"Uma Musume, please enter the starting gates right away!"
While King Halo was getting completely carried away with herself, Akasaka Misato's voice cut through with urgency. If she didn't get in soon, the staff would have to physically drag her to the gate.
"Alright, alright. Are you all that eager to watch my race? As you wish."
Fortunately, aside from the Uma Musume on the track, not many people caught her over-the-top declarations.
"She seems pretty confident," commentator Hosoe Junko observed.
"Well, she is from the King family, and that Runaway Trainer's uma musume too."
"Indeed."
"We also have the Runaway Trainer here as a special guest for this race."
Akasaka Misato turned around as she said this, putting the microphone right up to Hayato's mouth. "Runaway Trainer, how do you view this race? Is King Halo still confident? Will she use Front Runner tactics again?"
"Isn't that obvious? Of course she'll win." His answer came out sharp, impatience bleeding through every word.
When quite a few people looked up at that, they spotted Hayato sitting right behind Akasaka Misato.
"Look, look! It's the trainer! He went up there!" Urara shouted, pointing frantically at his location.
The race was about to start, but they couldn't find Hayato anywhere just moments ago. They'd thought he was still waiting in the underground passage, but apparently not.
"What's he doing running off there? Seriously, always causing trouble. He could've at least told us he'd be a guest commentator." Seiun Sky complained, her pout making her displeasure clear. She'd been worried sick earlier.
"Maybe he was invited on the spot," Grass Wonder offered in his defense.
Beside her, Maruzensky just smiled with her eyes closed, saying nothing. She'd already figured out what was really going on.
"I said, can you untie this?" Behind Akasaka Misato, Hayato was tied to the chair with a rope.
With the race about to start any second, he really didn't want to miss it.
Long story.
After seeing off King Halo, Hayato ran into Otonashi Etsuko. She'd invited him to a better spot to watch the race, flashing that professional smile. He'd agreed without thinking twice.
Big mistake.
"Aha, we just didn't want you to escape!" Otonashi Etsuko practically glowed with satisfaction at seeing Hayato tied up like this. She could already imagine all the useful information she could squeeze some information out of him.
This is perfect!
"Why would I escape? It's about to start. Where would I even escape to? Hurry up, I want to watch the race."
"Eh? In such a hurry?" She tilted her head. "Well, if the runaway Trainer tells us what tactics King Halo will use in this race, I can untie you!"
"No comment! Hurry up, the race is starting. I'll report you for kidnapping. That's a crime, you know." Hayato kicked his legs hard, the chair rocking with each anxious movement.
In his urgency, Hayato didn't control his strength at all.
Bang!
The chair cracked under him.
CRACK!
It shattered into pieces, wood splintering across the floor as he finally broke free from the ropes and stood up.
Otonashi Etsuko froze, staring at the destroyed chair. She hadn't expected Hayato to actually pull that off. Maybe I should've used an iron chair instead...
But the race was starting, there was no time to dwell on it.
The current location was a bit weird, but it didn't stop him from watching. Hayato snatched Akasaka Misato's microphone right out of her hand and shouted into it, "Go, King! Use your strength to tell them you're King Halo, not some family's young lady!"
CLANG!
The gates crashed open right as he finished, eighteen uma musume exploding forward in a burst of motion.
Hayato handed the microphone back to Akasaka Misato, breathing hard.
She couldn't really say anything about what just happened, inviting Hayato over had been her idea anyway. If something went wrong, she'd reap what she sowed. All she could do now was keep the commentary going.
"Thank you for that statement, Runaway Trainer. I'll continue with the race commentary."
"Gates open! All uma musume have successfully started!"
"Excellent acceleration! Biwa Hayahide is desperately chasing the leading pack. Right from the start, we have an intense battle for the front positions!"
Straightway Acceleration activated!
Right at the start, Biwa Hayahide used the takeoff to accelerate hard, successfully rushing straight to the front of the pack.
Plan successfully. Everything's going exactly as I calculated.
She'd planned this whole thing out ahead of time, every move designed to shut down King Halo's Great Escape strategy before it could even begin.
Even if blocking her completely failed, it didn't matter. Her real goal was just draining King Halo's stamina as much as possible early on.
King Halo was different from Seiun Sky and Silence Suzuka. Without enough stamina left for a late acceleration, she couldn't escape all the way to the finish line. That's what Biwa Hayahide was planning on.
The uma musume in front could adjust their positions to block those behind from accelerating, totally legal. What wasn't legal was cutting diagonally from behind and suddenly appearing right in front of someone else, as Super Creek did.
That's how races worked. As long as you didn't break the rules, any method was fair game. Part of the competition.
Plenty of Uma Musume had been targeted by everyone because they were just too strong. Oguri Cap, for instance.
When Hayato saw Biwa Hayahide's stats, shock hit him hard. "She already had 280 stamina and three recovery skills? Is she insane? Is she really training her stamina just to counter the Great Escape strategy?"
Those numbers appearing in this medium race were absolutely terrifying.
"At least my strategy to deceive the public has worked." William grinned widely without realizing it.
Forget whether King Halo could pull off a Front Runner, even if Suzuka was on that track, winning with Great Escape tactics would be tough against those stats.
Right now, Biwa Hayahide sat in the leading group, one length behind first place. Winning Ticket held the middle of the pack. Narita Taishin ran in second-to-last position.
"Nakayama Racecourse has many slopes. Narita Taishin's situation doesn't look good," Hosoe Junko threw in, clearly having nothing better to say.
Everyone knew that on slopes, a higher speed was actually better. Really bad news for Uma Musume, who needed to conserve stamina, especially End-Closers like her.
"Shut up. I'll run my own way." Even knowing the track worked against her, Narita Taishin had no plans to change her running style.
End-Closers needed really high power to work. Her slender frame, combined with this running style, got her mocked all the time.
Any uma musume would take one look and say: "What? Is she running that way? She looks so frail."
Narita Taishin used this running style because she didn't have the high speed needed to compete for front positions. Even if she tried fighting for the lead, she didn't have the stamina to hold it.
Stamina, that's what she lacked most.
What she figured was the best way to win was simple: conserve stamina early, then maximize speed in the late game. That was her whole strategy, her secret to victory in this race.
--
Btw, the illustration will be on the comment.