Off the long straightaway after the first left turn of the track, DK was catching me. I picked up a fake item block to try to interrupt him, but he went over to the right of me and crossed me there. Luckily, there were more item boxes nearing the second turn. This one gave me a red shell, which was a lot better than one of those item blocks you just sort of wait for somebody to drive into. The moment I managed to position myself so that DK was in a straight line in front of me, I let go of the shell and DK swerved to the side to avoid it. It hit him anyways, letting me pass him up by far. As I was back in fourth, I saw Toad miss all but one rock fired by the Shy Guys up in the balcony. This put him right up with Koda while I picked up yet another item.
Now I had to use three mushrooms... but very carefully, because the turn was narrow and there were busy Shy Guys on the edge of the track. I slid into a turn and tried using one around the turn while I slid, just to check what would happen. Bad idea; it rocketed me in the path of a horseshoe around a U-turn, and I dropped the second mushroom on accident trying to hang on. Now I crossed into the gap between the blocks again. This area was cool because it was like a little maze - nothing too hard to figure out, since there were arrows everywhere. This was a really cool playground.
When I came out, Koda had nailed Toad with a red shell, and I smacked the mushroom guy again with a banked Green Shell I just picked up as well. This let me get close to Koda when nearing that giant slide. While Koda was bumping around again due to the lightness of his kart, I was sitting on the back of it, keeping it on the straight part and letting me cut right through to position myself less than a quarter of a second behind Koda. What happened next, however, broke nearly every promise we had made to each other.
He blasted me with a green shell behind him at point-blank range, grinding me to a complete stop. There was absolutely no alternate explanation to this whatsoever. He knew I was directly behind him - he even glanced backwards for a second to make sure it was me. He nailed me right outside of the slide, so there was no chance I could swerve. Maybe, just maybe, his eyes were fogged up or something, or it was too dark in the slide for him to know it was me. Either way, I hit the accelerator again to not try and lose it and start the final lap.
Toad tryed passing me, but I tricked him by zigzagging and laying a banana at the right time. He spun out, putting DK a little ahead of him. I tried keeping up with Koda as much as possible, but he was agile, able to dodge the Shy Guys with slingshots quite easily. Okay, he didn't have an eye ailment. I followed a straight path and luckily didn't get hit.
Around the next sharp turn, I got a Mushroom. I knew better than last time and waited until I slid around the large bend of the turn to put the thing into my engine. The boost got me behind Koda again. To turn on me yet again, he put down a banana right then. So it wasn't the darkness! How could he go back on everything he said?! There was absolutely no point in him hiting me when I was
behind him! We agreed not to do that! My mind was spinning from confusion... no wait, my whole kart was spinning because I just hit a banana. The next blur I saw was a Blue Shy Guy in panic as my out-of-control kart was about to peg him. Surely enough, the poor thing became a hood ornament on the front of it.
"Aaaahhh!! Nooooooo!! Make it stop; please, make it stop!! I don't wanna die! Help meee!!! Stop right now! Get me off! Aaaahhh!!"
"...uh, the kart's not moving."
He looked over to his left, back over to his right, and surely enough, it wasn't moving. "...oh. Sorry." He then casually jumped off and went to clean up his pile of blocks.
Due to that mess, Toad, DK, Yoshi, and Wario had all passed me. I finished passing the pedestrians and hurried myself around the narrow block path. I grabbed an item which was slightly out of the way, and got myself three red shells. The first one crashed into a block, so I waited until the moment we exited there. The second one nailed Wario, letting me pass him, and the third one hammered Yoshi, allowing me to go past him on the other sharp turn and beat him through the slide. But when I got out of the slide and crossed the finish line... that was it.
I finished in fifth, one of my poorest runs for a while. Koda, Luigi, Toad, and DK all finished before me. And I could have actually stood a chance had one of my best friends not betrayed me.
I didn't even stay for the after-race coverage. I sort of went away from the crowd, not knowing what to do. How would I be able to win the only race I have left without anybody to turn to, anybody to trust, trying to complete my goal alone...?
Somehow, it had to be possible. This couldn't be it for me. Even without Koda, it had to be possible. I wanted to race. I will race. There's no question that I'm going to conquer the next one. Then I'll go and enter a grand prix... and win the gold trophy... and show it to all my ancestors, about how you can live your dreams out... it absolutely had to happen.
The moment before I attempted to exit, the blue Shy Guy I crashed into before halted my progress.
"Hold on! Don't jump yet."
"Hm? What do you want? I'm sorry about earlier..."
"Ah, that's alright. I'm the one that held you up. It's not much, but here."
"What's this?"
"I was building a tower made of small blocks. This one's an extra; you can have it."
"But why do I want it?"
"I don't really know. But just take it."
"...uh, alright."
"Thanks." He skipped off towards the big Shy Guy Playground now that nobody was racing on it for a long time.
Again, I slowly walked towards the trampoline to get out of here, when I heard a break in the multiple voices in the crowd. It was somebody calling my name. Actually, it was Koda. After he broke from the group of fans, he just stood there, not saying anything, staring at me, as if he was trying to say something vital but wasn't able to. All he did was yell "Charles" again while I jumped upon that trampoline and exited myself from the stupid track.
...now what?
Origin of Entria