"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!!!"
In front of the dead tree hollow, Special Week was venting out her emotions at full volume.
"I want to win! I WANT to win!!!"
This was the central courtyard of Tracen Academy. In this spot stood a felled, hollowed-out tree. Looking down into the opening of the hollow, you couldn't see the bottom — exactly how deep it went was one of Tracen Academy's secrets. Maybe only a freak uma musume like [Gold Ship] would know what was at the bottom. Or you could try jumping down to find out yourself? By Tracen Academy tradition, students who'd lost a race or were in low spirits would come to this spot and shout their feelings into the tree hollow.
The students nearby had long since stopped finding the sight unusual.
After all, students came here to vent every single day.
"Is that Special Week?"
"Yeah. Didn't expect she'd still want to win, though."
"Well, isn't that a good thing?"
Honestly, after watching that Satsuki Sho race, everyone thought a revenge match by Special Week against King Halo was basically impossible. They simply weren't on the same level. But Special Week's never-give-up spirit was still worthy of praise. That was Tracen Academy's student through and through.
On the training grounds, Silence Suzuka was running.
But every time she was about to recapture the joy of her past running, King Halo's figure would appear before her eyes. No matter how she searched, she couldn't seem to find that old happiness. Training now just felt painful and irritating.
"That's not it, this isn't it."
Silence Suzuka thought to herself.
"This isn't the running I want!"
This kind of running — there was no joy in it.
Why? Why didn't running feel joyful anymore? Silence Suzuka clutched at her chest in pain. The answer, she'd known all along — it was that she'd tasted defeat for the first time. Before that, she'd never truly lost. This had been her first time experiencing that shock, that despair born from helplessness.
King Halo had become her nightmare.
Nishizaki Ryu, watching Silence Suzuka's pained expression from off to the side, felt completely helpless. As her trainer, what could he do for Suzuka and Spe-chan at a moment like this? But no matter how he turned it over, he couldn't think of anything. Should he go up and comfort them — tell them to just train hard and they'd win their next race? He couldn't bring himself to say that. He didn't have any confidence in it himself.
He couldn't use words he didn't believe to convince his team members. So in this moment, Nishizaki Ryu was at a loss. He was starting to regret things now. Had his decision back then really been the right one? Or had his thinking simply been too naive? Should he have learned from Tojo Hana — should he have not let his team members make their own decisions? If he'd been able to make a decisive call back then, telling Spe-chan and Suzuka to avoid King Halo, would things be better now?
His mood turned bitter as he thought through all this.
Once again, he was doubting his own philosophy.
"Are you not going to do anything, Trainer?"
[Gold Ship] suddenly appeared.
Nishizaki Ryu drew a deep breath. "What can I do?"
"That's a question you should be asking yourself."
[Gold Ship] looked at him with a strange expression, as if to say: How could you ask such a stupid question?
"Sorry, but I genuinely can't think of anything."
Nishizaki Ryu was well aware of just how worthless he looked right now. But — this was who he was. Back then, if [Gold Ship] hadn't sought him out and used her own way to encourage him, pulling him out of his slump, he might have given up on his dream long ago, given up being a trainer, and gone back home to till the fields.
"Trainer, before you sit around thinking about what you can do, why don't you take action first? Or you know what, just treat us to dinner." [Gold Ship] tossed out a tentative suggestion.
What she really wanted to convey was the first part. The "treat us to dinner" line was actually half a joke.
When Nishizaki Ryu heard "treat us to dinner," he reflexively felt his wallet twinge. He instinctively moved to refuse, but then he thought — actually, this might genuinely be a good idea? Unable to voice his refusal, Nishizaki Ryu thought with mixed feelings that this was actually a good suggestion. Something must be broken inside him. Treating uma musume to dinner was absolutely not a small matter.
Even an uma musume with an average appetite would eat far more than a human. After all, an uma musume's physical capacity was so much greater than a human's — eating more than a human was perfectly normal.
So every time he treated team members to dinner, Nishizaki Ryu had to worry about whether his wallet could survive. He'd even had a few times when he hadn't had enough money to pay the bill and ended up working off his debt at the restaurant.
That was when he couldn't reach Tojo Hana on the phone, of course. If he could reach Tojo Hana, he generally chose to borrow money instead.
And that was all back before Silence Suzuka and Special Week had joined the team. Having just made his decision, Nishizaki Ryu thought of Special Week's monstrous appetite and suddenly felt like he might really have made an infernal choice. Was it too late to regret it now?
But just as he was thinking that.
[Gold Ship] said to him, "Alright, all set. Spe-chan said she'll be there right away. Daiwa Scarlet and Vodka are on the way too. Trainer, have you decided where we're eating?"
Her phone screen was still lit.
It showed Team Spica's group chat.
"..."
Nishizaki Ryu looked at [Gold Ship] with a pained expression.
"I don't think I actually agreed yet?"
"Sure, you didn't say it out loud, but my radar already picked up your thoughts. Hmph hmph~" [Gold Ship] proudly thumped her chest. Her figure was indeed quite something, but Nishizaki Ryu couldn't possibly think of her that way. [Gold Ship] was, in every sense, the kind of woman a man simply couldn't view as a woman.
"Your radar signal is really something."
Nishizaki Ryu said wearily.
He cautiously fished out his wallet.
Was it enough?
It should be enough, right?
No, actually it definitely wasn't enough.
Nishizaki Ryu thought this and sighed.
It looked like he'd have to borrow money from Tojo Hana again.
After getting the loan.
Nishizaki Ryu treated his team members to a lavish meal.
Even though his heart had been aching just moments ago, once he made the decision, Nishizaki Ryu decided to go all-out and pick a top-tier restaurant. Without hesitation, he picked a high-end establishment he wouldn't normally dare set foot in, because right now he only wanted his team members to eat happily.
Besides, today he wasn't worried about being short on cash.
Tojo Hana had kindly lent him her credit card.
If push came to shove, he'd just sell himself into indentured service to pay the debt!
As for why not go to a buffet? Sorry, they'd long since been blacklisted by the buffets in the area. The first time he'd treated [Gold Ship] and the others to dinner, Nishizaki Ryu had also instinctively thought of a buffet. But somehow, in short order, the members of Team Spica had become blacklisted from every buffet around. Those places didn't welcome them as customers anymore.
(Restaurant owner: Customers? You call this being a customer?)
Even though it cost him a fortune.
It had to be said — the effect was surprisingly good.
The next day, when Nishizaki Ryu saw Special Week and Silence Suzuka, both of them with their condition starting to recover, he suddenly thought that this kind of "money-spent-troubles-averted" was actually worth it. It was just that he'd spent a lot of money — last night's meal had cost almost ten million yen. He'd never eaten a meal that expensive in his life.
And half of that bill came from...
Nishizaki Ryu glanced over at Special Week, who'd put on a little weight.
Oh-ho. Very good. Time for some special training!
Nishizaki Ryu had not forgotten how Special Week had eaten and eaten and eaten last night with that miserable look on her face but no mercy whatsoever. If he hadn't borrowed Tojo Hana's credit card, even staying behind to wash dishes wouldn't have been enough to cover the debt. Thinking about it, he had to make Special Week train even harder so she could win him his money back at the races.
He really didn't want to actually have to indenture himself!
That night, when King Halo was on her way back from the library, she saw Special Week and the others on the training grounds packing up their training equipment. She could tell that they had just finished an intense training session. Thinking of that, she couldn't help but smile happily. She hadn't expected Special Week and the others, even after such a crushing defeat, to maintain this kind of positive attitude. She was starting to look forward to the upcoming Japan Derby a little — looking forward to Special Week's growth.
"I hope this time you can satisfy me a little more."
At the Satsuki Sho, she hadn't even brought out half her real strength. Honestly, that kind of race wasn't very interesting. King Halo wasn't yet at the point of wanting to find someone like Mejiro McQueen to crush her, but if she had to slaughter a flock of rookies, that was just plain boring. What she was looking forward to was a race that could put real pressure on her — a race that would let her grow stronger!
Her [Eye] hadn't yet reached its full potential.
At her current level, the idea of dominating an opponent like Mejiro McQueen was just a pipe dream. So she needed stronger opponents, more intense races, to let her eye grow stronger. Special Week and the others were the [feed] she'd selected.
"Get stronger, my dear classmates."
King Halo returned to her dorm in a happy mood.
After that, she would walk past the training grounds every day to observe Special Week and the others' training. Watching the growth of these [feed] gave her a strange sense of satisfaction, like a farmer watching crops ripen day by day. She really wanted to start harvesting, but she had to hold back. She had to let them grow more first.
King Halo's daily appearances drew the attention of Team Spica too. At first Nishizaki Ryu was very unhappy, because he thought King Halo was stealing their intel! But when Special Week, on a whim, went up to ask King Halo for advice on getting stronger and actually got real advice from King Halo, Nishizaki Ryu suddenly thought that this was actually a pretty good thing too. Watching King Halo coach his team member without holding back — like she was eager to teach — Nishizaki Ryu suddenly felt that his earlier suspicions had been very dark of him.
How could he have doubted King Halo's magnanimity!
Damn it, he wanted to slap himself.
What Nishizaki Ryu didn't know, however, was that King Halo really was collecting data on them. The coaching was real coaching, but the data collection was real data collection too. The two weren't in conflict. After all, her [Eye] had evolved from [Analysis Eyes]. Unlike Mejiro McQueen, who'd discarded her [Analysis Eyes] and created an entirely new ability from scratch, King Halo's [Beyond-Limit Sight] was the upper-tier evolution of the eye ability. So if her eye was going to evolve further, the best way was to collect more data on uma musume and races.
Of course, collecting trash data was meaningless. That was why she didn't bother watching most races. At this point in time, the GI uma musume in Japan apart from Special Week and her group really weren't all that strong. Special Week and her peers, at least, could be considered world-class. If there hadn't been so many prodigies emerging at the same time, any one of them, dropped into Japan a few years earlier, would have rampaged through the GI races. Because the timeline of this world was different — in this world, ever since the Empress and her cohort retired, Japan had not produced any truly noteworthy strong racer.
What about Oguri Cap and Tamamo Cross?
In the end, they were just a brief final flicker before collapse.
Besides, in their era, after many of them awakened ZONE, their bodies developed problems and their abilities declined sharply.
According to records King Halo had read in the library, Tamamo Cross apparently had to retire from racing due to physical issues after she'd beaten Oguri Cap. And Oguri Cap had apparently developed problems later as well — her performance in the few races before her own retirement had been very poor.
The records didn't write out the reasons.
But King Halo could roughly guess.
They had likely just awakened ZONE and, before raising their proficiency, had overused ZONE's power, which led to physical problems. Unlike Special Week's half-baked ZONE, a true ZONE in the period right after awakening was extremely dangerous, especially for uma musume whose mental power wasn't strong enough — ZONE's danger level shot through the roof for them.
Thinking of that.
King Halo looked toward Special Week, who was training.
If her guess was right, then in this world, without her appearance, Special Week would have entered her peak period at the Japan Cup and truly mastered the power of ZONE. She would have defeated the strongest, Legacy World, in that race. But that victory would have come at a great cost — for example...
Permanent loss of strength after that.
Why was the period right after awakening ZONE the most dangerous? Because ZONE was usually triggered when an uma musume was being suppressed by an opponent. Cases like the Empress, who entered ZONE on her own, were actually quite rare. And right when an uma musume had just entered ZONE, she'd feel like she could do anything, that she was strong enough to easily defeat any opponent! She'd subconsciously ignore whether her own foundation could actually support ZONE's drain, and just want to release herself unrestrained.
If the opponent's strength was close to her original level, then sure, she could probably win without burning much. But if the opponent was strong — strong enough that even with ZONE awakened she could only fight to a draw — then it became dangerous.
In that situation, only two methods could save the racer. One was for the opponent, who had been holding back, to suddenly bring out even greater power and completely suppress the newly-awakened ZONE racer, denying her the chance to over-burn herself. The other was for the opponent to voluntarily abandon victory.
Neither method was easy to pull off.
Or rather, in reality, they basically couldn't be pulled off. After all, not everyone was Mejiro McQueen, capable of completely suppressing an opponent who'd awakened ZONE. And although abandoning victory could save the opponent, the kind of uma musume who would do that wasn't going to have pushed an opponent to the point of needing ZONE just to win in the first place. It was an unsolvable problem.
Because, strictly speaking, the uma musume who awakened ZONE had chosen to gamble her racing career on her own. Her opponent didn't really have much to do with it. Demanding the opponent save her was actually the strange thing to do. That's why this problem was unsolvable.
Unsolvable because—
The person involved didn't want to be saved.
For this reason, King Halo had paid attention to Special Week's physical condition. Probably because Special Week's defective ZONE genuinely had a low cost, Special Week's body was in good health right now. At least, that was the result she got with her [Eye]. She believed that even if she actually took Special Week to a hospital for a checkup, the result wouldn't be any different.
By comparison.
King Halo actually thought Silence Suzuka's situation right now might be more dangerous. That self-isolating running style was truly perilous. That style reminded King Halo of Kitasan Black's Flow — that frenzied Flow that recklessly drew out all of her potential. And Silence Suzuka's self-isolating running style was roughly the same kind of thing, just not as strong.
But it was still, fundamentally, a way of disregarding her own body and forcibly drawing out power on borrowed time. The only difference was that one was a gentler approach, while the other was a brutal forcing past one's own limits.
"Suzuka, I think it would be best for you to pay more attention to your opponents in races, and to the surrounding track conditions."
King Halo offered Silence Suzuka this advice.
Silence Suzuka: "..."
But quite obviously, this person wasn't taking it in.
King Halo wasn't surprised by this result.
If Silence Suzuka had been the kind of person who could be persuaded so easily, she wouldn't have chosen this self-isolating running style in the first place. Back when she was still on Team Rigil, she would have heeded Tojo Hana's advice and made adjustments long ago.
But it was precisely because Silence Suzuka didn't want to change.
That she'd left Team Rigil and joined Team Spica.
But if she kept on like this...
A leg fracture wasn't going to be avoidable.
King Halo had no confidence that she could pull off what that prodigy P had managed in the game — satisfying Silence Suzuka's wishes while still successfully changing Silence Suzuka's fate. Only that game-route P could pull off something like that.
And the only method King Halo could think of was probably to have Silence Suzuka suffer another crushing defeat, to force Silence Suzuka to recognize that her stubbornness held no meaning at all in the face of victory and defeat.
And so.
Under days like these.
Time slipped by, little by little.
Until they reached the second race of the Classic Triple Crown—
The Japan Derby!
...
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