"Gyaaaahhh!! Turbo at full throttle!!"
With a shrill scream, a blue figure shot past in a blur. After blasting through thirteen hundred meters at terrifying speed, she suddenly seemed to lose all her air, her speed dropped sharply, and in the end she pitched forward onto the ground and stopped moving.
"She died..."
"No, this kind of thing happens all the time."
The girl with the reddish-brown twin tails answered him with perfect calm. Nice Nature had just arrived and now stood there with her arms folded.
"Trainer Chiya, can you stop casually saying people died?"
Fujiwara Chiya laughed awkwardly. He had only said it offhand, yet Nice Nature had heard him anyway.
Trainer Minamizaka was a famously kind senior at Tracen. He had a gentle personality and treated everyone well. Back when Fujiwara Chiya had still been a rookie, he often went to Team Canopus to ask him questions, and when Trainer Minamizaka was not around, it was usually Nice Nature who ended up dealing with him.
"What's up, Trainer Chiya? You've got the free time to come watch Twin Turbo train today? Are you here to scout the enemy maybe? Just kidding. There's not much to scout in our team anyway."
Nice Nature spread her shoulders as if she had already accepted reality.
"I came to see if there's anything in your team's training worth learning from."
"That's fine, I guess. But are you sure she's the one you want to learn from?"
Nice Nature pointed toward Twin Turbo on the track. After resting for a few minutes and gulping down some water, Twin Turbo immediately started running again at full speed, screaming the whole time.
"Oraaaahhh!!!"
"Won't she get a stitch running like that?" Fujiwara Chiya asked as he watched the sweat pouring down her face.
"Trainer Minamizaka said the same thing before. If she yells too long, it can cause oxygen problems. But making her hold it in feels even worse for her. Last time, she blew a gasket."
"Blew a gasket?"
"That's right. Trainer Minamizaka once tried taping her mouth shut for a lap so she'd stop screaming, but Twin Turbo collapsed after just a few steps. She was taking in air but not letting any out. Her engine only works if it makes noise. If Twin Turbo can't scream, she just breaks down completely."
"I... I see."
Looks like Trainer Minamizaka's team has it even rougher than I thought. Still, compared to when he first met her, Twin Turbo's speed and stamina had clearly improved a lot. At this distance, they were basically in the final stretch of a mile race already.
So they really have been doing some kind of specialized training.
Carrying that question in his mind, Fujiwara Chiya kept watching. Then he saw Twin Turbo finish her sprint and, under Trainer Minamizaka's direction, immediately move on to weighted squats.
The amount of weight was nearly half her height.
Fujiwara Chiya's eyes widened.
"Isn't that way too heavy?"
"Oh? Trainer Chiya, you didn't know?"
"Know what?"
"Twin Turbo is the type who gets happier the more exhausted she is. The closer she gets to her limit, the more excited she becomes."
"Huh? I don't think I understand."
"Just keep watching."
Nice Nature and Fujiwara Chiya stood at a distance and observed. After more than twenty squats, Twin Turbo was already drenched in sweat, and even from far away they could see her whole body trembling. Just when Fujiwara Chiya thought she was about to give out, she suddenly sped up with a blissful look on her face, like she had taken some kind of stimulant.
Then, after squeezing every last bit of strength out of herself, Twin Turbo flopped onto her back.
"...She died?"
"Trainer, can we stop using that joke already?"
"Sorry."
"That was amazing!!"
Suddenly Fujiwara Chiya heard Twin Turbo shout as she lay on the ground waving her arms happily.
A few minutes later, she rolled over, got back on her feet, drank some water, and threw herself into the next drill.
Fujiwara Chiya was stunned.
After one limit-breaking challenge, she went straight into another. Was Twin Turbo some kind of superhuman? If it were Gold Ship, she would have disappeared long ago.
Does she really like training that much?
"You can't exactly say she likes training," Nice Nature said. "Twin Turbo just likes the feeling of pushing herself to the edge. She really enjoys that breathless, overstimulated kind of sensation."
"There are people like that?"
"Of course. The more painful it is, the happier she gets. The more frantic she feels, the more excited she gets. That's Twin Turbo. Put simply, she's a complete and utter 'M.'"
"'M'... an 'M'?"
"Oh? I thought boys your age would know at least a little about those things. 'S' and 'M' and all that."
"Oh. That 'M.'"
"So you get it now."
He got it.
If Twin Turbo was an "M," then that meant she treated near-limit training like a form of enjoyment. That was horrifying. It was like having someone in your class who treated studying as entertainment.
Unbelievable. Incomprehensible. Twin Turbo really was some alien Uma Musume. Wouldn't that mean her training volume was several times higher than everyone else's? And the more you train, the stronger you get. Fujiwara Chiya could already picture Twin Turbo shining brilliantly in the future.
Seemingly noticing what he was thinking, Nice Nature shook her head.
"If Twin Turbo really trained like this all the time, she wouldn't give Trainer Minamizaka nearly this much trouble."
"How so?"
"She isn't just an 'M.'"
As she said that, Twin Turbo on the track seemed to spot someone and suddenly rushed over.
"Teio! Fight me!!"
Covered in dirt from head to toe, Twin Turbo pointed dramatically at Tokai Teio.
"Twin Turbo's in top condition today! I'm gonna blow right past you! Come on! My number one rival that I'll burn out completely to defeat!!"
But faced with Twin Turbo's blazing enthusiasm, Tokai Teio acted as if she had heard absolutely nothing. She was busy looking around the training ground for someone. The moment she spotted a white figure, she dashed straight toward her.
"Shirayuki, come train with me!"
"Hey! Teio! Listen to me! Don't run away! Heyyy!!"
Tokai Teio left without even looking back, and Twin Turbo stomped the ground in fury.
"Damn you, Teio! Turbo charge!!"
Still furious, she turned around and sprinted off to who-knows-where, leaving Trainer Minamizaka standing alone in the middle of the field, completely lost.
Fujiwara Chiya quietly looked at Nice Nature. She spread her hands.
"Well, that's how it is. Whether Twin Turbo wants to train or not depends entirely on her mood. If she's in a bad mood, she just won't train. She also hates it when people order her around. So yes, she's an 'M,' but she's also an 'S.' Pretty amazing, right?"
A faintly amused smile appeared on Nice Nature's face. Then she noticed Trainer Minamizaka out on the field and spoke again.
"Trainer's calling me, Trainer Chiya."
"Alright. Let's talk again sometime."
"Come find me anytime if you want to know more about Twin Turbo. If I can answer, I'll answer. There are still a lot of sides to her that would surprise you."
After saying goodbye, Nice Nature jogged over to Trainer Minamizaka. Fujiwara Chiya waved to the senior trainer from a distance, then started heading back toward his own team.
Leaving Twin Turbo's personality aside for a moment, just from the training load alone, she was dangerous. At least based on what he had just seen, Twin Turbo was terrifying. If she did that even once a day, the quality of her training would already surpass most others.
Fujiwara Chiya could no longer dismiss her as some idiot who just mindlessly ran as a Front Runner. He now classified Twin Turbo as a genuinely threatening opponent.
In that case, Shirayuki's training schedule would need to be raised another level too.