Night wrapped the world; the stars were endless.
Late evening, Red Gate.
Kuroha and the girls were geared up—headlamps on, spirits bright, lines checked and ready. In the deep night, Mount Tai's daytime majesty felt even more solemn and mysterious.
"Everyone ready?" Kuroha did a final status check.
"Ou!"
The girls answered in unison, eyes sparkling with anticipation.
Their ascent began.
At first the stone steps were gentle. They joked and laughed, light on their feet.
A few other night climbers appeared now and then, but Kuroha's party moved a touch faster and slipped by. With the race girls' superb conditioning, this stairway to the sky barely counted as pressure. Most of them had over a thousand points in Stamina; forget Mount Tai—Emei a few days ago hadn't even dented them.
Well… except for Mejiro McQueen.
The purple-haired girl had only completed True Blooming a few months earlier. Even with formal training, her Stamina was only just past the 400 mark. Kuroha had set their ascent pace right on her limit, so around the halfway point she was breathing a little hard.
But McQueen had long grown used to that fatigue.
Or rather, she cherished it.
These weeks, they'd summited nearly ten famous peaks together. Every single "day after" McQueen could feel a clear uptick in her body.
"Leaving out Trainer's embarrassing massage and kneading…"
She stole a tiny glance at Kuroha, then jerked her gaze away, cheeks warm.
The one-trainer-seven-girls team passed Zhongtian Gate and then Nantian Gate. The path steepened; the crowds thinned. Occasionally they'd cross paths with local Tōkō horse girls also climbing at night.
"I… I can't keep up. You're too fast—I need a break."
A horse girl they'd met en route waved them on, breathing hard. She wasn't a race girl; even with a body stronger than a human's, she couldn't match specialists' tempo.
Kuroha smiled and waved. "Bye-bye."
Small interludes aside, the climb went almost too smoothly.
In roughly half an hour they reached Jade Emperor Peak; a short descent brought them to the famous "Most Revered of the Five" stone.
"Came a little too fast…"
Kuroha glanced around, then checked his phone.
1:00 a.m.
He'd woken everyone around 11, but by the time they geared up and reached the foot it had taken almost an hour… and the ascent itself had been faster than prep—barely thirty-something minutes.
Maruzensky laughed. "No problem—call it a midnight view."
The wind on the summit was keener than below, laced with high-altitude chill. Kuroha found them a spot not blocked by the observatory, and they settled in to wait.
The dark before dawn is the deepest—so the constellations burned all the brighter. It kept the waiting from feeling long.
They'd barely sat when a petite figure leaned back and plopped into Kuroha's arms.
"Trainer," Inari murmured, "you kinda fumbled this time—we're too early!"
Kuroha conceded with a rueful rub to her hair. "Tired, little Inari?"
She gave a small yawn. "Not really. Slept a few hours—I'm just a tiiiny bit drowsy."
The twin-tailed girl tucked in, found the perfect angle, and tilted her face up to the sea of stars. Her little horse ears swayed in front of Kuroha, betraying a very good mood.
He gently pressed a palm to the twitching ears. "What are you thinking about?"
"Heh-heh." Inari grinned. "Trainer, last year Tamamo Cross did nothing but the Spring–Autumn Tenno Sho double and she was 'Current Strongest.' If I not only double it but also take the Arima Kinen… will everyone praise me?"
She reached into the air like she could grasp something invisible.
Kuroha looked down at her and chuckled.
"Of course. History will remember your name. When people mention Ooi, they'll remember there was an Inari One."
Inari breathed out, voice lifting with the thought as she stared at the sky.
"Then Boss and the folks back home will be proud of me. Just thinking about it makes me so happy…"
She paused—then asked, "Trainer, do you think I'll win?"
The words were barely out when the girls who'd been cat-napping or watching the view all turned their eyes over.
Kuroha blinked—but he didn't dodge the question. He answered softly, right where they all could hear:
"I've given you everything equally. Win or lose—it should be decided by you."
For a heartbeat, the air held still.
Inari in his arms froze too, blinking as if to weigh the sentence.
A few seconds later, her signature laugh rang out—clearer and more confident than before.
"As if that needs saying!"
She tipped her face up in his embrace; in the night, her eyes still blazed.
"It will be decided by me. I'll win, and you'll see it!"
The line echoed in the others, too.
They already knew: Kuroha had given them the weapons and the wisdom to reach any victory. If the opponent wielded the same tools, then the one who swung those weapons and took glory had to be themselves.
Agreement spread without a word.
They fell quiet again, savoring the long night.
Time slid by. On the eastern edge, a pale fish-belly white tinged the deep blue. It spread—ash to light gold, to a breathtaking stroke of crimson-gold.
"Look!" someone hissed.
All eyes fixed on the changing clouds.
In that instant, a golden arc—like it had slipped the weight of the world—burst free of the surging sea of cloud. Ten thousand spears of light shattered the sky's last darkness and dyed the infinite cloud ocean a molten gold.
That unstoppable force shook the soul of everyone who saw it.
Six thousand steps below their feet.
Heaven and earth before their eyes: clouds rolling, the sun rising in the east.
A resonance thrummed through their spirits.
Except for Maruzensky, six pairs of eyes flashed. One by one, rays of light—each with its own hue—gathered and rose, a breath without shape building with the grandeur of heaven and earth. Domain-colored streams swirled out of the unseen and circled their wielders.
"McQueen's True Self—did she complete it before her debut?"
Kuroha saw something glow strange in McQueen's gaze—but then his attention snapped elsewhere.
The five who had already stepped to Domain—Second Stage suddenly blazed, floods of light pouring out as if inexhaustible, washing each of them in her own unique color.
And from three of them, the strongest pressure boiled up.
Flame, storm, and star-river seemed ready to tear free of all Domain fetters—like they were about to cross into an entirely new realm.
Even Maruzensky, usually so composed and worldly, lost her easy smile; disbelief locked her face.
"This is…"
She whispered it, the three nearly tangible streams reflected in her eyes.
Power beyond the Second Stage.
Across the far East, through all of history—no one had touched that extreme.
Yet here, atop Mount Tai, in the world-shaking of the rising sun—
Inari One, Fujimasa March, and Obey Your Master had, with a month of expanding hearts and iron will, together knocked on the legendary door.
Their auras kept climbing—toward the newborn sun itself—
Then halted—caught by something like a natural chasm.
That limitless rising slammed into a wall.
Bodies quivered as one.
The three tidal forces that had seemed about to break free found a vent—or rather, found the finest possible guide—and, all at once, turned within.
Every ray. Every blaze. Every vision—drawn back into their bodies in a blink, as if nothing had ever happened.
The summit wind stayed knife-cold. The new sun still blazed.
But the girls standing there were no longer the same.
They stood quietly.
The tracer glow in their eyes didn't go out—it sank, becoming something deeper, calmer, stronger. Their auras had shifted—no longer mere sharp edges, but rounded confidence, a return-to-essence harmony wrapped around steel.
"Will… or what people call talent?"
Kuroha turned the whole sequence over in his mind.
Of every horse girl he'd seen open a Domain—even legends like Symboli Rudolf and Maruzensky, even world rulers like Tony Bianca of the Arc—none wielded it with the command his own girls showed.
So this third step the system's notes hinted at—who opened it, and when?
Was it the one the world calls the greatest—Secretariat?
Or… the ancestress of horse girls—Eclipse?
He shook his head after a moment and let a small smile surface, then joined his girls in watching the sunrise of the mountain most revered among the Five.
No matter what.
The trip to Tōkō had reached perfect completion.
What waited for them now was an autumn destined for the chronicles.
(End of Chapter)
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