Umamusume. They are born to run. They inherit names from worlds beyond, carrying with them dreams fierce and radiant. And so they run, ever forward. That is their destiny.
But not every uma is born to chase the horizon, and not every dream survives the weight of the world. Most fade, quiet and unremembered, leaving only echoes of what might have been.
Tonight, the storm made sure of it.
Dahlia stood frozen at the edge of the crowd, pressed against the yellow caution tape. Rain hammered down in an unbroken torrent, lightning ripping through the swollen night sky. Water streamed from the tips of her ears, through the curtain of her waist-long black hair, down the length of her soaked tail. Her sukajan clung to her body, the golden embroidery of a nightingale gleaming faintly against the drenched fabric of her jacket.
The street before her was chaos. A white truck lay on its side, metal groaning under its own weight. Skid marks scarred the asphalt, and crates of produce spilled across the road, crushed beneath wheels or scattered into the gutter. Patrol cars bathed the wreckage in alternating washes of crimson and blue, their sirens cutting through the storm, while the faint, rising cry of an ambulance drifted closer.
And then she saw her.
Her breath caught. A uma lay on the ground, a police officer crouched at her side. Dahlia's gaze fixed on the scarlet streaks of hair, the ruined fabric of a Tracen Academy uniform. Recognition struck her like a blade. Cold pierced deeper than the autumn rain, her heart pounding until it seemed to rattle her skull. A scream threatened her throat but broke only into breathless air.
The delivery bag slipped from her shoulder. She surged forward, ducking under the tape, ignoring the shouts. Hands reached for her, one officer seizing her shoulder. She tore against his grip, desperation spilling from her lips.
"That's my sister!" Her voice cracked. "That's my sister!"
The officer faltered, glancing toward an older man in a fedora and trench coat. His face weathered, ringed hazel eyes speaking of too many years on the beat. With a silent nod, the man signaled. The officer's grip loosened. Dahlia broke free.
She dropped to her knees beside the fallen uma. Rain mixed with the blood staining the uniform. Her hands hovered, trembling, afraid to touch.
"Scarlet… Scarlet, what happened?" The words fell ragged, her throat tight.
Scarlet's head shifted weakly, her lips barely shaping the word. "D-Dahlia…?"
"Shh, don't talk." Dahlia snapped her gaze upward, shouting into the storm. "Where's the ambulance? Somebody get them here!" She clutched Scarlet's hand, squeezing as though her strength alone could anchor her. "You're going to be fine. You hear me? Everything's going to be fine."
Scarlet's eyes brimmed as she broke into sobs. "I—I can't feel my legs…"
Dahlia's chest constricted. The world seemed to close in. "W-what?"
"I can't feel my legs," Scarlet whimpered, her tears spilling hot against the cold rain. Her hand clawed desperately at Dahlia's sleeve. "Dahlia, I can't feel my legs!"
"No… no, please…" Dahlia gathered her into her arms.
Scarlet's cry tore through the storm. "I can't feel my legs!"
****
The soft, steady beeping of the alarm clock pulled Dahlia from sleep. Pale sunlight slipped through the thin space between turquoise curtains, cutting across the room in faint bars of gold. Her ears twitched at the intrusion. She groaned, pushing the blanket aside, long black hair spilling across her face as she rose from the futon. A yawn escaped her as she rubbed at her eyes with the crook of her arm, her tail flicking in mild irritation at the thought of yet another grind on the streets of Tokyo. Straightening her shirt, she stretched until her spine gave a satisfying crack.
Crossing the room, she drew the curtains wide, flooding the cramped space with light that filtered weakly through rain-streaked glass. Her room was small, no larger than a dormitory cell. The dull blue wallpaper clung in weary patches, its color long faded, and the wooden floor creaked beneath her bare feet, worn smooth by time. On the walls hung posters of champions past, edges curled from years of tape and damp. Dahlia's black eyes caught the glossy faces of legends—Gold City, the indomitable T.M. Opera O, and towering above all, the Emperor herself, Symboli Rudolf.
Her chest tightened, and a scoff slipped from her lips. She shook her head, burying the memory of a younger, brighter-eyed child who once swore she would stand among them. That she would claim a uniform at Tracen Academy, carve her name into the Twinkle Series, and race until the world roared her name. The thought lingered like an old wound as she exhaled and moved to the door, stepping into the dim hallway beyond.
Like countless young umas, she had been entranced by the stories. By the races that lit up television screens, the thunder of shoes against dirt and turf, the roar of crowds as champions pushed themselves past the edge of exhaustion into victory. Breath ragged, muscles screaming, bodies straining toward immortality. But not every uma is born for glory. For every victor crowned, there are hundreds more who stumble, falter, and fade. Some never finish first. Most will never see a medal, ribbon, or trophy glimmer in their hands. Some are made only to lose. Their names scrawled once on a roster before being forgotten forever.
Dahlia knew the feeling far too well. The endless hours of training. Roadwork at dawn, pounding pavement until her lungs burned. Laps in the pool that left her muscles screaming. Weights strapped to wrists and ankles, dragging her body into exhaustion. Through blood, sweat, and tears she drove herself forward, convinced that effort alone would carry her into glory. That she too would conquer circuits across Japan and carve her name alongside the champions.
But work meant little when measured against talent. Her debut came and went, race after race, her finishes clinging between third and fifth. Each time she pushed harder, but there was always someone faster, someone stronger. The gates at Tracen Academy closed to her, and like so many before, Black Dahlia slipped quietly into obscurity.
The bathroom light buzzed awake above her, casting a pallid neon glow. Dahlia faced the mirror. Her pale skin reflected back at her. Her fingers brushed beneath her eyes, feeling the dark crescents etched there by long nights and longer days. She shrugged and looked away. The cramped bathroom bore the marks of time. Stained tiles, some cracked, the air thick with mold and stale water. None of it bothered her anymore.
Routine carried her forward. Teeth brushed, shower steaming. Even as hot water coursed down her body, it washed away nothing. Neither fatigue, nor regret, nor the quiet ache of old dreams.
She dried herself, tugged on a white shirt and black jeans, then shrugged into her neon-yellow jacket. Her long hair was pulled into a ponytail, tucked beneath a matching cap. Across its front, stitched in bold letters above the logo of a sprinting uma with a delivery bag: UMAI.
Dahlia inhaled, exhaled. Six years as a delivery runner had been unkind, but it paid the bills. The lights stayed on, the rent was covered, and she kept food on the table. She wasn't running at the Arima Kinen, but in Tokyo's crowded streets she was one of the fastest on the job. Yet the hours grew longer, sleep scarcer. The truth was simple, midnight runs paid best, and there were few willing to risk them.
Her lips curved faintly as she remembered her best customer. A silver-haired uma from Tracen Academy with an appetite as vast as the sea, sometimes ordering four or five meals in a single night. Dahlia chuckled to herself. She wasn't one to judge, not if the coin kept coming.
She stepped out of the bathroom, the dim hallway spilling into the narrow living room beyond. The space was no better than the rest of the apartment. Tired, sagging, and left behind by time. Wallpaper dulled to lifeless gray. Dust clung stubbornly to shelves and furniture. The wooden floorboards, faded and warped, groaned beneath her steps.
It was a room cobbled together more out of necessity than comfort. A couch patched with tape, its fabric torn in strips. A coffee table scarred with dents and splinters. A television coated in dust, serving more as decoration than function. The air carried the sour tang of neglect, of a home untouched by a proper cleaning for months on end. Dahlia exhaled under the weight pressing at her shoulders. Once, these walls had held warmth, the laughter of family, the rhythm of ordinary days. Now they stood as a hollow reminder. An empty shell of what a home had been, and a testament to better days that no longer returned.
She stopped short, her breath catching at the figure by the open balcony window. A wheelchair sat in the sunlight, its steel frame gleaming faintly. In it, her sister. Scarlet Rose. Motionless in her white dress, scarlet irises dulled to glass, her expression empty as she stared out at the city beyond.
Dahlia's gaze wavered, pulled to the dusty glass cabinet against the wall. It overflowed with trophies and ribbons, each a relic of triumph—G1, G2, G3, victory upon victory. On the wall beside it hung her sister's old racing dress, scarlet frills recalling the proud silhouette of a southern belle. It had been framed, preserved like a relic, a golden placard beneath commemorating the year she won both the Spring and Fall Tenno Sho.
Her chest tightened as she looked back to Scarlet. Two years had passed since the accident, yet the memory still lived raw in the public's eye. It had been national news. The rising star of Tracen, cut down on the cusp of greatness. Papers ran her story. Television anchors mourned her as a bright flame snuffed too soon.
The man behind the wheel had been no villain, only a single father of four, exhausted from two jobs, who had fallen asleep and crossed into her lane. For that, he was sentenced to six years in prison. Dahlia remembered the day the gavel fell, the murmurs of the crowd rising as if justice had been cleanly served. But she also remembered what the cameras did not show. The man weeping, not for himself, but for his children. No one saw their faces in that courtroom, the hollow shock as they realized they had lost not only a father but the fragile stability that kept them afloat. They were cast into a fate no child should ever have to bear.
Even then, Dahlia told herself she ought to hate him. For stealing Scarlet's dream, for crippling her future. Yet whenever her eyes fell on her sister's quiet, unmoving form, the hatred never came. He too was a victim of circumstance, crushed beneath a world that demanded more than a man could give. And Dahlia knew that feeling all too well: what it meant to stagger beneath burdens too heavy, to be broken by the weight of life itself.
Her eyes dropped to the bottles of pills lined across the blackened marble of the cracked kitchen island. She moved toward them, her hand steady from practice, and tipped a small cup full—six pills in all, each a different shape and color. Rounding the island, she filled a glass with water, the faucet sputtering before running clear. With both cup and glass in hand, she crossed the worn living room toward her sister.
She then stopped, her eyes falling to the photograph resting gently in Scarlet's lap. Frozen in time, a moment from years ago: their family, unbroken, in a world that felt brighter. Dahlia remembered that day as if the wind itself carried it still. The park in spring, sakura petals swirling in a storm of pink and white. Their mother's warm smile as she cradled baby Scarlet in her arms, her horse ears perked with joy. And herself, a little girl laughing, hands flinging blossoms into the air.
The smile came unbidden to Dahlia's lips, only to fade when her gaze settled on the man in the frame. Their father. Her expression hardened. A scoff slipped past her lips as her tail flicked in irritation. She settled the glass and the cup upon the coffee table before crouching beside the wheelchair, fingers brushing the photograph as though steadying it.
"Hey, sis," she whispered. "Slept well?"
Scarlet gave no reply. Her eyes remained fixed on the skyline, lifeless glass reflecting the sun, her face a mask emptied by silence. Not since the accident had she spoken a single word. The familiar ache twisted in Dahlia's chest, but she forced a smile all the same. She lifted the photograph, turning it over in her hands, lingering on it.
"Heh… I remember this," Dahlia murmured. "Mom wanted to see the blossoms in Kyoto. The whole park was packed. Tourists everywhere, but it was beautiful. We spread a blanket, had a little picnic. Mom made sandwiches, and Dad…" she let out a faint laugh, "he couldn't keep his hands off the umeshu. Whined like a child when Mom took the bottle away."
Her breath slipped out in a sharp exhale. "I wish we could go back. Back before Mom passed. Back when it still felt like we were… happy." Her gaze softened. "Even Dad."
Silence answered her once more.
With a quiet sigh, Dahlia pushed herself up, then leaned down to press a soft kiss against her sister's cheek. "I've got to get going. Deliveries won't run themselves, you know." She nodded toward the cup of pills and the waiting glass of water on the table. "Don't forget to take your medicine, okay?"
She moved through the familiar ritual. Fingerless gloves, worn running shoes, the heavy delivery bag slung across her back. Pausing by the door, she looked back. "Lunch and dinner's in the fridge. Just heat it up when you're hungry. Don't wait up for me."
Scarlet remained as she was, gaze lost to the city. Dahlia's throat tightened, but she turned forward, steadying herself. "Love you, sis."
Her eyes dropped once more to the photograph. The smile in it, the lives it held. She narrowed her eyes, set it face down on the kitchen island, and tugged the brim of her cap low. Then, without looking back, she opened the door and stepped into the day.
****
The streets thundered with engines, tires shrieking against asphalt, the endless pulse of Tokyo in motion. Buses groaned through intersections, taxis weaved between lanes, and crowds pressed forward on every pavement. Loafers clicking, stilettos striking, umbrellas bobbing in the tide. The city breathed like a vast machine, its veins alive with traffic, its lungs heavy with exhaust. Horns blared, sirens wailed, and yet, even in this clockwork grind, every cog needed fuel. For the city's army of salarymen, that meant lunch.
That's where umas like Dahlia came in.
She moved like the wind, cleats slapping the concrete in a rhythm sharper than the metronome of the crosswalk lights. Pedestrians clutched coats and umbrellas as she streaked past, bracing against the rush of air in her wake. Sweat ran down her face, arms pumping as she cut through the crowd, ducking, weaving, vaulting every human obstacle with the ease of long practice. Dahlia knew these streets as well as her own heartbeat—every road, every shortcut, every shadowed back alley, even the less conventional paths most wouldn't dare to try. Two rules defined her runs: never stop, and never be late. Not by a single second.
A taxi screeched to a halt as she tore across a zebra crossing against the red light, the driver's curses chasing her down the road. She didn't spare him a glance. She couldn't stop. She wouldn't.
Up ahead, a construction site. Fresh concrete poured, signs and barricades in her way. Dahlia's lips curved into a grin. She dropped her center of gravity, every muscle coiling, power surging through her legs.
Workers in blue jumpsuits shouted, waving their arms as she barreled forward. She caught the strap of her delivery bag tight against her chest, boots striking hard against the ground. At the last second, she launched, her cleats hooking the edge of a warning sign. The metal bent under the force, springing her upward.
Gasps rose from the workers as Dahlia soared through the air, clearing five feet of churned earth and fresh cement. She landed on the far pavement, momentum carrying her forward into another sprint. She glanced back over her shoulder with a playful salute. The men stared after her, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, as she vanished once more into the city's rushing veins.
For umas like Dahlia, it was just another day, another run. Back in school, the lesson had been drilled into them early: not everyone was meant for the dirt and turf. Not everyone would make a career out of racing before roaring crowds. Some found their rhythm in song and dance, others in the fields, laboring on farms.
A few turned to more refined callings. Show jumping, polo, or other graceful pursuits. Some worked the forges, crafting the gear their peers wore into glory, or stitched fabrics into the dazzling outfits that made champions shine on the track. And many more drifted into ordinary paths. Deliveries, retail, jobs that blurred faces into a crowd, where names were forgotten as quickly as they were spoken.
Dahlia vaulted onto the bonnet of a car as it braked with a screech, her hips sliding across polished steel before she landed on the far side and sprinted on without breaking stride. Tokyo was filled with umas like her, runners ferrying everything from hot meals to groceries, documents to lost keys. It was fast work, dangerous work. Sometimes, umas didn't make it home.
She could have chosen differently. A clerk at a convenience store, a grocery bagger, even a florist. Safer, quieter jobs. But that life had no place for her. She couldn't sit still, couldn't stand still. She needed to run. To feel the wind tearing through her hair, the fire coursing through her veins, the rhythm of the earth pounding beneath her feet.
She didn't run for crowds, for fans, or for the promise of fame. She ran for herself. In those fleeting bursts, when the city blurred at her sides and the world fell away, she could almost believe she was free. Free from the weight, the pain, the sorrow that clung to every other part of her life.
In those moments, running was all she had. And it was enough.
****
The hours slipped by as the sun sank beneath the horizon, drowning the sky in darkness. Below, Tokyo flared to life, the city burning with streetlamps, neon signs, and a kaleidoscope of colors reflected across wet concrete and glass. The rush-hour crowds had long since thinned; the last trains had departed, carrying most home. But the city never truly slept. Past midnight, the streets still carried life. The shuffle of late stragglers, the stagger of drunk salarymen with too many pints behind them, and the occasional figure sprawled in exhaustion, dead asleep on the pavement.
Dahlia leaned against the wall beside a pair of vending machines, cracking open a can of black coffee. She took a long gulp. Her eyes fixed on the glow of her smartphone as she scrolled through the day's earnings. A scoff escaped her as she flicked the screen dark and shoved it back into her pocket. Her tail swished once behind her as she raised the can for another swallow.
Then the rumble came. Clouds churned above, sending faint tremors through the ground. Dahlia tilted her head upward just as the first drop struck the brim of her cap, followed quickly by a dozen more spattering against the pavement.
She drew a breath, long and steady. Dahlia had hated the rain long before the accident. Back in her training days it had been her nemesis. Turning tracks into mud, slowing her stride, stealing her footing until she fell. Annoying then, but now… now it was something else. Every downpour dragged her back. Her sister's scream. Scarlet's fingers clawing at her jacket. The raw helplessness that hollowed her chest.
And always, the same question clawed at her. Why Scarlet? Why not her, the sister who had nothing to lose, instead of the one who still had everything to live for?
Black Dahlia. A name cursed from the moment it was spoken, tied to an act too vile to forget, a beacon for tragedy and misfortune. People said it was only a name, nothing more, but luck had never stood at her side. In her darker hours, Dahlia wondered if it was her own shadow that had dragged Scarlet into ruin. If her very existence had twisted fate and stolen everything from the one person who had a future worth protecting.
It should have been her in that wheelchair. She was the failure, the one whose chance at greatness had already burned out. Scarlet had the talent, the drive, the promise of a career that could have carried their family's name into history. Instead, she was broken, her future stolen, and all because fate had spared the wrong sister.
The thought gnawed at Dahlia's chest like a sickness. If it had been her instead, maybe Scarlet would still be whole. Maybe the house wouldn't feel so empty. Maybe her sister wouldn't sit silent by a window, staring into a city she could no longer touch. Maybe their father—
Her phone buzzed sharply against her thigh, cutting through the spiral. A notification lit the screen. An order.
Thunder split the night, rattling the ground as lightning clawed through the clouds. Rain poured in sheets, hammering the asphalt until the streets gleamed in neon reflections.
Dahlia crushed the empty can in her hand, shoved the phone back into her pocket, and pulled the delivery bag over her shoulders. With a sharp breath, she pushed off from the wall and hurled herself into the storm, each stride pounding as though she could leave her guilt behind if only she ran fast enough.
****
Dahlia slid across the rain-slick asphalt, stopping in a spray of water. Her gaze lifted to the looming gray and alabaster walls lined with windows. An all-too-familiar sight. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department: a monument to order in the city, but to her, nothing more than a mausoleum of memories she'd rather forget. The endless interviews, the rehearsed questions, the paraded witnesses. To the world, it was procedure. To her, it was theater. A carefully staged production to feed the public its villain, to dress a tired man in the mask of a monster so the headlines could crow of justice done.
Her eyes caught the bus stop just beyond the fence. Bathed in halogen light sat a man. Gray hair neat, thick black glasses reflecting the glow, a cigarette smoldering between his fingers, its smoke curling lazily skyward. His shirt was pressed white, suspenders clipped taut over black slacks, loafers polished even in the rain. A brown trench coat rested over his arm.
Dahlia slowed, tail lashing water from the pavement, ears twitching. The man looked up, and his eyes widened as hers did.
"Detective Nishimura?" she muttered.
"Dahlia?" he answered, getting to his feet.
Detective Shigeru Nishimura. The man who had led Scarlet's case. The man she'd last seen the night her world had splintered.
"My word," Nishimura said, his gaze drifting over her before pausing at the UMAI uniform. "It's been far too long."
"Two years," Dahlia said flatly, the words heavy with disdain. She pulled her phone from her pocket, thumb flicking across the screen before arching a brow. "You're not Tadashi Miyamoto."
Nishimura chuckled, rubbing the back of his head. "No. He had to run. Asked me to pick it up instead. Strange, though. I've ordered from UMAI before, but never had you as the runner. Honestly, I thought you'd refuse, seeing my name."
Dahlia's expression hardened. "A delivery's a delivery. I don't get the luxury of picking and choosing who deserves their meal. Unlike you." She tugged her bag down, unzipped it, and drew out a plastic carrier stacked with containers. She thrust it toward him. "Four yakisobas and a side of gyoza."
Nishimura took the bag with both hands, lips pressing thin. Dahlia zipped the satchel shut, swinging it back onto her shoulder. She turned, but his voice broke against the rain.
"So… h-how's your sister?" he asked.
Dahlia froze, tail snapping once behind her. Her hand clenched into a fist. She turned her head just enough for him to see her eyes, black and hard.
"She's alive," Dahlia said coldly. "But she'll never run again. Not that you'd need me to tell you. Her story was plastered across every screen for weeks."
Nishimura's gaze lowered, his eyes softening as they traced the rain-slick pavement. "I heard… about your father."
The words struck her colder than the storm, the same chill that had gripped her on that night.
"He was one of Tracen's best," Nishimura went on. "Trained your sister, guided her all the way to the championships. After the accident…" He hesitated. "I'm sorry that—"
"Don't." Dahlia's words cut clean, sharp as glass. "As far as I'm concerned, he stopped being a father the moment Scarlet's world ended. He turned on us both. For months he came home stinking of liquor, raging at ghosts, screaming until the walls shook. And then one day, he was gone. No note, no goodbye. Just left, like a child discarding toys he'd broken."
Nishimura flinched but didn't look away. "He lost everything that day too, Dahlia. His career, his name, his pride as a trainer. Men like him… they build their lives around victory, and when it's ripped away, they don't always know how to stand. I'm not excusing what he did—" he paused, "—but grief makes cowards of some, and cruel men of others."
Dahlia's hands curled into fists at her sides, nails biting into her palms. Her tail lashed against the rain. "Grief didn't make him walk away," she snapped. "He did. He chose himself over us. He chose to vanish when Scarlet needed him most. When I needed him most. So don't stand there and tell me what he lost when you have no idea what we were left to carry."
The silence that followed was raw, broken only by the hiss of rain on asphalt and the faint burn of Nishimura's cigarette as he drew in a long, heavy breath.
"I have to go. Another delivery's waiting," Dahlia said, adjusting the strap of her bag.
"Wait," Nishimura called after her. The word carried no authority, only quiet urgency. "I know this is your livelihood. I won't tell you to quit. But… a word of advice." He stepped closer, rain trickling down his glasses, his trench coat still draped over his arm. "Stick to the daytime runs. Please. The department's been stretched thin these past months. Too many umas caught up in illegal street races."
Dahlia's ear twitched, one brow rising despite her indifference.
"They've been tearing through Shibuya, Shinjuku, Shinagawa," Nishimura said. "Accidents, fatalities. Not just umas, civilians too. Dahlia, I don't want to see your name on a report. Not after everything."
Her breath left her in a quiet scoff, though her face didn't soften. "You don't have to worry about me, Detective," she said. "No one ever has."
She turned and sprinted into the storm, her figure swallowed by the sheets of rain.
Nishimura's hand lifted as though to call her back, but he stopped himself, fingers curling into a fist before falling to his side. He sighed, smoke trailing from his lips as he drew the last pull from his cigarette. Crushing the ember against the steel ashtray, he stood a moment longer, staring into the rain where she had disappeared.
His jaw tightened. He had told himself long ago that Scarlet's case was closed, that his duty had ended when the ink dried on the final report. But watching Dahlia vanish into the storm, he knew that wasn't true. He still felt the weight of it. Of them, like a responsibility he'd never managed to set down.
Pulling his trench coat over his shoulders, the old detective turned back toward the precinct, the echo of his concern trailing after her into the dark.
****
Rain pounded the pavement as Dahlia ran, each footfall a drumbeat against the soaked concrete. Water splashed in her wake, soaking through her jacket and shirt, trailing down the length of her tail. The cold bit at her face until her jaw ached; she clenched her teeth against it and ran on. Why did it have to be him? The question flashed through her with every thunderclap, dragging memories she had worked so hard to bury into the open. No matter how far she fled, the city seemed determined to pull her back into the past.
Cars slammed their brakes, tires protesting on slick asphalt as she cut across lanes and dodged startled pedestrians, but she paid them no mind. Running was the only language she still trusted. The one thing that felt like control when everything else had splintered. Yet the past came down on her like the storm itself: the moment the doctor said Scarlet would never run again, the slow collapse of hope into clinical certainty, the way her father's desperate grip slipped into denial and then into something far uglier. She remembered his drunken rages, the glass shattering against plaster, the nights she hauled him inside, scrubbing vomit and blood from his clothes with numb hands.
He stopped caring for himself. Money went to drink, discipline at the Academy dissolved into suspension, then firing after a violent outburst with race officials. The man who had once trained champions unraveled until, one day, he simply left. Like a shadow that finally gave up on trying to be a man.
Tears mixed with rain on Dahlia's cheeks. She wiped them away with the back of her arm and kept moving until her lungs burned. She doubled over at last, hands on her knees, breath ragged beneath the thunder that shredded the night sky. Everything felt broken. Two sisters with ruined futures, a house hollowed by absence, a name that tasted like ash. She had spent years trying to outrun that ruin. Laps, weights, endlessly pushing toward a horizon that kept pulling away. Now the same horizon looked back at her, empty and indifferent.
For a dizzy heartbeat she wondered what it was all for. How long could she run to outrun a verdict the world had already handed them both? Maybe, she thought with a cold honesty she'd never allowed herself before, perhaps surrender was the easier choice. Just as her father had chosen. The thought sat in her like an accusation.
Then, a sound. Cleats striking asphalt, sharp and relentless, faster than anything Dahlia had ever heard. Her head jerked toward the junction. Breath caught in her throat. From around the corner, a figure burst forth, and in that instant the world seemed to fracture. Raindrops froze midair, suspended like shards of crystal. Time itself bowed around her arrival.
Dahlia's eyes widened, heart stuttering in her chest.
An uma surged into view, draped in a jacket black as midnight, raven motifs stitched across its surface, feathered tassels shifting with every stride. A tribal raven sprawled bold across her back, its wings spread wide. Beneath, a sports bra of white, green, and black framed a torso honed to perfection, her leather pants gleaming dark and tight, gold chains swaying with each fluid motion. A scarf cinched at her waist whipped violently in the rain. Jet hair streamed behind her like a shadow's veil, bound high, with a single feather gleaming from her ear and a braid trailing across her face. A mask swallowed her eyes, lending her an aura that was faceless, untouchable, divine.
And yet, it wasn't her appearance that rooted Dahlia in place, it was the way she moved.
The uma didn't run. She glided, boots drifting over the slick asphalt as though the ground itself bent to her will. She dipped low, one gloved hand kissing the road in balance, her body twisting with a grace that defied reason. Dahlia felt her breath falter, as though she were watching a dance meant for gods, fluid and untouchable. From the heels of her boots trailed arcs of crimson light, blazing against the storm like the afterburn of some celestial flame.
In the blink of an eye she surged upright again, a burst of speed propelling her forward, vanishing into the rain as though the city had conjured her spirit only to steal her back.
Half a dozen others stormed after her, but they were clumsy shadows, echoes that could never hold the same shape. They tried to mirror her drift, only to collapse into stacks of boxes, crash against the steel frames of parked cars, or stumble and trip before staggering forward again. Their chaos only magnified the impossible grace of the one who led them.
Dahlia stood breathless, the rain lost to her senses. For the first time in years, her heart raced not with sorrow, not with rage, but with awe, as if she had glimpsed something beyond mortal limits, a legend come alive before her very eyes.