It was over.
That's what Kitasan Black thought.
The moment Symboli Rudolf asked her, "You gave up on this race before it even started, didn't you?"—that was when she sensed that the peaceful, quiet life she wanted had slipped away from her.
Even if Symboli Rudolf herself had no intention of keeping an eye on her, what the Emperor personally thought no longer mattered to everyone else.
Because she had indeed caught the attention of this legend. This Emperor.
"So what?"
Kitasan Black glared at Symboli Rudolf with unfriendly eyes, shadows creeping from the depths of her wine-red irises.
She knew this senpai meant no harm.
But from the moment Rudolf had approached her, the peaceful life she wanted was already over.
All her efforts up until now had been for nothing.
It was infuriating.
Unnecessary kindness. Overflowing sympathy. You so-called senpai are far too arrogant.
Do I need you people to lecture me on what I should do?
Kitasan Black released her aura.
Stop right there, Emperor. Don't come any closer!
Symboli Rudolf had originally only wanted to correct a young girl's mistaken way of thinking. But now, she suddenly felt an intense chill emanating from this child. The words she'd meant to say died in her throat under the gaze of those shadow-filled eyes, because she suddenly realized her earlier assumptions had been wrong.
Very wrong.
This presence! This spirit!
Symboli Rudolf felt a numbing sensation like an electric shock.
It was just like the oppressive feeling she'd experienced facing powerful opponents back before she had entered her own domain.
But how could that be possible?
The person before her was just an elementary school student who hadn't even reached Maturity yet!
Should she doubt her own senses?
No!
The tension in Symboli Rudolf's expression suddenly gave way to a smile.
"I originally intended to offer some guidance as a senpai to an adorable kouhai, but it seems even I misjudged you. Kitasan Black, I look forward to the day you enter Tracen Academy."
There was no mistake.
This child was probably a born uma musume, just like she herself had once been.
A kid like this surely didn't need her guidance at all.
Rather, if she tried to lecture this child, that would be an insult—because this child wasn't some weak thing that needed her protection and direction.
"..."
Watching Symboli Rudolf turn and walk away, Kitasan Black truly wanted to curse the woman like Gold Ship-senpai would have—call her an old hag.
I told you to stop, and you did this on purpose, didn't you?!
She had released her aura to warn Symboli Rudolf, but that woman had completely ignored it.
Not only had she pretended not to notice, she'd even said those words in front of everyone here.
Kitasan Black could already imagine what kind of future awaited her after this.
Her teachers, her old man—they would probably have even higher expectations of her now, all because of that one sentence from Symboli Rudolf.
But she didn't want that, which was why she'd been hiding her true self in the first place.
Symboli Rudolf!
If Kitasan Black had actually held a decent opinion of the Student Council President before, then now this president had earned a spot on her grudge list.
"Kitasan-san, it seems the Emperor-senpai thinks highly of you."
Satono Diamond approached and spoke up.
She thought coming over to mock Kitasan Black at a time like this would raise her favorability, since she'd noticed that Kitasan Black actually wanted her to show some hostility.
But she was wrong.
Because she didn't understand Kitasan Black at all.
Kitasan Black had been hiding herself for two reasons: first, to escape the crisis of remedial lessons; second, to avoid accepting more expectations. But now both of those objectives had been declared failures.
All because of that Emperor's whim.
So when Satono Diamond came over with her previous approach, deliberately mocking Kitasan Black, it only backfired.
Kitasan Black looked at the fake smile on Satono Diamond's face. Suddenly, she smiled too—but that smile was ice-cold, completely different from the smiles she'd shown before.
"Go ahead and laugh if you want. After all, right now I really am a ridiculous joke."
"..."
Seeing the coldness in Kitasan Black's eyes, Satono Diamond panicked.
She didn't know what she'd done wrong, but she could feel it—the distance between herself and Kitasan Black had grown even more distant in an instant.
Kitasan Black paid no attention to Satono Diamond's reaction.
She walked toward the gathering point.
At this point, she no longer cared. There was nothing left to hide. And since there was no need to pretend anymore, she had no reason to play house with this ojou-sama.
Promises? Threats?
Such fragile things meant nothing to her now.
What's more, this ojou-sama didn't even exist among the people she cared about.
Satono Diamond didn't know that Kitasan Black had only dealt with her because she needed to maintain her disguise. Once there was no need to pretend, Kitasan Black didn't even have the interest to talk to her.
After all, in Kitasan Black's eyes, Satono Diamond was just one of the weaklings destined to be crushed by her.
Neither a friend nor family—just a weakling destined to fall.
How could someone like Satono Diamond truly capture Kitasan Black's attention?
The so-called gravity field could only restrain a self-sealed Kitasan Black. Once she stopped sealing herself away, Satono Diamond's gravity field couldn't budge Kitasan Black one bit.
Because no matter how hard she tried to appear to have a good mindset, Kitasan Black's true heart was actually filled with negative emotions. How could a gravity field restrain someone who was already full of gravity herself?
Loathing her true self. Resisting the future she truly needed to face. Wanting to escape from it all, constantly making excuses to convince herself, yet unable to completely give up on becoming an uma musume—this was Kitasan Black's true heart. And once she accepted this cowardly version of herself, she became invincible!
After the Open Day ended and they returned to school, the relationship between Satono Diamond and Kitasan Black fell to an absolute freezing point.
From then on, Kitasan Black no longer pretended to maintain her persona.
There was no longer any need. She had accepted the fact that she was a monster.
Facing the true Kitasan Black, her classmates went from initial shock to later fear and even awe.
What kind of monster is that?!
Though she shared a similar appearance with them, her inner self seemed to be something entirely different.
The teachers were shocked yet also felt an incredulous delight.
They never imagined that after just one Open Day visit, Kitasan Black would suddenly evolve to her ultimate form, displaying monster-level talent.
But they celebrated too soon.
The true Kitasan Black simply wasn't someone teachers of their level could discipline.
After all, even if Kitasan Black did nothing but release her aura, it was enough to intimidate them.
Not even GI uma musume, never having witnessed the power of a domain—such weaklings didn't even have the right to look Kitasan Black in the eye. Even though Kitasan Black wasn't actually as willful as a certain Demon King, if they couldn't even approach her, then disciplining her was out of the question.
In the end, Kitasan Black discovered that she had unexpectedly obtained the lazy school life she wanted through an unexpected method. Students and teachers alike were in awe of her. When it came to training, the moment she showed even a hint of reluctance, teachers would actually offer to let her rest on the side.
Seeing this change, Kitasan Black fell silent.
Should she be happy?
Then why couldn't she bring herself to smile?
Compared to before, when she needed to suppress herself and pretend, Kitasan Black suddenly realized that this kind of life actually felt even more boring.
But perhaps she'd anticipated this change all along.
When vacation came, she returned home with some trepidation.
The changes with teachers and classmates had left her feeling helpless, but she honestly didn't care about them.
What she truly felt nervous about was facing her parents next.
After pushing open the front door and calling out "I'm home," she was greeted by her mother's doting smile and welcoming words, same as always. Her old man's behavior was no different from before either.
That evening, after dinner.
Her old man said to Kitasan Black: "If you've got something you want to say, just say it. I don't remember raising you to be such a hesitant, timid kid."
"Then I'll say it straight. Dad, don't you care about my changes? You should know about my situation at school by now. I don't believe my teacher wouldn't have notified you."
"You mean about you hiding your true abilities? I knew about that ages ago. You didn't really think your old man would be dumb enough to go around telling everyone that my precious daughter might become a GI uma musume without any basis, did you?" Her old man's lips curved into a smug smile.
Though he genuinely hadn't known his precious daughter had been hiding this much.
"You knew all along, then why didn't you..."
Kitasan Black's expression showed disbelief.
"You want to ask why I didn't expose you? Simple. I could roughly guess why you were hiding your abilities. Since you didn't want to do this, was I supposed to use my authority as your father to force you to do something you didn't want?"
"But you forced me to go to the Development Elementary School!"
"That was after I asked if you wanted to become an uma musume in the future. You said yes yourself, so I made that decision. And you didn't refuse at the time either."
Her old man sighed as he said this.
"I don't know if you've got some misunderstanding about me, but Kita-chan, if you'd really told me you didn't want to, I wouldn't have forced you to do anything you didn't want to do."
Hearing her old man say this, Kitasan Black's expression became quite colorful.
In that instant, she felt like a complete clown.
"Of course, at the time I thought you just had some talent. Since you wanted to become an uma musume, I hoped you wouldn't regret not building a good foundation when you were young..."
Pushing Kitasan Black to do morning practice had been for this reason too.
Listening to her old man's words, Kitasan Black fell silent.
Because when she thought about it carefully, she realized her old man really hadn't forced her to do anything before. The invitations to morning practice and the school transfer—she herself hadn't refused firmly enough. And her old man hadn't made any more demands of her, nor had he particularly cared about her grades at school.
It was her own lack of trust in her father that had made her imagine all those things.
"If you feel uncomfortable at your current school, you can tell me now."
"That's not necessary."
Kitasan Black shook her head.
Her heart relaxed. So everything before had just been her overthinking.
After finishing her conversation with her old man, her mom came out of the kitchen carrying a plate of cut fruit.
Looking at her family, still the same as before—the atmosphere even more harmonious than before—Kitasan Black's mood quickly recovered.
If she'd trusted her parents earlier, perhaps she wouldn't have needed to pretend at all.
She'd really gone in such a roundabout way.
Time flew by.
Kitasan Black's elementary school life afterward was unexpectedly peaceful.
Though Satono Diamond occasionally tried to stir up trouble, what did it matter?
Kitasan Black didn't spare that person a thought.
Now Kitasan Black had completed her Maturity and successfully passed the Tracen Academy entrance exam.
Facing the spring breeze, she arrived once again at Central Tracen Academy.
...
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