Nights Of Fire: Overhauled

CHAPTER 36 - Hayaashi's History

Mr. Kocho and I headed to Shuto Expressway to put this Diablo SV on speed. It felt like that time we floored my beefy RX-7, except THIS HAS WAY FASTER ACCELERATION! WOOOOOOOO! IT WAS ONE SECOND FASTER TO REACH 250! I CAN FEEL THE SEAT PUSHING MY BACK TO KEEP MYSELF ON PLACE! YAHOOOOOOOO!!!!!

At the same night, Ichika and Nino turned their laptop on, plugged the flashdisk in.

"Didn't... I give that to Awayuki?" Nino, trying to regain her soul after slumber, pointed her finger at it.

"She couldn't fix it, so I gave it to Athena, and she managed to recover some of the data," Ichika briefed the background as she waited for it to fully load.

"I told you... I'm doing it myself... Stubborn Sis... Thank youuu..." Her head hit Ichika's shoulder.

"Mom and Dad are my parents, too. Of course I want to find the actual truth about what happened behind their deaths. This flash drive must've contained important information as it's sealed inside a locker in Mom's working room, and robbers you had chased stole this thing only."

Then they opened the contents. The folders and files were a mix of random alphanumeric letters. Good thing that the file formats were not, so word processor software could open them. Click, click! Wall of texts and pictures appeared in front of them.

" 'Truth Regarding Giorno Giovanna's Incident...' " Ichika spoke for herself.

Nino overheard it and her souls had gathered all of a sudden, "What?"

"Look at the title, Nin."

"This is starting to get interesting. My hypothesis is correct, then. His incident is not an accident."

They skimmed through the whole 50 pages worth of forbidden information. Page by page, they opened their eyes more and more. Heart was slowly pumping blood more frequently.

Ichika put her palm on her heart, "I can't believe it..."

"It was planned from the beginning all along," Nino clenched her fist.

"So, he had an insider who was an inspector to make sure every car followed the rules. When Giorno's Ford GT was checked, the forced induction's pressure was higher, but he let it slide..."

"And almost at the finish, his engine overheated, and then..." SLAM! Nino swung her fist onto a table. "This is outrageous! Maybe he really deserved to die in that crash." She huffed. "Then again, why does this flash drive even have these kinda files? Just who does this belong to really...?" Nino's thoughts raced.

"Ah, there's also this voice log." Ichika pointed out. "Let's give this a listen."

The sisters opened the voice file, and the media player software opened. 2 voices can be heard in the audio.

"You think you're gonna keep getting away with this? This is ridiculous!" A voice of an irritated man spoke.

The sisters' eyes widened when they heard the voice. "This is..." Ichika mumbled. "Dad..." Nino gasped.

"You should turn a blind eye towards this, Hoshino-san." another voice spoke.

"Makoto, all this time, I thought you were a good person, a good friend."

"I never liked that Giorno guy anyway. Kid thinks he's some sort of prodigy."

"I've been putting the blame on Daigo, but I never realized that you were the actual culprit. I wish I could spread the truth."

"Go on, if you can, Hoshino. No one will believe you. I'm a star, you know that? Everyone will believe everything I testify."

"But besides, I don't think I will be here for long, anyways. I'm thinking of quitting. I'm getting sick of all these stupid rules."

"Oh yeah, go on, quit then, Makoto! Scum like you don't deserve to race on the track!"

"You better watch your mouth, Hoshino. Otherwise you'll end up on the same road as Giorno did."

The voice clip ended.

"So he really is the perpetrator." Ichika covered her mouth. "Did you hear his last words to dad before the audio ended? He was threatening dad." Nino observed. "And look, there's a text log here too, let's have a look at it."

"It looks like... Makoto's diary? How did they even get this?!"

"28th of October, 2029.

I feel like that Hoshino is onto me. How the hell did he even know about the sabotage? I was just bluffing to stop him from spreading information, but it seems now that this case requires intervention. Some people have already even started rumors about me. I WAS planning to actually quit anyways, so might as well throw me in the dumpster fire. Good way to avoid all this buzz. Might talk it out with the cops later."

"What does this all mean, ugh!" Nino scratched her head violently. "No, this can't be..." Ichika's voice started to shake. "If... If my predictions are correct, Dad's death... was orchestrated by Makoto." Ichika assumed. "WHAT?!" Nino shouted. "What I got from this diary is that Makoto is planning to eliminate Dad from the competition due to him having forbidden info on him. He just... used a rather twisted method to take dad out of the competition." Ichika sobbed.

"So... Makoto paid the police to say that he was killed in the incident, even though he really isn't. Now that I think about it, the way that crash happened was unusual.

The dent patterns aren't like what you usually find in a road accident. There was heavy damage to the rear bumper and scratches on the left side of Dad's car. It was an attack."

Nino gave her own conclusion. Her legs left the table. Arm slammed the door. Vocal cord screeched through the wall. Knuckles abused the poor wardrobe for an indefinite amount of time.

Ichika froze at her place, gaslighting herself that this is just another clickbait article by a lowly journalist. But, Ichika's mother isn't one of them. Head rested on the chairs. Wet, red face.