What did she think of them?
Tokai Teio froze.
After hesitating for a moment, she slowly spoke.
"They look like they're doing well."
At least, better than she was doing right now.
"Then do you think they're better than you? Do they think about more things than you do?"
"...No."
Tokai Teio still had that much confidence.
Eclipse nodded. After walking a little farther, she stopped in front of a garden.
"Kitahara once told me something. He said nothing in this world can withstand deconstruction."
"Umamusume, Trainers, faith, anything at all—if you deconstruct it down to the very end, all that's left is something meaningless."
"Take racing Umamusume apart, and all that remains is hollow running. So-called life is nothing more than a lie woven by moving lumps of flesh..."
"So-called civilization is a cardboard tower built from lie after lie."
"Even a light rain can reveal it for what it really is."
Tokai Teio was stunned for a while.
"Was Trainer-san that kind of person before?"
She had heard Eclipse and some of the others mention that Kitahara used to be a very troublesome person.
But as for how, exactly, he had been troublesome, she really didn't know.
What she was sure of was that the current Kitahara, at least, could never say something like that.
Faced with her question, Eclipse shook her head.
"No. He was far more troublesome than you can imagine."
Even now, Eclipse actually had a clear understanding of how troublesome she herself used to be, and she knew what excessive things she had done.
But even so, she felt that Kitahara back then had been far more dangerous and far more troublesome than she was.
He saw life as worthless, morality as decoration, and the law as nothing at all.
If she was a tyrannical monster, then Kitahara was a cold-blooded executioner.
She would get angry. She would hit people. Sometimes, if she struck too hard, someone might die. That was already dangerous enough.
But Kitahara would yield on the surface, admit defeat, then find an opportunity to kill everyone.
Many people thought Symboli Speed had not taken Kitahara away because Eclipse was there.
But if she had truly wanted to, Symboli Speed had a hundred ways to do it.
Even setting aside the option of bypassing Eclipse entirely, as long as she offered a suitable price, taking both of them to the Symboli family together would not have been difficult.
But that old woman saw through his danger and his madness.
If she really brought that child back, there was no guarantee she wouldn't wake up one day to find the Symboli family wiped out.
"But later, he changed."
It was not just because of Eclipse.
Although she had been a fairly important part of it, she was not everything. She had not even been that large a part.
What truly changed him was this world.
No matter where he went, whenever he encountered difficulties, someone would reach out to help him.
No matter how violently he acted, there were still people willing to believe in him and accept him.
Although there had been a few less-than-ideal episodes along the way, such as Umamusume Hunting and the like.
Overall, almost every moment he spent had been wrapped in goodwill.
Especially goodwill from Umamusume.
At first, he had only gone in intending to make transactions, but what he received was often far more than he had imagined.
Even when they could not eat their fill, they were willing to share half a biscuit with him. Even when their own families were struggling, they chose to help him first. Even when he only helped them with small things, they treated him like family...
Change did not happen overnight. It was water wearing through stone.
It was not only that he helped them. They healed him, too.
"He actually understands many things. He simply doesn't like facing them."
"He didn't deny what he said before, but he gave me a new answer."
"Precisely because life itself has no meaning, we have to chase after meaning."
"A civilization built from cardboard lies exists because of that pursuit, because people believe in it, because everyone keeps pasting on layer after layer of paper."
"When enough cardboard has been piled up, when it becomes solid enough, it can become a real building, one that shelters people from wind and rain."
Eclipse bent down and picked up a wilted flower.
She held it between her fingertips.
"After your defeat, your belief collapsed."
"But in truth, that belief was never really your own. It was something born under the influence of others, even of fate."
"I can't say it was wrong. After all, just as he said, when your belief is firm enough, even a lie can become real."
"But now, you've realized it was a lie."
"And not just you."
She raised her head and looked toward the Umamusume and Trainers not far away.
"Three fools wove this lie together in order to build a world where everyone could be happy."
"If they had the ability to maintain it forever, then there would be no harm in letting it continue. After all, compared to truth, most people are still more inclined toward happiness."
"Not to mention, that happiness is real, too."
"The problem is that they're almost unable to maintain it anymore."
The creature known as the horse had already begun to fade from people's sight.
More and more tools had replaced them, and by now, aside from certain regions, only horse racing remained.
Although the Three Goddesses had racked their brains to create an idol-management model, how long could that continue?
Every Umamusume had to correspond to the destiny anchor of a horse from another world, allowing this world to run along a certain trajectory and making it easier for them to adjust.
But while the number of horses decreased, the number of Umamusume continued to increase, to the point that even after the three of them pulled Umamusume from later generations into the present, it still was not quite enough.
Even if Eclipse became a goddess and added another layer onto that spaghetti-code mess of a SYSTEM...
That would only buy time.
This world needed change. It needed a new era.
That was inevitable.
That was why Eclipse had stepped forward on her own.
Not merely to respond to the malicious attacks slandering Kitahara.
But also because she knew that if Kitahara learned the truth, there was no way he would stand by and do nothing.
Naturally, then, she had to help pave the way for him in advance.
"Tokai Teio, your lie has already been pierced."
She turned her head to look at Tokai Teio, her expression serious.
"But you will not be the last. Do you see those people around us? In the days to come, their lies will also be pierced one by one."
"When that time comes, this world will fall into chaos and madness. Human or Umamusume, everyone will become unhappy."
Tokai Teio was silent for a while.
"Then the Three Goddesses..."
"I already said it. This is happening precisely because those three fools can't do it anymore."
Eclipse, who rarely sighed, let one out now, a trace of helplessness surfacing in her eyes.
"In truth, this world was supposed to be chaotic and mad from the beginning. You were protected by those three fools for so long that you forgot what the world was originally meant to look like."
War, death, famine, plague...
Things that were commonplace in other worlds practically did not exist here.
—At the cost of sacrificing some Trainers' pelvises.
Silence.
After an unknown length of time, Tokai Teio raised her head.
"What can I do?"
Tokai Teio herself did not know what she was feeling when she said those words.
She was still immersed in her own failure, and the cracks in her heart had not been mended.
But for no reason at all, she instinctively believed that some things were more important than her pain.
That was the real reason she admired the President.
Not merely because of her undefeated Triple Crown record.
Perhaps she was still lost, but even while lost, she firmly took a step forward.
"As for that..."
Eclipse was just about to speak when her ears suddenly twitched.
"That guy is back. Let's go over there first."
"As for the rest, let him talk to you."
---
T/N: SORRY I TOOK A SMALL WEEK BREAK!!!!!!!! I ANNOUNCED IT ON THE P WEBSITE AND DISCORD
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