or short but they just kept trying to touch the car as we went past and that was it… C'est fou!” Jean Bart groans before downing her entire bottle in a few long chugs. 

“Algerie’s brought this up with the bigwigs at Azur Lane and the FIA over and over yet they don’t seem to want to do anything about it.”

“Even if they wanted to, they can’t.” Souryuu sighs as she adjusts her glasses on the bridge of her nose. “With how long the stages are, crowd control is next to impossible.”

The memory of a police helicopter swooping down to buzz the spectators on another stage a few days earlier comes to mind. The fans had scattered – then promptly went back to spilling over on to the track once the helicopter retreated.

“If you all think Portugal is enough of a madhouse as it is, just wait till you get to Catalunya.” Graf Zeppelin chimes in next, punctuating her words with a derisive chuckle. “These people… to me and Strasser, they are bushes to us – only trees. If one thinks of them as people, one cannot drive. Not in Portugal and especially not in Catalunya. Though the madness does stop once you’re in Monte Carlo. San Remo and Corsica are especially smoother sailing from then on.”

“You’re awfully optimistic.” Akagi says, cutting in with a tone that pretty much dripped with sarcasm.

 “I am just being pragmatic.” Zeppelin says with a shrug. “If you’ve been rallying for as long as I have…”

Souryuu doesn’t hear the rest of the conversation, instead turning to glance at the Lancia tent to watch the team engineers putting her Delta S4’s engine back together before hoisting it back into the rear of the car.

Hopefully tomorrow's stage will run without any more close calls. The final stage of Rally de Portugal is coming soon and the sooner Souryuu's moved on to the rest of the Azur Rally Championship, the better, as Zeppelin’s words are making her look forward to the Corsica leg.

Chapter Text

A weary Souryuu wakes up to a phone call the following morning which she answers, not bothering to look at the caller’s ID.

“Who’s thi- Shikikan-sama?”

“I’m not a commander anymore, Souryuu-chan.” A male voice, one that Souryuu hasn’t heard in ages chuckles back on the other end of the line.

Souryuu breaks into a slight smile, one of pure relief. Her weariness disappears in an instant.

“Fine then, Kanchou-sama.” Souryuu says, earning another chuckle from the caller.

“Been a while, no? I’ve been following the championship on TV and radio. How’s Portugal treating you?”

“Portugal’s been rough.” One heck of an understatement if Souryuu has heard one. “We’re literally driving on the edge out here. I for one, can’t wait to get out of here and head for Monte Carlo.”

“Incidentally… I happen to be driving for a privateer team in Group C. We’re making our debut at Le Mans and we’ll be stopping by in Monte Carlo. I did think of inviting you to drive for us but it’s a bit too late for that, it seems.”

“Lancia won’t let me go so easily, unfortunately…”

“Unfortunate indeed. But either way, I’ll be rooting for you and your sister from over here. We can still catch up on the Monte Carlo leg. Godspeed, Souryuu-chan.”  

-

The sun is already beating down on the stage by the time Souryuu pulls up to her position, right behind Akagi. “The stage goes live in three minutes!” comes the call over comms yet Souryuu’s in no rush. It’d still be a long while before her turn. The heat of the Mediterranean sun, coupled with the engine being literally inches behind the cockpit and the virtual lack of any air conditioning made the Delta S4 feel like a sauna.

Hiryuu’s stepped out for a smoke with her racing suit half unzipped. Souryuu chooses to remain in her seat, with the driver’s door ajar as the heat outside is no different from the heat of the car’s interior. She’s drumming her fingers against the wheel, watching the Lancia mechanics as they’re running final checks on Akagi’s 037, the stuttering of its idling engine being the only thing Souryuu hears over the crackling static of the team comms. Akagi’s last words from the night before, that had hung over both KANSEN even when sleep finally came, had seemingly faded from memory by the time this stage had started.

There’s still two more cars behind them; the Vichyan Peugeot 205 and a new contender in the form of a red and white Ford RS200. The Ironblood Audi is all the way in the back, penalised for their repair time going over the 45-minute limit.

“Who are those two?” Souryuu calls out, holding out a cigarette to Hiryuu, who promptly reaches for it right after flicking the butt of her first one into the bushes.

“Who? Them?” Hiryuu pauses to light her cigarette up, then takes a long drag from it. “They’re St. Louis and Brooklyn, half of the Ford team’s Eagle Union contingent and their current stage leaders.”

“St. Louis… I raced her a few times up and down Akina Pass at Mount Haruna. She’s good.”

“Good enough to beat our stage time, nee-sama?”

“Definitely. She’d give that AE86 driver from that one tofu shop at the bottom of the pass a run for his money if he was still around.”

“We’ll still have to beat Akagi-senpai’s stage time first.”

And as if on cue, the engine of Akagi’s Lancia 037 roars with a few revs and then she drops the clutch, launching the car off in a cloud of dust. Both Souryuu and Hiryuu watch impassively as Akagi whips the 037 around a few corners before disappearing into the dust as the track dips behind a cliff face.

“There goes the Queen of Speed.” Hiryuu says with a snicker before she slides into the co-driver’s seat, her now-extinguished cigarette joining the first one in the bushes. A timer by the side of the starting point ticks away on the countdown – still a long way to go before the Delta S4 can launch.

“We still have the faster car.” Souryuu shrugs, her fingers still rapping away on the wheel as the mechanics move on to her car. Waiting is often the hardest part. Souryuu feels like a bird with its wings clipped every time she’s not in first place and has to wait her turn. Those few minutes of boredom are often the worst part of each stage, next to threading the needle around the spectators.

Souryuu yawns.

“By the way, Captain Watanabe sends his regards.”

“Oh? Haven’t heard from Kanchou-sama in a while.” Hiryuu raises an eyebrow, her head slightly cocked before turning her attention to her pace notes, scribbled in a haphazard style that only a doctor could read.

“He’s driving some privateer team now in Group C.” Souryuu says. “Said he wants to catch up when we get to Monte Carlo.”

“All the more reason for us to get the hell out of Portugal when this is over.”

Someone raps on the driver’s side door. It’s the marshall with the starting flag. Souryuu and him exchange a few words that Hiryuu doesn’t hear.

“Well?” Hiryuu asks, watching as Souryuu slides the window shut and straps herself in.

“One minute until we can run.”

“Good. I was beginning to think I got all dressed up for nothing.”

Another knock on the window signals that final checks are complete. A thumbs up from the lead mechanic lets both driver and co-driver know that there’s no issues with the car.

“Hold on to your notes.” Souryuu presses the red starter button as the timer hits 20 seconds and the little four-banger engine in the rear of the car sputters to life, sounding out a cacophony of the engine’s revving coupled with the supercharger’s whine and the hissing puff of the turbo.

10 seconds left.

Souryuu holds the clutch with her left foot while her right gives the accelerator a few taps to keep the revs up – too low and the Delta S4 will crawl off the starting point at a snail’s pace. Rev too high and she’d suffer the embarassment of blowing the clutch in a shower of sparks, ending the run before it even begins.

5 seconds.

4.

3.

2.

1.

“Right, let’s show CarDiv 1 and 5 what CarDiv2 is made of!”

The dust from the 037’s launch still hasn’t fully settled when Souryuu drops the clutch, applying full throttle the exact moment the count hits 0 and the Delta S4 almost literally rockets off the starting line, in a cloud of dust larger than that of the 037 as all 500 horses’ worth of power from the little four-cylinder engine kick in.

To Souryuu, the Delta S4 seems much faster today of all days as she flicks it around a series of five sequential hairpin turns. Perhaps it’s because she’s relieved that Portugal will be ending soon, or perhaps it’s her eagerness to see Carrier Division 2’s former commander again after so long.

Whatever the reason may be, it’s definitely spurred both driver and co-driver to push themselves on to the end of this stage.

“What’s Akagi’s stage time?” Hiryuu asks.

“Marshals say it’s 14:34:21. We can beat it.”  Souryuu’s got one hand on the wheel and the other on the gear lever, not taking her eyes off the road for one second as she then flicks the car from one drift into another, all while keeping the gas pedal pressed almost to the floor.

Anyone else would be praying to whatever deity that happens to be within listening range by this point, but not Hiryuu, maintaining her poise while reciting her pace notes at the same breakneck pace as Souryuu’s driving. Keeping one’s composure while being literally on the edge as the driver’s throwing the car around from corner to corner with the barest minimum of braking is pretty much a requisite for any rally co-driver, especially if the driver is their own sibling and comrade-in-arms.

The spectators still spill over on to the track as in the previous stage and the stage before that, but Souryuu wills herself into staring out at the road instead, remembering Zeppelin’s suggestion from the night before to visualise the crowd as shrubbery instead of people.

And the sight of seeing the less sane ones who were daring enough to stand at the literal edge of the road being showered with dust and rocks in the mirrors as the Delta S4 slides past at full send, just feet away fills Souryuu with a mild sense of amusement.

“How are we looking?” She asks.

“We’re still on the mark but at this rate we’re going to end up tied with Akagi.” Hiryuu says.

“Alright I’m going to push it.”

Hiryuu nods in reply, holding up a stopwatch in one hand while the other maintains its grip on the pace notes, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Souryuu’s kicked the Delta into yet another high speed drift onehanded, the G-forces pushing Hiryuu back into her seat and against its siderests.

“Kami, I really feel like a smoke right now.” Souryuu mumbles, earning a sidewards glance from Hiryuu.

“…Don’t even think about it. Easy left in twenty, rocks on the inside, don’t cut. Turn opens in one-twenty, over crest.” A click on the stopwatch signals that they’ve passed a checkpoint. “We’re just 45 milliseconds behind Akagi’s time.” 

To which Souryuu chuckles, inaudible behind her helmet as her grip on the wheel tightens.

“Alright, time to get serious.”

-

“Final time?” Souryuu asks, panting from exertion as the Delta S4 grinds to a halt, its brakes locked when she’d stomped on them just a little bit too hard as the stage’s finishing point came into view among the sea of people surrounding both sides of the track.

“14:33:07.” Hiryuu says, clocking the stopwatch to halt it before placing it face-side down on the dashboard, loosening her racing harnesses after.

They had beaten Akagi’s time by just one second. A really close gap but Souryuu’s pleased nevertheless. The Delta S4’s cockpit by this point reeks of exhaust fumes, petrol and heated metal and rubber. Leaving the doors open once the car’s in its tent, Souryuu steps out, holding up a telescope while Hiryuu’s got a pair of binoculars at the ready from the glove compartment.

In this heat, out in the middle of nowhere, there’s little else to do but watch the other drivers streak down the dirt and gravel though to Souryuu and Hiryuu, there’s a more empirical reason, which is to observe the various driving styles of their fellow competitors and plan out how to counter them, for the sake of staying on pole with their stage times.

Their initial focus is on the Vichyan Peugeot 205 but quickly shifts to the RS200 behind it, going full send down the track at a similar speed to that of their Delta S4.

“Damn, she’s fast… That St. Louis is every bit as good as you said.” Hiryuu observes.

“Told you.”

“And what are you two spying on?” Akagi’s got a hand on her hip, eyeing the rabbit sisters with a raised eyebrow. Neither of them seem to be perturbed, not even as Hiryuu wordlessly thrusts her binoculars into Akagi’s free hand, forgoing them for a post-race cigarette.

Akagi glances at the binoculars for a second before raising it to her eyes.

“Looks like you were right – wait, looks like she’s in trouble.”

“Oh no!” Souryuu holds her breath, watching as the RS200 thunders down a long straight that then curves into a high-speed right turn – right into the human corridor that Souryuu had showered with dirt, just minutes before.

Both Souryuu and Akagi can only watch as the sleek form of the RS200 swerves around a person, which at that range, appeared to both drivers as a black speck in the middle of the track and then wildly fishtails before spinning around into the crowd and seemingly vanishing in a cloud of dirt and gravel.

 “Kuso, she’s lost it…” Akagi mutters.

Both drivers’ elation from maintaining their 1-2 lead suddenly gives way to a mix of shock and horror

“We have to red-flag the stage.”

But before Souryuu even gets the last word in, the Vichyan Peugeot 205 crosses the line with squealing brakes. Only Foch gets out, running towards the marshalls with the intention of warning them about the crash, all the while Jean Bart slowly drives their car up into the Peugeot tent.

“At least someone’s taking care of that part.” Souryuu mutters, watching Foch pointing furiously in the direction of the track while yelling in a mix of English and French, the latter of which she can’t make out, except for the words ‘fou’ and ‘merde’.

“Don’t bet on it.” Akagi says, her words dripping with a cynical undertone as she nods back at the track. Souryuu turns her gaze to follow, noting yet another dust trail. She shakes her head with a sigh. Surely the marshals would red-flag the stage and stop it by now, right?

Souryuu waits. The minutes pass with such agonizing slowness yet there’s still nothing from the marshals.

“You have got to be kidding me…” To her disbelief, Souryuu sees more of the tell-tale dust trails left by rally cars. The marshals seemed to be indifferent at the fact that someone just plowed into the crowd, possibly fatally injuring gods-know-how-many people.

“They're not stopping... Why aren’t they red-flagging the stage?” Akagi’s own shock quickly turns into indignation. “We need to get an ambulance out there!”

“Clearly finishing at literally all costs is more important to these people…” Souryuu shakes her head yet again at the spectacle unfolding, just a few kilometers up the track. At this point, some of the team mechanics have joined the spectacle, an air of horror and disbelief slowly falling over the finishing point.

-

The ride down to the resort town of Sintra in an FIA-sponsored van is fraught with the same silence from the night before. A tension hangs in the air, as thick as the dust on the cars which by now were all in the parc ferme somewhere in downtown Sintra.

By the time the drivers had gathered in the minibar of the Hotel Estoril, just a short walk from the parc ferme, the mood amongst them had soured considerably.

“The road was completely packed. There was nothing but people all around us. Lou swerved to avoid some idiot in the middle of the track and the rear of our car just let go.” Brooklyn has her head in her hands, earning a few sympathetic pats on her back from Hiryuu, Shoukaku and Peter Strasser.

“In all my experience as a co-driver, you feel things on your back – you don’t have to look, you feel the car. We had lost it by then but I thought we could recover. I just kept looking at the pacenotes and reading, then it was just the bump, bump, bump of the car hitting people. I didn’t see a damn thing because everything was on the port side of the car and the next thing I knew, everything suddenly stopped and someone dragged me out.”

“This is madness. Sheer madness.” Souryuu says, eyes staring off into a corner of the room past the drivers and the lone bartender.

“Rally de Portugal was a ticking time bomb. And now that time bomb has gone off.” Akagi’s features are hidden by the cup as she downs the coffee someone handed to her in one gulp. “I heard the idiots talking. Three spectators passed on today, thirty-two injured. How much more blood needs to be shed before they cease their indifference?”

“Verbal protests won’t do any good. As we all know, Foch and Algerie tried that and look where it’s gotten us.” Jean Bart’s visibly seething and it takes every ounce of willpower for her to not break into a tirade. “No, we need to take action. And it starts with this…”

She’s placed a sheet of paper on the table and everyone starts talking at once, deliberating on how best to word their open letter to the organizers.

It doesn’t take them long to come up with the right words to say, or at least words they all can agree on.

The reasons that all the undersigned drivers do not wish to continue with the Portuguese Rally are as follows:

1 As a mark of respect for the families of the dead people and for those injured.

2 There is a very special situation here in Portugal: we feel it is impossible for us to guarantee the safety of the spectators.

3 The accident on stage seventeen was caused by the driver having to try to avoid spectators that were on the road. It was not due to the type of car or the speed of it.

4 We hope that our sport will ultimately benefit from this decision.

And under that, a flurry of hasty signatures from every KANSEN driver in the room. All that’s left now was to take it up to the meeting room in the next floor up.

-

“Well, that went about as well as expected.” Hiryuu creases her eyebrows together, fingers on her temples as she leans back against the elevator wall

“I for one certainly did not expect that level of callousness.” Souryuu grits her teeth after, pausing to readjust her glasses that were just a milimeter away from falling off the bridge of her nose.

“Was it not bad enough that they referred to us in their press statement as ‘notorious FIA-seeded crews that may affect the image of Rallye De Portugal and the Azur Rally Championship’?” Akagi’s clenched both her hands into fists, visibly seething with a rage that neither her co-driver and her team mates have seen in a long, long time. “To think they even had the gall to threaten to revoke our points and licences too! Oh how I’d like to summon my riggings and turn this place into a sea of fire.”

“Believe me, none of us would stop you, Akagi-sama.” Jean Bart says, in a weary tone. “At least we tried. Catalunya will be cancelled too. Which leaves us with Monte Carlo, where the madness ends.”

“Ford and Audi will pull out of Portugal, Peugeot and Lancia will not.” Souryuu’s stuck the end of her pipe between her lips. Someone hands her a match without so much as a single word and she lights it, taking in a series of quick puffs.

“As Jean Bart-san said, we tried. For those of us who have the fortune to withdraw, we look forward to seeing you in Monte Carlo. For those of us who were browbeaten into staying… Godspeed.”

Chapter Text

"Besides the threats to revoke our licenses and points, the bastards even threatened to withhold our paychecks and sponsorships too. The teams who chose to stay were running on shoestrings so Lancia and Peugeot literally couldn't afford to pull out like Ford and Audi did."

"How could they... So what happened next?"

"We stayed. And even though no one was happy, we saw Portugal through to the end... though I remained in second place. At least until Monte Carlo." 

The weeks between Portugal and the next leg, Monte Carlo, pass by much faster than Souryuu had expected. The absolute disaster that was the Portugal rally no longer crosses her mind in the hours after she’s stepped off the plane and then after a brief bout of sleep at the hotel, she’s back in the driver’s seat for a run up the first stage.

Unlike Portugal though, the skies over the mountain passes of Monte Carlo seem to be constantly overcast with a constant chill in the air, relieved only by the ambient heat of the Delta S4’s cockpit.

The engine is idling away with its choppy sputter as Souryuu’s waiting for it to warm up. Hiryuu straps herself in before promptly placing a half-filled cup of water in the divot behind the gear shifter.

It takes Souryuu less than a second to guess what her sister’s intention is.

“You do realize that it’s going to spill regardless of how I drive, right?”

“Then try not to spill all of it.” Hiryuu shrugs.

This isn’t the first time herself and Souryuu have ran at Monte Carlo and it certainly won’t be the last. By now they’ve already developed a routine of planning out their recce runs on the stages at the first available opportunity.

The roads here are so much like the touge passes in Gunma Prefecture back in the Sakuran homeland, with the only difference being the sheer amount of snow and and frost. Souryuu’s always preferred asphalt to dirt and gravel – it serves as a throwback of sorts to all those times she’s gone drifting in the touge routes around her former base and Gunma itself.

Souryuu goes through the motions of revving to a certain limit before dropping the clutch, though this time she takes off at a more relaxed pace than normal. This is a recce run after all, there’s no real need to thrash the Delta S4 around. Yet.

That could wait until Stage One of Rallye Monte Carlo opens in two days’ time.

“You know, nee-sama, you’re looking confident. That look of yours says we’re going to come out on top.” Hiryuu says, eyeing Souryuu’s expressions in the mirror and noting that her sister’s unperturbed by the fact that they still came in second-best after the debacle at Portugal ended.

“Well, we definitely will.” Souryuu shrugs, shifting up into the next gear. “Think about it. The Ford team’s cars and Akagi’s 037 are mid-engined and rear wheel drive – not a good idea on these kinds of roads so they can’t push as hard as usual. We on the other hand have our S4, which is better suited for these conditions because we’re all-wheel drive, which leaves Zeppelin and the Audi Quattros as our main threat.”

“Huh I thought Akagi and that crane would be getting an S4 as well?”

“Theirs had teething troubles with its engine. And all the spare chassis were leased out to privateers, which leaves us as the sole S4 crew in this team. So yeah. We pretty much have this in the bag.”

The road ahead straightens out into a series of gentle curves. Souryuu shifts up yet again, from fourth into fifth gear before applying full throttle with the S4’s engine roaring to life.

“I hope your confidence isn’t unfounded. The engineers said similar things when they gave us this beast yet ever since then, we somehow always ended up second-best.”

“Have a little faith in me, won’t you?”

-

Snow had started to fall at the very moment they reached the end of the course, which went uphill, to the peak of one of the myriad mountains that comprised the southern half of the French Alps. The cup’s half-empty by the time Souryuu kills the engine and perhaps it’s a miracle of sorts that its contents aren’t all over Hiryuu’s pace notes – which are now lying on the dashboard as their owner’s stepped out of the car, right after chugging down the remaining liquid in the cup.

 “This reminds me of Myogi in winter.” Hiryuu notes. “All we’re missing are the Sakura trees.”

“A beautiful sight, to be sure. Ah I’m starting to miss our wintertime races against those hashiriya punks on the touge already.” For a moment, Souryuu feels as if she’s stepped out of the car and straight into watercolor painting by one of her fellow KANSEN, a white haired foxgirl by the name of Tosa, who now makes a living as an artist back in the homeland.  

Both Souryuu and Hiryuu stare out at the various shades of white and green comprising that of the valleys and ridges surrounding them, contrasting with the grey of the overcast sky above along with the occasional patches of blue that showed through gaps in the cloud cover.

Souryuu’s gaze turns from the sky to the ground as she then wipes at her frosted up glasses with the fabric of her racing gloves, already feeling the faint pangs of homesickness. A passing glance at her wristwatch causes her to raise an eyebrow. Time as it is, is ever fleeting and Souryuu’s watch indicates that it’s close to dusk.

“Come on, we need to get back before the sun sets.”

Sightseeing can wait. The recce and preparations for stage one of Rallye Monte Carlo are a bigger priority.

Any racer, be it touge or rally, knows that for some reason known only to the gods, the drive back downhill is always faster than the uphill drive. And just like on the uphill drive, Souryuu forgoes drifting and powersliding for conventional grip driving to minimize the wear on the Delta S4’s tires.

And at some point during the return trip downhill, Souryuu realizes they’re not alone on the course. There’s a car in the distance, on the uphill run and it’s coming in fast. Really fast.

Whoever this is, they have to be another competitor doing their own recce since the roads leading up to this very pass had been closed off to public access.

Souryuu squints, just barely able to make out the lines of the oncoming car. There’s no mistaking those bricklike headlights and the four overlapping rings plastered across the grille – It’s an Audi Quattro. And it’s some evolution variant too, judging from the way the bumpers and wheel archers are so heavily flared out along with the massive rear spoiler.

There’s something oddly familiar about this Audi, Souryuu thinks.

And at their respective approach speeds, both cars by amazing coincidence, slow down simultaneously on one of the course’s wide turns, just enough for their crews to get a glimpse of each other, their respective expressions comprising equal parts surprise and amusement.

It’s Zeppelin and Strasser who wave them on, with the Sakuran crew wordlessly waving back and in the span of a few seconds, both the Quattro and the Delta S4 are but distant specks in each other’s mirrors.

There’s no hotel bar or café table awaiting the Sakurans the moment they return to the trailers that made up the drivers’ living quarters for this leg of the Monte Carlo rally. Instead, there’s the rather familiar setup of crates and footlockers surrounding a camping heater with the crews of each team’s cars crowding around it.

Souryuu finds a metal flask thrust into her hands, courtesy of St. Louis. “Hot bourbon. It’ll help with the chill.” says the Eagle driver.

The amber colored liquid within has been heated and upon first sip, tastes sweet and spicy with a strong hint of woodsmoke and vanilla. Souryuu goes for a second shot before passing it on to Hiryuu, who then passes it on to Shoukaku along with a copy of the pace notes.

Eventually the flask finds its way back to St. Louis then passed on to Brooklyn who chugs the remainder without a second thought. Shoukaku and Hiryuu head off into the Lancia trailer to deliberate on the pace notes and how best to tackle the course.

“Portugal was hell on us all.” Souryuu says, seemingly out of the blue. “But if it is any consolation, at least we’re in Monte Carlo now where the madness stops.”

“Shit happens, in war and on the course.” Brooklyn says with a shrug. “Admittedly putting that disaster behind us is easier said than done but me and Lucky Lou? We definitely ain’t going back there, next season.”

“Amen to that.” St. Louis chimes in. “Like half of us here, I’ve personally been looking forward to Monte Carlo. Driving down here, reminds me of my street racing days whenever I got forward deployed to Yokosuka.”  

“And we met on a random night on Akina pass.” Souryuu chuckles. “And then it was Myogi, Usui, Irohazaka…”

“And here we are, attempting to beat each other one more time.” St. Louis breaks into a smirk, one that Souryuu returns for a brief moment before returning to her usual impassive expression.

“We still have a couple of days before the first stage of Rallye Monte Carlo officially opens.” Akagi says. “It may not be as much of a madhouse as you-know-where but we must still be prepared. We should get our recce runs done and over with by the end of tomorrow and we should have our respective strategies in place ASAP.”

“Akagi-senpai is right.” Souryuu nods in agreement. “Hopefully by the time Stage One kicks off, we’ll be ready, willing and able. May the best team win. Godspeed.”

Chapter Text

It’s just past dawn when Souryuu wakes up to the familiar rattling chugging sound of diesel engines in the distance. Glancing out the small window of her trailer, she catches sight of several trucks and vans going up the course - a familiar sight for anyone that’s raced at Monte Carlo before.

They’re carrying streetsweeping teams aboard. In the day, their task is to clear the more difficult corners of the course of any loose snow or debris while at the same time, perform maintainance work on the ‘barricades’, which were little more than yards and yards of security tape that bordered both sides of the roads. At midnight, they would return again, working around the clock to salt the entire length of the course so that little, if any ice would remain on the asphalt by the time the first competitor takes off into the chill of the Alps.

Sleep does not come to Souryuu so easily. The following hours flash by in a blur as the teams respectively head down to Monte Carlo’s namesake city and Souryuu finds herself helplessly dragged along down to the city proper.

It’s much warmer down in the city, right by the shores of the French Riviera where the skies are a clear powder-blue and there’s few clouds to obscure the Mediterranean sun. Souryuu’s no stranger to suit-and-tie events, given that such things were often the norm back in her Navy days on special occasions yet the team lunch in the restaurant of the Monaco Grand Hotel feels just that bit too stuffy for her. Sure the wine (Chateau… something – Souryuu can’t recall the name,) and the food is good but it does little to ease that sense of feeling like a caged bird, or in the case of her name, a chained dragon. Even the perfume in the air, some floral scent meant to soothe the nerves, feels more cloying on the nose and does little to ease that feeling of being in a gilded cage of sorts.

Souryuu would rather be back up there in the mountains either helping the mechanics work on her Delta S4, or taking the aforementioned car through its paces.

But then all that had been done right after her recce run. The only thing left for Souryuu then would be her bunk, the pace notes, her pack of hanafuda cards and the chill of the French Alps.

 She wouldn’t have minded either way, but then the team always had different ideas when it came to down time.

Excusing herself once she’s finished with her own meal, Souryuu discretely makes her exit, striding out across the lobby to the other end while nursing an iced coffee, stopping at one of the ornate windows to gaze out at the azur waters of the bay. With little that interests her out there on the sea, her gaze turns inwards towards the grey lines of asphalt running in between the buildings.

That particular spot where Souryuu stands now is right over the tunnel that covered a section of the streets that made up part of the Formula One race course though as this year’s Monaco Grand Prix is still a long way away, none of the trackside banners and barricades have been set up yet, which meant the layout of the course would be lost on those that weren’t racers themselves.

The streets are every bit as narrow as that of the rally stage courses up in the mountains and as her eyes follow the road as it curves out into a chicane near the docks beyond, she can already imagine herself behind the wheel of her Delta S4, flinging it around the circuit’s seemingly claustrophobic twists and turns.

“You disappeared right after lunch, nee-sama.”

“Gomen. This whole place just feels too ostentatious for my liking.” Souryuu doesn’t turn, even as Hiryuu walks up next to her. Souryuu keeps her focus on the streets outside until the muffled sounds of a race commentator, packing that distinct, British-accented excitability, breaks her out of her near reverie.

In a nearby corner, there’s a race being broadcast on a television screen which happened to be where that sound came from, though upon closer inspection, the broadcast is little more than a compilation of highlights from the previous year’s race.

The cars on screen are almost literally worlds away from the Audis, Lancias and Peugeots that the two KANSEN have grown familiar with. These ones on-screen are much sleeker, sculpted for pure aerodynamic efficiency with the sleekness being broken by rear wings bigger than that of the ones on the Ironblood Audi Quattros.

“Isn’t that Le Mans?” Hiryuu asks, letting loose a soft whistle at the spectacle as the footage on the screen cuts to a recording of several cars, rushing down a very familiar long, straight stretch of track. Some in pairs, some in threes and a number of single stragglers behind. “Those Group C cars sound as good as they look.” Already she’s imagining what the Mulsanne would be like at night – that Doppler effect of cars roaring past at speeds close to 400 kilometers an hour, punctuated by the flashing of red tail lights and the brilliant orange glow of heated brake discs disappearing into the darkness of the French countryside

“Yeah. Looks like the Mulsanne Straight.” Souryuu says. “If Lancia ever delves into endurance racing, I’m definitely signing up.” The thought of being in the cockpit of one of those comparatively starship-like racers on screen is one that really thrills Souryuu – going nearly flat out down the Mulsanne into the sunset and into the dawn, all coupled with the unspoken hope that the car won’t break down until the entire 24 hours are up.

For the briefest of moments, all Souryuu can smell is that of burnt rubber and petrol instead of Monaco’s characteristic salty sea breezes and whatever floral perfume the staff are spraying into the air of the hotel lobby.

Endurance racing definitely is a different sort of challenge compared to rallying, with the added bonus of not having to worry about plowing into foolhardy spectators lining the track or flying off a cliff at 110 kilometers an hour.

“With the way you drive, maybe you’re indeed better cut out for Group C.”

Souryuu can only left out a soft chuckle at her sister’s playful jab.

“There is an unofficial achievement called the Triple Crown of motorsport.” A third voice joins the conversation, one that’s very, very familiar to both Hiryuu and Souryuu. “The Monaco Grand Prix is part of it, as is the Indianapolis 500. The third and ultimate one, is that right there. Where I’ll be going soon.” A gloved finger on an outstretched arm points towards the screen. The owner happens to be the 2^nd Carrier Division’s former commander, dressed in a racing suit, not unlike that of theirs though his suit has several patches of turqoise on it with ‘Joest Racing’ emblazoned on the chest and back.

A sharp contrast to Souryuu and Hiryuu’s own suits back in the trailers – snow-white with minuscule versions of the Martini logos, in place of where the Joest logos are on their former Commander’s suit.

What starts out as formal bows and friendly handshakes quickly turns into a series of near-bearlike hugs. And in that moment, even after years apart, they’re neither commander nor subordinates, but old friends and fellow racers.

For the first time in memory (to Hiryuu at least), Souryuu actually smiles. 

“Oh how much I envy you, kanchou-sama.” Souryuu says, elated from their little reunion. “Tell me, what’s it like racing in Group C?”

“For one, Group C and endurance racing in general is an entirely different game than rallying…” He says with a slight grin. “Especially if you’re at Le Mans. It’s eight and a half miles of country road that’s narrow and rough. There’s no camber on the turns. You have to lap it for twenty-four hours. Half of that race is in the dark, you can’t see a thing and all of a sudden you realize you’re flying past 300 kilometers an hour on the Mulsanne.”

He pauses to catch his breath but that faraway look in his eyes is one that Souryuu shares, as Hiryuu notices. That’s the look of a racer that’s already inclined towards pursuing pure speed. A feeling Hiryuu herself is all too familiar with.

 “There's a point past 320 kilometers an hour... where everything fades.” He adds after a moment’s pause. “The machine becomes weightless. Just disappears. And all that's left is a body - your body, moving through space and time. 320. That's where you meet it. You feel it coming. It creeps up on you, close in your ear. Asks you a question. The only question that matters: Who are you?”

He tells them more of Group C and its other races besides Le Mans. He tells them of the high-speed ring that is Monza, the balls-to-the-wall driving of Spa and then the green hell of Nurburgring – the latter circuit being the only one that could rival Le Mans for being extremely punishing on both driver and car with its many twists and turns going uphill and downhill in the forests around the castle that gave the track its name – almost similar to the roads of Monte Carlo and Corsica.

Yet all good things must come to an end and just as quick as their reunion had been, he had to excuse himself as the team and the race always comes first. By nightfall, he’d be heading much further north than the two sisters – them, back to the mountains while he’d be headed straight for Sarthe where Le Mans is.

Again, the hours after pass by in a chaotic blur. Hiryuu had wanted to rent out a car and drive the entire length of the Monaco Grand Prix circuit with Souryuu in tow but as with earlier in the day, both herself and Souryuu ended up getting swept up and dragged along with the rest of the Lancia team, this time headed back up to the mountains.

But not that either of them minded at that point. The little tin-can Citroens and Renaults available for rent at the hotel that shook and rattled under the weight of their occupants along with their lethargic motors that were but leafblowers compared to the massively boosted engine of their Lancia awaiting them in the parc ferme near the course had little appeal for the two KANSEN.

And as soon as Souryuu’s back in her bunk in the team trailer, all thoughts of Le Mans and her former commander had faded, giving way to anticipation for tomorrow – the first day of this year’s Rallye de Monte Carlo, along with an inkling of hope that she’d finally break out of her streak of being second-best to that fox from CarDiv 1 and that crane from CarDiv 5.