Monday, 2 February 2002 — Kyoto, Japan.
Meanwhile, in Kyoto, an American man named Damon was spending the evening exactly the way he wanted. He had been living and working in Japan for quite some time, but unlike most ordinary employees, his schedule was unusually flexible because he owned a small but increasingly successful car shop. He handled repairs, tuning, custom work, and the occasional import job, and whenever he wanted a proper day off, all he really had to do was close the shutters, put up the sign, and ignore anyone trying to call him. Today was absolutely one of those days.
Damon had already bought a ZEPS 4 along with the complete twelve-game launch bundle by pre-order. He did not actually intend to play every single one of them seriously, but that had not stopped him from buying the entire set anyway. Part of it was simple enthusiasm, and part of it was his way of supporting ZAGE. He had followed the company for years and respected how aggressively it pushed technology, games, and weird ideas that other companies would probably consider too risky. Realistically, though, Damon already knew which games would consume most of his time. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, definitely. Need for Speed: Underground, without question. Maybe some ZAGE Sports when he wanted something lighter. The rest would probably sit on the shelf until curiosity eventually got the better of him.
Right now, however, there was only one game on his mind.
He leaned back into the couch, stretched his legs out, and picked up the new wireless ZEPS 4 controller with a satisfied grin. "Wireless stuff are really great," he muttered, turning the controller slightly in his hands as if still getting used to the fact that there was no cable running across the room. He then grabbed a pair of Sonaya headphones, plugged them directly into the controller, and chuckled again. "Heh. A headphone jack in the controller is genius as hell."
The little convenience pleased him more than it probably should have. No long cable stretched toward the television. No separate extension. No need to sit closer to the console. Just controller, headphones, couch.
Perfect.
The Need for Speed: Underground Blue-Ray disc was already inside the ZEPS 4, and when Damon moved across the main interface and highlighted the game, the background immediately changed. An orange Nissan Skyline GT-R tore across a neon-lit city street at night, reflections sliding across its bodywork as streetlights blurred behind it. Other tuned cars briefly appeared in the background, and the interface automatically cycled through short gameplay clips of drifting corners, close freeway races, nitrous bursts, and heavily modified cars cruising beneath glowing signs.
Damon stared at the screen.
"Can't fucking believe it looks that good."
He had spent most of his adult life around real cars. That made him far harder to impress than someone who only knew vehicles from magazines or games. He noticed proportions. Suspension movement. Tire behavior. How reflections curved across body panels. How streetlights interacted with paint. Whether cars felt like physical objects or simply sliding models.
And what ZEPS 4 was showing him looked absurd for a console.
He immediately pressed Play.
The interface folded away through the familiar Z-shaped transition before the screen faded to black. First came the silver ZAGE logo. Then another logo appeared.
TEAM TEMPEST
Damon raised an eyebrow slightly. "Tempest, huh?"
The screen faded again.
Then the main menu appeared.
The orange Nissan Skyline GT-R sat beneath city lights, slowly rotating as if it were being shown inside some underground tuner showcase. The camera moved around the vehicle with smooth cinematic angles while reflections from signs and traffic passed across the glossy paint.
Then the music started.
A slow, catchy electronic beat filled Damon's headphones. It was atmospheric, dark, and strangely intimate compared with the louder aggressive tracks he expected from a street-racing game. A soft vocal entered over the beat.
As the hours pass…
Damon stopped moving.
The melody continued, and he leaned back farther into the couch.
The song was "After Dark" by Mr.Kitty, though Damon had absolutely no idea what that meant. In this world, the track simply existed as the signature main-menu theme of Need for Speed: Underground, chosen and adapted into the game under Zaboru's direction. To anyone from Zaboru's previous life, the song would have been instantly recognizable. To Damon, it was completely new.
And he loved it immediately.
"Oh my God… the soundtrack."
Instead of starting the game right away, Damon simply sat there for nearly a minute listening to the menu theme while the Skyline rotated slowly across the screen. The combination of neon reflections, the dark city atmosphere, the polished car presentation, and the dreamy electronic track worked far better than he expected.
He started nodding along.
"Okay… this is already cool as hell."
Eventually, he finally selected Start Game.
The opening sequence wasted little time establishing the tone. Underground street races, modified cars, crews gathering beneath parking-garage lights, exhaust fumes drifting through the night, engines revving beneath elevated highways, and neon signs reflecting across wet pavement immediately filled the screen. Damon recognized several real-world cars within seconds and found himself instinctively naming them aloud.
"Civic… Integra… Eclipse… damn, is that a 350Z?"
The cinematic transitioned naturally into the first race.
Damon gripped the controller more tightly.
The countdown began.
Three.
Two.
One.
The engines screamed.
The race launched.
Damon's eyes widened instantly.
"Whoa."
The sense of speed was far stronger than he expected. Buildings stretched into motion blur at the edges of the screen, streetlights streaked across wet asphalt, opposing traffic appeared suddenly between corners, and the tuned car beneath his control actually felt like it had weight. The controller vibrated differently depending on the surface beneath the tires, and impacts felt sharp rather than mushy.
The first corner arrived.
Damon braked late.
Too late.
His car slammed into the barrier.
"Ah, shit!"
He laughed immediately and corrected himself.
"Okay, so you actually want me to drive."
He had expected something much more arcade-like where he could simply hold the accelerator and bounce through every corner. Instead, the game sat somewhere between arcade accessibility and enough physical feedback to make the vehicles feel convincing despite not as far as ZAGE Gran Turismo. Cars were forgiving enough for anyone to enjoy, but there was still enough difference between braking, grip, acceleration, weight, and drivetrain behavior that Damon immediately started paying attention.
The second corner went better.
Then the third.
By the time he reached the second lap, Damon had already begun learning the rhythm. Brake earlier. Feather the throttle. Use nitrous on exits rather than wasting it immediately. Avoid traffic whenever possible. Take wider lines when the corner demanded it.
He started grinning.
"Yeah… yeah, I like this."
Then the soundtrack changed.
A heavier track kicked in once the race intensified.
Damon laughed.
"Oh, hell yes."
The music system quickly became one of his favorite parts. The menu had that late-night atmospheric identity, while races exploded into hip-hop, electronic music, rock, and aggressive beats that made every event feel like part of an underground street-racing culture rather than a clean professional motorsport competition.
That distinction mattered to him.
This was not Gran Turismo.
It was not trying to be.
There were no sterile race circuits or professional pit crews. Instead there were alleyways, highways, industrial districts, parking structures, neon signs, tunnels, traffic, graffiti, crowds, and illegal races organized beneath the city lights.
Damon loved it.
After winning his first few events, the game finally began opening up properly.
New cars became available.
New visual parts unlocked.
New performance upgrades appeared.
And that was when Damon disappeared completely into the game.
The customization garage alone consumed nearly an hour.
He cycled through front bumpers, rear bumpers, side skirts, spoilers, wheels, paint, vinyl graphics, window tint, headlights, taillights, exhaust tips, hood designs, roof scoops, and body kits. Each time he changed something, the car rotated under garage lighting so he could inspect it properly from every angle.
Damon leaned forward.
"No way."
He swapped wheels.
Rotated the camera.
Changed them again.
"No, those are ugly."
Another set.
"Better."
Then another.
"Ohhh, those."
He spent another five minutes choosing wheel size.
Then came paint.
That became even worse.
Damon cycled through dozens of colors, metallic finishes, pearl effects, and combinations while the lighting shifted across the vehicle. Because he actually worked around cars in real life, he found himself judging the paint almost professionally.
"That red's too cheap-looking… black hides the body lines… silver is nice, but boring…"
Then he found a deep midnight blue.
He stopped.
"Yep."
Selected.
Done.
Then he discovered vinyl layers.
"Oh no."
Another twenty minutes disappeared.
The customization system was not simply cosmetic either. Performance upgrades changed how the vehicle behaved. Engine modifications improved acceleration and top speed. ECU tuning sharpened response. Transmission upgrades affected power delivery. Suspension changed handling characteristics. Tire upgrades improved grip. Weight reduction altered how quickly the car changed direction.
Damon tested several upgrades one by one.
He could actually feel the difference.
That impressed him more than the visual modifications.
"Okay, they really know what they doing….."
He laughed.
"They actually made the parts matter."
Soon Damon started unlocking new cars, and that only made the situation worse. He became attached to nearly every vehicle he earned. One moment he wanted a lightweight Japanese compact because it handled beautifully through tighter city courses. The next he wanted something with more raw power for high-speed highway events.
Then Damon unlocked another car—the Honda Civic Si. He paused for a second, then grinned. "Heheheh… alright, this one I can work with." It was exactly the kind of early tuner car he respected: simple, light, practical, and full of potential once the right parts were installed. He bought it immediately and took it straight into the customization garage.
What followed was another long stretch of tweaking. Damon changed the wheels, lowered the stance, upgraded the engine and suspension, experimented with paint, added a cleaner body kit, and gave the car a restrained vinyl setup instead of covering every panel. Because he actually worked on cars for a living, he found himself judging each change like a real customer build. He rotated the Civic slowly under the garage lighting and smiled. "Damn… this actually looks good."
The model quality still impressed him. Brake calipers were visible behind the wheels, reflections moved naturally across the body panels, the suspension compressed during harder turns, and the exhaust note changed noticeably after performance upgrades. More importantly, the Civic actually felt different after tuning. It accelerated harder, responded quicker, and became easier to place through corners.
The races kept opening up too. Sprint events punished mistakes because there were no second chances, circuit races demanded consistency, drag races focused heavily on shifting and traffic, while drift events completely changed the way Damon approached the car. His first attempt was terrible. He entered too quickly, lost control, and spun almost immediately. "Okay…" he muttered. The second attempt was not much better. "Fuck." By the third, however, he started understanding that the goal was not pure speed but controlled oversteer, keeping momentum while linking one slide into the next.
Once it clicked, Damon became addicted. He transitioned cleanly through one corner, carried the slide into another, then watched the score multiplier rise. "YES!" A second later he clipped the barrier and lost it. "NOOO!" He burst out laughing anyway.
Drag racing became another obsession. The game emphasized manual shifting, engine timing, nitrous use, traffic avoidance, and choosing the right lane. Damon gradually stopped watching the tachometer and started listening to the engine instead. Shift. Perfect. Shift. Perfect. Nitrous. Traffic ahead. Quick lane change. Another shift. The Civic screamed toward the finish line, and Damon leaned forward without realizing it. "Come on… come on…" He crossed in first and immediately raised one fist. "YES!"
Hours disappeared without him noticing. The soundtrack kept cycling through hip-hop, rock, electronic music, and darker late-night tracks, all of it reinforcing the underground atmosphere. That was what hooked Damon most. The game clearly understood that car culture was not only about speed. It was about taking an ordinary machine and slowly making it feel personal—wheels, stance, sound, handling, power, paint, and eventually a car that looked nothing like the one you started with.
Damon understood that better than most because it was literally his job. At one point he stared at the customized Civic rotating in the garage and muttered, "If somebody came into my shop asking for this exact setup, I could probably build something close." Then he laughed. "Would cost him a hell of a lot more than ¥4,500, though."
By the time he finally looked at the clock, several hours had passed. "What the hell?" He had spent most of the afternoon racing and modifying the Civic without noticing. Then his stomach growled loudly. Damon leaned back and rubbed it. "…Right. Damn, those modifications really took my time."
For a few seconds he simply watched the Civic rotate beneath the garage lights, then glanced toward the unopened launch games stacked beside the television. GTA: San Andreas, Halo, Monster Hunter, Devil May Cry, ZAGE Sports and the rest were all waiting, yet Damon looked back toward Need for Speed and smiled. "I'm gonna spend a lot of time on this, hehehe."
He paused the game, removed the headphones, and went to grab something to eat. He had already stocked the refrigerator because he knew there was a good chance he would spend launch day refusing to leave the apartment. After heating some food and finishing it quickly, Damon returned to the couch, put the headphones back on, and picked up the controller.
The Civic was still waiting in the garage.
Damon cracked his knuckles and grinned. "Alright. Let's make this thing even faster." He ready for another race.
To be continued.
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