As Kitasan Black and Duramente shook hands, the Uma Musume who had crossed the finish line one after another behind them turned to look without even thinking about it.
Satono Crown clutched her waist tightly, still gazing from a distance and breathing hard. Her hands, hanging low at her sides, clenched on their own. Her fingernails dug deep into her palms.
Her temples still throbbed as if a sledgehammer had struck them, leaving her mind numb.
She forced every last bit of focus she had into one single question.
What exactly had happened at the very front of the final straight…?
"…Satono Crown? Satono Crown…"
"Hmm… Ah?"
She snapped back to reality and turned toward the voice beside her. It was Satono Rasen, a fellow member of the Satono clan. Satono Crown tried to smile, but the muscles in her face would not move.
"Wh-what's wrong, Satono Rasen…?"
Satono Rasen stared at her for a moment, then looked toward the two figures ahead, then at the scoreboard facing the stands. Her lips twitched.
"Did she lose to her again…?"
Satono Crown froze. She followed Satono Rasen's gaze. Her fingernails dug even deeper into her flesh. She tried once more to force a smile, but still could not.
On the scoreboard, after the top two names, was "Satono Rasen."
And after that, "Satono Crown."
"…Congratulations, Satono Rasen. But it's truly…"
She turned her head slightly and breathed hard for a while. Like Satono Rasen, she forced her lips to twitch upward.
"What a pity. If you could have been just a little faster, that long-cherished wish of a G1 champion…"
"It's not a long-cherished wish."
Satono Rasen cut her off. She pressed her lips tightly together, pulled her gaze back, and looked past Satono Crown toward Kitasan Black ahead.
"I… just want to win against her.
"But looking at it now, there's… another one I need to win against."
Satono Crown understood at once who she meant. She fell silent.
From childhood, she had always been told the family's goal of producing a G1 Uma Musume. She had never been unaware of that so-called long-cherished wish.
With her daily training and her streak of wins before the Classic Triple Crown, although she had never told anyone, deep down she had begun to feel that she was about to achieve it.
A few months ago, after she had comforted Satono Diamond together with T.M. Opera O and Satono Rasen, that feeling had only grown stronger.
Then, after the Satsuki Sho—perhaps right after she crossed the finish line, perhaps that night, or perhaps during the more than a month of hard work leading up to the Japanese Derby—
At some point, without realizing it, a new thought had taken root.
She wanted to win against Kitasan Black.
The start out of the gate. The fight for position. The turn onto the uphill. The uphill straight. The final sprint…
She asked herself whether, over these past two months… no, over everything she had built since her debut, she had shown it all perfectly.
The strategy of treating Kitasan Black as her greatest rival had been carried out exactly as planned. After the final turn, she had broken through the pack and clearly seen that familiar back.
The family's training team had made it very clear: Kitasan Black's greatest strength was her stamina. That powerful endurance let her handle more bursts of speed, tighter turns, and steeper uphills.
But everything has a price. Her outstanding stamina and endurance came with a relative "slowness" in pure speed.
That "slowness" only existed when comparing the very top Uma Musume.
And it was true. Whether from training data or past race footage, no matter how it looked to observers or how it felt in the moment, Kitasan Black's absolute speed was never an overwhelming advantage.
That part was precisely Satono Crown's own strength.
As long as she was not left more than five lengths behind the way she had been in the Satsuki Sho, she would never repeat that failure.
So what in the world was going on…?
Even if her speed was exactly as the Trainers said, that bottomless-pit stamina of hers…
What in the world is going on…?
How could an Uma Musume who failed to keep the lead, then had to fight her way back into position, still have that kind of stamina left…?
How could she still have the stamina to shake off pursuers and then hold off a second challenge after several bursts of speed…?
How could she possibly still have that kind of stamina on the uphill of the Japanese Derby's final straight…?
Kita-chan…
Do you not know how to write the word "tired"…?!