Chapter 161: Dream Trophy League
Mt. Mito is located in Okutama Town, which itself is part of the greater Tokyo area. On Friday afternoon, once Kitasan Black finished her training, the group drove down from the mountain and returned to central Tokyo a few hours later.
As evening approached, they got off at the station and naturally transferred to the subway heading toward their reserved hotel.
Just like during previous G1 events, from the subway station to the streets along the way, huge projection screens on the sides of buildings were playing race footage, promotional videos featuring Umamusumes, and advertisements for the upcoming competition.
The Umamusume at the center of the promotional campaign were two very familiar faces—Special Week, who had been continuously helping Kitasan Black, and Grass Wonder, who had assisted with the practice race.
Inside the subway car, the ceiling speakers looped each featured Umamusume's personal theme song, and everywhere among the passengers you could spot backpacks or phone cases decorated with Umamusume character art.
Still buzzing with excitement even before coming down from Mt. Mito, Kitasan Black couldn't stop looking around the entire way—she even kept pressing herself against the subway window, eyes wide, tail swishing as she stared in every direction.
"Wow! So this is the Dream Trophy? It's even livelier than the entire Classic Triple Crown!"
"Kita-chan… don't lean against the window like that, it's dangerous…"
Ignoring Kitasan Black's excitement, Silence Suzuka gently advised her:
"And you might disturb the other passengers…"
Still pressed against the glass and staring outside, Kitasan Black froze for a moment. When she turned around and saw several passengers looking at her with curiosity or amusement, she quickly sat down properly, smiling awkwardly and bowing apologetically to everyone.
Holding a fresh promotional booklet in hand, Makoto glanced up.
"Of course it's lively. After all, all the participants in the Dream Trophy are renowned Umamusume from past generations."
"I know that! It's just that I hadn't debuted before, so I only felt like there were a lot of people… and I've only ever watched Teio-senpai's Dream Trophy race."
Without hesitation, she openly declared her status as an "Teio-senpai oshi," then curiously leaned toward Makoto's booklet.
"Oh right, Trainer—when did you get that booklet? I didn't notice at all."
"I picked it up at the subway station."
Lifting the booklet slightly, Makoto flipped a page. "The association staff were handing them out for free over there. Didn't you grab one?"
"Free? I— I rushed straight into the train…"
Eyes widening in surprise, Kitasan Black pouted in disappointment.
A moment later, a booklet was handed to her from the side. She looked over in surprise and saw Rice Shower—sitting on the other side of Silence Suzuka—smiling shyly at her.
"Kita-chan can read this one. I've already finished it."
"Really? Thank you so much, Rice Shower-senpai!"
Gratefully accepting it with both hands, Kitasan Black immediately began flipping through the pages with eager excitement.
Before going to the Mt. Mito training camp—or even before her final exams—these two summer races had been what she was the most excited to watch.
The first was the Takarazuka Kinen. Just like the Spring Tenno Sho, she went to see Gold Ship-senpai's performance.
And the result shocked not only her but probably every racer fan watching.
Just like in the Spring Tenno Sho, Gold Ship-senpai experienced trouble entering the gate again.
Not only gate-entry trouble—after entering, her emotions became visibly agitated.
Even from far away, standing in the spectator stands, Kitasan Black saw everything clearly and remembered it clearly.
For reasons completely unknown, Gold Ship-senpai suddenly started arguing with the Umamusume in the neighboring gate.
Then, with an impressively high lift of her leg, she stepped right onto the gate, looking absolutely ready to finish that argument with a fight.
Just at that moment, the starting gates burst open.
In the Twinkle Series races, the commentator's opening announcement is merely for the convenience of spectators listening to the broadcast or watching the live stream.
The true and only signal for the start of the race is the gates opening.
Just like the starting pistol in human athletic competitions, once the gates open, the race will never be stopped unless an accident affects all competitors.
Because of what happened at the gates, Gold Ship naturally had a delayed start.
It was visible to the naked eye—while the other competitors had already dashed out nearly ten lengths ahead, she and the Umamusume in the neighboring gate only started moving after that.
At the time, Kitasan Black still fantasized that with Gold Ship-senpai's ability, maybe she could make a comeback later in the race.
But reality proved that this was nothing more than wishful thinking.
In the end, Gold Ship finished the Takarazuka Kinen in 15th place—second to.
If it had been before, Kitasan Black would have only thought about going to comfort her senpai—and in fact, she had rushed over to do exactly that after the race.
But later, when she happened to overhear her Trainer and other senpai talking, she learned that Gold Ship–senpai's high kick at the starting gate not only affected the race result, it had repercussions in many other areas.
For example, related endorsements, stocks, and similar things took a huge hit.
If she remembered correctly, the figure mentioned was 12.1 billion yen.
Kitasan Black didn't really understand what kind of scale "12.1 billion" represented, but it was definitely a massive amount of money.
This made her even more worried about Gold Ship-senpai, and she became anxious about whether such losses would cause any serious consequences.
Yet when she carefully asked around about it, she was shocked to learn that… it didn't cause any problems at all.
"Damn it! I wanted to win my third Takarazuka like a badass— But it can't be helped! Fine, I'll just win all three G1 races in the second half of the year!"
After a long silence, surrounded by friends and junior and senior peers consoling her, Gold Ship declared that loudly.
"Damn it! Our investments… Well… it can't be helped, considering it's Gold Ship. Guess there's no way around it. We'll figure out what to do for future operations…" Or so some of the businesspeople who suffered losses reportedly said with helpless resignation.
In short, because of such an unpredictable incident, Kitasan Black's Takarazuka viewing experience had been strange and surreal.
The second race she had been dying to watch—this was the true purpose of returning from the training camp to Tokyo.
The Dream Trophy League.
She had known for a long time that this special G1 event was composed entirely of outstanding veteran racers from past generations, and that each year preparations took a very long time—all for the sake of presenting fans with an all-star level competition.
Perhaps because had just been thinking about Gold Ship–senpai, when Kitasan Black flipped open the booklet this time, she didn't immediately look at the familiar faces like Special Week-senpai or Grass Wonder-senpai.
Instead, her attention was unconsciously drawn to a Umamusume whose name contained the word "Gold."
"Stay… Gold."
Murmuring the name, Kitasan Black kept flipping through the booklet.
"So Gold Ship's older sister is also participating in this Dream Trophy…"
"To be precise, she is Gold Ship's eldest sister—or at least, the eldest among that big family. Gold Ship has quite a lot of sisters, after all." Makoto casually commented while flipping through her own booklet.
"Since the Dream Trophy's promotional hook this time is 'The Golden Generation,' inviting the eldest of the Golden family for the theme… Well, it fits the symbolism, I suppose."
"That… does make sense…"
Turning a few more pages, Kitasan Black looked with curiosity toward the other side.
"By the way, Rice Shower–senpai probably hasn't raced against Stay Gold–senpai before, and Suzuka-senpai should have—"
Halfway through her sentence, she suddenly paused, her expression turning awkward.
<+>
If you want to see more chapter of this story and don't mind paying $5 each month to read till the latest chapter, please go to my Ko-Fi[1].
Latest Post In Ko-Fi: Chapter 194: My Turn to Write a "Peach Letter"[2]
Link to the chapter: https://ko-fi.com/post/Chapter-194-My-Turn-to-Write-a-Peach-Letter-Y8Y31RUK1R[3]
https://ko-fi.com/umazing[4]
[1] https://ko-fi.com/umazing
[2] https://ko-fi.com/post/Chapter-194-My-Turn-to-Write-a-Peach-Letter-Y8Y31RUK1R
[3] https://ko-fi.com/post/Chapter-194-My-Turn-to-Write-a-Peach-Letter-Y8Y31RUK1R
[4] https://ko-fi.com/umazing