Smoke Over Mirrors.
There are two kinds of silence in racing.
The first is the silence before the engine starts—the calm. The inhale. The part of the night that listens.
The second comes after the run. When everything that mattered was measured in milliseconds and no one says a damn word because they all know something just changed.
Tonight, I'm caught between both.
I'm under a bridge in Zone 6, leaning against my Skyline with its hood still warm. No cameras here. Just shadows, tire smoke, and murmurs too quiet to trace. A half-lit cigarette glows and dies beside a trash barrel fire. Someone lost a car. Someone else lost a reputation.
But they're not looking at them.
They're looking at me.
They don't know my name. Not yet. Not all of it.
But they're starting to whisper it.
And that's a problem.
Because I didn't come back to be known.
I came back to bury something.
---
Someone new approaches. Clean jacket. Boots too polished. He's not from this zone.
> "You Reyes?"
I flick ash off my boot.
> "Depends who's asking."
> "Name's Rael. East Sector. Heard you don't lose."
> "You heard wrong," I say. "I just haven't lost in front of you."
He smirks like he's used to people flinching when he does. I don't.
> "You don't run under a crew," he says. "No records. No tracker code. And yet everyone says you ghosted the Eclipse lap like you'd been reading her pulse since birth."
Her.
He means Sora.
I look away.
> "You got a problem?" I ask.
> "Just curious. Guys like you don't show up unless they're running from something."
> "Or toward something."
> "Which are you?"
I flick my hood up and slide into the driver's seat.
> "Neither. I'm just here for the road."
He nods once. But he's already made a decision.
And I already know I'll see him again.
---
The Kurosawa estate doesn't echo.
It hums.
With old money. Old machinery. Old pressure. The kind of place where every polished floor is meant to reflect your flaws back at you.
Sora walks the hallway like it's a track. Precise steps. Controlled breath.
But tonight, her rhythm's off.
Because there's a name she hasn't stopped thinking about.
A presence that still trails her even though the race is over.
Axton Reyes.
She doesn't know why he didn't pass her.
She doesn't know why it bothers her that he didn't.
She doesn't even know where he came from.
And that's the part that sticks.
Everyone in Eclipse is tracked. Every crew, every driver, every VIN traceable back five years minimum.
But Reyes?
No record. No logs. No crew badge.
Not even his real first entry.
It's like he showed up from nowhere with a fully tuned Skyline and nothing to prove — but still drove like his soul was on the line.
She opens her laptop. Starts typing.
REYES – NIGHT RACES – GHOST CIRCUIT.
Nothing.
She opens a second tab.
ASPHALT 0 CHAMPION ARCHIVES.
Her fingers pause.
There's a classified line under the blacklist roster.
"ACE FILE // ACCESS DENIED – UNDERWATCH: R.E.Y.E.S (UNCONFIRMED)"
She leans back.
No image. No number.
Just a codename burned into a firewall.
Ace?
Her stomach tightens, but not from fear.
From curiosity.
She closes the screen.
There's no proof. No connection.
And yet…
She remembers the way he didn't look at her after the finish.
Not in pride. Not in defeat.
Like he was hiding something he didn't want her to see.
---
I drift the Skyline through the sector divide.
Half-speed. No boost. Just enough to hear the road think.
There are moments when I forget why I'm hiding.
Then I remember what I did to survive long enough to come back.
People talk about champions like they're legends. Like they're born with gasoline in their veins and eyes made of steel.
But champions aren't made in glory.
They're made in wreckage.
I wasn't crowned.
I was the last one standing.
And that's not something I'm proud of.
---
I pass a garage on the edge of Sector 3. One I used to know.
The shutters are down, but the scent of burnt oil lingers.
I pull over. Turn the engine off.
And for just a second—
I close my eyes.
I remember her voice.
Not Sora's. The other one.
The one who used to say:
> "If you stop driving for yourself, Axton… the road will drive you instead."
And maybe that's what's happening now.
Maybe that's why I stayed in the Eclipse zone.
Why I keep racing her.
Because part of me is waiting for the road to finally take me back.
---
The next night, Sora walks into the Eclipse arena garage early.
Too early.
Her crew's not there yet. The circuit isn't lit.
But a car is already parked in the shadowed corner.
A black Skyline.
She knows it before she sees him.
She almost turns around.
Almost.
Instead, she walks past without pausing.
He doesn't say anything.
Neither does she.
But in the stillness, in the soft hum of metal cooling, their presence flickers like sparks that haven't yet found flame.
---
The air in the garage is heavy with heat, engine residue, and something else—
Not quite emotion. Not yet.
But recognition.
She moves past the Skyline like it's part of the structure, her steps measured, ignoring the twitch in her pulse. She tells herself she doesn't care that he's already here — but part of her knows it isn't coincidence.
He came early too.
Just like her.
And yet, neither says a word.
She sits on the metal railing across from the bay, arms crossed, boot tapping faint rhythm against steel.
She can feel him watching her — not in a way that invades, but like he's waiting. For something. Maybe a word. Maybe a challenge. Maybe a reason to leave.
But she offers nothing.
If he wants something, he'll have to take it.
---
I should leave.
But I don't.
I don't have a reason to be here this early, not one I'll say out loud. But the second I saw her step in — black jacket slung off one shoulder, her hair half-loose from the usual clean knot — something in me braced.
Like I was about to get hit at 160.
And the worst part?
I didn't flinch.
I wanted it.
Not the impact.
Not the pain.
But the recognition.
The part where someone sees you — not the version you've constructed — but the one beneath the rust, the silence, and the smoke.
And somehow, she does.
Even if she doesn't admit it.
Even if I don't.
---
> "You're early," she finally says, without looking at me.
Her voice is smooth. Even. Controlled.
Like she's not just breaking the silence — she's testing it.
> "So are you," I reply.
> "I always am."
> "So do I."
A pause.
Long enough for tension to stretch, but not break.
She finally turns to face me — eyes sharp and unreadable.
> "You let me win."
I blink. Not in surprise. In curiosity.
> "That what you think?"
> "I don't think," she says. "I read. You slowed. You knew the drift angle was tighter than my line. You could've taken the outside."
> "Maybe I wanted to see how clean your exit was."
> "Don't flatter me, Reyes."
> "Wasn't flattery. Just observation."
She stands. Slowly. Walks a little closer. Her boots echo faintly.
The garage light flickers behind her, catching her eyes just right — not soft, not vulnerable, but… focused.
> "Why are you really here?" she asks.
I should lie.
I always lie.
But my mouth doesn't move fast enough.
The silence hangs too long. And in that silence—she sees something.
Not the truth.
But the fact that I have one.
> "You're not like the others," she mutters, backing away. "That's what irritates me."
> "Why?"
> "Because you drive like you're not chasing the win. You're chasing something else. And that makes people reckless."
She says it like a warning.
But I hear it like a challenge.
> "You think I'm reckless?"
> "No," she replies. "I think you're hiding what happens when you stop pretending not to be."
Then she turns, sharp and smooth, and walks out.
No goodbye. No gloating. Just precision in motion.
And for the first time since I came back—
I wonder if she's starting to figure out exactly who she's racing.
---
She doesn't look back.
Not because she's indifferent.
Because if she does, she knows she'll hesitate.
And hesitation is weakness.
She doesn't know what Axton Reyes is hiding — not yet. But the way he stalls when she asks the wrong question, the way his words hang heavy without falling—
That silence says more than data ever could.
And in that silence, a name echoes back from the void.
A ghost file.
A buried legend.
A name she's not supposed to know.
> "Ace."
She doesn't say it aloud.
But the thought follows her into the dark.
---
□■□■□■□
There are racers who live in the spotlight.
And then there are the ones who drive like they were born in shadow.
Axton Reyes is one of the latter — not because he fears being seen,
but because some truths are too sharp to survive the light.
He is not legend.
He is what comes after legends die.
A scar left on asphalt.
A name whispered only where engines drown out memory.
And now... someone sees him.
Not fully.
Not clearly.
But enough.
Sora Kurosawa does not chase people.
She does not ask questions.
But some instincts are too deeply wired — and she can feel it in him.
The fracture beneath the surface.
The silence that isn't emptiness, but restraint.
They are not in love.
They are not even close to trust.
But they are aware of each other now—
fully, unavoidably aware.
And awareness is the first sin in a story like this.
Because once the smoke begins to clear—
the mirrors will shatter.
---