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 17: Death and Birth

Silent for one second, and then stirring the nest, was the race driver Kealan Sandars, pinched under the body of his own Toyota 2000GT. He found himself somewhat trapped as his eyes slowly opened and clarified, beginning to scan about. In every direction he looked, he saw highway littered with pieces of cars... the Z, and the GT. Fragments of torn blue sheetmetal, wires, shards of glass... even fuel, miraculously not ignited, turned the glass-smooth surface of Tokyo's Superstretch, as Kealan called it, into a car graveyard. Slowly, he pushed the remains of his 2000GT's chasis off of himself, it slamming to the ground with a hard clang.

"Karie! Where are you?" Kealan was somewhat cut-up looking, and his clothes were pretty torn up, but otherwise, he seemed better for the wear. He heard a soft voice to the left of him, and as he gazed over to his wife, he noticed she was also a little banged-up, but nothing substantial.

"That fucking hurt, dude!", Karie complained, as she began brushing what she could of the dirt off her uniform, looking a little irritated at the entire scenario. "I didn't notice a flaw in your driving, so the car is what failed, I guess... am I right?" Placing her unusually large hands on her hips, her long ears twitched, her crystal-blue eyes scanning over the large mess of scrap metal that was before them. Then she blushed a bit... noticing her top was torn enough for one of her symbols of womanhood were poking out from a hole in her shirt.

"Yeah... I lost all traction from the rear", Kealan said, with a frustrated sigh. "I may be a metallgurist in the making, but rebuilding the 2000GT by hand looks impossible. The car's a total loss." He picked up a scrap of metal, the silver on it still slightly glimmering, only small scratches on the torn sheetmetal. It could only have come from the aluminum hood, since the rest of the body was made up of either a plastic composite, a fiberglass composite, or carbon fiber.

"It's amazing that little parts can even be made out", he said, holding and examining the metal with his bare hands. Releasing his grip, the piece of scrap fell onto the pitch black pavement, amazing that not a single traffic car had appeared in the chaos of it all. His crimson eyes flickered as they slowly made their way to the obliterated S30. And, as Kealan glanced back at his wife, an interesting concept dawned on him.

"You know what these cars are missing?", he calmly asked her. Karie blinked for a second, struggling to grasp what you mean. "You mean... when they were intact, right?" Kealan nodded softly as he eyed the fragments of destroyed windows and windshield, giving a look of her that was pretty grim. "Yeah... and what they were missing is... a rollcage." Karie thought for a second... then nodded. "Yeah, we wouldn't be thrown out of our car, now would we no-"

Karie paused, her look turning from contentment and slight frustration to that of deep fear. Her eye's pupils shrinking to dots, she began to tremble. "Kealan... the Z... its driver."

"...Oh my God, you're right! I'd be really suprised if he was a human with those reaction speeds, but you never know." The two began searching around the cars, eventually coming to a stop around what was left of the front subframe of the Z, the engine still in the remains of the compartment... and the driver's body laid there, motionless on the cool pavement.

Kealan leaned in a small bit, looking at his cold, lifeless eyes. Studying his body, much damage had been done. His right arm was severed, and hanging only by skin. His leg was bent to an obscure angle. His head was partially crushed in from behind. Blood pooled around his body, his hair soaked in it. Kealan's eyes widened at the sight.

"He's young. And completely human." Karie looked to Kealan, then observed the boy with her own two eyes. "Yeah, he is." Kealan fished through his pants pocket, pulling out a small red device, that appeared to be a radio. Flipping the cover open, Kealan laughed a little. "SonuvaBITCH, thing still works. Misato can be quite the engineer." Karie looked to Kealan, cocking her eyebrow a bit. "Who you going to call?" Kealan shurgged, "Someone", he said, pointing at the late Akio Asakura. "Anyways, you should get to work. Doesn't look like there's much time left."

Karie nodded as she kneeled down before the disfigured boy, hovering two hands over his body and closing her eyes, as an astrological sign given to her at birth and symbolic of her home-planet's galaxy appeared on her forehead, glowing white, her silvery metallic hair turning to a soft and pure white, and radiating warmth.

-

Out in a town by the name of Sayama, Saitama, a young, wild appearing spikey-haired boy and his equally rebellious purple-haired girlfriend grinned as after many hours of tweaking and cranking, the engine before them fired itself to life, sitting longitudinally in its long engine compartment. The engine was turbocharged; a single-turbo unit, although the spool itself was pretty frickin' huge... figure half the size of your typical basketball. It seemed pristine. The turbocharger was fed by long-running headers that were application-built, and definately not factory stock. On the firewall were mounted three coil packs, wires trailing from them into the spark plug valley, sending extremely high voltage to the engine's six spark plugs.

The valve covers looked factory, although they were borrowed from another engine. The original cam covers remained, though, as did many of the engine's plastics. The engine seemed to match the rest of the car, which is, appearing wonderfully 1980's style. Speaking of the exterior, it was not exactly all just one car. In a sense it was, but the mid-life updates between the beginning and end of its production run... its exterior parts, were all interchangable. And parts -were- changed.

From bumper to bumper, the front bumper was definately early-gen, with a wide long center grille piece instead of a split in the middle, and the car's signature badge just aft of the hood as opposed to the factory emblem that came into play later on. The turn signals were taken from a European-market model, clear on the fender side but orange-appearing from head-on. The factory emblem on the grille was replaced with another factory badge that read "3.0 Turbo" from a later model. The side molding was flat black, and the stamped in "pinline" that ran across it was painted red. The mirrors were taken from a later-model American-market car, with an aerodynamic shape.

From the back, a spoiler was added from the later model, although the original taillights were kept. The spoiler, painted flat-black, matched the side trim, and also the hood and headlight covers, which were flat black. The rest of the sheetmetal was painted a dark gunmetal-grey metallic. The wheels were 17-inchers, sporting a clean, simple, attractive five-spoke pattern that mimiced the all-new Chevrolet C5 Corvette. Those wheels were black. Behind the wheels were yellow-and-blue bilstein shocks, with red srpings wrapped around them. Also, were slotted brake rotors that barely fitted in the wheel wells, "Wilwood" written in white text on the otherwise black, and humongous, calipers.

Aside from having different parts from different years and aftermarket wheels, the car otherwise appeared stock, for the most part. It sat almost 4" lower than its factory counterpart, giving a sleek, supercar-like stance, and overall, the theme of the car seemed to mimic the classic muscle cars of the 1960's era. One could even go far enough to say the car would look just as appropriate in Hugger Orange or Plum Crazy (Ford Motor Company and Mopar colors, respectively) as it did in gunmetal grey.

"Well, what do you think, Mitsune-san?", asked the boy, listening to the engine idle at 1,100 RPM in its rich-burning start-up mode, although he was going to eliminate that since the primary purpose of it was to ignite a catalyst within the exhaust system that no longer existed. "I think you've built a pretty twisted piece of machinery, if I do say so myself. You've done to that what I've essentially done to my beloved little 360."

"Not to be a smartass, but this engine would have to put out fifteen hundred horsepower to see the same power-to-weight ratio gains that you've achieved in that little motorcycle-powered egg", Davey replied. "And I'm probably only halfway there."

"Heh... I guess your right. My damn 360 couldn't get out of its own way at one point in time." Her bright green eyes flickered as she watched the movement of the engine's fanbelt, slightly amazed. "My old engine was also a lot simpler than this, it only had an alternator as an accessory drive. I don't have... and personally, I don't think I need power steering on a car as light as mine, unlike your thirty-four hundred pound tank, Davey", she said with a bit of a tease.

"Oh, shut up", Davey Anderson smugly replied, "This car's only this heavy because of how well she's built."

-

Another re-emerging boyfriend and girlfriend couple were sat down on her table this evening, having finished their meal. It was a pleasant at-home meal for the couple, mainly a peaceful one, although they hadn't reached the point of admitting love torward each other at this point quite yet. "I'll do the dishes!", Iketani said, showing courtesy to Mako before scooping up all the silverware and chinaware, taking it to Mako's kitchen sink, and starting to scrub away at them. Although it wasn't the most manly thing to do, Iketani considered it as a thank-you payment for the driving lessons Mako had been giving him in the past week...

..."Alright, Iketani-san! Next is the Five Hairpins! Remember, out-in-out! Wide entry, tight apex, wide exit. It's the best balance for a car like a rear-wheel drive!"

Iketani nodded to Mako, waiting until he was almost dangerously late braking in, letting off just a moment before the corner's beginning, letting the car's balance come back to him as opposed to diving in so late that he would suffer understeer. Finessing the steering wheel with the best grace that he could - which seemed to keep getting better each time he did it - he pulled off a tight apex line, flooring the gas as the tires kicked out just a tad, which was the result of deciding that if the CA18 was going to be scrapped anyways, he was going to up the ante just a bit and push the 1.8 liter four for all it was worth.

On a wide exit, the green-and-grey bumper of the Silvia nearly brushed the outside guardrail, although his corner exit timing was just a bit off. Mako studied the way he entered the corners carefully, paying close attention to his driving style. She watched his reaction to the corner's exit... and her eyes slowly widened with a realization that suddenly made perfect sense of a few things that she was trying to nitpick at for the past few days of being co-pilot.

"Iketani-san, I think I've discovered your biggest flaw.", she said, sternly, looking at him before the next corner. "My flaw? What would that be, Mako-san?", he asked back, one eye on her, the other on the road. But she didn't have time to reply as they were on top of the corner, Iketani again agressively attacking the pass, nailing the third hairpin in a decent manner. Finally, he glanced at her before the fourth Hairpin, and she simply said, "Keep going. I'll tell you when we reach the bottom."...

Yeah, I owe her a lot for her making me completely change the way I approached the mountain passes. It's such a simple strategy but yet so easy to overlook..., he thought, as the clean-up of their dinner was completed, Mako looking at him more than enthusiastically. "You've really been pouring a lot of effort into me, Iketani-san", she said, thinking out loud. Iketani's face lit up with redness, a little bit of shyness sneaking up on him and biting him in the ass. "Ha... have I?", he asked, eyes making direct contact. "Yeah, you've been very nice to me", she replied, trying not to choke on her own words, because only God knew hew much inner bravery it took for her to say it so directly. "It's kind of making me have feelings for you again."

"Well, maybe we should consider going on a date.", Iketani sheepishly said back to her. From there was a moment where time seemed to just stop between the two, one not sure of just how to reply to the other - on both sides. Iketani wanted to simply say, 'Let's go on a date, then!', but there was an inner struggle on both sides where one felt so guilty of their past with the other that they couldn't bring their hearts to an agreement. Luckily, just as Mako's lips began to move - but no sound coming out - the house phone rang. The two stared at each other before Iketani gave a bit of a nod and rushed to pick it up.

"Yo, Iketani!", the voice said, cheerily. It was Kenji, and it looked like their solution was going to arrive in the back of the tow truck that he borrowed from Yuiichi. "I'm almost at Mako's house, I've got the engine. You wouldn't believe the price I paid for it even if I showed you it! The owner of it seemed to hate it, but it appears to be a standard Nissan engine, and according to him, it has 'high potential' that he couldn't be bothered with 'screwing with'."

"Eh? Is that so?" Iketani showed his slightly perplexed look to Mako before listening to Kenji again. "...and it's supposed to be easy to put in. I think Mako will like it, it looks kind of old-school, but it's freshly rebuilt. I wonder what its stock horsepower is."

A few minutes later, the three were standing beside the tow truck, Mako's eyes partially glittering with glee (and the rest of her wondering if this will be one of the biggest disappointments of her life). "So", Iketani went on, "It's a Nissan engine, right? You're sure it's not an SR20?" Kenji nodded. "It looks nothing like an SR20 or a CA18, and I'm dead-positive it isn't a junker US-market KA24, either." Iketani hopped on the bed of the truck, looking at the covered engine that rested in a make-shift roller crate that could easily be slid off the tow truck and lifted right up with the cherry picker. "Let's give it a look, then." Iketani slowly lifted off the tarp cover of the engine, flicking on his flashlight to see it in the darkness. The white beam exposed what the engine had to offer appearance-wise, before moving off the engine; it now barely dangled in Iketani's loose, trembling grip. "It can't be...", he slowly muttered to himself, before completely yanking the cover off and examining the engine twice, then thrice. The valve covers and some of the external parts showed their age, but Kenji confirmed the head and block were recently machined. The beam trailed off the engine again, now focused on the driveway below Kenji's feet. Mako held her breath as she made out the shocked look on her to-be boyfrend's face.

"Kenji", Iketani nearly exclaimed, in a bit of a shaky, interrogative voice, "Where the hell did you get an engine like this!?"