9th Night Endless Nightmare

**9th Night Endless Nightmare** is the tenth chapter of Racing Lagoon.

The Wangan and C1 area is unlocked at this chapter, unless the player lost to Fujisawa in the previous chapter's Taiman race and selected Street Fight Race in the post-race menu.

This chapter is one of the longest in the game, since the player visits all roam-able regions of the game and the importance of each encounters to the game's plot development.

## Synopsis

### South Yokohama

Following the events the morning after the Yokohama GP and after the manifestation of the voice of the Yokohama's Fastest Legend dissipated from Akasaki's mind, both Bay Lagoon Racing (Fujisawa's injury and Nanba's death, leaving just Yamada and Suzuki in addition to Akasaki himself) and Honmoku Night Racers (Sawaki's death, Keisuke's "showtime", and Shinsuke's retirement) began to slowly falling apart. The talk of the town amongst street racers become focused on two things: the Taiman battle that injured Ikki Fujisawa (many street racers, including lower-tier Honmoku Night Racers members, labelled Akasaki as a "grim reaper" because of this) and Diablo Tune. When Akasaki paid a visit to the hospital, he saw Aoi also paying a visit to Fujisawa. Aoi brought Akasaki to hospital's rooftop, where she tells a story about a crash that killed her parents; Akasaki was unable to pay attention to the story due to the interference from the mysterious voice.

Meanwhile, Yoko Mihara announced that she would leave both street racing (doing her farewell race with Motomachi Queen's) and Johnny's to pursue other interests; Akasaki noticed that it may have been related to racers moving from South Yokohama to the north to participate in the gymkhana race at Daikoku PA.

At the Warehouse Street, a man in black told that the street is being closed for an "important" construction work. Meeting Yuka, she asked why Akasaki didn't initially visit the hospital or pick up his phone (Akasaki had threw his phone away into the ocean following Fujisawa's crash in disbelief) the day before and that the team were worried about him, especially after the events at Hakone, an event that Akasaki declined to explain to her.

At the graveyards, Akasaki also heard about Gamou Kusunoki and the falling out between the Ishikawas, in which Keisuke Ishikawa obtained yet another car, this time a Diablo-tuned one. He also learns that WON-TEC was scouting racers as Drivers for their D-Project.

At the Honmoku Wharf, after a race in which Akasaki and Shinsuke Ishikawa raced in CVC1600s in what would be Shinsuke's last race before quitting racing altogether, he began explaining some important things occurring in the previous nights:

* "Showtime" was Keisuke's catchphrase in the brothers' attempt to stage an internal coup over Akira after he lost to Ikki in their team battle. When the brothers kidnapped Yuka at the Redrenga Warehouse and spotted men and limousines in black, they peeped at them in which Keisuke saw an opportunity to make money, which caught the attention of the limousines' bodyguards. While escaping, they were caught by the men in black, one of which happened to recognize both their team and Akasaki and offered the brothers a "side job" that was simply introducing him to their friends, saying that he was looking for struggling drivers, a "deal with the devil" that they agreed and the origin of their "showtime". Shinsuke also suspected about the existence of gambling inside the street racing scene, as well as dirty money because of it.
* Prior to the Revenge Race, the Ishikawas offered Sawaki an opportunity to improve his lap times for the race. (A minor Night Racers member had previously known as early as the 6th Night that Keisuke had messed with Makoto's car.) When he agreed, the brothers took Sawaki's car to the same warehouse as the site of the encounter with men in black (for Diablo tuning, as revealed later). Not expecting that Sawaki would end up that way, the money from the men in black rolled in anyway (allowing Keisuke to switch from his GRA-Si to a Cancer later).
* The night after BLR's Yokohama GP decider, Kyoji Nanba was offered Diablo Tune by the Ishikawas (Yamada had notified Akasaki about it over the phone following the meeting).
* Tetsuji Kawasaki's father gambled on street races in the city, and the Ishikawas made a business deal with Tetsuji, who wanted to expand to South Yokohama (while Night Racers, via the brothers, also wanted to expand their turf to the north). The brothers never disclosed the encounter with the limo men to him.
* Shinsuke and Kenzo first met each other at Bodyshop Muraoka, wanting to get an CVC1600 that was originally planned to be scrapped. Yamada won the car via a game of rock-paper-scissors.
* The "Kanto's Fastest Unit" refers to C-1 Road Stars; Keisuke is using an race event they're planning as an opportunity to expand the team's foothold to Tokyo.
* WON-TEC had been scouting racers for their Driver project (officially, their racing program) from the Yokohama GP. They had recruited Keisuke (possibly as early as their encounter at the warehouse) for the program (despite not qualifying for the event) and now he drives a Diablo-tuned car. Shinsuke left the program because he had enough of WON-TEC.
* Sawaki's and Nanba's cars had indeed been Diablo-tuned, but he does not know much about it. He does remark that his brother's car, also Diablo-tuned, was very fast.
* Shinsuke also hears a strange "voice", this time calling him out for racing merely for money.
* Shinsuke admitted that none of them understood what were they doing and they merely wanted to feel their importance to the world.

Reflecting on the meeting, Akasaki realized that he has to stop Keisuke and his "showtime".

At the Bay Lagoon, Kenzo told that he wanted to quit the team. Although Akasaki encouraged it, Yamada was worried that Fujisawa would not approve of such behavior. Kenzo also became aware of the Taiman Battle that injured Fujisawa, to Akasaki's surprise. While he does remember that he was "possessed" during the battle, he himself does not remember the events leading to, or after, it, but he does remember how the voice claim itself as the Yokohama's Fastest Legend from ten years ago and that he should meet Manabu Oda again to get more information about the "voice", Oda having previously held back the information from Fujisawa.

Near the Bay Lagoon Tower, Gamou Kusunoki, the leader of the C-1 Road Stars (describing his team as Kanto's Fastest Unit and an nationwide army of street racers) and the Tokyo representative of the Yokohama GP (who considered the race as a mere publicity stunt) recognized Akasaki as the winner of the race and invited him to meet at Daikoku parking area for new racing challenges.

### C1 and Wangan

At the Daikoku PA, the C-1 Road Stars found that no-one else seemingly showing up to their event, other than Akasaki, Yui Tachikawa, Tetsuji Kawasaki, Nanako Aoyama, and Keisuke Ishikawa. All of them (except for Ishikawa) took part in the gymkhana tournament at the PA (won by Akasaki), after which they depart. Akasaki and Ishikawa stayed, with the latter bragging about how his car was Diablo tuned to Kusunoki. Although Akasaki seemingly accepted Keisuke's challenge to race against his Diablo-tuned car, Keisuke wouldn't let Akasaki race against it.

### North Yokohama

After the C-1 Road Stars' event, he headed to North Yokohama. There, he stumbled open the WON-TEC headquarters once more, when he saw drivers waiting to sign up for the WON-TEC's "Driver" project (a WON-TEC official meanwhile thought that his job was over after the Yokohama GP while it wasn't the case). Many drivers in the part of the city still fears Akasaki while also searching for the Diablo Tuneshop.

Meanwhile, the Shiina sisters have also made their arrival in the city, first making their stop at the Nanpa Chicane. If the player gets a perfect result at the chicane, Yumi Uehara (who gives the Kouha sticker) will tell Akasaki that the Shiinas were shopping and she told them about the Queen's Aques (who were surprised at the Shiinas earlier).

At the Sakuragi's drag racing turf, it was shown that the Sakuragicho GRAND TOURERS still believed in Akasaki instead of the rumors, while at Takashima Wharf, Akasaki saw two men from WON-TEC trying to recruit Freddie Roberts as their Driver, an attempt that Freddie resisted. In doing so, Roberts appears to have knowledge of those two men, as they were his old friends before their defection.

### Return to South Yokohama

Back at his home turf, Akasaki found again once more that not all street racers actually agree with the assessment that he is a grim reaper (for instance, the Yokohama Stadium UOR hosts). At the Spencer's Test Course, Spencer announced a special event at the track featuring the so-called Prince of Test Course, although he immediately recognized who it is after beating him.

### Hakone

Heading to Hakone, he faced the Hakone Drift Dancers once more, who (along with locals there) called him as the top two of Yokohama (the other being Akira Tsujimoto). Tsujimoto, who now considered Akasaki as his (friendly) rival, said that he went to Hakone to also find the answers behind Sawaki and Fujisawa's accidents, and to find the tuning shop responsible for messing with both cars. He also knows about Kawasaki's gambling operations that influenced his team's wealth and the racing economy, although he was unable to find any lead to Diablo Tune, and vowed to protect Bay Lagoon Racing. When Akasaki asked if he heard any voice, Akira stated that Makoto also heard such voices (relating back to Shinsuke's revelation that Makoto's car had been Diablo-tuned), but he himself does not hear it.

At Tuneshop Windy, Kuniteru Takahashi said that he heard of the state of Fujisawa as well as his outcome of the Yokohama GP. More importantly, he revealed that, on the night of the GP, when Takahashi returned his race car back to his garage, he found a Yokohama-registered limousine pulled up at his garage and found a foreign man in black congratulating on Akasaki's victory using his car, asking if he was the mechanic of the car and openly mentioning Diablo Tune when noting in surprise how his GP car could beat the aforementioned tuning, as well as looking for Manabu Oda, to his surprise. He also explained about his old friend, Windy (of which Takahashi's shop is named after), who together ten years ago were investigating Diablo Tune, and Windy's disappearance after he found and attempted to sneak into the Diablo Tuneshop.

At the Heaven's Hill, he spotted Oda racing against Miharu Koguchi (who went back to his X1800SP, having driven the Seven-FD at the Yokohama GP Championship Round). Catching up with the two, Koguchi said that he still did not know what happened to Ikki and wanted one more battle against Akasaki. During the battle, Akasaki heard the voice again, which promptly took him over as he tries to talk to Oda. Oda, who knew about Fujisawa's crash, felt that his own time is running out, and encouraged Akasaki to go to the north to find the answer behind the Diablo Tune, which is key to understand who raced against Yokohama's Fastest Legend ten years ago, and that he had held back this information from Fujisawa during their encounter.

Following this, Akasaki heard the voice claiming to be Akasaki himself and the situation has been always like what it is happening now; when he confronted the voice once more from within, the voice only said about going to the north. Not answering any of the remaining questions, Akasaki vowed to put an end to the menace that is the voice.