Chapter Text

Chapter 1: Welcome Home

The problem with the Winning Lives, one Uma pondered as she tightened the G-string of her violin, was that they only allowed for major chords.

She sat on the floor of the Tracen Academy’s unused AV storage room. Room 404, fittingly enough. It was a dusty, windowless box filled with the ghosts of obsolete technology, tangled nests of XLR cables, and a mixing console that looked like it hadn't seen power since Tokino Minoru ran.

From the stadium outside, muffled through several layers of concrete, she could hear the faint roar of the crowd. Another race had ended, a large one, too. Another idol was crowned and all the Umas that participated are currently sparkling on stage, singing about hopes and dreams and running toward tomorrow.

Umapyoi. Umapyoi.

She drew her bow across the string. Screech.

"I love a glorious performance, watching them have fun on stage is nothing short of mesmerizing," she muttered to the dust motes dancing in the singular beam of light from the hallway. "But it always felt off. It all lacks... texture."

Sounds of Earth loved music. She loved the symphony of the turf. She loved the thundering percussion of hoofbeats, the ensemble of the competition which to her were her partners in the show that is racing, fueling the roaring crescendo of the crowd. But she had realized something lately. The symphony that serves as the final encore to the competition was incomplete.

Everyone focused on the crescendo. No one listened to the silence that came after.

She set her violin down and picked up a heavy, black marker. She walked over to a whiteboard that had been shoved into the corner. She wiped away a faded diagram of a race strategy and uncapped the marker.

She wrote one question. One that has been on her mind for the longest time.

WHAT DOES THE SILENCE SOUND LIKE?

It took three days to set up Room 404.

Earth dragged mattresses from the dorm disposal unit to line the walls for soundproofing. She draped heavy blankets over the ventilation ducts to kill the hum. She wired the mixing console, splicing cables together with electrical tape and sheer willpower until the LEDs flickered to life.

It wasn't pretty. It smelled of old carpet and coffee. It was dimly lit, illuminated only by the amber glow of the amplifier tubes and a few string lights she had hung from the ceiling pipes.

It didn't look like a place for idols. It looked more like a bunker.

Earth sat in the swivel chair behind the mixing desk. She put on the headphones; heavy, noise-canceling cans that sealed out the world. She tapped the microphone in the makeshift recording booth she made using a closet she had padded with pillows.

Thump. Thump.

The waveform spiked on the monitor. Clean. Crisp.

"Benissimo," she whispered.

She spun the chair around to face the room. It was empty now, but she could see them. Merely daydreaming of possible candidates that would walk up to the room and contribute something.

She thought of King Halo, who held her head high in the hallways but walked with the heavy, dragging rhythm of a funeral dirge when she thought no one was looking.

She thought of Nice Nature, whose cheerful "I'm just happy to be here" attitude had the hollow, repetitive timbre of a broken vinyl.

She thought of Rice Shower, whose silence was so loud it practically screamed.

They were all walking around with symphonies trapped in their chests, forcing themselves to sing the same toned down tunes instead.

Earth opened a fresh notebook. On the cover, she had drawn a rough sketch. It resembled shattered glass, the cracks diverging onto a single point in the center, within the center hole is what seems to be the iconic horseshoe.

She uncapped her pen and wrote the project title at the top of the first page.

Project: Sinister Steeds

Definition: A steed is one to be ridden and directed.

Objective: To cut the reins. To let them free for even just a moment.

She sat back, tapping the pen against her chin. She wasn't going to hold auditions. That would defeat the purpose. You don't audition for a true release of emotion and inner thought. She just had to open the door.

She walked over to the heavy metal door of Room 404. She didn't put up a sign that said "Recording Studio." That felt too official. Too intimidating.

Instead, she taped a simple piece of paper to the metal at eye level. It had only three words, written in her elegant, sweeping handwriting.

Make Some Noise.

She left the door unlocked. Then, she went back to her chair, picked up her violin, and began to play a low, mourning drone in D Minor.

She would wait. The melody would pull them in eventually. The silence was too loud to ignore forever.