"Besides the threats to revoke our licenses and points, the bastards even threatened to withhold our paychecks and sponsorships too. The teams who chose to stay were running on shoestrings so Lancia and Peugeot literally couldn't afford to pull out like Ford and Audi did."
"How could they... So what happened next?"
"We stayed. And even though no one was happy, we saw Portugal through to the end... though I remained in second place. At least until Monte Carlo."
The weeks between Portugal and the next leg, Monte Carlo, pass by much faster than Souryuu had expected. The absolute disaster that was the Portugal rally no longer crosses her mind in the hours after she's stepped off the plane and then after a brief bout of sleep at the hotel, she's back in the driver's seat for a run up the first stage.
Unlike Portugal though, the skies over the mountain passes of Monte Carlo seem to be constantly overcast with a constant chill in the air, relieved only by the ambient heat of the Delta S4's cockpit.
The engine is idling away with its choppy sputter as Souryuu's waiting for it to warm up. Hiryuu straps herself in before promptly placing a half-filled cup of water in the divot behind the gear shifter.
It takes Souryuu less than a second to guess what her sister's intention is.
"You do realize that it's going to spill regardless of how I drive, right?"
"Then try not to spill all of it." Hiryuu shrugs.
This isn't the first time herself and Souryuu have ran at Monte Carlo and it certainly won't be the last. By now they've already developed a routine of planning out their recce runs on the stages at the first available opportunity.
The roads here are so much like the touge passes in Gunma Prefecture back in the Sakuran homeland, with the only difference being the sheer amount of snow and and frost. Souryuu's always preferred asphalt to dirt and gravel – it serves as a throwback of sorts to all those times she's gone drifting in the touge routes around her former base and Gunma itself.
Souryuu goes through the motions of revving to a certain limit before dropping the clutch, though this time she takes off at a more relaxed pace than normal. This is a recce run after all, there's no real need to thrash the Delta S4 around. Yet.
That could wait until Stage One of Rallye Monte Carlo opens in two days' time.
"You know, nee-sama, you're looking confident. That look of yours says we're going to come out on top." Hiryuu says, eyeing Souryuu's expressions in the mirror and noting that her sister's unperturbed by the fact that they still came in second-best after the debacle at Portugal ended.
"Well, we definitely will." Souryuu shrugs, shifting up into the next gear. "Think about it. The Ford team's cars and Akagi's 037 are mid-engined and rear wheel drive – not a good idea on these kinds of roads so they can't push as hard as usual. We on the other hand have our S4, which is better suited for these conditions because we're all-wheel drive, which leaves Zeppelin and the Audi Quattros as our main threat."
"Huh I thought Akagi and that crane would be getting an S4 as well?"
"Theirs had teething troubles with its engine. And all the spare chassis were leased out to privateers, which leaves us as the sole S4 crew in this team. So yeah. We pretty much have this in the bag."
The road ahead straightens out into a series of gentle curves. Souryuu shifts up yet again, from fourth into fifth gear before applying full throttle with the S4's engine roaring to life.
"I hope your confidence isn't unfounded. The engineers said similar things when they gave us this beast yet ever since then, we somehow always ended up second-best."
"Have a little faith in me, won't you?"
Snow had started to fall at the very moment they reached the end of the course, which went uphill, to the peak of one of the myriad mountains that comprised the southern half of the French Alps. The cup's half-empty by the time Souryuu kills the engine and perhaps it's a miracle of sorts that its contents aren't all over Hiryuu's pace notes – which are now lying on the dashboard as their owner's stepped out of the car, right after chugging down the remaining liquid in the cup.
"This reminds me of Myogi in winter." Hiryuu notes. "All we're missing are the Sakura trees."
"A beautiful sight, to be sure. Ah I'm starting to miss our wintertime races against those hashiriya punks on the touge already." For a moment, Souryuu feels as if she's stepped out of the car and straight into watercolor painting by one of her fellow KANSEN, a white haired foxgirl by the name of Tosa, who now makes a living as an artist back in the homeland.
Both Souryuu and Hiryuu stare out at the various shades of white and green comprising that of the valleys and ridges surrounding them, contrasting with the grey of the overcast sky above along with the occasional patches of blue that showed through gaps in the cloud cover.
Souryuu's gaze turns from the sky to the ground as she then wipes at her frosted up glasses with the fabric of her racing gloves, already feeling the faint pangs of homesickness. A passing glance at her wristwatch causes her to raise an eyebrow. Time as it is, is ever fleeting and Souryuu's watch indicates that it's close to dusk.
"Come on, we need to get back before the sun sets."
Sightseeing can wait. The recce and preparations for stage one of Rallye Monte Carlo are a bigger priority.
Any racer, be it touge or rally, knows that for some reason known only to the gods, the drive back downhill is always faster than the uphill drive. And just like on the uphill drive, Souryuu forgoes drifting and powersliding for conventional grip driving to minimize the wear on the Delta S4's tires.
And at some point during the return trip downhill, Souryuu realizes they're not alone on the course. There's a car in the distance, on the uphill run and it's coming in fast. Really fast.
Whoever this is, they have to be another competitor doing their own recce since the roads leading up to this very pass had been closed off to public access.
Souryuu squints, just barely able to make out the lines of the oncoming car. There's no mistaking those bricklike headlights and the four overlapping rings plastered across the grille – It's an Audi Quattro. And it's some evolution variant too, judging from the way the bumpers and wheel archers are so heavily flared out along with the massive rear spoiler.
There's something oddly familiar about this Audi, Souryuu thinks.
And at their respective approach speeds, both cars by amazing coincidence, slow down simultaneously on one of the course's wide turns, just enough for their crews to get a glimpse of each other, their respective expressions comprising equal parts surprise and amusement.
It's Zeppelin and Strasser who wave them on, with the Sakuran crew wordlessly waving back and in the span of a few seconds, both the Quattro and the Delta S4 are but distant specks in each other's mirrors.
There's no hotel bar or café table awaiting the Sakurans the moment they return to the trailers that made up the drivers' living quarters for this leg of the Monte Carlo rally. Instead, there's the rather familiar setup of crates and footlockers surrounding a camping heater with the crews of each team's cars crowding around it.
Souryuu finds a metal flask thrust into her hands, courtesy of St. Louis. "Hot bourbon. It'll help with the chill." says the Eagle driver.
The amber colored liquid within has been heated and upon first sip, tastes sweet and spicy with a strong hint of woodsmoke and vanilla. Souryuu goes for a second shot before passing it on to Hiryuu, who then passes it on to Shoukaku along with a copy of the pace notes.
Eventually the flask finds its way back to St. Louis then passed on to Brooklyn who chugs the remainder without a second thought. Shoukaku and Hiryuu head off into the Lancia trailer to deliberate on the pace notes and how best to tackle the course.
"Portugal was hell on us all." Souryuu says, seemingly out of the blue. "But if it is any consolation, at least we're in Monte Carlo now where the madness stops."
"Shit happens, in war and on the course." Brooklyn says with a shrug. "Admittedly putting that disaster behind us is easier said than done but me and Lucky Lou? We definitely ain't going back there, next season."
"Amen to that." St. Louis chimes in. "Like half of us here, I've personally been looking forward to Monte Carlo. Driving down here, reminds me of my street racing days whenever I got forward deployed to Yokosuka."
"And we met on a random night on Akina pass." Souryuu chuckles. "And then it was Myogi, Usui, Irohazaka…"
"And here we are, attempting to beat each other one more time." St. Louis breaks into a smirk, one that Souryuu returns for a brief moment before returning to her usual impassive expression.
"We still have a couple of days before the first stage of Rallye Monte Carlo officially opens." Akagi says. "It may not be as much of a madhouse as you-know-where but we must still be prepared. We should get our recce runs done and over with by the end of tomorrow and we should have our respective strategies in place ASAP."
"Akagi-senpai is right." Souryuu nods in agreement. "Hopefully by the time Stage One kicks off, we'll be ready, willing and able. May the best team win. Godspeed."