Act: 8 Chapter: 1 | Phase Two

The following day, the team returned to Narukami. In Yougou, Collei was back to her usual downhill routines after finishing a delivery run. The morning air was crisp and silent, save for the sharp wail of her AE86 echoing off the cliffside—an angry, high-strung war cry as she tore through the descent with brutal precision. Her foot was heavy, her hands light, and the lines she carved were surgical.

This wasn't the same girl who once white-knuckled her way down the mountain by muscle memory alone. Collei had transformed into something else entirely. Her grip on the wheel was relaxed, yet exacting; her gaze locked miles ahead as if the road whispered its secrets to her before each turn. Her Eight-Six—rebuilt, reborn, and now imbued with the soul of a racer—responded like a living extension of her will.

As she approached one of the tighter hairpins, Collei's foot stabbed at the brake pedal, the pads biting down hard. She heel-toed a rapid-fire downshift—fourth to third, then into second with a crisp, mechanical clack-clack—as the tachometer needle danced with the throttle blip. With a firm pull on the wheel and a lightning-quick flick of her wrists, she threw the Eight-Six into a left-hand drift.

No countersteer. No hesitation.

The car rotated sharply, all four tires in harmonious slide, the rear slipping just shy of kissing the guardrail by mere centimeters. A textbook no-countersteer four-wheel drift, executed at a speed that bordered on madness.

Her foot dropped back onto the throttle as soon as the nose pointed downhill. The Silvertop's intake screamed like a banshee, the ITBs snarling as the revs surged past 10,000 RPM, needle pinned against the redline at 11,000. The exhaust note was deafening, sharp and raw, reverberating through the mountain's quiet like gunfire.

The Eight-Six didn't just descend the mountain—it devoured it.

By the time Collei reached the final straightaway, her pulse was still hammering and her arms trembled from the sustained G-forces and intensity of the run. She exhaled through clenched teeth, adrenaline burning hot in her bloodstream.

That night, she dropped by the gas station near the foot of the pass, where Beidou and March were sweeping up under flickering overhead lights. The smell of oil and asphalt still hung in the air, mingling with the distant scent of hot coffee from the vending machine by the front door.

"I heard the team's taking a break from expeditions this week. Maybe next week too?" March said, looking up from her broom, the bristles dragging slowly across the concrete floor.

Collei sipped from a steaming paper cup, her breath curling into the cool air. "That's right. Repairing Clorinde's Lancia is gonna take time. We're checking everything—chassis, alignment, every inch of the suspension. Might even need to tear down the gearbox. There's probably internal damage we haven't seen yet."

Beidou leaned on the handle of her broom like it was a cane, exhaustion etched into the creases around her eyes. "No kidding. Especially Kannazuka. That place must've drained all of you."

Collei let out a low chuckle. "Tell me about it. Seirai kicked it off with a disaster. Some assholes spilled oil all over the course. Nearly totaled a one-of-a-kind Group B rally car. That thing's worth upwards of 1.3 million easy—hell, maybe more. But for Clorinde, it's not about the price tag. That Lancia's her father's legacy."

March winced. "Yeah, I saw the photos you dropped in the group chat. Rear suspension basically hanging by a thread. It looked brutal."

"It was," Beidou said, her voice edged with sympathy. "The damage must've been apocalyptic. Ripping the entire rear-left suspension out? That's some real bad luck right there."

Collei nodded grimly. "And the 037's not exactly built for durability. Body panels are thin fiberglass. Even the windows are Lexan. You breathe on that car wrong, it dents."

"Figures," Beidou muttered, rolling her eyes. "A place as massive as Inazuma, and you will run into punks who think racing's all about dirty tricks."

"No doubt," March added. "Still, the fact your team even got that Lancia back on its wheels in a day? That's some damn impressive work."

Collei smirked. "Yeah. Honestly, I thought Clorinde might have to borrow someone's ride. But nope. She patched that beast up with the bare minimum and went out there anyway. And still smoked that Evo prick. That's the kind of driver she is—doesn't matter if her car's on life support. She'll find a way to win."

Beidou grinned wide, a fire catching in her eyes. "And with both of you still undefeated? Damn. Pressure must be suffocating the Speed Stars."

Collei didn't answer—just took another sip of her coffee, the steam fogging up her glasses slightly. The pressure didn't scare her.

She was starting to like it.

The following morning, Keqing pulled up outside Clorinde's lakeside house, the deep purr of her Midnight Purple FD reverberating softly through the quiet. The RX-7 came to a smooth halt in front of the open garage, where Clorinde was already elbow-deep in tools, hunched over the rear end of her battered Lancia. The trunk lid was unbolted, resting nearby, and she was in the process of aligning a freshly painted replacement panel.

Keqing stepped out, brushing a few strands of hair behind her ear as she approached. "Hey, Clorinde. How's it hanging?"

Clorinde looked up, smudged in oil and dust but smiling. "Oh, hey, Keqing! Didn't expect to see you this early."

"Just checking in," Keqing said, offering a relaxed smile as she stepped closer. Her eyes traced the curvature of the new trunk. "That looks new. The replacement finally arrived?"

Clorinde chuckled and wiped her hands with a grease-streaked rag. "Not quite. This one's a spare we had in storage—leftover from a different shell. Already painted too, which saves some hassle. The actual new panel's still in shipping limbo. Once it's here, we'll respray it and restore the full Martini scheme."

Keqing nodded, giving the Lancia a once-over. The car was still bruised from Seirai, its left side visibly tweaked, paint cracked where the impact had stressed the fiberglass. "Makes sense," she said. Then, after a beat, she tilted her head. "Have you thought about pushing the power up a notch? I mean… going from 325 to something with more teeth?"

Clorinde arched a brow, setting down the torque wrench with a heavy clank. "We already remapped the ECU before the expedition. It's hitting around 350 now—maybe 355 with ideal ambient temps."

Keqing folded her arms, half-skeptical. "Yeah, but with what's coming next… I don't know. You've got guys out there pushing 400 or more. Some are running anti-lag, sequential boxes, full aero kits. It's gonna be an arms race soon."

A smirk formed on Clorinde's lips—calm, calculated. "Actually… there's something we've been holding back. Something special."

Keqing's ears perked. "Oh?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

Clorinde clicked the trunk shut with a final, satisfying clunk. She tossed the rag onto the workbench and turned toward the FD. "Come on. We'll need to head over to Navia's place. It's stored on her property, in one of the side buildings."

Keqing's intrigue deepened, and she didn't waste another second. "Alright. Let's go."

The two climbed into the RX-7, its cockpit still warm from the morning sun. Keqing fired up the rotary, the engine spinning to life with a muted brap and smooth idle hum. As the FD pulled away from the gravel drive and onto the winding two-lane road, the air between them thrummed with unspoken anticipation.

Several hours later, long after the sun had dipped and the town lay hushed under a silver-blue sky, the trio stood in front of a long, weathered storage building behind Navia's house. The clatter of insects buzzed through the evening air, and the cool scent of old oil and grass lingered on the breeze.

Navia stepped forward with a familiar, confident smirk. "Trust me," she said, gripping the old sliding door latch. "The engine in this thing is going to blow your goddamn mind."

With a heavy shove, the doors groaned open, revealing the soft overhead lighting of the storage interior—and sitting beneath it, partially covered by a weathered car cover, was a beast from another era. Steel wheels. Flared fenders. That unmistakable shape.

Keqing's breath hitched. "No way…"

Clorinde folded her arms across her chest, the smugness in her eyes matched only by her quiet reverence. "What do you think?"

Keqing stepped forward, almost cautiously, as though she was approaching a sacred relic. "A Lancia Delta S4… in the flesh. You've gotta be kidding me. How did you even find one, let alone get your hands on it?"

Clorinde walked over to the car, her gloved hand running down the rear haunch with something bordering on affection. "It belonged to my father. Sort of."

Keqing blinked. "Sort of?"

"This one was wrecked during a rally in Greece back in '86," Clorinde said, her voice steady but with an undercurrent of memory. "Driver clipped a hidden rock on a downhill stage and tore the rear suspension clean out. It never ran again. Lancia sold it off at the end of the season as part of a salvage lot. My dad grabbed it—never had the money or time to restore it, but he kept it safe. And more importantly…"

She nodded to Navia, who motioned toward the back of the unit. The two walked over to a draped shape beneath a long workbench. Navia reached down, gripped the cover, and with a single, dramatic pull, unveiled what lay beneath.

Keqing's eyes went wide.

"…Holy shit," she breathed. "That's—! That's the original engine?"

Clorinde grinned. "Yep. Twin-charged. Just like the legends said. Volumetric supercharger for the low-end, turbo for the mid to high. The transition happens somewhere between 4,500 and 5,000 RPM. Perfect throttle response, no boost lag, just a tidal wave of torque and fury."

Keqing leaned closer, reverent. The intake manifold was immaculate, the snaking pipework of the supercharger and turbo setup unmistakably exotic. "Goddamn, this thing's art. But… you're not putting this whole motor into the 037, are you?"

Navia raised a hand, shaking her head. "We can't."

Keqing blinked. "Why not?"

Clorinde exhaled slowly. "It hasn't been run since it was removed. That was almost forty years ago. Oil's turned to sludge. Seals are dried out. If we so much as crank it, something's gonna shear or snap. It's basically a time capsule."

"But," Navia added with a gleam in her eye, "the induction system? That's fair game."

Clorinde nodded. "We're going to adapt the twin-charged layout—supercharger feeding into the turbo—onto the 037's inline-four. That way, we keep the spirit of the Delta S4 without putting its ancient heart at risk."

Keqing frowned thoughtfully. "That's a hell of a custom job. What about clearance? ECU remap? Fabrication?"

"We've got the specs," Navia replied. "Lancia published all of it in the FISA homologation paperwork. If we hit a roadblock, I've got a contact in Naples who can get us original schematics. The induction system's modular enough. It'll need custom manifolds and rerouted coolant plumbing, but nothing we can't handle."

Keqing took it all in slowly, then cracked a smile. "So what's the verdict?"

Navia stepped forward, stretching her arms with a tired grin. "Phase Two of the Lancia Rally 037 project officially begins now. I'll start dismantling the S4's induction components later tonight. We'll clean, inspect, and test them for wear. If all goes well, we'll fit it onto the 037 and run a soft pull on the dyno this week."

Keqing raised a hand, a thought flashing across her mind. "And if it blows up?"

Clorinde chuckled darkly. "Then we use the backup block. Navia's got it mounted to a dyno rig in her garage—she runs it two hours a month to keep the seals happy. Same displacement. Same crank. It's already tuned to accept bolt-ons."

Keqing laughed, stepping back from the Delta S4 with a wide grin. "Alright, ladies. Time to build a monster."

Outside, under the heat of the summer sun, Beidou and March were finishing up their chores. The scent of gasoline and soap mixed in the air as the last buckets of water sloshed onto the pavement.

March groaned, wiping sweat from her forehead with the hem of her shirt. "Damn. I can't believe summer's already here again."

Beidou leaned against the broom, staring out toward the hills. "Yeah… it was about this time last year. Collei's first battle on the mountain. That crazy run against Keqing's RX-7."

March smiled faintly. "Feels like it was yesterday."

Beidou nodded. "Since then? She hasn't lost a single race. Not one. People are still whispering about her. 'The Legend of Yougou's Eight Six'—they say she's unbeatable."

March's voice softened with awe. "She was just a high school kid, Beidou. Didn't even know what an Eight Six was when this all started. Now look at her. She's right up there with Clorinde and Ningguang."

Beidou let the broom fall against the wall, gazing up into the clear sky. "And she's still pushing."

Back inside the office, Lyney leaned back in his chair, fingers tented under his chin. "That's insane. Even professional racers don't train like that—not F1, not WRC. No one lives inside their car the way she does."

Arlecchino scoffed, her tone sharper now. "That's because this isn't training. It's obsession. Picture this: Collei finds a new line while driving the Eight Six—just a few millimeters tighter into the apex, just a fraction of a second shaved off. The next morning, she's in the GT-R, and her brain automatically takes that same line. And then when she's back in the Eight Six, she'll push even harder to catch up to where she thinks the GT-R would be. It's a constant loop. Adapt, evolve, refine."

Lyney blinked. "But that sounds… exhausting. A race you can never win."

"She will win," Arlecchino said flatly. "One day, that imaginary GT-R will fall behind her. Because all her fundamentals—her raw instincts—were born in the Eight Six. And now she's learning the other side of the equation. All-wheel drive. Turbo lag. High-speed cornering dynamics. When she's done… she won't just be fast. She'll understand every opponent before they even shift into gear."

Lyney stared at her in silence for a long moment.

And then he let out a quiet, disbelieving chuckle. "So what happens when the expedition ends? When Team Speed Stars disbands?"

Arlecchino's eyes glinted like steel. "Then Collei's real story begins."

The following night.

The calm stillness of Yougou Pass shattered beneath a feral scream of metal and combustion—the banshee wail of a high-strung, twin-charged, twin-cam four-cylinder engine exploding into life. A blue-white blur tore through the tree-lined darkness: Clorinde's Lancia Rally 037, freshly armed with a new rear engine bay cover and the legendary Delta S4's dual-induction system—turbocharged and supercharged. A war machine reborn in the skin of a Group B god.

The exhaust barked like a pack of wolves in heat, spitting flames and detonating in crisp overrun cracks on every downshift. The engine's scream reverberated across the mountain walls, howling through the pass with a mechanical rage that sounded like it had never known defeat. Firelight from the exhaust tips flickered off the wet guardrails like muzzle flashes.

Inside the stripped-down cockpit, the cacophony was deafening. Every panel vibrated. Every bolt sang. Keqing clung to the five-point harness, knuckles white, pupils dilated, a bead of sweat trailing down her temple as G-forces yanked her into every corner. Her breath caught in her throat—not out of fear, not entirely, but the kind of primal awe that comes when you're riding shotgun with something dangerous, something untamed.

Clorinde's gloved hands gripped the Momo Prototipo wheel at ten and two. Her grin widened with each brutal surge forward, the turbocharger shrieking behind her like it was possessed. Hairpins blurred into straights and back again—an endless assault of asphalt, speed, and inertia.

"This is so fucking awesome!" she yelled over the howl of intake pressure and gear whine, her voice edged with adrenaline. "The raw power on these uphills is unreal! I swear to God, I'm done getting gapped by GT-Rs and Evos. This thing's a fucking equalizer!"

Keqing's head jerked with the lateral load as the Lancia flicked left, then right, darting into another switchback. The chassis danced—violent but deliberate, a ballet executed by a predator in combat boots. Clorinde trail-braked hard into the corner, the rear stepping out slightly before catching again on the exit, four sticky tires ripping through the tarmac like claws. Boost surged back in like a battering ram.

Keqing gritted her teeth, her words jostled by the brutal terrain. "This is insane! Navia nailed it. I can feel the difference—not just in power, but the way the suspension eats up these corners. It's like it's alive—like it was built just for you. And you—Clorinde—your control? Fuck, your pedal finesse is on a whole new level!"

Clorinde didn't reply. She didn't need to. Her answer came in the form of a razor-clean downshift and a throttle blip so precise it could've been cut with a scalpel. The Lancia surged forward, as if the car itself was grinning alongside her, urging her to go faster, to claw higher up the mountain, to keep chasing that next corner.

Up ahead, another hairpin. Clorinde approached without hesitation—left foot braking hard, steering wheel snapping into the apex, rear end dancing as the turbo spooled. She was weightless in motion, fluent in fear. The twin-charged engine screamed as she mashed into the power on exit, tires biting into the gradient like a beast scaling vertical stone.

When they finally crested the summit minutes later, the Lancia screeched to a halt in a hard heel-toe downshift before resting in a hissing, rumbling idle. Steam rose in thin ribbons from the engine bay, the car growling low and mean as it cooled. Clorinde exhaled like she'd just come back from war.

She unclipped her harness with one smooth motion and stepped out, spine popping as she stretched her arms overhead with a satisfied grunt.

"Fuck, that felt amazing," she exhaled, pacing a slow circle around the car. Her boots echoed off the rest area concrete. "That power out of the hairpins, the grip on the edge... Goddamn, this thing's a monster. But somehow—it's easier to drive than it ever was with the old setup."

Keqing climbed out a little slower, brushing stray hair out of her face, still catching her breath. "Navia's gonna love that feedback. But really, what's the verdict? You sticking with the twin-charged setup for good?"

Clorinde leaned her hip against the Lancia's fender, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "No."

Keqing blinked. "Wait, what? Why not? This thing just broke the sound barrier. You're faster than ever."

Clorinde shrugged with a chuckle. "Because the moment rally purists find out I've bastardized an Italian legend like this, they'll burn my garage to the ground. The second the last expedition wraps up, the Delta setup's coming off. It's going back to stock. No debate."

Keqing gave a slow nod, a crooked smile on her lips. "Alright, I get it. Respect the legacy and all that. But you gotta admit… this upgrade couldn't have come at a better time."

Clorinde tilted her head. "Why's that?"

"Because Ningguang said the next race's gonna be the toughest we've ever faced."

Clorinde raised an eyebrow. "Tougher than Feiyun? Than Yelan?"

"Oh yeah," Keqing said, tone dropping into something quieter—darker. "And your uphill opponent? It's a revival match. A rematch 40 years in the making."

Clorinde squinted. "What are you talking about? What rivalry?"

Keqing just chuckled and turned away. "You'll see when we get there. Trust me—you're going to love it."

The night air was cool against their skin, the wind teasing through the trees like whispers from the mountain itself. Beside them, the Lancia sat still, its twin-charged heart ticking softly, cooling like a warrior catching its breath.

It wasn't just a car anymore. It was a statement. A weapon forged in turbo lag and tire smoke, made precise by Navia's obsessive tuning and honed through Clorinde's brutal discipline. The soul of the Delta S4 lived within it now—restless, furious, ready to climb, conquer, and dominate.

Whatever lay ahead on the next pass, whatever opponent waited at the line…

Clorinde and her Lancia were ready.

For anything.