—Natasha's POV—
The moment unfolded not in real time, but in the slow, crystalline agony of a dream. The world, which had been a deafening, vibrating chaos of opposing forces—a symphony of screaming metal and roaring crowds—seemed to fracture. Time itself stretched and thinned, holding its breath as two destinies, one of polished silver and one of matte black, converged upon a single, stark white line.
The sound of their engines was no longer two separate roars, but a single, unified shriek of mechanical agony, a shared death cry from two machines pushed far beyond the limits of their creation.
Then, they crossed.
It was not a sequence of events, but a singular, impossible event. In a perfect, paradoxical symmetry that defied every law of racing and rivalry, the front wheels of the si
