Okay, first of I would like to say: why Kai? Well really, when you look at Initial D Kai has to be the character that gets the least camera time and yet is probably one of the guys who deserves much more. He strikes me as a Tochigi version of Fujiwara, only with much more personality. After his battle with Takumi what then? I mean we see what happens to the Night Kids and Impact Blue, Emperor, even Wataru turns up again with his new team the North-West Saitama All Stars but Kai never appears again. So this is my little way of telling the story of Kogashiwa Kai, the one and only lunatic on Irohazaka.

Secondly, there are references to BoomChish's great work with Follow the Leader. I take no credit for the Evo Prime team and all accolades should be sent her way for that, any thoughts that other characters may have for the Evo Prime members, should they invariably show up, that I take credit for :-). Anyway, enjoy the show and please, read and review.

Bad Beginnings.

Little things. You can't argue with the little things, it's the little things that make up life. Quoting the Simpsons not withstanding, the author had no idea how insightful that quote actually was. A little thing... a moment in time, which could have happened many different ways, but because of little things, your life slips away. 7km/h to fast into a hairpin... a little thing. Unplanned brake wear...a little thing. Oil on the course... another little thing. Because of these little things I lost everything. Gone is the Rally Toyota contract. Gone the respect of my grandfather. Gone the heart of my first love. Gone the life of my co-driver...

Gone the life of my best friend.

My name is Nicolas. Nicolas Sainz and I was a man destined for the World Rally Championship. So I thought. I have run far and fast to escape the memory of my life and as far as I go, as fast as I flee, I bear it with me still. One day I will be fast enough to outrun my woes...

That is my hope.

But what I hope and what I know are two different things entirely.

"Welcome to the course students, I am your lecturer for the semester, Satou-san. This course will focus on the teenage student and the great social and psychological changes that occur during puberty, which you will have to deal with as teachers..." Ohna Takuya tapped his pen against his notebook, waiting in bored misery for either something important to jot down, or a break to have a cigarette. Most of the class were in the same position as him, as motley a crew as they were. French exchange students rubbed elbows with upper-class Japanese, born and bred in Nikko and even young, overconfident and 'charismatic' street racers like him. Surely the French students were thinking about how their weekend would pan out, and what they would do to entertain themselves, just as much as Takuya planned the logistics of accompanying his friend Nobutachi Dysuke to the battle against Emperor's Satake. Dysuke had challenged the Emperor driver after hearing the way the Emperor team looked down on FR drifters. Satake had goaded Dysuke at a local nightclub after discovering the young drifter drove a Toyota Altezza, turbocharged with a transplanted 3SGTE and pushed to 300 horsepower. Dysuke was good, certainly considered among the best of the street level drifters in Nikko, but his opponent drove a Lancer Evolution IV, a car designed solely for the WRC, and he trained on Irohazaka mountain as often as Dysuke trained on the track. Even with 300 horsepower his set-up was so low and stiff, set for drift, that he'd hop over bumps in the road and lose traction. The LanEvo on the other hand would have no such problems, and it could step on the gas more in corners with 4WD, and the driver knew the course better, and...

"Excuse me. Forgive my intrusion, I'm new to the University and needed directions to find the lecture theatre." As Satou-san replied with something in the tough-but-fair vein, Takuya eyed up the new student who had interrupted his meditation of a hopeless situation. He was foreign, defiantly foreign, but he didn't look American, he was tanned, with long dark hair in a ponytail and a stylish goatee with thin sideburns and moustache. Maybe European, but beyond his obvious foreign appearance something stood out on the new comer. It wasn't his cargos or his shirt, or the military tags he wore around his neck, it was his shoes. Though at distance Takuya couldn't make out the brand, it was obvious by their appearance that they were the type of shoes used by race drivers, thin-soled to allow maximum sensitivity on the pedals. With the exorbitant cost of racing sneakers, Takuya doubted that the gaijin had bought them as a fashion statement, perhaps he was a racer or drifter himself? As the lecture continued without his consciousness Takuya wondered if, after the battle, he should show the gaijin around, maybe get him running the local passes with him. Takuya was mightily sick of running the touge alone, especially now that all the good passes had home teams on them. The closest run, Irohazaka was a complete nightmare to try at night, as there would always be at least one or two Emperor members floating about, and they never let outsiders run their pass unchallenged. Even Happohagaga, only recently completed, had a home team, another all LanEvo team to boot. Momiji was a hazardous run, even without the local Seven Star Reaf, open gutters and all. And Enna pass was home to T.R.S., a rally school run by a retired pro... who could compete alone against teams like that!? There were still the lesser passes, Asigiri foremost among those, but they were too far to travel to unless you were really desperate, especially with so many good passes closer to Nikko. What Takuya needed was a team of his own. Skilled drivers to push each other to excel and send a message to the home teams, that they weren't kings of their own mountain.

"An all Toyota team..."

Dysuke and Takuya had met on a free track day, owing to the fact that they both drove pretty unique Toyotas, soon exchanged phone numbers and had been good friends in the months that followed. Dysuke had his drift Altezza and Takuya had his EP82 Starlet. Having recently moved to Tochigi from his native prefecture Saitama for University, Takuya lost all of his racing colleagues, though he still had enough street cred to pose a challenge to the locals... just. Takuya was no stranger to driving, he had appeared on the illustrious Best Motoring more than once and had received praise from The Drift King, Keiichi Tsuchiya, himself, for both his driving and his car's tuning. But that didn't mean he actually stood a chance of defeating say, Sodou Kyouichi, the leader of Emperor and most skilled touge racer in Tochigi. Not at the rate he was going anyway, Takuya needed practice and lots of it, maybe he'd convince Dysuke to start coming with him to different mountains and training, maybe even get a few others to go with him. Surely there were more than a few individual drivers in the area that were tired of only catching a lap of the passes here and there in between team practice. Maybe a team wasn't too far fetched an idea. Takuya supposed that even Project D, and Tsuchiya's own team, The Touge Kings, had to have started out somewhere.

"Class is dismissed."

"Huh?"

"Hey dad, can I borrow the car? I want to go into town for a few hours." Kogashiwa Ken mulled his son's proposal over for a few minutes before responding.

"Sure, but be sure to fill it up and check the oil and tire pressure before you get home, or you'll be riding that bike of yours in the rain from now on!" Kogashiwa Ken, the retired rival to Fujiwara Bunta, threw his son the keys and watched him drive away. It was disappointing to say the least that Kai hadn't been able to beat Fujiwara's son, but by all accounts that young kid had god-like skill, nearly as much as his father, despite their large age difference. After that race Kai hadn't shown much interest in racing cars, he gave up on targeting the Emperor team, and pretty much only used the car when he needed some boot space, or to carry a passenger. Which was it today, Ken wondered.

"Hi, Rina, sorry I'm late, I had to wait for dad to get home before I borrowed the car." The young Toyota driver apologised as his new girlfriend clambered into the SW20. He had promised to take her to University to hand in a finished assignment, hopefully he wasn't too late, otherwise Kai would have to drive like a demon to get through the streets of Nikko in time.

"Oh don't think to much of it Kai! You know I'm handing this in early so I can get a longer weekend!" She happily exclaimed. Of the many things that Kai liked about Rina was the fact that she was carefree and easy-going, a pleasant change from his father and most of his friends. There was good cause to enjoy a long weekend too. Kai's father had a business meeting out of town and was carpooling with a associate, so that left Kai the car and the house all to himself. He had promised to show Rina some street racing on the weekend, apparently one of the Emperor team was racing, and despite what Kai thought about the members, they always put on a good show. Not as good a show as him, but still. Who could find the time to race anymore? Not Kai, with his University and his job at the local café and Rina and chores from his father to complete. But still, it would be good to see some action again. Kai wondered briefly if it would be that Iwaki driving, not that he had any reason to envy Iwaki's skill level, he had beaten the Emperor number two with ease nearly two years ago. Perhaps Kai should have paid more attention to the Tochigi scene after all. Oh well, Saturday he'd probably be able to get a few quick runs in before the battle, maybe he'd even get a chance to challenge someone to quick race. It was just an idea, besides, it couldn't hurt his image with Rina. They continued into Uni at a brisk but safe pace, chatting happily until Kai pulled up outside the school of Psychology and Rina waltzed inside to hand in her assignment. Looking through the car park to amuse himself Kai spotted quite a nice looking car in an adjoining bay a decided to wander over and have a look. Impressive! A Toyota Celica GT4, ST185... from Kei Office!? Sure enough, overlaid down the custom yellow painted door, on top of a pillar of performance brands was a small 'tuned by Kei Office' sticker. This car was defiantly built to attack the touge fast. From it's custom black bonnet and carbon wing to the visible aftermarket front mounted intercooler with water-spray kit to the seventeen inch black wheels with 245 Bridgestone Potenzas, everything about the car screamed weapon.

"Excuse me, can I help you?" Kai whipped around with a guilty start to face a tall foreigner. Caught half way between the natural reaction of a street racer to issue a challenge and the polite response of apologising Kai was grateful to see Rina returning from submitting her assessment.

"Um sorry... I was just waiting for my girlfriend, and I kind of noticed your car..." The stranger harrumphed and made for the driver side door.

"Oh, Kai, is this one of your street racing friends!? Wow, what a nice car, I like the colour, it's very pretty!" Rina concluded with a assured nod.

Kai, caught in awkward position, nearly blushed in embarrassment. One of the first rules of complimenting cars was to never call them 'pretty', sexy maybe, but never 'pretty'. The foreigner, far from taking offence, actually chuckled, twirling the keys around his finger in amusement.

"Thank you for the compliment, and I suppose you could call me a racer friend of Kai's." Even if I only just met the wannabe racer thirty seconds ago! Rina clapped her hands in delight.

"Oh! Does that mean you will come to the race Saturday with us!?" She asked, her hopeful tone pitifully irresistible. The gaijin's brow furrowed in confusion.

"I wasn't aware of any races occurring this weekend, what kind of race is it."

Kai starring at his shoes mumbled something along the lines of,

"Downhill battle, Irohazaka, 10 pm."

The response warranted a small derisive snort.

"Oh, amateurs..." he stated with clear distaste as he once again made for the door.

"Amateurs!? The skill level of the Tochigi touge racers is high, nearly equal to Takahashi Ryousuke's Project D! You should see for yourself before you pass judgement on the skill of others!" With that Kai whirled on his heel, took Rina's hand and stomped off gruffly to his SW20. Leaving Nicolas Sainz scratching his chin in half-hearted intrigue. Takahashi Ryousuke. If half of what the kid said was true, then maybe it would be worth a look, just for interest's sake. As likely as not the young gaijin wouldn't go, simply apathetic to the notion of planning events in his future.

If he went he went, and if he didn't, he'd probably forget about it by Sunday morning.

So what do we think? This chapter is all about introducing the characters that will form the foundation of the story and the foundation perhaps of a new team in Tochigi.

Kai, like most of the Tochigi racers, never really gets mentioned after his race on Irohazaka. Considering the fact that he nearly beat Takumi, and showed great technique along the way, he intrigued me. There seems to be many similarities to Kai and Takumi, but Kai gives me the impression of being more temperamental and impatient. We've already seen a little taste of his temper, from here on out will it grow or be reigned in by the lovely Satou Rina. If that name seems eerily familiar to some people, you'll just have to wait and see, but it won't be completely what you expect.

Ohna Takuya people should recognise from Best Motoring as he has appeared twice now, once on the 'my car challenge' and once in the Touge 200 competition. Those of you who don't know about Best Motoring, shame on you!

Nobutachi Dysuke is the only 'Mary-Sue' of the story. A friend of mine from Uni who actually lives in Nikko and taught me a lot about the Japanese racing scene. He recently traded his old Altezza for a time-attack style RX-8 but, for this story at the very least, I prefer the Altezza... nothing like drifting in leather seats!

Nicolas Sainz, the ringer, you could call him. You may have guessed his family heritage by now (if you haven't, again, for shame). It is clear that he has a history in Tochigi and is no stranger to touge or rally. Much of the story will bring up his history, and give him reason to actually get back into racing, but he will surprise you, I'm sure.