Although Kagura said she was only here to train, when she was up against someone she actively disliked, she was treating this as a real race.
Which meant she had no intention of losing.
Once she settled into running side by side with Seattle Slew and started viewing her as a true opponent, Kagura actually calmed down. At this distance, she finally had a chance to observe her enemy properly. She noticed something slightly unnatural in Seattle's footwork—but when she walked, there was clearly nothing wrong with her legs.
Very quickly, a possibility occurred to Kagura.
Does she not have turf aptitude?
She watched a little longer before arriving at that conclusion. Based on her experience so far, that was the only judgment she could make.
For the moment, Kagura still held a slight lead. She had no intention of wasting too much time hesitating over her assessment. Since the other girl was not making any big move yet, Kagura decided she would just go ahead and run her own race first.
At this distance, there was no way she was going to lose speed.
Just as Kagura edged slightly farther ahead and prepared to accelerate again, she suddenly felt a wave of pressure crash down from behind. It hit her so hard that her whole body abruptly stalled for an instant. It was hard to describe the sensation. It was not even on the same level as what she had felt from Shinzan before.
But just as quickly as it came, it vanished. After making her hitch for a moment, the pressure disappeared completely.
Did she just dismiss her aura right away? Is her control over it really that precise?
Kagura was startled by what she had just felt. That dragonfly-light, perfectly controlled kind of aura attack was something she had never experienced before. She had always thought aura was something broad and overwhelming, something you used by opening the floodgates. Only now, after feeling Seattle's aura strike her like a needle and withdraw the instant it hit, did Kagura realize that was not the case.
It was not that aura itself had to be crude and overwhelming. It was simply that every opponent she had faced before either had not been controlling it deliberately, or lacked the ability to control it so finely.
That was another problem that troubled Kagura. She had suffered through aura attacks many times by now, yet she still had not found any way to counter this bizarre invisible form of assault. Almost every time, all she could do was grit her teeth and charge through it. It left her exhausted, and the results were poor besides.
And Seattle's way of attacking with aura was different from people like Shinzan and Mejiro Ramonu. Shinzan and Ramonu kept their attacks constantly active, wearing their opponents down slowly until they collapsed. Seattle's style was more like a duel between swordsmen: watch for an opening, release the aura, stab the opponent, then sheathe the blade again. Fast. Precise.
And more than that, her timing was viciously sharp.
Every time Kagura tried to accelerate and surge forward, that pressure struck. It forced her to break off her acceleration, wasting all the strength she had gathered for that burst of speed. That kind of disruption was far more draining than simply being under constant pressure.
Seattle... Seattle... who exactly is she? To use aura attacks this skillfully... that means she's far stronger than President Shinzan. A foreign Umamusume...? Could she be some kind of Triple Crown champion too?
From the name, Kagura could tell Seattle was probably an American Umamusume. She did not know much about American Umamusume. What little she did know came from things the Director had mentioned before: Umamusume over there were generally much stronger, their racing style far rougher, and the restrictions far looser. The result was that races there could feel almost unscrupulous. Legal bumping. More bizarre, harder-to-defend interference. If a tactic could be used, they used it.
Thinking that her opponent had come out of an environment like that, Kagura found Seattle's personality easier to understand.
"That Seattle..."
Because Kagura was running so close to Seattle, Affirmed found herself genuinely surprised. Kagura was so small that Affirmed had assumed she was just a child who had not reached honkaku yet. But judging by her ordinary cruising speed now, Affirmed could say for certain that this was a fully matured, short Umamusume. Even with Seattle lacking turf aptitude, it still took a certain level of ability to keep up with her like this—or to force Seattle into using repeated aura strikes to pin her down the way she was now.
Affirmed knew Seattle well. Her personality might be awful in daily life, but when it came to racing, she was intensely serious and focused. She was an arrogant fighter, yes, but she had her own code and her own pride. She did not go easy on opponents just because she felt like it.
After all, no matter how you looked at it, Seattle—full name Seattle Slew—was America's one and only undefeated Triple Crown champion, a figure who stood above countless Umamusume.
That was the foundation of her pride.
Even on unfamiliar turf, even racing away from home, anyone who wanted to fight her to a standstill still needed real ability to do it—especially if they intended to take the lead away from a runner like her, who specialized in Front Runner tactics.
As Kagura was doing now.
"Interesting... I thought you were just some kid who hadn't reached honkaku yet. Turns out you're a fully matured shorty?"
After starting this side-by-side run with Kagura, Seattle realized with some surprise that she might have stumbled into an actual professional racer already competing on the circuit. Inari Kagura might be a Japanese Umamusume, but her style of running was not particularly local. If anything, it felt more like the professionals over in Europe.
And this little shorty really did have some ability. She was far stronger than the average Japanese Umamusume. By Seattle's own objective assessment, Inari Kagura was an opponent worth taking seriously. She genuinely had the ability to contest the lead with her. That was why Seattle had shifted into the kind of repeated aura attacks she used in serious racing, continuously harassing Kagura.
"Miss Seattle, talking to yourself while running is a bad habit. Nobody's going to think you're mute just because you say less."
At this distance, Kagura could naturally hear Seattle muttering to herself behind her, and she snapped right back without much warmth.
The current situation irritated Kagura badly. Seattle's constant harassment kept disrupting her acceleration, again and again. In terms of raw speed, the two of them were actually very close. Kagura only had a slight lead because her start timing had happened to be marginally better. But she could not increase that lead. Seattle's lockdown on her was extremely tight.
And there was still one thing Kagura was not sure about:
Did Seattle have a final spurt?
If she did, that would be trouble.
At their current distance—less than a length—if Seattle put in even a little effort once they entered the final straight, she would be right there. And under this dense barrage of interference, Kagura would have no way to accelerate in response.
Two thousand meters was not a long distance. The race was already nearing the halfway point. If Kagura wanted to wrest the advantage away from Seattle, the first thing she had to solve was this harassment.
Kagura did not know how to defend against aura attacks. She had no experience with that at all. But she remembered that more than one friend had told her before that under certain circumstances, she herself also released aura—and that it was no weaker than Rudolf's or the others'.
Which meant she could do it.
She just did not know how yet.
While Kagura was thinking, she felt Seattle's aura attack hit her again. This time, though, the intensity suddenly increased sharply, and unlike before, it did not retreat after a single jab. Kagura's speed actually dipped slightly under the force of it—
"It's time to decide this. At this distance—I admit you've got ability. But now it's my turn, shorty."
In the next instant, Seattle surged up from beside her and came level. They were now running completely side by side.
Naturally, Kagura had no intention of surrendering the lead.
She ignored the fact that she was now taking her opponent's attack head-on. Forcing herself through the crushing heaviness, she raised her speed anyway, paying for it with several times the normal stamina cost.
This was a dangerous decision Kagura would never normally make.
She did not want to lose.
And after all this time, it was the first time she had felt that sort of will in the middle of a race.
——Oh my... interesting. That brat may have a rotten personality, but her strength really is impressive. What country's champion is she from, I wonder?
——I was planning to come out and teach the brat a lesson, but there's no rush now. This child's hunger to win... looks like it's finally been forced out of her, doesn't it?
——The conviction that you must win—that is the most important thing for an Umamusume.
"She can still accelerate under that kind of pressure?"
There were now less than two hundred meters left to the finish, and Affirmed, standing there with stopwatch in hand, could clearly see the line in front of them. But she realized Seattle's overtake was not going as smoothly as expected. Inari Kagura was actually forcing herself to accelerate right back under Seattle's crushing pressure!
Seattle suddenly found herself resenting the turf under her feet. She was not used to accelerating on grass, and her closing burst here was far weaker than what she could produce on her home track. That was why she had not been able to shake Kagura off.
Still, she kept up the pressure with her aura.
She knew the price Kagura was paying for this kind of all-out charge. As long as Seattle did not relax, then with the stamina of any normal Umamusume, Kagura would definitely lose speed before reaching the finish line.
By chance, Seattle turned her head and glanced at Kagura.
The moment she did, she was slightly shaken.
That quiet, gentle-looking little Umamusume from before now wore an expression of terrifying ferocity.
Her legs were heavy, as though trapped in mud. Every step required several times the strength it normally would. Her body was refusing to obey her commands.
Kagura did not care.
She chose to keep accelerating anyway.
Her eyes were locked on the finish line drawing ever nearer. She knew Seattle was right beside her, but her attention was no longer on Seattle at all.
This damn aura attack... buzzing around like a mosquito... it's so annoying!
"Get the hell... away from me!!"
As if she were venting something pent up inside her, Kagura let out a low, savage snarl on instinct. She drove one foot down hard, so hard that the track beneath her seemed to cry out in breaking protest.
And then she heard it.
Something cracking.
The crushing pressure on her body vanished in an instant, as though blown away like smoke.
"What... what is this power!?"
The finish line was right in front of them now, yet Seattle felt her aura forcibly shattered apart by an overwhelmingly powerful opposing force. The shock of it even caused her a slight drop in speed. In astonishment, she glanced sideways—and saw the little Umamusume beside her looking like someone who had been interrupted in the middle of doing something serious, visibly overflowing with resentment, as though black miasma itself were coiling around her.
That's aura? This little shorty can actually use aura? Then why didn't she use it earlier?
Throughout the race, Kagura had not released even a trace of aura, so Seattle had assumed she simply could not. But the aura Kagura had just unleashed was not inferior to her own in the slightest. The main reason Seattle had held back from using even greater force was that deploying her Zone consumed too much. She had figured that against an opponent who could not even use aura, there was no need.
But Kagura suddenly pulling this on her left Seattle completely bewildered.
If she had known earlier, she would have activated her Zone from the start and taken the win decisively.
No... don't tell me the pressure I put on her made her break through on the spot?
In the space of a heartbeat, Seattle thought through all of that.
Instinctively, she tried to call up her own Zone—but there was no time.
The finish line was already just one step away. There was no chance left to bring her Zone into play.
Kagura's sudden explosion of power had won her the smallest of margins. She broke free from that deadlocked struggle by barely half a head and crossed the finish first, past the wooden marker stuck in the ground.
"The young lady crosses first—by the slightest of margins!"
Standing at the finish with the stopwatch, Affirmed was thoroughly shaken.
When the run first began, she had assumed Seattle would win by a massive gap. Later, as she watched the two of them remain fiercely locked together, she revised that to Seattle taking it by one or two lengths. By the time they entered the final sprint, with the two still tangled that tightly and the little Umamusume still having shown no aura or Zone at all, Affirmed thought Seattle would edge out a narrow win.
She never imagined Kagura would suddenly release aura right before the finish, shatter Seattle's aura, force her to slow, and then reverse it into a narrow victory of her own.
Was Seattle... underestimating her? No, it's more that using her Zone is costly, and she probably thought there was no need against someone who couldn't even use aura... This little girl is very interesting. Was that all a calculated plan from the start, or just a sudden accident?
Affirmed was deeply surprised.
This little Umamusume had completely overturned her fixed impression of Japanese racers. She had never expected to meet a monster like this here. In the past several years, that simply had not happened.
You only had to look at the Japan Cup records to know the state of things: up to now, Japanese Umamusume had never won it even once. The winners had even included second-tier American Umamusume, which was enough on its own to show the gap in strength between the two sides.
And yet today she had watched a Japanese Umamusume slap America's Triple Crown champion clean across the face—twice.
Yes, there were factors involved: Seattle's lack of aptitude here, her own misjudgment. But the little Umamusume's strength was absolutely real.
And just like that, Affirmed found herself genuinely curious about who she was.
"Hah... hah..."
After crossing the finish line, Kagura breathed in short little bursts. That final, cathartic eruption had made her feel much better.
Seattle stood there staring at Inari Kagura, still a little dazed. Everything had happened far too suddenly, too fast for her to even process it properly. She told herself she had only lost because she lacked enough information and had underestimated her opponent.
Just as she was about to say something, the Kagura standing with her back turned suddenly raised her right hand, gave a thumbs-down, and tossed back a single line in crisp, flawless English:
"You suck."
"?"
Affirmed very nearly failed to hold back a laugh.
She was so used to seeing Seattle, that bossy demoness, mock other people that she had never imagined she would live to see the day Seattle got mocked instead—and by a Japanese Umamusume, no less.
This was absolutely the kind of once-in-a-lifetime legendary scene people talked about for years.
She suddenly regretted not taking out her phone and recording it so she could bring it back and use it together with Secretariat to bully Seattle later.
"Hey, you little shorty... that just now was only because I didn't—"
"Brat. Are you saying... you want to run another lap with me?"
Before Seattle could finish saying I just didn't use my Zone and whatever else was meant to follow, Inari Kagura—still standing with her back to her—suddenly turned around.
And Seattle could not tell whether it was just her imagination or not, but for a moment, it looked like a dangerous red light was flickering in Kagura's eyes...
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T/N: oooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh yessssssssssssssssssssssssss heh she hasnt even matured yet