The offices of Nakamura Entertainment Industries and Technology, towering over the heart of Tokyo, radiated the cold precision of wealth and authority. Floor-to-ceiling windows cast a wide view of the city below, while within, the silence of the executive level was broken only by the soft hum of machinery and the tapping of polished shoes on marble.
Inside the main office, Akagi Nakamura sat behind a broad desk, his expression unreadable under the dim glow of a lamp. The files before him were spread with surgical neatness: reports, photographs, audio transcripts, and a timing sheet that still seemed to weigh more than it should.
The investigation into Izamuri Sakuta had begun only yesterday, Saturday morning, when Akagi's men shadowed him from the moment the young man and his team loaded the white Civic EK9 onto a transporter. They had followed the convoy discreetly, trailing from Tokyo's streets all the way to Fuji Speedway, watching, listening, and documenting. By Saturday night, after slipping into the circuit offices, they retrieved a copy of the unofficial timing sheets. Data that now lay in front of Akagi like a revelation.
He leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing as he studied the sheet again.
2:06,555.
Barely two-tenths shy of the fastest qualifying time from last year's Fuji round. Achieved not by a professional driver, not by a veteran with a CV full of karting trophies and junior single-seater campaigns, but by a complete unknown who had only driven this Civic for the first time that morning.
"This… doesn't make sense," Akagi muttered under his breath, his tone low and sharp.
He turned to the thick folder marked Sakuta, Izamuri. Inside, the documents painted a life that was painfully ordinary. No junior championships, no karting records, no entries in Formula regional series, not even participation in university racing leagues. The only clear notes were of step-parents, a modest schooling record, and a brief enrollment at Tokyo University in mechanical engineering, abandoned due to financial struggles. Since then, Izamuri had lived quietly as a mechanic in Suginami, scraping by in an obscure workshop that no corporation worth its salt would ever glance at.
And yet, despite all that, he had produced a lap time on par with semi-professionals who had years of structured development.
Akagi drummed his fingers on the desk, the sound echoing in the stillness of the office. His men had even confirmed through long-range listening devices planted near the pits that day that the boy's lap times weren't flukes, he had repeated strong runs, adjusting suspension, learning corner by corner. There was no hesitation, no panic, even when he spun or understeered. The skill was raw, unpolished, but terrifyingly natural.
It was as if the boy had been born for it.
Akagi's jaw tightened. He had seen talented drivers before, sponsored them, funded them, molded them. But all of them had a history. A story that could be traced back, measured, explained. Izamuri was different. He was a blank page, yet one that could suddenly write poetry with a steering wheel.
"Where did you come from?" Akagi whispered, staring at the grainy surveillance photo of Izamuri climbing into the Civic.
He flipped through the file again, re-reading the sparse background. Step-parents, not biological. Birth records incomplete, origin unclear. Nothing about his real parents. It was as though the boy had simply appeared in Japan as a child, carrying no past, no ties, only to grow into a man with a gift that defied explanation.
The thought gnawed at him. Racing talent wasn't spontaneous—it was forged through years of grind, through discipline, through exposure to the crucible of competition. To have such ability with none of that history? It bordered on the unnatural.
Akagi's lips curved into the faintest smile, though his eyes remained cold. "This is out of the ordinary. And I do not like what I cannot predict."
He rose from his chair and walked toward the window. The city stretched endlessly, the afternoon sun bouncing off skyscrapers like a sea of mirrors. Somewhere down there, Izamuri Sakuta walked oblivious, unaware that his every move was already under surveillance.
His henchmen had compiled meticulous records. From Saturday morning's convoy to Fuji, to the lunch break where he chatted idly with his crew, to the very moment he stepped out of the car after that final blistering lap. Every gesture, every word, had been logged. Akagi could practically hear the tone of the boy's voice in the transcripts—calm, unassuming, as though he had no idea of the potential that screamed from his lap times.
Potential that could, if left unchecked, disrupt everything.
Akagi returned to his desk and closed the folder with deliberate care. His thumb traced over the embossed letters of Izamuri's name on the cover.
"So… you will race in the EK9 One-Make Retro Cup under the team name… G-FORCE," he said, reading the words aloud as though testing their weight. "An amateur team, a humble entry, a stage far too small for what you've shown."
His hand clenched into a fist. "And yet you threaten to grow into something dangerous."
He poured himself a glass of whiskey, the amber liquid catching the sunlight as he swirled it absently. His mind wandered briefly to the heritage of NEIT. He had not built the empire, he had inherited it from his father. But he had expanded it, refined it, weaponized it. The company thrived under his watch, dominating technology and entertainment. And he, Akagi Nakamura, would not allow an anomaly like Izamuri to disrupt the order he so carefully maintained.
The reports, the photographs, the timing sheet, all of it told him one thing… This boy was not ordinary.
And that made him dangerous.
Akagi's smile returned, thinner this time, sharper. He knew what he had to do. Victory wasn't just about winning on track. It was about control, about bending every variable until nothing unpredictable remained. If Izamuri was truly as talented as the numbers suggested, then he would need to be tested, dismantled, and destroyed, piece by piece, weakness by weakness.
He set the whiskey glass down and opened the next folder in the stack on his desk. This one bore the label Crew Profiles.
The smile grew.
"Let us see who is helping you, boy," Akagi murmured, his voice soft but venomous.
And with that, the office fell back into silence, broken only by the rustle of paper as the hunter prepared to learn more about the prey who dared enter his world. Akagi's fingers slid over the tab of the second folder.
The thick cream-colored cardstock felt heavier than it should have, the letters "CREW PROFILES" embossed in block print. He cracked it open slowly, almost ceremonially, as if unveiling a gallery of faces that had, until now, existed only in the background of his target.
The first page was neat and thorough.
Daichi Fujiwara.
Age: 45.
Nationality: Japanese.
Background: Former professional racing driver with a career spanning JGTC, Formula Nippon, and DTM. Two-time GT500 champion, three-time DTM champion. Retired following a near-fatal crash at Nürburgring in 2007. Currently works as regional manager for a convenience store chain. Known in the paddock as the "Suzuka Dragon."
Akagi let out a small, derisive hum. He had heard the name before, most in motorsport circles had. The man was once a threat on track, yes, but now? A relic. A driver who had burned bright in the late '90s and early 2000s before disappearing into obscurity. What surprised Akagi was not his presence, but his willingness to work with such a small-time operation. A GT500 champion slumming it in an amateur Civic series? Odd.
He turned the page.
William Walter Schmidt.
Age: 48.
Nationality: German.
Background: Former DTM and GT endurance engineer, ex-Mercedes-AMG performance division. Specialized in chassis dynamics and pit strategy.
Akagi's brow furrowed slightly. Another professional pedigree. An engineer with this kind of experience didn't just wander into grassroots racing for the fun of it. That made two high-caliber veterans backing a complete unknown. That alone was unsettling. But it was the next page that froze his hands mid-turn.
Nikolai Alexander Dmitri.
Age: 50.
Nationality: Russian.
Background: Former chief engineer for Russia's top Formula 4 program in the early 2000s. Known for precision engine mapping and telemetry analysis. Career ended abruptly in 2006 following criminal charges for the murder of a fellow mechanic during a sabotage investigation. Convicted and imprisoned in Russia for 14 years. Released January 2020.
Akagi's eyes locked on the name.
The room seemed to grow colder.
He read the line again.
And again.
Nikolai Alexander Dmitri. The man he had personally ordered destroyed.
Memories surfaced like oil on water, dark, slick, impossible to wash away. It had been 2006. NEIT had business dealings in Eastern Europe, dabbling in sponsorship contracts with several junior teams. One of them had a talented young Russian driver whose career Akagi wanted to elevate, but Nikolai had been in the way. A principled man, stubborn to the point of foolishness, who had refused to rig an ECU to secure a win for Akagi's favored driver.
When persuasion failed, Akagi had resorted to more… permanent solutions.
The "sabotage" incident had been staged to perfection: tampered tools, a staged altercation, a dead body in the team's machine shop. Witness statements had been bought, evidence planted. The verdict was swift—Nikolai was condemned as a murderer and disappeared into the Russian prison system.
Fourteen years later, here he was.
Not broken. Not vanished. But in Tokyo. Working side-by-side with Izamuri Sakuta.
Akagi's eyes narrowed. A slow, poisonous anger began to coil in his chest.
"How…" he muttered, pushing the file closer, "…how did you crawl back from that?"
His right hand reached instinctively toward the intercom. "Get me the travel logs for Nikolai Dmitri. Every port entry. Every visa stamp. Every crossing. I want the last six months traced."
Within minutes, his head of security returned with a slim dossier and set it on the desk. Akagi flipped it open with deliberate care.
January 2020 – Released from detention in Russia.
2 monts in Irkutsk → Vladivostok (rail) – Passenger plus one vehicle loaded in freight car.
Vladivostok → Sakaiminato, Japan (ferry) – Vehicle: 1977 Lada Niva, white, original Soviet VIN, owner Nikolai Dmitri.
Sakaiminato → Tokyo (road via ferry transfer) – Arrival date: March 13, 2020.
Akagi's jaw tightened. The detail about the car caught his eye. A relic from the Cold War, still wearing its Soviet branding like a badge of stubbornness. That wasn't just a vehicle. It was a statement.
"So he had brought the car with him."
And just a week after arriving in Tokyo, he was already back in the game—working with Fujiwara, Schmidt, and a mysterious young driver who had clocked near-pro pace on his first serious outing.
Akagi leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. This was no coincidence. It couldn't be.
Nikolai's presence meant something.
It meant this G-FORCE outfit wasn't just an amateur crew of enthusiasts. With two ex-champions, a seasoned German engineer, and now a man Akagi thought buried in the rubble of a Russian prison, it looked dangerously close to being a foundation for something much bigger.
And all of it centered around Izamuri Sakuta.
Akagi's mind worked in measured, surgical movements. If Nikolai had any inkling of who had truly orchestrated his downfall, then his involvement here was more than a job. It was proximity to revenge.
The thought almost amused him. Almost.
He flipped the last page in the file, scanning Nikolai's recent activity. Nothing overtly threatening, no registered property under his name, no criminal activity in Japan. He was living modestly in an apartment in Suginami Ward. But modest men with his history never stopped moving in the shadows.
Akagi reached for his pen and made a note in the margin:
"Priority Target: Monitor movements. Establish surveillance. Identify weak points.
The pen stopped halfway through the note."
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
If this was the game Nikolai wanted to play, hiding in plain sight, pretending to be nothing more than a crewman, Akagi would oblige. He would watch him. Let him believe he was safe. And when the time was right, he would remove him and his new allies with the same precision as before.
He closed the crew folder, the thud echoing softly in the spacious office. Outside, the Tokyo skyline glowed in the waning light of Sunday evening.
Two days ago, Izamuri Sakuta had been a nameless young man.
Now, he was the center of a web that included ghosts from Akagi's past, a threat that could not be ignored.
And somewhere deep in Akagi's mind, a plan was beginning to take shape. As the antique clock in Akagi Nakamura's office ticks, it was the only sound in the room, a measured cadence that seemed to echo louder with each second he sat there, eyes fixed on the crew dossier he had just closed. He had learned more in the past hour than he had anticipated. Daichi Fujiwara, William Walter Schmidt, and especially Nikolai Alexander Dmitri, a name that still burned in his mind like a coal that refused to go out.
He was still lost in thought, fingertips tapping lightly against the mahogany desk, when the heavy double doors to his office slammed open. A breathless henchman staggered in, clutching a folder so thin it looked almost trivial compared to the weight of the news he carried.
"Sir!" the man barked, chest heaving. "There's… there's been a development. A new crew member."
Akagi's head lifted slowly, his eyes sharpening like a blade. "Speak."
The henchman swallowed hard, then held out the folder. "Simon George Brown. Former Formula 1 engineer and strategist. Benetton from 1988 until 1999, then Jordan Grand Prix until 2001. After that… a quiet period, mostly technical advisory roles. But most importantly, sir, until four days ago—"
Akagi snatched the folder from his hands, snapping it open. His eyes darted over the lines of text, each word adding weight to the storm already building in his mind.
Mercedes AMG F1, 2014–2020. Role: Senior Race Strategist. Departure: Four days ago. Circumstances are still undisclosed.
The room fell utterly silent.
Akagi leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking beneath him. He read the line again, then lowered the paper slowly, almost reverently.
"So," he muttered under his breath, "that's where he went."
His voice was low, but it carried menace. Simon George Brown, known in European motorsport circles as a meticulous tactician, a man with the uncanny ability to read races as though they were books written only for him. If he was here, with them, then the little team Akagi had been dismissing as an amateur curiosity was no longer a minor inconvenience.
The henchman shifted nervously. "Sir, I only discovered it by chance. On Saturday night, I… I was walking past their workshop again, just out of curiosity. I wasn't even assigned, but—" Akagi's gaze snapped up, sharp enough to cut steel. The man stammered, correcting himself. "—but I thought it wise to keep an eye, in case anything new surfaced. That's when I saw him. Simon. He stepped out of the workshop around eleven at night, carrying papers under his arm. He got into a Jaguar XJS, a '96 model, green. No mistake, sir. It was him."
Akagi set the file down with deliberate care. He clasped his hands together, elbows resting on the desk, and let the silence stretch until the henchman's knees nearly buckled under the weight of it.
"Do you understand," Akagi finally said, his voice like silk over glass, "what this means?"
The man shook his head, unsure if he was supposed to answer.
"It means," Akagi continued, rising slowly to his feet, "that this is no coincidence. Daichi Fujiwara. William Walter Schmidt. Nikolai Alexander Dmitri. And now Simon George Brown. Do you see the pattern? Do you see the gravity?"
The henchman gave a hesitant nod.
"This Izamuri Sakuta," Akagi said, stepping away from his desk to gaze out the window at the glowing Tokyo skyline, "is not simply a rookie driver who happened to catch their interest. He has drawn veterans, engineers, strategists, men of caliber to his side. And all of them, whether by design or fate, now stand aligned against me."
The weight of the revelation hung in the air like smoke.
The henchman shifted again, then cleared his throat. "Shall I… continue surveillance on the workshop? We can keep a rotating tail, or—"
"No."
The single word stopped him cold.
Akagi turned, his expression calm, almost serene. "You will cease all active monitoring immediately."
The man blinked in shock. "Sir?"
"Do not insult me by repeating yourself," Akagi said, his tone dropping to a growl. "We have what we need. Izamuri is no ordinary mechanic. He is the axis around which this new force spins. I now know who his mentors are, who guides him, who feeds his growth. And if we press too close, too quickly, one of them… Nikolai, Fujiwara, perhaps even that girl… Will smell the smoke before the fire."
The henchman lowered his gaze, bowing slightly. "Understood."
"Good," Akagi said. He walked back toward his desk, trailing a finger along its polished edge, then stopped before the thick folder labeled Izamuri Sakuta. He rested his palm on it, almost like a man laying a hand on a weapon.
"They believe themselves clever," he mused aloud. "A secret operation, hiding a diamond in the rough, preparing him for a world stage. But they forget one thing."
He looked up, his eyes flashing with cold determination.
"I built my empire on understanding how men win. And how they fail. If Izamuri's talent is real, then I will find its edges, the flaws, the places where he bends. I will crush him not with fists or knives, but with the very thing he clings to—his racing. If that fails, then…"
He let the thought hang, unfinished but heavy with implication.
The henchman stood stiff, waiting for dismissal.
Akagi waved a hand. "Leave me. Inform the others, no further action unless ordered directly by me. Not a step, not a glance. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," the man said quickly, backing toward the door.
When the door clicked shut, the office sank into silence once again. Akagi picked up Simon Brown's file and leafed through it one more time. The record of his career, Benetton's golden years, Jordan's surprise podiums, Mercedes' rise, was written like a history book of victories. And now he was here, in Tokyo, lending that weight to a no-name team and their rookie driver.
Akagi's smile returned, faint and thin.
"Simon Brown, Daichi Fujiwara, Walter Schmidt, Nikolai Dmitri…" He whispered the names like an incantation. "You have gathered under him. But in the end, your combined strength will only make his collapse more satisfying."
He closed the folder with a decisive snap, extinguished the desk lamp, and let the city lights bathe his office in a cold glow. The game was no longer one-sided.
But Akagi Nakamura never played to lose.