As he walked, Hayate was a little nervous about the fight he would soon have. He had spent almost a week training since the practice fight where they paid him ¥7,400. He had tried to sleep the night before but had had trouble falling asleep until the sun began to rise in the morning. At least he could add the money they gave him to what he already had saved, although most of it went to food and living expenses.
"If I add up the money after shopping, I'll have less than ¥5,000 left. I need more. At this rate, I'll be poor before I can even pay the rent," he said quietly as he finished showering.
He got out and dressed quickly, adjusted the horseshoes on his shoes and the bandages on his hands, quickly devoured what would easily feed three people, and left the house, heading in the same direction he had been going all these days.
When Hayate arrived at the ring that night, he noticed how they were finishing cleaning it, tightening the ropes, adjusting the lights, and placing many chairs around it.
"The atmosphere really changes when there's a real fight," he said, watching as a crowd of people talked excitedly, more money in their hands.
"Certainly, and that's the bad thing, it makes these fights worse than normal ones." Hayate turned at the sound of Nene's voice coming from beside him, her ears slightly drooping as she looked stressed, a glass of carrot juice in her hand.
"I guess it means more work for you, doesn't it?"
"Almost always, yes, but the worst part is for those at the top. If things get really serious, they could end up in the hospital," Nene mentioned casually, glancing sideways at Hayate's reaction as he looked away nervously.
"Jojojo, please, Nene, don't scare Hayate before his big fight." They both turned to see Kanzaki approaching, greeting them both.
"He asked, I just answered his question," Nene replied as she finished drinking her carrot juice.
"Yes, yes, well, even so, it's not a high-level fight, so I doubt anything serious will happen. How are you feeling, Hayate? Ready to fight?" he said, diverting attention from Nene to Hayate.
"I guess I'm a little nervous, but I'm not going to give up just because of this, so yes, I'm ready."
"Perfect, go get changed. In half an hour, they'll call you to start," she said, gesturing to Hayate, who just nodded and walked away to get changed.
____________________________
Half an hour later, when he was ready, the loudspeakers throughout the venue welcomed the two participants as they both climbed into the ring.
The static from the speakers cut through the heavy air in the arena. "Welcome, ladies and gentlemen!" The announcer's voice boomed as the crowd roared. "In the red corner, a newcomer looking to trade the tracks for the canvas: Hayate Kurogane!" And facing him, representing the strength of a robust lineage, Mika Hayase, the new generation Kiso-uma!"
«Promising? Me?» thought Hayate, feeling his legs tremble like jelly. «If only they knew that my only strategy is not to fall in the first ten seconds...»
Hayate got ready by getting into position while looking at his opponent. She was a short horse, about 1.40m tall, yet she had a surprisingly robust physique with reddish hair and thick ears flattened back. She looked back at him with narrowed eyes and clenched fists.
After what seemed like an eternity, the bell finally rang, and both tensed up at that moment in full view of everyone.
Mika moved her hips with mechanical smoothness, gauging the distance. Hayate tried to keep his guard down, relying on his runner's reflexes. "I just have to dodge and... Urk!"
A hook to the liver from Mika quickly brought him back to reality.
"Fuuu...!" The air escaped from his lungs in an agonizing hiss.
«Damn it! I forgot how strong people who train regularly are. I'm like a fence waiting to be destroyed by a kick,» he reproached himself as he fought back the urge to vomit and caught his breath.
Mika was a machine, blow after blow, looking for a crack in Hayate's defense. Driven by pure survival instinct, he managed to land a couple of right hooks that sent Kiso-uma reeling.
"Hoho! The kid has the courage to hit like that!" shouted the crowd from the stands as they saw Hayate respond in this way.
«Courage? I'm tense right now,» shouted the voice in his head.
His punches were clumsy, uncoordinated. Every time he landed one, Mika returned three with twice the power, making him tremble. Fatigue began to weigh on him as if he had forgotten to remove his training weights.
Taking advantage of a lapse in concentration, Mika saw the opening.
BAM!
Hayate felt his head bounce for a moment as the world blurred for a second and a metallic taste flooded his mouth. He touched his lip and felt blood on it.
"Don't give up, rookie! Keep up the pace!" shouted those who had bet on him from his corner.
«Easy to say from outside the ring!» thought Hayate, as his breathing became almost nothing but gasps.
Hayate's talent began to shine a little. He learned by force to roll on the canvas, to move his head so that the blows would not steal what little air he had left.
"Poor guy... he's got a lot of guts, but he won't last long, his stamina is almost gone," murmured the gamblers who were watching the state of both of them.
There was no technique left, no guard, just an Umamusume and an Umashonen hitting each other with everything they had. Mika threw a side punch that left Hayate's legs like jelly, but he managed to respond with a clumsy combination, almost a desperate slap that caught Mika by surprise, forcing her to defend herself from the blows and leaving her against the ropes, just as she was about to throw another punch.
Cling, cling, cling!
The final bell rang and a sigh escaped Hayate's mouth as he felt blood on his lip and bruises forming, although his chest was beating as hard as when he was running at full speed on the track. Both he and Mika climbed out of the ring and were attended to by doctors and nurses led by Nene.
As they gave him something to clean the blood and an ice pack for the bruises, his ears moved to catch the sound of the loudspeakers.
"Winner by split decision: Mika Hayase!"
Two judges saw her as the winner on technique, while the third voted for Hayate due to his ridiculous level of endurance.
«I lost... Well, at least I'm still conscious after those blows, that's already a victory for me.»
Stroking her bruised face, she approached the pay table. The manager looked at her and, after counting a little, handed her an envelope with the same warmth as a block of ice.
The formula for this place isn't much of a mystery: they give you a base amount for the fight and then a bonus for the bets placed on your name. For someone like Hayate, after that fight he received a total of ¥35,200.
Hayate looked at the bills for a moment. "Thirty-five thousand yen for almost losing a tooth... Well, at least it's enough for medicine and to pay the rent in advance so they don't bother me."
He sat down in a corner of the alley with the wad of bills on top of his trembling hand. Kanzaki approached him slowly and gave him a gentle tap on the shoulder, congratulating him for holding out long enough until the bell rang.
Nene, meanwhile, looked at him with a neutrality that did not hide a hint of approval.
"Don't forget to rest this time. I won't treat you if you come back with the same bruises as today," she said. "Understood?"
He nodded in response as he let out a sigh of satisfaction.
____________________________
Meanwhile, in Tracen
"There he is..." whispered Akikawa, watching the screen as he fanned himself.
"Bring me someone," Akikawa ordered quietly, looking at Tazuna. "I don't want any headlines or scandals. The last thing we need is for another school to find out he's not here."
Tazuna nodded and picked up the phone. There was only one person capable of organizing impeccable logistics while maintaining a firm profile: the Vice President of the Student Council.
In the Council office, Air Groove was buried under a mountain of documents when the sound of the phone made her let out a frustrated grunt.
"Hello?" she answered in her usual stern tone.
"Air Groove-san, sorry to interrupt you," Tazuna's voice sounded calm, "we have a priority matter, we need you to locate a young man in the city. It's a special case of a student overlooked by the system, an Umashonen."
Air Groove massaged her temples, somewhat stressed, looking at her computer while talking on the phone. "Tazuna-san, with all due respect, the festival is coming up and the clubs' budget is a disaster. I don't have time to go hunting around town. Find someone from discipline or..."
"A missing young man?" Symboli Rudolf's voice echoed from across the room, and the president rose from her seat with an enigmatic smile. "Sounds like you're in serious trouble."
Air Groove felt a chill; she knew that look, she knew that something worse than administrative work was coming.
"President, don't start…" warned Air Groove.
Rudolf ignored the warning, approached Air Groove, looked at the document he had received from Tazune moments earlier on his computer, put a finger to his chin, and said, "If the boy's name is Hayate, I hope he doesn't slip through our fingers."
The silence that followed was deafening. Air Groove closed her eyes, feeling a vein throbbing in her forehead.
Mood: Awful
"...Okay," Air Groove grabbed the phone and stood up, gathering her things with astonishing speed. "Tazuna-san, I accept. I'll go right now. I'd rather search every alley in this city than listen to another word from the president."
"That's the spirit, Air Groove!" exclaimed Rudolf, oblivious to her friend's suffering. "Good luck in your race against time!"
Air Groove stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind her. "That woman is going to drive me crazy," she thought as she followed the directions given in the document where Hayate had been seen.
____________________________
One night, after a technical training session that was more difficult than the previous ones because of sleepiness, Nene waited for him at the corner of the ring.
"I've seen you dragging your feet all day," she said bluntly. "It's not just about wasting energy, it's about losing quality of movement. Rest is part of training."
Hayate tried to muster up some pride: the kind of pride that pushes you to keep going. He swallowed it and spoke truthfully, without excuses.
"I need more fights," he said. "I don't like it, but I need more money."
Nene rested his chin on his hand for a moment. He didn't like the answer, but he understood the reasoning behind it.
"I know that. But if you break something now, there's no money to pay for your recovery. This isn't school, kid, we're a business, and we're also responsible for the damage we allow."
Kanzaki arrived at that moment with his usual calm demeanor. He looked at Hayate and gauged the boy's intensity just by looking at him.
"You're going to rest for a week," he said without suspicion. "I'm not asking, I'm ordering you, Hayate."
He frowned. The word "order" was not natural in his stubborn adult vocabulary.
"I can't," he replied. "If I don't fight this week, the rent..."
Kanzaki took out his notebook and wrote something down, the name of an old acquaintance, a place where they might need hands to carry boxes in the early hours of the morning. It wasn't much, but it was work without fighting. It wouldn't be ring money, but it would be less risky and provide some income.
"Take that job," he said. "Loading and unloading at one of the warehouses we know. It'll give you more than you think and force you to move your body without hitting anyone. And if you fight again before you're well, I swear I'll take you out until you learn that we want you available, not broken."
Nene added after Kanzaki, "If you come back weak, they'll break you, and I don't want to have to put on band-aids or stitches all week."
Hayate looked at the notes as he took a long breath.
"All right," he said finally, "two days, I'll do it."
____________________________
Those two days were far from the "complete rest" that any doctor would recommend. For Hayate, rest only meant changing the type of pain.
"Ugh!" Hayate groaned as he carried a reinforced wooden box into the warehouse, possibly twice or three times the size of an adult human. "This weighs more than Mika's rectum..."
Kra-chak! The sound of pallets fitting together echoed in the huge warehouse. Working in the warehouse made him discover muscles he didn't know existed, iron grips, tension in his lower back, and the need to lift weights without twisting his back at a 90-degree angle.
"It's not the ring, but my body is still screaming," he thought, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his forearm. "At least here no one is trying to knock my teeth out for a few yen."
What he didn't know was that, from the shadows of a nearby loading dock, amethyst eyes were watching him with a mixture of rigor and curiosity. Air Groove was there, impeccable even in such a dusty environment, jotting down details on her digital tablet as she stared at Hayate, her tail twitching slightly as she watched him struggle to lift those boxes.
"His work ethic is remarkable, along with superior physical endurance for an average Umamusume," she whispered to herself, focusing on him, «but looking at those dark circles under his eyes... What kind of situation have you gotten yourself into, 'newcomer'?»
Air Groove sent the final report to the academy: "Location confirmed, it appears he is performing heavy lifting. We will proceed as planned, but I suggest the medical team be on standby. His fatigue level is concerning."
_____________________
Hayate was about to close the door to his terrace when a chill ran down his spine. It wasn't the cold night wind, but the feeling of a presence that simply didn't fit with the smell of rust and asphalt in his neighborhood.
"Do you think this is the right place for someone with your potential, Hayate Kurogane?"
"Gwah!" Hayate jumped back, hitting his heel against the doorframe. "Who...?"
In front of him, bathed in moonlight and with a posture that radiated an almost suffocating authority, stood her, the Empress, her short, straight, light gray hair waving slightly and her pale blue eyes piercing through him as if she were reading him while wearing her academy uniform.
"What is someone like Uma doing in a place like this?" Hayate thought, swallowing hard as his senses, sharpened by the ring, told him she was not a threat.
"My name is Air Groove, Vice President of the Student Council at Tracen Academy," she said, stepping forward, her eyes scanning Hayate's face, lingering a second too long on the bruise on his lip.
"Tracen...?" Hayate frowned, confused. "If you're here about the bet on Mika's fight, I don't..."
"I'm not interested in your gambling debts or that sleazy ring," she cut him off sharply. "I'm here because the institution made an administrative error and your name was omitted from the official lists due to a system failure."
Hayate was speechless for a second. An error? Everything that had happened, the hunger, the fights over a few yen, had been due to a computer glitch?
Air Groove noticed how the boy's fists clenched and for a brief moment, her steely gaze softened just enough. There was something about this young man's resilience, the way he stood tall despite being clearly exhausted, that piqued her curiosity.
"I've come to give you this," she continued, holding out an envelope sealed with the academy's seal. "It's a formal invitation and a conditional place. Director Akikawa is waiting for you. A medical examination, accommodation, and official training will be offered, just like any other Umamusume."
Hayate looked at the envelope and then at the "Empress" in front of him.
"Why now?" he asked in a hoarse voice. "I've been surviving on my own all this time."
Air Groove crossed her arms, watching him with an intensity that made Hayate's heart skip a beat as he thought about choosing his words carefully.
"Because Tracen doesn't abandon its own, even if it's a mistake," she replied, "and because, after seeing you carry those boxes and fight in that ring, it would be a waste for someone with that tenacity to rot away in this alley. Don't waste my time, stubborn boy. Tomorrow a car will come for you at your address."
She turned to leave, but before disappearing into the shadows, she took one last look over her shoulder.
"And clean that wound. A future Tracen student shouldn't look so... unkempt."
Air Groove disappeared as quickly as she had arrived. Hayate was left alone on the terrace, clutching the envelope in his hand, his heart pounding, and for the first time in weeks, it wasn't from the fatigue of exercise.
"Air Groove..." he repeated in his mind.
He looked at the envelope and then toward the horizon where the academy's towers rose. The path to survival had just become the path to the top.