Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live
Even as she was quite literally packed up and rushed to the hospital, Eternal Meteor still wanted to tell them to let go of her—let her go back to the stage that belonged to her alone.
But she didn't need to think very hard to know who had given the order.
Someone who knew opening a Domain would cause serious injury… and who had the authority to mobilize an ambulance at will—there was only one person it could be.
The Emperor.
Still… wasn't she afraid that me getting carried off in an ambulance would spark panic?
The venue had to be chaos by now, right?
Was she already on the news?
Lying on the stretcher, Eternal Meteor's thoughts spiraled uncontrollably—mostly because, for the first time, she wasn't sure how to face Rudolf.
Earlier she'd figured she could just say, I wanted to win, and that would be that.
But now that the moment of actually speaking was approaching, she found herself tangled up in hesitation.
She couldn't exactly look Rudolf in the eye and say, I only respect victory, or victory is everything. That was basically begging for a ban.
The more she thought, the worse her headache became.
In the end, she gave up thinking altogether.
Whatever. Her next target was the Yayoi Sho—there was a looong stretch of time before that. She'd have plenty of room to "work" Rudolf over.
No way I can't take down a mere… 'Rudo-tofu.'
Sure enough, the moment she decided to stop trying, her whole body felt lighter.
If her legs hadn't been immobilized, she might've even crossed one knee over the other right there on the stretcher.
She cooperated all the way through the hospital checks, to the point that the Uma Musume nurses—who'd been bracing themselves to restrain her—were genuinely surprised.
On the train, Rudolf looked at the test results on her phone and finally exhaled.
Severe muscle strain in the legs… but no fracture.
That alone was a blessing.
As for what happened if the attending physician noticed the "age" issue—
As long as it didn't spread widely, the Symboli family had more than enough influence to keep his mouth shut.
"The results are in. Nothing major," Rudolf said, relaying the report to the fidgeting Maruzensky beside her. "But the leg strain is pretty serious. The doctor recommends at least two months without any intense activity."
"Thank goodness… thank goodness," Maruzensky breathed, her fingers finally stopping their relentless tapping on the armrest. She patted her chest, trying to calm a heart that felt ready to leap out of her throat. "After this, I'm going to rub Little Meteor's ears properly. She scared me half to death."
They were both quiet now—but truthfully, each of them wanted to pick the train up and run to the hospital themselves.
A report was just a report.
They needed to see her with their own eyes before they could really relax.
Meanwhile, Eternal Meteor had finally finished all the tests and was propped up in bed, staring at her legs with unmistakable intensity.
On the track, she'd felt almost nothing.
But after being hauled around, tested, moved again, and finally left alone on a bed… the dull pain began to seep in.
Especially around her ankles. Even a tiny movement felt stiff—difficult.
She'd already tried her hardest to control the Domain's "consumption." She'd even deliberately conserved stamina before triggering it.
And yet—
What she imagined wasn't how badly she'd been hurt.
What she imagined was something else entirely.
If I opened the Domain at full power… how much acceleration would I really get?
Just picturing it—herself carving a blazing tailstream through the eyes of every Uma Musume on the track—was enough to make excitement fizz up inside her.
She licked her dry lips, then reached for the disposable paper cup full of water on the bedside table, silently praising how thoughtful the nurse had been.
"Huh…?"
The cup slipped straight out of her hand.
Water splashed across the blanket.
Eternal Meteor didn't even look at the spill. She just stared at her palm.
Small. Pale as jade.
So why did her fingers feel… sluggish?
She clenched her fist. Opened it. Wiggled her fingers again and again.
There was a faint delay—like playing Apex without an accelerator, lag so bad it felt like five red heirlooms had just been slammed into her skull at once.
"What… is going on with me?"
"Do you really need me to tell you?" X asked, after a long silence. "Eternal Meteor."
"…Because of the Domain," she answered.
She didn't wait for X to confirm or deny. She continued, voice calm—almost too calm.
"Why does opening the Domain boost me so ridiculously much?"
"What were those lights that flew out of my body?"
"And if you follow those two questions to the final one—why is it that the more those lights disappear, the faster I become?"
Her questions weren't really for X at all.
Because she already knew.
And the more she thought about it, the more she found herself laughing—low and quiet, like she'd heard the world's funniest joke.
"If I just connect it to what you said before, the answer is obvious."
"My body is bound by my soul."
"So if I remove as much of the soul as possible… doesn't that mean I can loosen the restraints on my body's power to an extreme degree?"
The answer was right there.
"My Domain is nothing more than me stepping onto the road of self-destruction."
A cold joke.
One that wasn't funny at all.
"No wonder my Domain doesn't have any effect that slows other Uma Musume down."
She stared at her hand as it opened and closed, her gaze growing brighter and brighter.
Her laugh deepened.
"That's a brutally simple way to get stronger."
"And it's the simplest way to walk straight into ruin."
Hearing her murmur, X's voice dropped even lower.
"You're on a track where the finish line is death."
"At first, you were walking."
"Then you ran in your debut race."
"And now you've decided running isn't fast enough, so you've driven a sports car onto the track…"
"…and bolted a rocket launcher onto it."
"But that means I get to bolt a rocket launcher onto my running, doesn't it?"
Eternal Meteor chuckled like she was joking about someone else's life.
To her, it was better than an ordinary, slow crawl toward the end.
If she had to go, she'd rather slam the accelerator down, rocket boosters blazing, and crash into the finish line in a way nobody could ever ignore.
If she was going to die—
she'd die spectacularly.
So absorbed was she in the images filling her head that she didn't notice the two urgent sets of footsteps pounding down the hallway.
When Rudolf and Maruzensky finally shoved the door open, Rudolf's prepared words vanished from her mind the instant she saw the scene.
The blanket was soaked from spilled water.
And Eternal Meteor—utterly indifferent to it—was hunched over, staring at her own hand, flexing her fingers again and again, laughing in broken little bursts.
Like the protagonist in a horror film—right before they end it.
It made something deep inside Rudolf go cold.
Not just fear—
but a chill that crawled into the bones.
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 115)
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 (Chapter108)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter144)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 99
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 95
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 99
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 92
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 47
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 44
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 43
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