"A fracture."
"A very serious fracture..."
"To be honest, even getting her back to where she was before will already be extremely difficult."
In the hospital consultation room, the doctor gave Tamamo Cross that diagnosis.
"...Doctor, then can Tamamo ever stand on the track again?"
Sakuraba Ryo, standing beside her, frowned the moment he heard it.
"..."
The doctor shook his head.
"Even if the fracture heals... I'm afraid she still won't be able to continue high-intensity exercise."
"This Arima Kinen was probably Tamamo-san's last race..."
Obvious reluctance showed on the doctor's face.
After all, Tamamo Cross was one of Japan's brightest stars this year...
What a pity.
Sakuraba fell silent too.
For an Umamusume, being unable to run again was such a cruel thing...
He could not imagine what Tamamo Cross must be feeling after hearing news like that.
Heartbroken?
Or...
"Huh?"
Noticing how much heavier the mood in the room had suddenly become, Tamamo Cross blinked.
"Why're you all looking like that?"
"If I can't run anymore, then I can't run anymore. So what~"
"Anyway, I've pretty much already fulfilled my dreams, and I won all the races I wanted to win..."
"And if my last race before retirement was the Arima Kinen, what could be luckier than that?"
"And besides, in my last race, I beat Oguri~ If I retire now, Oguri's definitely gonna be so mad she won't be able to sleep at night~ Hahaha~"
To Sakuraba's surprise, Tamamo Cross was unexpectedly upbeat.
Listening to her light, bell-like laughter, he found himself momentarily dazed.
He searched her eyes, trying to find even the slightest sign that she was only putting on a brave face.
But there was nothing there except bright, clear composure, clean and open under the cold white light of the consultation room, without a trace of shadow.
"Honestly, why are you all making such long faces?"
Tamamo Cross tilted her head, the tips of her ears twitching lightly with the motion, and even reached out to tug at Sakuraba's sleeve the way she always did.
"I'm Tamamo Cross, y'know? The races I had to win, the races I wanted to win—I already won them all!"
She paused, and the smile at the corner of her mouth faded a little. Her voice softened, but stayed steady.
"It is a little disappointing, though... that I couldn't bring you—and the academy—another trophy. I'd even already worked out my tactics for next spring's G1."
Then she shook her head herself, and the smile returned.
"But still—even if I can't run anymore, you won't just throw me aside, right, Sakuraba? You and everyone at Nishikino?"
Sakuraba nodded hard, his voice steady and firm.
"Of course not."
"No matter when, Tamamo, you'll always be Nishikino Academy's pride."
"You always were, you are now, and you always will be."
"Hehe, then it's settled!"
Tamamo Cross nodded in satisfaction.
She did not like crying and making a scene.
If she could not run anymore, then she could not run anymore.
It had already happened. All she had to do was accept it.
And Tamamo had never once regretted the choice she made in the Arima Kinen.
Even if someone traveled back in time and warned her beforehand that pushing herself too far in the Arima Kinen might break her leg, Tamamo Cross would still choose to run it without the slightest hesitation.
To defeat the strongest opponent on the best possible stage.
For an Umamusume, how romantic was that?
To hesitate for even a second would have been a betrayal of her own identity as an Umamusume.
And besides...
Just like she had said earlier.
Even if she could never stand on the track again, she would not lose Sakuraba, and she would not lose Nishikino Academy as the place she belonged.
So what was there to be afraid of?
It was only that she could not run on the track anymore. It was not as though her life was over.
"So, Sakuraba."
Tamamo Cross looked at him and smiled—a bright, clean smile.
"Tell everyone."
"I'm retiring."
...
Just as Tamamo Cross wished, Sakuraba announced it directly.
Tamamo Cross was preparing to retire.
The news dropped like a bomb into a still lake, instantly stirring up towering waves and shaking all of Japan.
"Tamamo Cross... retiring?!"
The headlines on newspaper front pages, the rolling breaking-news alerts on websites, the emergency television bulletins—all of them were seized by those few short words.
On the streets, people held up their phones, staring at the news flashing across their screens with disbelief written all over their faces.
On commuter trains, office workers who had been dozing suddenly sat bolt upright and stared at the screen, rereading those few short lines again and again.
"No way... She's the White Lightning! She was still that strong this year!"
"Didn't she win the Arima Kinen? Then why...?"
"Was it because of... the injury she took in that race?"
Questions. Shock. Confusion.
And in the end, all of it swelled into a tide of grief that washed over everyone who followed Umamusume racing.
Tamamo Cross's fan forums and communities were instantly flooded. Countless posts poured in, every line filled with cries of disbelief and refusal to accept it.
"No—! I wanted to see Tamamo-sama keep running! I wanted to see her face Oguri Cap again!"
"Please, can't Tamamo run forever?! We'll do anything!"
"You idiot, you're really only thinking about yourself!"
"Why now... She's right at her peak... uuuugh..."
"Her final stage was the Arima Kinen, and her final image was that winning sprint to the finish... It's so cool, but... it hurts so much, it really hurts..."
"Japan's strongest queen... Are we really never going to see that white flash on the track again?"
On the giant ad screens in the streets, highlight reels of Tamamo Cross's past victories were still playing—her overwhelming finishing kick, her surges past her rivals, her arms raised after crossing the line, her smile bright as sunlight.
And beneath those screens, the hastily added words [Retirement] made for a cruel, jarring contrast with the vivid figure still running across them.
Many pedestrians stopped and looked up, their eyes reddening as they watched that familiar figure.
The industry itself was in turmoil too.
Trainers from other teams, active Umamusume—whether they had once been rivals or allies—were left speechless by the news for a long while.
Tamamo Cross, who had always been so energetic and so clear in her goals, who had left behind so many legendary moments on the track, was really stopping here?
The howls of grief and regret swept across the islands overnight like the winter wind.
It felt as though an era had quietly lowered its curtain with this single announcement.
And yet the very person at the center of it was already planning a brand-new life after retirement.
...
"No way!"
In the clubroom, the moment Oguri Cap saw the news, her mood crashed straight to rock bottom.
She stared fixedly at the phone screen, that brief but blinding retirement statement scorching itself into her eyes again and again.
The hand gripping her phone turned white at the knuckles.
On her face, which was usually so calm—almost absentmindedly so—there now surged a fierce, chaotic emotion.
Disbelief.
A massive sense of loss, as though something had suddenly been snatched away from her.
And above all, a blazing frustration, cut off by force before it could reach its end.
"..."
She murmured in a dry voice.
In her mind, the final straight of the Arima Kinen replayed out of control.
That white figure, like true lightning, had stormed up from the outside with unstoppable force and overtaken her by the narrowest margin.
The look on Tamamo Cross's face at the moment of the finish, mixed with pain and the sharpest exhilaration...
The way she had still smiled afterward, bright and smug even while being helped along...
That was not an ending.
That should not have been the ending.
For Oguri Cap, it had been a defeat—but even more than that, it had been the beginning of their next showdown.
She had already replayed it in her head countless times, thinking about how she would adjust her strategy in future races, how she would close that tiny gap, how she would truly and completely beat that flash of white lightning.
She had wanted to stand on the same stage again.
She had wanted to clash with her once more at full strength, to strike sparks from each other's limits again.
And now...
All of that had just been declared over, one-sidedly?
"Retiring after beating me in the Arima Kinen...?"
Oguri Cap suddenly raised her head. In her violet eyes churned a rare fury—and a deeper, sharper agitation.
"What kind of nonsense is that?! How can something this unreasonable even happen?!"
She had not won it back yet.
That frustration, that stubborn desire to prove herself, to surpass the strongest opponent she had ever faced, had been strangled halfway through.
Tamamo Cross had turned and walked away at her most brilliant moment, leaving behind a back that could never be surpassed, and never be challenged again.
Win beautifully and then leave?
I can't accept that!
More than any direct defeat, this filled Oguri Cap with a suffocating frustration she had nowhere to vent—and with the anger of being left behind.
"Tamamo...!"
She practically forced the name out through clenched teeth, then shot to her feet. The legs of her chair scraped harshly against the floor.
She could not understand it.
Why could someone who seemed endlessly full of energy, someone obsessed with victory down to her bones, accept a future where she could no longer run so "easily"?
To Tamamo, was their rivalry really something that could just end like this?
No.
She refused.
Oguri Cap clenched her fists and spun around, rushing out of the clubroom.
She had to find Tamamo Cross.
She had to ask her face-to-face.
She had to—she had to drag her back onto the track!
At the very least, she could not let her just vanish at the end of the course, taking a victory over her along with her.
The mere thought of that future made an icy suffocation seize her chest.
If I can't beat Tamamo...
Then what will Ryo think of me...
And how can I face the trust he placed in me...?
No.
She had to make Tamamo stand on the track again.
Beat me, then run away...
"...That's way too much!"
Leaving behind only that one agitated line, Oguri Cap set off in search of Tamamo Cross.
---
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