That evening, the land of the Rising Sun fell silent.
“-and the racers come round the fourth bend! The race heats up in the final stretch here at the Tokyo 2400, and it looks like this race will be decided on the final stretch!”
Five year old Kaibara Akihiko sits before the dinner table, chopsticks trembling above a bowl of now-cold rice.
His young, astounded eyes remain entranced upon the screen.
“Poking ahead on the inside is Filibert! Right beside her as they come around the bend is Saint Helerian, and just two lengths back—Symboli Rudolf, swinging wide as they charge into the final turn!”
Footsteps thunder upon turf.
A barrage of bodies race past the cameraman.
“The Triple Crown Uma Musume begins her spurt! Symboli Rudolf, carrying the dreams of a nation upon her back! Symboli Rudolf, running with the nation’s heart thundering between her chest!”
Rudolf’s jacket snaps in the wind, a blur of green and gold cutting past the pack one effortless stride after another.
“Filibert’s coming at the finish hard from the 300 meter mark, but It’s Symboli Rudolf, closing in on the lead from the outside!”
The grandstands rise to their feet as one. Cheering, screaming, clutching each other in ecstatic leaps.
They dared not dream just yet.
“-Symboli Rudolf in second! This is anyone’s race! Rocky Tiger, hot on her heels, ladies and gentlemen, we might be in for a dead heat finish here at the 1985 Japan Cup-”
The year before, Katsuragi became the first of their own to win the Japan Cup.
“Symboli Rudolf surges ahead! She leads by one length! Rocky Tiger and Filibert hot on her heels, trying to force her back onto the outside- no- no one can catch up! Japan’s Emperor stops for no one!”
And now, the Emperor follows, in golden streaks of light shimmering beneath the setting November sun.
“That’s the race! Claiming the last jewel upon her crown- her seventh G1 victory-”
Somewhere far beyond the rails, televisions flicker. Faces turn toward the same green flash streaking across the final straight.
A victory that shatters the nation in a unified roar.
“-it’s the Japanese Ace, the Emperor, Symboli Rudolf!!”
It was a night that called forth the aspirations of countless dreamers.
Modern Day
“Mr. Akihiko!”
A set of impatient footsteps click past the paparazzi as he adjusts his tie with a sigh. His brow furrows as he briskly peels away from the crowd of reporters and down the tunnel.
“What do you think about your trainee’s placement in the Satsuki Sho? A result to be improved, surely, but seeing the form she's in-”
“I have no comments at this time. Thank you.”
The results were not unexpected. They were simply… disappointing. And just when he thought he had shot at making a triple crown champion.
The name “Kaibara” carried weight in interviews. It carried very little in the record books.
“Graaaaaaah!”
He yanks the tie loose. A button snaps free, skittering across the concrete. He sends his fist towards the wall, hard. A dull thud echoes through the tunnel, brick and mortar crumbling against his skin. A sharp pain shoots up his knuckles, though he could hardly care less.
His phone vibrates. The concert for the Derby was starting soon.
Most trainers attended out of courtesy. On a normal day? He might’ve. Yet there was this burning rage inside his chest that threatened to boil over like steam.
When he first stepped foot within Tracen, he had promised the world a second Symboli Rudolf. Yet now as each day began to pass, that declaration felt only like the words of an illiterate novice too far out of his depth.
“I don’t understand. The data suggests she could’ve cleared the final 600 in thirty-three seconds. She hit her stride at the second bend- why did she hesitate?!”
His fingers dig into the depths of his head, threatening to tear hair out by the handful.
“Damn it! Just what the hell am I doing wrong?!”
Cygnus lost its crown jewel in last year’s Kikuka Sho. People still whisper about the race to this day- Some blamed the injury on him; others called it a freak accident.
After that, nobody wanted to join a team that was by all means cursed.
He storms out of the tunnel and into the evening, stadium lights bleeding into the sky. The roar of the concert swells in the distance as he turns the corner toward the narrow stairwell leading up to the bar across the street.
His phone vibrates in his pocket. He pulls it out, his hand leaving the guardrail.
His foot… doesn’t quite catch the next step.
The world tilts sideways in one weightless second, everything around him turning into a blur of color. His gaze falls upon his surroundings, the world slowing to a crawl.
“Really now?”
It hangs just long enough for him to register how absurd it all had been.
“They couldn’t at least send a truck at me?”
The back of his head meets the pavement with a dull crunch.
Pain. So much pain.
Something blooms behind the ribs like fire, vision swimming out of the eyes in big purple splotches. When consciousness finally returns, all he feels is the grit of soil against his cheek and lips. Somewhere above, birds chirped; and the air smells of damp earth.
Or perhaps that’s from him lying face down in the dirt.
“This doesn’t… feel like concrete. What the hell?”
The sound is wrong. Too high, too squeaky, as if it belongs to someone younger, someone smaller. Slowly he presses both palms into the floor, heaving himself upright with trembling arms.
The body feels hollow. The center of gravity is off.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
Slowly he reaches up and touches his face, tracing down from the cheek to the chin. The contour felt sharp, devoid of the chiseled sensation he was used to. No stubble, no roughness- The skin felt smooth. Too smooth.
His pulse skyrockets.
He scrambles to the riverside, mirroring his face in the river, and his heart sinks. Long silver locks curtained past a foreign visage, framing a face he has never owned: delicate, petite, eyes wide and blue with a shock so raw it looks like fear.
Two horse ears twitch atop his head.
…
What.
A strangled cry tears from the body, half scream, half sob. Fingers fly- to the top of the head, catching a pair of erratically twitching ears somehow freaking out even harder.
The cartilage feels real. They’re warm. They’re alive. A sharp tug confirms the pain. It isn’t a dream.
“What kind of sick joke-”
Silver strands flutter down around the cheeks, clinging to the damp skin. They had never been this long before. The world tilts strangely- too light, too buoyant, breath coming out thin and uneven…
Or maybe that was the body.
“Normcore.”
A voice from behind lands like oil on water. It was coarse, gruff, and deeply unpleasant. The ears shoot up instinctively, sharply swivelling behind them.
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Then they slam flat against the skull.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, running off for a nap?!”
Whap. Leather cracks against leather. The sound meant nothing to the head.
But the body knew.
The airway snags, the lungs constricting in a deep panic. Cold sweat spills down the spine in a flash, muscles seizing as the heart threatens to leap through the ribcage.
Terror. Pure terror.
Memories rise, with each heavy step that shudders the earth, like stones unearthed after rain. The name hits like the smell of a rotten egg-
Takahashi Kentaro.
Second-rate trainer. Second-rate academy. A man who smelled of cheap cologne and even worse temper.
“Get moving. Or else.”
The terror doesn’t fade. It detonates- cortisol flooding through the bloodstream as a wordless gasp tears from the throat. The eyes water. Vision tunnels, losing color before blurring at the edges.
“Well?!”
The demand was not a suggestion. The mind yanks the body into motion.
“Haaaaa…. Haaaaah…”
Each inhale feels like sandpaper. A deep, slow burning sensation blossoms beneath the ribs.
Slow down your breathing. Adjust your breath to match your steps…
The teachings surface. The same instructions once delivered to trainees now echo uselessly inside a skull that cannot obey.
“Keep your form, Normcore. You’re slipping.”
A shudder runs down the spine. The tone sounded… awfully familiar.
The world starts to blur. Vision bleaches, then turns into a thin shade of black at the edges. Staying upright takes every ounce of strength.
Form? How?
“Form.”
The voice comes again. Harsher. The ears don’t quite pick up what… but the message is clear.
“Elbows in. Knees straight. Dig into the dirt and kick out. One, two. One, two.”
Kentaro’s beer-bellied figure idles on a scooter, belt looped loose in one hand like a grotesque promise. The engine whines, gravel crunching beneath its wheels. “Faster. I know you can go faster. You’re getting lazy, you good for nothing slacker.”
He leans forward in his cart.
“I’m gonna beat every last strand of sloth outta you. You’ll learn what a real runner’s like.”
Delusion doesn’t even begin to cover this.
“It hurts. Push through it. You’re stronger than that.”
“G-Gah!” A desperate gasp tears free from the throat.
The mind, exhausted, attempts to correct the stance. The body refuses.
Exhaustion drags everything downward. Muscle memory fights mental instruction. Momentum fights both. Limbs jerk between three different masters in a violent tug-of-war with no end in sight.
“If you keep failing form, you’re doing extra laps round the grounds till you remember. How many times do I have to tell you-”
WHAP!
Fire streaks up the arm. The recoil is automatic.
“-to tuck in those elbows, huh?!”
“Ghh-!”
Countless words stay trapped behind clenched teeth. If they were let loose now, things would only get a lot, lot worse.
Even still, somewhere beneath the surface, the urge to obey lingers.
Perhaps that was the worst of it all.
By the time the run ended, they found themselves in a different neighborhood.
The scooter peels off toward the main road, a cab swallowing Kentaro whole. The instruction left behind was simple: Run home.
Three wrong turns. Two near collapses. A stitch in the side that refused to die. By the time the academy came back into view, the moon had been hanging for a while.
Every limb felt cast wholly of lead.
The cold summer wind rushes beneath a sweat-soaked shirt, clinging unbearably against skin. The legs strain as they try and climb stairs, the muscles having given up a good mile or two back. The cold, hollow despair felt wholly unbearable, yet one solace kept the mind hanging on by a thread.
Food.
At Tracen, leftovers were kept warm in silver bins. Even at a lesser academy, surely…
Thud.
The doors swing open with a gentle creak, the body dragging itself onto the linoleum floor. Lights were on, yet the staff were long gone. Large plates of cold food were left on a table by the door.
Lentils. Broccoli. Carrots.
No meat.
A plate is taken anyway. Hunger overrides pride. At some point the mind considers going back to ancestral roots, famished enough to eat the grass off the track.
The first bite goes down and nearly comes right back up.
Cold. Bland. Soft in all the wrong ways. The lentils collapse into paste. The carrots taste like nothing at all. What was supposed to be a sweet crunchy treat had somehow been reduced to a pile of uninspired orange mush.
There was something called having a balanced diet.
Then there was this.
A trembling bite goes down anyway. Then another. It goes down because it must- the alternative meant starving till morning. The stomach churns in protest even as the plate is emptied.
The most disturbing of all was not the taste. It was the familiarity of it all.
Slowly, tiredly, the body makes its way across the courtyard and into the dorms. The mind doesn’t guide, it follows instinct. And instinct makes way to a rusted metal door.
Click, click. The handle jiggles as trembling fingers wrap around the knob. It’s locked.
Hope fades. Something dies in the back of the mind.
Then the door opens with a creak.
Short brown hair. Wide eyes. The girl’s face flushes with relief. A name surfaces at the back of the head.
Masaru.
“Norm!” She throws her arms around Normcore’s body, heaving with sobs. “Thank god! I thought Kentaro sent you to sleep on the benches…”
Something flickers at the back of the mind. Cold wood. Freezing night air.
The body shudders. She’s dragged inside and the door closes behind them.
“I figured you haven’t eaten yet. Here.”
A plastic bag is thrust forward, containing small round pieces of conbini bread, sealed fresh in crinkling wrappers. The type that earned trainees harsh lectures from trainers. The kind that ruined weight.
Norm could care less at this point.
She tears the first one open with trembling fingers, her tail swinging fast enough to kick up dust from the floor. She pulls out the bread- Gone in two bites.
Barely fast enough to register the taste. Sweet enough to make the eyes water.
“S-Slow down! You’ll choke!” Masaru squeals in a panicked voice.
She doesn’t slow down.
Wrappers scatter across the floor like fallen leaves in the blink of an eye. The stomach blows through the bag in ten minutes straight, the floor looking like the aftermath of a category six hurricane.
Only when she reaches for more does she realize it’s all wrapper and no bread. Her hand snaps back as if electrified, a deep blush running through her face.
“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to eat all your-”
“No, no! It’s okay! You need it more than I do!” Masaru laughs, already crouching to gather the mess.
The room comes into focus.
It was plain, a bunk bed with a window, two drawers and two closets, one by the bedside and one by the door. There were pictures hung up on the walls, the desk side, followed by plaques and awards.
“Look at you… Kentaro made you run extra again, didn’t he?”
She nods.
“...And he hit you.”
A string of muttered curses slips out. The girl reaches forward and touches Norm’s arm, and she recoils violently as fresh pain flares up.
“Hold still. I have something that helps.”
The shirt comes off with a rustle. For a second the world feels suffocating. Wrong. Like looking upon something that wasn’t meant to be seen.
Long, red welts and purple bruises, some fresh, some days old, lined the white, pristine skin. Not the face. Never the face. Ears pin down sharp with a sharp gasp as Masaru slowly runs the cream over her skin, a burning sensation blossoming where the wounds are still fresh.
Masaru’s hands tremble as she applies the cream, touch firm, like she had done it one too many times. When they finish, Norm finds herself covered in a layer of cold sweat.
“It’s… gotten worse, hasn’t it? Ever since Kentaro signed you up for the Michinoku Kōgen Stakes…”
Her body tenses. Voices start rising uninvited.
“You’ve got some talent there. If you do well, you might catch some eyes from the nationals.”
“Listen, girl. A little town like this ain’t got talent like yours since forever. Make us proud, alright?”
“Norm! They say white coats like us can’t race! …prove em wrong!”
She snaps back to the present with a panicked gasp.
“D-Did I say something wrong? I’m sorry-” Masaru panickedly backs up.
“No, it’s okay.” The response comes slow. Exhausted. Barely a sigh escaping the lips. “I’m just… tired.”
The shower runs longer than necessary, steam fogging the mirror as she steps out.
She can’t quite make out the person in the frame.
Masaru had climbed into the bed above, sound asleep with all plastic wrappers tucked away in the litter bin. She turns, staring at the photos- A woman stands to her left, a man on the right, both holding her by the shoulder with wide smiles.
They’re holding an acceptance letter.
The darkness reshapes itself into an old living room. A television glows, the static crackling.
“-And Symboli Rudolf surges ahead!”
The commentator’s voice roars. Not quite close, not quite distant, somewhere muffled between, like memories calling from a past long lost.
“She leads by one length! Rocky Tiger and Filibert hot on her heels, trying to force her back onto the outside- no- no one can catch up! but Japan’s Emperor stops for no one!”
The grandstands erupt. The child presses closer to the screen.
“Mama! Papa! She’s so cool! I want to be just like her!”
The voice echoes. Foreign. It comes out of her mouth anyway.
“That’s great, dear. Maybe one day you can be just like her.”
The warmth in that memory glows bright enough to burn.
One wanted to give the world its next Symboli Rudolf. The other wanted to become the next Symboli Rudolf. Somewhere along the way, the dream had twisted- and became unrecognizable. What had once been an ember had engulfed that past life, blinding the man driven by its flame.
She slowly sets down the photo, her vision blurring. The dream remains a distant echo, yet only now could the mind look back upon the path and realize how far things had strayed.
Memories come rising up in breathless flashes.
The light of a scoreboard. Normcore- 3rd. 1/4th length.
Ragged breathing at the end of the track.
Training sessions that stretched into dusk.
Effort was never the problem. It was something else that was missing.
Boxed in. Early spurts. Panic. Being pushed out wide. Each one served only to push her deeper into despair. The dream never died- it only slipped further away.
She’d never tasted triumph past the first win of her maiden race, yet her spirit held on, driven on by the memories of fluttering wind and rippling grass- how good that first victory felt.
“I won’t…”
She never let defeat consume her.
“...let it end like this.”
Her fingers tighten around the frame.
“No. Not yet. It’s not over yet. This time… I’ll…”
The voice is a coarse whisper.
“...I’ll shoot for the stars.”
