Detective Sunny walked tiredly towards the challenge area. He was as mentally fatigued as one could imagine. The rest of lunch was as awkward as anyone could guess.
The differences between the worlds left questions at the tip of everyone's tongues but also left them uncomfortable. It was awkward to talk to other worlds and too awkward to speak among themselves while the other worlds weren't doing that.
He could completely guess that if they weren't split apart quickly, they might become the room with the most members and the one with the worst coordination.
Not that it mattered to him, he highly doubted he would become relevant later in the challenges. After all, one of the rewards was the unsealing of their awakened powers, and he didn't have any, so what could he do about it?
Sincerely, his only worry related to the room's unity was the possibility of the other versions of themselves jumping at each other.
The image of that mad version of himself provoking that emotionless version of that woman, Nephis, was her name, right? It was still clear in his mind.
No one could blame Sunny for eating as fast as he could and using it as an excuse to leave the dining room as soon as possible, could they?
No one would blame him if he tried to drink a little to ease the headache that all of this was giving him, right? Well, Saint would, she had.
Stopping him from reaching towards the wine bottle close to them on the table, she ordered him to not drink with a few words.
"You are about to drive, no drinking. Maybe you shouldn't drink at all until we go back home, detective."
As always, that head-turning beauty was as cold as ever. Still, he listened to her, because he trusted her more than anyone else.
Especially here.
The challenge area was a racing track, as expected. The competitors were asked to appear and tend to their karts in what seemed to be garages.
Only one person was there before him.
It was a young man who at the moment was looking below his own kart. It was a weird piece of engineering, resembling both an egg and a Formula 1 car. It was completely black with the letters "SR" imprinted in gold on the sides.
The young man seemed to be looking at the kart's inner workings, most likely trying to ascertain the machine's capability. He had to say this man might be a danger.
However, boredom took control of his body, prompting him to approach the young man.
"Find anything interesting?"
"Uaaah!"
The young man was startled, hitting his face against the kart as he tried to stand up. He quickly slid from down there and hurried to stand up. His eyes were tightly closed as he performed a salute, much to Sunny's confusion.
"I'm here, Boss!"
"Who's your boss? I don't even know you."
The man opened his eyes confused. As he took sight of the figure in front of him that resembled his boss so much, he couldn't help but piece together what was happening.
"Are you... from the Alter Room?"
"Yeah... Detective Sunless, you know me? Or rather, you know the version of me that appeared on screen?"
"Detective? Ah, yes! I serve in the Shadow Clan, which was formed by him, so he is my boss."
"I see... So, why were you chosen to be here?"
"Ah, well, I was in the government before and used to be a driver with military training. Out of everyone in the Shadow Room, I was the most qualified."
"Thank you for your service." Sunny said dismissively.
He approached one of the garages, the one that had the letters "AR" imprinted in a myriad of colors. He opened the garage and looked at his kart resting inside.
It came in various colors, never stopping at one in specific, it traded in several samples. Black, White, Silver, Yellow, Blue, Golden, Grey, and Red.
The letters were imprinted in black.
He approached it, prepared to enter it and get a feel of the space inside.
Or so was his plan until he heard a few steps approaching.
He stepped out of the garage as he saw another competitor approaching.
She was Nephis of the Longing Room.
In his opinion she wasn't that much different from the Nephises in the Alter Room, older than some of them by a few years. Only Supreme Nephis seemed to have the same age.
She stopped in front of the young man he had talked with a few moments before. He decided to approach, it would be good if he could gather some kind of information from this.
"You are, Luster, correct?" she started.
"You know me?" he asked awkwardly, his eyes darting around, trying desperately not to stare at her tempting figure.
"I believe I saw you reporting to Sunny on a rare occasion."
"Is that so? To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I want you to pass a message to Sunny, can you?"
Luster, a weird name, but Sunny chose to ignore it, looked at her without hesitation for the first time, his eyes serious. Noticing his change of demeanor, Nephis' gaze sharpened.
"The boss didn't come with us. His sister has been leading the few of us who are here with the help of Aiko, but he is not with us, only his Shadows."
"By that you mean the knight, the horse, the serpent, the ogre, and the hunter, correct?"
"Saint, Nightmare, Serpent, Fiend, and Slayer—yes."
"Pfft-"
His coughing interrupted their conversation as their eyes turned toward him.
However, he did not care.
Saint and knight....
Saint and Shadows.....
His Therapist, his hot therapist that liked everything perfect and frowned if even a single hair fell between her eyes, was a knight.
A knight that served his on-screen self as a Shadow, whatever that meant.
"I'm sorry, you said Saint is a knight?"
"... You are a Sunny are you not? Don't you have a Shadow named Saint?" Nephis asked confused.
"I'm not an awakened. There is not such a thing in my world... Saint is my therapist."
That left both Nephis and Luster stumped.
It was harder for them to picture that stoic stone warrior with a therapist than it was for Sunny to picture his therapist as a shadowy knight, apparently.
[Attention Competitors! Please enter your karts and prepare to race! For those not in the challenge area, you will be teleported if necessary!]
"Seems like this is our cue. Good luck, I guess."
Sunny tried to speed up whatever that conversation was, preparing to concentrate on the race instead of conversing.
"Wait a moment, if you will."
It was a simple statement, however, he noted her weird speech mannerism that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
'She didn't talk like this with Luster...'
[ Shadow Bond ]
That crossed his mind. He decided to be more suspicious of Nephises from now on.
"What is it?"
"If you could tell me, how many versions of our world are there in the Alter Room, and is there a dangerous one we should look out for."
"..."
He stayed silent for a moment, pondering if it was wise to share that information.
"There are seven alternate versions of your world. If I were to decide if there is a dangerous one, there is this one where I apparently went mad and became a Great Titan, he seemed oddly obsessed with you, and even with his powers unsealed, he has been chained down the whole time."
Her eyes narrowed in thought, and she then nodded.
He turned out and began to walk away, only hearing the last bit of conversation between Nephis and Luster.
"Our main focus is to unite both of our rooms, regardless of who wins, the Longing or Shadow Rooms. After that is unsealing our powers, getting information, and drafting an alternate version of the Alter Room. You got it?"
"Yes, I got it."
She then went silent, and Sunny merely heard her steps distancing themselves and a garage being opened.
He once again reached towards his kart and entered, feeling the surrounding space.
The chair was oddly comfortable, but not to the point that would allow him to sleep. The steering wheel was the only thing that resembled that of a normal car, since everything else was missing.
'He mentioned that the brakes and accelerator would be controlled through our minds, which is interesting but annoying.'
As he was pondering this, a sudden light enveloped the kart as he was teleported alongside it into the racing track.
He looked to the side, inspecting his opponents.
Further to the left was Nephis of the Longing Room, in a white kart with black letter, "LR".
After her was Luster of the Shadow Room with his black kart.
Next was a Mordret of the Room of Nothing, he was the personification of how he thought the Nihilist of his world behaved during his killings. He was in a silver kart with while lettering, "RN".
To his right was a man with long black hair and a crescent moon tattoo on his forehead, he was looking excitedly at every corner of the kart. As soon as he caught Sunny's gaze, he waved happily. He was in a purplish dark kart with golden lettering, "NM".
And lastly, it was him, the detective.
Before he could even ignore the waving coming from the sorcerer, a sudden sound made itself known to all of them.
And a number appeared in front of them.
[ 3 ]
[ 2 ]
[ 1 ]
[ Go! ]
As soon as the word "Go" appeared, all the karts sped forward, trying to best the others right from the start.
It took barely a single instance for them to complete two turns, one to the right and one to the left, those turns were very close to the starting line.
However, that was enough for Sunny to make an initial assessment of the situation before he reached the next turn.
Firstly, the ones that adapted the best to the mentally coordinated speed controlling were Mordret and Noctis. Sunny and Nephis were not that far behind, but they were behind enough on that skill that it made clear they were behind.
Luster was the worst one in this category.
In terms of driving skills, however...
Luster was the best, without a shred of doubt. Sunny could barely match him in certain aspects, but overall, Luster was just a better driver.
Proof of that was, even if he was the last one to adapt to the mind-controlled accelerators, he was still in second place, right behind Sunny.
As for the one with the worst driving...
It was Noctis.
As of the moment, he was fighting a losing battle against Nephis for the fourth place.
Mordret's kart trailed behind Sunny's and Luster's silently, as if ready to leap onto them, like a predator.
Sunny frowned.
The race kept going. As they went past turns, loops, ramps, and even a tunnel that was underwater, they soon began to completely get used to the mental control of speed.
And that meant a lot, now driving skill was the defining factor of their positions.
Noctis had fallen behind, struggling to keep up, though, judging by his smiling face, he didn't seem that bothered.
Mordret and Nephis were now in a high-speed duel to take third place, while Sunny and Luster fought for first place.
He had to admit, Luster was weirdly talented in driving, especially in high-pressure situations. The way he seemed almost scared in this whole situation, which would've bothered the concentration of just anyone, did not hinder his skill, allowing him to secure the first place almost too easily.
Or perhaps it was indeed affecting. He was just that good.
'It can't be that, can it?'
[1st Lap Concluded! Keep Going Competitors!!!]
Soon the first lap was finished as they fell from a suspended part of the track that stood in the air, suspended by a helicopter.
Sunny sighed, he decided that it was time for desperate measures.
He remembered that causing the death of a pilot meant being disqualified and suffering the same fate, so he needed to be carefull.
As soon as they arrived at the underwater tunnel once again, he put his plan into practice.
He began to speed up widely, quickly catching onto Luster.
Luster's eyes widened as he saw Sunny approaching from the side, slightly confused. Not far from the end of the tunnel was a sharp turn, speeding up too much could result in a crash rather than successfully surpassing another competitor.
'Second step.'
Sunny began to quickly approach Luster's kart with his own.
Luster's mind rattled, he tried to think of something quickly, however, he was not quick enough. He was forced to evade Sunny by doing a similar movement.
They both began to climb towards the ceiling of the tunnel through the side.
Just as Luster reached an area of no return, Sunny went back to the original track before Nephis and Mordret could gain more ground.
Luster, on the other hand, was forced to complete the process of running around the whole tunnel.
If he tried to go back on his movement, he would lose the momentum that he had used to climb sideways, causing his kart to fall. His only choice was to use that last momentum and complete the movement before gravity took effect.
Sigh.
He let out a sigh of relief as he completed the process safely, his hands trembling on the steering wheel. He was now that far away from the two sovereigns, that were known to the public, of humanity.
In fact, he could feel their gazes in the back of his head.
'Lady Nephis is an ally, Lady Nephis is an ally...' he repeated in his head.
As for Sunny, he was now approaching a sharp turn at great speeds, there was only a single way to do this safely: with a drift.
He stopped accelerating and focused on both breaking and turning, trying his hardest not to miss the timing.
His mind went back to the parking lots where he used to practice with Jet, all the tricks she had taught him to figure out the perfect timing crossed his mind.
SCREEEEEE
The screeching sound sounded in everyone's ears as he completed the drift. As soon as he confirmed he was perfectly aligned with the track, he resumed the acceleration of his kart, speeding up away from his competitors.
The rest of the lap did not have many changes.
Luster was able to bridge the gap, somewhat, but was unable to reach him before the lap ended.
[Last Lap!! Ganbare!!!]
In the third and last lap, Luster finally reached him, getting neck and neck with him. The worst of it was the guy became very suspicious of his every action.
He had tried to bait him into a situation similar to the one in the underwater tunnel, alas, it did not work.
So as things stood, the first place could go either way.
That was until they reached the last stretch.
After being sent flying with an enormous ramp, they landed on the piece of the track that was suspended on a helicopter. It didn't take that much time for Nephis, Mordret, and Noctis to land there as well.
And that's where it started.
Noctis began to drive his kart from one side to another, clashing against the walls of the track, especially on a specific side.
The track began to spin at a considerable speed, just as Sunny and Luster were about to fall to the last piece of the track where they would decide the winner, however, they were instead forced to break and turn around.
They had to reach the other side quickly, before the track finished turning.
Noctis, who had been in the last place originally, was now the one closest to victory as he merely focused to speed up. His stratagems seemed to be proven superior to any driving skills that the others possessed that he did not.
However, as he was about to claim victory, he realized something. The track was spinning too slowly, by the time he reached the other side, he would have to stop his kart, and that would mean that once he fell from the suspended track, he would dive nose first into the ground.
He needed to slow down and time it well, but his opponents didn't. Their speed was adequate to reach the other end of the track in time without any other thought other than "keep accelerating".
As he reached the other side and began to drop, the other four karts reached him.
Noctis felt something smash against the rear of his kart. It was Mordret's due to a "slight" bump coming from Sunny's kart, the silver kart had crashed against Noctis'.
As the karts reached the ground with an alarming crash, they struggled to remain straight.
Noctis' kart began to tilt sideways, and his wheel hooked onto Nephis', it was a three-way crash.
The three karts screeched and hit the wall of the track while Sunny and Luster sped forward.
However, Sunny had not landed in the best way possible, due to his petty move of bumping into Mordret, his kart had taken a second to properly control. That second was enough for Luster to gain a meter's advantage.
[ 1st Kart had completed the race - Shadow Room | Luster ]
[ 2nd Kart had completed the race - Alter Room | Detective Sunless ]
As for the three-way crash, there was one kart that managed to untangle itself from that situation, reaching the finish line successfully.
[ 3rd Kart had completed the race - Nightmare Room | Noctis ]
**********************
A/N: So disapointed in this chapter, I was tired in the last few days but needed to post something, unfortunately I had ran out of pre-written chapters, so it sucked. I hoped there was a more character dialogue and better descriptions of the race. Shame.
Check Out my other Fanfics:
Cursed Shadow (JJK/JJK Modulo x Shadow Slave Fic)
Trailblazing Shadow (HSR x Shadow Slave Fic)