Well, hello everyone. Remember me?

Sorry for the delay in updating, I've been taking some well-deserved time off on Vanuatu. Got to say that the neither the roads nor the cars impressed me overly, but I did get to see one red AE92 Trueno coupe (that's the next generation Trueno after Takumi's, an FF 1.6L NA) that was modified for 'fun on the coral roads'. The owner was the head of main tire sales place in Port Villa and was from Laos, we got talking over a few drinks at a downtown Villa bar and he took me for a ride around the island the next day. Pretty cool stuff, very reminiscent of my childhood racing days…

Anyways, when we left things the members of Five Fire Flame had just discovered that Iwaki Seiji had been hospitalised from his race with Sodou Kyouichi. This chapter we get to see what happened between Sainz and Sodou in the interim between BoomChish's two chapters. Enjoy and don't forget to review.

Sainz and Sodou: the showdown

A92, no wait, maybe that was A82. As Nicolas Sainz rushed the hallway of the Maebashi hospital he struggled to remember the exact details of what his one-time sempai had imparted. Sainz caught the basics; a battle with another LanEvo driver, a crash involving a truck and some disjointed yammering about something called Prime. Evo Prime, Emperor Prime, something absurd like that. It was obvious that Sodou had been medicated from the languid tone of his voice; Sainz only prayed that he was coherent enough to receive visitors. He passed room A82 and slid the door open a fraction to hopefully identify the occupant as Sodou. No such luck. Nor was his luck any better at A92. That couldn't be right, the GT4 driver was certain that it was 82 or 92, if Sodou wasn't in either, maybe he had been moved. The thought caused Sainz's breath to catch for a split second and there was an involuntary tightening in his chest as the possibilities erupted inside his mind. Tightening his eyes, Sainz struck out against the wall in denial and made his way for the reception desk. Startled, he stopped dead when he recognised one of the doctors standing off to the side of his target. It had been years and the man's profile was partially obscured by a rather attractive blonde young woman, but the aura was identical. The same still, calculating perfection permeated the air around Takahashi Ryousuke and for a minute Sainz's one-time fear of Akagi's White Comet nearly got the better of him.

"Takahashi Ryousuke."

Turning, his face revealing neither surprise nor disapproval, Ryousuke faced down the younger man.

"Nicolas Sainz." There it was, something that in a different life, Nicolas Sainz had worked so hard for: to be treated as an equal by his heroes. It was ironic that now, when it meant so little by necessity, that he had supposedly earned it. Maybe Ryousuke just didn't want to give Sainz any undue shame. For a moment the young gaijin wondered if Ryousuke knew… he had to know, Takahashi Ryousuke knew everything about current events in racing.

"You are here to see Kyouichi?"

At that point the young woman at Ryousuke's side looked from Sainz, to Ryousuke and then back to Sainz. She had seen all the Emperor team members, and he definitely wasn't one of them. If not a teammate then she found it hard to believe that a man like Sodou Kyouichi could have friends. Silent, barely able to maintain eye contact with Ryousuke, Sainz nodded.

"Well that's a relief, beside's you no one has been to visit him. His teammates obviously feel that it is beyond their station and we have had some difficulty contacting his family. Perhaps you visiting him will encourage his recovery." Excusing himself from the young woman, Sainz thought that he caught her name as Sayuki; the acclaimed White Comet indicated that the young gaijin should follow him.

"It has been difficult holding Kyouichi here for his own good. Even though his injuries were not of an overly serious nature, we felt it was best to keep him under surveillance. The nurses have had quite a hard time keeping him in his room, he was constantly walking to the gardens for a cigarette and so I had them move him closer to the gardens. At least now he is easy to find."

Behind Ryousuke Nicolas walked in a daze, the last time he had been in a hospital had been right after…

"No."

Startled to have actually said the word aloud Sainz masked it by rubbing his moustache and coughing. If Ryousuke noticed the Freudian slip, he gave no indication, but then from what Sainz remembered of Ryousuke, he seldom did. Ever the gentleman, Ryousuke politely held the door of the garden atrium open for Sainz.

"He's toward the back. I think he expects you."

With that the two parted ways, Sainz to Sodou and Ryousuke back to his work. Kyouichi was there, towards the back just like Ryousuke had said he would be, still wearing that ridiculous white bandana over his platinum hair and fidgeting with a pack of Lucky Strikes. The only visible signs of his crash were some light bruising that had yet to fully colour and a medical neck brace that made the Emperor team leader look amusingly like a cotton-tip. The alleviating humour had no affect on Sainz, who promptly sat beside Kyouichi, fumbled for his own packet of cigarettes and lit one. Taking a calming breath through the small cylinder he turned to Sodou.

"Is the Evo damaged?"

Only a racer would ask such a seemingly callous question of an injured person, and only a racer like Sodou Kyouichi would answer it without insult.

"Not badly."

He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts.

"Iwaki Seiji blocked the truck with his Evo IV. It could have been the death of him, but he put himself in between me and the truck."

Sainz's breath caught in his throat, the action Kyouichi just described was extremely reckless and utterly admirable. As experienced with racing as Sainz was he had yet to meet someone whom he thought would have the courage to do that for another person, especially on the touge where any crash could mean a long fall into a canyon.

"Seiji surprised me. His potential surprised me."

The strange tone made Sainz raise his eyebrow and wonder if the meds he suspected Sodou to be on had suddenly kicked in.

"It is hard to describe, Seiji was my lieutenant in Emperor, my best friend, but for all that he wasn't a very commendable person."

Sodou smiled.

"Actually he was an ass! He was rude, hotheaded, chauvinistic and arrogant; he would never listen to me when I tried to help him as a driver. That was the Iwaki Seiji I knew. I defined him within boundaries that I never expected him to reach, let alone exceed, and there I left him for years. But people can grow unexpectedly. I removed him from Emperor… I… I really treated him quite badly. I think that I had hoped that by wounding his pride he would see the truth of everything I had been trying to force feed him for years, although maybe it was just to ease my own sense of loss for the team's reputation. I had expected him to come crawling back, or at the very least quit the touge scene, I didn't think he had the potential for anything else. That's where he surprised me, that's when I realised that it is under extreme adversity that a person jumps into their full potential."

Full potential? Kyouichi must have been medicated, racing was a sum of training, technique and reflexes; working on those things was the key to improvement, not adversity… wasn't it? Was Sodou even referring to racing, or the inherent qualities of a person? Thinking of his own long brush with adversity Sainz suddenly felt ashamed, neither his driving nor his character could have said to have improved.

"He formed his own team, really what I thought of as a group of rich brats with the money to afford Evo VII's, but the growth of his team's ability and Seiji's own growth as a person proved me wrong. Evo Prime came out with victories against two members of TRS, and I can assure you their skill level hasn't dropped since our days with Todou, and with a revenge match against the racer who precipitated Seiji's fall from Emperor. During that time I noticed how Seiji was growing in his role as a team leader. I don't know whether it was from constantly living with three difficult youths or whether it was from dealing with my constant baiting, but he gained maturity, respect and discretion that were completely alien to him before. Even when his brother was attacked by Emperor members, he didn't come for revenge, I could see it in his eyes, he came for something else, something personal. He came to show me who he really was. Through all the troubles he had gone through, all the hardship, he had found the real Iwaki Seiji, and he validated that beyond anyone's expectations on Usui. He knew that the truck would have killed me and even though, with a rollcage in his car, it would still have been an inconsiderable risk, his took it for my sake alone. He…"

Disturbed by a knock upon the glass door entrance to the garden both Sainz and Sodou turned to see a young nurse with an urgent expression on her face.

"Sodou-san, Dr Takahashi wanted me to inform you that visiting hours are over and that your guest must leave now. Orderlies will be coming soon to assure everyone is in their rooms for dinner."

Whatever had been on the tip of Kyouichi's lips forgotten under a stream of grumbling, Kyouichi and Sainz said their farewells, Sodou promising to call when he was released… though truth be told Sainz had no idea how his one time mentor had acquired his new mobile phone number, and left. Struggling to digest everything Kyouichi had said Sainz walked right past Ryousuke without noticing and made a straight line for his GT4. As he started the engine and warmed it to a safe operating temperature Sodou's words of potential and adversity came back to haunt him. Nicolas Sainz was not accustomed to the idea of loss and improvement going hand in hand and he had seen enough loss to consider himself something of an expert. Sodou had to be wrong, Sainz wouldn't accept his theory, there was no way in hell that some sick destiny threw people in front of trucks and off of mountainsides as a morbid self-help seminar. In angry denial he slammed his gearshift into first and spun all four tires as he exited the car park.

From a window several stories up Takahashi Ryousuke watched him go, the small amount of humour he found at Sainz predictably driving a Toyota Celica GT4 extinguished by his concern over the young man's erratic behaviour. Something of his conversation with Sodou Kyouichi must have shaken him. Acting on little more than a hunch he retrieved his mobile phone and dialled in Fumihiro's number.

"Fumihiro, contact Kenta, I want him to go to Usui and keep watch for a yellow ST185 Celica. Tell him to wait in the galleries at the tight exit of C-121 and to call me with details should anything arise." Assured that the well-oiled RedSuns team would act accordingly, Ryousuke closed his mobile and wondered what to do next. Kenta would be on Usui if Sainz were to appear, but he would only have a small time to see the car's actions from his vantage point and with Sainz's behaviour pushing well into the realms of unpredictable an accident could occur on the long and tight Usui touge. If that were to occur, it was likely Kyouichi would never recover from the ordeal. Reaching for his mobile phone once again he dialled a second number and waited for a reply.

"Hello?"

"Oh Takahashi-san! How nice of you to call us."

"No we've left the hospital, we're going out for coffee with Shingo and Takeshi."

"A favour? Of course I don't mind."

"Usui? We hadn't planned on going there, is it important?"

"Really? Is he in danger?"

"Hmmm, alright we'll pass through Usui before meeting the Night Kids. Takahashi-san, if we find him what should we do?"

"Take him to coffee!?"

"Sorry, it's just a strange thing to ask."

"Alright then, if we find him then we'll bring him to coffee and you can meet us there."

"You're welcome Takahashi-san. Goodbye."

Truly Ryousuke doubted that anyone would be able to sveltely drag Nicolas Sainz off to coffee but if someone ran Usui, if only once or twice, it would flush the Celica driver out and assure his safety until Ryousuke had a chance to talk to him personally. He only hoped that, with the personalities involved he hadn't laid the groundwork for a war.

Well, not a war Takahashi-san, but a battle perhaps. I'm interested to see how closely everyone is reading my story, I threw away a tidbit of information about Sainz in this chapter that could prove interesting, and is vital to the continuation of explaining his character.

Anyhow, feel free to review.