Darkness greeted her again, but it was not the darkness she remembered.
The vast obsidian plane that had once stretched beneath her feet—alive with subtle ripples of light that responded to every step she took—had vanished, replaced by something hollow and unresponsive. The ground still existed, smooth and cold like polished gemstone, yet it held no reflection, no depth, no quiet echo of life beneath its surface. Where it had once shimmered with a faint, living glow, it now simply absorbed everything, swallowing even the faintest trace of light without resistance, leaving behind only a suffocating emptiness.
Above her, the sky had changed just as completely. The solar eclipse that once hung suspended there like a frozen promise—its dim halo of sunlight encircling a perfect, darkened moon—was gone. There was no shadowed sun, no hidden radiance waiting behind it, no presence at all. The sky had become a dead, starless void, stretching endlessly in every direction without a single point of light to break it.
And within that emptiness, Lunar stood alone.
There was no soft silver glow brushing gently past her shoulder, no golden warmth dancing just ahead of her steps, no familiar presence to guide her forward. Her mother's hand was no longer there to pull her along with quiet laughter, and the distant figure that had once moved ahead of her—bright and reassuring—had vanished without a trace. Everything that had once filled this place with meaning had been stripped away, leaving behind nothing but silence.
It was not a peaceful silence.
It was heavy, absolute, pressing in on her from all sides as though it sought to swallow her whole.
Lunar swayed where she stood, her small body unsteady beneath the weight of it, her breath uneven as the emptiness wrapped around her like a cold, suffocating cloak. Her legs trembled beneath her, fragile and exhausted, as though they no longer remembered how to carry her without the quiet guidance of the world she had known. There was nothing to follow, nothing to hold onto, nothing to lead her forward.
And without that, she could not stand.
Her knees gave way with a soft, helpless motion, and she sank down onto the unyielding surface, the cold of it biting through her immediately. Her hands pressed flat against the ground, fingers splayed as she searched desperately for something—anything—that might still be there, some faint pulse of warmth, some lingering trace of light, some fragment of familiarity that had not yet been taken from her.
But the obsidian plane remained lifeless beneath her touch.
"I can't…" Her voice cracked as it broke through the silence, fragile and sharp like glass splintering under pressure. "…I can't hear it…"
Her fingers curled against the smooth surface, nails scraping faintly as she tried to dig into it, as though force alone might make it respond, might awaken the quiet glow that used to answer her so easily. But nothing changed. The darkness did not ripple. It did not react. It remained still, mute, and utterly indifferent.
"I can't feel anything… I can't…"
Her breath hitched abruptly, her shoulders trembling as the words faltered and broke apart, and she leaned forward until her forehead nearly touched the cold ground beneath her. The position felt small, fragile, as though she were trying to fold into herself, to disappear into the emptiness before it could fully consume her.
Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, but they did not fall. They lingered there, suspended and unmoving, as though even they were uncertain in this place, afraid to break the stillness that surrounded her.
A thin, shaking breath slipped from her lips. "Momma…" The word trembled as it formed, soft and fragile, barely holding together as it left her.
"I'm so scared… please…" Her voice faded into the void, swallowed whole before it could travel any distance at all, leaving behind nothing but silence in its wake.
Not even her own voice came back to her.
Lunar's small frame folded in on itself even further, her arms tightening painfully around her body as though she could hold herself together through sheer force alone, as though if she just held on tightly enough, the pieces of her wouldn't slip apart into the endless emptiness surrounding her. Her fingers dug into the fabric at her sides, knuckles paling as the pressure built, her breath unsteady and uneven as it struggled to find rhythm in a place that offered nothing back.
"Someone…" Her voice wavered as it left her, fragile and splintering at the edges as though it might shatter completely before it could fully form. "…please…"
The plea dissolved into the darkness without resistance, swallowed whole by the vast, unresponsive void that stretched endlessly around her. There were no footsteps approaching in answer, no soft cadence she could recognize and instinctively follow, no familiar rhythm to anchor herself to. There was no warmth reaching for her either, no lingering heat of a guiding hand, no quiet, steady presence to remind her she was not alone.
Above her, the sky remained empty.
There was no eclipse-light watching over her, no dim halo to soften the darkness or offer direction, no silent promise that something still remained beyond the void. There was only the suffocating stillness of a world that felt as though it had forgotten her entirely, leaving her behind without even an echo.
And then—
A sound broke through it.
It cut sharply across the silence, sudden and jarring in a way that made the emptiness seem to recoil, and though it was not the rhythm she had been waiting for, not the sound of footsteps running toward her, and not her mother's voice calling her name, it was something unmistakably real.
"Lunar…?" The voice echoed through the void, clear and insistent, carrying a weight that the emptiness could not fully consume. "Lunar, wake up!"
The obsidian plane beneath her trembled violently at the sound, a deep shudder rippling outward from where her hands pressed against the surface. Fine cracks splintered through the darkness, spreading rapidly in jagged lines as though the world itself were fracturing under the strain, and from those fractures, light began to seep through—pale, blinding, and overwhelming in its sudden presence.
The darkness did not resist as it broke.
The void split apart like brittle glass under pressure, the cracks widening as light tore through it piece by piece, until the endless emptiness collapsed inward, giving way as reality surged forward to reclaim her.
Lunar gasped as she woke.
Her eyes flew open, her breath catching sharply in her chest as the cold stillness of the void was replaced by something tangible, something alive. A small pair of hands gripped her shoulders firmly, shaking her with all the strength their smaller frame could muster, grounding her in a way the dream never could.
Leaning over her was a young girl, strands of light pink hair slipping loose and falling into Lunar's field of vision, catching the soft morning light that filtered into the room. The faint glow highlighted the delicate streaks of pink, framing wide, striking silver eyes that were filled not with the heavy grief Lunar had come to recognize, but with a bright, earnest urgency born from simple concern.
"Lunar!" the girl called again, her voice lifting with relief the moment she saw Lunar stir. "Finally! You were super hard to wake up!"
She puffed her cheeks slightly, her expression a mix of frustration and lingering worry, her breath coming a little uneven from the effort she had put into waking her.
"I've been calling you forever!" she continued, her tone quickly shifting into something more animated. "Mama said breakfast is ready, and we shouldn't be late or the pancakes will get cold!"
Lunar blinked slowly, the remnants of the dream still clinging to her thoughts like soot, stubborn and heavy, refusing to fully fade. For a brief moment, the silence of the obsidian void echoed faintly in her ears, a lingering shadow that had not yet released its hold on her.
"…Saichan…?" she murmured, her voice quiet, as though testing whether the world before her was truly real.
Saiya nodded immediately at the nickname, her hair bouncing lightly with the motion, her earlier worry already giving way to her usual energy.
"Come on! Hurry up or I'm eating your share!" she declared with a playful spark, though there was still a trace of urgency beneath it.
Lunar remained still for another moment, her gaze lingering on the girl in front of her as she took in the details—the slightly messy hair, the bright expression, the small hands still resting against her shoulders as if making sure she wouldn't disappear again.
It was grounding. After everything, after the emptiness and the silence, it was something real enough to hold onto.
"Go ahead," Lunar said at last, her voice beginning to steady as she found her bearings. "I'll get ready."
"Okay!" Saiya chirped brightly, already pulling away and scrambling off the bed with the chaotic, uncontained energy that only a child could carry so effortlessly. She turned back briefly at the doorway, waving with an eager grin.
"But don't take too long! I want us to sit together!"
And then she was gone, skipping down the hallway, her footsteps fading into an uneven but cheerful rhythm that lingered faintly even after she disappeared from sight.
Lunar exhaled slowly, the breath leaving her in a quiet release.
The room fell still almost immediately after Saiya's departure, but the quiet that settled in her wake was different from the one in the void. It was not suffocating, not empty in the same way, yet it wasn't entirely comforting either. It simply existed, unfamiliar and uncertain, hovering somewhere between something that could be peaceful and something that still felt just slightly out of place.
Different.
And different, she was beginning to understand, had become her new normal.
She shifted, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed until her feet brushed against the cool surface of the tiled floor, the sensation grounding her further in the present. Even now, the house around her still felt unfamiliar in ways she couldn't quite articulate—the layout too wide, too open compared to what she had known, the faint scent of salt drifting in from the nearby sea instead of the earthy calm of the countryside, and the way sunlight poured through large windows instead of filtering gently through the smaller ones she had grown up with.
This was not her mother's cottage. It was not the quiet, familiar place she had once called home. This was Black Caviar's mansion. And now, it was where she lived.
One week, Lunar thought, her fingers curling lightly into the mattress. It had only been one week.
One week since Black Caviar had knelt beside her at the grave, blue-streaked hair stirring gently in the wind as she held her together when she could not hold herself. One week since careful, steady hands had guided her away from the freshly turned soil she had not been able to leave behind, her feet moving only because someone else had led them. One week since familiar neighbors had spoken soft words of comfort that never quite reached her, their faces blending together into something distant and indistinct, as though they belonged to a world she could no longer fully see.
One week since her mother was gone.
The thought did not land all at once. It lingered, heavy and incomplete, trailing off into a quiet space her mind refused to fully step into, like finishing it would make it too real to bear.
Black Caviar had not adopted her, and Lunar had come to understand that early on—She had overheard it one evening, her presence unnoticed, lingering just beyond the edge of the living room where a conversation had taken place.
"She's Guair's daughter," Black Caviar had said, her voice low, weighed down by grief and something deeper.. "I'm not replacing her mother. Not that I ever could. But I'll care for her. I'll protect her! But she will always be Guair's child, Tycoon."
The words had settled somewhere within Lunar, but they had not taken a clear shape.
Some days, they felt like something to hold onto, a fragile reassurance that her mother had not been erased or replaced, that the space Guair Light had filled in her world still belonged to her and no one else. On those days, the thought brought a quiet, aching kind of comfort, something small but steady enough to keep her from drifting too far.
Other days, it only made the absence hurt even more. It turned the emptiness into something more defined, something that echoed more clearly inside her chest, reminding her of the space that remained unfilled, untouched, and impossibly vast.
Lunar pushed herself upright and moved slowly toward the small dresser Black Caviar had cleared out for her, her movements still slightly uncoordinated, as though her body had not yet fully adjusted to this new rhythm of living. Her hands hesitated as she opened the drawer, fingers brushing lightly over the neatly folded clothes inside before she pulled out a familiar shirt—an Oguri Cap shirt her mother had given her for her sixth birthday.
The fabric felt the same, but everything else didn't.
As she held it in her hands, her thoughts began to drift again, slipping quietly away from the present and back toward something she could not quite let go of.
Back to the last moments in her home.
The memory unfolded slowly, not as a sequence of events, but as a collection of sensations and images that lingered more vividly than anything else. The soft glow of lantern light warming the walls, casting gentle shadows that made the space feel alive even in stillness. The uneven rows of drawings they had taped up together, some crooked, some faded with time, each one holding a small piece of laughter, of effort, of shared moments that had once felt endless. The familiar scent of old books and dried herbs, mixed with the soft, sun-warmed smell of blankets that carried traces of countless quiet afternoons spent side by side.
It had been her sanctuary.
Her entire world, folded into a small, quiet house that had never felt lacking, never felt incomplete.
She remembered Black Caviar standing at the doorway, not stepping in, not rushing her, not interrupting the silence that filled the space. She had simply waited, her presence steady but unobtrusive, offering Lunar something she hadn't realized she needed—time. As much time as it took.
Because this was not just leaving a place.
It was saying goodbye to home.
Lunar had moved through the house slowly, her steps small and quiet, echoing faintly against the floor in a way that made the emptiness feel even more pronounced. Each room held something, some fragment of a life that had once felt whole.
In the kitchen, she had paused by the worn wooden countertop, resting her hand against its familiar surface where her mother used to knead dough, the memory of flour dust lingering in the air as soft humming filled the space. She could almost hear it still, faint and distant, as though the walls themselves remembered.
In the living room, her fingers had traced along the back of the old sofa, the fabric slightly rough beneath her touch, and she had stood there for a moment, remembering the countless nights spent listening to stories—softly spoken legends that had turned the world into something magical, something safe.
She had lingered the longest in her mother's room.
There, everything felt quieter, heavier, as though even the air understood what had been lost. Lunar had reached out to touch the pillow, tracing the shallow indentation left behind, the faint shape of a presence that would never return. The sheets were cool beneath her fingers, undisturbed in a way that made her chest tighten, the stillness pressing in around her.
In her own room, she had sat on the edge of the bed, clutching the frayed stuffed bunny her mother had sewn for her, holding it close as though it could anchor her to something that was already slipping away. She had breathed slowly, deliberately, trying to memorize everything—the warmth, the scent, the quiet sense of protection that had once surrounded her so naturally—afraid that if she let even a single detail fade, she might lose it forever.
Eventually, she had stood.
There had been nothing left to hold onto.
Outside, Black Caviar had been waiting beside the car, her posture relaxed but attentive, her gaze steady as she watched Lunar approach. She had not spoken immediately, had not broken the silence until Lunar was close enough, until the moment felt right.
Then, gently, she extended her hand. "Whenever you're ready," she had said, her voice soft, carrying no pressure, no expectation—only quiet understanding.
Lunar had looked at the offered hand, her gaze lingering there for a brief moment before she turned her eyes away. It wasn't rejection, not truly. She simply wasn't ready to take it, wasn't ready to accept something new when she had only just lost everything that mattered.
Black Caviar seemed to understand without needing it explained.
She lowered her hand without comment, the gesture calm and unhurried, and instead stepped forward to open the passenger door, creating a different kind of invitation, one that did not ask for more than Lunar could give.
"Let's go," she said softly.
Lunar climbed inside, the seat cool beneath her legs. The door closed with a muted thud, final in a way that made her chest tighten. As the car pulled away, the village slipped past the window, familiar shapes blurring into the distance, carrying her toward a future she had no idea about.
One that stretched across the ocean, to Australia, as Black Caviar had told her. A place she had never seen, or even thought about. All leading into a life that didn't feel like hers.
The memory began to thin and fade as Lunar pulled her shirt over her head, the fabric brushing softly against her face before settling into place, and with a slow blink, she pushed the images aside. They did not disappear completely—nothing ever truly did anymore—but they retreated just enough for her to move forward. Reaching for a hair tie, she gathered her grey hair in both hands and tried to pull it back into a short ponytail, mimicking the gentle, practiced motions her mother used to do so effortlessly.
Her fingers fumbled.
The strands slipped free no matter how many times she tried to gather them, falling loose again and again as though they refused to be shaped the way they once had been. Each attempt grew clumsier, slower, until the motion itself began to feel pointless, like trying to recreate something that no longer existed in quite the same way.
After a moment, she stopped.
The effort fell away quietly, and she let her hair drop as it wished, uneven and loose, framing her face in a shape that looked weird and unfamiliar, something close to a messy wolfcut that hadn't been styled so much as it had simply happened. She stared at her reflection for a brief second longer, her expression unreadable, but there was a quiet recognition there—a subtle, persistent reminder that things had changed, and that even small, ordinary habits no longer came as naturally as they once had.
Turning away, she stepped into the hallway.
It stretched out before her, wide and bright, with soft recessed lighting casting a glow across sleek floors polished enough to reflect her silhouette in faint, distorted lines. Even after a week, the space still felt unreal.
It was nothing like the cottage she had grown up in.
Back there, mornings had begun gently, with sunlight filtering through thin curtains her mother had sewn by hand, the light soft and uneven as it slipped through the fabric. Here, light poured in without resistance through towering glass panels, framed by clean white walls and cool silver fixtures that reflected it sharply, almost too perfectly.
At home, the floors had creaked beneath her feet whenever she ran through the halls, each step carrying a familiar sound that made the space feel alive. Here, the floors were silent—too silent—smooth and cool beneath her bare feet, offering no response, no acknowledgment of her presence.
As she walked, her fingers brushed lightly against one of the wall panels, and at her touch, the surface shifted, displaying a soft, rolling landscape that moved as though alive. The image responded fluidly, adjusting to her presence in a way that still felt strange, almost unnatural. She was not used to things like this—walls that changed at a touch, lights that dimmed without being switched, windows that darkened on their own when the sun grew too harsh.
I'm still not used to it, she thought quietly, the realization settling in with a kind of distant acceptance.
A subtle hum followed her as she moved through the hallway, the quiet, constant sound of temperature systems working somewhere behind the walls, regulating the air in a way she had never experienced in the countryside. Even the scent of the house was different—clean and crisp, carefully filtered, carrying faint traces of lavender that didn't belong to any season she could recognize.
As she turned a corner, something caught her attention, and her steps slowed without her realizing it.
A long glass display stretched across the wall, filled from end to end with trophies arranged in precise, deliberate order. There were dozens of them, each one polished to a shine, their metallic surfaces catching the morning light and scattering it across the floor in flickers of gold and silver. Lunar's gaze drifted across them, moving from one plaque to the next, drawn in by the repetition she began to notice.
The same name appeared again and again.
She had come to learn of it by fragments, in passing moments that had gradually begun to piece themselves together. At first, it had come from travelers in her village, their voices hushed with recognition when they realized who had taken her away. Later, it came from airport staff who paused just a second too long, their eyes lingering with quiet astonishment. And then from the reporters gathered beyond the gates when they arrived in Australia, their questions rapid and eager, their attention focused entirely on the woman beside her.
Even here, in the mansion itself, she had heard it again, spoken with excitement by the maids and workers who moved through the mansion, their voices filled with admiration and respect for their madam.
Black Caviar was not simply well known, she was something far beyond that.
The greatest sprinter Australia had ever produced, and one of the greatest uma musume the world had ever seen—an undefeated mare whose races were still replayed on public screens, whose victories were studied and analyzed by the younger generations in hopes to replicate even a hint of that legend.
Lunar found herself stopping in front of a large framed photograph.
Black Caviar was captured mid-stride, her body a perfect display of coiled power and motion,as even in stillness she carried an unstoppable momentum. She wore her racing outfit—a sleek black and salmon pink leather jacket paired with fitted pants, designed to cut cleanly through the wind while clinging to her toned frame. The contrast against her tanned skin made the colors stand out even more vividly, and her long hair, black with electric blue hidden beneath, snapped through the air like a streak of lightning.
Behind her, the other runners blurred into the background, indistinct and distant, as they could not keep up even in a captured moment.
It was a striking image. One she had asked about before, her quiet curiosity directed toward the very person standing at its center.
This photograph had been taken during Black Caviar's final race.
Her twenty-fifth start.
Her twenty-fifth victory.
Undefeated.
The weight of that settled slowly into Lunar's chest, not as something overwhelming, but as something difficult to fully grasp, something that carried a significance she could feel without entirely understanding.
Her mother had spoken often about notable uma musumes over the years. She had told her about the eternal Eclipse, about the legendary Secretariat, about beloved national icons like Oguri Cap, and even about more recent figures such as American Pharaoh and Helissio. Those names had come alive through her mother's voice, shaped into something more than history, something personal and meaningful.
But never, not once, had she mentioned Black Caviar.
And yet… they had been friends.
Lunar frowned slightly, her thumb pressing gently against the glass of the display, the cold surface grazing her skin as the thought lingered.
How could her mother speak of so many great names and leave this one out?
How could she never mention her friend, of all people?
The question settled into her mind without an answer, quiet but persistent. Maybe her mother had meant to.
Maybe she just… never had the chance.
A faint clatter broke through her thoughts, the sound of plates and cutlery shifting somewhere in the distance, followed by the soft movement of people in the kitchen.
Lunar blinked, her hand pulling away from the glass as she straightened slightly, smoothing the hem of her shirt in a small, absent motion.
Then, without lingering any longer, she turned and began to make her way toward the dining area.