Curse of the Devil Z
Kazumi Asakura decides to check on her cousin Akio Asakura. When she learns he drives a blue Nissan Fairlady Z S30 that's tainted with a dark past, Kazumi becomes concerned for him, while Negi senses a dark and frightening presence within the car. Takes place after the Mahora Festival.
Disclaimer: Maho Sensei Negima is property of Ken Akamatsu and all related publishers. Wangan Midnight is property of Michiharu Kusunoki, Kodanshita, OB Planning, and Namco.
Stage 3 - A Racer's Heart (Later that night)
(BGM: Nothing Lasts Forever)
Tatsuya Shima wasn't the only one to take to the Wangan to clear his head.
The white Nissan Skyline GT-R of Reina Akikawa cruised along the long fast highway with almost no traffic to deal with. This was fine with Reina when she needed to just get up and go. She too had a lot on her mind.
She thought back to when it all began for her. How she ended up missing her school life when she became a model. How dearly she missed her friends. How she had to deal with numerous strangers as part of her career.
The one solace to her problems she found was street racing, much to her manager's chargin.
She bought her car from a second hand shop she no longer cared to remember. The Skyline GT-R R32 was a fine car, and she was content with that. Though being second hand and out of production, maintenance was not a problem thanks to the RGO Speed Factory of Kazuhiko Yamamoto, who had become a kind of a father-figure to her. Any problems with the car were well taken care of by Yamamoto.
Then she ran into the Devil Z.
At first scoffing the blue car and attempting to close in on it when she first saw it on the Wangan, she got the shock of her life when the Z car sprang to life and simply roared away from her, and she simply couldn't follow it - her car just didn't have the speed.
She talked with her co-host on Drive Go! Go!, Koichi Kijima, about her encounter, and he revealed to her the story of the Devil Z - a car tuned to achieve dangerously high speeds, so much that several people were actually killed in the vehicle when it was pushed to the limit, including one of its first fatalities two years ago. She questioned him about how such a car can be tuned to outrun a Skyline GT-R, and he replied that boring the engine to higher displacement and adding twin-turbo could do the trick. He also mentioned another legendary car, the Blackbird, which was said to race with the Devil Z along the Wangan.
One night she encountered the Devil Z again, and just like last time, she was left in the dust. However, by chance she was able to track it down to a rest stop and met the owner, Akio Asakura, as he did checks on the car, and got a good look at the Devil Z for herself when he was busy getting a drink from a vending machine. She then introduced herself to Akio in an interesting way, by pointing to a poster of herself on the vending machine, intriguing Akio. At this point curiousity got the better of her. She tried to ask Akio to let her drive the Devil Z, to which he declined. So she took another approach. She asked him to buy her a drink, and while he was distracted, she took off with the Devil Z.
The car's speed nearly overwhelmed her. She was so absorbed such that she nearly ran into a semi. Braking hard, she lost control of the car as it spun, but fortunately came to a stop at an exit ramp without hitting anything. Akio caught up with her in her car, and was relieved she was alright. Reina admitted she really was intrigued with the Devil Z, and, looking Akio in the eye, vowed that the Devil Z would "eat her GT-R's dust."
Reina then resolved to have her GT-R tuned to match the Devil Z, much to the dismay of Yamamoto, though he relented and did tune her car. Once that was done, she took to the Wangan line again, challenging the Devil Z, and by coincidence, the legendary Blackbird. At first her newly tuned car did match her rivals, but then something began to happen to her. Thoughts of her past began to flash in her mind, and she began to think to herself.
(Flashback, 1 year ago)
'I felt so much pressure, like I wanted to throw up back then' thought Reina as she exited the tunnel. 'Since when did I isolate myself from others like this? Tell me GT-R,' she thought, as if to talk to her car. 'What are my true feelings? What am I searching for? Why am I driving right now? I don't understand!' she thought, as she drove around some slower traffic. 'I could just forget everything just by driving like this. But now, it's different! I'm different from those two' she thought, referring to the other two drivers racing with her. 'But I have to do this! This is where the battle begins!'
She then floored the throttle at a straight section of Wangan.
'I'm holding them back' she thought to herself again, seeing that the Devil Z and Blackbird are still behind her. 'You can do this, can't you GT-R?' she thought to her car again. She was then taken aback when she saw her rivals flanking her. That distraction was enough to break her concentration, as her car suddenly fishtailed and began to skid, barely avoided by the other two cars. The hapless GT-R grazed the guard rail, then bounced back into the middle lane before turning sideways and skidding out of control. Seeing her plight, she thought to herself again.
'Why am I driving on the Wangan?' thought Reina as she closed her eyes, awaiting perhaps a large impact. 'Tell me please!'
When she opened her eyes again, she found herself stopped, but unhurt. While the Blackbird drove on, Akio stopped and checked on Reina. She then got out of her car, and asked him something.
"Why do you drive here?" asked Reina, surprising Akio. "Please, tell me!"
"It cannot be explained in words." replied Akio. "When you have your GT-R repaired, and come back here on the Wangan, then you'll know the answer."
(end Flashback)
Those words didn't make sense back then, but now, Reina probably understood. The sheer speed of racing on the Wangan was a euphoria. She felt free, like a bird soaring in the sky. Nothing mattered to her, not even her worst problems.
Akio Asakura and the Devil Z opened her eyes to a new light on the Wangan.
Akio Asakura.
What about him?
After she had her car repaired, and then repainted to a new white color, she encountered him regularly, at first on the streets racing, then later on regularly at leisure time, including what would appear to be lunch dates. Dates? Were they dating? That thought surprised her. There was one time they had dinner together when Akio startled her when he felt her hands. He explained that he was wondering if she had a race driver's hands, and that was all there was to it. Still, she couldn't help but think about him, especially after Sakurako asked her if he was her boyfriend.
Boyfriend?
Was she in love with Akio?
That thought shuddered her.
Well, he was good looking, and conversations with him were pleasant. And of course they both shared a passion for street racing.
But was she in love with him?
There was that time where Akio did get involved in a serious accident, and the Devil Z was wrecked, but he survived. Still, it made her heart stop. Was it him she was afraid for, or the Devil Z? She did shed tears when she saw the remains of the Devil Z in Jun Kitami's garage. But why?
She still didn't know what that meant, but she does know that she couldn't imagine life without Akio Asakura and the Devil Z.
Both of them were important to her, in their own ways.
If Akio was important to her enough to become a potential boyfriend, then there would be complications as well.
Unknown to all but a select few, Reina is an aspiring magus. However, she has not reach her full potential yet, as her busy life gave her little time to learn magic, especially her modelling career.
Fortunately she's met a few other mages who've been accomodating to her, most notably, her car's tuner, Kazuhiko Yamamoto, who happens to be a prominent member of the Kanto Magic Association. Aside from tuning her car, he's also spent a bit of time mentoring her in Magic. Lately, she also met the mages connected with Mahora Academy, notably Takamichi Takahata and Negi Springfield, the latter surprising her for being a professor at a tender age of 10, and also, for being the professor of her new friends Sakurako Shiina, Misa Kakizaki, Kazumi Asakura and the rest of their class. Negi Sprinfield intrigued her the most, because just like him, her magical element is wind. In fact, recently she actually did utilize certain wind spells while racing on Wangan to avoid a few close calls (without anyone else knowing about it of course), and she found out that she survived that mishap a year ago on that race against the Devil Z and Blackbird thanks to an unconsciously casted wind spell.
Also, there's the issue of partners, or Ministra Magi. Reina was expected to have one when the time came. Would Akio be her partner? If so, she'd have to tell him about magic, something she hasn't done yet, since Akio knows nothing of magic.
And further complicating things is the plan of the Magic Association for the Devil Z, a plan she only found out recently from Yamamoto, and after learning the extent of it and the nature of the Devil Z, shook her to the core.
The Devil Z was home to an evil entity, possessing anyone easily tempted into racing, and was in fact responsible for the many deaths associated with the Devil Z. And now, it must be destroyed.
To make things even more complicated, Akio was somehow to be part of all this.
Reina didn't want to face the fact that Akio could be the sacrificial lamb who would draw out the evil from the Devil Z so it could be destroyed. There was a good chance Akio would be killed.
'Why?' thought Reina, as tears threatened to fall from her eyes. 'Why must this happen? Why must Akio-kun be put in such danger!?'
"Is there no other way?" she said out loud, as she continued cruising along the Wangan.
(end BGM)
-TBC
A/N:Yet another challenging chapter to write. Associating Reina with the magical world was something I contemplated on, and decided to factor in.