King Halo stared through the gate at the turf ahead, feeling the damp ground beneath her feet. She lowered her body slightly.
Breaking from the gate had never been one of her weaknesses, and the stalking style she was now trying to adapt to did not place particularly high demands on her start.
Her eyes shifted toward the neighboring stall.
The reason was simple: the runner beside her was the one opponent in this mock race she absolutely had to watch.
Seiun Sky.
Bang!
The gates flew open, and King Halo shot out at once. The white-haired horse girl beside her immediately surged forward, just as expected, intent on seizing the lead and controlling the tempo and shape of the race.
King Halo had no intention of getting in her way. She simply kept a close eye on Seiun Sky's movements while constantly judging whether her own position was right.
With so few runners in the field, there were many places King Halo could choose from. She was not worried about getting boxed in at the end.
She would not make the same mistake twice.
Her strides lengthened a little as the runner in front clearly tried to raise the pace early. That only made King Halo more wary. Truthfully, she was not particularly strong at reading the flow of a race, especially the finer points of pace and rhythm.
Seiun Sky, who made those things into weapons, unquestionably understood them better than she did. So King Halo had to stay on guard.
At the same time, she also understood something else.
She might not be able to read Seiun Sky's overall design for the race, but she did understand her own condition.
As long as she kept judging whether the gap between herself and Seiun Sky remained within a distance she could handle, that would be enough.
If Terumi Shinji could have heard her thoughts, he probably would have been pleased. For King Halo, this was unquestionably the best tactical approach she could take at present. It kept Seiun Sky from dragging her around by the nose, while allowing her to run the kind of race that suited her best.
The race unfolded steadily. The eight runners sped toward the first and second turns.
Shinji stood with his arms folded, plainly hearing the trainers around him discussing King Halo. In terms of ability, there was not some overwhelming gulf between her and Seiun Sky. They were horse girls of roughly the same class.
But Seiun Sky was a two-crown winner from last year's Classic campaign. In prestige, she stood far above King Halo. Until King Halo passed the test of the senior division, nobody would rate her above Seiun Sky.
That was why every voice around them was full of doubt about King Halo.
Shinji ignored them.
The deliberate volume of those voices told him exactly what they wanted. They wanted him to hear.
So what?
He watched King Halo drift slightly outward in the running order, and his brow eased. A trace of anticipation appeared in his expression.
Soon the field entered the first and second turns. Seiun Sky, still in front, had already opened up four lengths over second place and clearly intended to turn the race into a frontrunner's exhibition, while King Halo still sat second-to-last or third-from-last. Her gaze remained fixed on Seiun Sky's back, constantly measuring the distance between them.
She had no way of knowing the thousand-meter split. With no commentator announcing it, it was impossible. It was the same old problem: she was not good at reading race pace. That only made Shinji even less able to understand her reckless front-running in the Derby.
Along the rail, the horse girls behind her began to show signs of inching forward. Even so, King Halo did not panic. This time, she chose to wait a little longer, even though the gap between herself and Seiun Sky had already grown quite large.
She trusted her finishing kick.
Just as importantly, she had kept herself on the second or third lane the whole time, always leaving room to maneuver.
Ahead, the other runners still had not moved. Tactically, they all understood the same thing: no horse girl could burn hard in the first half and still unleash a perfect finish. So they were not rushing yet. They were waiting for the leader to tire.
But King Halo was different.
She felt a faint but undeniable sense of danger.
It was instinct, telling her that Seiun Sky would endure to the end, and that if she waited too long, she would not be able to catch her.
King Halo could not explain that feeling.
But she trusted Shinji.
And because of that, she trusted her own instincts.
The other runners were puzzled as King Halo steadily moved up. Though supposedly a stalker, she had already advanced into third or fourth and showed no sign of slowing down.
The others began to stir as well. Had this been some other highly regarded up-and-comer, like El Condor Pasa or Grass Wonder, they might have accelerated too.
But because it was King Halo—a horse girl infamous for over-eagerness—they held back.
From the stands, Shinji's eyes lit with approval.
The girls in the race could not see it clearly. Unless a horse girl had an extraordinarily sharp grasp of pace, she would not notice it.
But Seiun Sky had already started easing off, and she had done it so smoothly that the others continued to believe the pace had remained unchanged.
Even now, just before the field entered the third and fourth turns, the others still thought this was a fast-paced race.
The difference between horse girls really is enormous, Shinji thought.
Seiun Sky was turning the field inside out with nothing but timing and racecraft. Her rivals would not realize until later that they had already lost this race in the middle stages.
King Halo looked at Seiun Sky's back and clenched her teeth, then increased her speed again. Her eyes fixed on the point at the end of the fourth turn. That was the place she had picked for her move.
But then something inside her pounded harder.
She realized something was wrong.
The energy building within her body was telling her she needed to release it sooner.
This time, she did not hesitate.
She immediately lowered her body.
The burst of speed came in an instant. Before the runner in second had even realized it, King Halo had already passed her by nearly two lengths.
A wave of gasps swept through the trainers in the stands. Watching from the outside, they could scarcely believe that King Halo had made her choice so decisively.
And that it had been the right choice.
Sensing the commotion from the stands, Seiun Sky realized something was wrong. She twisted her head just enough to see King Halo accelerating behind her.
King Halo was unquestionably the greatest threat in this mock race. The sight immediately put a look of gravity in Seiun Sky's eyes. Of all the scenarios she had wanted to avoid, this was the worst one: King Halo had seen through the trap she had hidden in the pace.
The turf underfoot was soft and heavy. In conditions like this, Seiun Sky did not want to settle the race in a pure finishing-kick duel against King Halo. She was not especially suited to explosive acceleration on this kind of going, and she did not know whether King Halo might actually excel on it.
But regardless, King Halo's kick was too dangerous. Seiun Sky's best strategy was to stretch the duel out into a contest of stamina and grit.
After all, grit was what King Halo feared most.
Scenes of King Halo giving up mid-race flashed through Seiun Sky's mind. She had not wanted the race to turn into this. After all, giving up in the middle of competition was one of the worst traits a racehorse could have.
But if she wanted to win, this was the path most favorable to her.
Halo, hold on. Don't think about giving up early. At least don't hand them another excuse to talk.
She offered the thought like a silent prayer, then kicked again, angling inward and entering the third and fourth turns before drifting outward as she approached the latter half of the bend.
Before the race, she had already chosen the line she thought would suit her finishing run best.
King Halo, seeing that, understood at once.
She could have followed Seiun Sky outward. The lane was there.
But she did not.
Some instinct—almost like a voice—told her not to. It felt as if a hand, a vague shadow, stood before her, guiding her to keep going exactly where she was.
Each step drove water up from the turf, but King Halo felt none of the drag. It was as though she had been born to run on this kind of going. The softness and heaviness of the ground offered her legs no resistance at all.
She flashed past the end of the fourth turn. Her eyes sharpened. In the open track ahead, only one figure remained.
The figure she had to catch.
The noise of the crowd roared around her. King Halo could no longer tell whether those voices still carried the usual criticism, or whether some of them had begun to sound almost hopeful. She lowered her head and widened her stride as much as she could.
All the training she had done seemed to come together at once.
One reason Turbo had managed to sting her so often was because, under Shinji's painstaking guidance, King Halo had come to realize that her talent was not quite as overwhelming as she had once believed.
There were things she could not master immediately.
Things she learned slowly.
But now, in this race, Shinji's voice seemed to rise one after another in her mind, correcting her posture and footwork.
Breath and stride moved as one. For the first time, she understood what it meant to truly let her breathing drive her steps, and so she stretched them farther still.
Ahead, Seiun Sky narrowed her eyes.
Because as she passed the two-hundred-meter marker, she heard the footfalls behind her drawing near.
Those footfalls came closer and closer, and Seiun Sky could do nothing but grit her teeth and endure.
At the rail, Shinji gripped the barrier with both hands. He watched the two figures rapidly converge. On the home stretch, King Halo and Seiun Sky had turned this mock race into a duel. Yet unlike an ordinary duel of immediate blows, it felt more like the Tenno Sho (Autumn), when Biwa Hayahide had chased down Silence Suzuka—one running, one pursuing.
Only now, the two figures were horse girls of the new generation.
Near the hundred-meter marker, King Halo saw the comical face someone had drawn onto the sign. It flashed through her field of view in an instant, absurd in a way that was almost cute.
Then her eyes shifted downward.
And landed on the horse girl beside her.
Seiun Sky's face was flushed bright red. She was clearly at her absolute limit, fighting desperately to preserve the last half-length between them.
That determination, that refusal to yield—at that very moment, the weight King Halo had felt upon entering the course finally lifted.
Across the whole of last year's Classic campaign, she had been comprehensively beaten by Seiun Sky.
And yet now, at last, she had found the path that could seize her, and pass her.
She raised her breathing cadence once more. Her legs still held firm. The confidence in her eyes brightened further. Beside her, the white-haired figure at last began to fall back, until she disappeared from the edge of King Halo's vision.
King Halo pumped her arms hard. The clear open track ahead was exactly what she had always yearned for since before her debut.
And now, finally, she had reached it.
At one moment, the voices in the stands fell silent altogether. They rose again a heartbeat later, but by then King Halo was already standing tall, holding a composed smile as she listened without letting her expression shift in the slightest.
She could hear the resentment in some of those voices, the unwillingness to accept what had happened.
"It's only a mock race. Look how excited she is."
"She's still the same, isn't she? That pose at the finish, you'd think she'd won a G1."
"No matter what she does, she'll never surpass her mother."
But King Halo merely lifted her chin with pride.
The winner standing there was her.
She had every right to stand there as herself.
Moisture gathered at the corners of her eyes. This time, she knew it was not from frustration or bitterness.
Pride alone might not have been enough to give her confidence or dignity.
But victory could.
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 147)
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 (Chapter185)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter105)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter215)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 185
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 170
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass Volume2/1
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 206
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 190
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 154
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player Volume4/23
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 106
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 67
Uma Musume: From Beginner 125
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 85
Uma Musume: I Want All 105
I Can Copy Unique Skills 90
Summoning an Evil God, but the 70
Supernatural Multiverse 90
My Harem Is Indescribable 80
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 86
"I'm just a Valkyrie passing through." 68
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 81
Still playing traditional Honk 65
The Most Filial Son Under Heav 65
What Should I Do After Switchi - Volume2/3
Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 57
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 45
Transmigrated as Sukuna 59
Checking In in Demon Slayer 59
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 73
I Refuse to Become a Heroic 45
My Best Friend Into a Slime? 36
A Saiyan Stands Above Marvel 40
What Do You Mean by Using a Lab Mod to Be the Hero? 60
Tanya Starts from Re:Zero 30
Why did they assign me to Uma 35
MYGO Beauties 43
DanMachi: Emiya the Giant Hero 30
The Gacha Merchant Who Started 31
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