Diablo

*This page is about the drug. For the vehicle, see Diablo-Zeta.*

**Diablo** is a dissociative anesthetics drug produced by WON-TEC as a part of the Diablo Tune and the D-Project.

## Characteristics

Diablo binds to the receptor that emits electrical signals to the brain and cuts off its functions that produce fear and anxiety. In theory, the Diablo would allow a driver to take more risks in racing and achieve faster lap times.

However, the drug has notable side effects. With the parts of the brain blocked out, the brain is forced to overwork itself, causing extremely high stress. This ironically enhances fear and anxiety as the test subject struggles to feel emotions. The Diablo user may begin hearing voices inside their own heads, reminding them of their insecurity and convincing them to drive faster. As the results, many Drivers were driven into insanity. Furthermore, the lack of fear may cause them to disregard their own safety, causing fatal accidents by fearlessly drive themselves into guardrails or into other cars.

Sho Akasaki was initially tricked into believing that he was one of WON-TEC Drivers and therefore took the drug. However, it was later revealed that he had never taken Diablo, and the voice inside his head was caused by something else altogether.

## Synopsis

### Background

In WON-TEC's pursue for biotechnological breakthrough, it seek out a means for humans to overcome fear and doubts in order to push their limits. The heads of the corporation considered fear and anxiety to be the prime obstacles to human expressions and achievements, and forsaking these emotions should allow humankind to realize its full potential. Diablo was purposed by Aoi and Satoru Kawashima as a drug that blocks out emotions from the brain and put it into a stressful state for the optimal performance. However, the Diablo was engineered with an underlying motive, as the Kawashima siblings purposely developed the inhumane drug to take revenges on their parents' deaths caused by street racers.

Diablo was initially given to Nenji Nanba, a street racer in Kanto region. The initial testing was successful as Nanba was able to drive significantly faster and expanded his reputation to the point he became known as the "Fastest Rotary". However, the experiment soon suffered from a major setback when Nanba suddenly crashed his car and killed himself. To preserve the credibility of the experiment, researchers deliberately discarded Nanba's death and rallied for more test subjects from the street racing community, who were easily obtained and disposable.

WON-TEC started recruiting skillful street racers around Japan to become their "Drivers". Ever Driver would be given doses of Diablo with different addictive formulas that may be able to defy the undesirable side effects. Furthermore, the company developed Diablo Tune, an unorthodox car tuning method that purposely overclock parts' capacity and made the car far too powerful to be driven by regular drivers. Several prototype Diablo-Zeta cars were created and distributed to Drivers. However, this escalated the fetal accidents and failed experiments: The Diablo-Zeta cars had a tendency to break apart or explode from overdriving, and the Drivers were unable to escape because of their inability to anticipate or react to deadly situations. Finally, the development of Diablo was completely halted because of War Of Yokohama, where every single remaining Driver escaped the company and perished in a fiery accident on a highway.

### Sawaki's Accident

Following the showdown between Bay Lagoon Racing and Honmoku Night Racers , the Ishikawa brothers abducted Yuka Suzuki and hid themselves in Redrenga Warehouse. They were captured by WON-TEC staff, but because of their gurdge against Sho Akasaki, brother were handed with Diablo and made a deal to introduce anybody else to Diablo Tune.

Despite being beaten up by Makoto Sawaki for abducting a woman, Keisuke managed to convince Sawaki into having his car Diablo Tuned and taking the drug. The effect of Diablo was not apparent on Sawaki, but it's enough to let him hear a voice inside his head. Makoto decided to have a personal race with Akasaki, believing that the rookie had a potential to become the new fastest legend of Yokohama. During the race, Sawaki ended up in accident and was hospitalized. Akira Tsujimoto was deeply struck by the event and insisted on staying at the hospital. This allowed Keisuke to start taking over the Night Racers and spreaded information on Diablo Tune. Whether the Diablo itself was distributed within the team was unknown.

### Yokohama GP

A few nights after Makoto Sawaki's near-fetal accident, WON-TEC announced Yokohama GP to promote street racing community. With only one remaining slot for driver from BLR to join the event, Kyoji Nanba, became increasingly anxious of the rookie driver Sho Akasaki and became desperate to drive faster. Keisuke contracted Nanba and gave him information on the drug, which Nanba accepted to take. A night before BLR's decider race in North Yokohama, Keisuke contacted Nanba and proposed him Diablo Tune. Nanba accepted and was administrated with the drug. On the night of the decider race, Akasaki saw Nanba speeding around the area. He tried to call him, but Nanba, being under influence of the drug, did not notice and drove off. As Akasaki arrived at Takashima Whalf for the appointed race, Nanba arrived late, having extraordinary tired look and hallow eyes. Akasaki ended up winning the decider race while Nanba suffered from an engine failure. While team inspected the damage, Akasaki noticed Aoi Kawashima approaching Nanba. Nanba then disappeared for three nights.

During the dawn before the Yokohama GP qualifiers, Nanba suddenly reappeared to Akasaki in his newly Diablo Tuned car, looking even more deranged than before. He stated that he has been haunted by a voice, and that the same voice will come haunting Akasaki before challenging him into a race. Nanba proved to be proved to be monsteriously fast and drove away in the darkness. Following the GP qualifiers, the news reported that Nanba crashed his car into a sideroad and instantly got himself killed, having apparently not braked for a corner.

Bay Lagoon Racing decided to head to Hakone to prepare themselves for the final round of Yokohama GP. Akasaki, meanwhile set out to find more information on the Diablo Tune. Akasaki eventually found out that Fujisawa, too, was haunted by a voice inside his head. The following day, Akasaki and Fujisawa took home a 1-2 finish at the Yokohama GP. However, Akasaki, who at the time was being taken over by his own inner voice, started going out of control. A few nights later, Fujisawa challenged Akasaki into a Taiman battle, and crashed himself into the exact same corner as Sawaki.

Further haunted by Fujisawa's accident and trying to clear his name, Akasaki tried to uncover the truth behind Diablo Tune. Manabu Oda provided him a map to reach the Forgotten Hill in Hokkaido. There, Akasaki meets Satoru Kawashima, who handed him a disc containing all the information related to the drug. WON-TEC was able to steal the disc from him and showed him its content, before their agents (designated as Drivres) appointed Akasaki to race in the Darkness GP against the driver of the Diablo-Zeta. Akasaki won the races and found out that the driver of the Diablo-Zeta was Ikki Fujisawa, who had also been under influence of Diablo.

Following the Darkness GP, WON-TEC abducted Suzuki and Tsujimoto in order to lure Akasaki to the Bay Lagoon Tower. The voice inside Akasaki took over and massacred the WON-TEC agents. Heidel Schneider declared the D-Project to be a failure but would take the remaining Diablo to conduct further researches in Europe. However, Akasaki defeated Schneider in a race and the German agent died in the confrontation. With WON-TEC's destruction, Diablo was permanently annihilated.