The dawn in Tracen wasn't particularly pleasant, given the light streaming through the window with a golden insolence that forced Hayate to cover his face with the pillow; however, the alarm clock emitted such a sharp beep that it was impossible to ignore.
"Five more minutes…" Hayate grumbled, though his body was already rising against his will.
He got up, feeling stiffness in his shoulders. Despite the luxury, his brain kept waiting for the sound of a police siren or the shout of an angry neighbor complaining about something he wouldn't pay the slightest attention to. After checking the day's schedule, he put on the academy's training uniform, the red jacket and pants along with the white shirt that hugged his body like a second skin.
"If Scarlet sees me in this, she's going to laugh for half an hour," he muttered, watching his muscles ripple beneath the fabric. "Well, at least it's more comfortable than the official uniform. Too bad it's only for training."
___________________________
He walked out of his room, taking a while to find his way around the academy until he reached the training track where most of the others were gathering. Even though it was just a regular class and as they put it, an "aptitude assessment", Air Groove was there alongside the trainer to assist him, holding a stopwatch and a score sheet calmly while the trainer explained what they would be doing today. "You're late, Kurogane. Since it's your first day, I'll let it slide, but next time won't be like this. Now go join the group."
Leaning against the fence to one side were Daiwa Scarlet and Vodka, who noticed him when he arrived.
"Look who finally decided to show up!" Vodka shouted, waving a water bottle. "I hope you didn't eat too much breakfast, because today you're really going to bite the dust!"
"Leave him alone, Vodka," Scarlet interjected, adjusting her shirt. "He's got style. I just hope that style is good for something other than running in a straight line."
Hayate gave them a sidelong smile as he walked past them. "I'm sorry about that, I didn't know where we were supposed to meet for class. What do we do now?" he asked, watching as some of them lined up at the starting line while Air Groove raised her arm; when she brought it down with a snap, those on the line began to run.
"Just a test in a 1,000-meter race, it's not that complicated," said Scarlet, watching the runners pass the finish line, which was a life-size cardboard cutout of Hishi Amazon.
Hayate watched as the girls returned, somewhat tired but smiling, while Air Groove recorded their times on the board and called out the next group. "I see… and why is the finish line a cardboard cutout of that girl?"
"Why not? If it works, there's no reason to change it," said Vodka as she adjusted her shoes, since her group was up next.
"Why not? If it works, there's no reason to change it," said Vodka as she adjusted her shoes, since her group was up next. "By the way, you're in our group, so you better stretch a little; in a bit we'll see what you're capable of."
"Eh, okay, sure. I guess it's not a bad idea to try," Hayate said. While waiting for his turn with the others, he started stretching a little as Vodka had suggested, though behind him, Vodka was smiling as she watched his shirt stretch slightly. Scarlet scolded him, but after a quick glance, she decided to let it slide this time.
"Next group, get ready," said the teacher, calling out the cues to Air Groove.
As Hayate, Vodka, and Scarlet took their places alongside the others, their ears pricked up at the whispers of the other students who had stayed behind to watch.
"It's Umashonen… Do you think he can race against a Class A? Look at his legs… they're so tense." Hayate held back the urge to speak his mind and simply let out a sigh, deciding to ignore the comments.
Air Groove approached him, her gaze assessing every inch of his posture.
"Listen carefully, Kurogane," she said in a low voice. "This isn't a game. President Rudolf has set her sights on you, and I don't plan on making a fool of myself so she can make more jokes about it. I want you to run these 1,000 meters without holding back, no tricks, just pure Speed."
"Understood, Vice President." Hayate took his starting position alongside the others.
He wasn't using the standard technique. Instead of the Umamusume's hydrodynamic stance, Hayate crouched a little lower, almost half the height at which the Umamusume usually ran. His lungs filled with air as his ears focused on the starting gun to avoid a false start.
"This isn't a 400-meter track like the one that night," he told himself in his mind. "The bell is going to ring, and you have to make sure you don't get passed; I have to get there before them."
Air Groove raised her arm, and silence fell over the track.
BOOM!
The dirt beneath Hayate's feet flew into the air, leaving a small crater on the track. In the first 10 meters, his acceleration was so violent that Air Groove almost forgot to start the stopwatch.
"What the hell…?!" Vodka exclaimed, sitting up straight with a start when they saw him pass them at the start.
Hayate was running differently than expected; every stride was a brutal impact against the ground. In the first 100 meters, his speed was absurd, even narrowly surpassing the starting times of the academy's elite sprinters, with his tail lashing through the air to maintain balance with a power that seemed excessive for a humanoid body.
But then the inevitable happened.
At the 400-meter mark, the power he had at the start began to wane. Hayate, who was more accustomed to short bursts of power and 50-meter sprints in narrow alleys, couldn't properly manage his stamina; his body, which was almost a machine of explosive power, didn't know how to manage oxygen for the increasingly long distance he was forcing himself to cover.
Her strides began to lose rhythm as fatigue and pain flooded her muscles like some kind of liquid fire; her speed plummeted, and by the 800-meter mark, her breathing was already little more than gasping as she struggled to cover every meter she could. The other girls, whom she had left far behind at the start, were almost catching up.
And then I heard it.
CRACK!
A sharp, metallic crack echoed across the track when he took a wrong step; Hayate stumbled, lost his balance, and rolled across the grass just as he crossed the 850-meter mark, long before reaching the finish line.
"Kurogane!" Air Groove ran toward him. Scarlet and Vodka, who had slowed down when they passed him as he fell, turned around and also approached him.
Hayate was lying on his back, panting, his uniform soaked in sweat, but he wasn't complaining about the exhaustion; he was staring at his right foot.
The horseshoe—the one he'd fitted himself with a hammer and rustic nails—had split in half. The force of the start, combined with his powerful strides and the uneven terrain, had been so great that the metal simply couldn't withstand the torsion.
"You're crazy…" Scarlet whispered, coming to his side and looking at the shattered shoe. "Your start… was faster than Maruzensky's, but… you fell apart in a second."
"Scarlet, are my shoes… okay?" Hayate managed to say, with a bitter smile as he watched part of the sole break off as well. "I guess the track isn't as forgiving as I thought."
Air Groove knelt beside him, inspecting the damage; her expression was a mix of technical horror and fascination.
"It's not just the shoe," she said, looking at Hayate's calf, where the muscles were still trembling from the exertion. "Your starting technique is practically impossible for a normal runner to sustain; you're using a twisting force that would tear anyone's tendons apart."
"Well, well… what do we have here?" A languid voice, laced with dangerous curiosity, drifted over them.
From the shadows of the stands, a figure in a white lab coat with tousled brown hair approached with erratic steps, holding a laptop in hands covered by the long sleeves of her coat, while several test tubes glowed with a fluorescent liquid.
Agnes Tachyon
Her eyes shone with the intensity of a scientist who had just discovered a new species of subatomic particle or a millennia-old discovery.
Her eyes shone with the intensity of a scientist who had just discovered a new species of subatomic particle or a millennia-old discovery.
"A specimen with an output power of 2.0G and energy management as efficient as a forest fire..." murmured Tachyon, ignoring Air Groove's gaze and crouching down in front of Hayate with a smile that grew wider and wider. "Tell me, 'Umashonen'… would you like to lend your body to science? Or rather… would you like me to be the one to fix that disaster you call footwear?"
Hayate looked at the strange woman, feeling that the ring wasn't the most dangerous place he'd ever been.
"Lend my body… to science?" Hayate repeated the words with a raised eyebrow, trying to ignore the fact that Agnes Tachyon was eyeing him up as if he were a piece of meat on sale. "Listen, 'Doctor,' I just crashed into the grass at 60 kilometers per hour." The last thing I need is to end up as an ingredient in your fluorescent soup.
Tachyon let out a dry chuckle, one that sounded like shattering glass.
Tachyon let out a dry chuckle... "Your biological vitals are a fascinating anomaly, Kurogane-kun. I recorded an initial acceleration of 19.6 m/s², which is twice Earth's gravity. Hayate, you basically tried to launch your entire weight as if you were a catapult spring. No runner at this academy, not even the sprinters, has such a violently inefficient start."
"Tachyon, stop harassing him," Air Groove interjected, rubbing her temples. "His shoes are destroyed, and his technique is a disaster that's going to end up sending him to the infirmary permanently. If you can help with the footwear, do so, but no unauthorized experiments."
"I'm coming too!" exclaimed Scarlet, crossing her arms. "I won't let Tachyon do anything weird to him… just because it's the group's responsibility, of course!"
Vodka just nodded beside her, though her eyes sparkled with curiosity at Hayate's outburst.
_________________________
Agnes Tachyon's laboratory wasn't a normal room; it was an entire hall, half of which had been adapted for her. There were blackboards covered with equations that would make a mathematician weep, and in one corner, a teapot emitting a suspicious purple smoke.
"Sit there, Umashonen," Tachyon ordered, pointing to a chair reinforced with steel plates. "And take off what's left of that… 'footwear'"
Hayate obeyed, leaving the broken shoes on a metal table. Tachyon picked them up with a pair of tweezers, examining them with a look of disgust and interest.
"Ordinary iron, carpenter's nails, and a sole that looks like it was taken from an old tire…" she muttered. "It's a miracle you haven't amputated a foot from sheer friction. The impact force you generate when you take off is so high that your bones should be splintering. You have a strength-to-resistance ratio that defies my current models—basically, you hit the ground with the force of a demolition sledgehammer."
"When I was in the ring, if you didn't hit hard, you didn't win," Hayate replied, watching as Tachyon attached some sensors to his sore ankles. "I figured it's the same on the track, only the opponent is the ground."
"Exactly," Tachyon smiled, his eyes shining in the dim light of the lab. "But the floor always wins if you don't have the right equipment."
While Tachyon worked on a high-precision 3D printer that emitted otherworldly noises, Scarlet and Vodka watched Hayate from a safe distance.
"Hey…" Vodka whispered to Hayate, taking advantage of the fact that the crazy girl was distracted. "That move from earlier… did you really learn that from fighting?"
Hayate nodded, closing her eyes for a moment to rest. "In the alleys, you don't have 1,000 meters to take the lead and win; you have about three or ten meters to keep from getting cornered. If you're not the first to move, then you're the first to fall. I guess my body just got used to giving it my all right from the start."
"But here, races don't last three or ten meters," Scarlet replied in a strangely soft tone. "If you keep running like that, you'll break your legs before you even make it to your first official race. You can't win if you don't finish in one piece."
"I know," he admitted, looking at the redhead. "That's why I'm here, isn't it? So the people who 'know' can tell me why I'm such a mess"
Tachyon stepped out of the shadows, holding a pair of stirrups that looked nothing like the ones Hayate was familiar with. They were matte black, made of a carbon-tungsten alloy, and featured an aerodynamic design.
"Here you go. 'Hyper-Nova' series, prototype 0.5. Designed to absorb the initial impact and redistribute the elastic energy throughout the stride," said Tachyon, her voice laced with a… strangely dangerous satisfaction.
"And what do you want in return?" asked Hayate, suspecting that nothing she gave away was free.
Tachyon moved closer, coming within a few centimeters of his face and invading his personal space; her scent was a mixture of strong tea and chemicals of dubious origin.
"Oh, just a few details," she whispered. "I want you to get back on the track and give it 100%." "I want to see how your muscle tissue reacts to the new energy management system, and I don't know… maybe…" She pulled out a small vial of orange liquid, holding it almost right up to his face. "You should try this vitamin supplement I just 'perfected'.—
"Don't even think about it, Tachyon!" Air Groove shouted from the hallway.
Hayate took the horseshoes, feeling their light weight but incredibly solid material, looked at the scientist, and then at his new teammates.
"Sure, but without that suspicious orange liquid," Hayate said firmly. "Although I accept the track challenge, if these shoes can handle my sprint, I'll give you all the data you want."
Tachyon licked his lips with a smile. "Deal, Umashonen. Let's see if we can turn that 'wildfire' that is your lungs into a controlled combustion engine."
_________________________
As they left the lab, Hayate adjusted his new shoes. He felt the ground vibrating beneath his feet in a different way; it was as if, for the first time, his feet were truly connected to his strength.
"Are you sure about this?" asked Vodka, walking beside him. "Tachyon is… well, he's Tachyon, you know, his inventions sometimes explode—"
"I've survived fights against guys who weighed twice as much as me and had no scruples," replied Hayate, stretching his legs, now equipped with cutting-edge technology provided by the mad scientist. "A scientist in a white lab coat isn't the scariest thing I've faced today."
Scarlet glanced at him sideways, her cheeks slightly flushed. "You better not fall again. It would be embarrassing to have to carry you to the infirmary twice in the same day, and on your first day."
"I don't plan on falling," said Hayate. "This time, I'm going to make it to the finish line."
__________________________
Back on the track, the atmosphere had shifted a bit. What had once been a simple fitness assessment for a class had turned into a small event; several students from other classes had stayed behind, drawn by the rumor that the "new kid" was going to test an invention by the mad scientist.
"All right, Kurogane," Air Groove stood on the sidelines, arms crossed and wearing an expression that said, "This is going to end badly." "The rules are the same: 1,000 meters. Try not to destroy the track… or your own legs."
Hayate took his place at the starting line. As soon as he stepped onto the grass, he noticed the difference immediately; the "Hyper-Nova" shoes didn't feel like the rigid metal of old-fashioned horseshoes, because they had tiny carbon filaments at the base that adapted to the terrain, giving him a grip he'd never experienced on asphalt.
Tachyon, a few meters away, was frantically typing on her laptop with a big smile.
"I've activated the torque limiter on the elastic actuators!" she shouted with a maniacal grin. "You should feel a little… 'feedback' when you reach cruising speed."
"'Feedback'?" Hayate muttered. "Why do I feel like that's Tachyon's fancy way of saying 'you're going to feel your knees snap'?"
Scarlet and Vodka watched from the fence.
"If he doesn't make it…" Scarlet whispered.
"He'll make it; he's stubborn enough not to fail," Vodka replied, though her clenched hands suggested otherwise.
BANG!
Hayate shot forward, but this time there was no crater of dirt flying chaotically; the horseshoes bit into the grass with supreme efficiency. His acceleration was smoother, and instead of a thunderous roar, there was a high-pitched sound like a race car shifting gears.
Tachyon Logs: Acceleration 21.5 m/s². Structural Load: At operational limit.
At 200 meters, Hayate was already traveling at a speed that made the wind whistle deafeningly in his ears.
"What is this?" Hayate gasped.
Suddenly, he felt his legs moving on their own. It wasn't that he'd lost control; rather, the shoes were storing the kinetic energy from the impact and releasing it through a built-in magnetic spring mechanism. Every time his foot touched the ground, a burst of energy propelled him forward.
But there was a price to pay, and that price was heat.
The "Hyper-Nova" began to emit a faint orange glow and a hissing sound of steam, while the grass beneath Hayate's feet was left slightly scorched.
"Tachyon! He's burning!" Scarlet shouted, pointing at Hayate's feet as she noticed the marks he was leaving on the grass.
"It's just thermal dissipation from molecular friction!" Tachyon replied without taking her eyes off the screen, typing frantically. "If he wants more speed, he has to accept thermodynamics!"
Hayate passed the 800-meter mark at the spot where he had collapsed earlier, his lungs burning and his vision beginning to blur from the effort, but the horseshoes kept pushing him forward.
"Don't stop now…" he ordered himself, clenching his teeth until they hurt. "A fight isn't over until the other guy is on the ground. And the finish line is the only opponent here!"
Finally, with the finish line in sight, he pushed himself to the absolute limit, passing by the Hishi Amazon cardboard cutout at such an absurd speed that the gust of air knocked the cutout over, sending it flying across the track.
Hayate kept running a few more meters out of sheer momentum, trying to slow down, but his feet felt as if they had their own engines; finally, he collapsed onto the grass, rolling several times until he came to a stop.
"Kurogane!" Vodka and Scarlet were the first to arrive, followed by Air Groove, who didn't know whether to be impressed or furious.
Hayate was lying there, panting, his legs shaking violently. The strangest thing was that his feet kept moving rhythmically, as if they were pedaling in the air. "Hey… I can't… stop my feet!"
Tachyon came trotting over, his eyes shining with excitement as he looked at all the data on his laptop. "Fascinating! The energy recycling system has entered a hysteresis loop; your muscles are so pumped with adrenaline that the horseshoes are making you accelerate constantly.
"Well, turn them off!" Air Groove demanded. "He's going to end up digging a hole in the ground with his heels!"
Tachyon pulled a small remote control from one of his pockets and pressed a button; with a "click" and a final hiss of steam, the horseshoes cooled down and Hayate's legs finally came to a stop.
________________________
Minutes later, after some water and the obligatory scolding from Air Groove to Hayate for "setting the academy's property on fire" and another to Tachyon for "testing experimental equipment without prior authorization," Hayate was sitting barefoot in the stands, his feet red from the heat but unharmed.
"You did it," said Vodka, offering him a hand to help him up. "1,000 meters in a time of… well, Air Groove refuses to tell us, but his face says it all—though I doubt they'll record it since they're using equipment from Tachyon."
"You were an idiot for trusting Tachyon," Scarlet added, giving him a "friendly" slap on the shoulder that nearly knocked him over again. "But… it wasn't bad. I mean, for a rookie who doesn't know how to stretch, you've got potential."
Hayate looked at both of them; despite his extreme exhaustion, for the first time he felt like he was part of something. He wasn't the lone fighter in a dark alley—he was a student of Tracen.
"Tomorrow will be worse, right?" Hayate asked with a weary smile.
"Much worse," confirmed Air Groove, appearing behind them with her scoreboard and still annoyed. "Tomorrow you start real endurance training, and this time without Tachyon's toys or anything like that—they won't let you use them in competitions."
Rudolf, who had been watching everything from the balcony of the council office while farming aura, smiled to herself as she took a sip of tea.
"It seems the system wasn't wrong," murmured the President. "That boy really does seem to have great potential."
After the rest of his classes, devouring seven different meals in the cafeteria, and nearly falling asleep in the classroom, Hayate returned to his room and collapsed onto his bed like a log, his legs still aching slightly, making his sleep even deeper than before.