FOREWORD: I, HashiriyaGDB, am submitting this Initial D facfic on behalf of Midnight Dorifuta, the author of this fanfic and a fellow user on the Initial D World Forums. The only things I've done to this is correct some (if not all) the typos.

All trademarks are owned by their respective owners.

Chapter 3: This Starion is Insane!
Akiyuki was more than happy to lead Takumi a short distance down the empty backroad of the Haruna Pass as daylight began to break, to his black-and-green ride of choice. The car sat there, silent as ever, as if waiting for Akiyuki to instruct it further. Takumi never saw such a vehicle before, which was a bit of a suprise; for all purposes and intentions the car was clearly that of the 1980's era... fastback, with a wedge-like nose, 5-spoke chrome and black wheels tha tlooked like they were factory rims, but also a very distinctive green color. Not quite "Lizard"-shade, as Akiyuki called the car itself, but definately green.

"It's a Mitsubishi Starion, Fujiwara.", Akiyuki said, his eyes making direct contact with Takumi's.

Yes, it was an interseting car - it seemed to be a mix of Ryousuke's FC and his own 86, in Takumi's eyes. Although, he gave Akiyuki a bit of a confused look when he laid eyes on some of the engine's parts. It was definately a turbo, yes... but, its shape mimiced an engine he'd seen before, somewhere. But, at the moment, Takumi was coming back to his real senses, and he spoke directly to Akiyuki with a bit of a cutting tone.

"Just why did you stand in the road, anyway?", Takumi curiously asked. "If you really wanted my attention this bad, you could have just flashed your lights and put on your signals, or even wave me down at a straightaway... not in the middle of a curve!"

Akiyuki let out that very calm chuckle of his own, his eyes veering off Takumi's for a second before he dipped his head downward, shaking his head lightly from side to side. e squared back up at Takumi, before leaning a bit to one side, still seeing one corner of the Trueno around the bend.

"You still don't get it, do you? Why I stood there was also why I complimented you the second you got out of your car." Akiyuki took a few paces to the right of where his Starion sat, coming to a stop in the middle of the road. He pointed his index finger in the uphill direction as he sideglanced at Takumi, the young street racer's eyes fixated on what seemed to be a senior to him, in at least one respect.

"Coming around a blind corner like this one and switching directions almost instantly is difficult enough, not many people could do it. But - from what I heard by a friend of yours, you do that on a daily basis... extremely easily, I might add. That's not typical street racer material."

Akiyuki traced with his fingers a mid-air line that mimiced the Trueno hatchback's entry into the corner, its apex approach, and finally the exit. Akiyuki would face Takumi directly again, this time with a single eyebrow raised.

"That's the line you took, right?", he asked, wanting to be sure Fujiwara was following along alright. Takumi nodded once, as Akiyuki then pointed square down on the pavement, to where he was standing.

"Considering how familiar with the cours ewas, I knew I placed myself at a point in the course where you were using a slight inertial drift technique to transition from one corner to the next almost flawlessly... your odds of hitting me or avoiding me mid-slide and ending up hitting either barrier were between 50 and 95, depending on who views such a scenario. But I was feeling optimistic... I kind of knew you could pull it off before ever climbing out of The Lizard, if that makes sense to you, Fujiwara-san."

Takumi nodded in repliance, before turning himself to face what would be where the 86 always barrelled downhill at kamikaze-like ferocity, scratching his chin with his index finger. You could almost see the gears turning in the developing racer's head, before he looked to Akiyuki once more.

"Yeah, I guess I was capable of doing that... but you gave me a nasty scare, and at the same point in time, triggered a bit of a nasty flashback. It was so by suprise that my mind almost jammed up. You really could have died", Takumi said to Akiyuki, almost crimacing at the thought. "It totally caught me off guard and forced me to resort to trying something that I never attempted before." Takumi let off a bit of a sigh, his heartrate finally at ease from the sudden shock, watching as the sun was about ready to crest over the mountaintop and cast its shine of all of Gunma.

"...Exactly, Fujiwara-san. Is that not how you've managed to defeat almost every other driver that's crossed your path?"

Takumi fell silent for a minute... maybe two. In his mind played back every race, from the insane match against the 959 all the way back to that summer night just over a year ago, when it was an almost easy pass on the yellow RX-7 driven by the man that would eventually become Takumi's teammate. In just about every match, Takumi had to attempt something new or deviate from his normal driving habits in order to overtake the leading car - and, on a few occasions, most of them recent, actually had to counter-attack an overtake on him.

"Yes... that is correct, Akiyuki." Takumi was suprised that anyone aside from Ryousuke could know as much about him as his own mentor did... aside from his own Dad, of course, that crazy old man that he was. In just about every way, shape, and form, Akiyuki just -radiated- knowledge, or, at the least, was excellent at adding two and two.

"So, in a sense, you've already defeated me, Fujiwara. It's a very loose, metaphorical concept, but if beating an opponent merely requires trying something you've never tried before and successfully accomplishing it, then you've already defeated me before I even challenged you. Or, rather - that was a quick, sweet match." Akiyuki chuckled softly as he leaned against the light metallic paint of his Starion, watching the expression on Takumi's face with a bit of amusement. Akiyuki closed the hood then, figuring that perhaps what he wanted Takumi to see could only be felt from the seat of his pants.

"How about you take my car for a spin after parking the 86 somewhere safe?", Suzaki suggested. Takumi blinked as he stared at Akiyuki for a curious second, before observing the car once more.

"Uhm... I don't often drive cars aside from the 86, Akiy-" ...Takumi was cut off mid-sentance by Akiyuki, who would cross his arms after securing the left-side hoodpin on the Starion, facing him directly. "What about the WRX?"

Well, that put Takumi in a jam, surely. It also left him confused. Yes, the Tofu Shop sticker was right on the side of his hatchback, but did the driver actually observe Takumi driving the Impreza a few days before he approached him? It was a good week since the match against Joushima, which did give the boy some time to watch the tofu runs, if he knew the right hour to keep his eyes open... and apparently, he did.

"You... know I drive the WRX?", Takumi simply asked straight-up to Suzaki, and he would reply just as quickly, nodding. "It's a logical assumption", Akiyuki noted, his arms falling back to his sides as a small breeze blew his hair, and then the sun's first ray of light hit the two. "I knew that the Corolla had a mechanical failure during the race, and was temporarily out of commision, and I saw the Impreza parked at the tofu shop. I figured you also owned that, and drove it for fun. It is a pretty fun car to drive - easy to drive, too."

And that was the first thing that Akiyuki would be wrong at. Takumi shook his head in disapproval, then glanced off to the side, slightly embarassed. "Well... not exactly", Takumi replied, in a bit of a flustered tone. "The Impreza is actually my father's... he just lets me deliver tofu with it. But otherwise, I rarely drive the Impreza." Akiyuki blinked for a second, more than slightly suprised. After all, Ryousuke Takahashi did fund the team all on his own, so he figured that Ryousuke also gave Takumi the Impreza to help master an AWD vehicle - or perhaps Takumi even purchased it with his own money. Small chance of that, but... He was wrong. Which was okay to him; people do make mistakes, after all.

"Oh... my apologies, Fujiwara-san. It's still great that you have a chance to drive the Impreza... a bit of a shame that you don't race with it in Project.D. I mean..." Akiyuki made direct eye contact with Takumi, not quite understanding that while Takumi was fairly car-smart these days, he wasn't still up to par with some of the more mechanical drivers, such as that other 86 driver... Wataru, his name was? Akiyuki thought that was right, anyways. "...I mean, I assumed that you preferred not to explore new tuning approaches with the Trueno, and instead just completely upgraded to the Impreza."

"...new tuning approaches?", Takumi asked, now in a completely confused state. To Takumi, there was already some very unorthodox and unique tuning applied to his car, giving it a character of its own... something that Takumi loved for the longest time and still, despite almost losing any desire to drive the Trueno after hot-lapping the Impreza for its first time, enjoyed a lot. "Just what do you mean, Akiyuki-san?" Akiyuki knew now that his initial perception was right, and Takumi would have to experience it for himself. He walked slowly around the Starion, intentionally stalling Fujiwara, until he opened the driver's door. "Meet me at the top of this pass in the scenic parking lot, and I'll give you an oppurtunity to see what I mean."

Without giving Takumi a chance to answer, he fired the Starion up and proceeded to drive up to the mountaintop. Takumi walked back to his AE86, and climbed in, following the Starion's trail of sound and faded brake lights up the mountainside, until he reached the lot that Akiyuki mentioned. Takumi climbed out, and surely enough, the Starion was before him, Akiyuki already in the passenger's seat. Takumi took the Trueno's keys with him, having a feeling he'd either ride along or drive the Starion. Akiyuki hand-cranked down his window, thumbing to the driver's seat.

"Get in and drive."

Takumi still wasn't quite sure what the point of this would be, but he felt slightly eager... to learn. He knew there had to be something to be learned from the way Suzaki talked, and so that was what drove Takumi to slide into the Starion's slightly more comfortable than the 86, anyways driver's seat, and buckle his seatbelt, soon looking over the dashboard. Being in where the passenger seat would normally be, it felt unusual to have the shifter at his right hand's command, as opposed to the usual left-hand shifting. Takumi paused for a moment, eyeing the custom-fabricated instruemnt panel - a slew of aftermarket gauges slotted into cut-outs on a sheet of black-painted aluminum - and canting his head to the side.

"What's the matter?", Akiyuki asked, him eyeing fujiwara almost the way Takumi blankly stared at the tachometer.

"There's no speedometer...", Takumi said, not being able to make out any speedometer dial anywhere. He also noticed the tachometer only reached 8,000 RPM, and there was no marked redline. "...and the tach doesn't have a redline."

Akiyuki chuckled a little harder than usual to just how Takumi was thrown off by the only mildly unorthodox interior. He pointed his index finger at a small rectangular LCD display that was currently blank, showing no reading of anything. "Turn the key and start the engine", Akiyuki said, obviously already knowing what the display was for. Takumi followed suit, and after flashing '888' for a few seconds on the screen, a '0' appeared on the green backlit display, and below that, black text, that read 'km/h'.

"There's your speedometer...", he finally said as Takumi blinked, before pressing a small black button next to it, the 'km/h' switching to 'MPH', the unit now ready to read in imperial units. He switched it back to the kph reading before pointing slightly up and left to the tachometer, at a small reflective circle - perhaps a display light - and explaining the answer to Takumi's second question. "...and there's your red line, sort to speak. It lights up at the desired shift point and flashes rapidly when the engine speed is critical."

It was different, but Takumi would cope, as he eyed all of the gauges that remained; voltage, water temperature, boost, oil pressure, fuel level, and oil temperature. Takumi then released the parking brake and slotted the selector into reverse, noting how 'notchy' the shifter was... kind of like switching a circuit breaker on or off... and slowly releasing the clutch. He tried not to gasp when he felt the clutch was actually slightly grabbier than his AE86's, before pulling out, and pointing the car in the general direction of downhill. Takumi was tense... something was about to happen. Something big, and he could feel it. Akiyuki could, as well, as he measured his own heart rate - quite higher than usual. But Suzaki's poise was very calm, and he even chuckled as the car rolled in first gear at near idle.

"The second you shift into second, Fujiwara, you're going to feel something you've never experienced before. So go!" Takumi did, the rear tires chirping as the engine roared to life completely, the deep growl of the 4" exhaust system sending a very different sound echoing off the mountainside walls. At just past 6,000 RPM, Takumi saw the shift light illuminate and grabbed for second gear. So far, the turbo four felt like a bit of a superhyper, torquier version of Itsuki's 3A-C, but when he shifted into second, the tachometer dropping all the way down to 4,000 RPM, and floored the gas, he felt it.

Takumi's eyes shot wide open, as he felt for the first time what Akiyuki was hinting at before. What the...!?, he thought to himself. This kick! Takumi grabbed for third gear, Akiyuki revealing a slight grin from passenger's seat as he saw Takumi's startled expression. Fujiwara felt it again... two things, this time. The gear spacing is very wide, but that's not what's important... this kick... what the hell's wrong with this engine!?

TO BE CONTINUED……..