The moment Kitasan Black disappeared from the hospital, Mejiro McQueen was the first to be notified.
"I understand. I'll handle it."
Without offering the hospital any further explanation, Mejiro McQueen hung up the phone, rose from her seat, and pushed open the door to her room.
Entering the System Space, McQueen found Kitasan Black replaying race footage over and over again.
Hearing the door open, Kitasan Black turned around. The moment her eyes landed on McQueen-senpai, it dawned on her that her little escape from the hospital had been discovered. Cold sweat began beading on her forehead.
"Um, McQueen-senpai, could I explain—"
"No need."
"Right. I know I was wrong."
Kitasan Black obediently admitted her fault.
Mejiro McQueen blinked, caught off guard for a moment, but quickly realized what Kita-chan was talking about. She nodded, accepting the apology.
In truth, she hadn't cared one bit about Kita-chan sneaking out of the hospital. Kita-chan's condition hadn't been that serious to begin with, and seeing what she was currently doing had actually given McQueen a small sense of relief. But since Kita-chan had already apologized on her own, there was no need for McQueen to voice what she really thought.
She walked over, glanced at the monitor, and asked, "Watching yesterday's race footage?"
"Yes."
"Any thoughts?"
"It feels... a little unreal."
Kitasan Black answered honestly.
She had never imagined she could become that strong, and she had no confidence she could summon that state again at will.
"I see. In that case, don't dwell on it for now. Head back and rest for a while."
Mejiro McQueen had noticed Kita-chan's lack of confidence.
But she wasn't worried about it—this kind of self-doubt wasn't serious. After all, Kita-chan had spent so long slacking off that she simply didn't have a proper grasp of her own strength or talent. That was the real source of her uncertainty.
McQueen figured that once Kita-chan recovered physically and ran through a few sessions of intense special training, the problem would sort itself out.
Kitasan Black, unaware of what McQueen-senpai was thinking, suddenly felt a chill crawl down her spine—as if something unpleasant was heading her way.
Instinctively, she cast a suspicious glance at McQueen-senpai.
The only people who could make her feel this kind of danger were these very seniors of hers.
Mejiro McQueen kept her expression blank. "Is there something else?"
"No."
Kitasan Black shook her head.
"Then go rest. Get your body back in shape. We'll talk later."
...
A week passed quickly.
Kitasan Black's body had mostly recovered.
Now the group was holding a dinner party in the System Space. The space wasn't particularly large, and what they called a "party" was really just a small, homestyle gathering—but that was exactly the kind of atmosphere they preferred.
And on top of that, Tokai Teio's cooking was in a class of its own.
Kitasan Black could say with absolute certainty right now: Teio-senpai's cooking was better than anything she'd ever tasted from any chef.
When the pot lid was lifted and a flash of golden light shimmered out, she had long since made peace with the strangeness of it all. It's just food that glows. For Teio-senpai, that's probably nothing worth mentioning.
After all, Teio-senpai was the ultimate uma musume who could even command the sun!
The others reacted in much the same way.
Though Tokai Teio herself was puzzled as to why, despite merely following ordinary recipe books, she'd somehow mastered the art of making luminescent cuisine—she'd concluded it had to be a product of her own brilliance!
"Alright then—to celebrate Kita-chan's discharge from the hospital, cheers!"
Tokai Teio raised her cup of specially-blended honey drink, and everyone else raised their glasses in kind.
Today, even Mejiro McQueen had broken her usual discipline and accepted the sugary beverage, setting aside her strict healthy-eating regime.
"You've got a real knack for cooking, you know. Maybe you should just switch careers and become a chef," Demon King Ship said, her praise laced with her usual mockery.
Tokai Teio couldn't be bothered to engage—she'd long since given up expecting anything pleasant to come out of this Demon King's mouth.
"No matter the field, I am perfection itself."
"Heh."
Gold Ship had been about to retort, but remembering that today was a celebration for Kita-chan's discharge, she swallowed back what she was going to say. She only let out a disdainful snort.
Still, inside she was thinking: It's precisely because this prodigy wastes her time and energy on irrelevant things that her strength has plateaued.
Gold Ship had figured it out ages ago. Tokai Teio's ZONE was still incomplete—but the woman herself had zero awareness of that fact.
Hilarious. And this is supposed to be the ultimate uma musume?
"So good!"
Kitasan Black could no longer restrain herself.
A week of hospital food had left her thoroughly sick of it. How could she hold back now?
Rice Shower didn't say a word, eating quietly beside her, though her pace wasn't far behind Kita-chan's. Unlike Kita-chan, Rice Shower wasn't without self-control—she normally watched what she ate. But against cuisine made by Tokai Teio herself, even she couldn't suppress her King Stomach nature.
Mejiro McQueen's tail swayed restlessly behind her. She was forcibly suppressing her body's instincts, her eyes darting every so often toward the large cake. On any ordinary day, she could have ignored it with complete composure—but today she had already broken her discipline. With that specially-blended honey drink already in her system, she could feel the long-suppressed urges threatening to erupt once more.
"Good thing I planned ahead. I made enough for twenty."
Tokai Teio glanced at the pace her two little sisters were eating at and declared confidently.
"By the way, when are you planning to unlock the next character?"
The Demon King elegantly held her knife and fork, cutting into a piece of steak.
The way she did it looked exactly like the elites of high society—but somehow the image looked utterly wrong on her. That was precisely why everyone else was currently avoiding looking in her direction.
Still, after sharing in her memories, they knew Demon King Ship was genuinely a major tycoon in her own world.
And this one was even planning to buy out the most technologically advanced companies in her world. The Demon King Group really was on track to becoming the world's dominant force.
There was no helping it. For all that Demon King Ship acted like an immature brat in front of them, her intelligence was genuinely terrifying—it was just that she rarely felt like using her brain. But buying up those companies was part of the blueprint for her power, so in her own world, Demon King Ship was showing the rare sight of actually putting that brain to work.
Hearing Demon King Ship's question, Mejiro McQueen asked, "Do you have something in mind?"
"Hmph. I'm just wondering who the next character to be unlocked will be. The ones we've unlocked recently seem to have stronger and stronger talent."
Gold Ship glanced over at Rice Shower and Kitasan Black, who were both engrossed in their meals.
The two of them pricked up their ears at that.
Rice Shower said modestly, "My talent is only average."
It was her second personality—The Overlord—who had strong talent. She knew perfectly well that her own talent was genuinely ordinary.
But at these words, Gold Ship couldn't help gripping her knife and fork tighter.
Do you hear yourself?! You awakened [Fusion]—that bug-tier domain—the moment you were born! If you call your talent "average," then what does that make yours truly?
"I'm even more pathetic than Rice-senpai. I'm only borrowing your power, seniors. I don't have any power of my own."
Kitasan Black's words landed.
The seniors, McQueen included, fell into silence.
Tokai Teio stared at her junior, speechless. You call that borrowing?
Looks more like flat-out plagiarism to me!
Gold Ship looked at her junior with the expression of someone watching a lost cause revert to her old self. "Yours truly doesn't recall ever lending you anything," she said, incensed.
"..."
Mejiro McQueen thought back to when Kitasan Black had been unconscious—the experiences the group had gained when they completed the sharing with her.
Though the sharing was technically complete, in reality they hadn't gained much of anything from Kita-chan.
Because Kita-chan genuinely didn't have any abilities of her own.
As for her ability to mimic their powers—even after completing the sharing, they still couldn't wrap their heads around how Kita-chan actually did it.
Just like how they'd never been able to understand Tokai Teio's two particular abilities, Kita-chan's Imitation was the same kind of thing.
That said, it wasn't as though they'd gained absolutely nothing. After sharing with Kita-chan, Mejiro McQueen could feel that her own spiritual power had grown stronger.
And she'd also gained the experience of another form of Flow—a form that had shown her an entirely new path forward. Even without external pressure, McQueen felt that if she could fully master this form of Flow, she could open ZONE's second gate through her own power alone.
But back to the subject at hand—for Kita-chan to claim she had no talent was genuine humble-bragging territory. And yet, after the sharing, they knew she actually believed it.
Kita-chan wasn't saying she had no talent because she thought she was weak. She was saying it because she considered herself the weakest among them.
But even knowing that was Kita-chan's sincere belief, they still couldn't accept it.
Because from where they stood, Kita-chan's talent was genuinely terrifying. Even after slacking off for so long, a single moment of going berserk had been enough to unleash that kind of power.
If Kita-chan had actually put in the effort from the very beginning, even McQueen couldn't begin to imagine what she would have grown into.
Kitasan Black noticed that her seniors' gazes had turned a little strange. She immediately hunched her shoulders, clammed up, and focused on her food.
Even though she now knew how her seniors viewed her, she couldn't change her own perception. Even if they said her talent was strong, the feeling just didn't register. She still couldn't win a race, could she?
Even when she'd gone into her berserk state, she hadn't been able to beat McQueen-senpai or Rice-senpai.
On normal days, she could only fight Teio-senpai and Demon King-senpai to roughly a fifty-fifty draw. How could her talent possibly be that strong?
Still, even thinking all that, there were some thoughts stirring in her heart.
She was already planning to find some time soon to run another round of Training Mode.
She didn't have much faith in herself—but since her seniors all insisted her talent was strong, she had no reason not to try.
The urge from that recent race, even after all this time, still came back to her in dreams at night.
She would dream of that moment just before the finish line.
If I just became a little stronger—would I have a shot at crossing it?
With that small ambition in her heart, the usual laziness in Kitasan Black's eyes had faded considerably.
"Will newcomers' talent keep getting stronger?"
Tokai Teio murmured to herself.
She felt a creeping pressure.
"We'll see when the next one's unlocked. But I don't think newcomers will keep getting stronger indefinitely."
Mejiro McQueen offered an unexpectedly different take.
Gold Ship looked at McQueen in puzzlement.
She didn't understand why McQueen would disagree with something so obvious.
"Why would you think that? Look at us now—isn't our starting point higher the later we arrive?"
"I don't deny that. But I said talent. Newcomers do inherit our experience and start with stronger mental strength than we had back then, but their physical starting point is still the same as their base template."
Mejiro McQueen pointed out what Gold Ship had overlooked.
Because of the Training Mode cheat, they'd never paid much attention to this aspect. But even Kita-chan, at the moment she was born, had physical abilities identical to the original [Kitasan Black].
As for Kita-chan's talent—it was only because the original [Kitasan Black] possessed certain latent potential, which Kita-chan had brought out.
After all, the original [Kitasan Black] had strong technique-learning ability. In the anime, she'd mastered [Imperial Dance] in an astonishingly short time.
"But spiritual power causes a qualitative change in inherent talent. That's been verified. So newcomers' strength can only keep growing!"
Gold Ship held firm to her position.
Mejiro McQueen agreed with that point.
"But talent itself still has built-in gaps."
"Hmph. I see what you mean. You're saying the next newcomer might not be a monster like Kita-chan."
Gold Ship understood McQueen's point.
She didn't argue with that either.
After all, Kita-chan's original template was genuinely at the level of a racehorse king. That wasn't ordinary.
No, forget Kita-chan—among the group gathered here, whose original template wasn't a prodigy?
Even Rice Shower—the original [Rice Shower] was a monster whose spirit exceeded her body. Even if her historical track record wasn't particularly impressive, track record and talent weren't the same thing.
And among Uma Musume characters, there were plenty whose fame was considerable but whose actual talent wasn't particularly outstanding. If the next unlocked character was one of those, then she probably wouldn't surpass Kita-chan.
The day after the party.
The group gathered again in the System Space, preparing to unlock the next newcomer.