Ride 777: Sohoku's sprinter
Pag 2
1: Houruaaagh
2: Buooraah
3: It's not.... “he's going to attack one more time”!!
Pag 3
1: He's attacked already!!
Pag 4
2: Fifth stage!!
He used the last curve!!
3: Feelings at full throttle!!
He got his “three seconds” in the curve and then accelerated!?
This guy has been tearing apart-
Pag 5
1: Aventador!!
Orange*!!
-road racing common sense over and over again!!
(*NdT.: Issa's attack's name)
Pag 6
4: One guy has jumped ahead as they were turning the curve
Hakogaku and Sohoku are chasing him!!
The guy who's ahead with two strong guys following him.....
Pag 7
1: I've never seen his jersey before!!
Hyaaa!!
Who's that guy!? An unknown cyclist!?
But he's here at the sprint line
Can something like that really happen!?
Pag 8
1: Words things like “of course”, “I already know that”, are like shackles that bind our thoughts
2: There is discovery in “common sense”, yon!!
4: Even so, in road bikes
5: there are two or three ways to hold the handles, so you can change your posture
Pag 9
1: and use various muscles to accelerate, yon!!
2: Three people passed the 300m point, and now it's just a straight road
Pag 10
1: There's still one person running ahead!! The two people behind him can't catch up!!
2: They can see the sprint gate already!!
3: Tch, really, he forced his way through with an ambush like this
4: But
5: My “number one in Japan” plan hasn't wavered one bit!!
Pag 11
1: Lat year's autumn
Woooah cap!!
2: Gap!!
3: Guaagh.... it's always just me saying “gap”!!
Whatcha talking about, Kabu
4: About Doubashi!! I wanna leave him “gaping”!! Me!! Since I lost to him in the summer Inter High!!
You’ve lost the ability to differentiate between the words ‘gap’ and ‘gaping’, haven’t you?
5: Huh? I was able to say this properly when I talked to Aoyagi-san
… which was it again?
6: By the way, Naruko-san, you're supposed to be a good sprinter
Supposed to be!?
Don't you have some secret weapon? Like an ace up your sleeve
7: I'm a genius, so I think if you teach me I'll get it right away!!
I really don't feel like telling you... honestly
8: No, but.... I also thought of myself as a genius, but surely I wasn't that stupid
Pag 12
1: But it's a favour to a kohai, it can't be helped
I've grown too, after all
2: Listen carefully to this “secret weapon”
When you're sprinting
3: The “cog-wheels” you imagine, try imagine them more accurately!! Until the tiniest details!!
4: The....
5: … cog-wheels!?
6: Ah? What does that mean!?
7: Be more specific, please... you're not very reliable, huh
Ugh!! This guy....
I've been thinking this since before, but me and you really don't think alike, Naruko-san...
I'll kill you....
Pag 13
1: As expected from Naruko-san
2: Aoyagi-san was more reliable (even thought he was taciturn)
What does he mean “imagine”?
Hop
3: Ohhh, amazing, Kaburagi
4: Hahaha, I know, right
6: I can do this too
Ohhhh... a blind catch!!
7: How did you do that!?
Hahaha, I'm a genius, so I can do anything just by imagin....
Kaburagi is so cool!
Pag 14
1: Imagining!!
2: Just now I did a blind catch just by imagining it!!
Do it again!
What's wrong, Kaburagi?
3: Oi oi, wait, wait- is this what he meant?
4: Does that mean it'll work? If I apply this to biking!?
6: Imagine
The cog-wheels
7: accurately
8: until the tiniest details
9: Detailed
10: Times and times again
Pag 15
1: I imagined it over and over again!!
And then my “cog-wheels”evolved into “gears”!!
2: Oi, San-na!! Do you have one more special move?
4: Tch
Pag 16
1: Buah!!
Of course!!
I need one more shot to crush you!!
2: It's “Huracan*”, which is stronger than “Aventador”!!
(*NdT.: written as “raging bull” but read as “huracan”)
3: Use it now!!
5: I, too
Pag 17
1: will pull out “golden yellow” now!!
2: If we use them at the same time, it'll make us catch up!!
3: You understand it, San-na
There's no time for complaining about it
4: This guy..... the “golden yellow” that he absolutely wanted to save until the last minute before the sprint line!!
5: We have to close the gap and line up to him now
At this rate, that guy
Pag 18
1: He'll be the first to arrive!!
2: The lead is passing the 200m sign!!
3: Who's that, Gunma!?
I thought the Gunma team was supposed to be Jousui?!
Did the team debut this year!?
There's a guy that strong in Gunma
4: Waaaa
5: That number 181 is debuting now.... but
His career and profile is crazy!!
Pag 19
1: It's Kiji Kyuui!! He's the MTB Inter High two-times champion!!
Huh!?
2: So, the two chasing him won't be able to catch up, at this rate!?
Pag 20
1: Huh!?
What was that just now
For an instant, behind those two
2: I saw blooming golden yellow flowers, and a raging bull
Pag 21
1: This year's may
2: I see
3: Please
Basically
4: Doubashi, you mean you want to race me in a serious sprint battle... now that I've become an university student!!
84 notes
·
View notes
"Apologies AU" Summary Part 1
-
Long, long ago, Earth experienced a radical climate shift that meant within as little as two generations, the planet would no longer be habitable for humans. A desperate humanity sought a new home for themselves and their progeny, eventually discovering the perfect place to start over, a planet they dubbed "The New World."
The New World was to be more than humanity's second chance at life. It would be an ideal society: all of humankind's greatness and triumph built side by side with nature, so the problems of the old world would not follow. Humanity began migrating in waves, the most privileged and wealthy and their loyalists first, of course.
Eventually, everyone would get a new lease on life.
Yes... surely...
One day, upon this fresh new world an alien life form crashed. Mysterious. Powerful. Dangerous. Also weak. Too weak to evade capture. And soon...life began to change. The people of The New World slowly turned their eyes away from those they'd left behind in their ugly past, their gaze fixed on a dream-like future. Advancement. Progress. Technology akin-to-magic. A galaxy of possibilities.
It could be theirs. It would be theirs. At any cost.
Those in power would make sure of it.
Animal experiments... Human experiments...
Among these experiments was a woman with a voice so beautiful hearing her was to feel like your greatest Dream had come true... She would fall in love with a man with a Heart so great he left his home to try and return this troubled species to the right path...
...From their union, two children would be born.
The eldest, a boy, bore great Darkness within him. The abstract nature of his gifts proved of small interest to Lab Discovera at first, and he was tentatively returned to the care of his parents.
The second, a little girl, was a powerful vessel for Soul matter. The ability to create life, not just manipulate it. To bring something into being from nothing.
She, they wanted desperately! For they did not see a child or even a living creature, but a tool from which they could wrest their desired future of absolute control. The wielders of Dream and Heart would not hear of sacrificing their progeny for these twisted goals!
Considered fugitives from The New World for fleeing with precious "experimental equipment" they hid themselves the only place they thought safe: Old Earth, now little more than a dumping ground for exiles and failed or "disappointing" experiments, often sent down as trinkets to pacify the urban warlords who ruled over the depressed, powerless survivors of this slowly collapsing society.
The family of four lived as best as they could in the increasingly cold and harsh modern wasteland, seen as traitors to their neighbors for having worked closely with Old Earth's privileged oppressors. The children were able to avoid capture, at least.
But their parents would not live to see them grow up...
--
It is the beginning of summer, the only time of the year on "Shiver Star" where it is warm enough to be outdoors for most of the day. The planet awakens from another three season long hibernation...
Adeleine and Noir Fontaine are orphaned siblings, two young kids in their early and mid-teens just trying to survive amongst a tired and deeply bitter populace who knows that they, for one reason or another, are the ones humanity has chosen to die while the rest migrated to the bounteous and rich future of The New World.
Only Noir is old enough and wise enough to fully grasp that no matter how hard they pretend otherwise, there's no long-term survival for the two of them. And god knows, the day-to-day is hard enough.
Still, the two make it work. They thrive, even, due to Noir's endless tenacity and strong desire to save his little sister from the crushing despair he feels, even if he can save her no other way.
With society opening up again, the two quickly find themselves reunited with their childhood friend of several years. It is a happy reunion for Adeleine and an awkward one for Noir. Though even he can't help but admit, having Raquelle around makes the weight on his shoulders feel a little more bearable. Even if the slightly older girl's good-natured teasing flusters him in a complex way...
Still, they could have gone on like this together for many years, the three of them. Until the snow forgot how to melt and all life fell into a gentle sleep, buried under the white drifts. They could have.
...They could have but...
One fateful day, Adeleine's art supplies, her only personal treasure, are ruined beyond repair by people who did not care for their warm-hearted escapism. Alone, Noir follows a secret hunch and sneaks into the Museum of New World Technology, a wrecked and abandoned building formerly used to host hundreds of the broken and often dangerous tchotchkes left behind by the New World.
He finds just what he was looking for amongst the looted remains of this experimental display of new world glitz – the perfect gift for his sister. A "magical" paintbrush that ensures she will always have the tools to do what she loves. Adeleine now finds herself slowly able to bring her yet unrefined art to a fantastical new level!
While they start out as little more than animated sketches, she will in time learn to tap into powers deep within herself, powers as natural to her as breathing, to bring real items, even food, into being.
Noir finds a gift for himself as well. A sword with a strange dark aura. It speaks to him. To his soul. Anxiety. Dread. Anger. Negative emotions that Noir had been able to push aside for most of his troubled life with seemingly endless patience and resilience.
It tempts him: a weapon that does not require strength nor training to use, and effortlessly concealable as something no more noticeable than a chain necklace he can hide beneath the scarf he always has on him. Before he knows what he is doing, he has donned it.
Their summer takes a dramatic turn for the better. Long days of magic-fueled safety and silliness sponsored by "dream-like" technology. Adeleine continues to hone her skills. Noir trains with his gift as well and the inexplicable powers it grants him. He plays with being a hero, disappearing night after night to hunt "monsters."
...But this isn't a story about a hero...
Noir is disappearing more and more lately. He's tense. Frightened of something lurking just over his shoulder. He never takes his scarf off now, and he's begun to wear gloves over his hands, even inside.
One day, he reports to Adeleine that he and Raquelle had a bad fight; that she said she never wants to see him again. Adeleine, seeing the changes in her brother as a sign Noir's been deeply hurt by this experience, loyally sides with him and gives up her oldest friendship...
And so, things go back to normal for the two Adeleine...
What she cannot see is that Noir's hands and neck have begun to turn dark and withered; it is almost as if something other than blood is starting to run through his veins. Underneath his scarf, the chain necklace that gave him control over the dark sword has transformed into a collar he can neither remove nor destroy. His attempts to do so cause the sword under "his" control to attack him, violently.
Frightened, he manages to contact an exiled New World scientist, a man with a shattered mind who informs Noir of the horrible secret behind The New World's precious "miracle." That their wondrous advancements all stemmed from the extensive torture of an alien life form, a powerful psychic who even now, a planet away, is able to toy with the fates of those who gorged themselves on Forgo's pain.
Worse than the knowledge of what this information might mean for him is the realization that he has cursed his little sister to the same terrible end as he. Noir runs to her, frantic! Perhaps it is not too late! There may still be time to take it back!
Please!! Not Adeleine too...!!
And yet...
...She is fine! To his great relief! Adeleine shows no signs of the frightening, irreversible transformation he is seemingly undergoing!
Indeed, she hasn't changed one bit since her gift...
Time passes for the siblings. Slowly and quickly. Noir becomes desperate to continue to conceal and somehow free himself of his "gift." For if he were to die now, what would happen to his sister? She has no one left. But her joy at her growing abilities only makes his guilt worse. And negativity speeds along the change...
Realizing at long last that the fragile life he wishes he could return to is now forever out of reach, that he was the one who destroyed it, and that the monstrous transformation he is going through can only end in harming Adeleine as well, Noir makes a decision...
There is no escape for him.
But Adeleine will be free.
At any cost.
Noir touches his sleeping sister's cheek with a hand she would recoil from if she knew what her "hero" has done and disappears into the night one last time...
Days later, Noir and Adeleine arrive at the spaceport. He has come along to bid her goodbye. He tells her not to worry. That he will follow once his paperwork is all sorted out. Unable to fully disguise his intentions, he smiles with tears in his eyes and begs her to be happy.
Happy enough...for the both of them...
Only he knows this is the last time they will meet in this form.
After she departs, Noir walks out into the snow, alone. The distant eye that had been closely watching the child born to Darkness from afar for years, that had begun to lurk inside him since he took the Dark Matter Blade, that sunk its claws into its prey for good the moment his unstoppable resilience finally slipped and he allowed himself, in his fear, to murder his best friend and consign her soul - along with the others he killed - to be enslaved to the darkness too, bursts forth, consuming his physical body.
His last thoughts are not for his own fate.
He knows what he deserves.
No. They are for she whom he always thought of first. To the one he had given up everything for and knew, deep inside, he would give up his life for as well, the moment she gave him that scarf...
-
"Was I a good brother... Adeleine...?"
-
[Apologies AU Masterpost]
[Noir's Field Trip Masterpost]
35 notes
·
View notes