Although it was only a mock race, by this point, Kitasan Black had fully slipped into the mindset of an official race.
Her vision warped through the blur of sweat. She could hear her own breathing roaring in her ears, like storm-tossed waves trapped inside a conch shell.
The curves of the last two turns swelled rapidly across her retinas, and the lines of turf seemed to blur into countless blades slicing through the air.
This was not a track she was familiar with.
The turns on the Gold family training grounds were nearly half again as tight as those on an official racecourse. Every apex felt like a deliberately compressed trap.
Over the eight turns before this, she had tried cutting in with every technique she usually used, but the instant her feet hit the ground, her stride had shown signs of losing balance.
The angle where the inner shoe plate scraped against the ground was too tight. Whether in races or in training, she had never dealt with a turn this sharp before.
More importantly, she had grown used to the slopes built into official racecourses. She was used to borrowing those slopes to ease the centrifugal force created by the angle of the turn.
But this field had no slope at all. It was far too flat, which meant she could only rely on her stamina and physical strength to fight centrifugal force head-on.
Under these conditions, she had no time to think through the most suitable running technique. She could only make a snap decision: for these final two turns, she would rely entirely on inertia.
The instant she made that decision, inertia pushed her sliding toward the outside of the turn.
In her vision, a golden ponytail flashed past.
Her pupils tightened despite herself.
The next second, a golden figure had already overtaken her.
Her heartstrings pulled taut for an instant, but she knew clearly that this overtake had probably been within expectations.
From what she had sensed while leading, Orfevre-senpai's position had been… almost like a precise surgical knife.
That senpai had maintained a distance of half a length the entire time, lying in wait inside Kitasan Black's blind spot.
When Kitasan Black cut into the turn by relying on inertia, her body would naturally lean toward the outside.
That was the opening. Her senpai's entire body turned into a streak of golden lightning and cut to the inside.
As expected of Orfevre-senpai. Even setting aside how much more familiar she is with this field, that timing for cutting in… it's practically textbook…
After praising her inwardly for a brief moment, Kitasan Black's nerves tightened again.
Using almost the exact same method to cut in and overtake, another Umamusume passed her.
It was Nakayama Festa-senpai.
One foot had completely left the ground, and more than half her body was leaning out past the edge of the track. Her hair almost brushed Kitasan Black's nose.
Kitasan Black could feel every tremor of her senpai's muscles. The other girl was using centrifugal force to forcibly compress the space for overtaking, trading it for an even tighter line.
This time, Kitasan Black had no time to be amazed. The sharp turn of the final bend appeared beneath her feet like a noose suddenly pulled tight.
By instinct, she lowered her center of gravity. At the same time, she heard heavy, rapid footfalls explode from behind her.
She knew those footsteps well, and not only because of all the training sessions, partner runs, and practice races they had done together.
It was also because two months ago, at the Arima Kinen, from the final turn to the finish line, she had heard those very footsteps.
Gold Ship-senpai.
Like a silver-white beast, her senpai charged in like a steamroller crushing everything in its path. The current of air she kicked up nearly flipped Kitasan Black over entirely.
Kitasan Black glanced sideways without thinking. Her senpai had already unleashed the kind of speed that only came after long-distance acceleration, and her eyes, fixed straight ahead, were filled with a burning, almost obsessive anticipation of victory.
Orfevre-senpai, Festa-senpai, and then… Golshi-senpai…
No. I have to keep my rhythm steady!
There's still a bit of the final straight left!
Her thoughts raced. Kitasan Black gritted her teeth and, in the instant before entering the last straight, made her decision.
She abandoned the sprinting method she usually used in official races, because the straight on this field was too short.
Instead, she switched to a diagonal acceleration similar to how she accelerated through turns—leaning her body to the left, using the buffer zone on the outside to offset part of the centrifugal force, while concentrating all her strength into her rear foot.
This improvised change in running style raised her speed in an instant, but all it did was let her keep pace with Gold Ship-senpai.
Farther ahead, Orfevre-senpai… seemed to have launched her final assault.
Her stunning final spurt erupted in full, and that golden figure became a stream of light.
Kitasan Black could see the veins bulging at the side of her neck and hear the suppressed growl in her throat.
At the same time, Nakayama Festa-senpai and Gold Ship-senpai chased after her as one.
Nakayama Festa tried to cut to the inside from the other side, while Gold Ship closed in from behind to form a pincer.
Together with Orfevre, the three of them wove their breathing through the air into a suffocating net.
But Kitasan Black did not give up.
She unclenched the fists she had tightened in that earlier instant, letting her body stretch out naturally, as if throwing herself into the eye of a hurricane.
The turf flew past before her eyes. The pain of wind blades slicing across her skin turned into a strange kind of exhilaration.
The tip of her nose could almost feel the gust swept back by Gold Ship's tail, and her vision was already filled with clods of grass and dirt kicked up from ahead.
And yet…
"Finish!
"Nakayama Festa takes first!
"Orfevre second!
"Gold Ship third!"
Imanami Takatoshi's voice came drifting on the wind.
Kitasan Black froze for a fraction of a second, but she did not stop. Instead, she gritted her teeth hard, held her breath, and charged forward.
An instant later—
"Kitasan Black fourth!"
Her taut nerves suddenly went slack. Out of habit, she slowed into a jog. Sweat mixed with grass clippings dripped down her chin as Kitasan Black wiped her cheek with some regret.
"Fifth is Dream Journey, sixth is Stay Gold, and last…"
Imanami Takatoshi's aged but powerful voice continued, his tone gradually filling with encouragement.
"Lilac-chan, keep working hard from here on."
A reply in a Kansai accent, mixed with panting, came from behind Kitasan Black.
"Hah… hah… Yes! I—I'll do my best!"
Kitasan Black did not need to turn around to know that it was Lucky Lilac's voice, stubborn and unwilling to accept defeat.
A moment later, teasing and arguing sounded from ahead.
"No way, Orfevre. You lost to Festa? You even managed to veer in a race like this?"
Gold Ship's distinctive, somewhat irreverent tone was still instantly recognizable even after such intense exercise, and her words were full of mockery toward Orfevre.
"…Shut up. This field has so many sharp turns. Was that veering? I was cutting inside the turn, okay?!"
Orfevre's voice was slightly breathless, but her force did not falter as she shot back, clearly extremely displeased by Gold Ship's accusation.
Listening to them argue, Kitasan Black's lips unconsciously curved upward.
She had lost this mock race, but on this training ground so different from what she was used to, the feeling of going all-out against familiar senpais still had the blood in her whole body boiling.
Without thinking, she looked toward her trainer, Yasui Makoto, in the distance. He was speaking with Imanami Takatoshi. Noticing her gaze, he nodded and smiled, then exchanged a few more words with Imanami Takatoshi before walking over with a smile.
"You lost, but…"
Yasui Makoto came up to her and handed her a towel, his voice gentle. "Your adaptation at the end was very good. If the straight had been a little longer, you might have won."
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