Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

[The UMA Phenomenon]

[Unidentified Metaphysical Anomaly]

[ -01 ]

[UMA-01 is currently uncontainable, and current research has come to the conclusion that it will be uncontainable for the forseeable future. UMA-01 affects an estimated 40% of the student population in Tracen Academy, and is theorized to also affect other high-profile Uma educational facilities around the world, with a possibility of 60% of the student population affected overall at the highest estimations.]

[UMA-01 is the phenomenon in which an Umamusume, during an indeterminate period of time before an important life event occurs, is suddenly transported into an alternative universe in which Umamusume do not exist, and where in place of them are a species known within that universe as a ‘horse’. Umamusume who go through this process describe the event similar to that of a dream, commonly noting a sense of momentary disorientation and a muffling of their senses, although their consciousness in this world has been noted to be otherwise lucid and clear. There have been no reported substantial impairments of physiological and cognitive functions beyond the aforementioned ‘muffling’. The period of time an Umamusume is able to exist within this alternate dimension is currently unknown. Umamusume who enter this world do not leave current reality: the experience is described by 86% of Umamusume who have been affected, both in interviews and in data collected via trawling social media and forum sites for subjects dedicated to the phenomena, to be instantaneous as the Uma’s consciousness snaps between worlds in the matter of milliseconds, lending credence to the lay-Uma’s assumption of a ‘vision’ or ‘daydream’.]

[All Umamusume have reported the existence of a ‘horse’ mirroring themselves in both names and current race records.]

[UMA-01 manifests in two distinct manners traceable to the condition of the Umamusume's 'horse' counterpart. UMA-01-A is the event in which the ‘horse’ equivalent of the affected Umamusume is reported deceased in the alternate dimension, in which the Umamusume will be transported to a room or premise in which information of their ‘horse’ is most readily available. This comes most commonly in the form of what is commonly described to be a building interior similar to a 'hall of fame' ,containing information pertaining to the horse. Whether or not such a facility exists fully in that universe, or UMA-01-A constructs a premise within that universe in which to provide pertinent information is currently under investigation. Umamusume, upon minimum acclimation to their circumstance and the existence of ‘horses’ instead of Umamusume, will be drawn to what is described to be a book in which details of multiple horses, including their own counterpart, can be flipped through, containing names, races, placements, and other details.]

For a moment, Oguri Cap blinks the disorientation away. A quiet ‘huh?’ escapes her lips as she stares at… somewhere. It looks familiar. Feels familiar. Like the Hall of Fame she’d toured once back at Tokyo, where all the greatest of Japan’s Umamusume are filligreed on the walls. But here feels… different. She turns at all directions, scanning the environment. Things feel strange, the outside is blurry white, there are figures in the distance, moving through the halls, but non-distinct enough for her to fully understand what they even are supposed to be. Human? Uma? Shadow beings from some fantasy? She isn’t sure.

She steps forward, looking closer at the walls. They’re filligreed with achievements too, but… what animal is that? Spindly long legs, of fur so smooth that from a distance it doesn’t even look the part. And the manes, and the face. A name is plastered close by, and it’s a familiar one. ‘Symboli Rudolf’? Huh? That’s Symboli?

For a while, she stumbles around confused, looking over the names she is sure she knows, attributed to this strange creature called a horse. What kind of dream is this? Were all the Umamusume turned into this? Why was she dreaming this kind of thing, anyways? Confusion slowly dissipates, as she begins to acclimate, to accept the pretense and just follow along, marveling at the displays and the records emblazing close by to each horse.

But then, she finds it. A book, sat quietly on a lectern. She flips through it, and she sees them. The pictures. The names. The people she remembers and realizes. She’s entranced as she flips through, faster and faster, until she gets to it.

Her name.

Oguri Cap.

A beautiful gray beast. She looks down, and recognizes the races written dry and in neat tables of stats. It’s a marvel, so many races where she’s pushed herself and won, all staring at her.

But then she sees them. The Autumn Tenno Sho. Then Japan Cup. And…

1988 Arima Kinen.

Arima Kinen? She was sure that hadn’t happened yet before she started dreaming all this. She looks to the details, going further right through the columns. Each detail burning further into her eyes. Her gate number. The condition of the day. Her placement.

Number 1.

She beats her.

She beats Tamamo Cross.

But it hasn’t happened yet. Arima Kinen hasn’t happened yet.

And yet, the thought makes her heart swell. It makes it beat in a way it only does in the midst of the race track. It’s an infatuation to hope, an addiction of anticipation.

“I’ll make it true.” She tells herself, clutching her fist tight.

“I’m going to beat Tamamo Cross.”

[Umamusume who go through the UMA-01-A situation describe the events as a marked boost for self-confidence, in the situation where they witness positive race results in the book, leading to increased performance in training and on the race/s witnessed within the book.]

[In the event that an Umamusume witnesses negative results within the book-]

“Haaaaah?!”

Tamamo Cross snarls, smacking the book with an instinctive lashing at the results. Second, at the Arima Kinen? Her last race, lost to Oguri herself?

“What, even my dream doesn’t have faith in me? I’ll show em.”

“That win is MINE.”

[- the effects lead to similar results as previously stated, now in the form of motivation to defy expectations.]

[Oguri Cap and Tamamo Cross will go on to race in the Arima Kinen. Oguri Cap wins by a neck to Tamamo Cross. It is reported that in the alternate dimension, Oguri Cap wins against Tamamo Cross by a distance of half a length.]

[This is the first confirmed documented case of a UMA-01 ‘Destiny Bending’ scenario, constituting a slight deviation from alternate canon derived from the effects of UMA-01-A. There have been no confirmed ‘Destiny Broken’ scenarios documented.]

[See Section 2 for details on UMA-01-B.]

[Addendum: A confirmed ‘Destiny Broken’ scenario has been discovered.]

“Hmm?”

Agnes Tachyon blinks, like she always has. She adjusts herself for a moment, feeling the racing outfit covering her, the awareness of the fabric, of her stand, of her senses of hearing, taste, smell, begin to shift and settle in this strange new environment. For a moment she is truly, unequivocally, confused.

But she’s the first to recognize some things.

“Hmm… these sensations. This phenomena of shifting consciousness, or even location. The air, the lights, the very fabric of my being shaking in ways I didn’t know possible. This room, this hall, these creatures and the names and the races and the displays and-”

She lassos her breath back into her mouth. Then, she cocks her head, a pleased smile on her face.

“Is this not another dimension? I cannot possibly be dreaming. Where I was just now doesn’t permit it.”

She’s cracked the case, and in doing so, she leaps in joy. She’s bore witness to something wonderful! To think, those silly stories and retellings in all those forum blogs were real! A sudden out-of-body experience, a vision, a this and a that so strange and alien it can’t be described as anything else but psychosis made manifest! And here it is, proof! She wasn’t prone to psychosis- at least, she was sure of it the last time she self-administered the tests on herself- so what else could this be but a momentary transference of body and consciousness to a realm never seen?!

Agnes Tachyon bounds across the place, looking at everything, touching everything, feeling anything. All this sensory data, all the popping sensations, enter her like waves and she can’t help but shudder. It’s bliss. It’s science fiction made fact. It’s a limit she didn’t even knew she could investigate, given form and wondrous existence, and she didn’t even have to do anything! Ah, yes, of course, she had to start making some hypothethicals on what could have even triggered this. What was it about her condition that would have brought her here? What could it be, what could it be?

From the corner of her eyes, as she stares at the great painting of great horses of Japan, she sees it. The book. A little thing snug on a lectern, begging to be read. She comes close, humming in delight at the potential treasure trove inside. She flips the book.

And stops.

“ALL RIGHT!”

Agnes Tachyon flinches.

She blinks, and sees the turf stretch far in front of her. The starting gate is closed. For a moment, she has to adjust again, glancing to the side.

“EYES ON ME, LOSERS!”

Jungle Pocket.

Of course.

She had been transported to that dimension just now. Time hadn’t moved. She hadn’t blanked out and missed out on minutes upon minutes from her real world, no. At least, so it seems.

She still had the Satsuki Sho to race.

“I’m gonna beat you all, ‘cuz I’m gonna be the strongest!”

She doesn’t beat them all.

That, Agnes Tachyon knows. She’s seen it. The records for the 2000 Satsuki Sho. Her last race.

Her last race?

So it seemed. Was that world a mirror of her’s? Would it be some indication that she had to stop after this? She supposed she might have decided to, at the end. Plan B was very much ready to go, had something happened to her here. It must have been the tendons. Yes. That was it.  

This was her fate, then. Her destiny to win this Satsuki Sho, and leave the racing world forever. This was Jungle Pocket’s fate, then. Her destiny to lose, not even to just her, but her friend Dantsu Flame, going second. And by such a margin, too.

Ah, if it were the case she stopped here, she supposed all she had to do was to play it safe, transition to Plan B, and, well, to keep things soft for the uneducated masses, say she’d go on an indefinite hiatus afterwards, or something. Yup, her plans. Pre-determined in another world. She had no doubts about that.

…

…

“Jungle Pocket.”

The Uma at the innermost gate turned to the mad scientist. “Hah?”

“Focus.”

Destiny bends, just a little bit.

The gates shoot open. Agnes Tachyon runs. Jungle Pocket does too. She doesn’t start late, not this time. Agnes saw it, in the book. A note, a declaration of a fate that would have happened to her. And yet, it didn’t. For just a moment, in that track, as she kept her pace, listening to the air gushing past, the breaths of her competitors, the stomping of every cleat on that track, she grew and watered at the blossom in her beating heart.

[Hypothesis 1: Predetermined Destiny can be altered to the degree in which a race’s results are markedly different than the results from the other dimension. ]

Agnes Tachyon’s smile grew like no other. Because she had something else in her mind. Beyond an Umamusume’s limits- that can be broken by others- no, she had a goal. A goal given to her by a multidimensional force shining upon her, a great pataphysical limit only she had the details to even start learning about and exceeding.

Agnes Tachyon wanted to break destiny itself.

“AGNES TACHYON, JUNGLE POCKET! AGNES TACHYON, JUNGLE POCKET! AGNES TACHYON, JUNGLE POCKET! AGNES TACHYON, JUNGLE POCKET! AGNES TACHYON PULLS FORWARD! DANTSU FLAME MOVES IN TO COMPETE FOR SECOND PLACE, BUT ITS TOO LATE!! THE WINNER OF THE SATSUKI SHO IS AGNES TACHYOOOOOOON!!!”

The race is over as quickly as it began. Agnes Tachyon stands in the tuft, feeling her body throb with post-race excitement and fatigue, her muscles braying for release from this. She turns to the score board, looks at the numbers, at the distances, at everything she could lay her eyes on that could tell her of any modicum of support for her hypothesis. She doesn’t even care for her tendons flaring, all she wants is to know.

She wants to know.

Dantsu Flame is third.

Jungle Pocket avoids her late start. She is second.

Agnes herself is still first.

It doesn’t matter.

Her destiny didn’t break. It didn’t change.

But she changed Jungle Pockets.

She changed Dantsu Flame’s.

And that meant the world to her. For better or for worse.

“Damn…”

Agnes Tachyon’s ears pick up a voice through the cheers. Jungle Pocket’s. She turns to her, to grace her guinea pig’s successful experiment with her full attention, smile wide, genuine. It’s the genuineness that shakes Jungle Pocket for a moment, an embarrassed blush popping on her face. She gathers herself in the face of her stare.

“N-not bad…!”

“I can extend the sentiment to you.”

Jungle Pocket scoffs.

“Tachyon.”

Tachyon cocks her head.

“You beat me.” Pocket raises a fist to her, her own head drooping low as the exhaustion and the demands of the lungs set in. “You… haah… deserve it. You’re crazy tough… But…”

The Derby.

Tachyon knew it might have been the case. She saw it in the book: Jungle’s win at the Derby. A moment where Destiny might just prevail. If only she could join, to break it again. To see it break, to see how much it can be broken. She wanted to say yes. She wanted in her heart of hearts to saw ‘I’ll see you and Dantsu at the Derby, then.’, to win, to look Determinism in the face and show how much she broke it.

But no. Not now. Not this time.

The process of elimination was not going to take her away. Not now.

Not now.

“I’m taking a hiatus, Jungle Pokke.”

Pocket looks at her, shocked. Her mouth hanging open. Stunned. Distraught.

“Not forever, of course. I have… tests to do. Hypotheses to construct, experiments to plan. We’ll race again. You’re too valuable of a guinea pig to just leave on the track forever, you see. Keep racing. I’ll see you at the Derby.”

And with that, Agnes Tachyon turns away.

Her declaration of her hiatus on live television shocks the world. It seizes the gaze of every Umamusume in Tokyo, as her facsimile blares on-screen her disappearance from the world. It isn’t indefinite, though. She never says it. A reporter notices.

“A-ah, Agnes Tachyon! Do you have an estimated time of return? I-if not, would this not be an indefinite hiatus?!”

She stares airily at the question. It’s a good catch this early, she supposes; she’d assumed they would be too ravid about questioning why she was doing this in the first place to notice so quickly.

“Hmm, a good question…”

Jungle Pocket watches at her trainer’s abode with the others, her face plastered to the screen, the utter shock of her declaration back at the racecourse still haunting her. Was Agnes Tachyon going to give a concrete answer? She had to know. She had to.

Agnes Tachyon pauses for a moment. The cameras zoom a little closer. She mouths something beneath the shadow of her hand, just barely visible. Jungle Pocket swears she mouthed her name.

“Let’s meet at Arima Kinen.”

It was April. Arima Kinen was December.

Seven months.

Seven months, she would be gone.

And yet, Jungle Pocket steels herself. Breaths in all the air the room could offer, and grins. It seemed, then, then she would have to fight her rival there,, on that same Nakayama turf as the Satsuki Sho, a legendary battle, yes.

Arima Kinen.

Huh... Okay.

Time to train, then.

To everyone’s surprise, Agnes Tachyon doesn’t take long to reappear in the public view.

Well, at least to Tracen’s public view. She became something of a common sight at the tracks during practice. The Umamusume could only cite data collection as an excuse, as was the usual for her, but they let her stay. She’d stay by the rows of seats, watching, chatting away at whoever caught her attention on the track.

The first time she made a move beyond that favorite seat of hers was on Oguri Cap. It was almost too sly to ignore, and Belno Light surely didn’t when she noticed the scientist slither close to a stretching Oguri, causing her to scream bloody mary about that ‘dangerous vixen’, and how the gray Uma was going to be exploited by her. It didn’t take much for people to start hearing about her advances, afterwards. She had sniffed them out: notes on Oguri’s recovery and rest. And she wanted them. Said it was for research purposes on Umamusume rate of recoveries.

It didn’t stop there.

“Agnes Digital.”

Her roommate from another plane of existence- since she never cared to sleep in her own dorm room these past few months- screams at the sight of her, that phantom thing she was promised to be able to sleep with, but who never cared to join her in goodnights or good mornings or really anything else, that elusive Agnes Tachyon, finally gracing her with her visage. It almost kills her with excitement.

“W-w-w-w-w- Agnes TACHYON!? Ah, to bless me, y-your junior roommate with your incandescent glow! A-am I in Heaven, ohohohohohohohohohoho I watched all your races, your form was so gooooooooooood, and-!”

“I heard you’re quite the know-it-all of other Umas?” she cuts her off, tossing a clipboard and pen at her direction, which she instinctively catches. “I have a favor to ask.”

Digital looks almost ecstatic, though Tachyon would consider her more 'a mess' than anything else. “M-me? B-being relied upon by YOU? Oh Three Goddesses, I-I didn't think the day would come, b-but wait, would that be me interfering too much? No, no, but my oshi's just my roommate, m-maybe I can just reframe it as a roommate-to-roommate thing, t-that should be fine! Okay, I’ll do anything!!”

Anything? Oh, she would have been quite the splendid guinea pig, had she not creeped her out with her wanton enthusiasm. Regrettable.

“Everyone.”

“... huh?”

“I want to know every single one- every Umamusume- who's ever sustained an injury on the field, or went on a hiatus due to developing one. The additional required variable is that they at some point returned to the track. I want their names on the board, it’s quite the important topic, you see~ Research on Umamusume recovery does require its sample, case studies, mixed data sets and so much more before anything can be done! And I can only remember Oguri Cap's recovery; every other piece of data eludes me. But you, you and your… ‘exquisite’ mind, you are quite the asset~ Agnes Digital…”

Her name came out of her like silk.

“Be a good laboratory assistant, will you?”

“YEEEEEEESSSSSSSWHIUAOFJSFAFNBSAAUIHWA!!!”

“Agnes Tachyon.”

She looks up from the open notes and papers to the door, eyes wide with seared letters off the pages. A familiar voice, it was, she wasn’t at all surprised to see who it was that had entered her great clutter of an abode.

“Aaah, Cafe~ Aren’t you going to prepare for the summer camp?” she muses to the frowning Uma, “I’ve already packed, but it seems here you are, coming to see me, and for what? Ah, are you finally interested in that concoction I made just for you~! Perhaps its superiority to coffee has finally been drilled into your head, and-”

“You have an injury, don’t you?”

Agnes Tachyon pulls herself into the quiet, if only for a brief moment. Her hands instinctively close the notebook it holds, all the beautiful text and writings of trainee Umas recovering from their injuries disappearing from the room.

“Hmm? What makes you say that? Do you have evidence of such a claim? Should I ready a case for slander~?”

Manhattan Cafe can only roll her eyes. “By this point it’s an open secret, Tachyon. You’ve been asking around for notes on preventing and recovering from racing-related injuries from everyone who can provide it. I don’t know how you KNOW who to ask, but you aren’t quiet about it- and Digital isn't, either. There’s gossip everywhere that your hiatus was because you were injured, and you’re now trying to recover. Incredibly, nearly every Uma and Trainer’s ready to help. There’s real enthusiasm about seeing you at the Arima Kinen this year, and with any injury, you aren’t going to get close to the Kinen, you know?”

“Aaaah, rumors rumors rumors. They mean nothing in the face of me researching on Umamusume and the many factors that affect recovery speed of injuries of all shapes and sizes, all manner of severity, all-”

“And Symboli Rudolf told me about it.”

Agnes Tachyon’s mouth shuts.

Symboli Rudolf.

She audibly sighs.

She had hoped that woman of such utmost responsibility would have kept her mouth shut.

Then again, she supposed going to her was a bad idea. She had hoped to ask for recommendations on resources for injury recovery, maybe even a referral to a good physical therapy place, and immediately, the Emperor had guessed that Agnes Tachyon had an injury she dared not share. No matter the denial and the resistance, Rudolf did not give, and before long even she had to admit it to the nosy woman. Then again, what was she to do in the face of her? She supposed the silver lining there was that she at least gave her all she wanted, and more: she even had the physical therapy place booked for her foot’s sake.

“Ah, her…” Agnes Tachyon slumps into her seat. She cringes at the glare Manhattan Cafe sends her way, and tries to take her mind off of it with some of her tea, grayish sugary sludge as it was. Propping her legs up on the table- without much of a care for the covers of the notebooks- she sips, trying to think of something to say. Something to assuage her from asking anything further.

She doesn’t expect it when Cafe grabs her shoe and takes it off.

“Wha- Hey?!”

It’s the right shoe. Her wrapped foot is all for Manhattan Cafe to see.

“And she was right.”

She can only groan at the intrusion of her space. Placing the beverage down, she tries to push herself up. To grab at her shoe? To scold Manhattan for doing it? To run away and leave this topic behind? She doesn’t know. All she knows is, when she tries to get up, Manhattan reaches forward and pushes her back into the sofa.

“You could have told me.”

Agnes Tachyon gives her the smile.

“Hmm? And what could you have done?”

Manhattan Cafe doesn’t respond.

“Perhaps you know of some miracle cure to my ill health? I’m here, putting myself forward in my own recovery, trying to keep myself in the here and now while you all become my data mules for my previous magnum opus of a research goal, but you wish to do something about me now? I have plans and deadlines, Cafe, and I’m on track for them. What is it, to you?”

Manhattan Cafe looks almost disgusted as she pushes herself off, the force stunning Tachyon. They both come to stare at each other, seething upset meeting flustered surprise.

“I could have helped.”

Agnes Tachyon feels her words catch in her throat.

“... you said you packed for the summer camp?”

“Uh… y-yes.”

“You didn’t, did you?”

“... you got me there.”

“You suck at lying.”

"Well, as a matter of fact, Cafe, I don't 'suck' at-"

“Go back to your dorm and pack.” Manhattan Cafe declares right before she leans down to pick up the notebooks. One of them is snatched back by Agnes Tachyon out of defensive instinct, but her glower remains the same. “An injury like that needs rest and relaxation, and I don’t think you’re going to get anything like that here.”

“W-wha- Well, I’ll have you know, I already booked a set of physical therapy sessions throughout the summer, so if you aren’t going to recoup all that with all the good foot massages and such, I’m sorry to say but I won’t-”

“Fine.”

Agnes Tachyon blinks.

“It’s not like foot massages are that hard. I think. Just…” she sighs, “Just don’t go wasting a summer for this, Tachyon. You want to run at Arima Kinen? Then come on, just relax at the beach.”

Manhattan Cafe turns around and leaves without another word, taking the notebooks with her. Tachyon stares at the door, hearing the Uma tell her through the walls that she was taking them to her dormroom. She looks down at her one notebook she had saved, speechless. Was she really going to the summer camp? That was all training, last she remembered. Sure, there were some days wadding in the waters, or trekking round the nearby wilderness, but she was in no condition for more than 70% of what other activities there were or the things demanded of her. Manhattan Cafe asking her to go had been quite the moot argument anyways.

Tachyon pauses, and looks up from the notebook. A moment of clarity. A fatal realization.

She wanted her to go public. She wanted her to be exempt from the training during the camp. She wanted her to have a holiday.

Go public.

She couldn’t go public.

No, she…

…

Agnes Tachyon, for just a moment, thinks to look up at the sky.

Or, well, at the imagined horizon beyond the roofing. She knows not her fate this summer, or whether or not Determinism would play a part in where she was now. She knows it can bend and it can break. How much, though. Did it want her to recover and continue its shattering? Was some higher force keeping her from the glory of defying destiny? Certainty is not much in the way of things, when discussing such nebulous concepts such as this, Agnes Tachyon knows that.

Every desire tells her to skirt away, to hide in this alcove of her own making, to disappear, to never return. Was it that higher force making her think this way? Or was it herself, so scared of the unknown, of the unpredictable, of the great and daunting road beyond her that demanded something as incredible as challenging fate itself? Would her four races stay four races, if she went to the summer camp or not? Would her efforts right now be in vain? Would her re-debut at the Arima Kinen be just a pipe dream?

So many questions. So little answers.

Agnes Tachyon, for a moment, pauses for peace. In the next, she is smiling.

She has no knowledge of what happens now. That book was deeply sparse on that. A pity.

All she knows is to defy destiny. And if it were the case that the summer camp would help her get there…

“I have an injury on my foot.”

The entirety of multiple buses worth of Umamusume stare at her as she stands next to the once-confused, now equally shell-shocked trainers. She could almost describe their eyes as ‘wide as plates’. There’s a few she notices in the crowd. The bug-eyed Jungle Pocket. Concerned Dantsu Flame. A small smile coming from Manhattan Cafe.

“So I’ll have to excuse myself from training, and focus on recovery for the Arima Kinen. Oh, and Cafe, my foot massage is in the next hour, I have a timetable for when you need to give it to me, printed right here just for you~”

The smile didn’t last long.

Two months of summer came, and two months she rested and had her moments of fun. Most of the time the Umamusume would see her underneath her umbrella shade, observing ever curiously at their figures training in and out of the water, studying every flex of muscle, every poise and posture and how the contours were rounded by the water droplets. They were used to it. She’d do it during training, anyways, in that favorite seat of hers.

It didn’t mean she was stagnant there, however. Sometimes, she would find herself approached by someone. A trainer or an Uma, sometimes people she knew or people she didn’t, always coming in with something to give. Maybe a bottle of water or a ramune, an extra snack they bought and couldn’t finish- she usually doubted that- or, generally from the trainers- advice, an ear, a discussion. About the wound. About how best to work with it, recovery, so on and so forth. She supposed it was good advice to note down.

“OI! TACHYON!”

And of course, she had to play victim, sometimes.

“Aaah, it’s Jungle Bucket~! Are you here to heap apologies to me for pushing me to the point of injury? You were certainly quite the powerhouse runner, I did have to put quite the effort to beat you in those races.”

Jungle Pocket snarls as she stomps her way to the Uma, her heavy footsteps muffled by the fine sand. Fuji Kiseki is not far behind, trying to keep the girl from lashing out, but it’s not long before she casts a shadow upon Tachyon.

“You crazy…”

She had to disagree with that statement, there.

“You could have just told everyone you were recovering, you know that? Why keep it a secret? I even asked Cafe about it and she didn’t know- does she know?! Did she find out the same time as- no, wait, that thing with the foot massage. So she did find out! When?! What was the plan here?!”

Agnes Tachyon just stares and smiles, irking the other Uma. Jungle Pocket sighs, before she turns to sit beside her, sparking a raising of a brow. Kiseki, seeing the arrangement, can only excuse herself as Tachyon makes up a response. “Hmm, you seem to care quite a lot about it... Worry not, my recovery is going rather well. With all the aid I’ve received, I believe I can very much fortify my legs to be able to race again without much issue; it’s all in due time, of course.”

Jungle Pocket nods. “So… you’re serious about coming back, huh? To Arima Kinen?”

“Am I supposed to take back my words? That would be quite uncouth of me to all the journalists and fans I’ve collected.”

“I’m just saying-!” Pocket pauses, her tone rising too quickly for her liking. “I’m… just saying, an injury like that? Well, I mean, that kinda stuff usually puts Umas out of commission pretty quick, right?”

“Right.”

“And you’re pushing for it, anyways? Jeez, and here I thought you were just a mad scientist type- you’re all kinds of mad.”

“No, still a mad scientist.”

“In what way? You talk about breaking the limits of an Umamusume: is this how you’re gonna do it? Threaten yourself with something that could totally break and make you never race again? That’s too much, and you know it!”

Agnes Tachyon blinks. She turns to Jungle Pocket, and blinks again.

“Too much? Oh, Jungle Pocket, you don’t know too much. Too much is you screaming at the Japan Derby until you fried your vocal cords~ Ah, but worry not, I brought just the tincture for your hoarse throat!”

“Wha- hey, don’t change the subject!”

“Did the infusion I sent you prior help with it?”

“It- wait, you sent it? Crap, Kiseki was right when she guessed it was you who slipped it in-! Wait!? Don't change the- I was talking about you, you know! And I didn’t drink it, by the way! And I’m not drinking this new stuff, too!”

And in that moment, the beach heard a laugh. A haughty sound, rising high above the wind and lapping waves, so booming it ruffles Jungle Pocket. Agnes Tachyon is laughing. She hasn’t laughed in a long while, now. It is a good feeling.

“Ah, Pocket,” she coos as the laughter subsides, “This is no mere limit I’m going to break, nor is it just one… It’s layers upon layers of hypotheses, of potential experiments and achievements in the field of a research never named. It’s beyond you and me, but…”

Agnes turns to her, and leans close. Pocket expectedly flinches, but can’t move back any further- a hand has found its way atop her own.

“Just know, Jungle Pocket, my good guinea pig, with all your racing acumen, helping me in my original research. I, Agnes Tachyon, know what I am doing. If I were to break, I am to break on my own terms. Is that not admirable? I know you think so.”

“Ah… uh, u-uh, o-okay…?”

A camera flash interrupts them.

Tachyon didn’t care for who it was that took the silly shot considered ‘candid’ by most. Jungle Pocket, already up and chasing after the criminal photographer, would sort it out.

Throughout summer, she would find herself in the midst of good little helpers. Not for everything, though. Instead, they all found some strangely particular niche. Manhattan Cafe, bless her heart, didn’t have to do all the dirty work, when it was time for Agnes Tachyon’s mandatory foot massages. The girl didn’t even know if foot massages did anything for a tendon injury, it was a spur of the moment declaration, and the foot massage idea wasn’t even on her, but the injured Uma herself. On the first day, she did her best, begrudging yet careful. It was only when Oguri Cap passed by did she find herself alleviated of the work, the gray Umamusume sharing the ways in which her own mother used to massage her legs. It was quite the sight, it seemed, because before long a small gathering came by to watch. Much to Agnes Tachyon’s embarrassment.

Agnes Tachyon. Embarrassed. Manhattan Cafe could hardly believe it.

It was when someone proposed that they all took turns learning from Oguri Cap with Tachyon as their subject, that Cafe burst out laughing.

The injured girl protested, but that did little in the face of absolute democracy, and now she found herself everyday with a new Uma helping her. The want to cut down the times, just so she didn’t have to go through such a cavalcade of amateur masseurs, was unbearable. Sure, the idle chatter was nice, every so often, but what wasn’t was the unnecessary force used every so often, or the awkward topic from some of the… stranger Umas.

Like Agnes Digital.

But…

Agnes Tachyon supposed, hand on heart, that this was okay. When the topics were interesting, when the setting sun bathed the place a warm orange, when things just felt… right, whatever right meant to her…

It was okay.

On those moments when she made her move, however, she made them with quite the gusto.

“Ah, Biwa Hayahide.”

Narita Taishin squints. Winning Ticket exclaims. Biwa Hayahide stares wide-eyed. No one cares to look at the grill full of sizzling meat in front of them as Agnes Tachyon approaches. She doesn’t want to disturb too much, and so asks the taller Uma for a private audience later. It is there, then, as they sit by a palm tree to eat, that she tells her what she wants.

“I hear you are… quite the adept at equations and the goings on of such things in regards to racing.”

“Um… yes.” Biwa Hayahide answers unsteadily, taking a piece of beef into her mouth. “I… assume you want to ask something of me?”

“An equation.” Agnes declares as her eyes watch the horizon, past the group of students and their barbequed meals, past the trees, towards the expanse beyond. “An equation on surviving races with a recovered injury the likes of mine. I would like to know the strategies required to be adopted.”

“Survival…?” She looks down at Tachyon’s leg, a movement that doesn’t escape the other Uma’s notice. “You… you’re that desperate about it. Re-entering the racing scene with an injury like that? If I developed something similar to what you might have, if my assumptions are remotely correct, I don’t think I would find any calculations that would be wholly good for me.”

“You don’t understand.”

Hayahide stops.

“To destroy my own fated path requires more than me kowtowing to confounding variables beyond my scope of expertise, to let it trample me into a history of its own making. To define such a concept like destiny, and break it is to ask for any way to make it whole, to make it so I can run my way through it like a glass meant to be shattered, a limiting chain meant to be broken.

“At the Arima Kinen, and through my Senior Year, I will race, Biwa Hayahide. I want to race, and I want to win. I want to. I have to. I. Need. To. “

Biwa Hayahide looks on, her expression disturbed by the strange Uma before her. Before long, she lets out a long sigh.

“If… you can let me see your run any time soon, I could… come up with something.”

Agnes Tachyon smiles. She smiles at herself. She smiles at the help. She smiles at the distant group, at what others might consider her friends. She supposes, if push comes to shove, she’d call them that.

“When we get back to Tracen. I’ll see to it.”

Two months of summer came, and two months she rested and had her moments of fun.

“How was it?”

Agnes Tachyon asks as she turns to Manhattan Cafe, staring idly at the smaller Uma in her track clothes. An expectant eye looks at the stopwatch on her friend’s hand, and she cocks a smile to prematurely goad.

“...” Cafe looks to the little watch, before she looks back up. “Well, it seems you still have it in you.”

Tachyon can only smile. A cheer from the seats takes her attention, and she watches as Jungle Pocket and Dantsu Flame look ecstatic at her. Was she that much of a attention-attracting diva? All she did was put on her track suit and run, sheesh. It was a good run, sure. Her tendons weren’t flaring up, and her foot felt acceptable on the turf. Did it warrant so much fanfare from two people, though?

It’s only when Pocket almost accidentally throws off her data-collecting equipment off her lap that Agnes Tachyon gives a response. It’s not a pleasant one. Whining up a tantrum isn’t the best image for her.

In any other situation, she’d just get a replacement, but not this time. All that raw data, the video and the images and the x-rays and whatnot found their hands quickly to Biwa, who, shaken by the deal actually manifesting into action, took her time with things. In an empty classroom, with Agnes Tachyon watching diligently, the Umamusume tallied away her own numbers and considerations, a strange collection and mess of things most wouldn’t understand. Tachyon supposes only the original creator of this arithmetic would, and that person was standing in front of her, tapping away at the blackboard.

“There.” Biwa Hayahide declares, tapping proudly at her imagination made manifest on the board. Agnes Tachyon can only stare in curiosity, linking each concept, each equation, every possible iteration of a function and a power and a this and a that to create something coherent and understandable to her. It’s incomprehensible.

“... elaborate.”

And she does.

Tachyon can at least thank her for that.

The days pass on. Those days turn to weeks. To months. Days of relaxation. Weeks of observation. Months of training herself, of regaining the atrophied skills she used to carry, of being careful of her injury, of building up for the Arima Kinen. And for a moment in time, Manhattan Cafe finds her lab empty of a Tachyon.

They are there for her. ‘Friends’. She’s there for them, too. She is there when Cafe wins the Kikuka Sho. It was a beautiful night’s run. She’s there when Jungle Pocket breaks TM Opera O’s streak at the Japan Cup. At least, she’s there until the final stretch, because at the sight, she leaves.

For just a moment, her selfishness overpowers her.

If only this lingering injury didn’t exist.

If only she could run there and then.

If only she could be the one to see it, that wondrous light at the end, the shattering of the great limit all Umamusume dream to even graze with their outstretched fingers. It won’t be her to see it. She runs so far before she stops, staring at a horizon so beautiful she goes quiet. She can only imagine it, the view of her and her racing silks, and of the competition around her, a striking set of silhouettes. She supposed it was vain to say it, but she would have looked so beautiful, then. She still could. All this, she has done for a reason. All this, just because of some vision into an alternative dimension, a concrete and shared history, a world beyond her own. Like being given a great stone tablet of commandments, and wondering immediately upon scaling down the great Babel of how it would look shattered and crumbling to the floor. To be malleable. To discard a higher power and be shaped by her and her alone. Determinism be damned, it would be the greatest discovery if she could change it, herself. She changed Jungle Pocket and Dantsu Flame's, back then. It never changed, afterwards. She knew this. She read that book. All the results were the same, no change at all afterwards. Without continuous pressure, destiny would conform. Destiny would not bend or break.

Agnes Tachyon, then, smiled so brightly in the light.

Because she bent it once. She was breaking it now. She could do it again.

The only question was how many times.

That, she wanted to answer so, so much.

It wouldn’t take long for the first try.

“Hey…”

Jungle Pocket turns around to the voice rising above the chatter of the crowd. Dantsu Flame stares back, taking her steps down with deliberate caution- her hands hold two cups, filled to the brim and fizzing.

“Pokke... Are you sure about this? Not joining the Arima Kinen in your Classic year?” She passes one cup to her. “You were so excited to race Agnes Tachyon again that I thought…”

Jungle Pocket hums in acknowledgement as she stares at the field, awaiting the main entrance. Good weather. No rain in sight for days, so good, firm turf too. A quick sip of her drink gets her talking.

“Nah. Not yet.”

“I’m not going to race, this Arima Kinen.”

Agnes Tachyon turns to stare at the intruding Jungle Pocket, processing her declaration in earnest as she sipped her sugary sludge-for-tea. Pocket gulps, fearing some response. Any response. She doesn’t even know what to expect, how to handle it, or even if she could handle it, in the first place. So she continues:

“I-I feel like if I did… You’ll push yourself too hard, you know? I’ve raced with you on the track, and I could tell. You know, that you’ve been holding back. I-if you let yourself loose out there, all 2500 meters of it, I’m scared your injury will flare back up, and… Look, I don’t think I can live with myself if that happens, okay? J-just consider this Arima Kinen your big re-debut! I don’t gotta taint that spotlight, just… run good, okay! That’s all I want!”

Tachyon’s cup clinks on the table.

“Good.”

“Huh?”

“I’m not in the business of shaking the destinies of two guinea pigs of mine again, you see. I didn’t mean this Arima Kinen, Pokke~”

“Huh??”

Agnes Tachyon sighs contently, before she begins to spin in her seat, the speed lackadaisical, controlled and calm. “There’ll be many more races where we can potentially see each other, Pocket. But in those, you won’t see me at my best. My injury doesn’t care for it, but you will see me win .”

Jungle Pocket stammers for a moment, before she scoffs and grins at the declaration. "You serious? I’ll kick your ass next time, then!”

“You can try, and maybe you can succeed. But you won’t be seeing my all. Not for an entire year. Destiny won’t watch me break myself until then, not unless it’s on my own terms.”

“That again. What the heck are you even on about, destiny this and destiny that. And what, the whole Senior year? Look, I know that tendon thing isn’t going to fully recover any time soon, not with the Arima Kinen coming so soon, but that’s a real tall ask.”

“A tall ask I can achieve~”

“Pfft. And I’ll be there to greet you at the finish line.”

Agnes Tachyon stares straight up and watches the roof turn round and round.

“Ah, quite the unique emotional response between us. I must look into this another time but… I suppose this, what’s happening between us, IS what rivals are about?”

Her smirk brightens the room. “You bet your ass that’s what I am to you.”

Tachyon’s foot hooks onto a shelf, stopping her spin, and she stares straight as Jungle Pocket. Before long, she rises to her feet, and steps forward, her smile wide, playful, hungry. Jungle Pocket answers it with a bravado she’s seen many times before. What confidence. Very fun.

“The next Arima Kinen, then~”

“Heh. Sure. I’ll bet on it. You know what I'm thinkin'? I’m gonna win by distance.”

“Sure.”

“Sure.”

“Suuuuure.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Sure, sure?”

“Sure, sure.”

“Mmm… Am I supposed to kiss you now?”

Jungle Pocket spew all the air out her lungs.

Agnes Tachyon laughs.

And the Arima Kinen shakes as she exits into the daylight. The roar is deafening, the announcers loud. It’s been a while, Agnes Tachyon thinks, as she looks to her competitors, so brave and cocksure of themselves. She had been away from the track for a long time, after all. It can’t be possible that she would do much of anything. She supposes that’s something to take note of.

Tachyon steps in the gate, and stares out into the turf once more. Nostalgic, she supposes. And the her racing regalia feel so strange upon her, unfamiliar, yet holding on tightly this thin string of remembrance. Yet it’s a good feeling, all this.

She taps her foot on the grass.

That feels good too.

Tachyon smiles. She turns to the side. Manhattan Cafe greets her with her own glance. She turns back to the front, and for a moment ponders, mere seconds before the gate opens.

Hypothesis.

Test.

“How much can you break? Let’s start with one barrier.”

Run.

The world sat to watch Tachyon’s Senior year Arima Kinen.

Because in all her entire year, they were watching a miracle. They hoped to see a masterclass. They wanted to witness a finish.

Agnes Tachyon did neither. None of the students believed it. The trainers could see it. She wasn’t putting her all in any race she entered, and her competitors soured at it. Ever since last year’s Arima Kinen, she had become something strange, deeply un-Tachyon. So lackadaisical, so nonchalant, so tiresome to think about as a legitimate competitor. For a moment, the world sat to watch the Arima Kinen. Her last race.

“So..."

Narita Taishin shuffles close to the group, offering a cold can to both Winning Ticket and Biwa Hayahide as she looks to the field, so high above the crowd that she has to turn her head down to see its expanse. The two take her offering, though Biwa keeps an eye on her.

“Yes, Taishin?”

“I assume her attitude change on the field’s all your doing?”

Biwa sighs. She opens her can in swift, clean motions. “Her running requires total conservation of energy for a potent final spurt, to try and decrease as much stress on her legs as possible for the longest period of time. It wasn’t my first suggestion, but she insisted on trying it out.”

“Trying… what out?”

“Conservation of her energy, her stamina, extending all the way to even how she contracts the muscles of her face, to posing in ways more relaxed; she wanted to do everything she could to keep herself safe out there.”

“And… you can calculate something like that?”

“Not without Air Shakur’s help.”

“Her?” Narita Taishin raises a brow. “I didn’t take her for that kinda girl.”

“You’d be surprised how much of a data junkie she is. We three had to formulate quite a few hypotheticals, throughout the year. It’s all culminated to this, so I suppose this exercise in putting numbers to physiology has its boons.”

Taishin grimaces at the thought. Shaking her head, she peers behind her, at the great crowd behind the glass. “Three Goddesses, nearly everyone’s here to watch… Even the Student Council’s all here.”

Winning Ticket gives a sound before she says, “Yup, it’s gonna be so exciting to see Agnes Tachyon race again! She was so serious back in the Arima Kinen last year, I wanna see her give it her all here and now! If not all the races before, then the second Arima Kinen’s gonna do it!!”

“No, we advised against it.” Biwa counters, glowerin for a moment before she dissipates the glare. Only Taishin catches it.

“You… sure?”

Biwa rolls her eyes. “She argued against it. The plan is the same: a good pace chaser position, trying her best to keep good pace with the entire front, before the usual spurt with all the stamina she’s saved before this. A good turn here, and there, a calculated letting up at that straight, and she should have enough to break through and get her second Arima Kinen.”

“Whoa, that’s a lotta strats… All she has to do is run good, I tell you!”

“That ‘strat’ sounds shockingly simple, Ticket. She has a whole lot of competition, you know that?”

Biwa nods thoughtfully at Taishin’s comment. “Air Shakur herself is vying for the win. So is Fine Motion, surprisingly. Narita Top Road’s gotten into the competition too. The only thing scarier would be if Opera O and Doto were vying for the Arima Kinen. Still, even without the two, this is still quite the stacked competition. I’ve gone through the calculations with everyone already, but I fear even the chances aren’t well. Especially not with-”

“SYMBOLI KRIS S!!”

Narita Taishin and Biwa Hayahide look to Winning Ticket.

“E-eheh, sorry~ B-but she’s so cool, though!”

“I suppose. She only started racing this year, and already she’s vying for greatness here. She is the one I’m concerned of, the most. Sure, Fine Motion’s the second favorite to win, but she’s still quite the exceptional Umamusume. She placed well in both the Derby and Japan Cup, and was close in the Autumn Tenno Sho. She’s highly competent, I can say that.”

Taishin furrows her brow. Looking down at the still-empty gates, she imagines what could happen. It’s only the tip of the iceberg of every single possibility. It sucks. Even she had to admit, she wanted to see Agnes Tachyon race the way she did all the way back at the Satsuki Sho, so monstrous as she was on the field. A prodigy in her own right, dulled only by an injury. That didn’t mean she wasn’t winning, far from it, but it made for… a missing ingredient to the palate. Yeah, she supposed that was one way to describe it.

Though… she supposes there was one other racer the two didn’t mention.

“Tachyon!”

The dim light of the tunnel illuminates the two. Jungle Pocket jogs forth, closing the distance between her and her rival, stopping close to the bright exit. For a moment, she expects to see it, the dullard look, unengaged and conserving of every fiber of her being, a sight she’d grown well accustomed to throughout the year. Instead, to her surprise, she sees it even in the shadow. A desire. A fire.

“Heh, damn, I guess you were serious when you said you were saving it all for today.”

Agnes Tachyon smiles. A genuine smile. It’s the genuineness that makes Pocket flush red. She feels it too, that pang of nostalgia, a smile she could frame and say that she saw it in the Satsuki Sho last year. She swears under her breath. She was really going up against her, huh?

She was racing against a miracle. She was racing something masterclass. She was going to witness a finish.

“Hmm, Pocket?” Tachyon cocks her head to the side, playful curiosity flitting in her wide eyes. “Did you doubt me at any point?”

“I- Bah, of course not! I was just confused why you weren’t in your dressing room. I thought I’d give you one more foot massage before-”

“No need.”

Jungle Pocket looks incredulously at her.

“This is the last race we’ll both have. Competitors, we are, we shouldn’t be helping each. Besides, even if not, I’d choose to say no, for this one race. I’m going at my own terms.”

“Your own terms…” Pocket rolls the words in her mouth, until they disintegrate, replaced by her own ambitions. “Then I’m going at mine! I’ll win.”

“The Arima Kinen?”

“Against you.”

Agnes Tachyon pauses. Jungle Pocket’s passionate glare stabs at her so deeply that she can’t help but stare back at it. To be desired so much as a rival… she at least confirmed multiple times that it had quite the electric emotional response for the other party. She supposes, then, that right now, she must look to be quite the exemplar that supported her hypothesis. Again.

“Catch me, then. Because I’m chasing after it: that last shining end. That last thing that can finally show me definitive proof, that any part of my destiny can be broken.”

“Y’know, isn’t this ‘destiny’ business a bit… unscience-y? Especially for you?” Jungle Pocket scoffs at the thought. “When you don’t talk all science, you’re pretty cute.”

Agnes Tachyon raises a brow. “Sometimes I wonder when you’ll stop flirting and ask me out.”

“Wha- pfft, nah, I-I’m not interested.”

The two look to each other, before they burst with laughter. The sounds echo out through the hall, loud, reverberating, a wonderful mix of two chortles. As they cool down, again they stare at each other, silent save for Jungle Pocket’s nervous giggles.

“Don’t disappoint me.”

“I can extend that sentiment to you.”

Agnes Tachyon smiles a toothy grin. So does Jungle Pocket.

Agnes Tachyon steps forward into her gate.

The Nakayama tuft stretches far, and the familiar smell of the racecourse fills her nose. She looks up. Cloudy. That was fine.

She glances to her left, then to her right. Familiar faces, all of them, Tracen students whom she had seen in the campus, who had come to her during her recover, who she had raced throughout the year. Fierce competitors, all of them. And this last G1 of the year, this last hurrah, was being hungered for by all of them. It was a good way to end the year, she supposed. She turns to the stands, to the great cheering crowd. She can see them so clearly in the distance. Her school. Her friends. Manhattan Cafe, Dantsu Flame, Oguri Cap, Agnes Digital, Biwa Hayahide and her two, and Jungle Pocket’s three friends, whatever their names were. Maybe she should have learnt them, but that was a problem for the future.

She’s come so far, she knows this. So many runs, so many races. Each one broke something. Not on her, but on every hypothesis she could have. Each race broke its way into another barrier, a further deviation from her fate, her Predetermined Destiny, that it had perhaps started to get to her head. She knows she can race more than her horse counterpart. She knows she can win. She has everything answered.

Almost everything.

This was the last chance. This was the only chance for this one question. For this one horrifying question. She liked those odds.

“Tachyon.”

Agnes Tachyon glances to her rival, snapping awake from her pondering. “Hmm?”

“Focus.”

For a moment, she stares wide-eyed. But then, as she turns to look forward, she can’t help but smirk. Everyone sees it. Everyone knows it. Winning Ticket, high up above the crowd’s seats, shrieks.

Run.

The gates open.

Every Uma’s foot slams on the grass.

Agnes Tachyon blasts forward. And the world freezes.

Forward?

Forward. 

At the front.

Every one of her competitors snapped their gaze forward, at the sole white labcoat that blasted forth and away.

Agnes Tachyon was front-running.

No, thinks Fine Motion, this should be fine.

As long as that idiot settles into a good pace, whatever it is, Air Shakur hopes in her heart.

I can push in at the last spurt when she’s out of stamina, Narita Top Road strategizes on the fly.

And win the Arima Kinen. That, Symboli Kris S knows.

As long as she settles into a good pace.

As long as…

It is a realization the entire crowd almost seems to notice first from their own view. It is only when Agnes Tachyon’s white shrinks smaller and smaller, does every racer break into sweat so cold it threatens to freeze them in place.

She’s not slowing down.

“ITS A BEAUTIFUL START, AND AGNES TACHYON’S MOVED UP TO RUN AT THE FRONT, WITH-  WAIT, AGNES TACHYON ISN’T STOPPING! SHE’S RUNNING AT TOP SPEED ON THE FIRST LENGTH OF THE RACETRACK! IT’S LIKE SHE’S ALREADY SPURTING UPON TAKING HER FIRST STEPS OUT OF THE GATE; EVERYONE ELSE IS UNPREPARED, AND THEY’RE STARTING TO PUSH TO MAINTAIN HER BREAKNECK PACE- BUT WAIT!!”

Agnes Tachyon is running.

She is running like she’s never run before. She doesn’t even want to think about how horrified Biwa Hayahide must be, or how utterly shocked all her friends are- all she wants to do is run. Faster than anything ever on this track. She has already seen the limits of Umamusume, seen her friends and newcomers to this space try to break it in ways she herself could never devise. Each step, her legs throb harder, more painfully. Each second she does not slow down or keep pace, she hurts more and more.

Yet, for just this moment, for these next few minutes, it’s a bliss with no compare.

And then, She hears it through the howling wind. She hears it through her own steps, through the heartbeats quaking in her ears, through her heavy breaths. Another pair of feet.

“TACHYOOOOOOOON!!!!!”

Jungle Pocket.

“CHASING BEHIND HER IS JUNGLE POCKET! JUNGLE POCKET’S ALSO GOING AT FULL SPEED, THEY’RE REALLY TRYING TO RUN THE ENTIRE 2500 METERS AT FULL SPEED! BEHIND THEM, RIGHT INSIDE AND TRYING TO CATCH UP AT THIRD SPOT IS-”

Running at full speed herself, Jungle Pocket trails behind her by a length, but she’s far in front of a competition trying to adjust against her breakneck speed. Agnes Tachyon wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

To everyone watching, it was like the race only meant something for these two. Arima Kinen, and Agnes Tachyon and Jungle Pocket. Each step kicked up obscene amounts of dirt. Each stride pushed them so hard they looked to be able to pulverize themselves if they so much as crashed, all from the sheer speed and power. To any other Umamusume, going so fast so early was suicidal. To those two, it was their race.

And it was beautiful.

And yet, Agnes Tachyon looks forward.

She could see each shattering of the barrier as she ran and won. Each race adding to her tally of races that once only showed four; that once was only supposed to show four. It made her proud, if she were to speak frankly about it. All she had done had brought her here, an Uma existing in defiance of destiny, a limit never before acknowledged broken by her mere hands and legs worth their weight in gold.

And yet, there was something she could not fully push aside. The issue of her tendons. Of her legs. Of the destiny of a career ended by illness. Sure, she was still here, still racing.

But the injury wasn’t. That spectral thing haunted her so, staying close to her heart in every concern that it might as well have never even gone through a process of recovery, even if she could run without issue now, on account of all the precautions and failsafes. She could break her race records, become so much more than that thing, the horse, in that alternate dimension. She could never get close to touching her destiny of a horse that disappeared from the racing world due to an injury. Because it was still there. Because it could flare up at any time and stop her.

Unacceptable.

And on that day, she set her sights on her last Arima Kinen.

She wanted to break.

“WHAT A DASH! AGNES TACHYON IS STILL RUNNING AT A BREAKNECK PACE! JUNGLE POCKET’S STARTING TO SLOW DOWN, AND THE GROUP BEHIND HER ARE ALSO FEELING THE STRAIN OF TRYING TO KEEP UP!”

She wanted to break it.

She wanted to break through.

She wanted to break.

To go further beyond, to see the world behind the last glass window. She didn’t want to crack it, running safe. No, she wanted to blast it apart herself, she wanted to run, to destroy all of destiny’s orders for her to nothing but dust. If she was not going to make it, then she wanted to break herself before destiny ever dared to break her. This, she swore to the sky, was what her own terms were.

“IS THIS UMA RUNNING FOR HER LIFE?!”

No.

She was running to break it all apart! To shatter the delusions of a life determined by another! To become greater than something beyond her, something that cared little of her, something she didn’t even care for herself! She was running to tackle destiny down to the ground! She was running so she could never be tied down by the limits of her possibilities! She had broken it so many times already! Her greed knows no bounds! She wanted to see it, that last, final barrier!

This injury will not stop her. This injury will not stop her!

“MAY DESTINY TRY TO TAKE MEEEEEE!!”

She roars hoarse above all the hurt her body is screaming at her about. The crowd cheers. Manhattan Cafe screams at her to slow down. So do her myriad friends. So does Biwa, and the trainers. So does Jungle Pocket.

It was so beautiful at the beginning.

It was so shocking in the middle.

It was so horrifying now at the end.

“Jungle Pocket…”

“Yeah?”

Her rival turns to her as she speaks. She had wanted to go up already, up the tunnel towards the gate. Still, she stays to listen. Agnes Tachyon, looking forward, seems to stare so profoundly far into a world never seen.

“I’ve broken so many things.” She speaks softly. “Shattered so many wondrous barriers like glass.”

She can feel it. The end of the Arima Kinen is near. Every muscle screams. Every vessel gurgles. Every nerve cries havoc.

And yet she still ran. Because she can see it now. That last barrier. That last limitation of her existence.

She reaches out to it.

“Someone out there, or something, would very much like to mend it all together, wipe away the cracks so that it’s almost as if nothing ever happened. In a way so human as to hide the blemish. We put a piece of tape on some broken pottery, and we seem to believe its value is sucked out like entropy filling its absence.”

The cracks starts. She’s almost there. The finish line, that one proof that she went through her entire racing career without an injury to stop her, it’s so close.

The cracks grow larger. And larger. She can almost graze it with the tip of her finger.

“You know what, Pokke?”

“Yeah…?”

Agnes Tachyon turns that distant gaze towards her friend.

“If it were me, I’d fill those cracks with gold. No hiding the damage I rightfully did.”

Fracture.

“I think it’d look profoundly, absurdly, beautiful.”

“AND SYMBOLI KRIS S PASSES! SYMBOLI KRIS S IS THE WINNER OF THE ARIMA KINEN!”

Jungle Pocket stumbles into the finish line, collapsing to her knees. They were burning. Every part of her was burning. She ran harder than she had ever ran her entire life, and where did that get her? She glances at the board, seeing her number at seventh place. Seventh place! Gods, she ran so hard and she still bombed it. She supposes that’s what happens when you run so wildly in a long-distance race. Even worse, she failed to catch up to her. To Agnes Tachyon…

Or… did she…

No, wait, wait, she swore she passed by the white of her jacket. Oh by the Three Goddesses, did she do it?! Did Tachyon lose all her stamina?! Did she win just by that?! Yes, yes! Yes! She was the winner of this rivalry, this last race of theirs, the end! The damn end! She had such a monstrous run, but she still lost because of exhaustion. Well, what did that make her, then? The queen of exhausted running? She could take that. She could be that till the day they died, because at least she won!

She looks up, hoping to see someone, anyone looking like Agnes Tachyon.

All she sees are the eyes.

The terror looking to one direction.

Jungle Pocket turns around.

And there, on the field in the distance, so far from the finish line, a little thing come crawling to the inner fencing, weak arms pulling themselves up, trying to stand. Feebleness given form.

“... Tachyon?”

“If it were me, I’d fill those cracks with gold.”

And she did.

She used her legs, worth their weight in gold, to do the job.

Agnes Tachyon does not complete her second Arima Kinen.

“Tachyon!”

The voices, hoarse and stricken with sobs, rush to the ambulance mere moments before Agnes Tachyon’s stretcher is subsumed. The medics try to intervene, but Tachyon interrupts them with an order and a coughing fit, buying enough time for them to squeeze through. She feels them, the tears, their hands on her broken form.

“You idiot…!”

Cafe.

“Why did you run like that...? A whole year of running safe has turned you insane!? I thought you knew better! Hayahide told me you knew the plan, but yet you still ran like that!”

She hasn’t heard her so distraught before.

“T-Tachyon! Oh god Tachyon, y-your wondrous form, so damaged! This is so tragic!!”

Digital.

“And you dragged Pokke into it too, didn’t you? She was running as fast as you! She could have been hurt just like you, Tachyon! What were you thinking?!”

Dantsu.

“Y-you had a- we discussed this, Tachyon! We went into this with the desire to win, why would you throw it away for some… petty showboating!”

Hayahide.

And so many others, so many names she’s trying to remember- at least Shakur’s voice is easier to recognize, at least before she’s pulled away from upgrading her verbose lashing to something physical. The exhaustion is making it hard to, for everyone else.

Tachyon bites her lip. So many people, so worried for her. So much anger. So much distress. So much genuine worry for a friend. Oh, she supoosed could cry right now, if she had the energy to.

Well, she was only saying that, until someone pushes through the crowd and slides into the inner circle.

“Hey, hey, coming through…!”

Agnes Tachyon squints at the silhouette above her. Her ears flick at the sound of her voice. Her nose picks up the scent of sweat not of her own. Her mouth meets another-

“MMPH-?!”

What was she-?!

Jungle Pocket?!?!?!?!?!

“WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!” Agnes Digital explodes.

Manhattan Cafe gawks.

Dantsu Flame gawks.

Biwa Hayahide gawks- everyone starts gawking, alright?

It’s only for a brief moment before Pocket pulls back, leaving a shocked Tachyon on the stretcher, the injured Uma’s face a confused mess. A blush isn’t there, though, the confusion overtaking any semblance of romance she would even think to feel, especially with how functionally dead her body was. She pants as she looks to Jungle Pocket.

“You were insane for that. But damn, was that beautiful.”

“... you’re… not as distressed as the others? I-I would have expected-”

“What? Yeah, of course I am, you basically broke your foot, and for what, breaking the spurt world record! You’re an idiot, Tachyon! If you'd crashed at that speed, I-!”

She takes it, lets herself be vulnerable in the face of an upset rival, a shocked group of friends, and puzzled paramedics. She deserves it, she thinks, for going all out for such a thing.

“... but it was beautiful.”

“You… said that already.”

“Yeah. And I’ll say it again. You were so damn beautiful. Ugh, I-I dunno, I’m like a broken record, or somethin’, I-I just want to say that again and again. To your face.”

The genuineness makes her blush. “Pokke, I hope you’re not… asking me for another kiss.”

“Eh, maybe after you’re out of the hospital. I know a few dating spots I’d like to try with ya.”

Agnes Digital explodes again. Tachyon can only weakly smirk.

“So… did you reach it?” Jungle Pocket adds.

Tachyon raises a brow.

“Did you break the barrier, whatever it was? Shatter it and all that?”

“... no.”

“So…” Jungle Pocket nods with a solemn look down, before she glances around. Tachyon follows her eyes, and she sees them, the people around them. Everyone who helped. Everyone who stood beside her throughout the year. Everyone who believed in her, and who she believed in. For a moment, Tachyon feels the heart in herself ache strange.

“Was it all a failure?”

They meet eyes again. Like so many times before. So many, many wondrous times before. Tachyon, now, realizes how enrapturing her gaze feels. How truly enrapturing it is.

No.

This wasn’t a failure at all.

Jungle Pocket watches, as her shaky hands come up. Tachyon pulls away one of her sleeves to reveal the limb beneath them, including four of the most important fingers Agnes Tachyon will flip up in her entire life.

“Quadruple Victory.”

Agnes Tachyon Record:

[Agnes Tachyon would race and win four times as many races as her ‘horse’ counterpart. Her Senior year would be colloquially known by future Umamusume as the 'Year of the Particle' for her absurd dominance and current record-winning streak of 1^st place finishes. Had she won her Senior Year Arima Kinen, she would have broken the standing record of 7 straight G1 wins. To date, no other ‘Destiny Broken’ event has come close to the scope and severity of Agnes Tachyon’s situation. See Addendum 2.0]

[Tracen Academy, following her race at the Arima Kinen, expressed condemnation on the extremities of her method of Runaway running, declaring her Arima Kinen performance as reckless, in addition to implementation of future rules and guidance to increase safety through improved techniques for frontrunning styles. She was promptly disqualified by the URA with full support from the Academy on the ruling.]

[Agnes Tachyon has gone through partial recovery and is presently, and for the foreseeable future, bound by wheelchair and crutch. Current observations note that she is living retired life with Jungle Pocket. She is currently pursuing employment as a lecturer in Tracen University. Her main motivation of ‘getting closer to the new generation to observe them for important data collection’ is, however, being subject to rightful scrutiny by us.]

[Please amend your wording, Dr. Northern Taste.]

[Apologies! Such a thing will never happen again, Researcher Minoru!]

[This concludes the addendum.]

[We are all so immensely proud of her.]