"…Seventh place, Trainer Katsumura Youta."
Once the first race wrapped up, Fujiwara Chiya strolled over to Katsumura Youta and gave him a solemn pat on the shoulder.
"You may not have made the top three, but I could feel your effort out there. Especially in the last four hundred metres. Very tragic. Very heroic."
Katsumura Youta wanted to punch him.
Unfortunately, his body had already filed for resignation.
He sat slumped in his chair, eyes hollow, soul drifting somewhere above the racecourse. One good breeze and he might crumble into ash.
An eighteen-hundred-metre race was already outside the realm of what ordinary humans should be asked to do. That sort of thing belonged to athletic students, not trainers who spent most of their days buried in paperwork. For trainers, the main purpose of exercise was to avoid dying when an uma musume accidentally kicked them, not to go out there and run actual races.
And there were plenty of female trainers among them too. Some had taken a full ten minutes to finish eighteen hundred metres.
For an uma musume, even the slowest would be done in a little over two minutes.
That was the gap between humans and uma musume.
"Don't laugh… You're next…" Katsumura Youta wheezed, jabbing a trembling finger at him. "I'll be watching you cough, cough—cough, cough, cough!"
He collapsed back into the chair, breathing in more than he was breathing out.
At that moment, T.M. Opera O approached with grand, sweeping steps.
"Ha~ ha~ ha! What a dazzling running form, Trainer!" Her voice rang out like a stage proclamation. "Within your every movement, I felt the thirst for victory and the obsession with speed! As expected, you are a loyal retainer worthy of serving the Overlord!"
"Thank you for your hard work, Opera O. I'm impressed you managed to find something to praise there."
"Not at all, Trainer Chiya! Victory cannot be judged by results alone. One must look here!"
Opera O tapped her chest.
"At the brave, unyielding heart! And Trainer possesses such a heart!"
"Really…"
Fujiwara Chiya glanced at the half-dead Katsumura Youta.
"Hmph. That's right." Katsumura Youta forced his head up with what little dignity he had left. "My heart has not yet yielded!"
"There's a basketball match later. I'll sign you up."
"Wait, don't!" Katsumura Youta raised one desperate hand. "I'm already finished. The rest… I leave to you, Chiya. Carry my will… and live on…"
His legs kicked out.
His arm fell limp.
His head tilted to the side.
"To entrust one's resolve to another… What a true warrior."
"I think I understand why you two managed to form a contract," Fujiwara Chiya muttered, utterly speechless.
"I shall watch your next race, lord of the White Wolf!"
"Then watch closely."
Leaving Katsumura Youta's remains behind, Fujiwara Chiya stepped onto the track.
"Trainer, fight! Yeah!"
Gold Ship stood in the crowd, holding a huge sign in one hand and shouting through a megaphone with the other.
Could you please stop embarrassing me?
"Guinea pig-kun's running data should prove rather fascinating, no?"
Even from a distance, Fujiwara Chiya could read every wicked little thought hiding behind Agnes Tachyon's faint smile.
I'm not an uma musume. What are you even going to do with my data!?
"Chiya."
That voice pulled his attention back.
Kiryuin Aoi walked over, eyes bright and fist clenched.
"It seems the race my uma musume couldn't win will have to be won back by the trainer."
Her small frame radiated a fighting spirit far beyond what any normal person should possess.
Seriously…?
Why does everyone care so much?
Am I the only one who came here thinking this was just for fun?
To Fujiwara Chiya, who had already participated in Central races, this event felt practically like a game. But to these trainers, maybe this really was a proper race.
Ah.
So that was the difference.
He lived in two worlds.
They were simply trainers.
Fujiwara Chiya finally understood.
Fine, then.
Let's do this.
I'll show you how a real uma musume races.
"Uwah, it's about to start."
Up in the stands, Seiun Sky spoke in her usual lazy tone, chin propped in her hand as she watched the track with great interest.
Beside her, Shirayuki had already begun calculating.
The average running speed of an ordinary human was around seven to ten metres per second, roughly one-third of an uma musume's. Stamina was probably in the same range. In that case, for an eighteen-hundred-metre race, the ideal pace should be controlled at…
Before she knew it, Shirayuki and Chiya's positions had reversed.
Now she was acting as his eyes.
His trainer.
Beside her, Seiun Sky glanced at Shirayuki.
Casually.
Almost too casually.
Soon, the trainers lined up at the starting line.
The pistol fired.
Bang!
"They're off! The first one to charge out is Trainer Kiryuin! What a lightning-fast start! Could it be that while she was giving her uma musume start training, she was secretly training herself too!?"
Watching the black-haired girl blast into the lead, Fujiwara Chiya furrowed his brow.
The instant the gun went off, he had reacted.
His body had not.
His foot moved half a beat too late.
Fujiwara Chiya could clearly feel the sluggishness in his own body. Every day, Shirayuki went through massive amounts of training, and Chiya had grown used to a body that was fast, flexible, and absurdly responsive.
Now that the one running was suddenly himself again, everything felt wrong.
So slow!
It was not just his speed.
Even his reactions felt delayed. Every time he moved his legs, he could sense those tiny few milliseconds of lag. In normal life, that delay would not matter. But during intense movement, it stood out like a stone in his shoe.
Under normal circumstances, Chiya's body had always been like this.
So why did it feel so strange now?
Could it be…
Have my reflexes gotten faster?
Nerves.
Reflexes.
Chiya's eyes widened.
Could the changes happening on Shirayuki's side be affecting this body too?
This was not simply a matter of thought. Reflexes were physical. They required long-term training to improve.
And yet this body, which had never undergone any specialised training, had changed because of Shirayuki.
Were the two of them already influencing each other on a physiological level?
In the past, Shirayuki's running fatigue had indeed affected him, but that had only been a sensation. He had never properly investigated the truth behind it.
After the race, he would have to ask Agnes Tachyon.
Chiya forced those thoughts down and focused on the race again.
Many trainers were following behind him. Fujiwara Chiya watched their movements, and they looked so slow they might as well have been frozen.
At the same time, he confirmed it again.
He was being subtly influenced by his uma musume self.
"The race has now reached the first turn! Currently leading is Trainer Kiryuin! In second place is Trainer Chiya!"
Hishi Amazon slammed the desk, voice blazing with excitement.
In the stands, Shirayuki calmly observed the movements of the other runners.
Turns were the easiest places to overtake.
Especially in a trainer race like this, not everyone was aiming purely for victory. Many were trying to create their own highlight moment.
And overtaking on a turn was the flashiest highlight of all.
Sure enough, the moment they entered the turn, several trainers began to move.
Shirayuki watched their positions closely.
Sorry, my dear fellow colleagues.
Let me show you how cruel an uma musume race really is.
Just as Shirayuki finished reading the field and prepared to have Chiya use the same move that had once defeated El Condor Pasa on the racecourse—
Her vision went dark.
A pair of soft little hands covered her eyes.
At almost the exact same moment, Chiya's movements on the track suddenly faltered.
Then Shirayuki heard Seiun Sky's voice beside her.
"So it really is true…"