The world has betrayed me!
Watching Sunday Silence win by an absurd margin, Sakuraba Ryo had gone completely numb inside.
Thirteen lengths?
What is this? Hacks?
An international student that came back from Japan, who's racing shoes are flying through the sky...
He seriously could not understand it.
There was no mistake. Sunday Silence was supposed to be one of the scrubs he'd carefully selected.
Her background looked weak at a glance, and when he'd met her in person, she'd never shown anything remotely eye-catching.
And now you're telling me this girl just came out here and blew past America's G1 Umamusume like they were nothing?
Are you kidding me?
If this is a dream, then wake me up.
No, damn it, this is a nightmare!
What chilled Sakuraba Ryo to the bone wasn't just that Sunday Silence had won a G1 race.
It was that she'd won by an enormous margin!
That meant Sunday Silence already had strength far beyond that of the average Umamusume on the American circuit.
Which also meant...
There was a very high chance she'd keep winning from here on out in America!
I'm so screwed!
GAHHHHHHHHH—!!
My future is pitch-black, desuwa!
There was no expression left on Sakuraba Ryo's face.
How boring.
A money-making Umamusume is the most boring thing in the world!
Hmph, hmhmm, hahhh—!!
As Sakuraba Ryo let out a foul inner scream, Obey Your Master, standing beside him, watched Sunday Silence standing alone on the track amid the roaring cheers, her mood a little complicated.
Ah... so this is what it feels like to teach your disciple so well she leaves you behind?
Not that she was the least bit surprised Sunday Silence had won this race.
What she hadn't expected was that she would win it so cleanly, so decisively.
Pulling more than ten lengths clear of second place meant the two sides were no longer even on the same level.
"Tony... we've really raised a monster, haven't we..."
Obey Your Master sighed inwardly.
She was certain that if Tony Bianca, back at Nishikino, heard this result from Sunday Silence, she'd wear the same stunned expression.
"So the result turned out exactly as you expected."
While Sakuraba Ryo was wallowing in misery, Secretariat stepped up in front of him and said that.
"Thirteen lengths. This is simply the natural outcome."
"Sunday Silence's potential really is remarkable. Your eye as an investor was correct."
Looking at him, Secretariat found it surprising that there was no joy on Sakuraba Ryo's face at all. What she saw instead was a calm so flat it looked like dead ash.
Oh?
That steady, huh?
So he really did know all along that Sunday Silence could run a race like this?
She had no idea where Sakuraba Ryo's confidence came from, but Secretariat felt the man before her had probably seen through everything already.
"...The natural outcome?"
Hearing Secretariat say that made Sakuraba Ryo's already miserable heart seize up like someone had poured salt in the wound.
Urgh.
Why am I getting stabbed after the race too?
Medic!
Where's the medic?!
Teammates? Where are my teammates? Somebody save me!
Get me the fast-acting heart pills!
Man, I can't even cry.
Ugh...
Keeping his face blank, Sakuraba Ryo could only bleed inside. He looked at Secretariat and said, "This is just a little rough weather on the road of investment."
I'll endure it!
I believe the sun will come out after the rain!
No gambler loses every single day!
And nobody wins forever either!
There has to be a losing streak eventually!
Sakuraba Ryo's gloom came fast, and it passed fast too.
He quickly collected himself.
"Just a little rough weather? That's an interesting way of putting it, sir."
Secretariat found herself even more curious about this investor now.
She really wanted to know how Sakuraba Ryo had turned Sunday Silence into what she was now. It was almost like she'd been remade from the ground up.
"Come to think of it, we haven't introduced ourselves yet~"
"I'm the student council president of Tracen Academy here in America, Secretariat."
Smiling, Secretariat extended a hand to Sakuraba Ryo.
"Sakuraba Ryo. Just an ordinary investor."
After a moment's thought, Sakuraba Ryo took her hand.
The cheers at the Santa Anita Park had yet to die down. Sunday Silence had only just pulled her gaze back from her victory lap, and before she could even step clear of the edge of the course, a surging pack of reporters swarmed her from all sides.
"Miss Sunday Silence! How do you feel about winning a G1 race by a massive thirteen lengths?"
"Your running style has completely changed the American racing scene. Was this your plan from the beginning?"
"What's your next goal? Will you challenge for the Triple Crown?"
"Can you tell us about your training team and—"
The questions came down like pounding rain. Microphones were thrust so close they were nearly in her face, while camera lights flashed blindingly around her.
Sunday Silence stopped walking.
She lowered her gaze slightly. Damp white-highlighted bangs clung to the corners of her sweat-slick forehead, and in those eyes that always carried a chill of indifference and distance, an agitated impatience now flickered.
She had won.
She'd won easily.
Won cleanly, without suspense, without argument.
But she wasn't standing here to listen to this noise.
And she certainly wasn't standing here to answer the same tired questions.
Her gaze tried to pierce through the shifting sea of heads toward one particular direction in the stands—the place where he should be.
He was still waiting.
He watched the race. So now what?
What would he say?
How would he...look at her?
That thought smoldered in her chest like a banked fire, spreading its heat in silence.
These reporters, these voices, all this meaningless noise standing between her and him—
They were wasting her time.
Irritation spread through her like a tangle of fine thorns.
Sunday Silence said nothing. She didn't even make any obvious gesture of refusal. She merely stood there and raised her chin slightly.
And yet, an invisible, heavy, oppressive pressure exploded outward from her in an instant.
It wasn't hostility aimed at anyone in particular. It felt more like the unconscious overflow of a presence too overwhelming to contain—a mixture of a victor's still-burning battle fervor and the cold pressure left behind by extreme concentration.
The noisy barrage of questions stopped dead.
The reporters closest to her took half a step back on instinct, their hands holding microphones freezing in midair.
The crowd that had been packed shoulder to shoulder seemed to be pushed back by a soundless wave, leaving behind a brief pocket of empty space.
Every camera was still trained on her, but the frantic scramble from moments before had turned rigid and still, replaced by the breathless dread of being silently watched by some predatory beast.
Sunday Silence's gaze swept calmly over the crowd that had fallen silent in an instant. There was no wild joy of victory in those eyes, no deliberate arrogance either—only an unmistakable message that allowed no obstruction.
"Get lost."
She didn't say a word.
And yet she'd said everything.
Without hesitation, she started walking.
The crowd parted in silence like the sea before Moses, opening a path toward the direction she truly wanted to go.
Her footsteps struck the ground with steady clarity, and only after she had walked out of the encirclement did that heart-stopping pressure gradually fade with her distance.
The reporters left behind looked at one another. A long moment later, someone finally muttered under their breath,
"...What was that just now...?"
"...A monster."
But Sunday Silence had already left the clamor behind. Her gaze fixed straight on the exit to the stands, her pace quickening as she headed unerringly toward where he was.
Her steps never slowed in the slightest, leaving that dead-silent reporter zone farther and farther behind.
The pressure that had frozen the air seemed to dissipate with her departure, and a few of the more timid reporters let out long breaths, clutching their chests, no longer daring to step forward.
And yet, there was always someone unwilling to let it go.
Just as that dark figure was about to vanish into the entrance passage, a somewhat hurried voice suddenly burst out from the reporter crowd, trying to seize one last chance:
"Miss Sunday Silence! Please wait! You've just won such a great victory—aren't you going to... thank anyone?"
The voice faltered, perhaps realizing the tone had been too aggressive, then hurriedly patched itself over with almost fawning guidance.
"Even if it's just... a word of thanks to the American Circuit? After all, this is the stage that gave you the chance to shine!"
That sentence was like an icy needle, stabbing into Sunday Silence's ears without warning.
Her foot stopped cold the instant before she stepped into the shadows.
The light at the mouth of the passage cut across her body, dividing brightness from darkness and leaving half her face submerged in gloom. Time seemed to freeze for one second.
And then—
FWOOOSH!
An aura ten times, a hundred times stronger than before erupted with a roar.
It was no longer invisible pressure. It was cold fury so dense it almost felt tangible, carrying a razor-edged force as it crashed straight back into the reporter crowd.
The reporter who had asked the question took the full brunt of it. A wave of freezing dread clamped around his heart in an instant. It felt as though an invisible, icy hand had locked around his throat, crushing off his breath. His pupils dilated in terror, and every word he'd prepared was stuffed back down by force, leaving nothing but a ragged, choking wheeze.
Sunday Silence turned around slowly.
The light fell across her face again.
Those distinctive golden eyes, now blazing with terrifying brightness from the rage surging inside them, locked onto the reporter like a beast fixing on its prey.
The muscles in her face twitched faintly from the violence of her fury. Her originally refined features had taken on a viciousness close to savage, and a vein pulsed at her forehead.
Gratitude?
Gratitude toward this... American Circuit that had thrown her out like garbage?
Gratitude toward the "stage" that had once shut its doors to her, treated her like she was nothing, and forced her to leave for a foreign land?
Ridiculous.
Pathetic.
A violent storm of old humiliation, icy hatred, and loathing exploded in her chest, nearly tearing through the bounds of reason.
She hadn't come back for anyone's recognition.
Not to win applause on this so-called supreme stage.
She had come back to crush everything.
To grind underfoot all those who had once looked down on her, driven her out, all those so-called rules and that so-called glory.
To trample them completely and beyond dispute with the most undeniable victory possible—with a gulf of thirteen full lengths.
And they wanted her to say thank you?
Heh.
There was only one person she would ever thank.
Sunday Silence's lips pressed into a cold, hard line. In her golden eyes burned a light so intense it was almost destructive.
She never opened her mouth, but the killing intent and contempt radiating from her had already become the coldest, sharpest answer imaginable, stabbing through the questioner and shaking everyone present to the core.
She cast one final icy glance over the crowd, now mute as cicadas in winter.
"You want me to be grateful?"
"You're not worthy of it."
Then she spun around and strode into the shadows of the passage without a trace of hesitation, leaving behind a field of dead silence—and the reporter who had nearly collapsed to the ground, drenched in cold sweat.
Like I said.
Sunday Silence really did not have a very good temper.
---
T/N: thats right! dont give up sakuraba!
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