Takumi Fujiwara vs Kai Kogashiwa

The battle between Takumi Fujiwara and Kai Kogashiwa is the twenty-third battle of Initial D.

Prior to the Battle
After defeating Seiji Iwaki in an unseen battle, Kai targets Takumi after hearing about the defeat of Kyoichi Sudo (his original target), whom Takumi defeated earlier.

At the time of the battle, members of Akina SpeedStars and even the the Takahashi brothers came to witness it, with Kyoichi being friendly to Ryosuke, discussing the battles alongside. Iketani countdowns the start of the battle.

During the Battle
The race starts with Kai giving lead to Takumi at the beginning, as a tactic planned by his father Ken Kogashiwa before the battle. As they both raced downwards, Takumi notices that the amount of dry leaves has increased on the right sides of corners due to heavy wind, to which he takes advantage of by letting the car to just slide on each hairpin with the help of the leaves instead of simply initiating a drift. As the battle went, Takumi grew suspicious of Kai planning some trick to overtake him soon. As the 33rd corner approached, Kai suddenly oversteered and jumps off the hairpin corner earlier and taking the lead, shocking Takumi and the spectators, who tells this to the Emperor team on top. Ryosuke realizes this was the 'local special move'. He then pulls away from Takumi by using this move two more times, before Takumi emulates his move to get closer, which shocks Kai as he tells "he's like a bundle of mountain pass tuned senses". Takumi finds his resolve from Bunta's advice on the pile of leaves on the asphalt allowing him to perform a gutter run on the first bridge. Both cars go neck to neck sending their cars airborne at the second bridge. Kai lands on the dry leaves on the roadside and due to his car's MR layout (Mid-engine, Rear-wheel drive) it snap oversteers and slips out, as Takumi barely avoids hitting Kai's car and passes him to the goal.

After the Battle
After Seiji confirmed of Takumi's victory, Kyoichi acknowledged Takumi as an exceptional racer and admirably admits he can surpass his once rival Ryosuke Takahashi. Kai thanks Takumi for not hitting his dad's car after he spun out and vows to train harder in order to race Takumi again.

Third Stage

 * Kiss Me Goodbye - Michael Beat
 * Crazy For Love - Dusty
 * If You Wanna Stay - Norma Sheffield

Battle Stage

 * Express Love - Mega NRG Man
 * Crazy For Your Love - Morris

Special Stage

 * Crazy For Love - Dusty

Trivia

 * In the manga, Sudo Kyoichi and the rest of the Emperors seen spectating the battle at the bottom of the Irohazaka touge, near the 3rd bridge. Meanwhile in Third Stage, they are situated on the top of the uphill route, as opposed to at the top or bottom of the downhill route, as the downhill and uphill roads are separate at Irohazaka.
 * In the manga, Takumi emulates Kai's jump immediately afterwards Kai's second jump. In the anime, Takumi only jumped after Kai does it three times.
 * The Takahashi brothers came to witness the battle in the anime only.