After they left the hotel, Verxina finally seemed to return to how she was supposed to be...
And that, for a moment, gave Gotham Song a rather strange realization: going to a hotel with her wouldn't count as some weirdly healing experience, would it?
Uh... no, probably not. The healing one should be Gotham Song herself, not the act of going to a hotel with Gotham Song. Right!
Honestly, in this world, "going to a hotel together" already carried some pretty loaded implications. Especially since quite a number of Trainers and their Umamusume liked to discuss life's major decisions in places like that, any half-decent hotel had long since reinforced the beds.
Don't ask. Ask and the answer is: Umamusume...
After all, an Umamusume lacking living conditions was possible. An Umamusume lacking money? Not very likely.
In any case, thankfully, going out with Verxina didn't attract any special attention. Nothing unusual happened on the way home for Gotham Song and the deep-blue-haired Umamusume either. Everything was normal, as if that was simply how it was meant to be.
Gotham Song let out a sigh of relief. Under the gazes of Vivlos and Halwa Sweet, she walked into the room as though she'd just wrapped up some major mission, then gave the newly revived Verxina a shove forward.
Look, everyone—I've captured a brand-new SSR Umamusume, Verxina!
That was probably the kind of slightly show-off-ish energy she had going on.
Still, after the meal, Verxina didn't immediately express her gratitude. Gotham Song had worked her so hard that morning that even in her training clothes, she was still sticky with sweat, so after eating, Verxina chose to return to her room for a shower. When she came back out, she'd changed into a light blue dress that looked more like homewear.
Honestly, Verxina was pretty cute as an Umamusume. Then again, there really weren't many Umamusume who looked bad to begin with. But Verxina's aura scored especially high.
Among the many innocent and bright Umamusume, Verxina was one of the rare few who carried a sense of steadiness, resolve, and mature composure. She was only in her classic year, but perhaps because she'd spent so many years helping Halwa Sweet care for her two younger sisters as the eldest, she gave off a maturity that went well beyond the norm for Umamusume.
Gotham Song even felt that in this regard, she herself might lose out a bit—
Sure, she was also the older sister of two younger sisters, but compared to that, she was much better at being the younger sister of two older sisters! If she could be the one getting looked after, she had absolutely no interest in spending more effort looking after other people—
Did that count as laziness?
Gotham Song didn't know, but she felt it probably didn't. And she was perfectly soft and shamelessly at ease with that part of herself.
Anyway, neither her older sisters nor her younger sisters had any complaints. In fact, recently even Mejiro Dober had started getting pretty bold about feeding her big sister.
So it was totally fine, right?
Gotham Song quite enjoyed things being that way. In any case, in her eyes, Verxina was a very likable Umamusume.
Mm... Verxina might actually be the kind of Umamusume who could become my big sister.
That was more or less the vibe.
Gotham Song didn't really have any better way to describe her feelings, so she could only give that blunt, straightforward answer. But once Verxina had calmed down, she didn't seem to have any intention of staying long. After chatting with Verxina a little more, playing with little Vivlos for a while, and giving Cheval Grand a bit of guidance for her upcoming debut race, Gotham Song finally headed home.
But how should she put it...
She felt a little embarrassed?
Ah, the target of that feeling wasn't Verxina. It was Cheval Grand.
Fine, fine—more simply put, Gotham Song felt a little embarrassed toward both sisters.
If it had only been Verxina, it wouldn't have been that bad. Sure, Verxina also yearned for championships, but in her classic year, running into one of the girls under Gotham Song's watch was simply one of those cruel and helpless things with no solution.
But!
If it were just this year, then fine—there was no avoiding it. The problem was that Verxina's little sister, Cheval Grand, was debuting this year too...
So next year, would Cheval Grand end up running into Equinox on the track?!
And just like that, were the glorious racing careers of both Verxina sisters going to be completely wrecked by Eternal Beat?
No way, not that!
How was she supposed to put this?
In terms of talent and ability, Cheval Grand wasn't that much stronger than her big sister.
So then, how strong was Equinox compared to Almond Eye and Gentildonna?
Ahaha...
Equinox was the only Umamusume on Eternal Beat who could confidently say, in terms of Runaway, that she'd learned a few tenths of Trainer-sama's style.
So, Cheval Grand—how exactly were you supposed to face an Equinox like that?
Gotham Song could only say she was breaking out in a cold sweat. Look, ruining one Umamusume's professional pride wasn't exactly the sort of thing that demanded guilt, since they'd just happened to crash into each other. But if it happened two years in a row...
Should she pray to the Three Goddesses that her own little Equinox and Cheval Grand wouldn't end up on the same race schedule?
No matter how she thought about it, that seemed impossible! Gotham Song even felt things might go beyond her expectations—
Cheval Grand wasn't going to come up with some incomprehensible nonsense like, "I'll settle my sister's grudge against Eternal Beat myself!!"... right?
Hiss... the more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed. Realizing that, Gotham Song felt like she was practically fleeing Halwa Sweet's house.
Once outside and walking on the way back, Gotham Song forced herself not to think about those weird thoughts anymore. Only after her mood gradually improved did her breathing finally steady.
Forget it. What was the point of thinking about all that now? If Cheval Grand really did run into them later, or really did come up with some strange idea like that, what was Gotham Song supposed to do about it?
It wasn't like she'd asked Cheval Grand to do any of this!
Right. It wasn't something she'd asked for.
Call it avoidance? Maybe, a little. But if someone said it was all Gotham Song's fault, that didn't feel quite right either. In any case, when faced with something like this, the great "god" of Runaway chose the most glorious, straightforward option often seen on the battlefield.
Ignore it!
What, was this battlefield a real battlefield or an electronic one?
Gotham Song understood this stuff perfectly well. Don't ask—ask and the answer is still: ignore it!
...
After getting off the train, Gotham Song naturally returned to Central Tracen Academy. After all, she'd finally gotten a chance to stay somewhere other than Mejiro Manor, so she didn't really want to keep staying home the whole time—
And the very first thing she did after getting off was march over and glare fiercely—or what she thought was fiercely—at Hayakawa Tazuna for doing something outside her duties.
Too mean. She was glaring with her eyes!
Tazuna clearly could have stopped little Vivlos, asked that little filly what urgent matter it was, then called Fuji Kiseki and had the dorm head notify her, couldn't she?
Only the Three Goddesses knew what Gotham Song had felt when she opened the door and saw little Vivlos on the verge of tears, looking at her with watery eyes.
Weird. I woke up—I didn't sleepwalk back here... Don't tell me I randomly committed crimes in Tokyo and did something unforgivable to that little filly?
That kind of thing was impossible no matter how you thought about it, right?!
That was more or less how she'd felt.
In short, Gotham Song held grudges. And she held them very, very well.
How could this Tazuna be so mean?
Too mean. Since she couldn't hit her, the only option was to glare at her really hard!
That was about how Gotham Song felt. As for Tazuna, though, she seemed highly amused by the Umamusume in front of her. She merely asked Gotham Song whether something was the matter, then maintained her usual composure, completely ignoring the chain reaction of silent questions from the person beside her.
Like a parent teasing a child, calm and utterly unfazed.
After staring for a very, very long time—really, a very long time—Gotham Song finally had no choice but to realize that her behavior was never going to get any response. Puffing up in frustration, she stomped away from Tazuna, gritting her teeth yet utterly helpless.
It felt like you were holding eighteen hand traps and your opponent just refused to respond.
Couldn't you just drop one hand trap? Otherwise I can't do anything with the rest of my plays!
That was basically how Gotham Song felt.
Unfortunately, Tazuna really was that steady old hound—she wasn't giving her even the slightest opening.
So what else could Gotham Song do? Just count it as her own victory? Fine, whatever—I won anyway!
Thinking that, she headed for the training grounds to look for the familiar figures she knew.
Why not go glare at Fuji Kiseki instead?
What had Fuji Kiseki done wrong? Little Vivlos had already made it to the school—there was no way Fuji Kiseki could just throw her out, right?
More importantly, Fuji Kiseki really did live in the same dorm as Gotham Song and the others, so they'd be seeing each other constantly... mm, that definitely wasn't the main reason. Right. Of course it wasn't!
...
As she made her way across the grass with light steps, Gotham Song, just as expected, saw the familiar figures she'd been looking for.
In truth, Eternal Beat was a team that could only be described as bizarre in all sorts of ways. And why bring that up now?
Because Eternal Beat's training location was never fixed. Today they might be at Mejiro Manor, tomorrow at Central Tracen, and the day after that they might wind up at Tokyo Racecourse or Hanshin Racecourse or somewhere else entirely.
The only fixed point was this: wherever Gotham Song went, the rest of the Umamusume would follow.
At first, Gotham Song had felt rather embarrassed about that. But Gentildonna had been the first to approve of it.
By the shared understanding among everyone on the team, they couldn't very well let Trainer-sama feel tied down in whatever she wanted to do just because they had to train, could they?
And so, because of that, everyone was always following Gotham Song around and experiencing different racecourses. Over time, it almost felt as though everyone had become much better at adapting to all kinds of unfamiliar turf.
That counted as... an unexpected gain, maybe?
In any case, off in the distance, the ones running were Equinox, Gentildonna, and some other Umamusume Gotham Song didn't recognize.
Back when she was on the way to Verxina's house, Gotham Song had already told Gentildonna that she'd be coming back late today. If they came to Central, Gentildonna should take Equinox and find some other team for a training race first.
And now it looked like they were indeed in the middle of running.
Equinox actually hadn't reached the point of enrolling at Central Tracen yet, but thanks to Gotham Song's fame and popularity, she'd apparently already become a somewhat well-known presence around the school.
Gotham Song knew it. In her fan club, even the shipping-related content had already started including her own charge, Equinox.
All she could say was...
Umamusume speed?
Ah, honestly, compared to all that weird stuff like "I'm Song's Trainer" or "I'm the dark Umamusume by Song's side," things like this—obvious self-insert skin-suits—were much better.
Gotham Song didn't even look at the latter kind.
Come to think of it, Equinox's debut race really was just around the corner... next month, around the same time as Flightline's. One in the daytime, one at night. In a single day, her team would no longer have any undeveloped Umamusume left. Everyone would finally be on track...
It had really come almost without warning.
Looking at it carefully, there were actually a lot of things to deal with next month. Races like the Shuka Sho and the Dream Cup for breeders hadn't started yet, but before those would come Flightline's debut race, then Equinox's debut race right after that, and later still...
Gotham Song's birthday.
The tragic thing was that even though her birthday was now only a little over twenty days away, Gotham Song still hadn't figured out what kind of thing she wanted to ask Mejiro Ramonu to do for their vacation.
And not just "hadn't figured it out a little."
She straight-up had no idea how to even start thinking about it!
Forget it. Same as always—she didn't need it right this second anyway, so she'd deal with it later...?
Mm. Gotham Song had the feeling that even if she couldn't say anything at all by then, her big sister would still arrange everything for her. That was the real reason she felt so confident, wasn't it...?
That was probably it. Gotham Song admitted it to herself quite readily, and even felt rather justified about it.
This was the incomparable, steadfast bond between her and her big sister!
With that thought, Gotham Song threw all of it out of her mind. Then she looked at Equinox and the other Umamusume running in the distance and began her usual work.
She was a proper, mature, serious Umamusume Trainer. How could she possibly be having all those weird thoughts while working?
Don't make such boring jokes!!