She sang and she sang.
Eyes pointed forward to the crowd, smile on her face. But even then... she wasn't thinking of the performance, wasn't thinking of the lyrics that she was saying with what seemed to be the entirety of her soul.
Lyrics of hope, persistence and of the mere beauty of the act of running itself.
No.
She wasn't thinking of that, her thoughts remained elsewhere, they were still on the race.
Still on what she had given back then, still on what she had lost for that spurt.
There was a reason she preferred the Great Escape to the other styles, and it wasn't simply that it was the most freeing of them all.
She used it because she knew deep down that her final spurt was lacking in many a ways, it couldn't ever hope to compare to her rival, Reve d'Essor and her incredible spurt that let her close the distance between themselves.
But... somehow during the final part of the race when both her and her rival were running on empty, she still had more.
It didn't make sense, it couldn't make sense, but in the heat of the moment, she ignored it, she ignored the fact that she couldn't normally increase her speed so suddenly.
She ignored the fact that she increased in speed when she shouldn't have been able to.
She ignored the fact that she was burning herself to ash.
It was only when she went to change for the winners live did she notice what was wrong and even then it was purely coincidental... At least in her opinion.
...
She hummed happily as she entered the room, she had done it!
She had won her first ever G1 race!
According to her teammates that was supposedly a legendary feat with only less than 1% of all umamusume racers ever winning one!
So even if she herself didn't truly understand the purpose of it all, she did know that it was an achievement to be proud of.
So... of course she was, after taking off the extremities of her G1 race wear, which was apparently blessed by the three goddesses? She didn't know how it worked, nor did she care. She went to the bathroom smile still on her face.
She leaned down to wash her face before...
She felt a pressure rising in her throat.
It was suffocating, she felt like she was shocking.
Without even meaning to she started dry hacking trying desperately to get the thing out of her throat.
She was getting more and more lightheaded, her skin becoming more pale by the second.
Was this how she was going to die?
Was this how her story was coming to an end?
Please... please don't let it be so!
She had only just won one G1 in spectacular fashion! The expectations on her shoulders were extreme! She just couldn't die now! The despair of all those who want to see her run would be terrible!
It was getting closer now, the taste becoming more pronounced, it tasted... coppery?
But why?
She couldn't spare to dwell on it any further as eventually after a long and hard fought battle she spat out the thing in her throat.
She collapsed down to the side heaving in breath after breath as she tried her best to just breath and recollect herself.
She was shaking and quivering, her body hurt.
It all hurt.
It hurt.
And when she pulled herself up back to the sink to see what was it that she hacked out of her system?
"!" she froze.
"No..." she couldn't help but say, "Is that..."
She looked at it once more, it's form spread outwards in any and all directions, making the form of something that she couldn't put a name to, but it's color and smell was sure to haunt her.
It smelled almost exactly as it tasted when it was still in her throat, coppery with a bitter tang.
It's color meanwhile was a dark, dark red.
"Is that... my blood?"
She couldn't say more, couldn't think more, all she remembered was that final spurt, the one where she... touched something that she had never known of before... a power that lingered in her, that burnt to the touch so much so that it hurt to even look at it.
It reminded her of it.
Of the thing that took them away, of the fire that destroyed her first life.
Such a fire existed inside her as well, it burned to even look at, but it spoke to her.
It whispered to her.
It told her of itself, of how all she had to do was take.
And she... so so desperate to live up to their hopes took, just like it offered.
She couldn't remember what it had felt like back then, so great was her will to win, no matter the cost.
All she remembered was the sensation... of being burnt to ash.
...
Her eyes lost their focus and luster as she remembered it all, luckily for her the winners live had just ended, the lights were off, and she left the stage and went to reunite with her team.
'Should I tell them?' she pondered, 'Should I tell them of it all? Of the power, of the cost, of the pain?' she wasn't sure.
If she told them they would try to make sure she doesn't use it again, but they can't control her while running, so she would merely stop once more.
Her redemption would end.
Her sole path to freeing herself of the burdens of the past, gone... reduced to naught but ash on the wind.
So then... she shouldn't tell them.
After all, what they didn't know couldn't hurt them.
Could it?
----------------------
AN
Wrote this on my new laptop, so if the style feels different that's why and if you can actually see the Italics that I used then THANK THE LORD!!!!
I used italics this chapter if you couldn't tell, to try and make things more poignant.
And now that we are officially out of junior year, the most important year is finally coming up, the classic year. Where we will finally see Hope for Tomorrow win the triple tiara and go and face Orfevre at the Japan Cup!
...what do you mean Orfevre didn't race in the japan cup in his classic year?
I could have sworn that he did?
wait... does that mean, I have to change the story and original timeline even more!?!?!?!
Well... yes and no at the same time, I could change Orfevre og race timeline but I won't instead, I'll be using the thing I introduced this chapter to make a certain other thing hit even harder.
Though that will force me to research the career for the horses that ran in the japan cup more than I was originally planning to.
onto the elephant in the room.
yes I published a chapter this week, no, it won't always be like this.
probably.
oh, you were referring to the fact that hope can now pull a twilight star?
yeah, don't worry about that.
either way,
this is GreekAntrielos,
signing off,
till next time.