Dream Weaver wasn't naive; she knew exactly how suicidal it was to charge into the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in her current state.
Yet, she did it anyway.
The reason wasn't as simple as Liberty Island failing to topple Equinox in the Japan Cup, which left Dream Weaver short of her main objective and trapped in this scenario world.
In a strange way, Dream Weaver actually felt a sense of relief. She was grateful to Liberty Island for buying her more time.
For a trainer, such a thought was heresy. No trainer should ever wish for their Uma Musume to lose a showdown. But as an Uma Musume herself? It made perfect sense.
That obsession with chasing the turf is an instinct carved into the very DNA of every Uma Musume.
Dream Weaver used to think that because she was "incomplete," she lacked that primal spark.
After all, when Tokai Teio questioned her reason for running back in the real world, she couldn't find an answer that belonged to herself.
But during this year as a trainer, something had been quietly reshaping her.
Actually, that's not quite right. While the change was manifesting here in the scenario, the seeds were sown back in reality.
From the moment she saw Tokai Teio charging toward the sun like Icarus during the Japanese Derby, the gears of fate had begun to turn.
At the time, Dream Weaver didn't understand the surge of emotion in her chest. She had stepped into this scenario world specifically to find the truth behind that feeling.
She had entered this world for her own sake—to gather the system items needed to heal Tokai Teio's fracture, and to witness that moment in the Kikuka Sho that made her heart ache.
But she had been too impatient. She dove back into the scenario just a day after the Derby, never stopping to ponder where that underlying restlessness was coming from.
Once inside, she defaulted to her old habits. Everything became about efficiency and clearing objectives.
She held herself to the strict standards of a trainer, pouring every ounce of her focus into leveling up Liberty Island and Hishi Miracle. Consequently, her own inner turmoil was buried under the workload.
If nothing had gone sideways, she likely would have finished the mission, returned to reality, healed Teio, and only then rediscovered that Derby-day spark during the Kikuka Sho.
But when her plan was only a third of the way through, the first turning point hit.
After Liberty Island won the Oka Sho, Agnes Tachyon—realizing she could no longer reach her own original goal—confessed why she had joined the team.
She wanted to reclaim her lost past through Dream Weaver.
By sending Dream Weaver back to the Arc, she was fulfilling the wish of the "past" Agnes Tachyon, the one who had been forced off the track by injury.
Tachyon's years of research hadn't been in vain.
Time couldn't be reversed, but she had finally found a way to ensure an Uma Musume like herself didn't have to live with regrets. That was the dream she wanted to realize through Dream Weaver.
However, after seeing Dream Weaver mold Liberty Island into a G1-caliber powerhouse, Tachyon let the idea go. A trainer capable of such a feat had already proven her worth.
Instead of gambling on a return to the track with uncertain odds, Tachyon decided that accepting retirement and moving toward becoming a great trainer was a fine path.
Just like Tachyon herself—once she left the turf, didn't she become the legendary pharmacist of Central Tracen? Since a predictable, bright future was right there, there was no need to force things.
At the time, Dream Weaver didn't truly grasp the weight of the emotions Tachyon was letting go of.
She simply did what she had done a thousand times in these scenarios: she blankly stated she would take on Tachyon's expectations and run the Arc.
But how could Agnes Tachyon accept such a hollow gesture?
It was precisely because Tachyon still burned with passion and lingering resentment for the track that she couldn't stand to see Dream Weaver—someone whose eyes lacked that same fire for the Arc—pushing herself just to settle someone else's score.
The incident passed, but Tachyon's expression and her parting words lingered in Dream Weaver's mind, waiting for the right moment to resurface.
"Isn't things fine as they are now? Leading an Uma Musume to her dreams... that kind of life isn't so bad. I didn't hate these past few months. I imagine Sugar Lights feels the same. So... let's leave it at that."
The second turning point came after the Yushun Himba.
Sugar Lights had officially completed the mechanical Uma Musume, ST-2. Because of her legs, Sugar Lights could never truly set foot on the track, yet her instincts made her yearn for it.
To stand on that stage, she used consciousness-transfer technology to move her mind into the ST-2.
Her initial reason for approaching Dream Weaver was to use the data of a world-class Uma Musume for real-time testing.
But just running wasn't enough. Sugar Lights wanted to touch the thing that exists beyond the physical—the thing only an Uma Musume can truly grasp.
The Zone.
So, once ST-2 was complete, she challenged Dream Weaver to a practice match using their Zones. She wanted to know if she, using borrowed wings, could finally reach that sky.
Dream Weaver didn't take it seriously at first. Regardless of why Sugar Lights had joined, she had contributed immensely to the team.
Dream Weaver was perfectly willing to indulge her in a practice race to help fulfill her dream. But the moment she stepped onto the Central Tracen training track, her mindset shifted.
Once inside the gate, she realized she couldn't feel a single presence from her opponent.
Her Zone wouldn't work.
Sugar Lights, who had built a machine specifically to chase the Zone, was destined to fail. And without her Zone—without her sharpest blade—Dream Weaver was staring down her first inevitable defeat.
The Zone is a miracle for the weak.
If an Uma Musume has monstrous physical stats like Equinox, awakening the Zone doesn't really matter. But when Dream Weaver had first awakened hers, she was one of the weak.
With her stats capped at a mere B-rank, her only way to defeat the likes of T.M. Opera O was to throw her entire existence into the flame of the Zone and burn herself out.
On this battlefield where only winners walk away, the sword named "Murasame" was the only thing a "weakling" like her could rely on.
It was the key to her string of victories against naturally superior Uma Musume. But in this duel against a machine, her invincible Murasame was useless.
It was like being dropped onto a battlefield stark naked. Standing in that gate, Dream Weaver remembered what it felt like to be powerless.
I can't win. As that thought flickered, she realized that victory had never been a given.
She had always preached that every Uma Musume eventually loses, but until that moment, she hadn't realized how flippantly she had said it. It wasn't a phrase meant to be uttered so lightly.
To claw back a win, she instinctively looked at the "Kindling Flames" skill in her menu.
If she triggered the combo, she might just beat the completed ST-2. But sometimes, even if you have a miracle button right in front of you, you lack the courage and resolve to press it.
Burdened with the responsibility of a trainer, Dream Weaver couldn't afford to waste time on an insignificant practice match. Liberty Island and Hishi Miracle had races coming up; she couldn't allow herself to be sidelined by injury.
In that instant, she understood the version of "herself" that lived in this world.
She understood why she had failed again and again at the Arc.
A Dream Weaver who ran only to meet the expectations of others could never pay the price for a miracle.
Using "Kindling Flames" would keep her off the track for a long time, and if she left the track, she would fail the audience's expectations.
The Arc happens every year, she had thought. Since I only lost by a hair this time, I'll just try again next year.
It was because she always held something back, always looked for a "next time," that the Dream Weaver of this scenario kept losing to the geniuses who were willing to burn their very lives to win the Arc.
She was never a natural-born monster like Equinox.
As a world-class Uma Musume, Dream Weaver was far from perfect.
Her stat caps hadn't even been fully unlocked; even now, her Power was stuck at a pitiful B-rank.
Such explosive power, even with item buffs, could never match the raw strength of other geniuses on a stage like the Arc.
Dream Weaver was a flawed world-class athlete.
Everyone in this world knew it.
Her speed was peerless, her stamina was unmatched, but her final stretch kick? Any veteran G1 Uma Musume could overtake her. Because she kept pushing her chances into the future, she never had the opportunity to fix that weakness.
She couldn't use "Kindling Flames" because she didn't want to betray her fans, and for that very reason, she fell under the "Curse of the Arc."
In the moment she realized this, she finally felt a kinship with this world's version of herself.
On the night she, Sugar Lights, and Agnes Tachyon formed their "Losers' Club," a drunken Dream Weaver had thought a thousand times about doing something for herself—and for the version of her that lived here.
But she couldn't. Not yet. She still carried the weight of a trainer.
Just as this world's Dream Weaver couldn't abandon the audience, the current Dream Weaver couldn't abandon Hishi Miracle's Kikuka Sho or Liberty Island's showdown in the Japan Cup.
With no time to think, she buried Sugar Lights' lonely expression and her words deep in her heart.
"What's the point? You used your Zone just now, didn't you? I couldn't feel it, but I saw the looks on the other girls' faces. In the end... I'm just someone who refuses to wake up from a dream. I'm just chasing a ghost."
She also took the story of the legendary Uma Musume, "Eclipse," who could transcend time and light, and tucked it away.
Perhaps because she felt she couldn't surpass time herself, she remembered that story with agonizing clarity.
The third and final turning point came after Hishi Miracle won the Kikuka Sho. Dream Weaver finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Briefly setting aside her role as a trainer, she wandered the streets of Kyoto alone.
The seeds from the previous two turning points were beginning to sprout, but before she could reach a conclusion, she bumped into Symboli Kris S, who had just lost to Hishi Miracle.
During their aimless chat, Kris S shared something Symboli Rudolf had done in this world—and perhaps in the real world too.
Aside from the shock of learning the dignified Student Council President would sneak into someone's room, Kris S delivered a long-overdue message from Rudolf.
"Working hard for everyone else isn't a wrong path, Dream. But sometimes... you're allowed to think only of yourself. Before you love others, I hope you can learn to love yourself."
Still reeling from Rudolf's antics, Dream Weaver didn't dwell on the words, simply burying them like all the rest.
Finally, while discussing strategy with Liberty Island at the hotel, she realized she had done all she could as a trainer. She couldn't give Liberty Island any more buffs in the remaining month.
The winner of the Japan Cup would be decided by the girl on the turf, not by a Dream Weaver who had traded her racing silks for a stopwatch.
But in that moment, "Eclipse" caught up to her again. Along with the pent-up emotions from every turning point, it hit her: she couldn't stay on the track forever.
Neither the version of her in this world, nor the one in reality, could outrun time.
Dream Weaver had cycled through too many scenarios.
She had run more races than she could count.
The sheer volume of time she had spent racing was enough to span a full career, yet every time she returned to reality, she was back to being a rookie about to start the Classic Triple Crown.
She had tricked herself into thinking the track was eternal, a permanent fixture of Central Tracen that would never change.
But this world, and these three turning points, taught her one thing.
One day, like every other Uma Musume, she would have to leave the turf.
So, before she left, what was left for her to do?
Not for anyone else, but for the girl named Dream Weaver—what could she achieve?
Out of a sense of duty, she kept the answer locked away, deciding to reveal it only after the Japan Cup.
If Liberty Island beat Equinox, she would find that answer in the real world. If she lost, Dream Weaver would make it happen right here, right now.
She would enter the Arc. She would put an end to this world's Dream Weaver, and end her own lingering regrets.
She was going to break the Curse of the Arc.
--+--
T/N: I have a Patreon! Webnovel will get 2 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.