OK Number 72 - Once More Unto The Breach

The weather in the Brazilian morning was black, with no sky penetrating the blacky black black black that sat over the black rolling hills of black Sao Paulo. It was wet, but not raining, the moisture in the air simply sitting suspended above them, as if time was halted for the Japanese pilots deserved torture.

Kallen did not sleep all night. Not one wink between nine at night and four in the morning, when she finally gave up and had a shower.

She couldn't help but see the outstretched leg behind the curtain.

She sat in the shower, boiling and burning the rest of her skin away so that she might become a being scarred over her entire body, her ugliness entirely exposed, her scalp balded, her entire form the red colour and scaly texture of her arms.

This did not work, and by six o'clock she gave up.

The hotel looked out over the entire circuit, and she gazed down. The Senna Esses dipped and cambered away, with the Reta Oposta heading out into the horizon, as far into the horizon as could be seen and, for all Kallen knew, on forever, out and away from this place.

God, if she could just follow it, follow it away into the horizon.

But she wouldn't.

Sure as she knew in the morning overlooking the track that she would, at high noon, she stood over her Gloucester and knew what it would be used for in one hour. And knowing that she would do it, not just willingly but enthusiastically. She would pull the trigger.

She did not step into the weapon so much as she strapped it on, like another layer of overalls. It was so tightly moulded around her that it would be most appropriate to saw that she was wearing it. Buried within the folds of fabric and carbon, Kallen sat and welled and waited for the end of days, the end of all time, looking out over her steering wheel to the vanishing point at turn one.

She couldn't stop thinking about Xingke. It wouldn't be his last race, but it could be his last season finale. He had looked so defeated, even before the race had begun. It would be so easy. Xingke wouldn't even have to know, the illusion like a Make-A-Wish parting gift. A conversation with Naoto, Suzaku, Gino and Rolo, that would be all that was needed. And he would never know it even happened.

"Kallen?"

She blinked, wondering why the radio was suddenly so muffled, before realising it wasn't her radio. Standing over her chassis, cane firmly held between his hands and forehead scrunched, was the fragile, vulnerable skeleton of Lelouch Lamperouge, who looked as if he weighed about six ounces from all the meat on his bones and how much he was shaking.

Kallen blinked, and asked, feeling uncomfortably prickly, "What do you want?"

Lelouch's face morphed into several different forms, as if his muscles had no idea which expression to respond with and was running through every expression it knew in rapid fire to find one that sat comfortably, eventually settling on a reflective, downward pensive look, troubled eyes cast below even Kallen's level, with a bit lip completing the conflicted expression, as he doubtlessly faced several competing pulls going into this finale.

After some time, he settled on parting words.

"Good luck."

With that, Lelouch moved on, leaving Kallen somewhat confused. It came with some ring, the ring of forgiveness, but not endorsement, or a wish for success. There was no doubt who Lelouch wanted to win; his brother Rolo

The stories if his brother won… Kallen couldn't even imagine. The Prodigal Son, sent to finish his elder brothers unfinished business, his work ended too soon. Certainly, Lelouch was not as talented as his brother, at least at driving, but after what she had done to Lelouch, if Rolo was charging through, would she stick to the inside? Lelouch had been dealt an injustice at her hand, and Kallen had not made amends, certainly not for the grievous injuries she had dealt him.

With every encounter since the day it happened, Lelouch was unravelling before Kallen to reveal a fierce, vulnerable human, charged with all the colours the heart could contain, suppressed into a silent, conniving anger, never quite boiling, but never allowing him a moments rest. Indeed, he looked like he hadn't slept in years, eternally anxious, twitchy, uneasy, unable to rest, consciously aware of his vulnerabilities and his points of attack.

So vulnerable in his form, and so incredibly human.

Of course he was, Kallen silently roared, livid with herself. Of course, it was hardly as if Lelouch was some cardboard cutout, a villain-of-the-week. It was the height of arrogance to assume that Lelouch was flat, that Suzaku was without any sort of internal struggle or drive or fight. Suzaku had revealed much of his internal struggles to Kallen, and it was self-obsessed and small-minded to assume any less of Lelouch, who was so impossibly human. He had grown up in much the same situation as Kallen had, and while he had settled on a different ethic, his drivers were no less three dimensional, and no less borne of the impact his life experience had had on him, here being the drive to secure his families safety, make sure that Nunnally and Rolo would not need to worry or concern themselves with adult affairs, would be able to pursue their lifes ambitions without worrying about what Lelouch had had to, to allow Nunnally to pursue her dreams without Lelouch's limitations, and for Rolo to pursue his.

Rolo… Rolo was not a bad driver. In his first year, he was in the title race at the last round, and qualified on the front row. It took a non-zero quantity of 'right stuff' to do that. And what a story.

There were so many stories, so many more deserving champions who needed this. Kallen was certainly not going to keel over, was certainly in no need of any more self-confidence than she already had undue claim over.

Rolo was the natural heir to Lelouch and his unfinished business. Taking up the helm of his injured brother under his stead, it would be just desserts for the young Frenchman to become the first rookie World Champion, do what Lelouch could not, do what Lelouch had been prevented from doing. For him to win, almost a year to the day of Lelouch's tragedy, in a family team, at the same circuit where their life had been turned upside down… goodness, Kallen was no poet, but it would be nothing if not justice.

Xingke, tragically mortal. A star that had burned so vivid, so flamingly bright, but only lasted half as long. If he had stopped racing as soon as he had been diagnosed, his life would have been extended by at least four year,s as the physical stresses and constant exposure to g forces was taken away. But he burned twice as bright, and would last half as long. Xingke had sacrificed four years of his life for this, a raise no other title contender could call, and in what could be his last Brazilian Grand Prix, Xingke walking away with the title would vindicate his struggles and his pain.

Gino, the man for whom the bell had waited so long to toll. He had waited patiently as a saint under Cornelia for his turn at the championship run. He had never complained, he had simply done his best to facilitate her success, in full faith that his service would be rewarded with service in kind. He had worked to earn this shot for years, and for the first time in his career, went into the finale in a position to possibly reap the benefits. A reward for years of patience and devotion lay just within grasp, just within sight and sound for Gino.

Suzaku, whose emotional journey this year had been a marathon unto itself, rivalling Kallen's. To have his sense of self undermined maliciously by an attempt to sabotage his season, to have to go through such an emotional reckoning as that night in Shinjuku, and to come out the other side not only with a more complete understanding, but with the confidence to bulldoze the second half of the season… it was the Hero's Journey. He had touched the abyss of darkness at Italy, and emerged, and was nearly home to seal his second title. In spite of everything, in spite of a wasted first half of the season, in spite of sabotage, in spite of everything this season had tried to throw at him, Suzaku would not be denied easily. No matter what crises he had to come with, the fundamental drive to win, like a machine, would simply keep him going no matter what.

And, finally, Naoto. Oh, dear god, Naoto, singlehandledly disproving Suzaku's axiom. There was not anyone who worked harder that Kallen knew than Naoto. Naoto, who had worked lord knows how many jobs to keep himself and Kallen afloat. Naoto, who had persevered and carved, fought for tooth and nail a career in single seaters with barely any money. Naoto, who had had to set aside funds to educate Kallen and keep her racing, to feed and house her. Naoto, who had dealt endlessly with complaining teachers bemoaning Kallen for skipping class and never putting in effort, who had never complained. Kallen only found out that they had complained to him at all by seeing their note in the bin.

He had done the work of raising Kallen, handling all of her antics and delinquency, working several full time jobs, racing in and out every single weekend without fail, and not once in almost a decade did he fail to prepare one meal.

He deserved a thousand championships if they were awarded proportionally to effort.

And, just as she was thinking about him, there he was, intensely discussing some minutiae of tyre strategy. His hands were gesticulating aggressively as he stood, nine points off Tohdoh, not only the best positioned to challenge the Chinese pilot, but in the best position he ever had been to win the title.

But, in disproving Suzakus maxim, he had accidentally proven Kallens. In the five races they had so far been partnered, Suzaku had finished ahead in every single one, and won outright four of those, only finishing second in one due to Kallen's superhuman effort. Just as Kallen had predicted, inviting Suzaku into the team had put Naoto's perfect season in jeopardy. The heir to the team, after Tohdoh had been burned half to death, after wresting affirmatively the status of first driver through a hitherto unseen run of pace, he had earned the position as the leading driver, the one the team dedicated its efforts to. And yet, in inviting in Suzaku, he had ruined his own party, and now stood on the precipice of grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory.

Kallen thought about Xingke again. The point Kallen had made to Naoto, that Naoto had ignored. No one had no idea whether they would have another chance after today.

No one ever thought it was going to happen to them. Death, misfortune, a slump in performance, or whatever, those were all things that happened to other people. A sudden arrival, that blew you out of water. Just like Tohdoh had in 2017, Naoto had assumed that, while he was abstractly aware that it did occur at large, that sort of rude awakening only happened to other people.

For all Kallen knew, she could suffer a horrifying crash at the opening round of the 2020 season, like her brother had at Japan in 2017, that would spell the end of her career. For all she knew, she could become diseased, like Xingke, and have her fitness atrophy away, and her pace and performance with it. For all she knew, a whole new hotshot none of the current grid had even heard of could turn up and blow everyone else away. For all she knew, a meteorite could come crashing down on the Monday and kill her. She had no way to know what could happen tomorrow. The only certainty was the fierce urgency of now, the understanding that for all she knew, today could be her last chance. Today could be anyone's last chance.

Today was very likely Naoto's last chance.

Next year, Suzaku would destroy him. Naoto was too nice for his own good.

Kallen had said that Naoto had no idea whether this year would be his last chance, that no one knew whether this chance would be any of their last. Naoto, now joined by Suzaku, needed to take this chance now, because Kallen now firmly believed it would never arrive at her brothers door ever again. The door would close, and lock behind it.

Because, in the end, it was not a World Championship for Teams. That was dealt with in the WCC. It wasn't rewarding who was the best team player, or the best ol' sport. It was for the best single driver, the height of individual achievement, the memento that you, alone, had gone out against nineteen other drivers and beaten all of them. Helping Suzaku had been antithetical to this goal, as he boosted the most singleminded driver in the paddock.

And Kallen felt so horrid. Naoto had done so much for her, and yet she had not been able to protect him from himself. It was like watching a slow motion car crash, complete with the sense of inevitable dread.

Of course he would try to help Suzaku, Kallen gritted. He had helped her no matter how irritating a task Kallen had negligently made it. It had taken Kallen beating Lelouch to within an inch of his life for Naoto to throw up his hands. If Naoto wasn't helping Suzaku, he wouldn't be Naoto. No matter how much Kallen might grow frustrated at how he was going to be his own worst enemy, she would not have expected anything less of him.

Because, fundamentally, he was a good person, a selfless one, not one who would fight ruthlessly for the prize of ultimate individual achievement. Today would be his last chance, this Kallen believed fundamentally.

Naoto, who had been standing in the center of Kallen's gaze now for almost half a minute, had grown frustrated with his engineer, and was parting, running his hand through his hair before he stretched his muscles. It was by chance that his eyes flitted across Kallen's helmet, with the visor flipped up and eyes exposed, and noticed those eyes staring back at his.

The poleman, visibly conflicted, snapped his head to the side for a moment, exposing his hammy, scarred flesh as his bit his lip. Kallen wasn't the only one with something on her mind, clearly, as Naoto visibly had something he wanted to say before they parted for the last time before the Grand Prix.

He visibly went back and forward, not wanting to leave anything unsaid against his need to focus, however he eventually sighed and walked over to the car and stood over the B pillar, breathless and irritated.

"Just one thing, before we go." he spluttered, clearly having thought about this for a long time in how pent up his voice was and yet only just now finding the words to express himself. "He wasn't selfish."

Kallen blinked, completely caught off guard, before replying, unable to think to say anything else, "You what?"

"Tohdoh" Naoto bit. "He was not selfish. You talked about it at the hospital, that grr, hurr hum, grit, I'm all in it for me, the winners are all like this, that I should just look out for me. That I shouldn't take Suzaku onboard, that I shouldn't be thinking of what's good for the team, only what's good for me. That all the big winners were like that. Well Tohdoh wasn't."

Kallen now understood what Naoto was on about, though was no less hostile to it once it became clear, shouting back over the engine that "Tohdoh kept you under his thumb without a care for you for years, and tried to do the same with me. That won him two titles, what are you on about?"

"Who do you think spoke up for me after China?" Naoto replied, furious in his defence of the champion. "Tohdoh threatened to quit if they didn't back me. He then came up to my trailer and gave a good bit of advice, and then he showed me all of his tricks over the next week, so that the team could do well even if he was in a bit of a rut. When I explained… where my head was at, he was completely blindsided. He was… shocked, he stood by me, both while he was a teammate and then afterward. Why do you think I was so scared out of my mind at Hungary, that I would ask you to go back in there?"

Naoto had to take a breath, as he shook his head. "God… Kallen, he wasn't selfish, you're using someone who didn't exist to justify it this idea… arggh… you're chasing the ghost of someone who never existed, this idea, your mental image of a Tohdoh that never was."

Kallen looked on as her brother emptied his skin and eyes onto the hydrophobic sheen of the Gloucester's carbon, immobilised, a literally captive audience to her own personal horror show, her own solipsistic arguments being shown for what they were, based on a phantom, someone who was never real.

And Naoto would not be stopped, continuing "And I'll show you. I'll beat Suzaku, and I'll do it in the same car. I will show it's possible, to win, and do it my way. Just you watch."

Kallen was not able to reply, simply sitting slack jawed as Naoto turned away and began to strap on his helmet and HANS device. Overwhelmed… she felt cocooned in her all consuming thoughts, she was melting into liquid, hot, boiling, the liquid was turning to gas and slipping away into the black.

Naoto… Naoto, Kallen had long known him to be a man of fierce driving emotions and sensations, his spirit painted in such rich vibrance. He would be the first to bemoan someone attempting to play both sides, or take a neutral ground, not having a strong opinion. He was a man of fierce beliefs.

But he was going to lose. Suzaku had defeated him thoroughly in the period they had been together, and if anyone believed in the possibility of recovery and redemption, it was Kallen, but Naoto was going to lose.

She could absolutely not contest the urge to drive the way that took the grasp of you, ignore the instructions and the "right" way to do it, and drive guided by the gut. It was the Kōzuki way it seemed, the pair of them stubbornly charting their own course through treacherous waters.

But Naoto was going to lose.

Kallen shook her head as she tried to think clearly, finding herself unable. Naoto was the lone crusader, marching alone in what seemed to Kallen to be a foolish quest. Obsession with driving as a pure, honourable thing, limiting yourself to that conduct that was deemed classically appropriate, an unwillingness to drive ugly, an unwillingness to drive selfishly, an unwillingness to push beyond a certain, conscious point, when others would… it was an arms race that Naoto was going to lose.

The prize, after all, did not go to the most honorable participant.

But… Tohdoh… had not been selfish. When he was fighting Kallen after Monaco... he was earnestly of the belief that it was what was best for the team.

And yet, Kallen would be hard pressed to say he did not deserve what he had earned.

But deserving, deserving was the key. No one was owed a championship. It was not a gift. It was not a Make-A-Wish token. It was a reward, not an award. One was not awarded a title because one had a good story. A championship had to be earned, over a year, fighting and biting and clawing to come out with the most points, to use every bit of skill to face against nineteen other drivers over an entire year, and beat every single one of them. That was it; all one needed to deserve a championship was score the most points, but no matter what else, you needed the most points. Over seventeen races, the deserving winner would be whoever was the fastest over all of them.

And at that? Kallen had driven seventy banzai laps of Monaco, blasted through the four stop at Britain, risked it all at Belgium, and destroyed her body to win at Japan.

Just as Naoto, Rolo, Xingke, Suzaku, and Gino had compelling stories, this was Kallen's story. She was the protagonist of her narrative, and she knew what she would have to do. This was her story.

Kallen deserved this. She sighed, and breathed, as she tried to internalise what seemed an impossible message. She deserved this. She stripped back every bit of her that told her that she could wait, that others needed it more. Once again, she was clay, and she simply remoulded herself. It wasn't awarded to the people who needed it emotionally, or had worked the hardest. It was the reward for being the fastest driver of the year.

Kallen was the fastest. She deserved this. She had fought for and earned it. No matter what, it could not be said she was an illegitimate champion. She had not reversed into it, or wandered in by accident. She had driven a championship calibre year, and deserved this. She had missed two entire races due to a ban, and was still in the hunt in spite of it. She had been the fastest.

This was the difference, the fundamental difference Kallen determined, between her and her brother. The nub, the essence, that critical difference. Kallen believed fundamentally in her own victory. It was tautological that she would win the 2019 World Drivers Championship. It would be entirely reasonable, in Kallen's deliberately warped thinking, for the administrators to call off the race and hand her the trophy now.

Naoto, in Kallen's more reductionist moments, might be described as weak. He evaded the question, he obfuscated, "perhaps one day if I string a good season together I could win if I was on my game and everything went right. I could win if I was lucky."

She shook her head. Bullshit. You were either champion material or you weren't.

If you had to ask, if you weren't certain, or mulling it over, you weren't.

Kallen knew in her soul that she was. She had been hunting it for so long, now was not the time to hesitate, not at the final hurdle. There had been so many obstacles, both external and self imposed. Kallen knew who she was, and was not deluded as to the fact that she had traits that still at this late date held her back, that to this date could still be improved. She was cruel, Lelouch knew that.

She thought of a quote, she didn't know who it was from, that Euphemia had told her. It went "We think of men as antiheroes, as capable of occupying an intense and fascinating moral grey area; of being able to fall, and rise, and fall again, but still be worthy of love on some fundamental level, because if it was the world and its failings that broke them, then we surely must owe them some sympathy. But women aren't allowed to be broken by the world; or if we are, it's the breaking that makes us villains. Wronged women turn into avenging furies, inhuman and monstrous: once we cross to the dark side, we become adversaries to be defeated, not lost souls in need of mending. If female goodness is only ever an inherent quality - something we're born both with and embody - then once lost, it must necessarily be lost forever, a severed limb we can't regrow. Whereas male goodness, by virtue of being an acquired quality - something bestowed through the kindness of women, earned through right action or learned through struggle - can just as necessarily be gained and lost multiple times without being tarnished, like a jewel we might pawn in hardship, and later reclaim."

This was going towards a point Euphemia was expediting regarding the social expectations of different genders, and capacity for social forgiveness. Kallen had not agreed with the crux of Euphemia's point, that she was through her good works entitled to any social redemption, and she still believed that. However, a tangential point Euphemia had made lay within Kallen's psyche.

She was not cold. She was not that character about whom the quote was first penned, the cold, heartless vixen of literature, emotionless, frosty, faultless, tall. She was short. She was scrappy. She was a bastard child. She had dark skin and red hair. Her heart may have flaws, but it existed. It burned hot, so hot that far from freezing steel, it could melt it. For all that could be said disparagingly, and accurately, of Kallen, passionless, sterile and heartless were perhaps as far away from the mark as one could get. Calculating, cynical… no.

She could be redeemed. There was some value to her character. She was worthy of it, on some fundamental level. She was still worthy of success.

She was worthy of a championship. She was a champion; the next two hours would simply be the act of playing out the string to materialise this inescapable, inevitable reality. This was her story, all of this had been her quest, and she reassured herself of her need to see this adventure through.

She took a breath, and let it settle. She had no idea if she would ever get this chance again; every story around her stood as testament of that. For all intents and purposes, today was the last day of all humanity, the last chance to leave some mark before all of Earth was obliterated. All she could count on was the fact of today, that she was here and she was in the fight. Whatever of the future, filled to the brim with unknowns. She had a grasp, some feeble grip on today, and her agency within that fierce concept of now. She would make it hers, while she still could. Who tomorrow might belong to was anyone's guess, and so she might as well make today her own, having no certainty that the opportunity to seize her day would present itself ever again.

Under such a pretence, any opportunity was to be seized, no matter who she was fighting. And she knew that everyone else was fighting under such a pretense. Xingke at any rate had made it extremely clear. He knew what he had to do, he had the agency to do it. If he wanted it, he would have to fight for it.

He knew this. In fact, he had welcomed it.

She breathed. There it went again, the faultless logic leading to the obvious conclusion. She was cruel, no doubt. Lelouch knew that. She could be selfless, Tohdoh knew that. And, above anything else, she would not back down from a fight, to a fault. She had to become hard, bitterly hard, without losing any tenderness. An impossible goal, perhaps, but Kallen had never turned down an impossible goal in her life.

And she didn't intend on starting now.

If this was her last chance, she was not letting it slip from her grasp. Eyes brimmed with tears, she bitterly slammed down her visor.

All of these emotions, regrets, worries, all the dozens of voices clamouring for attention, drowning her, Xingke was dying, Naoto would be bulldozed by Suzaku next year, Rolo and Lelouch were fighting the upward battle after Kallen's violence, all of them, all these voices vanquished with the swipe of a helmet lid with the heel of her hand. This was her story.

And Kallen wasn't there anymore.

This is it. No more games. No more posturing. The 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix begins now. This is it; the next three hundred and five kilometers will decide everything.

Looking forward to watching it with you. In the meantime, please leave a review, and buckle in.

Here we go.

~G1ll3s