[A/N: Long chapter today; also, I think I cooked today's chapter.]
November 15th, 1984.
Today is the biggest event of the year. Why? Well, it's that time for the Japan Cup, of course. If it were just that, then it wouldn't be this big, since this is an annual race. However, something is clearly different.
Everyone can feel it. The stadium was filled to the brim; the crowd pressed forward into the barriers; even the vendors had stopped moving to stare at the paddock.
The Japan Cup. 2400 meters. International field.
Echo Eclipse stood at the spectator fence with both hands wrapped around the rail, her chin nearly resting on the top bar. Beside her, Bizen Nishiki leaned on her clutches with Gold Way beside her, arms folded. Mach was already halfway through her third deep breath.
"Who do you think will win?" Nishiki asked Echo, to which she responded with a frown, "I don't know."
"Wow~ You don't have confidence in Rudolf, do you?" Nishiki said with a teasing grin, and Echo refuted that.
"I do have confidence in her. It's not that; it's just... My instinct is saying otherwise... I still think she will win, but..."
"She'll win," Gold Way interrupted her, stating the fact firmly. Onward Cameroun nodded while rubbing the back of Suzu Mach, calming her down.
"... I hope you're right," Echo let out a deep sigh while pressing her cheek on top of the top bar.
Gold Way glanced at her, then back at the paddock, then at Echo again. Echo was not even blinking.
Gold Way said nothing further.
In the VIPP Booth above them, Kincsem rested her cheek against her knuckles and played with her cat brooch in her hair. She watched the runners enter the paddock through half-lidded eyes. She really wanted to close her eyes and laze away. She had already catalogued each of them the moment they appeared.
There are five foreign runners in the mix, and from what she can sense from their potential. They're all champions from their country; they want to steal Japan's trophy from them. The question is, Uma Musumes from Japan aren't that weak to let them waltz in and take it.
The mood in the paddock is dense, as expected. They must be wary of the foreigners, from the subtle stiffness of their shoulders, the way their eyes kept drifting sideways toward the foreign runner.
Except for Gate 8.
Katsuragi Ace leaned forward in her gate, her jet-black ponytail tucked under her racing silk. However, there wasn't any trace of nerves or intimidation. Rather, she looked excited, about to explode. Her competitiveness is through the roof.
Almost as if every single runner were noise to her. Simply obstacles to overcome, just like how Mr C.B. is her idol and obstacle.
In Gate 3, same as always. Symboli Rudolf is unmoving like a statue, almost like a blade waiting to be drawn. This year's Triple Crown champion, will she be able to defeat the foreigners and win this year's Japan Cup?
And in Gate 11, we have Mr C.B., the previous year's Triple Crown champion.
She stood in her gate, already in her A-game. To the outsider, she looks the same as she typically does, but to her trainer and friends. They can tell she is nervous.
Why is she nervous? Even with seventeen victories under her belt, she never won the Japan Cup, even in 1983, when she lost against an Irish runner, Stanerra. That same Stanerra is here again for the Japan Cup.
She couldn't help but be nervous and eager; she will be able to face the current Triple Crown champion, her rival Ace, and against Stanerra.
She wants to win today.
The turf is especially firm today. The dew must've dried faster than expected in the November sun.
But when she looked down the paddock, she could spot the Argentinian runner rolling her shoulders loose, the Irish runner, Stanerra, with her long, economic stride, and the French runner standing absolutely motionless in her gate. Suddenly, she couldn't help but feel the weight of expected failure, chaining her down.
In times like this, she envied Echo Eclipse, to be truly free from the chains and expectations. She can't help but imagine herself losing to these formidable foes unintentionally.
Today was not a normal race.
Kincsem exhaled slowly through her nose from the booth above.
'What a peculiar race,' she thought, before ordering her butler to serve her a specific type of water that catered to her picky taste.
The signal fired.
2400 meters. Begin.
The gates tore open, and the field broke in a wave of colour and sound; the crowd's roar shook the stadium and the very ground. Each runner could feel it in their sternum, in the soles of their feet.
Seventeen runners. Who will win?
The Tokyo turf swallowed the thunder of hooves and returned it amplified.
Katsuragi Ace went to the front at full speed.
There was no plan, no strategy. Just her, head low, arms pumping, driving off the turf with force, creating small gouges in the turf and small divots of grass spinning behind her.
The crowd erupted at the sight of her; they knew her. The only runner that Mr C.B. admitted to be her rival last year, and now she is leading the Japan Cup field by two lengths before they had even covered 200 meters.
Anyone who doesn't know her would say she is being reckless, perhaps too fast to the point of wasting stamina needed for the entire race.
But those who know her understand that her reckless running isn't the result of her body, but rather her will. Her will to win. Her will to overcome any obstacles in her way.
Echo watched silently, her gaze locked onto Symboli Rudolf.
Mr C.B. felt the pace immediately; it wasn't like last year's Japan Cup. It was truly intense.
Burning. It was burning hot. Even for her, even with the experience she got from seventeen victories, she understood that Ace's style of running has evolved.
Ace's front-running pace was scorching through the opening 400 meters at a speed, forcibly making everyone behind her kick up their pace. As if she were saying, "You either race at my speed and burn, or you slow down and lose ground."
There was no comfortable middle answer.
Mr C.B. settled into eighth place and tried to find her rhythm. But she couldn't. The turf was firmer than she thought, and she felt the difference in her knees, a sharpness in each impact that the soft turf usually absorbed.
So what? She'll adapt like always, shortening her stride slightly, adjusting her weight forward. She isn't in optimal condition anymore, but it was now manageable. Just cost her speed and time.
The foreign runners, however, were not struggling. Stanerra was flowing over the hard ground with such ease as if it were soft turf. The turf back home was harder than the turf they were running on.
Rudolf had settled into sixth place, moving with long strides and unhurriedly. Everyone behind Ace was waiting, waiting for her to explode and spend her stamina early on.
800 meters in. Ace's lead was still held at two lengths. The international runners were sitting mid-pack, watching. Echo could tell that this was different from Rudolf's typical patience; their patience came from experience. They knew that front-runners on blazing paces always came back to the field, eventually.
Mr C.B. was still in eighth place. And as someone who knows Ace closely, she immediately realised that Ace was fooling everyone. She made everyone believe she had made a beginner's mistake. But she would not blow up. She was using the intense fire inside her in a controlled manner beneath the aggression.
'Aah... That's a problem; she even fooled me,' Mr C.B. thought, surprised at Katsuragi Ace's evolution outside her sight. Maybe she shouldn't have been too focused on Symboli Rudolf and Echo Eclipse to begin with.
Rudolf gradually arrived at fifth place.
1200 meters in. The crowd continued cheering for Ace; they never expected someone to start at such a high pace and continue leading at the halfway point of the race. Yet, there she was.
Gold Way murmured, "She must've focused solely on her guts. And stamina to pull this off." Nishiki nodded to Gold Way's response.
And she was right. From the very beginning, to capitalise on her chance to win, she decided to be in the front, and her trainer built every training around that decision. She refused to let the foreign runners take the lead, and turned it away from the typical professional tactic into more physical, more fire.
She will feed her fire until it consumes her whole, because she wants to win. This is her resolve, and her love for racing.
Rudolf was third now.
1600 meters. The foreign runners moved. The Argentinian runner in Gate 2 slid past Ace on the outside and hit the front briefly. Ace glanced at her for a moment before changing her stride.
This was just another obstacle she had to overcome.
She started to steadily let out her explosion inside of her; her lungs expanded, and she dug deeper into the turf. Immediately swallowed the length between them and took back the front. But this came at the cost of expending more stamina than was necessary.
Behind them, Mr C.B. realised that she was reaching her limit.
She wouldn't reach her limit this early, but from experiencing the pressure and tension, she subconsciously wasted more energy than needed, and in turn. The foreign runners were moving around her now, Stanerra slipping past her shoulder on the right, the Argentinian locked in her battle with Ace up front, the French runner drifting wide and covering a lot of ground hastily.
Originally, she matched them for thirty meters. Even close to forty meters.
However, the built-up stress and pressure leaked out. She had been compensating since the start, spending energy on impact absorption that she would normally spend on pacing. It was only a handful, but with each stride, that amount piled up until she could not expend anymore.
The moment she stops running, her legs will collapse onto herself.
But she refused.
Although she can't spend more energy to speed up anymore, she can still keep on running.
And so she did; she held her form. She ran clean. She did not panic, and she did not flail. This is her definition of being a professional runner. Someone who does not stop running even in the worst conditions.
All she can do is watch the field pull away from her by degrees, like a tide going out, but this time, she could not go with it.
Slowly falling back to tenth place, no further. She would hold tenth through the last stretch on pure stubbornness.
She could comfort herself that if this was a fresh track, on a softer day, the result would've been different; however, this was reality. No use in regretting.
It was what it was.
1800 meters in, Echo's knuckles had gone white on the rail.
"Rudolf," she whispered, not even realising she had said it.
She was worried because Rudolf was breathing much heavier and sweat was pouring down her body.
For the first time, she might lose.
Rudolf was second, but her gaze became unfocused as her sense of reality slowly dissipated. The front group had become four: Ace, Rudolf, the Argentinian runner, and Stanerra closing hard from the outside. The gap between them and the field behind was growing.
But so was Rudolf.
2000 meters. 400 to go, Rudolf's speed starts to slip; the Argentinian runner faded away due to the cost of chasing Ace through the early pace. Now it was three: Ace, Rudolf, and Stanerra. Stanerra overtook Rudolf's position, and Rudolf became 3rd place.
She needs to take back; she needs to win. She is the Emperor, god damnit! She can't lose 1st place; she promised Echo that she won't lose to anybody else except for her!
But no matter how much she shouted internally, her body does not listen.
Stanerra fades, a half-length dropped at 2200, another quarter at 2300, her surge spent before the final straight.
No, Rudolf won't let this happen. She won't; she uses the last bit of energy she has to overtake 2nd place.
"GRRUUAAAAAAAAH!!!" Rudolf roared, and a slight flicker of red lightning appeared from her body. In her vision, Phantom Echo appeared, running ahead of Ace.
No, no, who cares if she has no energy. She will not lose! Like hell she will! She is the damn EMPEROR!
Then, the surrounding air shattered as intense pressure pressed down onto Katsuragi Ace's body.
"Emperor Zone." Her voice was eerily cold and emotionless; in that instant, the sound of the cheers and track was silent.
One moment she was behind Ace, in another, she was now alongside Ace. The two of them were running into the final straight together; the crowd's sound climbed and climbed until the ground started shaking from the pressure.
Ace turned her head and looked at Rudolf directly, feeling the intense pressure pressing down on her body. She gritted her teeth and roared against the pressure.
"Yer won't BEAT ME!"
"World-Conquering Great Ace," Ace's voice became subtly looser and freer; the surrounding air shattered once again, fighting against the immense pressure from Symboli Rudolf's zone. Brownish-black lightning came off her body.
Rudolf looked back.
And for one strange, suspended moment, neither of them sped up. They simply looked at each other with recognition; it can't be explained with just logic. This is recognition between two runners that has activated their zone.
Then both of them dropped everything they had, and full throttle ahead.
Ace's stride became something savage. Elbows pumping, teeth bared slightly, every muscle in her body throwing itself at the finish line with absolute disregard for the cost on her body afterwards.
Rudolf's form did not change. She only became faster, that same immovable, mechanical acceleration, that terrible, frictionless speed that had no visible source. Her eyes were set on the running Phantom Echo; she wanted to catch up to that Phantom!
200 meters.
The crowd was screaming. All of them. Every single person in Tokyo Racecourse was on their feet and screaming.
Mr C.B. watches from behind with a defeated gaze; maybe she wasn't the rival Katsuragi Ace needed.
100 meters.
Ace and Rudolf were side by side, their shoulders nearly touching, their strides landing in rhythm, their shadows overlapping on the turf. The finish line is right there, and one of them is going to claim the win!
Echo had both hands over her mouth; she did not know what had just happened with both of them, nor what that colourful transparent dome on Rudolf and Ace was.
Her heart was pumping excitedly, and her legs were kicking the ground as she screamed Rudolf's name loudly while cheering.
50 meters.
Neither of them was going to slow down.
Neither of them was going to yield.
10 meters.
7 meters.
4 meters.
2 meters.
1-
They crossed the line simultaneously, and the stadium fell completely, utterly silent.
One second went by. Two seconds went by.
Then the announcer's voice, strained almost past recognition, echoed through the silent stadium.
"Ah... We-we are going to a photo finish review. Please stand by..."
Nobody sat down. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. The silence held for twenty-three seconds. Echo's heart beat so loudly she could feel the pulse from the tips of her fingers.
Then the screen above the finish line lit up.
Dead heat. 1st place: Symboli Rudolf. 1st place: Katsuragi Ace.
At that moment, after reading the screen, the noise that came from the stadium after that was something that people of Tokyo would talk about for years. Not the result, but the noise itself.
The pure, unintelligible, collective eruption of nearly sixty thousand people who had just watched two runners leave everything they had on the turf and crossed the finish line at the same time.
Echo stared at the screen before staring at the system notification beside her.
[Congratulations! You have changed the fate of Symboli Rudolf.]
Echo stared at the notification before glancing at the screen. Then she started laughing. Not a polite laugh, not a relieved laugh, a full, helpless laugh, arms coming off the rail, hands pressing against her face.
"That's so cool," she managed between laughs. "You're so, so cool, Rudolf..."
She did nothing; it was all Symboli Rudolf's effort that she changed her fate. 'I don't deserve the congratulations; Rudolf is the one who deserves it. She did it without my interference. Heh.'
Gold Way put a hand over her own mouth. Suzu Mach was crying and seemed unaware of it. Nishiki was gazing in awe and excitement so much that her smile was hurting her face.
For the first time, they were exposed to the Zone in a race. They never expected it, and it was beyond their expectations.
Down on the track, Katsuragi Ace had stopped several lengths past the finish line. She was bent forward with her hands on her knees, chest heaving, staring at the turf beneath her hooves. Before straightening up and turned around, looking for Rudolf.
Rudolf was standing fifteen feet away, breathing hard. Her exhaustion was genuinely real; it just showed the effort she did not usually show during the race. Her expression had cracked.
She couldn't reach the Phantom Echo, but that did not disappoint her. She wasn't happy, nor was she disappointed. Her expression became something honest.
Ace walked toward her. Rudolf watched her come.
Ace stopped in front of her, still breathing too hard to speak properly. She pointed at Rudolf. Then at herself, then at the finish line.
"Next time," she said, panting, her accent bleeding through completely, "Ah will beat yer."
Rudolf looked at her for a long moment before chuckling amidst her panting.
"You're welcome to try, but Echo Eclipse will be the one to beat me," she breathed.
And she meant it. Echo could hear, even amidst the sounds of the crowd, the sincerity in Rudolf's voice.
Ace grinned, wide and unguarded, then walked off toward the winner's area, bouncing slightly on her heels.
Further down the track, Mr C.B. had crossed the line in tenth and stopped running. She stood there with her hands on her hips, breathing steadily, looking at the turf.
She pressed her hoof against it, feeling the firmness. The same one that caused her to get 10th place.
She exhaled through her nose. Tilted her head. Then she looked at the two girls, one just standing there, another walking to the winning area, and the corner of her mouth moved.
It was a bittersweet smile.
'Good race,' she thought toward the two 1st place winners.
She started walking toward the paddock. She wasn't let down that she got tenth place. A Triple Crown champion does not easily succumb to one loss.
But still... tenth place.
She sighed before shaking her head, 'But still, what was that thing they did during the last stretch? I'll go pester Ace at school about that.'
In the VIPP booth, Kincsem did not speak for a long moment; she was sitting with a straight back, staring at both winners. One walking away, another standing on the turf and staring at nothing. She did not expect to see runners, especially those in the classic year, to activate their zones.
"Heh, what a monster... Two monsters,"
Then she picked up her tea, sipping gracefully. Glancing down at the fence line below, where a girl was still laughing and pressing her hands to her face.
'Make that three monsters...'
She set the cup down.
'Now I wonder, what will her zone going to be?'