3rd POV:

That night, (Y/n) got dressed in her skating outfit and set out for "S." She still couldn't get the fact out of her mind that she met another skater who can somewhat communicate with her. And it's also cool because that skater will be at "S." Reki and Langa don't know that she skates at this dangerous mine, so they'll be in for a surprise because the girl wants to see if she can look for them.

As the girl skates past the gates, she puts her (2/f/c) hood over her head. This time, she can't keep her head down because she's on a mission to see if she can at least find one of the two boys she met that same day. Ignoring the weird stares she's getting from the people around her, she stays focused.

"Redhead. Look for a redhead," (Y/n) mumbles to herself as she scans everyone in her sight. But before she could look any further, she hears the sound of a motor engine coming from behind her. She didn't need to look behind her to know that someone was there, so she just moved to the side to let whoever is on the motorbike go by.

And as she was slowing down, she looked at the person who was driving the vehicle and saw a familiar redhead and sky-bluenette with helmets over their heads. Her eyes widen at the sight. 'It's them! The two boys I met earlier!' she thinks to herself.

Finding the courage to gain momentum on her skateboard, she ends up skating beside the motorbike. "Hello, boys," (Y/n) greets the boys in Japanese, but then says the last part in English because she doesn't know how to say it in their language. If anything, the only Japanese words she does know how to say are hello, thank you, sorry, and cute.

Hearing the familiar sound of the girl's voice, the two boys look in her direction and see the nine-year-old girl skating beside them.

"Oh! Hey, (Y/n)! I didn't know you skated here," Reki says, the last part mainly to himself as he admires the said girl he was looking at. Her skater outfit looked cool. He never would have thought it was the same nine-year-old girl he and Langa met that same day.

Langa takes his eyes off the road in front of him and smiles at (Y/n). "It's nice to see you again, (Y/n)," he tells the girl in English as she returns the smile.

"It's nice to see you, too! What are you guys up to?" (Y/n) asks Langa as she notices that Reki is carrying a big, black bag over his shoulder. "Reki and I are delivering a skateboard to a client here," Langa starts to explain, but doesn't get pretty far as Reki forces the sky-blue-haired boy to look up in front of them.

"What are you doing? Keep your eyes in front of us! You two can chat later," Reki tells his friend. Getting the hint on what's going on, (Y/n) puts all of her attention on what's in front of her so that she doesn't run into something either.

After a few more minutes of skating, Langa stops the motorbike he and Reki are on and parks it to the side. (Y/n) stops and waits for them, hoping that they won't mind if she tagged along with them. She then follows the boys as they run to a guy with yellow hair and a purple jacket and a girl, which (Y/n) assumed was the girlfriend of the guy, with light green hair and a pair of sunglasses resting on the top of her head.

"Sorry I'm late, but I got your order from Dope Sketch!" Reki tells the skater guy as he hands him the black bag. At this point, Langa and (Y/n) have already caught up with their redhead friend.

"About time!" Skater Guy says as he roughly snatches the bag from Reki's grasp. He then places it on the ground and starts to unzip the bag, ready to show his girlfriend his new skateboard. "It's my new deck, babe! I had them put your name on it."

"Yeah!" The girlfriend says with excitement. Langa and (Y/n) stand next to Reki as they watch the whole scene happen. "You won't believe how hard it was to find a pro to tune it! Better be fast as hell!" But as Skater Guy opened the bag, his expression changed to a shocked and confused one.

He and his girlfriend both gasp at the sight of the skateboard in the bag. It wasn't the new skateboard the skater guy was expecting but a wrecked-up skateboard. Reki practically screams at the sight of the board. How did this happen?

"Is this a joke?" the skater's girlfriend asks as she glares at Reki. Skater Guy growls in anger, which catches Reki, Langa, and (Y/n)'s attention. "What am I supposed to do with this, huh? Tell me what you did to my frickin board!"

(Y/n)'s peeks from behind Reki and looks at the board. She also watches how the client reacts to seeing it. Putting two pieces together, she figures out that the skater guy did not get the board he was expecting to get.

Reki, on the other hand, is having a mental freakout moment right now. He remembers back at the shop that he grabbed a black bag before he and Langa left, but then realized that he got the bags mixed up and grabbed the wrong one. 'No! What'd I do?' Reki thinks to himself.

"How are you gonna fix this, dude?" the skater's girlfriend asks as she glares at the redhead, causing him to snap out of his thoughts.

"I know you don't expect me to skate on this jacked-up piece of crap!" Skater Guy yells as he throws the wrecked-up skateboard to the side, causing Reki to gasp. The only thing that Reki could do was glare back at the client. "What? What's your deal? You wanna fight me on this, punk?" He asks Reki with attitude.

While Reki is dealing with the angry client, (Y/n) looks intensely at the wrecked-up skateboard. She understands that the skater guy wanted the skateboard that he was expecting to get, but he doesn't have to be all mean about it.

Being the curious little girl she is, she goes over to the skateboard and picks it up. She turns it to the side and spins one of the wheels. The wheels were fine and the board seemed to still be intact, even though it had a few scratches on it. She looks at the skater guy and sends a little glare to him.

'It's still a good board and he acts as if it belongs in the trash,' (Y/n) thinks to herself.

Biting back all of the anger inside of him, Reki builds up the courage to bow down to the client as an apologetic gesture. "I'm sorry! I'll go get you the right one!" the redhead tells him.

"There's no way you'll make it in time," someone from the crowd had spoken up. Even though the nine-year-old didn't know what he said, she still recognizes the voice. Her eyes widen as she looks in the direction she heard the voice come from. And standing there was none other than the famous clown skater in "S." "You know the race starts at midnight," Shadow finishes off as people from the crowd start to cheer him on.

"It's Shadow," (Y/n) mumbles to herself as her breath hitches a bit. She's never seen Shadow up close before. She kind of saw him as her idol and always wanted to race against him. If she had the guts to do so, she would race him now, but she doesn't want to interfere with the conversation.

"The winner of tonight's match gets to give the loser any tattoo he would like," Shadow says as he walks over to the skater guy and his girlfriend. "You've got your girl's name inked on you, so I'll add something to it. 'Lil Dumpster Slut'!"

Shadow cackles as everyone around cheers him on. The skater guy, on the other hand, holds his girl protectively. Once his eyes landed on Reki, an idea popped into his skater head.

"Oh! You skate this one!" he yells as he points at the redhead, causing the said boy to tense up in his spot. "You messed up any shot I had to win! Time to man up and skate this yourself!"

Reki gasps at this as he tries to defend himself. "It was an accident, and that board is wrecked. I can't use it like that!" he tells the client.

To the side, (Y/n) watches the whole thing, wondering what the people in front of her are saying. She saw the skater guy point at Reki, but she doesn't know if he was still accusing him of the mistake or if he was declaring something. Because whatever it was, Reki sure looked freaked out about it. Wanting an answer, she grabs Langa's shirt with her other hand, which is not holding the wrecked board, and tugs it, getting his attention as he looks down at her.

"Langa? What are they saying?" the nine-year-old asks the teen.

Langa looks up at his friend and the client before he looks back down at (Y/n). "The client wants Reki to race Shadow since he messed up his order," Langa tells her.

(Y/n)'s eyes widen after hearing that. She looks back at Reki and thinks:

'Reki gets to race against Shadow all because he didn't get the right board? That's messed up! Besides, I don't think he can race because of the injury he has on his left arm. Shadow will probably make it worse. So if Reki can't skate, then that means someone will have to take his place and race against this clown of a skater. And I, on the other hand, always wanted to skate against Shadow... So maybe...'

(Y/n)'s head quickly turns to Langa as a look of determination appears on her face. "Langa. How do you say 'I'll race you' in Japanese?" the girl asks him, causing the sky-blue-haired boy to tilt his head to the side a bit, wondering what's gotten in her mind.

Back with Reki, Shadow walks up from behind the redhead as he speaks. "Well someone's gonna have to use it," he says as he grabs Reki's injured arm and observes it. "If I were you, I'd volunteer to lose just to make that stupid bandage look like it was earned."

"What?" Reki questions as he pulls his arm out of Shadow's grip and sends him a death glare as the two are standing before one another. Without looking away, he gestures to his friend, Langa, as he speaks to him. "Langa, get me the scissors from the tool--"

"Hey!" A girl's voice interrupts Reki before he could even finish his sentence. This get's everyone's attention as the people around are now staring directly at the child in the (s/f/c) jacket with the hood over her head. Her legs start to shake because she's not used to this much attention on her, but she still bites back her fear and holds her own skateboard out towards Shadow. "I... race... uh, you!"

The only thing that could be heard was silence. Only after a few seconds, that is, Reki's eyes go wide and his hands find themselves on his head. "What the hell are you thinking?!" the redhead asks out loud, causing (Y/n) to flinch at his outburst. She got a little worried because she thought she might have said the sentence wrong and Reki doesn't know what she was saying.

But that uncomfortable feeling soon faded once the nine-year-old heard a cackle from Shadow. She looks at him with a confused look as he looks down at her intimidatingly. "Are you joking? There's no way a little kid can beat me in a race. So why don't you just go home and play with your dolls or something?"

(Y/n) was about to question what he just said, but Reki stepped forward before a word could escape the girl's mouth. "She has nothing to do with this, so keep her out of it. I'll do it," Reki stands up for the (h/c)-haired kid.

"You can't with your injury," Langa says as he stands next to the redhead, leaving (Y/n) to stand there behind the two teens questionably.

"Better than sending the kid out there to wing it!" Reki argues back with his friend.

(Y/n) holds her skateboard close to her chest, debating whether or not wanting to skate against Shadow was a good idea. But she was then snapped out of her thoughts when she heard an unfamiliar voice speak from behind her.

"No. She'll be the one to skate."

Confused about who spoke, the girl turns around. She sees a tall person wearing a sleeveless white hakamashita kimono with thick purple cuffs around his shoulders and baggy hakama pants that is secured with a yellow belt. What really got the girl's attention was his long, pink hair that is held in a high ponytail. Her eyes sparkled at the sight of the person's arrival because she knows exactly who he is.

"Cherry?!"

The only times (Y/n) would see this skater was through the huge screen that is held by the hang-out area she likes to stay at. She never thought that there would be a day when she would actually see the famous skater in person.

"The AI Skater," The client questions out loud at the sight of the said skater.

"The Cherry Blossom?" Reki then questions out loud.

As everyone seemed to recognize him as the famous skater, Langa, on the other hand, seemed to recognize him as someone else. He remembers meeting a guy with the same colored hair when he was looking for a job before he met Reki and (Y/n). 'It's that guy,' he thinks to himself as his eyes widen a bit in realization.

"If someone gets on a board out here, the rules are they have to compete..." Cherry explains as he then looks down at the nine-year-old, a small smile appearing on his face as he sees the look of determination in (Y/n)'s eyes. "...no matter their age or level."

The girl does not know what the sakura-haired skater said, but by the tone of his voice, she believes that he was encouraging her to race against Shadow. So she smiles back, hoping that she made the right choice. Reki, on the other hand, is still trying to convince everyone else that (Y/n) shouldn't race.

"Don't. She's still a kid! She can get hurt!" the redhead tries to argue his own opinion. He then looks at (Y/n), hoping that he can at least put some sense into the nine-year-old even though she doesn't understand a single word that comes out of his mouth. "This is a bad idea! Back down and let me handle this." He lastly says as he places his non-injured hand on his chest.

Confused about what he said, (Y/n) looks at Langa for answers. "What did he say?" she asks the sky-blue-haired boy.

"He said that he believes in you and that you'll do great," Langa says with an innocent smile as he gives her a thumbs up, making it obvious that he was supporting her. The girl actually believed him and looked at Reki, giving him a smile along with a nod.

Reki gets confused when he sees that and turns toward Langa. "What did you tell her?!" He asks his friend.

"I told her the same thing you said," Langa says innocently as he sends him the same smile he gave (Y/n).

"No, you didn't!! If you did, then why is she smiling at me like--" Reki didn't get the chance to finish as two guards grabbed the redhead by the arm and started to drag him away from the starting line. "Who's touching me? Hey! Stop!" He yells as he waves his arms up and down, trying to get out of the guards' grasp.

Langa follows his friend as the race was about to start, giving (Y/n) another thumbs up before he joined the crowd by the starting line.

A loud siren then blares throughout "S," signaling that a race was about to start. The nine-year-old reaches into her back pocket and takes out the skater gloves her mother gave her so that her hands wouldn't get scratches or scrapes in case she was to ever fall. (Y/n) would be lying if she said that she wasn't nervous as she is standing at the starting line while fixing the straps on her gloves. She's never raced against an opponent before and never practiced for this particular occasion. But she would have to do her best. To her, it's just like how she normally practices at the Drive-In she stays at, except more intense and way faster.

(Y/n) gulps down her nervousness as she looks up at the traffic light above her and Shadow, waiting for all of the lights to turn green. Reki was telling her some last-minute pointers that she should focus on, but she didn't hear them because 1) she was too focused on the race, and 2) she couldn't understand the words that were being said.

The nine-year-old closes her eyes as she thinks to herself for the last few seconds.

'You can do this, (Y/n)...'

Red...

'It's nothing different than how I normally practice...'

Red...

'You get to race against the skater you admired so much...'

Red...

'If this is a way to also find my dad...'

Red...

'...then I'll take this chance.'

Green

And like that, the two skaters were off with Shadow in the lead. The sound of the crowd cheering sent a chill down (Y/n)'s spine. Even though she has the feeling that they weren't cheering for her, she could still use this as an advantage to skate past Shadow.

(Y/n) catches her balance as the speed increases. She's not used to going this fast and needs to make sure she stays focused. Apart from the speed, she could hear the people on the sidelines yelling things in their Japanese language, making her wonder if they were cheering her on or making fun of her. Considering that Shadow has a higher rank than the nine-year-old, she can only guess that she doesn't strike their interest.

But she's hoping she can change their minds about that.

A smirk forms on her face as she bends her knees a bit to get more balanced on her skateboard. As she does, it looks as if the gap between the girl and Shadow was getting smaller.

Back with the teens, Langa is looking up at the huge screen and sees what is going on. His eyes sparkle with interest as he notices (Y/n) getting closer to Shadow.

"Reki, look," he tells the redhead as he points a finger at the huge screen. Hearing his friend, Reki snaps out of his thoughts and looks up towards the screen. His eyes widen at the sight. This is the first time he has ever seen (Y/n) skate this fast.

"No way," he says in amazement,

To the side, an engine revs, catching the two teenager's attention. They look and see Cherry on an AI motorcycle. "I'm gonna ride ahead. Wanna come?" he asks the two boys.

Back with the race, Shadow looks back at the kid as they dodge a few rocks along the track. He still doesn't see why she had the guts to race against him for someone her age. 'What's this kid's deal, anyway? Does she really think that she can beat me?' Shadow thinks to himself. He notices that (Y/n) is getting closer and decides to skate faster.

"She better not be thinking I'm gonna let that brat catch up to me!" Shadow says as he makes a sharp turn around a corner. (Y/n) does the same thing, not even breaking a sweat.

Coming up was another corner. Shadow turns and slides his gloved hand on the ground to help with the change of direction, creating sparks in the process. At this point, he thinks the girl was far behind now, but he thought wrong when he turned around and saw (Y/n) mimicking his exact movement on the turn, sparks flying from her gloved hand.

"What?!" Shadow yells at the sight of the nine-year-old. He tries to knock her off balance after the turn, but she manages to get past him with ease. Now she was in the lead.

'That brat!' Shadow thinks to himself. In the distance, he notices a corner coming up. That was the same corner where Reki fell off his skateboard the last time he raced against Shadow. He smirks at the sight. 'Go ahead, speed up. Good luck making it around that corner without crashing!' he thinks.

But, oblivious to the clown skater, this nine-year-old had something up her sleeves. Right as a smirk forms on her face, she does an ollie on her skateboard and pulls a Rail Slide on the side of the track. This was one of the few tricks her mother taught her right after she learned how to do an ollie.

Shadow stares wide eye as he watches her turn the corner. 'What the hell? Who is this kid?' he asks himself.

In mid-turn, (Y/n) feels herself lose balance, causing her to jump back on her skateboard and straighten out on the track, giving Shadow the advantage to skate past her. (Y/n) lets out a shaky breath, trying to regain focus.

'I still need to keep practicing to get it right on the mark. At least I was able to nail it the first half of the turn,' (Y/n) tells herself in her head. She looks up and glares at Shadow. "I've gotten past Shadow before, I can do it again."

(Y/n) bends her knees as she starts to speed up. She dodges rocks and trees, using the side ramps to help her stay on track. As she does, she can see Shadow in the distance and starts to gain up on him. Shadow notices the girl behind him and gets a nervous feeling inside him.

'You gotta be joking. What kind of crap is she tryna pull?' Shadow asks in his head as (Y/n) is now skating beside him.

On the sidelines, the crowd watches the race with amazement. Two girls look down at the race from where they were standing with shocked looks. "I didn't think she was gonna be that good," one of the girls says.

"Looks like she might actually win against Shadow," the other girl states.

"I don't know about that." A male's voice catches the girls' attention from beside them. Standing with the girls was a tall, muscular man with dark forest green wavy hair. He's wearing a black and blue jacket with an orange lining along with a pair of plain baggy white pants. He observes the race and the way (Y/n) is skating. "She may be able to maintain her speed, but it takes more than that to win 'S.' I guess I'll throw her a bone and not write her off just yet."

(Y/n) and Shadow start to get closer to the abandoned factory, which is the final stage of the race. 'We're here! The final stage! Time to step up and settle the score!' Shadow tells himself in his head as he shakes his worries aside.

Shadow was the first one to enter the factory and (Y/n) follows after. What the girl saw inside amazes her. She and Shadow are skating along the catwalk as people below were cheering the two on. There was also very colorful lighting in the place and graffiti could be seen everywhere. 'Wow. This is intense,' she thinks.

"Welcome to 'S!' Weren't expecting something like this, were ya, kiddo?" Shadow tells (Y/n) as he jumps down a short flight of stairs. "Good news! Goal's right in front of your eyes! Too bad there's no way out now!"

(Y/n) wasn't paying any attention to what Shadow was saying because he wasn't talking in English. So instead, she looks around to see if she can find any way to get past Shadow before they cross the finish line.

On the side of the catwalk, she notices a broken steel beam sticking out. Scanning the edge, she sees that the beam leads to a ramp that goes down and then up. That would launch her toward the finish line faster if she was to take that path. With a final gulp, she works up the courage to pull that stunt.

'You got this!'

Building up the momentum, she uses an ollie to hop onto the steel beam, landing in the center between the trucks of her board. She slides down the beam, pulling a familiar-looking trick that her mother said was called the "boardslide."

"She's gonna fall!" a skater yells as (Y/n) reaches the edge. As she does, she falls towards the ramp that was just below her. She lands perfectly and gains speed as she skates down.

Shadow stares at her with wide eyes. 'Huh? Gimme a break! She may know some tricks, but there's only one Lord Shadow! Only one clown punk of the 'S' community!' From behind his back, he grips onto his firecrackers that were just waiting to be thrown. 'Let me prove it to you!'

Right as (Y/n) was going to get launched up, she quickly unzips her sweater and lets the sides fly out to the side, revealing her (1/f/c) shirt and making sure that her hoodie stays over her head. At this point, Cherry, Reki, and Langa reach the finish line on the AI motorcycle and watch as (Y/n) catapults herself in the air. But Reki also noticed that Shadow was planning on pulling a nasty trick, one that was used on him once.

"(Y/n), look out!" the redhead shouts to the girl.

But once in the air, (Y/n) was able to dodge the firecrackers that were thrown at her. To her, everything felt as if it was in slow motion, the same goes for Reki and Langa. The two boys watch in amazement as (Y/n) soars through the air with sparks sparkling behind her. This leaves everyone speechless, including Shadow. To them, it looks as if the girl was flying and her unzipped sweater looked like wings as the fake bird tail on her skirt was flailing against the wind.

Reki's eyes sparkled as they reflect the sight of what he was seeing in front of him. 'Call me crazy, but I know what I saw. Wings sprouted from her back...

'...and she was flying.'

To be continued...



JK

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"(Y/N)!!!!!"

The sound of a familiar voice catches the nine-year-old's attention as she stands right on top of the finish line. Footsteps could be heard getting louder at the very second. She looks up, but as she does, a pair of hands grip the girl's shoulders, almost startling her as she looks at the redhead in front of her. It was quiet, and the only thing that could be heard was Reki panting.

"You're... So... AWESOME!!!!"

(Y/n)'s eyes go wide as the crowd around her cheers. People were giving compliments to the girl all at once, not that she understood what they were saying, anyway. But many things were said, like:

"That was amazing!"

"I can't believe she beat Shadow!"

"That kid has talent!"

"Who is this kid?"

(Y/n) snaps out of her thoughts when Reki continues to speak with stars in his eyes. "I didn't know you were this good! You were amazing! You were on fire! You were flying! Yeah, you were all of those! Like a... Phoenix!"

The last word caught a little interest to (Y/n). She didn't know what that word meant in English, so she looked at Langa once he came up beside the redhead.

"Langa, what does the last word he said mean?" she asks him, to which he smiles down at her.

"It means 'Phoenix,'" He tells her.

(Y/n)'s eyes go wide a bit after hearing that familiar word. "Phoenix..." (Y/n) says to herself, seeing how it sounds in her voice. After a few seconds, she looks back up at the two teens with a smile.

"That sounds like a good skater name."