At last, the Santa Anita Derby was about to begin.
Sunlight spilled across the broad dirt track, turning the dark brown earth hazy gold.
The noise from the stands seemed cut off by an invisible film. Out on the track, there was only silence.
Sunday Silence stood before her starting gate, closed her eyes lightly, and drew in a deep breath.
This was her first G1 race—not a trial, not a simulation, but a true stage, one that had gathered the strongest young Umamusume on the American continent at this very moment.
The air carried the scent of dirt and grass, with the faint sweetness of hot dogs and popcorn drifting over from the stands in the distance.
But she shut it all out.
All that remained in her ears was her own breathing, steady and deep, slowly falling into rhythm with her heartbeat.
The chill of the gate came through her fingertips.
She opened her eyes.
Reflected in those golden irises was the winding course ahead.
Hadn't she gone to Japan, hadn't she trained so hard at Nishikino Academy, all for this very moment?
...
Up in the stands, Sakuraba Ryo sat not far from Secretariat, but his eyes were locked tightly on the figure standing at the gate.
Today, Sunday Silence wore her Racing Outfit which was in deep black and dark crimson. The colors were subdued, yet it looked as though dark fire flowed beneath them.
She lowered her center of gravity slightly, body drawn taut like a bowstring, waiting in silence for the instant the gate opened.
Watch closely, Sakuraba Ryo, she told herself.
It was a declaration to the trainer willing to invest in her, and to herself as well.
This is the strength of the Umamusume you chose to invest in.
The starter raised an arm.
The gates flew open with a crash.
Six figures shot out like arrows loosed from the string, and dirt exploded into the air.
Sunday Silence did not hesitate for even an instant.
Almost at the exact moment the gate opened, she had already burst forward like a streak of black lightning tearing through morning fog.
In the stands, Sakuraba Ryo unconsciously held his breath.
The race had begun.
Sunday Silence knew exactly what she had to do in this race.
She had to win.
Not just win—
She had to win beautifully, win—
Win in a way that would make everyone who had ever shunned her, everyone who had ever hurt her, remember her name from this day on.
So her decision was simple, and merciless.
Accelerate.
The boom of the opening gates still echoed in her ears when her legs released the force that had been building inside them for so long.
Clods of dirt flew beneath her feet, but the surface felt firm and familiar.
Unlike the special dirt track built back at Nishikino Academy in Japan, this one gave her a more direct resistance, a more violent kind of feedback—and that suited her perfectly.
Over the first hundred meters, she did not rush straight to the front. Instead, she clung to the outside edge of the leading pack.
Wind pressure slammed into her face, carrying the grit of dirt and the salt of sweat.
The breathing of the Umamusume around her, their footfalls, even the brush of cloth against cloth, all came through with crystal clarity—but Sunday Silence's attention was fixed only on what lay ahead.
Now.
Just before the first turn, her eyes sharpened, and the weight behind her stride suddenly deepened.
The smooth rhythm she had been holding shattered beneath a fiercer power, like an engine suddenly pushed into overboost.
Her body tilted forward, the black Racewear clinging tight to her skin at speed, the dark red lines across it like streaks of burning blood.
"SHE'S COMING UP! ON THE OUTSIDE—IT'S SUNDAY SILENCE!"
The announcer's voice rang out across the grounds, carrying a trace of surprise.
"SHE'S MAKING HER MOVE EARLY! THAT'S AN EXTREMELY BOLD APPROACH!"
A stir rippled through the stands.
Secretariat rose to her feet without realizing it, one hand braced against the seat in front of her, her knuckles whitening slightly.
She watched Sunday Silence carve her way out of the pack like a black blade, cleanly splitting open the crowded formation.
She was accelerating.
Still accelerating.
She did not slow through the turn. If anything, she used the centrifugal pull to throw her stride even wider.
Chunks of dirt kicked up and fell behind her. Her golden eyes stayed fixed on the stretch of track ahead, growing emptier and emptier.
Her lungs were burning. Her muscles were screaming.
But a pain so sharp it bordered on exhilaration ran through her whole body—this was the road she had chosen.
This was the way she would prove herself.
If she was going to win, then she would win in the most overbearing way possible.
By the time the straight opened, she had already secured a place in the top three.
The two runners ahead had clearly never expected anyone to launch an all-out charge this early in the middle stages, and a tiny disturbance entered their rhythm.
Sunday Silence seized that instant.
Not enough—
She clenched her teeth and drove the last of her reserved strength into her legs.
The wind screamed past her ears. The scenery on both sides blurred into streaks of color.
The roar of the crowd became distant, and the world shrank down to her heartbeat, her breath, and that straight line ahead leading to victory.
She would break through.
She would be the first one across.
She would win this race in a way no one could possibly ignore—like a bolt of black lightning splitting the track in two.
In that moment, the thoughts in Sunday Silence's mind stretched out without limit.
Tony Bianca had once taught her the key to activating the Zone...
"Picture yourself as a bullet being pressed into the chamber—then fire!"
"And let the finish line be your target!"
"You don't need any distractions beyond that!"
At that instant, the already razor-edged aura around Sunday Silence changed violently.
Frenzied. Sharp.
A crushing pressure, as though it would tear through every restraint in existence, burst out from her center and spread like an invisible storm.
The dirt beneath her feet stopped being resistance.
The moment the Zone unfolded, it became a wave brought to heel, lifting her, driving her onward.
Her speed climbed to its absolute peak.
This was no longer simple acceleration. It was a breakthrough so complete it felt like a change in kind.
For an instant, her form seemed to blur in everyone's sight—and then it condensed into something fiercer still, a more violent streak of black!
The air was forced apart with brutal force, letting out a low, strained cry. Even the dirt she crossed began to show a trail of marks far deeper than before, as though the ground itself had been scorched.
Those were her footprints?!
"TH-that's...?!"
The announcer's voice caught in his throat, strangled by disbelief.
In the stands, Secretariat's amber eyes narrowed sharply. The languid smile that had rested on her face until now vanished completely, replaced by shock—and instant understanding.
She leaned forward without realizing it, gaze nailed to that black shadow rocketing down the track, and murmured to herself,
"So that's it... No wonder you dared stand here."
No wonder she had dared, as a returnee from abroad, to challenge one of the highest honors in American dirt racing.
The Zone.
That threshold countless Umamusume would never reach in their entire lives. That symbol of supreme talent and understanding.
And yet here it was—on Sunday Silence, on the track of the Santa Anita Derby—unfolding with such arrogance, such naked dominance.
Within the Zone, she alone ruled.
Her will and power were forcibly imprinted onto her surroundings. Every contraction and extension of muscle had reached a theoretically perfect harmony. Every step wrung every last ounce of recoil the dirt could offer from the ground.
The two runners ahead seemed to be slowed by invisible shackles for a split second. They looked back in alarm, only to see a figure like black flame devouring the final gap at terrifying speed.
What shone in Sunday Silence's golden eyes was no longer the backs of her opponents.
It was the finish line itself.
Tony Bianca's voice echoed through her boiling blood—
"Picture yourself as a bullet being pressed into the chamber—then fire!"
She was loaded.
"And let the finish line be your target!"
Target locked.
"You don't need any distractions beyond that!"
"Fire!"
All stray thoughts vanished.
Only the purest instinct to move forward drove her body now.
Around her, the Zone shimmered faintly—not as a soft glow, but like the distortion of air in extreme heat.
Secretariat slowly sat back down, but her eyes had never been sharper.
Watching that figure overturn the entire race, a complicated curve slowly rose at the corner of her mouth.
"The Zone... What an unexpected delight."
She spoke softly, with no one in particular as her audience.
Out on the track, Sunday Silence drew even with the leaders.
And then—she passed them.
With the Zone fully unleashed, the overtake happened in a single instant.
Like true black thunder, she shattered the final barrier and charged alone into the empty stretch ahead with utterly undeniable force.
She would win.
She would win in a way no one would ever forget.
She would win.
She would burn herself into the deepest part of Sakuraba Ryo's memory.
Under the nearly frozen stares of the entire crowd, the gap between Sunday Silence and second place began tearing open at a despairing pace.
Still widening.
Pitilessly widening.
It was as though she was running in another dimension, another, faster stream of time.
Behind her, the dirt track rose into a violent tide. Every footfall crashed down with a dull, drumlike boom—the roar of the earth resonating with the power of the Zone.
Those Umamusume who had entered this race bearing the hopes of the crowd, representing the very highest level of America's generation, now looked unbelievably slow, unbelievably... powerless.
They pumped their arms with everything they had, faces twisted with strain, trying desperately to close a distance that had already become unreachable—but all they could do was watch that bolt of black will tear farther and farther away.
The formation had long since collapsed. Tactics no longer meant anything.
Before absolute speed and an overbearing Zone, every resistance was as futile as a mantis trying to stop a chariot.
"A monster..."
Someone in the stands murmured it in a daze.
This was no longer a race.
It was closer to a one-sided exhibition.
An exhibition of just how sharp a blade returned from overseas study could become.
An exhibition of just how fierce the fury of the overlooked could burn.
An exhibition of what true domination looked like.
The announcer's voice trembled as he tried to find words equal to the scene before him.
"Incredible! Sunday Silence! She's still accelerating! She's left her opponents far, far behind! This is no pursuit—this is... this is a solo dance! On the stage of the Santa Anita Derby, only a single streak of black remains!"
...
Up in the stands, Sakuraba Ryo had already forgotten how to breathe.
Forgotten everything around him.
All that remained in his sight was that lone figure running away from the field—and the ever-widening gap that made his heart feel as though it had stopped.
His ears rang.
It was the sound of blood rushing upward—and the sound of something solid in his mind collapsing.
Th-this... this is the Umamusume I invested in?
Th-this seriously looks like someone who can lose money?!
Secretariat watched in silence, complex emotions churning in the depths of her amber eyes.
The jinx girl was sweeping the entire track.
She watched Sunday Silence crush through the final turn like a sovereign descending upon the field, then surge into the straight for the finish. That back looked solitary and powerful, as though all the weight and all the light of the course had been drawn into it.
The gap had grown so absurdly large that the timing cameras had to split the screen just to capture both the leader and the struggling pack behind her at once.
In Sunday Silence's golden eyes, the finish line had become perfectly clear.
Perfectly close.
Burn it in.
Burn this victory—burn this overwhelming display—into everyone's memory.
Especially...
Into the deepest part of Sakuraba Ryo's memory!
She ripped out the last reserve of strength in her body—the most violent one of all.
The Zone surged to its peak, and the air around her let out a shriek under the strain.
She crossed the line.
The final margin slammed onto the board like a thunderclap—thirteen lengths!
A crushing runaway. An unquestionable, absolute obliteration.
For an instant, time seemed to stop the moment she hit the line.
Then the stands exploded.
The roar that burst from every corner of the grandstand merged into a single tidal wave that drowned everything else out.
Gasps, screams, disbelieving shouts—and then, spreading outward in an instant before sweeping across the whole venue, frenzied cheers for the victor.
"SUNDAY SILENCE——!!"
The announcer had lost all his usual restraint. His voice thundered over the speakers, hoarse with excitement.
"THIRTEEN LENGTHS! MY GOD! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, DID YOU SEE THAT?! NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE SANTA ANITA DERBY HAS THERE BEEN A MARGIN LIKE THIS! NEVER A VICTORY THIS OVERBEARING, THIS MERCILESS, THIS COMPLETE!"
"SHE CAME FROM THE OUTSIDE! SHE OPENED THE ZONE IN THE MIDDLE STAGES! SHE TORE EVERY TACTIC TO SHREDS WITH ABSOLUTE SPEED AND CAST A FIELD OF TOP-CLASS OPPONENTS FAR BEHIND HER—SHE DIDN'T JUST WIN THIS RACE, SHE REDEFINED IT!"
"SAY HER NAME WITH ME ONE MORE TIME—SUNDAY SILENCE! TODAY—NO, FROM THIS MOMENT ON—THE DIRT TRACKS OF ALL AMERICA WILL REMEMBER THE BLACK BEAST!"
The announcer's words were the final torch to the powder keg, and the atmosphere at the course ignited completely.
By the rail, staff and reporters rushed toward the finish in near-madness.
Camera flashes stitched themselves into a blinding white blaze, all of them trying to capture that black figure who had only just come to a stop, chest rising and falling slightly.
Her Racing Outfit was soaked through with sweat, plastered to her body, white vapor steaming up from it.
Her golden eyes swept slowly over the boiling stands—and then, piercing through distance and clamor alike, settled with perfect accuracy on the investor sitting there in stunned silence.
Sakuraba Ryo.
Did you see?
This is how I repay you.
There was no smile on her face.
No wild joy.
Only a stillness that had settled deep, almost cold—and beneath that stillness, emotions boiling like molten lava.
At some point, Secretariat had already left her seat. Arms folded, she watched Sunday Silence from a distance as the winner was mobbed on all sides.
Excitement danced in those amber eyes.
"Thirteen lengths..."
She tasted the outrageous number on her tongue.
"Now that girl should have an opponent she can truly be satisfied with~"
At the center of the track, Sunday Silence lifted her chin slightly, facing the countless cameras and eyes fixed on her, letting the sweat slide down her cheeks.
She had won.
In the strongest way possible. In the most undeniable way possible.
Her name, her figure, and that thirteen-length margin would be branded forever into the memory of every person who had witnessed it.
Especially into the deepest part of Sakuraba Ryo's memory.
This victory was only the beginning.
So then.
How, exactly, was our dear investor feeling right now?
I'M SO FUCKEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD——!!!!!!
Sakuraba Ryo screamed in utter collapse inside his own head.
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T/N: THIRTEEN LENGTHS WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT also uhhh do you guys know what her title was, if so comment it so i can replace black lightning