I'm back again with Chapter Five ready to go. Damn, I could sure go for something seriously greasy right about now…

Follow The Leader

by BoomChish

Chapter Five

Remember Me

Every time we organized time trials on Happogahara, we made sure to keep watchmen on both sides so as to alert us as to any oncoming traffic. It was somewhat heartwarming, and somewhat not, to see the amount of wannabe racers and hangers-on who showed up whenever our team came to Happo for a time trial run. Most of them were newbies from the area, but some of them remembered me from my time as the second-best driver of Emperor. It was from them that Jin and Alex found out about my past.

"No way, aniki! How come you never told us you used to be a member of the Irohazaka Emperors? That's so cool!" Jin exclaimed.

"No wonder you're so good at road racing!" Alex chimed in.

I had to shake my head at their praise. "Being a member of Emperor was not cool, now that I think of it. Kyouichi Sudou demands perfection from his teammates. The slightest slip-up and he'll always regard you as a stupid moron. Which is what happened to me. That's why I retired; I couldn't take any more of his bullshit." I omitted the fact that, after my loss to Fujiwara, my winning streak just went down the drain. But Alex and Jin didn't seem to mind, or care about my previous win-loss record. To them, as long as I was their leader and their mentor, they had nothing else to worry about.

Fortunately, Alex began to get over his fear of sharp turns. He was now capable of attacking most corners at second gear and was working his way up on taking some of them at third gear. I was suitably impressed by his skills. He was coming along nicely. As for Jin, he also learned how to stay off the walls while driving fast. Actually, for that, I hate admitting this, but I'd asked some of the spectators to stand in front of the guardrails, so that if Jin wanted to avoid hitting people, he'd have to stay off the walls. Very few of them agreed, but it worked. Not only did Jin learn how to keep his car positioned properly; he now knew how to avoid the guardrails. Oh yeah, and no one was hurt, of course. I made sure of that personally.

The only thing that was missing was Miyoko's progression. Since she'd left for Tokyo two weeks ago, we hadn't heard a single thing from her. I guess her father was keeping her busy. Then, one day, she'd called and said that she'd be arriving that night. I reassured her that we'd be waiting for her, then we went to Happogahara for our routine time trial.

That night was a memorable one in two ways. First off, we were all set to start, and then we got a message from one of the watchmen stationed at the outbound finish line, where we were waiting.

"Iwaki-san! I've got bad news for you! Emperor is coming!"

Oh joy…

I hadn't seen Kyouichi and the other Emperor guys in months. If they're on their way, it obviously meant one thing; that the fame of Evo Prime's slow ascension caught their attention, so they decided to check us out for size. Not that we'd make a good impression on Kyouichi anyway… he was trained in the ways of a rally racer… so unless they measure up to his standards, they don't measure at all. And out of the four of us (I should say three of us now, since Miyoko was absent), only I stood a ghost of a chance against Kyouichi should he decide to challenge us.

And I wasn't even much of a challenge to Kyouichi anyway. He'd taught me everything I knew.

There was nothing left for me to do but wait for Emperor to arrive. Alex was pacing around nervously and Jin kept poking me with his elbow asking me stupid questions, like "Oh my God, aniki… Are they going to challenge us to a race? Why are they here? We're not ready yet! Oh my God, we're not ready yet!" he fretted.

I elbowed him fiercely. "Stop worrying about it, Jin. I'll take care of everything."

Eventually, we saw the oppressive headlights of Kyouichi's black Evo III, followed by the other Evos that formed the legion that was the Irohazaka Emperors. As I watched them approach us, I had to wonder; who exactly did Kyouichi appoint as second-in-command after my dismissal? As far as I remembered, the lesser members couldn't keep up with me if I pushed myself to my limits, so who was eligible enough to take my place? Assuming he'd even bothered to replace me.

I watched impassively as they all slowed down off to the side, except for Kyouichi, who blocked the centre of the road with his Evo. He then got out; his dark eyes focused squarely on me.

"So… we meet again."

I didn't even dignify him with a response. Until he told me why he was here, I had nothing to say.

Kyouichi went on, his voice calm, "Well, well… after being thrown out of Emperor, you decide to go your own way and start your own all-Evo group, I see?" His gaze fell insolently on Jin and Alex's cars, and then he stared back at me. "All their Evos are the newer models… those rely more on computer work than manual work… Did you really think that you'd be able to surpass Emperor with what you have now?"

"My intention was to surpass no one," I answered curtly. "My brother and his friends merely wanted guidance in forming their own racing team. This is where I came into the picture, and this is where I'll stay until they've sufficiently gathered enough skill to go about on their own."

"Friends?" Kyouichi repeated rudely. "Seems to me that aside from your brother, there's only one of them… so why the clever use of the plural?"

Jin lost his temper. "There's another member who's not here at the moment! How dare you-"

"Shut up, Jin," I snapped, my gaze never breaking from Kyouichi's. Finally, I asked the one question that Jin, Alex and I wanted an answer for; "Why are you here?"

Kyouichi spread his arms wide. "We-ell, I'd simply heard that you'd formed your own team based in Happogahara, and I just decided to stop by and see what the commotion was all about. No harm in that, right? Or am I not welcome?"

I shrugged in dismissal. "As long as you don't interfere with our time trial, I couldn't care less if you go or stay." At least I was honest about that.

Alex looked like he was about to have an apoplexy. "Seiji…" he hissed.

I shot both him and my brother a deadly look. "Can it. There's nothing we can do, okay? Just deal with it," I retorted as quietly as possible so that Kyouichi couldn't hear me. I then turned to face Jin and Alex. "I'll start us off. I'll send a signal to the watchmen at the finish line to send a message back here for you guys to start, okay?"

"Okay," both of them agreed, however grudgingly.

I got into my car and waited for the timekeeper to give me the signal to go. When the signal was dropped, I started off. In my rearview mirror, I could see Jin and Alex keeping to themselves, staying a nice distance away from Kyouichi and the rest of Emperor. I don't think either of them would want to interact with Kyouichi unless I was there, else something bad could happen. On the other hand, I fervently hoped that Kyouichi wouldn't heckle them too much. Knowing Jin, he has more of a sense of anger management, but when he hit his boiling point, he went straight for the physical attack. And I know that Jin and Alex alone wouldn't be able to survive an onslaught from Emperor if it came.

I tried my best to push it far out of my mind and continued on my driving at hand. Judging by the smoothness of my drifting this time around, I was making good progress myself. Maybe I'd beat my old record. All I could do was try… until I saw the pair of headlights that appeared like a phantom out of nowhere.

What the hell? I thought I told them to wait for the signal! This wasn't funny at all; I didn't like the extra pressure when doing a time trial, and they knew this. If they were following me, it either meant one thing… that Kyouichi had upset them to the point that they came after me. But something wasn't right…

The headlights were familiar… distinctively those of a Lan Evo… but the body of the car wasn't blue… or yellow, so it wasn't Jin or Alex. Hell, it wasn't even black, so it couldn't be Kyouichi. As a matter of fact… it was… red… Which meant…

Miyoko?!

I drifted into the next sharp curve as fluidly as possible, and was shocked to see her mimic my exact move and drift behind me, in a flawlessly executed double drift for both of us.

Had she been practicing while in Tokyo?

I tried my best to shake her off, to gain as much speed in the corners and take off on the straights, but she kept close on my backside. How could this be? She wasn't this good when she left two weeks ago. Unless she had been practicing, in which case… Damn!

No matter what I did, she managed to copy with ease. I could feel my blood boiling, as it often did when I was being pressured from behind. But when I'd chanced a glance at my rearview mirror again, she was gone. The oppressive glare of her headlights had vanished. Then, I was able to calm down. So I had outrun her. She wasn't as good as I thought she'd become.

Or so I thought.

The next thing I knew, I saw her headlights reappear out of nowhere… next to me. As I glanced in my side mirror, I could see her accelerating and pulling up alongside me. This had to be some sort of joke! It's the same way I'd lost against Fujiwara on his home track, Akina! And now I was losing to my own teammate on Happo thanks to the same method!

Damn it!

The next corner was coming up fast. And Miyoko now had the inside. She edged herself ahead just enough to give her room to execute her drift… and like the rest, it was flawlessly performed. Now I was thoroughly convinced that she'd been practicing. The only question is: where in Tokyo? And with who? Because the drift she'd pulled off wasn't something I knew how to do.

The finish line was approaching. Miyoko kept her lead well and as she passed the finish line, she pulled over to the side and waited for me to pull over as well before she emerged from her car.

As soon as I got out, I ran over to her. "How the hell did you do all that stuff back there? That was amazing! I couldn't even do that if I tried. Did you practice somewhere in Tokyo while you were away?"

She stared at me before she merely said, "You said you'd wait for me when I came back. When I got home, no one was there, so I figured you'd all be here at Happogahara. So I just unpacked my stuff, then came here right away."

"Alex and Jin are still at the beginning of the inbound path. Didn't you see them?"

Miyoko shook her head. "When I didn't see your car, I figured you'd gone on a time trial, so I went after you. You said you'd wait for me," she repeated, somewhat childishly. And no matter how juvenile her complaint seemed, she was right. I had promised that we'd be waiting for her… although we didn't specify where we'd be waiting for her. But I decided not to antagonize her. Especially not if I wanted to find out where she'd learned how to pull off a drift of that caliber.

There was the telltale growl of approaching Evos, so I knew Alex and Jin had probably sprung into high gear and took off after me as soon as they saw Miyoko zip past them. But then I heard the familiar gunshot sounds of Kyouichi's misfiring system. Crap, not now. His black Evo came into view, followed by Alex and Jin several meters down. He also pulled off to the side behind my car and got out, careless of whatever else may occur. Miyoko eyed him warily, then she narrowed her eyes as he came closer.

"Kyouichi Sudou… I'd heard of you," she muttered darkly.

Kyouichi, on the other hand, wasn't so smug. "Wh… what the hell? Seiji, what in the hell is Hiroji Ieyasu's daughter doing here? With you?"

I looked over at Miyoko, who was still eyeing Kyouichi suspiciously, then at Alex and Jin, who had just parked their cars and were running up to us. Finally, I looked at Kyouichi again.

"Miyoko's my third teammate… the other person I was referring to when I spoke of my brother and his friends," I answered, letting that last word sink in.

Kyouichi looked at Miyoko, then at me. Finally, his expression reverted to his old calm manner. "So… I'll bet you thought that with Ieyasu-chan's patronage, you could buy your way into the hall of fame of road racers, eh? Well, you know very well that money only pays for car maintenance, and your car is only as good as your skill…" He then stabbed a finger in the air towards me. "No matter how much money you have on your side, your skill will never be enough to defeat Emperor!" And with that, he got back into his Evo III and drove off.

"Arrogant sonofabitch. I can finally see why you left Emperor with little qualms… although doesn't explain why you put up with that," she growled angrily.

"Hey, I put up with you, didn't I?" I joked, and recoiled when I saw her venomous glare. "Sorry, I was only kidding. In any case, like I'd said to Jin and Alex, Kyouichi isn't someone you would contradict, not if you wanted to stay on his team. And back then, I wanted to remain in Emperor more than anything."

"I see…" Her voice was low.

Alex and Jin had something else on their minds. "Miyo, what the hell? Didn't you see us at the starting line? You just zipped past us as if we didn't exist! Why didn't you slow down?"

She didn't reply; she merely stared at where Kyouichi had gone. I made a face and shook my head. "Stuff happens, whatever. Now, I thought you guys wanted to complete your time trial," I declared, shifting their attention away from Miyoko's unexpected arrival. But I knew that eventually, I'd have to get her to tell me how she'd improved so much in such a short amount of time.

It was almost impossible to achieve such skill in two weeks… How did she do it?

---

Hoo boy…

Yes, Kyouichi makes his first physical appearance here. Since he's heard of Seiji's new team and was responsible for his dismissal from Emperor, naturally he'd stop by eventually to see what the fuss is all about. After all, it's highly unlikely that something like Seiji's new racing team would pass by unnoticed by Kyouichi… Much like Miyoko, Kyouichi's got his own sources of information, especially when it concerns the road-racing world. But don't you fret; in Initial D, you can't have Seiji without Kyouichi, so Emperor will come back… sooner or later…

I am aware of the fact that two weeks is entirely too short of a time span in which Miyoko could learn all those tactics in drifting. Simply put, this story is being told from Seiji's point of view, so everything explained and described is how he sees it. As far as anyone could know, maybe Miyoko had her skills beforehand, but didn't want to parade them in front of Alex and Jin, (who are actually inferior in skill to her) so as not to intimidate them. In any case, it'll all be explained later on. As long as I remember one thing; no matter what happens, if Project D comes into the picture, they must win. Why?

If you've been following the storyline of Initial D, you'll understand why.

-BoomChish