The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department had waged an absolute war on the highways, caught the underground completely off-guard, and systematically stripped the street-racing kings of their domains.
But time, as always, wore down the hammer.
Month by month, the flashing red lights grew scarce. The resource-draining, high-budget theater of Operation Backstab was never meant to last forever, and as the police department inevitably throttled back its highway patrols, the midnight underbelly of Tokyo began to bleed back into its natural pace.
At the usual staging grounds, night after night, the old ecosystem surged back to life. Wangan regulars materialized out of the shadows, their headlights cutting through the exhaust smoke alongside an influx of aggressive new faces. Heavily tuned machines—ranging from raw, track-focused functionality to clean, high-dollar cosmetic builds—repopulated the staging lanes. Before long, small grassroots teams reformed, aggressively recruiting fresh blood to replenish the ranks hollowed out by the police raids.
Everything on the surface seemed to be recovering beautifully. The action was back, but the remaining veterans were smarter now. A profound, collective caution governed the streets; nobody wanted to re-awaken the wrath of the metropolitan task force. Races were scheduled strictly in the dead zones of the early morning hours, away from prying eyes. For the meticulous, the strategy paid off, allowing them to clock devastating new segment records under the total cover of darkness.
Yet, despite the high-octane revival, a hollow ache lingered over the asphalt.
The Haunted Void
Months into the highway's grand reopening, a glaring omission became impossible to ignore. A few elite factions—the ones the grapevine claimed had successfully out-maneuvered the police net and slipped into hiding—simply refused to return. If these were minor, transient crews, the streets wouldn't care. But the names missing from the roll call were the four legendary pillars of the golden era.
The rumor mill spun completely out of control, whispering wild theories of drivers turning professional or leadership enforcing permanent disbands. The reality, however, was far more somber:
Bayside Blue (Shinkanjyo): The legendary loop faction was officially dead. A catastrophic, coordinated police raid had caught them in a dead-end pocket, seizing their keys and crushing their iconic machinery, forcing an unceremonious retirement.
Office Prestige (Yokohama): The elite VIP sedan syndicate had lost its appetite for blood-bought street victories. Content with their immaculate fitments, roaring luxury exhausts, and deep pockets, they transitioned entirely into organizing legal car meets and closed-circuit track days.
The Kanjyo Ocelots (C1): The brutal, corner-carving masters of the inner circular route had pulled back behind the fortified walls of their private school headquarters. They were content to burn rubber strictly on their internal academy course, permanently abandoning public tarmac.
This vast, unprecedented vacuum left the gates wide open for a hungry, ruthless generation of newcomers to draw fresh borders on the map. Before long, names like the Shibuya Nitro-Boys, RB Squad, Sorciere Elite Magicians, Crimson Rotary, and Midnight Orochi began dominating the midnight digital forums, carving out their own small empires.
But the Wangan was a different beast entirely.
The Return of the Iron Kings
The Wangan was Feroci. Always. Throughout the history of the Tokyo highway system, that was accepted as an immutable, sacred truth.
When the police had launched their scorched-earth crackdown, Feroci Racing was the only titan faction that refused to run, refused to hide, and refused to break. Leveraging deep-seated political connections in high places and utilizing veterans who had survived decades of asphalt warfare, they navigated the storm entirely unscathed.
And the moment the pressure eased, they struck back with terrifying, unbridled velocity.
It was as if their catastrophic, near-fatal feud with Team [Tokyo’s Fastest] had only poured high-octane fuel on their internal fire. In their very first week back on the Bayshore Route, Feroci launched a campaign of absolute annihilation, tearing through the newcomer crews in a ruthless streak that felt like the wrath of an angered god. By the second week, they sat comfortably back on their iron throne—completely and utterly undefeated.
Yet, beneath the celebration, the regulars noticed a chilling detail. The front lines of Feroci were populated by fierce, unfamiliar faces. The true legacy veterans of the crew were nowhere to be found.
Most notably, that one guy. The ghost who had survived the metal-twisting graveyard of the great accident. The driver of the Dark Sakura Mirage.
つづく
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