Saki looked up to see two bikes ride into the field. Looks like Ai and Junko are back from their date… She stood up slowly. "Yo! How was it?"

The two girls stopped their bikes and stepped off, rolling them into the woods. "It was fun," Junko said, smiling. "Everything was so fancy…"

"It's amazing what phones can do nowadays," Ai added. "We took a slow motion video on one of them. It was really cool."

Junko took off her glasses. "You should have seen the televisions, Saki! They were enormous, but also flat!"

"Oh, I bet." Saki had already seen multiple televisions and gotten used to them at this point.

Ai sat down against a tree and sighed. "Anyway, Saki… how long until you're done?"

She laid back down where she had been before. "Another hour or so. I just sprayed on the last coat a few hours ago." She crossed one leg over the other and relaxed. "We should be good a little after sunset." She looked up at the sky, which was just starting to show some stars as the sun lowered behind the mountains across the river.

"Oh, Saki. I almost forgot. We got some text messages while we were out. Turns out that number was Maria," she said.

"Makes sense…"

"Anyway, she wants to know if she should have Sayama sew anything into your coat. Any kanji or pictures or whatever."

Saki brought her hand to her chin. "Huh. What does hers say again?"

She pressed a few buttons to scroll upwards in the text conversation. "It says Dorami on one line, 'Eighth Boss' on the next, then her name vertically."

She waved her hand. "Yeah, just have her do that, but, like, with 'Kamikaze Squad Leader' instead of 'Eighth Boss'. And make sure it's in katakana, not kanji."

"Alright. I'll let her know." She started typing. "You know, the phones they have today type a lot more intuitively. I wish we had one of those, but they're super expensive…"

"When I was alive, we only ever typed on the computer…" Junko said.

"Well, I mean, a phone is still a computer, but it's just really small."

"I know! It's so bizarre…"

"Oh! I got a message back!" Ai exclaimed. "She types really fast…"

"What's it say?" Saki asked.

"It just says okay."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Saki slumped back into the tree. Slow night…

Korosuke's members' outfits were composed of a black crop top polo shirt with purple insides and buttons, black pants with a purple belt, purple boots, and a black mask with a purple heart on it. There was a lot of black and purple in general. Sakura and Tae had each donned these outfits. Sakura, though, had one exception to this dress code. She had been made a custom green polyester sleeve that wrapped around her torso, neck, and upper arm that was designed to allow her to twist the throttle on a bike. It had been put together pretty quickly by one of Korosuke's costume designers and was surprisingly intuitive. Tae, on the other hand, didn't have any intentional modifications to her outfit's design, but she had created a nice crease in her mask from chewing on it from the inside.

Sakura rode on the back of Misa's bike and Tae rode on the back of Kozue's bike. Each one was holding on tightly, but only one was screaming at the top of her lungs as they sped through the city at 100 kilometers per hour. With them were four other members of Korosuke. Finally, they stopped, and Sakura opened her eyes.

"We're here." Misa stood up and swiped Sakura's hands off of her.

She looked around. She was next to a massive asphalt track with plenty of strange lines, shapes, and patterns drawn all over the ground. "What is this place?" Sakura asked.

"It's a driving school," she explained. "We use it to practice at night when no one is around. This is where you'll be learning how to ride a bike."

Kozue pulled up next to her and stepped off her bike as well, leaving Sakura and Tae on the back of each bike.

"Kozue will be teaching you. She's the best driver we have and I expect you two to do everything she says." She motioned to the girl next to her. Appearance-wise, she was just another Korosuke member with orange hair.

"O-okay…"

"Grrrrhhhahhrh…"

She turned and walked over to the four girls behind her. "Which one of you wants to go home?" All of them raised their hands.

Kozue sighed. "Alright, you two. What're your names again?"

"I'm Sakura, and this is Tae-chan…"

"Alright then. Sakura, Tae. I'm Kozue, Korosuke's number one rider. I've been assigned with making sure that you guys are just as good as I am so you can stand up to the zombie bitches in Dorami." She groaned and rubbed her eyes. "Ugh, this is gonna take forever…" she whispered to herself quietly.

"Um… excuse me?" Sakura piped up.

She glared at her. "What?"

"U-um, how long do you think it will take?"

She shrugged. "God, who knows? A few weeks? Maybe more. It depends on how good you two are." She rubbed her nose with her finger and her thumb. "What I do know is my sleep schedule is gonna be so fucked up." She looked past the two zombies. "Hey! Which one of you has the squid?!"

"I got it!" One of the three remaining girls yelled back.

"Bring it here!"

Huh? What are they doing? She turned to look at the girl approaching them, who had a large bag of fried squid under her arm.

"It might be a little cold…"

"That's alright. Here, I just need a piece. Oh, bring me your bike, too."

"What's going on?" Sakura asked.

"I seem to recall you saying that she works in exchange for fried squid. We're taking advantage of that." She took a single piece of squid out of the bag.

"Hhhhhoahahhhhrhhg…" Tae moaned. Her mouth immediately began to water.

"Turn on her bike, Sakura." She climbed onto her own bike and turned it on. She held the squid high above her head.

Sakura leaned over and turned the key. Tae squeezed the brake herself. Oh, she's holding it by herself! She flipped the switch and pressed the start button.

The second that Kozue heard Tae's engine start, she peeled out. Within seconds, she was speeding down the track. Tae twisted the throttle and took off after her, quickly getting adjusted to the controls of the bike.

Sakura watched in disbelief as Kozue weaved around obstacles and took sharp turns and Tae mimicked her actions almost perfectly, just wobbling a bit in a few places.

"GRAAUUUUUGHHHH!" Tae's screech was loud and sharp.

Finally, Kozue pulled back up to Sakura and threw the squid in the air.

Tae didn't bother braking, instead choosing to just jump off the bike and attempt to catch the squid in her mouth. The bike went flying and crashed into a fence. She missed the squid in midair and fell flat on her face. The squid landed on the ground next to her and she immediately dug right in.

"Wow, not bad…" Kozue whispered to herself. She turned to the three girls standing behind her. "One of you go get that bike back." She squatted down and looked at Tae. "The only thing I'm worried about is that you might have a pretty one-track mind…" she stood back up. "We'll have to work on that."

Sakura stared in awe. How on Earth did she do that?

Kozue turned to her. "Think you can do that?"

"Huh? N-no way! Are you kidding me?!"

She shook her head. "I figured you'd say that. A lot of biking is just getting over your fear of it. Seems like she doesn't have any fear whatsoever. She's already decent. You're what I'm worried about."

"H-huh?"

Kozue stepped up to her. "You're so nervous. I watched you ride in the parking lot earlier. It's obvious. To be a biker, you can't be afraid of the bike." She turned away. "It's simply a matter of overcoming your fear." She leaned against her bike. "Run the track. Show me what you can do."

Sakura stared at her. "You can't be serious…"

She sighed. "Do you wanna get those Dorami bitches back or not?"

She looked back down at her bike and sighed. I guess if it's what I have to do… she turned her bike on, using her nose to press the start button. She tied her sleeve around the throttle and took a deep breath. "It's just a matter of overcoming your fear. It's just a matter of overcoming your fear. It's just a matter of overcoming your fear," She repeated to herself quietly. She opened her eyes and took another deep breath. "Here I go…" She slowly pulled back her stump and accelerated forward. She picked up more and more speed and made her way onto the track, approaching the first turn. She twisted the handlebars and found herself falling over, so she naturally shifted her weight into the turn to counteract it. Concentrate! Don't get scared… She kept her eyes forward and completed the turn. Once she straightened out, she smiled from ear to ear. Whoa, I did it! Then she looked down at the speedometer and noticed that she was going 75km/h. She gasped and immediately squeezed her brakes, sliding to the front of the bike and knocking all the wind out of herself. "Ouugh!" She fell to the ground.

"Hey. Sakura. You okay?"

She looked up, wheezing, to see Kozue standing over her. "Y-yeah…" she squeaked out.

"Why'd you stop? You were doing really good."

She regained her breath and looked back down at the ground. "I got scared of how fast I was going." She sighed.

"Come on. Get up." She grabbed Sakura by the arm and pulled her onto her feet. "You were doing a good job. You didn't fall until you started thinking about it."

"W-well… when I wath-" she took off her face mask. "Do we really have to wear these? They're super annoying…"

"Just wear it when Misa's around. No one'll tell."

She put the face mask in her pocket. "When I was going around, I was fine… I was determined to be a good biker. But then I relaxed, and that's when it all fell apart."

"Well, keep going at it. With enough tries, you'll be able to relax while riding, too. Subconsciously." She pulled the bike up. "For now, concentrate where you have to. It won't come easily to you. Especially you."

"W-what does that mean?"

"Oh, nothing." She turned back towards Tae and the three other girls. "Keep running the track until you can do it without thinking about it."

"B-but-"

She turned. "Did I stutter?"

Sakura shrunk back into her shirt. "N-no…"

"Alright. Then you'll keep running this track, over and over. All night. As long as it takes."

As long as it takes…