Chapter Text
The rhythmic beat of the rotary resounded throughout the cabin as the car idled at a stoplight on its way into Shibukawa. Gazing out the right hand window, Keisuke lifted a hand to rub the sweat from his brow. June had just started, but the weather felt unusually warm this afternoon and the lack of an A/C compressor in his car left him in a miserable mood. Out of the corner of his eye Keisuke saw the car in front move forward and reflexively followed as the light turned green, deeper into the heart of the city.
Keisuke Takahashi was a well known race car driver who was originally a part of his brother’s, Ryosuke Takahashi’s, local street racing team RedSuns. What was less known was both his and his older brother’s interest in the paranormal. Since he could remember, Keisuke had the ability to see and interact with any spirits who roamed the overworld. Ryosuke, while not being able to clearly see any spirits, was still able to detect their presence and was often able to communicate with them.
The blond had at first always tried his best to ignore any wayward spirits throughout his elementary and middle school years, as his older brother made no mention of sharing in his Affinity. However, a particularly harrowing experience early on in Ryosuke’s high school years within their family’s hospital allowed for them to grow closer and his older brother to open up about how his and Keisuke’s affinities weren’t very different. Since then the two had spent most of their time away from school and racing in the world of the paranormal, looking for ways to get rid of the spirits which haunted them.
Such a hobby led them to where they were today: driving to Shibukawa, Gunma, to meet up with a local car racer concerned about a possibly ill-willed ghost. Typically these sorts of things were passed over by the pair given the lack of substantial evidence. However, a series of crashes plus multiple reports of a phantom car speeding along the nearby mountain pass had piqued their interest. They were due to meet their contact, Iketani Koichiro, at a local Esso gas station later that night after checking into a hotel. Despite living only in the town over, the pair agreed that having a local home-base of sorts would be best given the absurdly late times that the sightings were often reported at.
Leaning back in his seat, Keisuke went over the information his brother provided in his head once again. The local togue team, Akina SpeedStars, had been running the course up and down the mountain for the past few years without complaint. However, recently this year there had been an unusually high number of crashes. This alone shouldn’t have been cause for concern, but what was strange was how every victim was a racer, each survived, and they all reported the same thing: an unnatural cold settling into their bones, any music suddenly distorting to static, a blindingly bright flash of headlights, and then suddenly the vehicle would lose all control.
Flicking on his turn signal, the blond followed his brother’s white FC into the hotel’s parking lot to put away their luggage. It was light on personal items, but at Ryosuke’s insistence they’d brought along a myriad of different cameras and other tech to help record any possible encounters or information for documentation purposes.
Individual accounts after that would vary, some who were able to avoid hitting any barriers reporting the strange sound of an engine roaring past when they were practicing alone, some of the less fortunate saying they saw a pair of oncoming headlights that vanished by the time they stopped spinning. Their informant, Iketani, had been rather unfortunate in his own encounter; he’d suffered a hospitalization after his S13 slid into the guard rail.
After settling in as much as possible into their room and going over a general plan as to how to approach this particular case, the brothers were soon slipping into Keisuke’s yellow FD and leaving for the gas station. Iketani had requested that they meet right after his work ended, as it was situated on the main road that worked its way up to Akina’s pass.
Pulling into the specified Esso station, Keisuke rolled down his window as he rolled up to a pump. A few workers soon hurried over from where they were grouped talking, and Keisuke noticed his brother taking a quiet look around.
“Welcome, how may we help you?” a voice called, pulling the blond gaze back over. He looked upwards through his window and turned off the engine.
“Fill it with high-octane.”
The man nodded, and began working with the pump. Another, shorter, stood near the back of the car and began cleaning the rear window, and just out of view seemed to be a third person, though they seemed to simply be a friend as they were lacking the blue station uniform. The two seemed to be having a conversation, but it was much too quiet for him to hear inside the car.
After a beat, Keisuke looked back to the man filling the Mazda, “I was told members of the SpeedStars can be found here, is that correct?”
The man at the pump looked over, a trace of surprise on his face, and he quickly squared his shoulders. “Ah, yes, you would be correct, sir.” A laugh from behind the car drew their attention momentarily, and the pump-worker frowned at his coworker before looking back to Keisuke. He hummed and exited the car.
“I’m looking for Iketani of the SpeedStars. Is he around?”
“That would be me, sir. Would you happen to be Takahashi-san?”
Keisuke felt himself smirk, and reached around in his pocket to pull out a pack of cigarettes. “Yeah, one of them. I’m Keisuke. That’s my brother,” he motioned across the car to where the passenger door was opening, “Ryosuke. Pleasure to meet you.”
Iketani’s eyes widened slightly before he smiled with some relief, and bowed slightly. “It’s nice to meet you both as well, I’m happy you could make it out here-” the pump clicked, pulling his attention away. Ryosuke decided to take over the conversation, but didn’t move from his position leaning on the roof by the passenger door.
“Don’t worry, we were actually staying with our parents in Maebashi this summer break. I’m looking forward to seeing Akina’s togue again, though I wish it was under better circumstances.”
The shorter worker had moved already from cleaning the back window to the front one, and looked up curiously at the mention of their mountain. Glancing between Keisuke and Ryosuke, he cleared his throat nervously, “Back in Akina you say? Wait, you mentioned your name as Ryosuke and Keisuke Takahasi - like the Akagi RedSuns Takahashi brothers?”
Keisuke looked over curiously, raising an eyebrow with a slight chuckle, “the very same.”
The younger man’s eyes widened comically, and he clutched the cleaning rag to his chest with a high pitched “kuuuu-!” before quickly looking between the two and smiling. Pointing a thumb at his chest, “I’m Itsuki Takeuchi of the Akina SpeedStars! Perhaps you’ve heard of me, I drive the legendary Eight-Five of Akina!”
Keisuke glanced over to his brother with a raised brow, ‘Legendary? This kid for real?’. Ryosuke’s look told him he thought much the same, but Iketani soon stepped in with a light-hearted chuckle. “Itsuki, remember when Kenji and I were talking about how the crashes on Akina lately seemed almost supernatural? I ended up calling the Takahashi brothers, and they may be able to solve whatever happens to be causing the Ghost of Mount Akina!”
Itsuki’s face of wide-eyed astonishment morphed into a sort of worried fear as he glanced between the brothers once again. Keisuke noted the change, even as Itsuki attempted to hide his look with a smile, and looked around while fishing for his lighter. He frowned, turning back towards the two station workers.
“Hey, where’d that other guy get off to? Wasn’t there someone else by the pump when we pulled in?”
Looking back at the group revealed only confusion from both Iketani and Ryosuke. His brother stayed silent while Iketani looked to the store and back, “Uh, the only other person here is our boss. We were over by the store when you pulled in, though.” Pulling the still-unlit cigarette from his mouth, Keisuke leveled the frown towards the SpeedStar in front of him.
“No, they weren’t wearing a blue shirt. I saw them from my rearview, they were just over there,” he pointed with his cigarette back behind a pillar, and went silent when noticing Ryosuke’s raised eyebrow. Itsuki was silent, and looked mildly uncomfortable. Gritting his teeth and scowling, Keisuke put the cigarette back in his mouth and went to light it, “Nevermind, m’ mirror must be dirty…”
Ryosuke quickly salvaged the conversation, closing the passenger door and stepping around the car, “Do you mind if we go to talk inside? Keisuke can park his car, and afterwards we can go up to Akina if you feel like it.” As Iketani nodded and motioned back to the store, Keisuke quickly opened his door and started the engine, rolling it to a parking space near a little white Levin. Huffing at the sight of the little stock car, the blond locked the door before joining the group inside the building. The lights to the pump cover had gone out, casting the lot in an eerie darkness.
“...telling us again what you know so far, just so we can get it recorded,” his brother was explaining, sitting at a small table and setting up a portable tape-recorder and small mic.
An older man was leaning back on the counter, also smoking a cigarette, and Keisuke politely nodded to him before going to join his brother. The man must have been the owner, and was most certainly not who Keisuke thought to have seen from his, perfectly clean, rearview mirror.
Iketani and Itsuki were both seated across the table on the other couch. Itsuki held his hat in his hands and seemed to be nervously fidgeting with it, eyes on his shoes. Keisuke stayed silent, crossing his arms and leaning back, keeping his eyes on the younger worker. Iketani nodded along to Ryosuke’s words, readjusting his hat on his head.
“Well, uh, alright. I suppose I should state my name, too, then?”
Ryosuke nodded.
“Alright, well, my name is Iketani Koichiro, and I’m the leader of the local racing team up on Mount Akina, the SpeedStars. I work with my teammate Itsuki here at an Esso gas station in Shibukawa. I’ve been running the togue for a few years now, and for the most part everyone I’ve encountered has been doing it pretty safely. Sure, we get people who spin out in the middle of the road, and some close calls because of that, but we haven’t had any major wrecks, except for a rare few.”
He took a breath, and Itsuki lifted his head and seemed to look intently at something right behind both Keisuke and Ryosuke’s seat. Frowning, the blond glanced back to see nothing, and quickly looked back to the younger man. He’d noticed the motion, and quickly flushed under Keisuke’s scrutiny, looking back to his feet. Ryosuke kept his attention on Iketani.
“Our safety record however, uh, changed quite a lot this spring and summer. Ever since we started grouping up again at the pass this year, things have just been… overall different. Not, uh, not like physically different, but there’s been something in the air - you know? The cars seem to run just the same as always, there wasn’t any construction over winter, and uh... “
Iketani paused, wetting his lips and shared an odd look with Itsuki. Keisuke watched the interaction intently, but Ryosuke spoke up.
“So? What’s happened this spring and summer?”
Iketani’s gaze snapped back to the brothers, and he swallowed but his nerves seemed to steel.
“People started getting into accidents on the pass - bigger than the usual. At first it was just a couple spin-outs, people maybe scraping the guards or pushing their cars a bit harsher than they should have. Normal stuff, if not oddly more often to happen, but uh… it got progressively a lot worse. I uh, I was the first one who actually wrecked a car on the pass in a long time, this year.” A light flush painted his cheeks, and Iketani brought a hand up to rub at the back of his neck a bit bashfully. “I was admittedly running a bit harder than I normally did, but it shouldn’t have been so far out of my control that I couldn’t save it. I ended up going to the hospital for pretty bad whiplash and some other cuts and bruises. It’s not just me, though, who has gotten into a wreck.
“Itsuki, here, when he was going downhill in his Eight-Five, ended up spinning out and hitting the inside wall of the pass, and needed to spend a few days in the hospital. Another member of our team spun into the gutter and nearly flipped his car up and over the rail. It’s not just the SpeedStars, though! The Myogi NightKids, who came through a week or two ago for a few competitions ended up seriously damaging their cars too. Uh, Nakazato, Nakazato Takeshi, their leader? He drives a black R32, he was doing a run down the hill and says he lost all traction in his GT-R and ended up sliding into the wall to rebound into the railings. I don’t think he got hurt, but their number two driver Shoji Shingo, drives a red EG6, sprained his wrist pretty bad when he said he couldn’t turn and ended up slamming straight into the railing on a corner.
“There, uh, have been a few others too, but after so many wrecks within like, a month, a lot of people outside of Shibukawa have stayed away, saying the pass is cursed or whatever…” Iketani rubbed his hands together, wetting his lips again and looking quietly down at the floor. Itsuki had nodded along solemnly when Iketani was recounting the list of people who had gotten in wrecks just this year on Akina.
Keisuke blew out the smoke of his cigarette, moving to tap the ash off the end into a tray and looked silently over to Ryosuke. Stoic as ever, he had his hands steepled in front of his face and watched the two SpeedStars members before him for a moment. Ryosuke flicked his blue eyes over to Keisuke. They both knew that something was certainly odd about the strange change, but Iketani’s information alone didn’t seem to point to anything overtly paranormal. However, they sensed that there was something eerie about the cause behind these wrecks -- they wouldn’t have driven out all this way otherwise.
His older brother lowered his hands and leaned back in the seat, “Can you tell me what happened during your accident, Iketani? Add as much detail as you can remember.”
The oldest SpeedStar quickly looked up, having been broken out of whatever thoughts he was having. Silent for a beat, he quickly blinked and nodded, shifting uncomfortably. Itsuki watched from beside him, fidgeting stopping as his attention increased. Clearing his throat, Iketani began again.
“Uh.. about three and a half weeks ago, on a Friday night, I had gone up Mount Akina pass to practice for a meet up against a team from Akagi - not the RedSuns, though. It was late, maybe, oh, eleven? I had already done a few runs downhill, and I’d just replaced the brakes and tires earlier that day. I was planning on that being my last run of the night, and so I decided to push it just a little harder than I had previously. N-Nothing too bad, you know? Just felt like I was warmed up, so I could try and push myself.
“I was going downhill, I had done a few of the first high-speed corners. About, uh two I think? As I was nearing the corner, I noticed what sounded like another engine steadily getting closer, like when someone comes flying up behind you? There were no headlights coming from the opposite direction - you can tell really well at the third corner if there is someone. I remember glancing in my rearview to see if someone really had come up behind me. There wasn’t anyone up there when I’d started, but I thought maybe someone came down from the resort and caught up…? I don’t know really, but I don’t remember seein’ much there, and when I looked forward, there was suddenly light - super bright lights!”
Keisuke watched curiously as Iketani’s eyes were wide in remembrance, falling silent for a moment before blinking and looking between the two of them curiously.
“Normally, when people come up in front of you when it's dark, their headlights aren’t too bad, right?” Keisuke hummed and nodded in agreement, enraptured in the story. “Even if they have their brights on, especially in a corner, you can still see the lines on the road to know where you’re going. And it's kind of a gradual increase of light from a distance. T-This though... “ Iketani took another breath and rubbed his face. Itsuki placed a hand on his shoulder and gave it a small encouraging rub.
“These were absolutely insane, it filled the whole cabin of my S13 with bright, white light instantly. I couldn’t see my own dashboard. It got weirdly cold, my fingers suddenly felt like they were so stiff that I couldn’t take them off the wheel ‘cause of it. That other engine sound too, it suddenly got super loud and I thought for sure I was going to ram head-on into this other car. I pulled my car just enough to get out of the direct path of the lights, and in an instant they disappeared. By that time I think I had been going too fast, and the corner sharpens at the very end, and I ended up skidding into the guardrail. The driver’s side front of the S13 got wedged under the railing, and I think my harness is what saved my life…”
After a beat, Itsuki quietly nudged Iketani and mouthed a ‘tell them what happened’. Keisuke’s interest increased, and his eyes eagerly looked to Iketani.
The SpeedStar was silent for a moment longer before looking up and locking his gaze with Ryosuke’s. “When everything stopped, though, there was nothing. No engine sounds, no one stopping to see what happened, no lights continuing back up the hill. It was as if there hadn’t actually been a car at all…” He took a breath and rubbed his neck, as if it were still sore. Keisuke wouldn’t be surprised if it was. “I got to the hospital because someone went down an hour or so later and found me after I’d apparently passed out. I just got back my S13 from repairs the other day.”
Keisuke blew out a breath of smoke at the end of Iketani’s story, eyes wide. He knew the wrecks were a bit strange, but if all of the victims had experienced something like this? He looked over to Ryosuke, who was watching the SpeedStars before also looking over. A small smile that seemed to say ‘See? I told you this was worth it’ crossed Ryosuke’s face, before he shifted to check his watch and the time on the tape recorder. Keisuke quietly clicked his tongue and crossed his arms after putting out his cigarette.
Ryosuke thanked Iketani for telling him his story, and shifted his attention over to the youngest in the room. “Itsuki, right?”, Ryosuke asked, and continued after receiving a nod. “Iketani said you also got into an accident recently on Akina. Do you mind if you share that with us now, so it can be recorded for review?”
The young man’s eyes blew wide, cheeks pinking slightly at the role-model-racer’s direct attention. Keisuke smirked to himself and leaned back to watch, though he kept an eye on Iketani from the corner of his vision.
However, before Itsuki could agree, a gruff voice cleared their throat from behind the group. The SpeedStars started, and while Keisuke wouldn’t admit it verbally, he too almost jumped in surprise. Ryosuke, ever the unshakeable, simply looked over to the old man who appeared to have already changed and cleaned up the room.
“Actually,” he began, “it’s a little past closing. Sorry to break it up, but I’m meeting with a friend, I can’t keep the shop open much longer.”
Ryosuke smiled politely and nodded in understanding. Reaching over, he stopped the tape recording, and looked between Iketani and Itsuki. “I do apologize for keeping you two so long. Perhaps we should keep this for a later date. Itsuki, when do you happen to be free tomorrow to tell us about your incident?”
“O-Oh, uh, I get off of work early tomorrow, around four-thirty. I suppose anytime after that?”
“And you, Iketani?”
Iketani blinked slightly in surprise, having removed his hat to run a hand through his hair, “Uh, about six in the afternoon.”
Keisuke busied himself with packing away the recorder, leaving the tape in and turning off the power so they could continue tomorrow from the same spot. Ryosuke nodded, checking his watch once more, “Then, how do you feel about us meeting at Lake Akina around seven? We can record Itsuki’s recount. By then it should be dark, and you can show us the course. Sound good?”
Both SpeedStars members nodded, and the four of them all stood. Ryosuke thanked them, and, after the workers went to get changed, shifted his attention to the owner. “Tachibana-san, thank you very much for letting us stay as late as we did. I apologize for keeping you.”
The old man, Tachibana apparently, smiled warmly and shook his head with a light chuckle. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, “my friend just gets amazingly grouchy if I show up late. You’re welcome back here if you need to ask any more questions, just try not to do it in the middle of rush hour, yeah?” a teasing wink accompanied the statement, and both he and Ryosuke chuckled good-naturedly. Itsuki and Iketani soon both came back out, and the five of them left the building and headed to the parked cars.
Iketani and Ryosuke continued to talk to one another, Keisuke easily looking towards his FD. The little Levin that sat beside it was unassuming as ever, but a strange chill down his spine made the blond reconsider the car. The lights in the shop went off, and only the ambient glow of the street lights chased away the shadows on the lot. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary about the Eight-Five or his own RX-7, but a nagging feeling at the back of his head told him to keep an eye on the shadows as he approached. A loud chirp broke his concentration, and the blond looked to the side to see the old man opening the door to his Camry.
Humming, Keisuke spun around to face Ryosuke, who had come up next to him already. He looked ready to ask what was bothering his younger brother, but after seeing Keisuke’s frown thought better of it. The two of them reached the FD and got in after bidding their farewells to the SpeedStars. Letting the rotary warm for a moment, the Takahashi brothers were the second to leave, behind Tachibana. From the looks of it, Iketani’s seafoam S13 was pulling out right after them.
Turning onto the main road back to the hotel, Keisuke happened to look back over to where the Eight-Five sat, Itsuki talking with another person as they stood outside the little car. The blond almost slammed on his brakes in realization, and quickly reached across to grab his brother’s arm after doing a double take. The shadows didn’t let him see who was there clearly, but Keisuke swore the figure had the same shirt as the one he saw when they entered the Esso station.
Forced to follow the flow of traffic, the gas station was quickly blocked, and Keisuke found that he could breathe again. A strange chill had settled over his body, and he released his brother’s arm stiffly. Looking back to the road, he heard his brother zip the bag with the tape recorder in it.
“Keisuke? What did you see?”
Glancing over, he furrowed his brows and an uncomfortably familiar hollow sensation filled his chest. “The Levin, Itsuki or whoever’s, you see it alright then?” Ryosuke simply nodded. Keisuke gulped. “How many people did you see standing by it when you looked?”
Ryosuke’s face hardened in realization, and quietly he looked back to the road ahead. Keisuke did the same, already knowing the answer. God, he hated this sometimes. They at least already had a lead, he supposed. His brother answered after a moment anyways.
“I only saw Itsuki standing by the Eight-Five.”