"Three hundred meters ahead, you'll hit a T-junction at four-one-three," Light's voice came through the comms, steady but quick as data shifted across her screens. "You'll see Mall One. Keep straight for another two hundred meters, then take the sharp curve left toward Olympic Bridge."
"Anything I should look out for?" Dahlia asked, glancing over her shoulder just long enough to catch Yamino at least three lengths behind her and closing with the patience of something that knew it only needed one mistake. "Other than big, mean, and ugly trying to tear my head off?"
"I'm not seeing any blocks or cops yet," Light replied. "Traffic's steady, but I don't know how long that'll last. It's only a matter of time before the police get wind of the route, and not even the MRA's hackers can keep them blind forever."
Dahlia's gaze narrowed as the junction came into view, the traffic lights shifting from red to green while wind whistled past her ears beneath the sound of engines, horns, and her cleats striking hard against the asphalt. Then a familiar whir sliced through the air above her, and she lifted her gaze just enough to see dozens of drones cutting across the night sky, their cameras tailing the runners as they tore through Harajuku.
"Believe me," Dahlia said, lowering her eyes back to the road, "the cops aren't what I'm worried about."
"C.H.A.S.E.?" Light asked.
"And then some," Dahlia replied, her focus narrowing on Rekka and Barbarossa ahead of her as the road stretched toward the next turn. "Give me a yell if something changes. I'm keeping my head in the race."
"Will do," Light said.
Then Dahlia's ears shifted sharply to her right, and her gaze snapped over just in time to see one of the runners darting up beside her with her elbow drawn back and a manic smirk carved across her face. Dahlia ducked as the strike came in, feeling the blow cut through the air above her before she slammed one cleat into the asphalt and propelled herself forward. The girl snarled and chased after her, refusing to let the miss slow her down, while Dahlia's breaths tore through her lungs and the red glow of taillights blurred into long streaks on either side of the avenue.
The runner reeled her fist back and lunged again, forcing Dahlia to dip low as the punch missed her head by barely an inch.
"Argh!" the girl snapped. "Hold still, you slimy little—"
Dahlia grit her teeth and kept moving, her eyes catching the red glare of the traffic light ahead. Her cleats dug harder into the asphalt as she accelerated toward the junction, the other girl hot on her tail and too caught up in the chase to notice what Dahlia had already seen. The light turned green just as they approached, and traffic surged back into motion from the right, engines roaring as cars poured into the crossing. Among them, a black sedan came tearing down the road well over the speed limit, its headlights glaring like twin white blades as it charged straight toward the middle of the intersection.
Dahlia pushed herself faster, timing every stride against the sedan's approach as it blasted past the zebra crossing. The runner beside her saw only an opening, her smirk widening the instant they reached the middle of the junction.
"Night-night, Nightingale—!"
Dahlia launched herself into the air with a violent push, twisting mid-leap as the sedan screamed beneath her by mere inches. The other uma realized what had happened a heartbeat too late, and the last thing reflected in her eyes was the blinding flare of headlights.
Steel crashed into flesh with a thunderous impact that echoed across the square, followed by the sharp burst of shattering glass and the shriek of rubber dragging across asphalt. For a moment, the whole junction seemed to freeze. Cars screeched to a halt in every direction, barely missing one another as drivers stared through their windshields in stunned horror.
Dahlia came down hard on the hood of another car, her boots striking with enough force to buckle the metal beneath her before she drove herself forward again, launching from the crumpled frame and returning to a full sprint without so much as a glance over her shoulder. The other racers turned toward the wreck for no more than a heartbeat, yet it was long enough for them to see the sedan stranded crooked across the intersection and the fallen runner sprawled motionless near its front bumper.
Blood spreading steadily from beneath her body and disappearing into the dark sheen of the asphalt, before the instinct to survive wrenched their attention back toward the road ahead. Yamino, still closing the distance from behind, regarded the scene with little more than a contemptuous scoff beneath her breath, then lowered her head and continued running.
****
Melody raised a hand to her mouth as her crimson eyes widened, and the temperature in the room seemed to plummet when the image of the fallen runner appeared on the screen. A blood-red X slashed across the girl's photograph before the portrait drained into lifeless black and white, leaving only nine racers still illuminated on the board, and for several long moments, no one moved or spoke. Every girl in the room remained frozen in place, staring at the livestream as they struggled to understand what they had just witnessed and, worse still, to accept that they might have watched someone die in real time. The silence stretched on until the seconds began to feel like minutes, and then one of the girls finally let out an uneasy chuckle that sounded painfully thin in the stillness.
"Well, now I know why Feno-senpai took her job as traffic warden so seriously," she said, attempting to force some humor into the remark, although the tremor in her words betrayed her before the words had even left her mouth.
Color slowly began to return to the faces around the room, and a few of the others joined her with strained, nervous laughter, each of them trying to drag the atmosphere back toward what it had been before the crash. Melody, however, felt her shock curdle into disgust as she looked from the screen to the girls around her, but before she could say anything, Gurren placed a firm hand over hers. Their eyes met, and the stern warning in Gurren's expression stopped her before she could draw breath.
"Don't," Gurren said quietly, keeping her hand where it was.
"But they just—" Melody began, only for Gurren to lean closer and cut her off before she could finish.
"You wanted to be part of this, Melody, and now you are, which means you get everything that comes with it," Gurren said, lowering her tone so the words would remain between them. "You've been on the app, you've seen the races, and you know exactly what the MRA is. Did you really think 'Blood and Asphalt' was just some catchy slogan they printed on the screen to make themselves sound dangerous? It's real, and none of this is a game. People get hurt, people die, or did you honestly believe every race was going to be as PG as Nightingale and Lady's?"
Melody parted her lips, but whatever answer she had intended to give never came, and after a moment she lowered her gaze to the half-eaten popcorn resting in her lap, suddenly sickened by the sight of it.
"Look, I'm not forcing you to stay, and neither is anyone else here," Gurren continued, her anger easing into something quieter as she released a weary breath. "If you're having second thoughts, or if this is more than you can stomach, then walk out now and we'll pretend tonight never happened. No one will come after you, no one will ask questions, and as far as the rest of us are concerned, it'll be like you were never here."
Melody shook her head and drew a slow breath as she tried to steady herself. "No, you're right, and I'm sorry," she said softly. "I knew what I was getting into when I came here, and I made that choice on my own, so it would be pretty foolish of me to start growing a conscience now." She reached up to rub the back of her head, managing a weak chuckle even though the strain had not left her face. "I guess I really am a little saint, aren't I?"
Gurren's expression softened into a faint smile. "You know, sometimes that ain't such a bad thing," she replied, tilting her head as the smile gradually widened into something more playful. "Buuut..." She turned toward the rest of the girls. "Did any of you see that move Nightingale just pulled off?"
The change swept through the room almost at once, and several of the girls brightened as though they had been waiting for permission to breathe again.
"I know! That was amazing!" one of them exclaimed, while the others began talking over one another in excited bursts, eagerly replaying the moment and arguing over Nightingale's technique.
Melody kept her smile in place for a few seconds longer, allowing herself to be carried by their excitement until it slowly faded and her attention returned to the screen, where Nightingale's leap was being shown again from one angle after another. Her fingers tightened around the bag of popcorn until the plastic crackled sharply beneath her grip, and the uneasy knot in her stomach twisted harder, born not only from the carnage they had just witnessed but from the thought that, the next time something went wrong, Nightingale might not be lucky enough to keep running.
****
"And then there were nine!" Hazama's voice rolled across the open space through the towering speakers, smooth and gleeful as the crowd erupted around him. "What a marvelous little escape that was, ladies and gentlemen, because Nightingale is gaining ground almost as quickly as she is gaining admirers, and judging by the way our generous spectators are throwing their money at her, I would say she has captured far more than their attention."
With an elegant sweep of his hand, he directed the audience toward the Super Chat feed racing along the enormous screen, where donations and breathless comments appeared at blinding speed, nearly every one of them bearing Nightingale's name.
Hazama pressed one hand dramatically against his chest as though he could barely contain the emotion swelling beneath it, although the broad, foxlike grin stretched across his face betrayed how thoroughly he was enjoying himself. "Oh, what that lovely creature does to my poor heart, wrenching it straight from my chest every time she takes flight," he declared, savoring every word as the crowd answered with another roar. "And the most delicious part is that we have not even reached the halfway point."
At the bar overlooking the floor, Logan ground his third cigarette into the crowded ashtray and exhaled through the narrow spaces between his teeth, the tension in his shoulders easing when a satisfied grin finally cut across his face. "That's it, kid," he murmured without taking his eyes from the replay. "You pulled it off perfectly, just like we practiced."
Daichi turned toward him, then gestured at the screen as Nightingale's leap began again from another camera angle. "Hold on, you actually taught her how to do that?"
"Not exactly," Logan replied as he settled his weight against the bar and folded his arms across his chest. "She cooked it up on her own during one of her runs, but the first version was rough as hell, so I watched her doin' it, figured out where she was losin' control, and ironed out the kinks before she broke her damned neck." His grin returned as Nightingale cleared the wreckage once more and landed cleanly on the hood beyond it. "Came in pretty handy tonight, didn't it?"
Daichi watched the replay through narrowed eyes, still trying to understand how anyone could have prepared for something so reckless. "You're telling me that's one of her signature moves?"
"I wouldn't go that far, kid," Logan said, tapping one finger thoughtfully against his chin. "It's a move, and a damned useful one when the situation calls for it, but a real signature has gotta be flashier than that, and it needs some catchy name the media can scream whenever she pulls it off. Half the battle is teachin' people what to remember."
"Damn, so you're her trainer and her promoter," Daichi replied, shaking his head with an incredulous smile. "Is there anything you can't do?"
"Comes with the territory," Logan said, although the humor in his expression gradually receded. "That's why most trainers back in the States burn themselves straight to hell before they hit thirty, because you ain't just standin' beside a track with a stopwatch and a clipboard. You're runnin' the whole damned show by yourself, from the trainin' and the scheduling to the press, the sponsors, the contracts, and every ugly mess your runner drags through the door. Sooner or later, you run outta hours, patience, or pieces of yourself you can afford to give away."
He released a sharp breath through his nose and kept his attention fixed upon Nightingale's marker moving across the map. "That's somethin' most trainers in Japan will never understand, and part of me doubts they've got what it takes to keep standin' when the devil finally walks through their door."
Daichi's smile disappeared as he studied Logan's face, where the satisfaction from moments earlier had hardened into something far colder. "Why do I get the feeling you aren't exactly talking about yourself?"
Logan offered no answer, and the silence he left between them carried enough weight that Daichi did not press him. His eyes remained fixed on the screen, dark and immovable, until a piercing alarm suddenly tore through the venue and drowned out the crowd. Neon-red lights flared along the walls as the word DANGER began flashing across the central display beneath strips of animated warning tape, and while newcomers stared upward in confusion, everyone who had spent enough time inside the MRA understood exactly what the signal meant.
"Oooh, now this is an interesting development," Hazama cooed as he turned toward the screen, his smile narrowing with predatory delight. "It appears our friends in blue have finally caught our scent."
The race map pulled outward until the surrounding districts came into view, revealing clusters of red-and-blue markers converging from several directions upon the nine racers threading their way through the city. Sirens began bleeding into the livestream audio, faint at first but multiplying with every passing second, while the restless excitement inside the venue sharpened into something feverish.
"Buckle yourselves in, ladies and gentlemen," Hazama continued, spreading his arms as though welcoming the police into a performance staged entirely for his amusement. "The hunters have entered the field, which means our charming little race has just become a hot pursuit."
Beside the bar, Logan's jaw tightened until a muscle shifted beneath his cheek, while Daichi turned back toward the screen with the last of his excitement giving way to unease.
****
"Night, heads up, because you're about to have company," Light warned over the comms just as the cleats beneath Dahlia's boots screamed against the asphalt and sent a spray of sparks through the dark. Dahlia threw herself into a hard left at Shibuya-ku Kamizonocho, cutting past the Olympic Bridge as she allowed her momentum to carry her sideways through the turn, her body lowering into a controlled drift while smoke rolled from beneath her feet before she caught the road again and tore down the straight. "And before you ask, I don't mean the fun kind."
Dahlia's gaze flicked toward the enormous structure rising to her right, where Yoyogi National Stadium loomed above the surrounding streets like a titan of concrete and steel, its sweeping roof and towering supports washed in stark white spotlights against the night sky.
"Let me guess, the panda squad?" Dahlia asked as she raced onward through the traffic, horns blaring around her while startled drivers swerved and shouted from behind their windshields. Her ears turned toward the distant wail of sirens, separating the sound from the noise of engines and tires long before the vehicles themselves came into view. "I can already hear them."
A soft electronic chime sounded from the tracker secured around her wrist, and when Dahlia glanced down, she saw the indicator shift from yellow to green. "Uh, Pol, somethin's goin' on with my tracker."
"It just registered your first checkpoint," Light replied as the rapid tapping of plastic keys carried faintly across the connection. "I've got you pinged on the map now, so the tracking system is working exactly the way it should. As for the cops, don't waste your energy worrying about the cruisers, because they can chase you all night, but they're not allowed to run you down."
"That's supposed to make me feel better?"
"Well, if you're planning not to wind up as someone's hood ornament, yeah," Light said, her fingers continuing to race across the keyboard. "But keep an eye out for their Umajackers."
"Their Uma-what?" Dahlia's eyes widened as an oncoming car swung into her lane, forcing her to twist past its bumper with barely enough room to spare while the driver leaned on the horn behind her. "I'm sorry, what the hell is an Umajacker?"
"Think of a spike strip designed for an uma," Light explained. "It's basically a reinforced wire trap that spreads across the road and wraps around your legs when you hit it. Once the cables tighten, you're going down, and you're probably not getting back up before they reach you."
Dahlia's expression tightened with sudden understanding. "Wait, is that why Logan had me running obstacle drills while he fired nets at my legs?"
"Pretty much."
"I thought he was doing some weird Karate Kid thing he cooked up because he was bored."
"Probably a bit of both, you know how he is," Light replied with a quiet laugh before her attention returned to the route ahead. "You're currently in fifth place, and you've got a straight run-down Fire-dori for another six hundred meters before you reach Jingu-dori. The road opens up ahead, which means you should expect them to try something before you reach the turn."
The keyboard fell silent.
"Dahlia, look out!"
Dahlia snapped her head toward the right and saw a police cruiser barreling through the intersection at full speed, its lights flashing and its front end aimed directly at her. She reacted before thought could catch up, throwing herself toward the nearest car and catching the upper frame of the passenger door with both hands. The steel buckled beneath her grip as she used the vehicle to vault upward, twisting sideways through the air just as the cruiser tore beneath her and slammed broadside into the car with an explosion of mangled metal and shattered glass.
The impact drove both officers forward with enough force to wrench their restraints from their housings, sending them headfirst through the windshield as the cruiser and the struck vehicle crashed through the roadside barrier together. Twisted sections of steel fencing folded beneath them before both cars plunged onto the train tracks ahead, where they came apart in a grinding avalanche of sparks, broken glass, and screaming metal.
Dahlia landed in a low crouch. One hand braced against the asphalt while the ringing in her ears drowned out everything except the violent pounding of her heart. Light was shouting through the comms, but the words reached her only as a distant, muffled blur beneath the rush of blood in her skull. Dahlia dragged in one breath, then another, her lips pulling back from her teeth as the shock burning through her body hardened into rage.
She drove her fist into the asphalt, forced herself upright, and launched back into motion. One of the two runners ahead of Yamino saw the opening and rushed her from behind, drawing back a clenched fist as she closed the distance. Dahlia caught the movement at the edge of her vision, spun without losing momentum, and clamped one hand across the girl's face before she could strike.
"Piss off!" Dahlia snarled as she sprang upward and drove her knee into the runner's face.
Bone cracked beneath the impact, the girl's lip splitting as blood sprayed across Dahlia's sleeve, but Dahlia had already lifted her gaze beyond her and found Yamino closing fast. Without slowing, she seized the stunned runner by the front of her jacket, pivoted on one foot, and hurled her backward with enough force to send her tumbling through the air toward the second girl positioned ahead of Yamino.
The other runner barely had time to widen her eyes before the body crashed into her chest and carried them both directly into Yamino's path. Yamino planted one foot hard enough to gouge the asphalt beneath her cleats, twisted her hips, and swung through with a brutal roundhouse kick that caught both girls at once, driving them sideways into a speeding car.
Their bodies struck the passenger side with enough force to cave in the doors and lift the vehicle onto two wheels before it rolled onto its side. The car skidded across the road in a shower of sparks, slammed into the steel barrier, and finally stopped amid twisted metal and glittering fragments of glass, leaving neither runner visible beneath the wreckage.
For one suspended moment, Dahlia and Yamino looked directly at one another across the road, and the understanding passed between them without a word. Every runner who had stood between them was gone, and the only thing left on the street now was the distance separating the two of them. Dahlia turned away first and drove herself back into a full sprint, while behind her, Yamino's smirk sharpened beneath her mask as she lowered her body and surged forward in pursuit.
****
The racers ahead glanced over their shoulders at the sound of the collision, just in time to see twisted metal and shattered glass scattering across the roadway before a second explosion tore through the wreckage. Flames rolled upward in a violent fireball, swallowing the flashing lights as a column of black smoke climbed into the night sky, while the cruiser's siren faltered into a warped, dying moan beneath the roar of the blaze.
Rekka and Barbarossa both stared for a moment longer than they should have, stunned by the realization that a police vehicle had been caught in the crash, because even within the chaos of an MRA pursuit, the rules were clear, officers were not authorized to ram civilian cars, much less use them as weapons against the racers. The sight left something cold twisting through both of them as they turned forward again, each arriving at the same uneasy conclusion that the pursuit had crossed a line and that whatever was coming next would not follow the usual rules.
As they raced south along Fire-dori through Shibuya, Rekka cut a sharp whistle toward Barbarossa and caught her attention with a glance over her shoulder. Her amber eyes shifted toward the runners gaining behind them, and the smirk spreading across her face made the message plain without the need for words. Barbarossa answered with a grin of her own before driving one boot into the asphalt, the soles shrieking against the road as smoke curled behind her and her momentum carried her into a long, controlled slide.
She lowered her body as the first runner charged toward her, then swept one leg backward across the girl's path. The runner's eyes widened when her foot caught, and she pitched forward hard enough to strike the pavement face-first before Barbarossa sprang after her and landed squarely across her back. With one boot planted against the base of the girl's skull, Barbarossa forced her along the asphalt for several brutal meters, grinding skin and fabric into the road until the dark surface behind them gleamed wetly with blood. When Barbarossa finally stepped away, the runner remained motionless.
"And that," Barbarossa called as she adjusted the brim of her tricorn hat and launched herself forward again, "be what it feels like to be keelhauled, ye scurvy dog!"
Behind her, Rekka spun on one foot as the second runner came in swinging, her cleats cutting a sharp arc across the pavement while she slipped just beyond the reach of the punch. She answered with an exaggerated yawn, then stepped inside the girl's guard and drove her knee into her chest hard enough to fold her forward.
"Would you care to dance?" Rekka asked as she caught the staggering runner and pulled her into a mock ballroom hold.
Her elbow snapped across the girl's mouth, spraying blood across the road, but Rekka kept them moving as though they were turning through a waltz, guiding her opponent through one smooth rotation before her expression soured with theatrical disappointment.
"Never mind," she said as she shifted her grip and prepared to throw her. "You can't dance for shit."
Rekka spun the girl out toward the opposite side of the street, where she stumbled over her own feet and fought desperately to recover. She had barely regained her balance when a car struck her at full speed, hurling her into the air in a violent sideways rotation before her body crashed back onto the pavement in a broken, twisted heap. The vehicle skidded several yards before coming to a halt, its tires smoking against the road, while Rekka allowed herself one satisfied glance at the wreckage before accelerating after Barbarossa.
The final runner slowed as she looked between the two bodies left behind, first dropping to a jog and then stopping altogether as the strength drained from her legs. Her eyes widened, her body began to tremble, and whatever courage had carried her this far vanished beneath the sight of what had happened to the others. She turned toward one of the hovering drones and crossed both arms above her head in surrender just as Dahlia and Yamino tore past her, neither of them sparing her so much as a glance.
****
"And then there were four!" Hazama cried as the portraits of the eliminated racers were slashed through with blood-red crosses and drained into lifeless monochrome, leaving only four images burning in full color across the towering screen. "By blood and asphalt, what a vicious little spectacle our girls have given us tonight? I cannot remember the last time the Shibuya Stakes spilled this much blood before the halfway mark, but survival has never belonged to the weak, and it appears the race has finally stripped away everyone who never deserved to reach the end."
His smile narrowed as the remaining portraits expanded across the display one by one. "Yamino Breaker, the monster who tears through everything foolish enough to stand before her. Rekka Blaze, whose smile only seems to grow brighter whenever someone bleeds. Captain Barbarossa, our charming pirate queen with a fondness for keelhauling anyone caught in her wake, and finally, the lost little bird who has defied every trap, every attack, and every attempt to bury her beneath the asphalt."
The other portraits receded as Dahlia's image surged into the center of the screen, her name blazing beneath it in brilliant crimson.
"Nightingale!"
The venue erupted with enough force to shake the floor, the crowd answering with a wall of cheers, whistles, and pounding fists as Dahlia's name spread across the Super Chat feed faster than the system could display it.
"Twice they have tried to tear her from the race, and twice she has escaped with her wings intact," Hazama continued, allowing the noise to swell before lifting one finger thoughtfully to his chin. "The question, my dear spectators, is whether we are witnessing the birth of something extraordinary, or whether our little bird has simply been fortunate enough to stumble through the jaws of death without losing a feather, hmm?"
His grin deepened as the drone footage returned, showing the four remaining racers carving through the streets while the distance between them steadily narrowed. "Luck is such a tender, faithless thing, after all, and sooner or later it abandons everyone foolish enough to depend upon it. Nightingale is no longer running among frightened amateurs or disposable strays, because the weak have already been cast aside, and the only creatures left around her now are the ones who know exactly how to kill."
Hazama turned toward the screen as the bass thundered through the speakers and the crowd's excitement rose into something feverish. "And our poor little bird has flown straight into the company of wolves."
****
Daichi remained rooted to his chair, his eyes wide and a thin trail of sweat running down the side of his face even as the warm air trapped beneath the parking structure's ceiling turned cold against his skin. When he looked toward Logan, he found him already halfway through his fourth cigarette, staring at the screen with his jaw locked so tightly that his teeth had nearly bitten through the filter.
"You saw that, right?" Daichi finally asked, gesturing toward the replay of the cruiser tearing through the intersection. "Forget everything else for a second, because that cop nearly turned Dahlia into paste. They aren't supposed to do that." He hesitated as the uncertainty settled more heavily upon him. "Are they?"
"No," Logan answered, the word coming out hard enough to silence any doubt. "No, they're not."
He drew slowly from the cigarette before folding his arms, trapping one hand against his side as his grip tightened. "Somethin' stinks, kid, and I'm startin' to think we've got rogue cops out there who decided the rules no longer apply to them. That makes them more dangerous than the racers, because at least the girls know exactly what kind of fight they signed up for."
"But why would any officer risk that?" Daichi asked. "Even if they survive tonight, they are going to lose their badges, end up in prison, or both."
"I had a conversation with Saburo about this a while back," Logan said as he removed the cigarette from his mouth and exhaled a thick plume of smoke toward the ceiling. "When the TMPD decided to create its own C.H.A.S.E. division, I knew somebody was gonna take it personally. Cops here ain't all that different from the ones back home, because plenty of them are just insecure bullies who peaked in high school, found themselves a uniform, and built an entire career around makin' sure nobody could push back."
He tapped the cigarette against the ashtray, sending a thin column of ash onto the mound of crushed filters already spilling over its rim. "They didn't look at C.H.A.S.E. and see another unit helpin' them deal with the MRA. They saw a public admission that the regular police could not get the job done, and the whole damned city cheering them on only rubbed their faces in it a little harder."
Logan took another drag, but the anger tightening his expression had already stripped away whatever relief the cigarette might have offered. "Then, you've got that pig Omura runnin' his mouth every chance he gets, draggin' the TMPD through the dirt and remindin' everyone that the MRA is still makin' fools outta them. Sooner or later, somebody with a badge was gonna decide this stopped bein' about the law and started bein' personal."
"You think they are just going to lose control out there?" Daichi asked as he threw both hands toward the screen. "Then, we have to do something before they kill her."
Logan turned and fixed him with a level stare. "What exactly are you plannin' on doin', kid?"
Daichi opened his mouth, but Logan did not give him enough time to answer.
"You run out there without a vehicle, a route, or the slightest idea where she is, and you'll end up as a human speed bump before you make it past the first intersection," Logan said as he crushed the cigarette into the ashtray, where the collection of twisted butts had begun to resemble a dead bouquet. "So, park your ass in that chair and use your head. I'd wager every dollar I've got that the MRA has already noticed what those cops are doin', and believe me, the TMPD is not gonna like what comes crawlin' out of the dark if they refuse to back off."
Daichi sank reluctantly into the chair again, although every muscle in his body remained tense as he stared at the screen.
"The part I don't understand," Logan continued, turning back toward the map, "is where the hell C.H.A.S.E. has been through all of this."
Daichi's expression shifted as the question settled over him, and he searched the display as though the unit's markers might suddenly appear now that Logan had drawn attention to their absence. "Now that you mention it..."
Logan's eyes narrowed upon the flashing police markers closing around the racers, while Dahlia's remained isolated among them without any sign of the unit supposedly responsible for keeping the pursuit under control.
"What are you up to, Lightning?" he murmured.
Daichi let out a sharp breath and leaned forward, resting his forearms against his knees as he watched the remaining racers move across the screen. "The cops are one thing," he said, glancing toward Logan. "But how do you think the race is going?"
Logan's expression tightened as his eyes moved between the four markers still burning on the map. He had just opened his mouth to speak when two grating voices drifted over from beside them, loud enough to cut through the noise of the crowd.
"The Shibuya Stakes is longer than most MRA races, sometimes twice the length of an average Twinkle Series event, maybe even three times," one of the young men said. "This year's course is almost seven kilometers, and until they release the final route, it could wind through practically anywhere in the ward."
Logan's eyes narrowed to pinpricks, and he turned his head slowly toward the source of the commentary. Daichi leaned forward as well, following his gaze to two young men standing nearby. The first had wavy, muted-green hair falling loosely across his brow and wore a black shirt with moss-colored cargo pants and scuffed brown boots. His companion stood nearly a head taller, with neatly swept-back black hair, frameless glasses, and the stiff posture of someone who took every opinion he offered far too seriously. There was no mistaking it. They were the same two blockheads from back at the Kagetōge Kudari.
"That's seven kilometers of road cutting through some of the busiest parts of Tokyo," the green-haired man continued, his expression tightening as another replay flickered across the screen. "And from what we've already seen tonight, this could easily become the most dangerous Sapphire-class event in the history of the Regalia Series. Dozens of umas have been killed, crippled, or dragged out of this race over the years, and that's before anyone reaches the final surprise."
His taller companion glanced at him. "What makes you think tonight's going to be worse?"
"Because it already is," the first man replied. "Even when Queen ran last year, the field didn't get cut down this fast. Six runners still made it across the finish line, and tonight we'll be lucky if two survive long enough to see it."
His gaze shifted toward the footage of the police cruisers tearing through traffic.
"That's without counting the psychos behind the wheel. The Stakes is brutal enough when runners only have to manage their stamina, protect their cleats, read the traffic, and watch the people around them. Now they've got cops actively trying to put them in the ground."
The taller man adjusted his glasses and studied the four remaining portraits. "Rekka, Yamino, and Barbarossa have all survived races that would've broken most runners. Barbarossa is still the favorite, but the real question is how Nightingale holds up against them."
"She's done well to stay alive this long," the green-haired man said, though the faint curl of his mouth suggested he considered that more luck than skill. "Still, I don't see her crossing the finish line. Honestly, I'm not convinced she'll even make it there."
Logan drew in a long breath, pinched the bridge of his nose, and held it for several seconds as though physically restraining himself from saying the first thing that came to mind. When he finally looked back toward Daichi, the patience in his expression had already worn dangerously thin.
"As I was saying, it's about the way I told Dahlia it would back at the Kagetōge Kudari," he replied, gesturing toward Yamino's position. "Put it in URA terms, Yamino's an Ender. She hangs back, lets everyone else wear themselves down, then starts takin' them apart before she guns it through the final stretch. She's a bruiser, built like a tank, and she knows it, so she doesn't waste time pretendin' she's anything else."
His gaze shifted toward Rekka's marker as it cut through the traffic. "Rekka's a Pacer. She takes her time, keeps herself outta trouble when she can, and turns it against somebody else when she can't. She's quick enough to slip through most openings and mean enough to make sure the person behind her doesn't get the same chance."
Then his attention settled on Barbarossa, and the cigarette paused halfway to his mouth.
"Barbarossa's the Fronter," he continued, his words losing the last trace of ease. "She's got Yamino's power, Rekka's footwork, and enough speed to make both of them look slow when she decides to move. I only saw a fraction of what she could do when she came after Dahlia at the kart track, and that was plenty."
Daichi turned toward him, the tension in his face giving way to surprise. "Wait, you and Dahlia ran into her?"
"Yeah," Logan answered, the word leaving him with a heavy breath as he leaned back against the bar. "And let me tell you, kid, those videos don't do her justice. You can watch every run she's ever made and still won't understand what she's capable of until she's standin' right in front of you. She's got the speed, the control, the instincts, the whole damned package, and if she'd gone into the Twinkle Series instead of the MRA, she'd be one of the biggest names in it by now."
"Shit," Daichi muttered as he looked back toward Dahlia's footage. "So, she's stuck between three monsters while a bunch of psycho cops are trying to turn her into luncheon meat."
Logan said nothing, though the look on his face told Daichi he wasn't wrong.
Daichi bit down on his lower lip and shook his head, his earlier excitement replaced by something quieter and far more frightened. "I don't care if she wins anymore. She can come in last, get laughed off the street, whatever. I just want her back in one piece."
For a moment, Logan remained silent, watching Dahlia tear through the city with Yamino closing behind her.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Me too, kid."
Logan then noticed the weight of two expectant stares fixed upon him. He turned and found both young men looking back with the awestruck expressions of people who had finally realized exactly who had been standing beside them. Daichi caught the change at once and pressed his lips together, barely managing to keep his laughter to himself as Logan regarded them with a flat, thoroughly unimpressed stare.
"And before either of you asks," Logan said, "the answer ain't just no. It's hell no."
The excitement drained from their faces almost immediately. One of them quietly stopped the recording on his phone, while the other slipped the notebook and pen back into his pocket with all the dignity he could still salvage.
****
The control room lay in near darkness, illuminated only by the cold glow of an eight-foot screen that dominated the far wall. Several smaller displays had been arranged around its corners, each carrying a different feed from street cameras, traffic surveillance systems, and drones circling high above Shibuya, while a constant stream of comments and Super Chats raced through a narrow window along the side faster than any single person could hope to read them.
Before that sprawling wall of light stood a lone man in a perfectly tailored tuxedo, its cut so immaculate that not a single thread sat out of place and every gold button gleamed as though it had been polished only moments before. The shifting images carved harsh lines across his weathered features as he watched dozens of police vehicles tear through the streets at reckless speed, several missing fleeing pedestrians by no more than a few inches.
The room surrounding him was small but richly appointed, carrying the intimate air of a private study rather than an operational command center. The musky scent of burning tobacco, softened by an undertone of sweetness, drifted from a carved mahogany pipe resting upon a stand beside a broad obsidian ashtray, while ice shifted with a muted clink inside a crystal tumbler, slowly watering down the final inch of Scotch at its base. Shadows stretched across dark shelves, polished wood, and velvet couches upholstered in deep emerald green, every piece bearing the same restrained Victorian elegance as the man standing before the screen.
Cavendish drew a slow breath through his nose and released it with controlled irritation, his chest settling beneath the crisp lines of his jacket as his gaze shifted toward the lower-right corner of the display. Aerial footage from an unidentified source had begun feeding into the system, the angle and altitude leaving little doubt that it had been captured from a helicopter, and the wider view only confirmed how quickly the situation was deteriorating. Police cruisers converged from every direction, cutting through traffic with no regard for civilian vehicles, pedestrians, or the chaos gathering in their wake.
He slipped one gloved hand into his pocket, withdrew his phone, and selected a number from the screen before raising it to his ear.
The call rang twice, and on the third tone, a man answered.
"Ventana speaking. To what do I owe the pleasure, Mister Verde?"
"Spare me the pleasantries, Ventana," Cavendish replied, his attention never leaving the screen. "Kindly enlighten me as to whether you are aware of the bedlam unfolding across Shibuya, and more importantly, what you intend to do about it, because at present, one could be forgiven for believing your title as Director of Security is merely decorative."
A measured silence followed before Ventana answered. "I must ask that you refrain from insulting my position or my intelligence, Mister Verde. I am aware of the situation, and our personnel are already en route. These rogue pieces will be removed from the board soon enough."
"Soon enough has already passed," Cavendish said, his words remaining calm even as the contempt beneath it sharpened. "I have never concealed my objections to your appointment, even when the Master chose to place you in that chair, although I was prepared to extend you the benefit of the doubt. Tonight, you have made that generosity exceedingly difficult to justify."
His eyes tracked another cruiser as it mounted the curb and forced a cluster of pedestrians to scatter into an alley.
"Outside of our acquaintances within the force, the Metropolitan Police have always been little more than a collection of blustering incompetents, the sort of flea-bitten hounds we send chasing their own tails whenever we require the city to look elsewhere. They were useful because they were predictable, and they remained predictable because your office was meant to keep the more troublesome elements among them under control."
Cavendish's grip tightened around the phone, although his posture remained composed.
"Yet despite every indulgence we have afforded them, their little fraternity has allowed the uninitiated to break ranks and interfere with our affairs. That is not an inconvenience, Ventana. It is a humiliation, and I will not have the Master's generosity mistaken for weakness."
The line fell quiet for a moment before Ventana spoke again. "Am I to assume the Chairman wishes to pull out the big guns?"
"Mobilize the Tails," Cavendish replied. "Remind those officers that a dog does not cease being a dog simply because someone pins a badge to its collar, and when a dog becomes rabid, it is put down before it infects the rest of the kennel."
His gaze hardened as the helicopter feed followed the cruisers deeper into Shibuya.
"When the streets have been cleared, and the race is at an end, deal with our liaison as well. They were entrusted with keeping these men obedient, and their abject failures must be made sufficiently memorable that whoever they elect to replace them shall be hard-pressed to not repeat them."
"As the Master commands. However..." Ventana allowed the words to hang for a moment, long enough for Cavendish's eyebrow to rise. "What of C.H.A.S.E.? We have eyes on every corner of Shibuya, yet there has been neither sight nor sound of them."
"I have little doubt they are out there somewhere, waiting for the proper moment to reveal themselves," Cavendish replied, his gaze remaining fixed upon the screens. "Captain Lightning has grown rather too clever for her own good, and cleverer still after spending so many years matching wits with the MRA. She has learned patience, restraint, and the value of allowing one's enemy to believe the field is empty before springing the trap." His jaw tightened as another police convoy swept across the aerial feed. "Still, even the craftiest fox eventually strays within range of the musket."
"You sound remarkably certain of yourself," Ventana said.
"Certainty would be overstating it," Cavendish replied, a faint smile touching the corner of his mouth. "Consider it a wager, or perhaps a small experiment designed to expose the weaknesses running through our operation. Should events unfold as I expect, they may answer several questions that have troubled me for some time."
"Well, enjoy your little games, Verde," Ventana said, his patience thinning beneath the courtesy. "Now, if you will excuse me, some of us have work that requires more than standing in a dark room and placing bets."
"Ventana," Cavendish said before the man could end the call, allowing the silence to tighten between them. "Consider this your first, and only warning. Do not fail him again. The Master is a man of patience, understanding, and virtue, qualities I have always admired in him, though I have never felt compelled to imitate them. Should this happen a second time, you will answer to me rather than him."
Another pause followed, shorter than the first.
"Have I made myself perfectly clear?"
"Transparently."
The call ended, and Cavendish lowered the phone before returning both hands behind his back, his fingers settling neatly against one another as he continued to watch the race unfold. His attention soon drifted away from the police response and returned to the runner at the center of the drone footage, the girl the crowd had taken to calling Nightingale, whose image now occupied the largest portion of the screen.
Hazama's earlier words lingered in his thoughts as he watched her weave through traffic with Yamino closing behind her.
"Nightingale," Cavendish murmured, tasting the name as though it belonged to some rare and unfamiliar vintage. "The newly discovered protégé of the Hand of God himself."
A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth.
"How positively intriguing."
****
"Night, I've got officers pouring in from every corner of Shibuya, and they're all headed straight for you!" Light's voice broke across the comms, panic tightening every word as her fingers flew across the keyboard. "I don't understand what's happening!"
"Focus, Pol!" Dahlia snapped as she tore down the street, flicking her gaze toward the buildings rushing past on either side. "I think I just crossed Shidax Culture Hall. How far am I from the next checkpoint?"
"About four hundred meters," Light replied, forcing herself to breathe as she tracked Dahlia's marker across the map. "After that, you'll hit the Crossing."
Dahlia looked over her shoulder and found Yamino still bearing down on her, the hulking runner chasing with a feverish gleam in her eyes as though every fallen racer had only sharpened her appetite. Cars continued to scream past them, close enough for the pressure of displaced air to strike Dahlia's clothes with every passing vehicle, while her cleats hammered against the asphalt in a punishing rhythm that climbed through her legs and into her spine.
Her teeth clenched as she faced forward again. "How many cops are we talking about?"
"Um..." Light hesitated as more markers flooded the map. "At least a dozen. No, wait, closer to two dozen, and more are still coming."
The heavy chop of rotors rolled over the street before Dahlia could answer, growing louder until a burst of white light flooded the road and swallowed both her and Yamino beneath its glare. Dahlia flinched and narrowed her eyes against the burn of the spotlight, lifting one arm across her face as a helicopter swept into view above the rooftops.
She had only ever seen scenes like this in movies or on the news, usually during manhunts or high-speed pursuits in cities far removed from her own life, and even in Tokyo, the sight of a police helicopter bearing down on someone was rare enough to feel unreal. Now the light followed her every step, fixing her in place beneath the sky as though she were the criminal at the center of some televised disaster.
"This is the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department!" a voice thundered from the helicopter's speakers. "Stop running and surrender immediately!"
Yamino twisted around long enough to glare into the spotlight before raising one hand and flipping them off. Dahlia ignored the warning and kept her pace steady, refusing to let the distance between herself and the bruiser behind her shrink.
"I repeat, this is the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department! Stop and surrender immediately!"
Through the blaze of the spotlight, Dahlia could just make out three figures in tactical gear positioned along the open side of the helicopter, their bodies braced against the frame as the aircraft tracked the racers from above.
"This is your final warning. I repeat, this is your final—!"
A sharp rush split the air, followed by an explosion that cracked across the street hard enough to shake the windows around them.
The helicopter erupted before the warning could finish.
The shock wave tore through Dahlia's body, rattling her from the tips of her ears to the cleats beneath her boots as a fireball blossomed overhead. Burning fragments of metal spun away from the aircraft and scattered across the night while the ruined fuselage rolled out of control, trailing black smoke and flame as alarms shrieked from somewhere inside.
Dahlia stared upward in horror as the helicopter drifted beyond the train tracks and crashed into the side of a building. The impact blew out windows and ripped through brick and concrete before a second explosion engulfed the wreckage, sending fire rolling across the upper floors.
Cars skidded to a halt around her, tires screaming as drivers slammed on the breaks. Dahlia twisted between the stalled traffic at the last second, clearing one bumper before another car swerved across her path, while cries and screams rose from the sidewalks and disappeared beneath the roar of the flames. When she looked back, the building in the distance had become a wall of fire, its windows pouring smoke into the dark sky.
Her stride faltered.
For one terrible moment, every instinct inside her screamed for her to stop. She could stand in the middle of the road, cross her arms toward the nearest drone, and surrender the way the last runner had. She had signed up for a race, not to watch civilians and police officers die around her while the city tore itself apart.
Cold sweat soaked through her clothes despite the late-autumn air, and the pounding of her heart grew so loud inside her skull that every other sound began to fade. The street stretched strangely before her, the lights smearing into long ribbons as the world slowed around each faltering step.
Then Light's voice reached her through the haze.
"Night? Night, answer me." The panic sharpened into a scream. "Dahlia!"
Dahlia blinked hard.
"Incoming from the right!"
She snapped her head toward the junction just as three police cruisers burst into view, their lights flashing and sirens wailing as they came straight toward her. Dahlia drove one foot into the asphalt and forced herself into a burst of speed, throwing her body forward as two of the cruisers swung into the turn and accelerated after her.
"Shit!" Yamino snarled behind her.
The third cruiser entered the junction too fast and lost control halfway through the turn, sliding broadside across the road and missing Yamino by inches before slamming into a tree. The frame folded around the trunk with a deafening crunch, crushing the passenger side inward as the windshield burst and glass rained across the pavement. The siren sputtered into silence beneath the hiss of steam and twisted metal.
Yamino staggered back from the wreck and stood there for several seconds, dragging air into her lungs as she stared at the cruiser. Whatever shock had caught her did not last long, because her face twisted beneath the mask as fear hardened into pure rage.
She stomped toward the driver's side.
The officer behind the wheel was still moving, although his hands shook against the ruined dashboard, while the passenger remained mangled beneath the collapsed frame, blood spilling from his mouth as he fought for each shallow breath. He was alive, but judging by the way the steel had folded around him, he would not be for much longer.
A growl tore from Yamino's throat as she drove her fist through the window. The remaining glass burst inward, and she seized the driver by the front of his uniform before wrenching him through the shattered frame, dragging his body across the jagged edges and slamming his back against the side of the cruiser.
"You Goddamned pig!" Yamino roared before driving her forehead into his face.
The officer's head snapped back, blood spilling from his mouth as his teeth cracked beneath the impact, but Yamino kept him pinned against the car and struck him again.
"You want to kill me, huh?!" she snarled, headbutting him hard enough to cave in what remained of his nose. "Well, guess what? It's gonna take a hell of a lot more than you pussies in your tiny little, punk-ass cars to put me down!"
She smashed her forehead into his face one more time, then caught his head between both hands and bared her teeth beneath the mask.
"You missed your chance," she said. "Now get bent!"
Her thumbs drove into his eyes. The officer's scream ripped through the intersection as he clawed desperately at her arms, blood pouring down his face and between her fingers while his body thrashed against the ruined cruiser. Yamino answered with a furious cry and forced her thumbs deeper until something gave beneath them with a wet crunch and a sudden splatter of blood.
The officer went limp.
Yamino released him and let the body collapse onto the road before drawing several deep breaths, her shoulders gradually settling as the rage drained from her limbs. Then her head snapped toward Dahlia, who had already opened a considerable distance between them.
"Well," Yamino said, grinning beneath her mask as she stepped away from the wreck, "I got that out of my system."
She lowered herself and launched back into pursuit.
"You're fast, Nightingale," Yamino called as she tore after Dahlia through the smoke. "But you can't outrun me forever."
****
Kaito flinched as the helicopter exploded across the screen of his phone, the footage captured through the shaking camera of a bystander before the image vanished beneath a bloom of fire and tumbling debris. The livestream dissolved into screams, frantic movement, and blurred glimpses of the burning wreckage embedded in the side of a building, while the patrol car carrying him tore through traffic with its lights flashing, weaving between lanes as furious horns erupted from every direction.
He looked toward the grizzled detective behind the wheel. Nishimura's expression had hardened into stone, his eyes fixed upon the road as he steered one-handed through the congestion, while the other held his phone tight against his ear.
"Okabe, you twisted son of a bitch!" Nishimura snarled into the call. "You know the drill. You know the goddamned protocol. You pursue, you contain, and you apprehend. You do not start crashing cruisers into people and turning Shibuya into a freaking war zone."
A garbled voice answered through the speaker, but Nishimura's face only darkened.
"No, shut your damned trap. You and your boys crossed the line the moment that first car went after one of those girls, and if you don't get yourselves killed out there tonight, I'll make damned sure you wish you had. You, your partner, every last son of a bitch who followed you into this mess, you're all done!"
He pulled the phone away from his ear and shouted directly into it. "You hear me, asswipe? You're freaking done!"
Nishimura ended the call and hurled the phone onto the passenger seat, where it struck the door with a heavy thud and made Kaito jerk away.
"Christ," Kaito muttered, glancing between the discarded phone and the chaos unfolding beyond the windshield. "What the hell happened? It looks like Murphy's Law finally decided to take human form."
"I knew it," Nishimura said as he slammed the car into a lower gear and threw it through a hard-right turn. "I knew in my Goddamned bones that Okabe would pull some shit like this sooner or later. He and those limp-dicked assholes he hangs around with have been sulking ever since C.H.A.S.E. came in and started doing the job they couldn't, so now they've decided to work out their bruised egos by playing bumper cars with the umas."
He leaned on the horn until the vehicle ahead swerved aside, then drove through the opening before it had fully cleared.
"Now all of Shibuya has gone to hell, they've pissed off the MRA something fierce, and half the department still has no idea what kind of shitstorm those idiots just invited through the front door." His mustache twitched as he glanced toward the burning helicopter still playing on Kaito's screen. "I sure as hell don't want to be anywhere near Lightning or Red when the smoke clears and they find out which dirtbag started this."
"Something fierce?" Kaito repeated, staring at him. "They just knocked a helicopter out of the sky with a damned RPG."
"From what Lightning told me about the MRA and O.R.O.C.H.I., that barely qualifies as a warning shot," Nishimura replied. "The MRA and the law mix about as well as oil and water, but there's always been an understanding. You chase their runners, you arrest them if you can, and nobody complains when one of them eats pavement during a clean takedown. Lightning and Red made that real clear to the TMPD during their first week here."
His grip tightened around the wheel as another cruiser screamed past in the opposite direction.
"But the moment you stop trying to arrest them and start trying to take them out, the rules change. Red said it happened in Hong Kong, Manila, and New York, and every time it did, the MRA came back with enough firepower to wipe out half a city block. These people can tolerate the law hunting them. They will not tolerate the law executing their runners."
"Shit," Kaito said, looking down at the livestream as another explosion flashed somewhere beyond the smoke. "I would love to see the Chief explain this one. He's covered for Okabe and Narukami more times than either of them deserved, but even he's going to run out of excuses when half of Shibuya is burning."
He locked the phone and looked back toward Nishimura. "Speaking of Lightning and Red, where the hell are they? I figured they would already be in the middle of this mess."
"Beats the hell out of me," Nishimura replied as he cut across two lanes and threw the car through another turn. "But if I know Lightning, she isn't sitting around with her thumb up her ass. She and her girls are waiting for the right opening, and the second they see it, they'll hit the street hard enough to make everyone else wish they had stayed home."
Kaito leaned back against the seat and exhaled through his nose as the sirens around them multiplied. "It's going to be one of those nights, isn't it?"
Nishimura bared his teeth as the glow of another fire reflected across the windshield.
"Yeah," he said. "And rut me sideways if it isn't already one hell of a mess."
****
The office lay in near darkness, illuminated only by the shifting glow of the laptop and the city beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, where Tokyo stretched across the night in ribbons of white, red, and amber light. The screen cast a pale wash over the mahogany desk, polished to a mirror-like sheen, and across the pristine black leather chair in which Rufus sat with quiet composure. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows against the desk and steepled his fingers beneath his chin, his sharp green-gold eyes fixed upon the footage of the final four runners charging toward the blaze of Shibuya Crossing.
Traffic lights, storefront signs, and the pulsing markers on the race feed shifted across his features as he watched them close upon the intersection, though his attention soon settled upon the black-haired girl fighting to hold her position among the remaining competitors. His eyes narrowed slightly, and a faint, knowing smile touched his lips.
"Well, this has become rather more interesting than expected," Rufus murmured, studying Nightingale as she tore down the straight. "Now we shall see whether your little bird possesses the strength to carry herself to the finish, or whether she will prove that your legend died long before anyone had the courage to admit it."
The smile faded as he leaned closer to the screen, his gaze sharpening while the distance between the runners steadily collapsed.
"As for you, Nightingale," he continued, quiet but edged with expectation, "show me that you are worthy of carrying his name."