A few days later.
Gildune Manor, Training Ground No. 1.
The afternoon sky wasn't in a good mood. Heavy clouds hung low on the horizon, close enough to touch, draping the vast green plain in a stifling gray.
"Thud-thud-thud—!"
On the thick, damp turf track, an ash-gray–haired girl was flying down the lane with her body pitched extremely low, an aggressively forward-leaning posture that screamed offense.
Every heavy hoofbeat kicked up clumps of mud and shredded grass.
Off to the side of the track, Nase Fumino held a thick logbook, talking nonstop with Super Creek and Berno Light on either side of her.
Both girls listened closely, nodding from time to time, then jotting notes into their own little notebooks.
Berno Light had always dreamed of becoming a trainer.
As for Super Creek… she just genuinely liked studying.
Not far away.
Kuroha stood quietly at the edge of the field, watching—his brow slowly knitting.
"I underestimated an overseas track… even after all that."
Back at Central, he'd already built a simulated course based roughly on European turf characteristics.
But standing on this ground himself, he could finally feel it: a replica was still a replica. Real and simulated were never the same.
Ireland's turf was too soft.
And not just a little soft, either.
If he had to put it into numbers…
If Central's turf hardness was a 10, and Dubai's was a 7…
Then the European circuits—France, Great Britain, Ireland—were sitting at a 5.
Almost the exact opposite of Central.
A faint glow flickered in Kuroha's eyes as Body and Breath Perception quietly activated.
In his vision, Oguri Cap looked fast. Her rhythm wasn't breaking.
But her stamina was draining far faster than expected.
This heavy turf was like an invisible pair of hands, constantly dragging at a Uma Musume's legs.
If he sent the current Oguri Cap straight into next month's Irish Champion Stakes…
Even if she could grind out the full distance on sheer willpower…
By the most critical final phase, she likely wouldn't have enough left to unleash that terrifying, world-shaking kick of hers.
"Still, that isn't the real problem."
Kuroha closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, the glow was gone.
"At least we still have time."
All it would take was a targeted adjustment to the training plan.
With Oguri Cap's absurd learning ability and adaptation speed…
She might not even need ten days. Using the key points she'd drilled for months with Turf ◯, she could tame this unruly turf underfoot.
Not perfectly, maybe—but enough that running on it wouldn't feel like fighting the ground itself.
At this point, track adaptation wasn't the biggest issue.
The real problem was the opponent nature had chosen to put in her way.
After a moment's thought, Kuroha lifted the stack of documents he'd been gripping the whole time.
After arriving in Ireland, he'd pulled strings and worked every channel he had to gather intelligence on every Uma Musume entered in this year's Irish Champion Stakes.
He hadn't done this kind of tedious scouting work in a long time. Back at Central, Aoi handled it.
But Aoi hadn't come on this expedition.
So Kuroha had dusted off the old habits.
The file wasn't thin. When he opened the first page, several photos of Uma Musume with unmistakably foreign features jumped into view.
One had long chestnut hair and a bold, heroic air.
Another stood in profile with a confident smile full of swagger.
But every single one of them had the same thing in common.
They were all proven, top-tier elites of the European circuit.
"Who won this race in the original timeline, again?"
Kuroha's eyes narrowed slightly as he stared at the photos, digging through memories from his previous life.
There was no way he could remember the details of every race. At best, he could vaguely recall the champions of the biggest events on the world stage.
The Irish Champion Stakes was absolutely one of Europe's premier G1s—but the winner for this particular year?
He honestly couldn't say off the top of his head.
But there was one winner he remembered very clearly.
This year.
Two months from now—the 1990 champion of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.
Kuroha's finger slid down the page and stopped on a name that felt both familiar and strangely distant.
Saumarez.
In the photo, she was a tall blonde with big waves of hair, a striking figure, and a face so cool it was almost icy.
In the original history, she wasn't exactly a "dominant resume" type.
Only two G1 wins in her entire career.
But one of them was the Arc—one of the most prestigious prizes in the world.
And there was another reason Kuroha remembered her.
A truly ridiculous one.
Despite being an Arc champion, she was completely unsuited to Ireland's heavy turf.
So in this very Irish Champion Stakes, she got torn open by a Classic Year Uma Musume—by thirty lengths.
It was the kind of massacre people still called a disaster after the fact.
"Saumarez…"
"So the Classic Year monster who did that… has to be among the few remaining names here."
"A Classic Year Uma Musume, huh…"
Kuroha pulled out the last two pages.
The first belonged to a Uma Musume named Candy Glen.
He only needed a glance before a three-word verdict formed in his mind.
King of mediocrity.
Her past results and physical data screamed one thing: she was here to "get some experience."
She was from Great Britain, sure, and she'd run a few graded races—but her eyes carried a kind of clear, uncomplicated naïveté.
She didn't have Oguri Cap's freakish physical talent.
She didn't have the kind of willpower that could smash through a limit.
She was filler.
Or rather—she was just a perfectly ordinary Classic Year Uma Musume.
"Which means there's only one answer left."
Kuroha's gaze settled on the final page.
Elmaamul.
Also a Great Britain–born Classic Year Uma Musume.
In the photo, she had short auburn hair and a personality that looked downright fiery. She flashed a huge peace sign at the camera, grinning like she owned the world.
But that "ordinary, upbeat girl" had done something outrageous just over a month ago.
In the G1 Eclipse Stakes, she'd smashed through a field of famous Senior Year powerhouses and taken the crown.
"She went too far with True Blooming…"
Kuroha studied the detailed notes he'd collected, focusing on the girl's physique—those muscles that looked too tense, too strange, too forced. His eyes narrowed, and his expression grew heavy.
He could tell.
Elmaamul had pursued power so obsessively that she'd pushed herself into "excessive True Blooming" more than once.
Not once and recover.
Once… and then a second time—burning the future again.
It immediately reminded him of that rival Fujimasa March had faced back at Oi Tracen.
Seiran Nichirin.
Elmaamul looked glorious right now, standing at an absolute peak.
But if she ran one or two more high-intensity races, her body would almost certainly develop irreversible problems—maybe even burn out completely and force retirement.
She was literally setting her career on fire to buy a brief moment of brilliance.
And still—
A Classic Year Uma Musume from Great Britain, nearly perfectly adapted to Ireland's heavy turf, operating in a state of "borrowed time"…
Was, without question, at the strongest point of her entire life.
"And she has it, too… Domain…"
Kuroha's brow tightened.
Since he'd collected the intelligence, he'd also reviewed their race footage.
In the Eclipse Stakes replay, Elmaamul had been locked in a brutal, dead-even duel through the final phase. With that all-consuming conviction—like she'd decided to burn everything she was—she completed her second excessive True Blooming right there.
And in that moment, she awakened the power of Domain and took the title.
"As a Classic Year… she ripped a future Arc champion apart by thirty lengths…"
Kuroha exhaled slowly and closed the file in his hands.
Sure, that result also had factors—an Arc-level horsegirl being in poor form, for one.
But even so…
This was the first truly hard bone on Oguri Cap's overseas road.
Kuroha had absolute confidence in Oguri Cap's strength.
Her raw physical specs were overwhelming, her Domain power was an outright crush, and even on pure technique she still held a decisive edge.
But this was her first overseas expedition—and today, her training performance had been a little unstable.
So no matter how careful he was, it still wouldn't be too careful.
"Elmaamul…"
On the cover of the file Kuroha had just put away, the short-haired auburn girl's bright, reckless smile seemed to glow against Ireland's heavy, overcast sky.
Like a meteor about to burn itself out.
(End of Chapter)
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