Over an hour later.
After Kuroha easily won his Pokémon battle against this devastatingly beautiful, voluptuous uma musume, leaving her Terastal Water Eternal Flower Floette and its Trainer completely limp on the battlefield, trembling as they begged for mercy, he and Maruzensky finally ended today's stroll.
After all, this "supercar" had already lost every last bit of power needed to start up again.
After sending Maruzensky back to the Chasing Light villa, Kuroha returned alone to the Mejiro Training Grounds.
It was noon, and the others had not arrived yet.
Since Kuroha did not need to nap anyway, he casually found a lounge chair outside the corridor and sat down, looking up at the clear blue sky.
In front of him, a rainbow-colored sphere of light invisible to ordinary people drifted about according to his will, constantly changing shape.
Kuroha moved his fingertips slightly, and the light sphere obediently nuzzled against his cheek, bringing a faintly cool touch.
"Mm... feels pretty good."
Compared with last year, when his Power of Blessing could only be roughly condensed into something like a Spirit Bomb, he could now control it as naturally as moving his own limbs.
Forget making Spirit Bombs. Kuroha felt that, at his current level, he could probably sculpt Hatsune Miku or Luo Tianyi out of it without a problem.
While practicing delicate control over his power, Kuroha organized his upcoming plans in his mind.
Before long, familiar figures gradually appeared at the training grounds.
Aoi Kiryuin, Berno Light, Mihono Bourbon, and the others arrived one after another. After seeing Kuroha, they greeted him happily, then each threw themselves into training.
Once everyone had arrived, Kuroha got up and walked toward the area managed by Nase Fumino.
At the moment, Bourbon and Rice Shower were doing pace runs with the cooperation of several sparring uma musume.
Noticing Kuroha approaching, Fumino glanced at him and said warily, "What?"
"Don't start running your mouth. When it comes to handling undebuted little uma musume, I still know what I'm doing."
"...I haven't even said anything yet," Kuroha said, momentarily speechless.
Fumino gave a light huff. "It's called striking first. I was afraid you were about to nitpick me again."
Isn't being able to find your own shortcomings a good thing?
Kuroha silently retorted in his heart, but still shook his head helplessly.
After all, she was his future wife, so he had to look after her pride a little.
Besides, Fumino was not wrong. If she was only responsible for training undebuted race uma musume like Bourbon and Rice Shower, then she truly had more than enough ability to handle it.
Tap, tap, tap!
With a fierce wind from their sprint, hoofbeats rang across the track as several uma musume shot past them like lightning.
Fumino smoothly glanced over the electronic timing data on her tablet.
"How's their condition?" Kuroha asked casually.
"Pretty good."
Fumino compared the current data with previous records as she replied, "At their current strength, I feel like they don't even need to wait a few more months. They could enter right now and still win their debut race."
"Mm..."
Kuroha neither agreed nor disagreed. After a brief pause, he said, "Fumino, focus on Bourbon this afternoon. Leave Rice Shower to me."
Fumino froze for a moment at those words, but still nodded obediently. "All right."
A short while later, when the two uma musume finished a set of training and were preparing to rest, Kuroha waved them over.
"Master, awaiting instructions!"
Although she was still panting slightly, Bourbon stood straight with her chest out, her attitude meticulous.
Kuroha casually stroked this cyber little horse's wonderfully soft ears, then smiled gently. "Train hard, Bourbon. I'll be waiting to see you win your debut race."
It was only a simple word of encouragement, yet Bourbon's delicate body trembled. A faint, almost imperceptible hint of joy flickered through her normally unruffled eyes.
"Yes!"
Though her expression was still as blank as ever...
After that, Kuroha turned to Rice Shower.
"Rice Shower, since we have some time now, I want to see how much Luna has taught you about Demonic Talent techniques recently."
To avoid agitating the girl's sensitive heart, Kuroha did not directly point out her problem. Instead, he took Rice Shower's soft little hand and led her to an empty track.
"T-Trainer... Onii-san, where do you want to start?"
The soft and sweet girl, like a blue rose, nervously clutched the hem of her clothes, clearly at a loss.
Looking at the tense little uma musume before him, Kuroha gave her a reassuring smile, then crouched down until he was level with her.
"No rush. First, I want to teach you something new."
Rice Shower blinked her large eyes. Though she looked a little confused, she still nodded obediently. "Okay."
"Here. This is different from the running breathing technique I taught you before. Try changing your breathing rhythm like this, then close your eyes and don't think about anything."
Under Kuroha's gentle guidance, Rice Shower's emotions gradually settled.
She slowly closed her eyes and followed the rhythm Kuroha taught her, entering a strange, peaceful state.
This method was the special breathing technique Kuroha had used back then when guiding Fujimasa March and Inari One to awaken their Domains.
Originally, it was a personalized advanced technique Kuroha had determined through Body and Breath Perception. Its purpose was to help race uma musume lingering on the edge of Domain understand their true selves and fully step into the legendary level.
As for Rice Shower at her current stage...
She was still far from even seeing Domain, so at this level, the method was not particularly useful for that purpose yet.
But Kuroha's goal at this moment was never to make her open a Domain.
Instead, he wanted to use this to let her examine her own heart in silence.
Through this method, he hoped to let this somewhat lost girl sink into the lake of her own heart.
There, she might be able to uncover the true goal that perhaps had already been hidden deep inside her all along.
P.S. I did not follow the mobile game's setting that Rice Shower has an unfortunate constitution. That thing is too abstract, so just treat this as a secondary setting.
The image is of an extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely large Bourbon wearing Rice Shower's victory outfit.
(End of Chapter)
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