Kiichi Steed sat in the training room, staring blankly into space, when her thoughts drifted back to something that had happened a few weeks ago.
Five in the morning was her fixed wake-up time, rain or shine. She did not even need the alarm she had set for 5:10. She would always wake before it rang and turn it off first, so it would not disturb her roommate, Raise.
That habit had started when she first got to know Luminous Dyna. In Dyna, Kiichi Steed had seen a kind of talent she could never hope to match, an innate strength that made a dirt-track runner like her quietly envious.
But envy was all it ever was.
Ever since childhood, Kiichi Steed had never been the type to resent others. When she saw a horse girl stronger than herself, she would envy her for a brief moment, then pour that feeling straight back into training harder.
Get dressed. Wash up. Grab the phone she had forgotten to charge again, leaving it with only thirty percent battery. Leave the dorm and head for the training grounds. That was her morning routine.
As for why she kept forgetting to charge it, the reason was simple: Kiichi Steed was utterly hopeless with smartphones. Before coming to Tracen Academy, she had only ever used the flip phone her mother bought her. One charge on that lasted a week, sometimes longer.
Naturally, she had never developed any sense for how fast a smartphone drained battery. And since she was that clueless about smartphones, there was no chance she understood what a power bank was. Even after repeatedly finding the screen dead every time she wanted to use it, she still had not really learned her lesson.
Wada had bought her that phone more than a year ago, using his share of the prize money after she won an allowance race worth ten million. Even now, Kiichi Steed still missed her old flip phone. But everything the old phone could do, the smartphone could do too. More than that, it let her sign up for races, check schedules, and even watch race replays anytime like a portable television. For all her ineptness, she still had to admit modern technology was amazing.
"What should I do today...?"
By the time she reached the training grounds, they were still empty. There were, after all, only so many horse girls disciplined enough to get up this early and train on their own. Geniuses only needed to complete the necessary training. For a mediocre horse girl like Kiichi Steed, who fought tooth and nail just to win allowance races on the dirt, the only option was to push her body without mercy.
Wada had been so consumed lately with Luminous Dyna's upcoming Japanese Derby that he had not even noticed Kiichi Steed had already finished every item in the training plan he set for her. But she had no intention of telling him.
He was already stretched thin. If he had to spare attention for her too, would that not affect Dyna's preparation?
Kiichi Steed was long past the age to run in the Classic races herself, but that did not mean she failed to understand what those races meant to every horse girl. If she lost now, she could always come back next year and try again. But if Dyna lost the Derby, there would never be another chance to win it.
Raised by her parents to be considerate, Kiichi Steed had always been a sensible child. She had inherited her mother's somewhat slow, gentle temperament too, which meant she often came across more like a kindly grandmother than a peer when dealing with girls her own age.
When she first learned other people saw her that way, she had only smiled. To her, being thought of as grandmotherly was not an insult. It meant they found her gentle.
She could even feel traces of that in her relationship with Dyna. But alongside that gentleness came another problem: on the track, Kiichi Steed was maddeningly slow to react to other horse girls. By the time she realized she should accelerate, she was always a beat late.
That flaw had cost her two graded stakes and one Listed race.
Otherwise, she might not have fallen to the point where she needed to grind through class races at the start of the year just to regain her shot at higher-level stakes.
Still, that was why she was happy now that Wada's attention had shifted so completely to Dyna.
At last, there was a horse girl who might finally pull him out of the fog of failure. Dyna was not technically a Tracen student, and even if she won, Wada's name would not appear in the academy papers as her trainer. But Kiichi Steed knew Wada did not care about those titles.
Part of Luminous Dyna's success came from Wada's training. If that was enough to restore his confidence in himself as a trainer, then that alone was worth it.
Kiichi Steed had noticed it too: even when exhausted, Wada had been in much better spirits these days.
"Hm... then I'll keep working on speed."
She had already stepped onto the turf by then.
"If my reactions are too slow, then I'll just raise my speed enough to make up for it."
That was the quickest way to improve herself. As for guts, that vague, hard-to-define quality, she already had more of it than Dyna did. Maybe that was the one thing she could still beat Dyna in.
Oh right. Strength too, probably.
Though that only applied to Dyna before the Satsuki Sho. After the Spring Stakes, Dyna had deliberately started putting on weight to improve her power.
By the time Kiichi Steed finished two six-hundred-meter sprints for herself, the pale light of dawn had fully risen. After two years of racing, that kind of training no longer made her sweat much. So after a short rest, she headed to the dining hall for breakfast.
On the way, she happened to run into Little Cointreau and Hokko Tarumae. They would be her rivals in dirt racing one day, but privately they were close friends.
Kiichi Steed's warmth naturally made her the grandmotherly one in the trio, and both Little Cointreau and Hokko Tarumae quite liked that.
"Morning, Little Cointreau. Hokko."
"Morning, Kiichi Steed."
"Good morning."
The two girls were already in their Tracen uniforms. It was May now, and most of the academy had switched over to the summer version, complete with white over-the-knee socks.
"Wow, you've already been training that early?" Little Cointreau asked.
She herself had been up early too, but she had spent the entire time inside her dorm arranging one of her elaborate feng shui setups. Fortunately, none of it made enough noise to bother her roommate, Hopeful Town. Otherwise, Hopeful Town would probably have thrown both Little Cointreau and all her weird paraphernalia out of the room long ago.
What made it stranger was that Little Cointreau's feng shui predictions were uncannily accurate—something like ninety-eight percent. Even the famously scientific Agnes Tachyon had once tried to explain it through science, only to fail completely. Much like Marvelous Sunday's crystal-ball prophecies, it was one of those things science simply could not explain.
"Yeah," Kiichi Steed answered. "Since effort's the only way I can make up the gap between me and the stronger girls. My next race is coming up soon, and it's a G2. No matter what, I have to be in the best condition possible for it. My trainer's poured so much into me already. I can't let him down."
At breakfast, the three of them ate roughly the same amount, though Kiichi Steed was, as always, the slowest by far. Little Cointreau and Hokko Tarumae left first for the training grounds, as both belonged to trainers who were focusing heavily on them. Their potential was simply much higher.
After finishing, Kiichi Steed returned her tray and headed to the training room. Luminous Dyna was already there, listening while Wada explained something to her—turf-specific matters, by the sound of it, which meant little to Kiichi Steed. She took her usual seat on the sofa and plugged in her phone.
She had run a few turf races herself once, but all of them had ended in decisive defeats. Once she switched to dirt, her results improved. Still, in Japan there was always a kind of instinctive prejudice against dirt racing. Dirt runners never shone the way grass-track stars did.
Her phone lit up with a soft chime as the charge started. Remembering Wada's instructions, she opened the race site in the browser. She wanted to look up information about the Tokai Stakes, the G2 dirt race she would be entering next. The fact that she was currently projected as the second favorite almost felt unreal to her.
After all, the last time she had been among the top three in popularity for a G2 or G1 had been two years ago—third favorite in the Champions Cup, where she finished sixth and completely disappointed those who had supported her.
Then she broke a bone and had to spend months recovering. In the following year's Tokyo Daishoten, she was fourth favorite and still finished tenth, a complete disaster.
This year, she had managed only one OP win—just enough to preserve her eligibility for graded stakes.
"Whoa. Kiichi Steed's popularity in the Tokai Stakes is really high."
Wada had finished speaking with Dyna at some point and glanced at her phone.
"The fans' expectations..." Kiichi Steed said softly, holding the phone in both hands. "I'm worried I'll let them down in a G2... but I'll do my best."
The words lacked their usual firmness, and from behind the sofa Dyna paused. She had never really seen Kiichi Steed like this before.
She guessed it was because losing too many times had eroded her confidence.
Dyna knew what that felt like, so she said gently, "As long as you give it your all, it's fine. If people are supporting you that much, it means they already recognize your strength. Showing up in your best form for the race—that's the best answer you can give them."
"Even so... I've lost so many times. And I've lost as the favorite before too."
Kiichi Steed patted her cheeks, but a faint light returned to her eyes as she looked at Dyna.
"But I'll remember what you said, Dyna. I won't betray the expectations behind that popularity either. You gave the trainer hope of winning again. I can't lag behind."
And that was the resolve she carried with her into the Tokai Stakes.
"So lively..." she murmured in the paddock. "Way more lively than a G3."
Her hand tightened around her number cloth. She was more nervous than she had been for some G1s.
She pressed down on her ears, trying to shut out the noise.
A nineteen-hundred-meter dirt race—right in her comfort zone. But that tension still weighed on her performance. Then she caught Wada's encouraging look from the stands, remembered Dyna cheering for her before the race, and heard her words again in her mind.
"If you really can't judge the perfect time to accelerate, then start from the bend. Stay in a steady rhythm from a forward position, save your energy, and then bring your speed all the way up through the bend. That's the simplest way."
Though she herself ran from behind, Dyna had learned enough under Sea the Stars and Cody's Wish to understand front-running tactics too.
Kiichi Steed held onto that.
For a horse girl who could handle twenty-four hundred meters, nineteen hundred was not a problem of stamina. She had to start May properly. And Luminous Dyna, too, would surely win the Derby.
"Kiichi Steed's definitely going to win this one," Dyna said quietly beside Wada, noticing the way his clenched hands trembled. Opera O, predictably, had not noticed a thing. So it fell to Dyna to comfort him.
"I know... I mean, I think so too. But I'm still nervous." Wada's words were tumbling over themselves. "She's always been slow to react. That's why I trained her the way I did."
Dyna understood him well enough and only smiled.
Draw eight out of fourteen was a good gate. Kiichi Steed broke cleanly and took an excellent forward position.
For the first time, Dyna did not think her looked slow at all.
Then came the final bend, and just as Dyna had suggested, Kiichi Steed began accelerating.
It was a bold move. Accelerating from the bend could go either way. But for Kiichi Steed, whose stamina was more than sufficient, the downside was nearly nonexistent. She quickly took the lead.
The dirt was heavy that day, but she had always run well on both firm and yielding conditions. By the time they entered the stretch, the winner was already decided.
Kiichi Steed won her first G2 in a record time of 1:53.7.
It felt surreal, as if she were floating.
When the sash was draped over her shoulders, she finally came back to herself. Maybe... maybe she really did have what it took to win a JPN1. Or even a G1.
"So," Opera O's voice said, snapping her back to the present, "have you packed what you need yet?"
Kiichi Steed blinked and looked at the photo still under her fingers.
Right. That had been weeks ago. It was already June now. The Derby was over.
In the photograph, Dyna stood with the trophy in hand, the champion's sash over her shoulders.
The smile on her face looked a little stiff.
It was probably just Kiichi Steed's imagination.
Their flight to Europe had already been booked. They would be leaving even earlier than the other teams heading off for summer camp. According to Wada, Dyna's European friend had secured the site for them.
Summer camp. It was finally beginning.
What had happened in the past few weeks—Dyna's Derby triumph, Kiichi Steed's breakthrough, everything moving forward at once—still felt almost unreal.
And yet, when Kiichi Steed looked again at that photo, what lingered most in her mind was not the trophy, or the sash, or even the fact that Dyna had won the Derby undefeated.
It was that expression.
That faint stiffness in Dyna's smile.
Something about it would not leave her alone.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 147)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter185)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter105)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter215)
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Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 185
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 170
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass Volume2/1
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 206
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 190
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 154
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player Volume4/23
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 106
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 67
Uma Musume: From Beginner 125
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 85
Uma Musume: I Want All 105
I Can Copy Unique Skills 90
Summoning an Evil God, but the 70
Supernatural Multiverse 90
My Harem Is Indescribable 80
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 86
"I'm just a Valkyrie passing through." 68
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 81
Still playing traditional Honk 65
The Most Filial Son Under Heav 65
What Should I Do After Switchi - Volume2/3
Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 57
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 45
Transmigrated as Sukuna 59
Checking In in Demon Slayer 59
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 73
I Refuse to Become a Heroic 45
My Best Friend Into a Slime? 36
A Saiyan Stands Above Marvel 40
What Do You Mean by Using a Lab Mod to Be the Hero? 60
Tanya Starts from Re:Zero 30
Why did they assign me to Uma 35
MYGO Beauties 43
DanMachi: Emiya the Giant Hero 30
The Gacha Merchant Who Started 31
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