Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Initial D Fan Fiction ❯ Initial D: Anything Goes Drift Racing ❯ Season 2: Chapter 4: Teaching Miss Tendo. ( Chapter 13 )

Initial D: Mt Furinken. Anything Goes Drift Racing.

Season 2: Chapter 4: Teaching Miss Tendo.

The white FTO shook violently as it stood stationary where it had spun out on the surface of the docklands car park a perfect place for new drifters to practice being a wide area of empty tarmac if currently strewn with crumbled traffic cones, as Akane furiously beat the dash board with her fists. From the passenger seat Ranma watched in fear for his life, he knew delicacy or gracious loosing had never been Akane's strong points but going completely nutso because of one fail drift seemed a little over the top, Ranma just hoped she didn't start ripping things off the car next.

"Stupid bloody car, it's impossible to control. I mean what's the key of drifting anyways I just don't get why I can't keep it from over steering or understating, I…" She ranted.

"Akane." Ranma said trying to sound firm but not angry or oppressive in case,

"WHAT!!!" Ranma almost leapt from the car in fright but when no blow came he figured it was safe to open his eyes again. To his surprise he found her staring at him with desperate tear filled eyes. "Why? Why can't I get it?" He put his arm round her and smiled.

"Look it all comes down to the breaking and accelerating points, you're understating because you're braking too late and have too much speed going into the corner so it pulls the car sideways so the next turn your going in to slow and then there's too much power at the back wheels which spins you round to far as you exit." Akane looked at him as if he was saying the most obvious thing on Earth.

"You go in much faster then I've tried so far and you don't under steer." She said a little sulkily.

"We'll come to that later it's a different technique, let's just get you going sideway successfully first." Ranma had a thought, "Try this, it's like when you break a concrete block with your fist, you have to put the power in at exactly the right moment or you'll just hurt your fist on the stone but if you don't pull back as you strike you'll loose your balance and hit the ground afterwards probably breaking your hand in the process. So this time I want you to get up to 40, then brake and shift down when you see the first cone about halfway up the windscreen while turning sharply in and flipping the hand brake, then power over while counter steering till your almost out of the corner and then ease back on the accelerator as you even the wheel up and shift up as you're actually coming out of the corner." Akane nodded determinedly and restarted the engine.

Of the course Ranma had originally laid out there wasn't much left after half en hour but there was still one corner untouched, a mild right hander from where they were and now towards this Akane accelerated the FTO careful not to over do it keeping a close eye on the first cone. Then she was there the bright orange cone exactly half way up the windows height and she went through the monitions, brake, turn, shift, e-brake, clutch three quarters in, gas down hard and the back slid out behind her and the cones were directly in front of her sliding past like watching a train going through the station and for a second Akane felt her nerve go but they were almost out of the corner and she couldn't fail again. She eased of the gas letting the clutch out gently as she straightened the wheel again and the car jumped forward gripping the road again as the engine started screaming in the red line before Akane hurriedly changed up gears and they were through safely.

Akane beamed at Ranma who smiled back while inside he was sighing the biggest sigh of relief imaginable.

"Good, that was very good. Now I'll se the course up again and we can practice one corner at a time." Akane nodded furiously still flushing with the pride of her first real drift.

"What do we do after that?"

"Well one thing at a time Akane."

"I know I know but I just want to know how this ties in."

"Well once you can do this technique on any corner without a problem, we'll do a run on the mountain before working on the high speed techniques." Akane beamed again and nodded even more furiously. She was tingling now with excitement and anticipation of her first mountain run, it didn't matter how long it took she would learn, she could do it and she knew that now. Drifting was in her blood and not even a transfusion would change that now, like every other racer she was hooked.

And so it was a week later that the FTO sat on the launch strip ready to go. Ranma looked over at Akane whose ands couldn't seem to stay still for more than half a second.

"Ok we'll do three runs tonight. The first two I'll be in the car with you and the third I'll follow you down in the NSX." He said pointing to his car parked in the lay-by.

"Got it." She said too quickly the adrenalin really getting to her now, she could even feel her body shaking now then she felt Ranma's hands on her shoulders and she turned to look at him.

"Akane calm down, it's just like in the docklands car park, I've been setting the corners up narrower and narrower since you started to keep your precision up and though you didn't need them by the end I put the cones up at the braking points for your first run." He leaned closer and kissed her and she felt the tension seem to ebb away as if he was drawing some poison from her body, the broke the kiss.

"Right." She said calmly, "let's go." Climbing into her now familiar driving seat.

To Akane the experience was more like a dream than reality, with every corner she drifted the edges of her world became a little fuzzier and the centre, the road in front of her the next corner to tackle became clearer and clearer. She didn't even realize her speed was creeping up till the last section of the course as she entered the three hairpin series and realized she had to shift down from fifth to third, it was like an alarm clock had gone off and she felt her nerve and concentration go and as she left the second hairpin she held the accelerator just to long and the car spun out in the middle of the road.

She looked across at Ranma who was looking back at her as trying, she thought to hide a look of disappointment.

"What happened, you were doing so well?" He asked.

"Why didn't you tell me how fast I was going? What if I'd lost it and gone into the rail, I could have killed us?" Ranma shook his head.

"You felt it didn't you, you were there in the zone. Using you're instincts and skill, feeling the road and the car. You were able to tell how the car would handle and adjust, that is the skill of all true racers. It's not about knowing the braking points and corners, it's about being able to feel the rhythm of the road and adjust automatically on pure instinct at all times. As you learn more techniques you ca react in different was as the situation requires and so you get faster but the basic technique in the hands of anyone who races by this rule can beat any fancy techniques of someone who does not because the road is never the same from one second to the next. Water, leaves, dirt, the sun, the air it all changes the road in a million ways so it is never the same twice, so no matter how well you know the course if you aren't able to adjust to the conditions you'll loose speed and control and therefore any race you're in." Akane sat in silence and thought about Ranma's words.

"I think I understand and you're right I did feel it. It just came so naturally that when I tried to fight it I lost control."

Ranma smiled more to himself than Akane for he was suddenly reminded of himself starting out under Edy's tuition and not for the first time Ranma wondered if more of his friend had rubbed of on Ranma than he realized. `That's the mark of a great teacher I guess' Ranma thought, `You don't even realize you're learning things till you need to use them.'

"So shall I continue?" Ranma shook his head not to say now but to clear his thoughts again and bring them back to where they were needed.

"Let's go back to the top, there's no need to finish it this time since the cones are pointless now, right?"

"Right, time to race properly."

As Ranma expected Akane's second run was faster and this time eventless. Akane knew now to accept the dreamy feeling as she concentrated, to filter out everything but the road and the feelings through the car and she let herself go with it. The cones were forgotten and Ranma collected them as they returned to the top for Akane's final run of the night.

It was fair to say Ranma was more nervous than Akane, she had become confident and though she felt strange not having him in the car she had practiced much of the last with out him both to feel the accurate weight of the car and to be used to driving on her own but Ranma remembered his first run with someone behind him. He had know it wasn't a race but somehow the lights had seemed to pressure him, to drive him faster and he'd felt an urge to try to loose them a reason he attributed to his own rapid progression learning to drift but Akane wasn't like him she didn't, couldn't learn or adapt as fast as he could and he hoped she wouldn't do anything foolish.

Luckily for Ranma though Akane couldn't assimilate knowledge faster than Ranma due to his intense childhood training she did have slightly more common sense than him, and before she started turned the review mirror away so she couldn't see him and she knew he'd be far enough back that the headlights wouldn't be too bright over her shoulders.

So when they were both ready on the start line Akane got her first true run at Mt Furinken and driven on by her desire to impress Ranma who she still knew inside was behind her and could sense just on the edge of her perception always urging her on and encouraging her with all his might and though she couldn't see it he was twin drifting her line exactly all the way down.

And at the bottom Akane considered her course time good if not quite up to the top racers standards but Ranma had to admit there were a few of the less skilled regulars who Akane could give a decent challenge to.

"So where do we go from here then?"

"Practice. We're done for tonight but for the next week we're going to be up here every night putting in as many runs as we can till those tires are shredded and then we'll get new tires and you'll do it again." Ranma replied. "And while you're doing it we'll try and work in some new techniques, you're going to need to learn heel and toe soon to get any faster or you'll damage the engine." He said.

"Right." Akane said enthusiastically. "But for tonight we go home?"

"Yes."

"Good, I'm exhausted." She said, beginning to feel the effects of the adrenalin wearing off. Ranma laughed.

"You're so." Ranma searched for the right word for the moment. "Cute." Akane blushed and smiled goofily.

"You have no idea how much I've wanted to hear you say that." She said throwing her arms round him and kissing his face and for that moment, standing together alone in the still night bathed in their car headlights they could have been the only two in the world.

But they weren't and from the darker shadows a figure watched them and waited for his chance, for revenge.