"Alright, everyone, look this way."
The photographer wore an encouraging smile. Behind him, a crowd of media people were anxiously waiting for the interview to begin, which only gave him the petty pleasure of making them wait.
Offside Trap leaned against Terazumi Shinji's side. Beside them, Sakura Laurel held up the winner's sign with a huge grin on her face.
Narita Brian still looked somewhat dazed, but as the flower presenter, she forced herself to stay composed and make her expression look a little less strained.
Only one JURA official had come. Shinji could tell the man was not especially enthusiastic, but he could not care less. He looked at Offside Trap's face and saw that her happiness was genuine.
She had finally achieved the dream she had carried for so long, the dream that had almost become an obsession.
"Three! Two! One!"
As the photographer counted down, the reporters behind him felt as though ants were crawling all over them. They all wanted to snatch the camera from his hands, take a few quick shots, and drag Offside Trap straight to the interview booth.
Did they think they could not tell? Their own photographers had finished ages ago. Only this official photographer was still dawdling, dragging things out on purpose.
"Done!"
Offside Trap stepped down from the podium. Shinji stayed beside her, and both of them knew that the reporters would swarm them next.
There were many familiar faces among them. Their expressions were animated, clearly bursting with questions, and the sight almost made Shinji laugh.
Before the race, they had revolved entirely around Silence Suzuka.
Now, what would they revolve around?
He found himself oddly looking forward to it.
He sat down leisurely in the interview chair. The reporters in front of him were already primed and ready. Shinji could tell they were different from the spectators in the stands. They had not been disappointed or dejected by Suzuka's defeat.
Quite the opposite.
What they saw now was more buzz, more headlines, more heat.
"The interview will now begin!"
The host's announcement had barely ended before one reporter was already on his feet, moving so quickly that Shinji had not even fully settled into his seat yet.
"I'd like to ask Trainer Terazumi Shinji: before the race, you stated with certainty that Offside Trap would win, and the result of the Tenno Sho Autumn proved you right. From the Takarazuka Kinen to today, Offside Trap has undergone a complete transformation. Is there anything you would like to say to Offside Trap herself and to your camp as a whole?"
The tone of the question was noticeably gentler now.
Shinji and Offside Trap exchanged a glance and smiled. These people really did know how to tailor their attitude to whoever stood in front of them. One victory, and their entire manner had changed.
"First of all, I want to congratulate my horse girl," Shinji said. "Even through the lowest points of her career and all the hardship she endured, she never gave up on herself. She maintained an extraordinary degree of focus and perseverance. Her effort was the foundation and prerequisite that allowed us to make it this far.
"And as for what I want to say..." He gave a small shrug. "No matter how long the road, it eventually ends. No matter how long the night, dawn will come."
He paused before continuing.
"As for our camp, there is honestly nothing much left to say. My attitude is the same as it was in the pre-race interview: from beginning to end, we believed Offside Trap would win. So it was never that Silence Suzuka's defeat was inevitable. It was that every opponent's defeat was inevitable."
The reporter nodded as though fully convinced. Shinji had no idea what exactly he was nodding along to, but he guessed the man had already figured out how to turn it into a satisfying article.
Another reporter stood.
"I'd like to ask Offside Trap: after the race, we observed Air Groove coming over to congratulate you, but it seemed the two of you ultimately did not shake hands. Did something happen there?"
"Air Groove has spent too long in the student council. The position of vice president has made her increasingly arrogant," Offside Trap replied at once. "Before the race, she was disrespectful toward my trainer. So after the race, I told her that the person she should really have congratulated was not me, but my trainer."
The sudden sharpness in Offside Trap's tone was so different from the hesitant girl they had seen in the pre-race interview that the reporters were visibly startled.
"She refused," Offside Trap continued. "Which was within expectations. Even so, I was still disappointed by how limited her character turned out to be." A faint curve touched her lips, almost imperceptible, but it lent her features a note of disdain. "That is as far as her ability goes. The G1 victory her fans keep hoping for will never come. As long as we race in the same field, she will never win one."
Cameras flashed wildly.
Offside Trap did not flinch. Her gaze was blazing, steady, entirely unafraid of the dark lenses aimed at her.
A third reporter jumped in.
"Offside Trap, since Sakura Laurel, you are the next horse girl of Narita Brian's generation to claim a G1 title. What would you like to say about that?"
"The horse girls of Brian's generation have taken back the honor that belongs to Brian's generation."
The reply was brief, but it neatly cut through all the online talk about the so-called old generation merely lingering on borrowed time. This unlucky generation had spent its entire existence fighting against unfair fate, while the fans of the new generation mocked them as weak and obsolete.
One of the reporters finally raised the question none of them had yet dared approach directly.
"How do the two of you view the behavior of the fans after the race? As far as I know, this is probably the first time something like this has ever happened in a central G1."
The room sharpened immediately. Every reporter's eyes locked onto Offside Trap's face, hoping to catch some crack in her expression, some trace of raw emotion they could use.
To their disappointment, her expression did not change at all.
"I think..." she said, "I no longer care."
She had no intention of lying. She was not going to say the scene in that stadium had failed to affect her. That would have been false.
So she spoke only of the present.
"As for fans who care only for the horse girls they already love, their behavior has nothing to do with me. I do not seek people's affection, nor their admiration." At that, she turned to look at Shinji. His face remained as calm as ever, but she could read the approval there. "All I need to do is defeat the horse girls they like or dislike. I will become number one. Every opponent standing in my way on that path, I will defeat one by one."
Her voice remained steady.
"They can be idols."
"I'll be a winner."
The shutters went off in a frenzy.
Offside Trap pushed the microphone away.
At her side, Shinji blinked. He had not expected his horse girl's shift in mentality to come this quickly.
Or to please him this much.
He pulled the microphone closer. Cameras turned toward him in an instant, but Shinji did not appear the least bit rattled. After a brief pause, he began to speak.
"As for everything that happened after the race, I am disappointed. And that disappointment is not directed solely at the fans, the spectators, or the racing community. It is equally directed at JURA and the student council."
A ripple of murmurs spread through the room. The reporters' expressions shifted from excitement to shock, then quickly back to excitement. They had expected Shinji might say something inflammatory, just as he had in the pre-race interview, but they had not expected him to open by aiming at the very top.
"When Koshie arrived at her rightful moment, I was sitting in the front row of the stands. I saw the giant screen showing Silence Suzuka's tearful face. I heard the name 'Silence Suzuka' pouring through every corner of Fuchu Racecourse like a tidal roar. Of course I was disappointed.
"The giant screen after a race is supposed to exist for the victor's triumph. It is supposed to show the winner. And yet that screen became a tool to magnify the sorrow of the loser instead."
At his side, Offside Trap's eyes flickered. One hand, resting on the table, slowly curled into a fist.
[Negative Emotion +30]
Shinji kept going.
"I believe that image may one day become remembered as one of the most moving tragic scenes in Japanese horse girl history. So moving, in fact, that people may forget Offside Trap was the actual champion of this Tenno Sho Autumn."
His voice did not rise, but something heavy settled over the room all the same.
"And that," he said quietly, "is what I find tragic."
[Negative Emotion +50]
The excitement in the reporters' faces began to fade. The shallow sympathy dulled by years in this line of work seemed, for a moment, to stir back to life.
A subdued silence spread across the interview space.
When no one spoke, Shinji rose.
"If there are no more questions, then we'll end it here."
The scene was almost identical to the pre-race interview. Trainer and horse girl turned together and headed for the exit.
But it was not quite the same.
This time, the reporter closest to the door rose at once and pulled it open, then stepped aside to clear their path.
The other reporters turned to watch them go.
And this time, they did not see an abandoned open door that symbolized rebellion.
What they saw instead was the back view of two people—unyielding, resolute, supporting each other as they disappeared from sight.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter116)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter144)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 118
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 111
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 80
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 112
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 95
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 89
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 53
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 61
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 65
Uma Musume: From Beginner 61
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 37
My patreon : patreon.com/queen_sin