"Sakuraba-san, do you really understand what you're saying?"
Obey Your Master looked at Sakuraba Ryo with his hand extended toward her, then pressed her lips together before answering.
"Of course I understand what I'm saying."
Sakuraba Ryo met her skepticism with a smile.
"Do you really plan to just go back like this, Obey?"
"Heh... the way you put that..."
Obey Your Master let out a self-mocking sigh.
"If I don't go back to America, what else am I supposed to do? In the end, I'm just the loser of the Japan Cup. There's nothing to gain from staying in Japan, is there~"
"For an Umamusume who can't win, slipping away like this is exactly the kind of ending that suits someone like me, isn't it?"
"No, it doesn't suit you at all."
Sakuraba Ryo rejected that idea with a smile.
"Losing a race doesn't make you a loser."
"But!"
"If you go back now, if you stay as you are, then when you run into an opponent as strong as Oguri on the American circuit, the outcome probably still won't change."
His voice was calm, but every word came through clearly.
"It's easy to run from the defeat right in front of you. But if all you're doing is carrying the same predicament somewhere else, then that so-called 'exit' will never really mean anything."
He leaned forward slightly, looking at Obey Your Master with earnest eyes.
"So why not stay here and train properly? Japan has an excellent training environment, opponents who can force you to face your weaknesses, and enough time for you to settle, improve, and grow stronger. Once you really have become stronger, it won't be too late to go back to America."
"Not running away as a loser, but returning as a more complete Umamusume to prove yourself all over again."
"Wouldn't that be the better choice?"
A completely sound argument.
There was no question that what Sakuraba Ryo was saying made perfect sense...
Obey Your Master couldn't refute it.
It was true...
The frustration left behind by the Japan Cup sat inside her like an unhealed wound, aching faintly beneath the surface.
But had that wound only started with the Japan Cup?
Not really...
Even back in America, she hadn't won many races. The scar inside her heart had been built up by one failure after another.
The loss at the Japan Cup had only cut that wound open again...
And when faced with that pain, she had chosen to run from it.
That was all.
"Sakuraba-san..."
Obey Your Master's eyes, which usually held a trace of laziness and easygoing detachment, now seemed dimmed by a thin layer of ash.
She took two steps forward and stopped right in front of him, close enough to almost brush him.
Then she raised her hand. Not hard—just lightly, stubbornly, she pressed the back of her fist against his chest, like a frail but unyielding point of support.
"I want to win too..."
"Anyone can say things like that."
Her voice dropped, carrying a tremor so faint it was almost impossible to hear. It wasn't weakness, just a sliver of exhaustion leaking out after being repressed for far too long.
"'I want to get stronger'... you make it sound so easy."
"If wanting it were enough, I wouldn't even be standing here."
"For the Japan Cup, I really did... everything I could think of."
Her fist tightened slightly, wrinkling the fabric beneath her knuckles.
"Training, adjustments, studying my opponents... I thought that at least this time, I'd get closer than I did in America. But what happened? It still wasn't enough."
"Stay here, like you said. Train, improve, get stronger... it sounds like a nice story."
She lifted her head and looked straight into Sakuraba Ryo's eyes. Buried in those dimmed eyes was a kind of almost coolheaded pessimism.
"But, Sakuraba-san... on the racecourse, the one thing there'll never be any shortage of is unexpected monsters, isn't that right?"
"Oguri Cap, whoever might show up next... even if I get stronger, won't they get even stronger too? By the time I finally think I've made it, what if I run into someone else I just can't comprehend... then in the end, wouldn't it all turn out the same?"
"All I'd be doing is changing from 'the loser of the Japan Cup' into 'the loser of the next race.' At the core... what's the difference?"
Sakuraba Ryo listened quietly to every word of Obey Your Master's despairing, cyclical challenge without rushing to argue back.
His gaze fell gently to the fist she had pressed against his chest. That slight trembling had not escaped him.
After a moment of silence, he let out a soft sigh. It wasn't disappointment, but something closer to deeper understanding.
"I see."
When he spoke, his voice was lower and softer than before.
"What you're afraid of isn't the defeat in front of you. It's the endless cycle of losing again and again with no end in sight. You're afraid that all your effort will only amount to adding a little more tragic flair to the same result—to losing. Isn't that right?"
Obey Your Master said nothing. But a flicker passed through her dimmed eyes—she'd been read exactly right.
"But, Obey."
Sakuraba Ryo's tone suddenly turned firm. He raised a hand. Instead of moving away from the fist against his chest, he lightly placed his own hand over the back of hers.
"I reject that way of thinking."
"Pushing yourself to grow stronger, to challenge stronger opponents—even if you still fail to clear the highest wall in the end—that is not meaningless."
He looked straight into her eyes, trying to pass some certainty into them.
"At the very least, on the stage of the Japan Cup, the version of you who fought Oguri and those other top-tier runners with everything you had was already dazzling enough. Your running, your persistence, every last step you took... people were watching all of it."
"And even if you didn't win in the end, there will still be people who, from the way you ran, from the way you fought on until your very last breath, will take away something that belongs purely to racing itself—"
"Moved?"
Obey Your Master cut him off abruptly, the corner of her mouth lifting in self-mockery while her eyes held no trace of laughter.
"Come on, Sakuraba-san."
"Who would ever be moved by a... loser? What people want to see is victory. Miracles. The hero who crosses the finish line first."
"Who would care how anyone else finished? That's just—"
"I would."
Sakuraba Ryo's calm voice cut her off.
Obey Your Master froze.
Looking at her stunned expression, Sakuraba Ryo raised his other hand and lightly tapped the left side of his chest—where his heart was, and where her fist still rested.
"I was moved by you."
There wasn't a hint of hesitation in his words. They were clear and direct.
"I saw the way you accelerated without giving up in the face of adversity. I saw the way you kept squeezing out every bit of your potential even after you understood the gap between you and them. That unwillingness to yield, that determination to fight even when the hope of winning was fading—that's one of the things that makes competition so moving in the first place. It has nothing to do with who wins in the end."
"Maybe some people only remember the champion's name. But there will also be people who remember the Obey Your Master who burned on the track and shone there."
"To me, your running meant something."
What he said there was only half true.
Half of it was encouragement. The other half was Sakuraba Ryo's real thoughts.
He had plenty of choices when it came to the galactic superteam that would lose him money.
So why had he chosen Obey Your Master?
The reason was simple.
She was strong—strong enough to fight Oguri Cap and the others head-on.
If Sakuraba Ryo wanted someone who might be able to stop Oguri and the others from winning the Japan Cup next year, then as this year's third-place finisher, Obey Your Master was obviously one of the best candidates.
And because she hadn't won much in America, her actual fame wasn't that high either.
Which meant her price wouldn't be all that high, either.
So if Sakuraba Ryo offered her excellent terms right now, the odds of success would be extremely high.
And the last reason...
Honestly, it was that he felt Obey Your Master was exhausting herself, living behind a mask just to become stronger.
He thought living like that had to be tiring.
So he wanted to help this Umamusume from America while he was at it.
Helping her while also advancing his money-losing galactic superteam plan was killing two birds with one stone.
That was why, for Sakuraba Ryo, Obey Your Master's running did have meaning.
Mainly from the perspective of losing money, that is.
And that was why he was standing here now.
"My running... meant something...?"
Obey Your Master repeated the words softly, a trace of confusion and wavering in her voice.
She had no idea about all the twists and turns in Sakuraba Ryo's head—the calculations, the money-losing plans, the layered reasoning behind them.
What pierced her defenses at this moment was only the words themselves, and the sincerity wrapped inside them—the sincerity she could feel with unmistakable clarity.
It wasn't perfunctory, and it wasn't hollow comfort.
She could hear it in the calm certainty beneath his voice...
And his eyes held not the slightest trace of deceit.
That genuineness struck the frozen lake of her heart—locked away by failure and self-doubt—far more powerfully than any ornate speech of encouragement ever could.
So...
Someone really had seen her.
So even if she hadn't touched the highest glory, even if she had become a "loser," the way she had run with everything she had wasn't worthless after all.
It could still reach someone's eyes. Someone's heart. It could still stir up ripples called emotion.
A strange warmth quietly rose from the deepest place inside her, washing over the cold pessimism and exhaustion lodged there.
Her nose stung a little. Her eyes felt faintly hot too. But she held it in, refusing to let that weakness show.
Even so, those eyes that had gone dim now looked like embers with sparks tossed back into them, beginning once more to glimmer with a faint light.
Without meaning to, her gaze settled on Sakuraba Ryo's face.
She looked at the way his eyes reflected her so openly, and at the almost stubborn recognition and gentle encouragement in his expression.
A feeling she'd never known before quietly took root in her chest, winding together gratitude, a fluttering unease, and something deeper, heavier, more dependent, until it became an unfamiliar sensation that made her heartbeat quicken.
So this was what it felt like—to be looked at like this, to be affirmed like this...
The tension in the fist pressed against Sakuraba Ryo's chest loosened before she even noticed.
The knuckles that had only been lightly braced there seemed to want to curl in, and at the same time seemed to want to lean closer still, as if to confirm the source of that warmth.
"Sakuraba-san, you..."
She parted her lips. Her voice came out hoarser than before, but the weight of exhaustion was gone from it.
"You're a... really strange person."
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T/N: AHHHH HES ACTUALLY A KIND PERSON AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (1/25)
also no one is moved by losers huh?