For a moment, Kitasan Black felt as if her heart was about to stop.
Three times up the slope. Four times around the bend. Acceleration. Then the final sprint…
Months of daily effort. Everything she had built up was now on full display. She believed she hadn't held back even a little.
She knew that simply not holding back wasn't enough.
Every opponent who stepped onto the track hadn't held back either. She had seen it with her own eyes, both before and now.
Yet she never expected that the moment she finally pulled free of the chase, without even a second to catch her breath, she would be caught again.
No. It wasn't a chase anymore.
She had been overtaken.
Her peripheral vision tilted outward against her will, and she met a pair of eyes glowing with a deep crimson light.
Her heart clenched. Only then did she clearly see that they belonged to Duramente. Familiar, yet completely different.
The pupils were still that special purple-blue gradient she had always noticed, but the whites of the eyes around them were densely laced with fresh red blood vessels.
Those blue-violet pupils had contracted into needle-tip black holes, as if trying to swallow every bit of light in front of them… along with Kitasan's own retreating figure.
The blood vessels flickered like streaks of lightning, as if ready to cut through everything. The air itself seemed to carry a sharp, burnt scent, like something scorching.
Being caught in the edge of that gaze, an uncontrollable fear unlike anything she had felt before rose in her chest.
It wasn't only the eyes.
Right now, Duramente's entire body radiated a terrifying aura that was both familiar and completely alien, and deeply intimidating.
Her extremely short, powerful gasps carried the sharp scrape of metal against glass. Each one felt like a blade cutting into Kitasan's eardrums.
The veins bulging along her fair neck looked like green vines, pulsing with every stretch of her head as she drove forward.
Every swing of her arms made her shoulder blades rise and fall. Every step drove her body ahead. The combination of that rise-and-fall and the forward thrust formed a sharp scythe, carving through everything in front of her with overwhelming force.
Kitasan Black suddenly remembered the previous training race. That dream.
At this moment, the one running beside her no longer felt like Duramente. It felt like Deep Impact, the one who had once made her shrink back, and Tokai Teio, the one she admired and looked up to.
The illusion of looking up at a towering mountain and the deep glow of glory filled her vision. She saw again the wall that had once stood in front of her, and the figure she had always longed to reach.
In that instant, the weightless feeling of falling from a chair countless times hit her. Her heart, already racing at its limit, filled with a sudden sense of helplessness and began to slide toward a bottomless abyss.
But it lasted only a moment.
My legs… so heavy…
My legs… I can barely feel them…
My arms are going numb…
My lungs feel like they're about to explode…
But…
As if every drop of blood and strength had been drained from her, her body, which should have been failing, was suddenly filled with power again.
Her heart once more felt that extreme tension and release, contracting so hard it felt ready to leap out of her throat and pound against her eardrums.
Her leaden legs and arms moved as if each motion weighed a thousand pounds, yet they still drove forward, still swung.
Her lungs truly felt ready to burst. Her throat was so dry it felt like a blade scraping it raw. Yet the strong wind rushing into her face kept pouring that metallic, acrid taste down her throat.
Her vision had long since blurred, but the finish line, so close now, stood out with unnatural clarity.
Kitasan Black let out a low roar.
"My rhythm…
Isn't over yet!!!
Duramente!!"
The familiar yet strange eyes and figure beside her wavered.
For a brief moment, surprise, admiration, and a strange kind of gratitude seemed to flicker in those eyes.
Then her figure blurred, just like Kitasan's vision.
Not only blurred. Distorted.
Whether it was an illusion or not, the distorted form slowly, slowly drifted away and began to tilt.
But then, very quickly, accompanied by the sudden disappearance of the finish line, it appeared right in front of her.
Then it tilted further and sat down hard on the ground.
Huh…?
Kitasan froze. Confusion and a rising wave of anxiety and concern flooded her. Then she heard the commentator's voice crack with emotion.
"The one-on-one duel in the final hundred meters is destined to make this Japanese Derby one for the history books! And the one who ultimately claimed victory in this desperate struggle is…
Duramente!
Two minutes twenty-three seconds!
A record-breaking Derby win!
And at the same time! Two minutes twenty-three point one seconds! Kitasan Black's time also shatters the previous record!
A new era!
A new era of two powerhouses clashing… has arrived!!"
…
…
…
She opened her mouth several times, but no sound came out.
She tried to look at the scoreboard, but her neck felt rusted and refused to turn.
Her eyes stung, as if sand had gotten into them during the final sprint.
The bridge of her nose felt sore and swollen, the same way it had after she collapsed past the finish line in her debut race.
After a long while, she slowly drew in a deep breath and held it in her chest.
After another long moment, her entire body went soft from head to toe, and her heavily heaving chest finally began to settle.
"I lost… ah…"
She murmured the words. Her ears and shoulders, which had drooped at some point, straightened. The confusion in her heart was gone, replaced by fresh anxiety.
Looking at the figure still sitting on the ground ahead of her, Kitasan Black ran forward.
"Dura-chan! How… how do you feel? Does anything hurt…?"
Duramente seemed dazed and showed no reaction to the calls. Her gaze drifted aimlessly, like mist.
It wasn't until Kitasan Black crouched beside her, repeatedly rubbing her thighs and arms, checking her forehead, and lightly patting her cheek that Duramente's eyes finally focused on what was in front of her.
"…Ah. I…"
She spoke softly, pressing down on her knees and trying to lift her lower legs so she could stand.
Her backside had barely left the ground when she sat right back down again.
Only then did she realize that her palms, her knees, her lower legs… every muscle in her body was trembling uncontrollably.
Noticing the trembling as well, Kitasan Black grew flustered.
"Wait, wait a second! Dura-chan, don't move yet. I… you… it would be better to have a doctor check you!"
She shot upright and was about to run toward the medical team stationed outside the track when a hand suddenly gripped hers.
She looked over in surprise and met Duramente's eyes, along with her trembling lips.
"Next match… continue…"
For a moment Kitasan was stunned. Then she instinctively understood what Duramente meant.
Once again, as if only just fully realizing her own defeat, she opened her mouth but couldn't make a sound.
Soon after, a strange thrill mixed with joy spread through her entire body.
She pulled back the foot that had been stepping toward the outside of the track, gripped Duramente's hand in return, and applied a light pressure.
Watching her friend, the one who had just defeated her, slowly push herself up, she nodded firmly.
"Okay.
Kikuka Sho. Arima Kinen. Tenno Sho. Takarazuka Kinen…
G1, G2, G3… any race is fine.
The next match. The one after that. And the one after that…
I… won't give up that easily.
And don't you think you can win one race and then run away…
Duramente."
Duramente stared straight into Kitasan Black's extremely serious eyes. After a long moment, she suddenly smiled.
"I won't run away. No matter which race it is, I won't run away…
The competition has only just begun. It's not over yet…
Kitasan Black."