"Kita-chan, when you get back, I'll treat you to a feast."
Tokai Teio patted Kitasan Black on the shoulder.
McQueen looked at her with an almost-smile. For one split second, Kitasan Black felt like all her secrets had been laid bare. Thankfully, McQueen said nothing pointed — just left her with a quiet "good luck."
"Hmph. I'm expecting you to bring me more surprises. Don't disappoint me."
Gold Ship delivered that bone-chilling line and followed Teio and McQueen back through the [door].
"Kita-chan, do your best!"
Rice Shower's silhouette vanished behind the [door] last of all.
Kitasan Black was left with complicated feelings.
If she said she wasn't happy to see her seniors, that would be a lie. But she was also genuinely afraid.
Afraid of what, exactly?
Not that they'd find out she'd been talking smack about them behind their backs. That kind of thing wasn't really anything to worry about — worst case, they'd chew her out. No. What she was truly afraid of was—
Losing.
In this moment, Kitasan Black could no longer pretend not to see it.
The thing she really, deeply feared.
It was just too obvious now to ignore.
And she'd noticed long ago — her seniors seemed to hold her to some impossibly high standard. So she was afraid she'd let their expectations down. Afraid she'd lose!
She was lazy, not stupid.
She knew that the moment she got back, she'd have to race against her seniors. There was no avoiding it. And she could already predict the result of that race — she'd lose.
She'd thought she wouldn't care. Back when she'd been in Training Mode, she hadn't trained seriously. What did someone like that have to bring to a race against those seniors? Losing would be the natural outcome.
But even knowing that — deep down, she still couldn't accept it.
(Seriously... so this is the instinct of an uma musume.)
It was supposed to be something she didn't care about. And yet, once she let herself notice, she couldn't accept it.
The reason she didn't care about losing in her own world wasn't that her mental fortitude was genuinely strong. It wasn't that she'd truly conquered her own instincts. It was just that she'd never felt any disappointment about losing to weaklings. Because losses like that weren't real losses.
But racing against her seniors was different. That was cruel reality, and she had no choice but to face it.
In front of her seniors, she had to confront the fact that she was the weak one.
The thought made her chest ache. This was precisely the question she'd been running from.
She was nothing more than a shameless cheater — using the strength of her seniors. And facing them directly, she had no confidence in her ability to catch up.
That was why she thought racing was so pointless.
But even knowing all this, here she was, walking the path of an uma musume, working to complete Story Mode. Why? Was it really just for the money?
She knew the answer.
"Honestly... how can a girl like me have the nerve to lecture anyone else?" Kitasan Black thought bitterly.
She was, after all, a troublesome woman in her own right. Not much less troublesome than [Kita-chan]. Unable to escape entirely, lacking the courage to face things head-on, forever reaching for excuses, forever putting it off.
What a laughable version of herself. All she was really doing was pretending she couldn't see her own true feelings.
"Haaah..."
And even if she did face her true feelings — would that change anything? Could she actually beat her seniors?
No. There was no way.
What would she even use to beat them? Talent? They were all cheating anyway — talent wasn't going to produce much of a gap. What truly decided a race was accumulated training, and the gap in resolve.
Having inherited her seniors' memories, she knew exactly how deep their resolve ran. She didn't stand a chance.
That was the true impasse. That was the real fear.
Kitasan Black had been born in the shadow of her older sisters. She had no dreams. She couldn't have dreams. Dreams were something unreachable for someone like her.
(But... I still can't quite bring myself to accept it.)
She'd spent her whole life mentally running away. But her instincts had already made the choice for her.
At this point, the only thing left to do was keep going.
Once she'd admitted that, some of the heaviness lifted from her chest.
...
Kitasan Black spent the next half month in this world. She genuinely had no idea why the Three Goddesses had sent her here. Aside from the one meeting with her seniors at the start, there were no races, no real events. Half a month later, she was sent back in a daze — as if she'd been pulled over just to be a prop.
Her hunch, as it turned out, was right.
Over those two weeks, [Kita-chan] had been witnessing Kitasan Black's races in the other world through her dreams. Watching this history-making "other self," [Kita-chan] was left stunned.
She couldn't believe this really was another version of herself — another possibility she could have become. She hadn't dared to dream of achieving what she was seeing. But these dreams were unmistakably the experiences of another her.
Watching that version of herself run — mind clear of all distraction, eyes fixed only on the finish line — [Kita-chan] felt something in her chest ignite.
It was the same feeling as the first time she'd seen [Teio] race. No — it was even stronger than that.
A voice inside her was shouting.
"Yes!"
"This — this is the way I want to run!"
"This is the ideal me!"
Racing that could truly move people.
The dream she'd been holding onto all along!
...
After her stint in the other world and her meeting with her seniors, Kitasan Black returned home.
She was currently at a training ground in France.
The team leader this time was a woman named Satake, from the URA Association. She was the principal official at Japan's URA Association responsible for the Arc de Triomphe program. When she'd heard Kitasan Black was entering the Arc, she'd eagerly volunteered to lead the team herself. The training facility had been booked under her name.
Kitasan Black had a rough profile of Ms. Satake — she was close friends with the Tracen Academy Chairwoman. In the game, she was also one of the flagship trainer cards for the Arc de Triomphe scenario.
Normally, when sending an uma musume overseas, a trainer would entrust their charge to the association or to a local trainer. That's what the trainers from Rigil and Capella did when their runners entered the Arc. In the anime, when [Kita-chan] had wanted to race the Arc, Nishizaki Ryu had planned the same. Every country's racing scene was different, and most trainers only studied races in their own country — so handing off to a trainer who knew that country's racing better was the appropriate thing to do. Plenty of other sports followed the same practice.
But anyone who'd played the game knew that the uma musume world ran on bonds. The anime had to preserve the real racehorses' historical records, so they hadn't explored this mechanic much. But in the game's story mode, breaking historical fate through the bond with your trainer was the most common plot beat imaginable.
The reason that worked, unmistakably, was thanks to the [Trainer] — the [Trainer] the player controlled, who overcame every obstacle through bonds (paid currency), letting their uma musume shatter historical limits and rise to the top of the world.
In reality, it came down to bond and trust. When an uma musume's mood was high, she became stronger than usual — it was easier to break through her limits. Whether her trainer was with her or not made a real difference in her race performance.
That was the actual reason Japanese runners had such a poor record in overseas races. It wasn't only about course aptitude — the absence of their trainer led to a drop in their condition as well. As far as Kitasan Black knew, the world-class uma musume always had their trainers beside them every single moment. Their trainers would never be off training other runners during their races.
That was a weakness of ordinary uma musume, though. For a cheater like her, it didn't apply — she had no real bond with her trainer to begin with.
Her trainer hadn't signed a second uma musume yet, though, so he'd come along this time too.
This year, the Japanese uma musume heading overseas to the Arc, including her, were three in total: herself, Happy Meek, and Satono Diamond.
In the anime, Satono Diamond was supposed to get injured this year and postpone her Arc challenge to the next. But the timeline of this world was long since out of whack.
Apparently, Duramente had wanted to apply as well, but her record wasn't enough and she'd failed to qualify. And part of the reason was Kitasan Black. Kitasan Black had suppressed Duramente so thoroughly that Duramente's popularity in this world had never taken off. Duramente had clear top-tier ability for their generation, but for the past two years, everyone had only had eyes for Kitasan Black. Duramente, Satono Crown — their light had been completely overshadowed. A certain uma musume who had inherited a great name had been reduced to a background character entirely.
The flip side: this year, without Kitasan Black competing in the Classic-level races, Satono Diamond and Happy Meek had gained plenty of popularity.
Satono Diamond's ability compared to her counterpart in the other world was practically a super-evolution — she'd broken the family curse at her very first GI, the Satsuki Sho, winning the race even after her horseshoe cracked mid-run. She'd injured herself in that win and missed the subsequent Japan Derby, but she'd come back at the Takarazuka Kinen and taken it through sheer overwhelming strength.
Happy Meek, meanwhile, had won the Japan Derby.
Combined with the two runners' solid popularity, both had earned qualification for the Arc.
Though, in fact, this was also partly because of Kitasan Black. Her monstrous record had — without her even realizing it — raised the international rating of Japanese uma musume as a whole. Ordinarily, the requirements for a Japanese uma musume to enter the Arc were steep, and the slots were limited. But this year, the French committee had lowered the bar because of Kitasan Black's entry, which was how Satono Diamond and Happy Meek had gotten in. The family backgrounds of those two heiresses had also pulled some weight. But while this was a matter Kitasan Black was tangentially responsible for, she hadn't paid it much mind.
There was one month until the Arc de Triomphe.
Happy Meek and Satono Diamond had been racing in Europe for several months now, and both had performed well. Kitasan Black was different. She'd arrived even earlier than them, but hadn't entered a single race. Ms. Satake had suggested it to her — that she should run a few races to adapt to France's racing rhythm and venues.
Kitasan Black had rejected the suggestion. She didn't see the point. It sounded like setting up her own downfall, but she stood by it.
"There's no need. Because I'm the strongest."
Besides, Senior Gold Ship had raced the Arc de Triomphe herself. With Kitasan Black's aptitude, that inherited experience was more than enough to get her comfortable with the venue.
Satake had to admit that watching Kitasan Black arrive in France and then neither race nor train much had made her deeply uneasy. She'd pulled Kitasan Black's trainer aside multiple times to suggest changes, but to no effect. Kitasan Black's trainer was along purely as a caretaker — asking him to actually manage things was a non-starter.
Satake had hoped that when Satono Diamond and Happy Meek arrived, the presence of rivals might stir some competitive fire in Kitasan Black. Instead — nothing. Kitasan Black didn't even seem to register her two countrywomen as worth noticing. She just kept doing her own thing at her own pace.
"Honestly, I give up!" Satake complained to Kitasan Black's trainer.
The trainer only offered a polite smile. He understood why Satake was frustrated, but his answer was always the same: there was no managing Kita-chan, and no need to try. Satake didn't know Kita-chan the way he did. Kita-chan had always been like this — and she'd won every race along the way, hadn't she?
Stay calm.
And so, under the cloud of Satake's nervous worrying, October arrived — and the highest-level race in the world, the Arc de Triomphe, opened.
While Ms. Satake was still busy cheering on Satono Diamond and the rest, Kitasan Black had already changed into her running shoes and was walking out toward the course. Her racing outfit was still the same old one. She was eligible to commission a new outfit for the Arc, but racing outfits had no built-in bonus effects, so she hadn't bothered. If it were like the System's Grand Prix — where racing outfits were crafted by the Three Goddesses and granted new skill panels — she might have shown some interest. But an ordinary outfit? Pointless. Her old one would do.
The result would be the same either way. This was just another race where she'd walk over weaker opponents.
Walking into the venue, the roar of the crowd and the atmosphere were unlike any ordinary GI race. This really was the world's greatest festival.
What surprised her, though, was that when she stepped out onto the course — she could hear plenty of voices in the stands calling her name.
"?"
She hadn't expected so many fans over here either.
Kitasan Black glanced up at the stands. And just that single glance drew delighted cries from the crowd. Because fans familiar with Kitasan Black knew — this uma musume never interacted with her audience. Catching her even glancing toward the stands was considered a rare stroke of luck.
"The runner who just entered is from Japan, number five, Kitasan Black! This runner has an incredible record — though France isn't her home turf, her popularity today has reached the second-highest among all competitors!"
...
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