Hiiragi--39-s Practice Diary -final- -k-drive-- -

The K-DRIVE’s AI giggled. “That was close!”

The AI, which she’d programmed years ago with a voice chip from a broken toy, responded in its childish, crackling tone: “You got this, Hiiragi. Let’s fly.” Hiiragi--39-s Practice Diary -Final- -K-DRIVE--

The practice diary wasn’t a notebook anymore. It was the K-DRIVE itself—every run, every near crash, every impossible turn recorded in its black-box memory. She’d named the file system Hiiragi’s Practice Diary on a whim as a teenager. Volume one: learning to balance. Volume thirty: mastering the corkscrew drift. Volume ninety-two: breaking the district speed record. The K-DRIVE’s AI giggled

They moved as one—her breath, its hum; her heartbeat, its rotor whine. At the seventh hairpin, the magnetic rails failed. She felt the sudden lurch, the terrifying weightlessness. But instead of panicking, she twisted the throttle harder, kicked the rear stabilizer into overdrive, and drifted across the dead zone, scraping sparks off the bare concrete. It was the K-DRIVE itself—every run, every near

She should have felt happy. Instead, she felt hollow.