Black energy erupted around her like wildfire catching, like an explosion of pure obsession made manifest, wrapping her entire body in shadows that moved and writhed with their own terrible life. Though her pupils were still that striking blue-green, now they burned with an inner light that seemed to pierce the darkness itself, seemed to cut through reality. Dark-emerald flames that looked almost wrong, almost corrupted, tainted by something beyond normal competition.
Dark-emerald power surged from her eyes like twin searchlights cutting through the night, so intense it hurt to look directly at them, so powerful it felt like they could burn through steel, through bone, through anything that stood in her way.
Evolution conditions have been met!
Call Me King's unique low-star gold border skill has evolved into Prideful King!
Prideful King: Greatly increase velocity in a true display of skill with 200m remaining after racing calmly and conserving energy.
Up in the viewing area, Hayato's face lit with pride for exactly one second, joy blazing across his features. His Uma Musume had achieved zone awakening, had evolved her skill, and had reached the next level.
Then Hayato noticed something was terribly wrong, fundamentally broken.
The color was wrong, twisted and corrupted beyond recognition, a perversion of the emerald triumph it should have been. It radiated danger, filling the air with a silent, insidious warning that made his skin crawl.
"....Why?"
The darkness reminded Hayato of what had nearly destroyed Rice Shower body. King Halo's entire expression had transformed, becoming colder and more distant, as if she'd stepped beyond logic and normal human emotion.
"Dark-type zones...? Is she too obsessed with something? What triggered this?"
A familiar voice spoke beside him, analytical but carrying deep concern underneath.
Hayato turned to find Symboli Rudolf standing there, expression troubled as she watched King Halo below, studying the transformation with clinical detachment mixed with genuine worry.
"What? Rudolf, what do you mean by that?"
Symboli Rudolf continued without prompting, words careful and deliberate, chosen with precision.
"Uma musume who struggle desperately against their predetermined fate, fighting against what the world says they should be... they all end up manifesting this darkness eventually. It's inevitable."
She paused, watching King Halo's dark energy swirl and pulse.
"There's another trigger. When an Uma Musume achieves victory but is never recognized... when people say it was just luck, just a heel that destroys their favorites uma musume's dream... that doubt takes root. Grows like poison, turns inward, and becomes darkness..."
???
What she's talking 'bout? What does this mean?
But Maruzensky wore an expression that looked almost understanding, eyes distant like remembering something painful from her own past, from experiences she'd rather forget.
"She won Satsuki Sho by centimeters," Maruzensky said quietly, voice barely audible over the crowd. "Everyone said it could have been any of them. That she got lucky. That it was just a chance."
Her eyes stayed on King Halo, tracking the dark energy.
"For an uma musume who spent her whole life trying to prove herself, being told her first G1 victory was luck... That's a special kind of pain for her mind... That breaks something inside."
"What happens after that...? What comes next?"
Hayato's frown deepened, worry etched into every line of his face.
"I don't have extensive information on this phenomenon either," Symboli Rudolf admitted, and there was frustration in her voice at her own ignorance.
"When an Uma Musume pushes her obsession past her physical and mental limits, when she goes beyond what should be possible, it can turn into something else, transform into a second obsession. I call it Pitch-Black Obsession. Pure determination, cut off from logic and anything that might restrain it, severed from reason itself."
Symboli Rudolf paused, making sure Hayato understood the seriousness of it, the gravity.
"When Pitch-Black Obsession combines with a zone, the result is what you're seeing now. A dark-type manifestation."
Symboli Rudolf's explanation was clear enough. Hayato absorbed it fast, his analytical mind processing implications at lightning speed.
What was running on the racetrack now wasn't quite King Halo anymore. Or rather, two versions of King Halo existed in the same body simultaneously, overlapping like double-exposed film. The real King Halo had activated her zone and was racing with everything she had. The other manifestation, born from Pitch-Black Obsession, was something darker and more dangerous and honestly kind of terrifying, something that shouldn't exist.
Hayato really didn't know much about this particular phenomenon. Even in Cinderella Gray's story, there wasn't a detailed explanation about Pitch-Black Obsession. Probably because drawing it all out frame by frame would take forever, and it wasn't convenient to explain thoroughly in manga or anime format without grinding the story to a complete halt for exposition dumps.
"There are more serious issues with this state than with normal zones. It puts an enormous burden on their bodies, both during and after use. The damage can be... severe. Potentially permanent."
"Do you know why Narita Brian became unbeatable, not just because of the explosive power in her final kick?"
"It's because of Pitch-Black Obsession like you said, Rudolf?"
"Yeah, no one really knows what shifted inside her back then. It was like a relentless obsession had planted itself in her heart, refusing to let go, refusing to rest until it achieved its goal, until it consumed everything."
"You might not believe it, but Narita Brian wasn't always like that. She used to be serious and reserved, but not unreachable, not the kind of person who shut herself away from the others, who couldn't connect."
"Then one incident changed everything. Broke something inside her."
"After that, she shut herself away. She stopped caring about others. She stopped caring about herself. She began forcing her body beyond its limits, pushing it down a path of self-destruction, over and over again, until her body finally broke, leaving only severe injuries as the price of that obsession, as the cost of that power."
Hayato's worried expression deepened into something approaching fear, approaching horror.
"However..." Symboli Rudolf's tone softened slightly, trying to offer some hope. "King Halo is your uma musume. Your training methods are unconventional enough that there might be a real chance to offset the damage. If anyone can handle this safely, it's someone you've trained. You've done the impossible before."
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illustration in comment
I will explain later at the end of this plot about the pitchblack obsession and the black space that appears around King Halo.