On the course.
At the tail of the pack, that scarlet figure finally bared her fangs.
At some point, riding the centrifugal force through the fourth turn, Inari One had slipped, soundless, to the ideal outside lane for a finishing drive.
She lifted her head.
The caution in her eyes was gone—what remained was a pure, scorching will to fight, fierce enough to burn the sky itself.
She stared at the blue figure that had just seized the lead, a lone arrow far ahead, and the curve of her lips turned wild.
Perfect… that's how it should be.
Only like this… do you deserve to be crushed with everything I've got.
"Lead change! Super Creek! Entering the fourth turn, she's taken absolute command!!" The commentator's cry split the heavens.
Behind her, Yaeno Muteki's pupils snapped tight.
So… that's her true strength?!
That implacable composure—that power that seemed to hold everything in the palm of her hand—sent a shiver up from Muteki's core.
She bit down hard, forced the fatigue back into its cage, and strained to hold her pace, refusing to let that blue comet drop her.
And then—
Just as Super Creek crested the course and reached out to grasp victory—
Vmm—
A formless pressure rolled over the track like a gale.
Every Uma Musume in motion felt ice race down her spine, as if some primordial beast had fixed them in a predator's unblinking sights.
It wasn't a physical blow. It struck the soul itself—a prey-animal terror at the hunter's roar.
"What the—what is that?!"
Muteki's heart clenched in an invisible grip; her breath hitched.
She whipped her head around, eyes knifing through the first flight—scattered after Creek's surge—and pinned the rear group.
There—
Rrrr-BOOM!
A blaze of scarlet, even more violent and domineering than Super Creek's ignition, exploded like magma vented after ages of pressure.
Turf lifted under the blast, soil and grass shards whirling upward in a blood-red gale.
At the center of that light, Inari One's outline blurred—only a human-shaped core of sheer power and will remained.
A "human wall"?
Before absolute force, the meticulously stacked "cage" built to drain her was as flimsy as paper.
Crack!
The sound of shattering glass detonated inside every runner who tried to bar her path.
Not real sound— the death-cry of their broken resolve.
Domain — "Bonfire Kitsune's Cry"!
Boom!
Monstrous leg power stamped a pit into the track.
Then the scarlet figure snapped into a lightning bolt, ripping space itself, shouldering through every obstacle ahead at a speed that defeated the eye.
One!
Two!
Three!
Rivals froze into a still painting as the red streak tore past, left only to watch, helpless, as she howled away bearing world-ending might.
"Impossible… what speed is that?!"
For the first time, Super Creek's ever-calm pupils tightened hard.
She had believed this gap was safe—that this victory should belong to her.
But now she felt the cataclysm surging from behind.
That power… it outstripped even Inari's peak in the spring Tenno Sho!
No— not just "outstripped."
Evolved.
If the Inari One of the spring Tenno Sho was a brief, blazing volcanic burst…
Then the Inari before her now was a meteor out of the void, wreathed in extinction.
"She's coming—!!"
Up ahead, Muteki's mind went white, leaving only a single screaming thought.
That scarlet lightning was too fast—beyond reason.
No matter how she pumped her arms, drove her thighs, she couldn't escape an inch.
The seven-length gulf shrank—hacked away in chunks.
The red glare washed across her back.
Then—passed.
The brown-haired girl watched Inari blow past, her own acceleration treated like air.
In that instant, she understood.
"So… that's the summit…"
First Oguri Cap. Then Sakura Chiyono O. Then Super Creek and Mejiro Ardan. And now—this tyrant—Inari One.
One after another, they forged ahead.
And her so-called "progress," before them… stood still.
…
Right then, Super Creek burst out of the fourth turn and set foot on the final, ultimate straight.
Tokyo Racecourse's famed stretch became, in that moment, a battlefield: red and blue, two absolutes colliding.
"Inari One is coming! She's coming—and fast—too fast!"
The commentator was pure rasp now. "So it is the war of the spring Tenno Sho… carried to the final breath?!"
…
The world's clamor fell away.
Deep in Super Creek's awareness, everything sank into a silent, lightless sea.
She could feel it—in the far, black abyss—something incandescent coalescing, rising.
How do you beat a volcano?
Drag it into a war of attrition that favors me?
…No.
After the spring Tenno Sho, she'd already learned: long-distance gifts weren't hers alone.
That thought was just a lie she told herself.
The real answer had always been there.
Shhhh—
A seam of dark-blue lightning scored the void.
Before the final kick begins—open the gap that decides the race.
The "human wall" built to chain Inari had paved my road.
A big enough gap—that advantage is mine…
The right to strike first—I've seized that too…
In that case… have I already won?
Rr-rr-rrrumble—!
Below the deep sea, the heat was raging, shot through with an irresistible will, streaming up in fury.
Creek's lashes lowered a fraction. She looked down the track at the crimson bearing down on her, and a thought flashed, unbidden:
If— even with all of these advantages— I can still lose—
…then what?
…
THOOM—!!!
A drumbeat like a titan's hammer slammed the turf not far behind.
She didn't need to look. The tremor told her the distance with dagger accuracy.
Two lengths.
Only two lengths left.
I prepared for everything.
The rhythm of this race— I bent it to my will.
Every step— I saw it coming.
So why— why?!
Every fiber in Super Creek ignited.
Stamina, technique, leg drive— even the force of her Domain.
That gentle, serene face twisted— for the first time— into a snarl.
…
(End of Chapter)
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