Nakayama Racecourse. The race was already past the halfway point.
On the track, Mejiro McQueen's near-arrogant Great Escape tactic was like a purple hot knife, slicing the entire race rhythm into shredded scraps.
A full ten lengths clear of the second pack.
In a G1 long-distance race, that number was pure despair. A chasm wide enough to make every chaser feel fear bite into their spine. This aggressive, brutal way of running dropped a sheet of ice over every powerhouse behind her.
"She's not even going to acknowledge us…?"
Yaeno Muteki stared hard at that purple figure ahead, a fine sheen of cold sweat beading at her temples.
As a battle-hardened horse girl from Oguri Cap's era, she understood exactly what this meant.
If the gap was allowed to keep widening, then with McQueen's bottomless stamina, "saving strength for the final phase" would mean nothing at all. With this kind of separation, even that one-in-ten-thousand chance would turn to dust.
But if they chased her down right now… this was Nakayama, 2,500 meters.
Choosing that pace on a long-distance course was basically suicide.
"Damn it, who runs a Great Escape in a long-distance race?!"
New-generation horse girls like Eishin Flash clenched their teeth too.
That unreasonable power left the entire field soaked in a deep, creeping chill.
And yet.
In the middle of the second pack, Mejiro Ryan lowered her head slightly.
Shadow covered most of her face, but it could not hide the curve of her mouth as it grew more unrestrained, more fever-bright.
"Full power… yeah, McQueen, that's it! Let me see your full power!"
"Let me see the finish line I have to reach!"
"Only after I've seen the true summit can I surpass it one day. Only then will I become the new peak!"
…
But at the very front of the storm, McQueen felt an emptiness she had never known.
"Hah…"
She breathed out softly. The white mist was instantly torn apart by the howling wind behind her.
Her steps were impossibly light.
Each time her foot came down, the heavy turf felt like cloudbank, pushing her forward.
The roar of 170,000 voices faded, liquefied, and finally became a blurred wash of noise.
In her vision, the world was nothing but the endless green stretching under her feet, and far ahead, an infinite horizon stitching sky and earth together.
Even though the ultimate tracer light of her "True Self State" was still locked deep behind her eyes, the loneliness of standing above everyone else made her feel faintly unreal.
"So… I really have become this strong."
The thought surfaced abruptly.
Before, even after crushing her generation again and again and taking an unbeaten Triple Crown, there had always been a thin veil between her and the word "strongest."
Not until that special training a little while ago, when Sakura Chiyono O'senpai told her, with a mix of awe and relief, "You're already strong enough," did the seed called confidence truly break ground.
Now, at the final stop of the Twinkle Series, as the race unfolded, that seed grew, bloomed, and bore fruit.
She even had a premonition.
Even with this insane way of running, the winner would still be her alone. No exceptions.
Just then, Ryan's voice from before the race drifted back to her, crossing the gale as if echoing in her ears.
"In this race, I want to see your full power!"
"You want to see my full power?"
McQueen's lips lifted into a restrained, self-assured smile. "Perfect. I want to see it too…"
…
Time ticked by, second after second.
After opening about a ten-length gap on the second pack, McQueen seemed to ease off slightly to preserve strength for the final stretch. Her speed dipped, then gradually stabilized into a comfortable pace.
It finally let the other horse girls behind her breathe again. The race seemed to settle into something orderly.
"They've passed the 1,500-meter marker! Still in front is Mejiro McQueen!"
The commentator's voice surged again. "In second is Wakaba Tobo, very calm. She hasn't lost her head because of the Great Escape!"
"Third is Yaeno Muteki… and Mejiro Ryan is in sixth right now…"
Thud-thud-thud.
The heavy drum of hooves rolled like muffled thunder as the pack fought the centrifugal force and plunged into the bend.
And right then, in the middle of the group, something hot and iron-scented began to brew.
Ryan kept her head down. Her short bangs were soaked through with sweat, covering most of her face, leaving only the flash of teeth clenched so hard they looked like silver.
"1,500 meters… if this keeps up, I won't catch her…"
If she didn't gamble everything, nothing would change.
If she didn't burn, she would only keep watching that back disappear from her sight.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Her heart slammed inside her chest. Blood scalded through her veins like molten rock.
Under this suffocating pressure at the edge of the limit, Ryan felt her consciousness peeling away. Fear and reason were incinerated by heat until only the most primal desire remained.
Buzz.
In the depths of her pupils, a silver-gray spiral of tracer light began to spin violently.
It was a will hammered into shape through endless training. Countless times lifting a barbell beyond the body's limits. Countless times falling in the mud and getting back up. A soul of steel.
Boom!
A footfall exploded, deep and heavy.
Her cadence had not changed, yet the shock of that step made the horse girl behind her, Hakuyou Rock, snap her eyes wide.
In that instant, she felt the aura of the short-haired girl in front transform.
No longer a chaser on their level. It felt more like… the presence McQueen carried.
"This is… the first step…"
Ryan exhaled a plume of scorching white breath.
Inside a pitch-black inner lake, she felt as if she were answering a formless "mirror" across the void.
This was the "boundary" she had seen back then, in the instant she lost to McQueen at the Kikuka Sho.
Her instincts told her the truth.
Only by stepping over that boundary would she earn the right to create an era, and the right to stand on the same stage as McQueen.
If she couldn't, she would become ash of the era. Someone else's supporting role.
"Supporting role? Hah! Hahahaha!"
Ryan laughed wildly. Her focus gathered tighter and tighter, and her incomparable will became a hammer, slamming into that formless mirrored boundary.
Crack.
A crisp shattering sound rang out, audible to her alone.
And then… one step further.
Boom!!!
The mirror shattered completely.
The silver-gray tracer light that had been hiding in her eyes erupted, becoming an endless flood of radiance that wrapped around her in a frenzy.
The world drained of color in an instant. The bright, vivid Nakayama track turned into a dull, dead gray-white.
Rivals, crowd, buildings. Everything became scenery.
In the center of that gray-white world, only one thing remained colored.
At the end of her vision, that purple-and-white figure blazed with dazzling, multicolored brilliance.
The only yardstick.
The only prey.
The power of the second-step Domain ignited every last scrap of potential in her body, and magnified the wild battle lust in her heart to its absolute peak.
"Burn…"
She stepped down. The ground answered with a tremor.
In her mind, only pure ambition howled, stripped to the bone.
Catch her. Pass her. Beat her.
Fight. Fight. Fight.
Win. Win. Win.
Domain: Hundredfold Tempered Steel Realm - Unstoppable Advance!!!
Boom!!
In that instant, the stamina she had been hoarding for so long fused with the newly awakened Domain's might, becoming terrifying leg power that felt like it could shatter the earth.
Turf tore. Mud sprayed.
Ryan's figure blurred into a silver-gray afterimage, carrying a do-or-die ferocity as she ripped straight through the once-stable pack.
She charged like madness toward that single splash of color ahead.
(End of Chapter)
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