Location: Floor 3 - Rainbow Road
Atmosphere: Eurobeat Intensity 100%
The track wasn't made of asphalt. It was made of neon light, floating in deep space, twisting like a roller coaster designed by a drunk abstract artist. There were no guardrails. Just the abyss.
And the music.
It wasn't background music. It was vibrating in their teeth.
DO YOU LIKE... MY CAR?
"This beat..." Goku bobbed his head in the passenger seat of the Toyota AE86. "It makes me want to punch faster!"
"Don't punch the dashboard," Takumi Fujiwara said stoically, gripping the steering wheel. His eyes were dead. He was in the Zone. "I need weight distribution to be perfect."
"We're gonna diiiiie!" Kazuma screamed from the back seat.
Aqua was mashed against the window by G-force. "Kazuma! My face! It's losing symmetry!"
[SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT]
[RACE START IN 3... 2... 1...]
[ITEM BOXES ENABLED. FATALITIES ALLOWED.]
Revving next to them:
Vegeta on a Capsule Corp Kaneda Bike. (Red. Angry. Sleek).
Lulu (Final Fantasy) riding a Chocobo wearing jet boosters.
Tanya Degurechaff strapped to a V-1 Rocket.
Goblin Slayer in a minecart. (Don't ask).
"GO!"
SCREEEEEE.
Tires smoked. Chocobos wark-ed. Rockets fired.
Takumi didn't floor it. He slipped the clutch.
The AE86 launched smoothly, bypassing the wheel spin of the heavy hitters.
"Later, losers!" Vegeta blasted off, blue aura acting as an afterburner. "I will be waiting at the finish line, laughing at your corpses!"
Lap 1: The Loop-De-Death
They hit the first loop. A 360-degree vertical spiral.
Natsu Dragneel was driving a magic-mobile.
"I... feel... sick..." Natsu turned green. He opened the door to vomit and fell out into space.
[TEAM FAIRY TAIL: ELIMINATED]
Takumi approached the loop.
"We're losing speed!" Kazuma yelled. "We won't stick to the track!"
"Weight transfer," Takumi muttered.
He didn't accelerate. He flicked the car sideways.
Inertia Drift.
On a vertical loop.
The car slid perpendicular to gravity. Friction gripped the neon tiles. They shot out of the loop like a cannonball.
"NANI?!" Kaneda (Actual Akira Protagonist, also racing) gasped. "He's using the centrifugal force to corner?!"
Suddenly, floating cubes appeared ahead.
Item Boxes.
Goku grabbed one.
Ding.
A roulette spun in his vision.
[ITEM: 3x RED TURTLE SHELLS]
Except they weren't turtle shells.
They were Seeking Kamehamehas.
"Ooh!" Goku grinned. "Hey Vegeta!"
He threw a ball of Ki. It tracked Vegeta's bike.
"Insolent Kakarot!" Vegeta looked in the rearview mirror. "You think a mere homing blast can touch the Prince?"
Vegeta drifted. Sparks flew. He leaned the bike so low his knee scraped the cosmic energy.
The shell missed by a millimeter, exploding a section of the track behind him.
"Pathetic!" Vegeta roared. "Now observe TRUE driving!"
Vegeta hit an Item Box.
[ITEM: STAR POWER]
Vegeta began to glow.
Not Star Power.
Super Saiyan God Star Power.
Rainbow invincibility frames plus God Ki.
He rammed through Speed Racer, sending the Mach 5 spinning into the void.
Lap 2: The Blue Shell Incident
The pack was thinning.
Kazuma was clutching the AE86 door handle, weeping.
"Why is there a boost pad?!" Aqua yelled. "We're going too fast!"
"Not fast enough," Takumi shifted down. Engine braking.
"Gutter run."
"There is no gutter!" Kazuma screamed. "It's space!"
Takumi dipped the tire off the track.
Hooking the wheel onto the edge of the neon pixels.
The car defied physics, turning a 90-degree corner at 120 MPH.
"IMPOSSIBLE DRIVING TECHNIQUE!" The announcer (Captain Falcon) shouted. "He's using the hitbox glitch!"
Meanwhile, somewhere in 8th place:
Saitama was driving.
He was riding Mumen Rider's Bicycle.
Pedaling. Casual pace.
"This is good cardio," Saitama noted. "But why is everyone throwing bananas?"
Genos (strapped to his back as a jetpack) scanned ahead.
"Sensei! Item Box acquired!"
Saitama touched the box.
The icon spun.
Mushroom? No.
Star? No.
It stopped on a Blue Spiked Shell.
But this one had wings. And Sharingan Eyes.
[THE ULTIMATE EQUALIZER]
"Blue thing," Saitama shrugged. "Does it fly?"
He tossed it gently.
ZOOOM.
The shell broke the sound barrier. It broke the light barrier. It screamed like a banshee.
At the front of the pack:
Vegeta was laughing.
"I AM THE FASTEST! I AM THE GOAT! NO ONE CAN CATCH—"
Beep. Beep. Beep.
A reticle appeared over Vegeta's head.
Vegeta stopped laughing.
He looked back.
A blue comet of pure malice was approaching.
"No," Vegeta whispered. "Not the rubber-banding mechanic. Anything but that!"
He flared his aura. "FINAL FLASH!"
He fired a massive beam backward to intercept the shell.
The Shell ate the Final Flash.
It didn't slow down.
It flew right over the beam.
It circled Vegeta's head.
"F***********CK!"
KA-BOOM.
The explosion wasn't nuclear. It was Game Mechanics.
It flipped Vegeta upward. He spun 50 times in the air. Coins flew out of his pockets.
He landed in dead last.
His bike was on fire. His hair was messy.
"I hate this game," Vegeta whispered into the neon asphalt. "I hate karts. I hate plumbers. I hate everything."
Lap 3: The Shortcut to Hell
Final Lap.
Takumi was in 2nd place.
Ahead of him was a rider shrouded in black smoke.
Ghost Rider.
His hell-cycle left trails of fire.
"We can't catch him!" Goku shouted. "He's cheating! He has demonic horsepower!"
"There's one way," Takumi said softly. His hands tightened on the wheel. "Blind Attack."
"What?" Kazuma asked.
Takumi reached for the dashboard.
Click.
He turned off the headlights.
On a space track. With no ambient light.
"WE CAN'T SEE!" Aqua shrieked. "WE'RE BLIND!"
"So is he," Takumi noted. "He relies on seeing us in the mirror to block. If we vanish..."
The Ghost Rider looked back.
No car. Just darkness.
"Gone?" The Spirit of Vengeance paused.
VROOOOOOM.
From the shadows, the AE86 appeared inches from his rear fender.
Takumi used the slipstream.
Slingshot maneuver.
But ahead... the track ended.
A gap. A massive jump to the finish line platform.
"WE'RE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT!" Kazuma assessed the distance. "GRAVITY SAYS NO!"
"Gravity?" Goku unbuckled his seatbelt. "Hold my wheel."
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
Goku climbed onto the roof of the drifting car.
The gap approached.
"KAMEHAMEHA!"
Goku fired the blast behind the car.
Newton's Third Law + Anime Logic = Rocket Booster.
The AE86 launched into the void, propelled by a blue laser beam.
It soared over Ghost Rider.
It soared over the track.
It soared over the finish line... and kept going?
"Brakes!" Kazuma grabbed the handbrake.
"Don't touch it!" Takumi slapped his hand away. "Controlled landing!"
SLAM.
The car landed. Bounced. Driffed across the line sideways, smoking, smelling of burnt ozone and Aqua's vomit.
[WINNER: TEAM DRIFT]
"We survived!" Kazuma kissed the ground. "Never again. I'm taking the bus next time."
Behind them, Vegeta finally crossed the line, pushing his destroyed bike on foot, mumbling profanities about shell casings.
End of Floor 3.
Intermission: The Locker Room.
While the racers recovered, a strange scene was unfolding in the designated "Safe Zone."
Zoro walked out of a door marked "Janitor's Closet."
He looked around.
"Where's the race? I took a right turn at the Item Box."
He was holding a Golden Chalice.
[HIDDEN ITEM ACQUIRED: THE HOLY GRAIL OF NAVIGATION]
(Note: It doesn't help you navigate. It just makes wine taste better).
"You missed it, Moss-Head!" Sanji lit a cigarette, shaking his head. "We won by sheer stupidity. But look at the leaderboard."
They looked up at the holographic screen for Floor 4.
[NEXT FLOOR: THE CYBER-SLUMS]
[GENRE: CYBERPUNK / DYSTOPIAN SHOOTER]
[BOSS: ADAM SMASHER... but worse.]
"Shooter?" Usopp's eyes lit up. He adjusted his goggles.
"Finally," Usopp grinned, cocking his Kabuto slingshot. "My time has come. The God of Snipers awakens."
Suddenly, the screen glitched.
Hackers.
A skull icon appeared.
"Wake up, Samurais," a voice distorted. "We have a city to burn."
But it wasn't Johnny Silverhand.
It was Revy (Black Lagoon) fused with Spike Spiegel.
"Guns," Spike-Revy said. "Lots of guns."
Kazuma sighed. "Great. Bullets. My one weakness."
"Your weakness is everything," Aqua muttered.
"Shut up! Steal!"
Kazuma stole her hair ribbon.
It was petty, but it felt good.