This is crazy…
The first impression that Zuikaku had of the gloss white Lancia was that with its bodywork and the blue-red stripes it packed, punctuated by the 'Martini' emblems on the doors, it looked no different from half of the heavily modified cars she'd raced against on Tokyo's C1 Loop in that midnight blue Z of hers.
Unlike her competition on the streets however, the car's resemblance to the original Lancia Delta, was only purely superficial. Under its guise of a mini city car, the Lancia, specifically an old Delta S4 was a pureblooded rallying machine, its interior spartan, with almost no trace of fabric or leather in sight, save for the driver and co-driver's seats and the silver gleam of bare aluminium and the yellowed tan of exposed kevlar. The space where the rear passenger seats would have been was taken up by the engine itself, a tiny 1.8 liter four-cylinder block with both turbo and supercharger bolted on, boosting it to a monstrous 550 horsepower, with much of the remaining space taken up by the cooling system that pretty much prevented the engine from turning into a hi-power hand grenade should whoever that's behind the wheel decide to push it hard.
However, this particular Delta S4 wasn't the car Souryuu had driven back in her rallying days – that one had been totalled in her last rally before she had retired. This one was a spare chassis from a privateer team that faded into memory as the years went on which had been left to gather dust in a warehouse but was painstakingly restored back into full racing condition.
And the last thing Zuikaku expected is for her senpai to let her go for a run behind the wheel of this Sardegnan rocket-sled. And it wasn't up Mount Haruna at the crack of dawn, no. Rather, Souryuu had arranged for them to go somewhere further north the day before.
Which is how Zuikaku finds herself tearing down the gravel roads of the Hokkaido countryside on a chilly spring morning somewhere near the outskirts of Sapporo city under a light cover of fog.
The Lancia feels so much lighter and sprightlier than her Z, the forest outside blurring by in green streaks while each tap of the accelerator draws an immediate surge of power through all four wheels, punctuated by the supercharger's whine and the fluttering of the turbo. Yet despite the fact that the car has power going to all four wheels, Zuikaku, even with her superhuman reflexes and strength befitting that of a KANSEN, finds that holding on to the Delta S4's proverbial reins is proving to be… challenging, to say the least, as Zuikaku finds herself struggling to keep the car on-track in the corners and not clip a tree or spin out.
"You're holding back too much." Souryuu says, not even looking up as her right hand glides across the open pages of her notebook, hastily scribbling her pace notes with that same calm demeanor Zuikaku's often seen when Souryuu's deep into her hanafuda matches. "Nervous?"
"500 horsepower on something that's 400 pounds lighter than my Z and goes faster than I can think? What's not to be nervous about?" Zuikaku's words quaver, earning a muffled chuckle and a shake of the head from Souryuu next to her.
"Come on, you've handled cars with more power than this thing."
"Well yes but not on dirt!"
"Relax. I used to drive these things. I'll talk you through it."
And right as if on cue, the track starts to curve left, meandering along until the road dips sharply behind an outcrop in a hairpin turn.
And just like she'd done on the touge passes near the base, Zuikaku hits the brakes (yet the Delta S4 doesn't feel like it's actually slowing down) and with a flick of the wheel, uses the car's momentum to propel it through the curves and around the hairpin.
"Keep your foot on the throttle and just flow with it. The car will do the rest."
There's no fighting the S4, unlike that old Fairlady Z. There's very little of that synchronicity where the car will go where the driver steers it to, compared to the Group C cars she'd raced at Le Mans. All Zuikaku can really do is just give the S4 a nudge in the right direction as she's about to enter the turns and then do as Souryuu says and keep her foot planted on the pedals, flooring the throttle once she's at the apex of the hairpin. Immediately, the car surges forward upon exit as if it was tugged forward by an invisible string, leaving a massive cloud of dirt and gravel in its wake and Zuikaku's grip on the wheel tightens even more.
"Jump incoming. Hold on to your helmet." Souryuu says, in that casual tone of hers, still not looking up from her pace notes. Zuikaku doesn't respond verbally, instead keeping the Lancia pointed straight as it crests the jump. And for the span of two seconds (which felt like an eternity in the haze of adrenaline), the crane feels almost weightless – until the rebound from the car landing back on its wheels jolts her from her near-reverie.
The following minutes fly by in a blur. Zuikaku finds herself slumped back in the driver's seat, arms quivering from exertion as she's trying to catch her breath.
"You alright?" Souryuu asks, looking up from her notes for what seems to be the first time in memory.
"Y-Yeah." Zuikaku nods.
"Such is the power of these beasts… At least before Group B died." Souryuu says, her calm, collected tone turning wistful with each word.
"Group B… Shoukaku-nee always talked a lot about it and those times she drove with Akagi-senpai in the WRC back in those days."
"You should have been there. It was every bit as mad as it was awesome. Consider yourself lucky I myself was a Group B racer back in the day."
Zuikaku can swear she sees a glint of sorts in her senpai's cerulean eyes behind those glasses.
"My turn." Souryuu says. They swap positions without so much as a word after Zuikaku kills the engine and then Zuikaku finds Souryuu's notebook landing in her lap.
"Let's take five before we go." Souryuu adds. She reaches for her pipe from the glove compartment, lighting it and taking in a quick drag. Souryuu closes her eyes, leaning so far back as if she's molding her back into the shape of the bucket seat's rest. Time seems to pause as her thoughts drift.
Losing herself in her racing thoughts, Souryuu finds herself still in the driver's seat. It's another chilly morning like this but the sea of pine trees and the dirt roads were no more, having given way to weather-worn tarmac, on the edge of a scrub-dotted cliff with glimpses of the ocean in the distance.
She's definitely not in Hokkaido anymore, that's for sure. No… this oddly familiar mountain pass is somewhere near the Mediterranean. Corsica? Monte Carlo? Souryuu can't tell.
Souryuu's flying down the sweeping turns of a mountain road, the wheels of the Delta S4 just mere inches from going off the tarmac with literally nothing to stop the car should Souryuu go just a few degrees too wide in either direction or fail to brake in time. It doesn't take her long either to realise it's not Zuikaku next to her too, but her own sister, Hiryuu in the co-driver's seat, with the roaring of the Lancia's engine being the only thing she hears, drowning out Hiryuu's rattling off the pace notes over comms.
A left turn in the road. Surely an easy one to navigate.
Yet as she attempts to slow down, Souryuu finds that pressing on the brake pedal feels like she's stamping on a sponge.
And then lifting off the gas does little to slow the car down.
Souryuu attempts to flick the wheel, to use the car's inertia to make the turn yet somehow she goes too wide and within the blink of an eye, everything suddenly feels weightless.
Souryuu feels the car tumbling instead of hearing the sounds of its composite body panels crumpling. And as if frozen in place, she can only really brace for impact as she sees and hears the windshield cracking in starburst patterns with each roll…
Someone's calling out to her. It's not Hiryuu. No, it makes no sense for her own sister to address her as Senpai.
It's someone else's voice.
Souryuu blinks. She's back in Hokkaido. The car is unscathed with barely even a scratch on its windshield and her pipe is still in hand. Zuikaku's looking up at her with a mix of curiosity and concern.
"Souryuu-senpai… You spaced out. Are you alright?"
"Yeah." Souryuu takes in a much longer drag, then releases the smoke after a few seconds in a drawn out sigh.
Zuikaku notes that Souryuu's got a certain faraway look in her eyes – the usual sign of someone having seen things that others wouldn't believe, but she doesn't press any further. Until Souryuu speaks up, sensing her junior's curiosity.
"The day Group B died was the day I decided to walk away from rallying for good."