"And here they come! Led by Haru Urara, the pack hits the final turn—wait?!"
Just as they were about to swing into the home stretch, the pressure from behind suddenly vanished. Simultaneously, her sensitive ears caught a heavy, violent sound—the sound of something—someone—tumbling across the dirt.
Urara reacted. In the middle of the race, with a potential victory within her grasp, she instinctively looked back.
"——! ——! ——————!"
She thought she heard her Trainer's voice. The roar of the crowd was deafening, but she would never miss his voice. Yet, he was too far away for his words to reach her in time.
She saw it. Castanet Rhythm, a girl she had run with before, was somersaulting across the ground. It wasn't just a trip; at that speed, it looked like she'd been hit by a car, her body bouncing off the hard-packed dirt. Urara saw every second of it.
"Feudal Tenure takes the lead! Duo Talica and Haru Urara are struggling! No, Duo Talica fights back! Urara is trying to recover! Who will it be?! Who will seize the glory?!"
The race didn't stop. Urara's body, conditioned by weeks of training, kept moving forward even as her mind was stuck in the back of the pack.
But that moment of distraction cost her. Her speed had dropped just enough.
Feudal Tenure and Duo Talica surged past her. Urara poured every ounce of strength into her legs to reclaim the lead, but the finish line came a heartbeat too soon. She missed it by a fraction.
And then, past the wire, Feudal Tenure and Duo Talica collided and went down in a heap.
Urara only avoided the pile-up by pure reflex. Because her Trainer had told her to be cautious, her body had moved on its own.
"...Why?"
The question escaped her lips, born from a profound, hollow confusion.
The day after the third race.
Since the moment that race ended, a single question had been spinning in Urara's head. It stayed with her through dinner, through her morning classes, and even as she went to meet her Trainer.
Distracted, she had shown up for training still wearing her school uniform. The Trainer didn't scold her; he just gave a small, understanding smile and led her to a bench.
"How are you feeling about yesterday?" he asked.
"Um... it was fun, but... it wasn't fun?"
That was the only way she could describe it. Usually, a race was a blast regardless of where she finished. But this time, the joy had died halfway through.
"Rhythm-chan fell, and it was scary... and then Tenure-chan and Duo-chan fell too..."
The reason was clear: her competitors had been injured. And it wasn't a freak accident—it was clear they had pushed themselves, and each other, to the point of disaster because they wanted to win that badly.
Urara couldn't understand it. She wanted to win, too, but to her, the act of running itself was supposed to be the reward.
"Hey, Trainer... what is 'First Place' anyway? If everyone has to go through that to get it... I thought I wanted it, but now I don't know..."
She looked to him for an answer. She was certain he would have one.
"I'm not an Umamusume," the Trainer said softly. "So I can't truly know what it's like to feel that you'd die just to take first. But... I do know that I want you to take first."
He spoke slowly, picking his words. Honestly, Urara didn't understand half of what he was saying—not because the words were hard, but because the "why" remained elusive.
"When you finally win," he said with a smile, "tell me how it feels, okay?"
Something about the way he said it—that gentle, hopeful smile—touched something deep inside Urara that she hadn't known existed.
"Hmm... I still don't really get it," Urara admitted.
But even if she didn't understand the philosophy of winning, she understood something else.
"...But, I definitely understand that you're thinking about me, Trainer."
He had always thought of her. He planned her training so she wouldn't get hurt, so she'd get faster, so she could run longer. But this feeling was different. It was as if, for the first time, he was seeing Haru Urara the person, not just the athlete.
It was strange. They had spent so much time together, yet it felt like there had been a thin veil between them until this very second.