The moment he saw that radiant smile on Rice Shower's face, Kitahara knew his bad feeling had come true.
When he had first crossed paths with Rice Shower again, Kitahara had already suspected that the other child inside her might not be as well-behaved as Rice Shower herself believed.
But years had passed. Rice Shower had said herself that "she" had barely come out at all in recent years, and there had been nothing unusual about their first contact.
So although he had never fully shaken off his doubts, his guard had inevitably slipped. He had never expected to run into that child under circumstances like these.
"…Long time no see, Mixed Grains."
He still had no idea what was going on, but Kitahara immediately decided to start by calming her down through conversation, then figure out why she had tricked him into coming here before deciding what to do next…
"It really has been a long time, Onii-sama."
The personality inside Rice Shower known as Mixed Grains looked at him with a bright smile as she spoke.
"You're wondering why I went to all this trouble to lure you here, aren't you? Relax. It's not like I can read minds or anything. It's just that you're exactly the same as before, Onii-sama. You still can't hide what you're thinking at all…"
Mixed Grains thought for a moment.
"I suppose I could just tell you the answer, but that feels a little too boring…"
"How about this? You guess what I want. If you get it right, I'll give you a reward. And if you get it wrong… I'll give you the reward anyway."
She looked at him, smiling all the while.
"Well? Not bad, right?"
It did sound good, except for one problem: what exactly was that "reward" supposed to be…?
Though he had a bad feeling about it, Kitahara looked at the smiling Mixed Grains in front of him, fell silent for a moment, and in the end decided to play along for now.
"All right. If I had to guess, then if you went to this much trouble to lure me here, it can't be for anything ordinary. It has to be something important—and something no one else can be allowed to know about…"
Following that line of thought, Kitahara thought for a while, and then surprise slowly crept onto his face.
Wait. If that was it, then could it be…?
"Looks like you figured it out, Onii-sama."
Meeting Kitahara's gaze head-on, Mixed Grains licked the corner of her mouth, the desire in her eyes undisguised.
"You want to end your contract with Trainer Karai and transfer to my team?"
Mixed Grains's smile froze.
Seeing that smile lock in place, Kitahara took it as proof that he had guessed correctly and let out a sigh.
"Mixed Grains, I know switching teams is a sensitive matter. Especially since we knew each other before—if you transfer over so suddenly, people might start spreading ugly rumors. But Trainer Karai is a good person. This is something we can discuss openly, face-to-face. There's no need to sneak around…"
"Wait. Did you ask Rice Shower what she thinks about this? She seems to have a pretty good opinion of Trainer Karai too. It's fine for you to have your own ideas, but since the two of you share one body, you really should take each other's feelings into account once in a while…"
Faced with Kitahara's answer, Mixed Grains went silent for quite a while before finally sighing as well.
For a brief instant just now, she had actually wondered whether he was putting on that whole act on purpose.
"Unfortunately, Onii-sama, that's the wrong answer."
With that, she took her hands off his face and blinked.
"So then—are you ready to receive your 'prize'?"
Kitahara fell silent for a moment.
"Um, if I got it wrong, I don't think I should qualify for a prize…"
"No, that won't do. I went to all this trouble specifically to give you this reward."
Still smiling, Mixed Grains drew the dagger from her waist, set the tip against her fingertip, and gave it a light spin.
Watching the cold gleam flash across the spinning edge, most people would probably have reacted to a situation like this with fear or suspicion. But Kitahara…
"As far as I know, Tracen has very strict rules about blades. And that dagger of yours is just decorative, isn't it? It shouldn't even be sharpened."
Having learned from the first time, Mixed Grains only paused for a beat before recovering, then explained with a smile,
"In theory, yes. And when Rice Shower is the one holding it, it really isn't sharpened. But in my hands…"
As she spoke, Mixed Grains extended her hand and effortlessly used the dagger to slice open a discarded piece of alloy training equipment beside her. Then, under Kitahara's horrified gaze, she brought the blade to his groin and gave it a light slash—
"Wait, Mixed Grains, let's talk this out—"
Whir—!
With the sound of fabric being slit, something fell beside Kitahara.
On closer inspection, black lace could even be seen on it.
"Mixed Grains…"
"Onii-sama."
Tossing the cut undershorts aside, Mixed Grains kept the dagger in hand and simply looked at him. Her smile seemed a little brighter than before, and there was now a more alluring note in her voice.
"You're still just like you used to be."
With Kitahara's reflexes, he could easily have stopped her before she made a move, and she knew perfectly well he had that kind of ability.
And yet, never mind stopping her—he hadn't even tried until the tip of her dagger was already pressed to the edge of his clothes and slowly drawn toward her.
Even after all these years apart, it was obvious that he still trusted her, just as he had promised back then.
This is bad… I'm not sure I can hold back much longer…
Looking at the face right in front of her and feeling that long-absent trust again, Mixed Grains's gaze flickered. But in the end, she barely managed to suppress the impulse rising inside her, put the dagger away, and then…
Slowly lifted her own skirt.
"This is one part of the reward."
Mixed Grains smiled at Kitahara, only to see him shut his eyes the instant her hand touched the hem of her skirt.
"Tch."
At Kitahara's resistance, Mixed Grains clicked her tongue softly and then said, "Don't you like me like this, Onii-sama?"
"No, Mixed Grains, it's not a question of whether I like it or not. I admit you're very cute, but this sort of thing—"
"It's fine. I prepared a second gift too."
Completely ignoring Kitahara's explanation, Mixed Grains simply turned around and addressed a box sitting nearby.
Then, accompanied by a rustling, clattering sound, something opened the lid from inside and began, little by little, to walk toward Kitahara.
When he sensed a familiar presence drawing near, Kitahara finally could not resist turning his head and opening his eyes a sliver, and then—
"...?"
The instant he saw that face—tense, nervous, almost outright panicked—Kitahara opened his eyes in surprise. And after seeing Meisho Doto in full, the corner of his eye twitched.
How was he even supposed to put this...?
A moment ago, because he had been afraid of seeing something he was not supposed to, he had not dared open his eyes very wide, so he had only seen her face.
Only after opening them fully did Kitahara realize that Doto was not wearing any clothes at all. Instead, she looked like a kitten that had gotten itself tangled in yarn while playing with a ball of it—her body wrapped in irregular red ribbons, the whole thing looking thoroughly miserable.
And once Doto's appearance registered, it was not just Kitahara who froze. Even Mixed Grains went blank for a moment.
"Didn't I just finish tying that for you?"
Faced with Mixed Grains's question, Doto wore such a pitiful expression she looked ready to burst into tears.
"I-I don't know either... I was just waiting inside, and I turned over a little, and then it ended up like this..."
As she spoke, Doto raised her hands to show that both wrists had somehow ended up trapped in a dead knot.
In Mixed Grains's original plan, once things on her end were done for the moment, Meisho Doto was supposed to make a stunning entrance—ribbons perfectly tracing the curves of her body, stirring Kitahara's desire—then the two of them would press the attack together and take him down in one go.
But now...
Now, forget desire. Looking at Doto's ridiculous, pitiful little-kitten expression, Mixed Grains could even see a trace of sympathy in Kitahara's eyes.
Then he closed them again.
"You... honestly."
Mixed Grains sighed and beckoned to her.
"Come here first. I'll untie your hands before anything else..."
Doto, looking aggrieved, shuffled over toward her. But when she was almost there, probably because all of her attention was on her bound hands, she failed to notice that the ribbons around her feet had already tangled together.
And then—
Bang—!
Along with an ominous little cry, Kitahara felt as though a big orange cat had pounced on top of him, taking the chair down backward with them.
With Rice Shower still pinning him down, and with his eyes closed right up until it happened, Kitahara had been completely unprepared. By the time he realized what was going on, he was already flat on the floor. He had only just opened his mouth to ask what had happened when something blocked it before he could make a sound.
Only this time, the thing covering his mouth did not feel like the familiar wet softness he was used to.
It was something softer than that—something gentler, more enveloping, a plush tenderness that covered his whole face.
What is this?
Since he had been trying to speak, Kitahara's tongue moved slightly—and the body pressing down on top of him trembled in response. Faintly, he could even hear a panicked, stifled whimper.
On the other side, Meisho Doto looked down at Kitahara trapped beneath her, felt the sensation where they were touching, and immediately tried, flustered beyond measure, to get up.
What she did not notice was that perhaps because she had instinctively tried to protect Kitahara just now, her tightly bound hands had somehow ended up behind his head, leaving the two of them locked in what looked almost like an embrace.
And as she tried to rise, she pulled Kitahara up with her, pressing him into her chest, making him bob helplessly there again and again, soft pattering sounds filling the air.
After a while, because he truly could not take much more of the pattering, Kitahara opened his eyes despite how inappropriate the situation felt and spoke.
"Stop, Doto."
The moment his voice rang out, Doto's body froze on the spot.
Even though she was still flustered out of her mind—more flustered than before, for certain reasons—and even though she was still trembling, after Kitahara spoke, she did not dare move so much as an inch.
Once Doto had stopped, Kitahara finally managed to wrench himself free of her arms. Then he saw the broad wet patch across her chest, and the corner of his eye twitched again.
So that was why everything had tasted so milky just now...
But before he could figure out what to do, not even two seconds later he felt warmth press against him from behind. Then two small hands slipped around his waist and wrapped him in an embrace. Their owner leaned close to his ear and spoke in a lightly seductive voice.
"Onii-sama, this is the second gift I prepared for you. What do you think?"
"..."
Kitahara glanced at the dazed Doto in front of him, who clearly did not seem to be in a state fit for being looked at, fell silent for a moment, and then deliberately turned his eyes away.
"Mixed Grains, what exactly are you trying to do? And why did you drag her into this too?"
"I didn't drag her in," Mixed Grains replied. "Doto found out about my plan and wanted to join in on her own."
"What plan?"
"Well..."
As she spoke, the hands wrapped around Kitahara's waist slowly slid downward, and he felt a soft, damp lick brush his ear.
"The plan to Umapyoi with you, Onii-sama."
As the words fell, Mixed Grains felt something warm slide up around her waist, and the corners of her lips curled.
"Ah, Onii-sama, have you finally understood? Then let's begi—"
"Mm~"
"Ah, Onii-sama, just a little—"
...
Some time later.
Kitahara looked at Doto, now back in normal clothes, and at the Mixed Grains slumped boneless in her arms, and a look of utter exasperation spread across his face.
"So the reason you did all this was because you heard from somewhere Umapyoi with me would help me?"
"You could say that."
Still lying limp in Meisho Doto's arms, Mixed Grains's face was still flushed, and even her voice had gone soft and syrupy.
"But to be honest, we weren't totally sure whether that information was accurate. Mostly, we just wanted to Umapyoi with you..."
Then, seeing the surprise on Kitahara's face, Mixed Grains blinked.
"Oh, right. You didn't know, did you? Doto and I became friends because we both like you. After that, we kept talking about you all the time. This Umapyoi plan may have been led by me, but Doto actually helped a lot behind the scenes too..."
"Rice, stop..."
Doto muttered softly, her face as red as a boiled shrimp.
But faced with Doto's attempt to stop her, Mixed Grains merely shrugged and kept going.
"This is no time to be shy. Otherwise this blockhead will probably think I tricked you into coming here and that you don't actually like him at all."
After a brief pause, she added,
"Besides, just the other day, you were telling me that at night you use him as material while you—"
"...Please..."
Doto could not help blurting it out, a pleading note in her voice.
Seeing her like that, Mixed Grains thought for a moment and decided not to press any further. Then she turned to Kitahara and smiled.
"All right, then. I won't talk about her. As for my side, though, it's not much differ— I mean, that other one—over the past few years, she's dreamed about being with you from time to time, and usually two or three times a week she uses you as material for... ah. Looks like she doesn't want me saying that either."
Faced with Mixed Grains's words, Kitahara simply sat there in silence. After a long while, he let out a long sigh.
What kind of mess is this...?
"All right. I understand now that both of you like me, and that you wanted to help me solve my problem. But I can tell you this clearly: I do not need that kind of help. And if this is simply because you like me, then I can make time to spend more time with you. After you're a little older, I'll give you an answer then..."
That speech of his had not done any good the previous night—but that had been because Eclipse was there.
And for Kitahara, Eclipse's presence had not only meant overwhelming force. More than that, it meant someone who understood exactly where his hard limit was.
For example, she knew perfectly well that his bottom line was the Umapyoi.
After all, the three of them were all professional racing Umamusume in the prime of their careers, and they were public figures besides. He would never, for the sake of momentary pleasure, do something that might ruin their entire lives—and might even have catastrophic consequences for Tracen and for society at large.
And Eclipse had grasped that point perfectly.
"So what you mean is, as long as we don't Umapyoi, anything else is fine, right?"
As some writer once said, Kitahara had the sort of temperament that always bent toward compromise: if you proposed getting intimate with him, he would certainly refuse; but if you said you were going to force the whole Umapyoi on him, then he would most likely agree to mere intimacy instead.
But Mixed Grains and Doto were not Eclipse. First, they lacked the raw force to overpower him. Second, they lacked Eclipse's uncanny ability to pinpoint his hard limit. So when faced with Kitahara's explanation, they may not have agreed inwardly, but at least on the surface, they had no way to reject it.
And just when Kitahara thought that after calming the two of them down, the matter was finally over, Mixed Grains wobbled her way up out of Doto's arms and slowly spoke.
"Oh, right. I almost forgot. There's still one more reward for you, Onii-sama..."
There's more?
Kitahara jerked upright and immediately began scanning the room, checking whether there was anywhere else someone could be hiding.
But there wasn't.
Seeing his hyper-alert reaction, Mixed Grains smiled with the look of someone whose prank had landed, then began patting around on herself.
"According to what I've uncovered lately, Trainer Karai has been privately carrying out Umamusume experiments and forbidden research that even the Three Goddesses do not permit. I knew that something like this would matter to you, Onii-sama, so I did a little digging."
Before Kitahara could even react, Mixed Grains pulled out her phone, opened a page on it, and tossed it over to him.
"It's all in there. Take a look, and you'll understand."
---
T/N: >///< ALSO TRAINER KARAI IS DOING EXPERIMENTATIONS??????????????