Chapter 6: The girl with matches for fingers

The girl in the motorcycle waved her arm up, as if to swat at an annoying insect, and just like that, the yellow flame in her hand sprung forward, its size increasing until it matched a basketball’s one to one.

Haruto moved quickly to the left, just barely avoiding the blast by half a dozen inches, which wound up hitting the ground instead and projecting pieces of crushed, burning asphalt throughout the lane, which clanged loudly against the back of Haruto’s car.

“Stay still!” shouted the girl in exasperation. Gathering yet another large flame onto her hand.

She tossed it at him with abandon, prompting him to clumsily swerve out of the way once again.

“Tch… So be it, then. I’ll take out your big friend there, instead.”

With that, she turned her back to him, instead rushing ahead towards the gray car.

“So fast…” muttered the boy, who was being left behind. “What the heck…?”

As the gray car moved on, now far ahead, Haruto looked on as it disappeared behind yet another turn, the fiery motorcycle following closely after.

Many questions ran through the boy’s mind.

Who the heck was that? Where had she come from, and why was she so set on killing the two of them? Was she another competitor in the race? Or was she working for whatever entity controlled that place?

For the hundredth time that day, Haruto was completely lost. However, that wouldn’t stop him. He had promised himself he would beat his opponent no matter the cost, and that meant passing the two people in front of him and to be able to keep the lead until he reached the end of the ‘track’, so to say, which was located not too far from there.

“I just have to make it before any of them do.”

That was why he did not give up. Deadly or not, that crazy girl was nothing but another cheap mishap in a road already full of them. Whether he died by her hand, or by losing the race, it made no difference. That was why, the only viable way for him was forward, without stopping.

He turned the corner after them, and the very instant he caught sight of the two vehicles only a few feet away, he floored the gas pedal.

The path ahead was another straight line, nothing to stop him but them. He would take that chance, before any other.

The other guy was swerving around like a madman by that point, followed from a distance by the motorcycle girl, who mirrored his movements. He was clearly having more trouble with maneuvering around the fireballs than Haruto had, likely due to the state his machine was in.

Unrelenting, she kept charging up one streak of flames after the other, hurling them at him without mercy.

All the while, he could hear the man’s voice even from that distance, screaming in utter desperation.

“Crazy bitch! Get the hell away from me!!!!”

Just barely dodging the attacks, he was clearly panicking, each of his swerves becoming increasingly frenetic as he moved about. No matter what, she would not let him gain any more speed or distance than he already had, and would soon enough be able to corner him.

For the time being, they were both occupying the full width of the lane with all the scurrying, but there was no way that could keep going for much longer.

Haruto awaited patiently, moving only a few meters behind them as the one-sided battle took its toll on the other tired driver.

Inevitably, one of the fireballs wound up hitting its target.

The gray vehicle’s right driving wheel was right then turned into a swirling circle of fire, growing in size instant by instant.

An explosion soon came from it, loud and bright, followed by the gray vehicle’s frantic squidding to the rightmost half of the road.

“Now’s my chance…” muttered Haruto.

Accelerating again, he sped past the scarlet motorcycle, attempting to pass the man from the left while he was distracted by her.

He was able to catch up with the gray car right at the turn of the next corner, just barely overtaking him while he was distracted, hysterically trying to regain control of his machine’s handling.

However...

“Where do you think you’re going, runt!?”

The burly man’s car suddenly veered towards Haruto, colliding laterally with the Roller and forcefully pushing it onto the sidewalk.

If he was able to keep that up, it couldn’t be long until Haruto wound up slamming into the nearest building, which the old car certainly would not be able to take.

Regardless, the boy kept his foot down. With his car’s speed nearing its limit, he was confident he could escape that cheap pinfold if he just kept the Roller straight and on target.

His opponent’s car was losing both speed and course now, with one of its wheels blown to smithereens and he other three with bald tires just barely adhering to the pavement.

So long as he managed to put some distance between them, he could surely lose him.

That motorcycle might’ve been the fastest out of the three, but the girl seemed far too focused on targeting that man to try to go after Haruto again.

The goal was only a few blocks away. He just needed to escape those two nutcases, and then all there’d be left was to evade the occasional patrol cars and he would be golden.

It seemed like the perfect plan. As he was able to move further from the gray car bit by bit, gradually scraping his way past it, he was starting to become more and more certain he would succeed. There was no way he could lose now. Not when he’d gotten this far.

But that was where he’d gone wrong, once again.

“Do mind your surroundings, amateurs.” the girl’s freezing voice came flying from far behind.

And following her voice, came the light of another scorching flame, larger than any other he’d seen so far, growing further in size around the girl’s right hand.

She now rode the far right end of the lane, behind the place the man was previously occupying, waving her arm around as she prepared for a diagonal throw.

“Damn it...!” shouted Haruto, immediately slamming on the brakes as the girl swung her shot at them.

The two of them were now in just the right position where she could blow the both up into scrap.

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No matter what, he could not allow himself to go so easily, even if it meant relinquishing that overtake. Even if it went against his feelings, he was far too much of a coward to stay in place.

Before the fire could hit, he was just barely able to retreat, moving behind even the girl herself on the lane as he clumsily swerved from one side to the other.

The man in the gray car, on the other hand, did not intend to backpedal. Using the extra space he had now gained to his advantage, he skidded to the far left past the spot Haruto had previously occupied and over the sidewalk, just barely avoiding her onslaught as the sphere of fire hit the ground beside him point-blank, sending yet more scorching debris in every direction.

A flying piece of gravel flew back above Haruto, missing his windshield by few inches and bouncing loudly away against the Roller’s already dented roof, bending it even further.

With his opponent now cornered against a wall, little to no leeway to move far from the redhead’s next attack, Haruto would assume it was over for him. However, the next thing to come out of the gray vehicle was a loud, triumphant cackle, resounding around the lane, echoing through the wind.

“It’s over now, little piggies!” the man shouted, proudly.

Upon hearing it, Haruto&’s breath caught in his throat, and without ado he slammed the brakes again, receding even further. Around the corner of his eye he could still see the timer for when his crafting ability would again become available.

1:26 minutes and counting down.

As for the gray car, that could only mean one thing.

“Assigned skill activated: Oil surge.”

The announcement came in, and right then the girl jerked atop the motorcycle, frantically slowing down so as to put as much distance between the two as possible.

The yellow light took its place right behind the skidding gray vehicle, and was then immediately replaced by the sphere of oil which in turn started to pour onto the road, covering it in yet another layer of oil.

Haruto moved his foot back to the gas pedal. He wanted to reach him and put an end to that race. If he could just make it past the oil, he could then use his own skill to swap out his wheels once again, and then victory would be his.

However, something inside him suddenly put a stop to that drive. The finish line was only two long turns away, according to the radar, and yet he found himself hesitating. Instead of accelerating, he broke off his stride once again, drastically slowing down his car and soon stopping in place just a few feet before reaching the layer of oil.

Something just told him running over that dark pool once again would bring nothing good to him. Nothing good at all.

He soon realized the source of his insecurity had just now mimicked his movements, stopping beside him with a screech of two wheels. The girl glanced at him from beyond the murky helmet, then looked on at the other driver gaining speed up ahead, basking in the glee of leaving his opponents behind at last.

With a shiver, Haruto realized what had just happened. He realized was would happen now that the burly guy had finally managed to lose him and the redhead behind all the oil his ability had produced. He understood that having been able to pass through that obstacle the first time, without any significant damage to his vehicle other than the ruined tires, had been nothing but luck on his end. It was likely a stunt that would not go well a second time. That was probably true for that girl as well.

The black pond was far longer than before now. That guy was pouring every last drop of his strength into that one use of his skill, he could guess.

He was desperate.

The goal was such a short distance away, too, and yet neither of the two teenagers would ever reach it now. And even if they tried... Even if they somehow managed to surpass that obstacle, either of them, they would never be able to catch up to the gray vehicle in time...

And standing now behind that pool of oil, only increasing in length as the seconds passed, Haruto understood now that none of it mattered, either. Not a single one of those details mattered at all, now. Not to himself, anyway.

He could hear the tattooed man’s frenzied voice echo back to them from afar, relishing in his ultimate triumph, basking in his unparallelled guile.

“So long, kiddies! It’s been a pleasure to play with you, but I have a finish line to cross, now. Have fun with the ghosts back there!!”

And just like so, his car grew increasingly smaller in the distance, while the oil layer grew wildly behind it.

“Mhhh-hhmm... I’m afraid you would be mistaken there, uncle…”

Despite the obstacle before her, the girl smugly tittered, not a bother to show in her voice, and muttering to herself, brought both hands up to grab her helmet.

She pulled it up in a single movement, and countless more locks of scarlet-red hair came loose at that moment, long enough to nearly reach her waist, partly tied on both sides of her head. It waved far behind her, carried away by the wind, even though there was no wind.

She looked just as young as her uniform suggested. In fact, she looked about one or two years younger than Haruto.

Her eyes glittered a bright light coming from ahead, even though there should be no such light there, and the corners of her lips stood upturned, sneering viciously at the sight before her.

“Without a shadow of a doubt…”

She lifted her left hand just slightly as the right one fell beside her, holding onto the black helmet. With just a snap, the tip of her thumb lit up into a single, minute flame, burning brightly nevertheless.

“... The pleasure... was all mine.”

With little care, she flung the tiny flame into the middle of the pool of oil ahead.

It took only a second for it to spread about, growing into an enormous, cavernous fire, eating away at the dark substance from one end of the road to the other until it turned the long pool of oil into a ghastly sea of flames.

It spread further forward, further towards the end of the slick layer. And soon enough, it was eating away at the black sphere that sat behind the reckless vehicle in front.

The landscape before Haruto’s eyes was lit up into a hellish red at that moment.

There was nothing else on his mind at all, then. Not the contempt in that girl’s face. Not the gravel flying around him. Not the deafening noise brought to him by the explosion ahead. The sheer sight of destruction before him. Burning buildings, clouds of smoke as far as the eye could see... A neverending palette of fire. And, of course, the scarlet light. The pure carnage. That was all he could take in, now...

It reminded him, in some morbid sense, of the fireworks he used to watch as a kid every new years. He would sneak out of his house every year just to go see them up-close.

From within the fiery display ahead, something came flying all of a sudden, shaking Haruto out of his trance. A narrow slab of metal, heavily battered and molten down at the sides, landed right next to his door with a barely audible rattle. It was likely what remained of the gray vehicle’s blank license plate.

Once he finally moved on from the broken plate, his eyes would inevitably shift to the redheaded girl next to him.

She still sat on the red and orange motorcycle, contemplating the chaos she’d wrought for just one more moment. She soon turned towards him as well, meeting his eyes directly.

She seemed content. Perhaps amused, even. She was grinning childishly at him, as if all of that just then hadn’t been anything more than a fun little game.

“Now, then... You’re the only one left, aren’t you?”

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