"She's... on a completely different level... This isn't... this can't be..."
The words came out broken and shattered and hollow from Narita Taishin's mouth.
Three lengths.
King Halo's presence blazed brighter with each stride in the zone-perception, feeding off her emotions, off her determination, off the burning need to prove herself beyond any possible doubt.
But more than that, it was feeding off the fear of those behind her, growing stronger with every zone it crushed, becoming more absolute with every light it extinguished.
Four lengths.
"KING HALO HAS TAKEN THE LEAD! SHE'S PULLING AWAY FROM EVERYONE!"
"I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS IN MY ENTIRE CAREER! THIS ISN'T RACING ANYMORE. THIS IS DOMINATION! THIS IS DESTRUCTION!"
"HOW POWERFUL WAS THAT FINAL BURST FROM SIXTH PLACE?! THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE! THIS DEFIES EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT UMA MUSUME RACING!"
"THIS REMINDS ME OF NARITA BRIAN'S MOST DOMINANT PERFORMANCES! WILL A MONSTER LIKE NARITA BRIAN FINALLY APPEAR AGAIN THIS YEAR?!"
Five lengths.
The gap kept growing exponentially, like King Halo existed in a different dimension of speed, operated under different physical laws, and had broken free from the constraints that bound normal uma musume.
"At Satsuki Sho... was this power always there?"
Biwa Hayahide stared at King Halo's back, at the darkness radiating from her in the zone-space, at the sheer overwhelming presence she left in her wake.
"Five lengths and still growing. At Satsuki Sho, we were separated by centimeters. Now..."
This wasn't the same Uma Musume Narita Taishin knew about King Halo, but something that had been caged and restrained and held back by chains of doubt, fear, and social expectation.
Now those chains were broken. And what emerged was a monster.
Narita Taishin couldn't understand it, her mind completely failing. The golden amber that had sustained her was gone and shattered and destroyed. Where competitive fire had burned, now only emptiness remained.
Her powerful legs felt like lead, unresponsive, barely able to maintain even a jog.
King Halo was pulling away. Four lengths. Five. The gap was expanding with every stride like she was operating in a different reality entirely.
Behind her, Winning Ticket should have been broken. Should have accepted defeat. Should have let her body collapse from the punishment she'd inflicted on it.
Instead, something inside her refused.
"HALOOOOOO!!!"
The scream tore across the track, raw and desperate but carrying a different quality than before. Not the anguished cry of watching her dream die, but a challenge. A refusal to be forgotten.
Her vision tunneled. The roaring crowd faded. The pain in her legs became distant, unimportant. There was only the track ahead, only King Halo's back, only these final hundred meters.
Her stride lengthened. Not with explosive drama but with quiet, terrible determination. The red-blue glow around her condensed, compressed, and became sharp and focused like a blade cutting through the darkness pressing down on her.
The gap stopped expanding.
Five lengths. Four and three-quarters. Four and a half...
It started to close.
"ONLY 100 METERS LEFT TO THE FINISH! WINNING TICKET IS STILL FIGHTING!"
She wasn't burning herself to ash in one final explosion. She was running with mechanical precision, her body moving beyond conscious thought, operating on pure will alone.
King Halo felt it. That presence behind her, still there, still burning, still refusing to fade.
She glanced back.
For just a heartbeat, their eyes met.
King Halo saw it. Saw someone who knew the gap was absolute. Who knew victory was impossible? Who knew she had already lost? And yet… Winning Ticket still fought. Not from hope, not from delusion. Winning Ticket fought because stopping was not in her vocabulary. King Halo's lips curled, something that wasn't quite a smile.
"You really won't give up, will you?"
Her voice carried across the wind, not mocking but almost appreciative.
"Fine then. Let me show you what separates us!"
Within a single second of subjective time inside her zone, time moved differently for King Halo.
Everything turned grayscale, drained of color, frozen in her perception.
In the audience, she found them: Kawakami Princess and her followers, Hayato, Seiun Sky, and her friends. All cheering in slow motion, voices stretched and distorted.
"King! King! Go! Go!"
And there was her mother. Goodbye Halo standing in the highest seats, shouting louder than anyone, more passionate than she'd ever shown before.
"Thank you! Thank you all!"
The words came out choked and raw.
"Thank you, Kawakami! Thank you, Trainer! And thank you... Mom!"
"Thank you for always being with me through everything! This race, I will win it for all of you!"
But underneath the gratitude, underneath the love, underneath everything, the hunger remained.
The darkness didn't care about gratitude or love or connection.
It cared about one thing only: The throne.
"Now, onward to the finish line!"
One day, I'll claim every single G1 title that exists!
WOOSH!
Wind manifested at her feet, reality itself bending to her command.
The darkness in her zone surged forward like a tsunami, like the void itself given direction and purpose.
The gap that Winning Ticket had been desperately closing reversed instantly.
Four and a half lengths. Five. Five and a half...
Like King Halo had simply been waiting, allowing the challenge, before showing the true difference between them.
"THIS IS... KING HALO IS ACCELERATING AGAIN!!"
"THE WINNER IS... KING HALO!!"
"UNBELIEVABLE! KING HALO CLAIMS HER SECOND JAPAN DERBY CROWN… AND SHATTERS THE RECORD BY FIVE WHOLE SECONDS!"
"2:20.5! SHE'S SHATTERED INES FUJIN'S RECORD!"
The stadium didn't just erupt but exploded. Fifty thousand voices screaming in shock and awe and disbelief. King Halo slowed past the finish line, her presence still blazing in the zone-perception like dark fire given form and purpose.
To those watching from the stands, she looked fierce and determined, her eyes burning with absolute conviction, her expression radiating triumph and vindication.
To the uma musume on the track who could still sense the zone-space, she was something far more terrifying. Something that had broken free from every chain and emerged as pure, undiluted will made manifest.
And she smiled.
"OH-HO-HO-HO-HO!"
Her signature laugh rang out across the venue, triumphant and vindicated and slightly mad, carrying undertones that made people shudder, made hearts clench with something they couldn't quite name.
"SATSUKI SHO WASN'T LUCK!"
"THIS IS THE REAL KING HALO!"
"THIS IS MY FIRST-RATE RUNNING STLE!"
She spread her arms wide, her entire being radiating absolute confidence and power.
"THIS IS WHO I'VE ALWAYS BEEN!"
"WHOOOAAAA!!!"
Unfortunately, none of them realized that this was the beginning of the era of The Tyrant King.
A tyrant king who wants to seize all G1 races. The destroyer of Uma Musume's dreams and the protagonist's destiny in every race.
---
illustration in comment
What I mean by Pitch-Black Obsession is like this: when Tamamo Cross first raced against Oguri Cap, Tamamo Cross felt a shiver for the first time. If Oguri Cap had continued or if the track distance had been longer, maybe the Pitch-Black Obsession could have activated. But unfortunately, in the next race, the second one against Tamamo Cross and Obey Your Master, that feeling disappeared, and then in the third race, Oguri Cap won by a zone.
Then, in the Uma Musume game in her last race, because of her obsession as seen in the ultimate video, due to that obsession she created Cinderella shoes with a clock/time image on the back. I'm not fantasizing about something that's not there, but I took it from something that actually appeared and then I evaluated/classified it like that. Just like Narita Brian's Pitch-Black Obsession in the manga when chasing the shadow of Biwa Hayahide and breaking the record.
In my view at the moment, I have only come across 3 uma musume. They are Oguri, Narita Brian, and Rice Shower. As for Rudolf herself, I don't know if she was ever obsessed.
I opened the second stage zone here because of the preparations coming up later, even though it still seems far off. The first stage zone just releases a normal aura from the body. The second stage zone makes the eyes emit effects (this zone belongs to veteran Uma Musume like Tamamo Cross, Oguri, Dicta Striker, and so on). Also, my intention here is: the last Crown of King Halo against Biwa Hayahide. Here, Biwa Hayahide trains with Narita Brian to get used to the pressure radiated by King Halo pitch-black obssession.
Unfortunately, I can't provide a video here, so you can check it out in the other side, i pin it. The video about what that black mist where tamamo cross first meet against oguri and what is that black obsession from my comphrends.