Bonus — “The Mob Girl”

I think every Uma Musume has one or two things she can brag about.

Something that slips out when she’s feeling a little full of herself—“You know, I actually did this back then”—or something she clings to when she’s cornered—“But hey, I’ve still got this.”

Those are the pillars that prop up a basic sense of self-worth.

…Well, sure, some girls might not have anything like that. But let’s put that aside for now.

For us racing Uma Musume, those “bragging rights” usually come down to results—or legs.

“I’m an Uma Musume who can win a Central G1!” Or, if not that, “I can win graded races!” Tone it down a notch—“I can at least run in graded races.” Lower still—“I can win open races.” Push it further—“I managed to win a maiden race.” At the very least—“I got accepted into Central.” Or, well—“I’m good enough to be a racing Uma Musume.”

…Wow. Saying all that out loud is depressing. Let’s stop.

If we’re talking about bragging points outside of results, then it’s usually about running itself. A killer finishing kick. Stamina that never seems to run out. Calm race awareness. Grit when it really counts. Power that won’t give an inch in a head-to-head. Clever tactics that throw other girls off… et cetera. No wait—etcetera, right?

Girls who run G1s—no, girls who actually win them—probably have a ridiculous number of things they can brag about.

For example… among my own class, the most famous one would be that girl.

An undefeated Triple Crown Uma Musume from humble origins. A monster with otherworldly legs who can break away in a runaway lead—and still come flying from the back.

And then there’s me.

I’m nothing that grand, but hey, even I’ve got one or two things I can brag about.

A memory I never tell anyone—because even if I did, they’d just laugh and say I was joking.

I once beat that undefeated Triple Crown Uma Musume, Hoshino Wilm.

…Yeah. I know it’s not exactly something I can proudly boast about to others.

---

Anyway, let me properly introduce myself.

My name is Shissō Beam.

I’m a completely ordinary racing Uma Musume at Tracen Academy—the kind you could probably find about 1,900 of if you went looking.

As for my ability… well, it’s not something I can really brag about openly. To be specific, I’m just barely on the edge of being able to enter graded races. I can win maiden races with a bit of breathing room, and I can put up a decent fight in open races, but the moment I step into a G3, I get crushed and learn just how big the world really is.

That’s the kind of middling, forgettable, run-of-the-mill Uma Musume I am. Ribbit, ribbit.

…Still, even a normal Uma Musume like me had her springtime.

No, scratch that—I did. Right after enrolling at Tracen Academy, it really felt like my era had arrived.

Uma Musume have this concept of being early bloomers or late bloomers—basically, whether you develop quickly or slowly. Even once your prime starts, some girls shoot up all at once early on, while others really come into their own after their bodies fill out. Individual differences, basically.

In that sense, Shissō Beam was such an early bloomer it was almost scary. Sure, maybe not quite on Tokai Teio’s level, but I was strong enough to feel proud of it. In the mock races I ran, my win rate was over fifty percent. That’s actually kind of amazing, you know?

Honestly, I might owe an apology to the trainer who scouted me back then. From their perspective, they thought they’d found a promising Uma Musume—only to open the box and discover I was just an early bloomer. That’s got to hurt. So I’m really grateful they were a god-tier trainer who said, “As long as you enjoy running, that’s what matters most.”

Anyway.

Back when I was just a frog croaking in a well, I got carried away thinking, “Alright, I’ll sweep all the graded races!” and entered a pre-selection mock race to secure a trainer.

That’s when I saw it.

A monster.

"Cold…"

The small, chestnut-colored Uma Musume muttered quietly.

The instant we saw her, I think every single girl in that race—including me—felt despair. Because one glance was enough to tell.

She was something completely different from us.

Her resolve was different. Her body was different. …The pressure of her very existence was on another level.

We thought we’d become proper Uma Musume just by entering Central Tracen, but in truth we were still babies standing at the entrance.

She—she alone—was a racing Uma Musume who truly stood on her own two legs.

Our tiny pride, our false confidence that we were “pretty strong,” shattered in an instant. What remained was fear—fear of racing against something like that—and, despite it all, a stubborn desire to land at least one blow.

So, without a word, we formed a silent alliance.

One person alone couldn’t beat that monster. No—calling it “difficult” was wrong. It was absolutely impossible.

The atmosphere felt like running into a starving wild bear. We were going to be eaten—hunted down without mercy. That chestnut girl had a presence overwhelming enough to make you believe that.

In that situation, there’s no room to be enemies with each other. You have to cooperate just to avoid becoming prey. Sure, running away would’ve been safer—but you can’t exactly flee from a mock race right before it starts.

And besides.

We’re racing Uma Musume.

We can’t accept defeat without fighting. We don’t want to give up first place without running. Even if the opponent looks unbeatable, we can’t just turn tail and run.

So we fought with everything we had.

And then…

I was lucky enough to beat her.

Lucky. Yes—pure, unfiltered luck.

Looking back, she was running with a style that didn’t suit her, at a distance that didn’t suit her. On top of that, our cooperation meant she was heavily marked and boxed in by the pack, delaying her breakout. That was probably one of the reasons she lost.

An incompatible running style. An incompatible distance. And the worst possible race situation.

Only because all three lined up did I manage to beat her.

"Hah… hah… cough"

After the race, I was so exhausted I couldn’t stop coughing. Of course I was. We’d gone at an absurdly high pace just to keep up with her charge.

Still, I was happy I’d won.

Because I’d beaten that monster—an Uma Musume so terrifying she might even beat Tokai Teio.

For just a moment, I almost convinced myself that I was the strongest Uma Musume in the Junior class.

…But then.

When I glanced over, that chestnut Uma Musume was calmly stretching, as if defeat meant absolutely nothing to her.

Seeing that, I understood.

I really did.

Ah. I wasn’t even seen as an opponent.

The frozen aura she showed before the race. The beastlike, savage running during it. The empty eyes afterward, like she’d lost interest in everything.

Those images burned themselves into my retinas and never left.

---

…And that was my golden age.

Though calling it a “golden age” feels a bit bittersweet, all things considered.

Man, those days were nice. I think everyone around me—and me too—was still sparkling with hope for a future we hadn’t seen yet. Once you reach Senior class and your peak starts winding down, you can’t help but see your limits.

Climbing from there to a G1 victory? That’s just too convenient a dream.

After two years, we get a pretty good sense of where our abilities really sit. We settle into a calm state—not getting carried away, but not sinking into despair either.

So… yeah, maybe it’s a bit bad-natured, but watching the new students who come in January, all excited and starry-eyed, gives me complicated feelings.

Their pure belief in the future, born from never having tasted defeat. It makes me jealous, worried, and hopeful all at once.

Ahh… if only I could go back to those younger days…

Lost in thoughts like that, walking home in a quiet mood—

I suddenly felt arms wrap around me from behind.

"Beeeam!"

"Nwah!?"

Th-this pointless-but-huge slab of extra flesh pressing into my back… I know exactly who this is!

"Hey, Po-chan! I told you not to just jump on me out of nowhere—it scares people, remember?!"

"Hehehe, Beam still smells great as ever~! A faint mix of resignation and self-mockery, but deep down you still can’t give up on yourself and end up looking forward anyway… the absolute best Uma Musume smell!"

"And I also told you to stop rattling off psychoanalysis like that! Do you not remember?! Or were you just not listening at all?!"

I peel the arms wrapped around my neck away and shove her off in one firm motion.

Only then do I finally get a clear look at her—a silver-haired Uma Musume swaying unsteadily, wearing a thoroughly unserious grin.

She’s actually pretty fashion-conscious, with dyed inner highlights and a subtly customized uniform, but… more than anything else, what really stands out is her chest. It’s huge. Seriously huge. Ugh. The misery of the have-nots.

Also, would you please stop sniffing my scalp already.

I just finished training, you know? If you start commenting on sweat smells, that’s embarrassing as hell.

"...Sigh. Po-chan, doesn’t anyone ever tell you that you get way too close to people?"

"All the time! Mostly by you!"

"Yes, because I do tell you."

"Well, Beam’s basically my only friend, so no one else really says anything~?"

"Don’t drop facts that sad. It makes it hard to stay mad."

She laughs with a soft, catlike giggle.

This silver-haired girl is named Portrait Real.

She’s my roommate in the Miho dorm, my precious friend, and an ex-rival Uma Musume.

She has an extremely unusual personality: she closes the distance instantly with people she likes, but shows zero interest in anyone else. She also has this weird, hard-to-explain ability where she can sort of sense what emotions someone’s holding just by smelling them.

She doesn’t really understand the concept of “consideration.” If I’m being generous, she’s innocent and free-spirited; if I’m not, she’s wildly unrestrained.

All in all, she’s a strange kid—and as she herself admits, she has very few friends. Probably just me.

Because we ended up as roommates, we had a point of contact. She took a liking to me for reasons I still don’t understand, and before I knew it, I was officially her friend.

Honestly, getting dragged around by her is exhausting.

It feels like taking care of a free-roaming cat that scratches walls and pees wherever it wants. I wonder if that metaphor lands.

Still… we’ve been together for two years now. And more importantly, she’s always helped me out. There are reasons I can’t just brush her off.

"Hey, wanna walk home together~? You’re done training, right?"

"…Were you waiting for me? You don’t even have training anymore, Po-chan. You could’ve gone back first."

"I waited because I wanted to~. And I got a little studying done, too."

With that, Po-chan flourishes a book like ta-da.

The modest title stamped on the cover reads: Basics of Horseshoe Adjustment.

Honestly… the way she quietly keeps her eyes on the future like this is admirable.

If it weren’t for her oddities, she’d probably be respected by tons of Uma Musume—and have plenty of friends, too.

…No. A Po-chan who isn’t weird wouldn’t be Po-chan at all.

---

The reality of being a racing Uma Musume is cruel. Brutally so.

Not everyone gets to keep running in the Twinkle Series forever.

In official Twinkle Series races, every race except Make Debut and maiden races requires at least one prior official win to enter. In other words, if you don’t win either your Make Debut or a maiden race, you can’t enter graded races, open races, or even pre-open races.

And those maiden races only run until the summer of the Classic class year.

If you fail to secure a win by that deadline, then—with only a few exceptions—you lose your eligibility to participate in Twinkle Series races altogether.

I—Shissō Beam—managed to barely clear that wall in my third maiden race, in February of my Classic year, earning the right to continue as a racing Uma Musume in the Twinkle Series…

But the number is seventy percent.

Seventy percent of Uma Musume fail to win a maiden race and lose that qualification.

If that isn’t cruelty, what is?

…And the girl standing beside me—Po-chan, Portrait Real—was one of the Uma Musume who couldn’t win her maiden race.

Tracen Academy has two major roles.

One is obvious: a training center.

The other is just as important—an academy, a place of learning.

What I mean is, even if one of those roles disappears for you, you can still remain enrolled here.

In theory, you could drop out of the academy side and focus solely on Twinkle Series participation and the use of training facilities. Conversely, you can also retire from the Twinkle Series while continuing to belong to Central Tracen Academy.

We’re middle-school-aged girls. Quitting school just because you failed as an athlete would be unhealthy, to say the least. And Central Tracen offers extensive education related to racing Uma Musume careers. If you want to pursue work in that field, there’s probably no better environment.

So even after retiring from racing, there’s real value in staying.

…That said, not many Uma Musume choose that path.

After all, getting into Central Tracen means you’re more than capable of excelling in regional race series. Many girls transfer to local Tracen centers to race there instead.

Of the seventy percent who fail to win a maiden race, about fifty percent move to regional Tracen facilities. The remaining twenty percent stay at this academy.

Po-chan is one of that twenty percent.

Late August of the Classic year—her final maiden race.

I saw her loss on TV before I ever heard it from her. I agonized over what I should say.

But whether it was “worrying for nothing” or just anticlimactic, what greeted me when I returned to our room was the usual Po-chan, throwing herself at me with a cheerful "Welcome back~!"

Apparently, she brushed off her maiden-race loss with a simple “Guess it was impossible after all,” and switched gears immediately.

Of course, I’m sure it hurt. Giving up on running as a racing Uma Musume would feel like having your chest pierced—it’s easy to imagine.

But Portrait Real is the kind of oddball who can flip that switch instantly.

Later, while being hugged from behind, I listened to her talk about her plans.

"I realized I’m just not cut out for running myself. So I thought—I want to support other Uma Musume who do run!"

"I see… so what are you going to do?"

"Don’t look so worried~. I’m staying at Tracen Academy. I’m thinking of learning horseshoeing here."

Horseshoeing.

Simply put, it’s work related to the horseshoes Uma Musume use.

The main duties involve fitting horseshoes onto worn-down training shoes and carefully adjusting the horseshoes used in race shoes. Light adjustments can be done by hand, but if the shape is badly warped, you need to heat it in a forge.

Because of the danger involved and the level of skill required, it’s a specialized profession.

Of course, it’s incredibly important work.

The fact that we racing Uma Musume can run safely is thanks to farriers. We can never thank them enough.

That said… it’s still fairly rare for an Uma Musume herself to aim to become a farrier.

Compared to humans, Uma Musume excel in all kinds of ways—looks, voices, physical ability.

That’s why a lot of them end up in jobs that make use of those strengths.

Well… blacksmithing does require strength too, so in that sense it’s not exactly wrong, but still…

"Why horseshoeing? You weren’t especially into horseshoes, were you?"

"Yeah. What I like isn’t horseshoes… but, well—Beam, you already know, right?"

For once, she answered with a slightly bashful smile.

---

So, after walking along together at an easy pace for a while with Po-chan—the former racing Uma Musume—we eventually arrived back at our room in the Miho dorm.

"Haaah… I’m wiped today…"

"I’m not tired at aaall!"

"Yeah, figures."

Beside me as I let out a sigh, Po-chan stretched lazily.

Unlike me, who’d been grinding through intense training all day, she’d just been reading books the whole time. No wonder she wasn’t physically tired. I’m a little jealous, honestly.

Anyway—more importantly, I needed to soothe this heavy exhaustion in my body ASAP.

"Oooh, please heal this weary soul…!"

Muttering that to myself, I hugged one of the giant plushies I’d placed reverently on my bed.

Ahh… the fluffy texture, the perfect amount of give, the faint lingering scent of sunshine. The horse-ear part is soft and squishy in just the right way—absolute perfection…!

Aaah, I’m healed… I could stay like this forever…

"...Beam, you really love that plushie, huh."

When I glanced over, Po-chan was looking at me with a slightly exasperated expression.

"Shut up. I don’t need you judging me.

And besides, it’s not like that’s the only one I like, okay?"

"I knowww."

On my side of the room alone, there are over twenty plushies in total, big and small.

Most of them are stored in glass cases so they won’t gather dust, though.

And it’s not just plushies.

Keychains, display figures and action figures, handkerchiefs and blankets from collaborations she was part of, and four bottles of her image perfume—one for storage, one for display, one for evangelizing, and one for emergencies. Still unopened.

On the wall are framed photos: her radiant smile after winning the Takarazuka Kinen, and a shot of her throwing double peace signs with Nature after the Kikuka-shō winning live. Tapestries and posters round out the décor.

And then, my single proudest treasure of all—

The laminated ticket collection by my bedside!!

Tickets for a certain Make Debut race two years ago, the open race Haganobotan-shō, and the G1 Hopeful Stakes—both viewing and winning live tickets.

From last year: G2 Yayoi Sho, G1 Satsuki Sho, again the Takarazuka Kinen, the Japan Cup, and even a miracle-get Arima Kinen winning live ticket.

I missed out on the Kikuka-shō and Arima Kinen viewing tickets—lost the lottery, zero winners among acquaintances, forced to give up through tears of blood—but…

Every other step of her journey…

I watched with my own eyes.

Yes.

That chestnut-haired, utterly ordinary mob Uma Musume who once had her eyes burned by a dazzling gray first-magnitude star…

Since that day, she’d become a huge, huge, HUGE fan of Hoshino Wilm.

"Eehee… eheheehee… Wilm-samaaa…"

"Creepy."

"Hey, cut it out with the brutally honest reactions. You can’t help it—thinking about your oshi makes your face melt.

It’s the same as you staying at Tracen to become a farrier because you love Uma Musume, Po-chan."

"...When you’re like this, Beam, I really don’t want to be lumped together with you. Usually, sure—but not now."

What was that, you blockheaded carrot!?

You love Uma Musume and aim to be a farrier. I love Hoshino Wilm and do hardcore oshi activities. There’s literally no difference!

…Okay, fine. Maybe there’s a little difference.

Po-chan’s seriously thinking about her future, while I’m just having too much fun with my fandom life. Sure, sure—there might be differences!

But still—having my hobby looked down on hurts.

Time for a little payback.

"Hmph. Are you sure you want to say that? You know what this is~?"

"Huh? Th-that… wait, no way!?"

Po-chan loves Uma Musume.

Not just one specific girl—she’s a full-on box oshi who loves racing Uma Musume as a whole.

Half of the storage I use is packed with Hoshino Wilm goods, but the other half is filled with merchandise from all kinds of Uma Musume.

…Well, that side doesn’t have any Hoshino Wilm stuff, because Po-chan says, “Just looking at her goods already fills me up.” That part, I’ll never forgive her for not understanding.

And that’s exactly why there’s no way she could overlook the ticket in my hand.

"Tetterete-tetteee~! Two tickets for the upcoming G1, the Osaka Hai~! And not just any seats—right by the finish line, West Area!!"

"G-give me that! I wanna go to the Osaka Hai! That’s the best spot possible!!"

"Hmm~ what should I do~? Someone who keeps jumping on people no matter how many times she’s told not to, maybe doesn’t deserve it~?"

"I-I’ll stop! I’ll stop, I swear!!"

"...You’ll really stop?"

"I will, I will! I promise, absolutely!"

"Alright. Then I’ll give you one of them."

"All hail! Thank you very much, Lady Beam!!"

Seeing Po-chan on the verge of tears, bowing her head, I finally felt bad and handed over the ticket.

She bounced around in joy like a little kid. Seriously, her build and her personality just don’t match at all.

"...By the way, how many times has this exact exchange happened now?"

"Um… sixth time?"

"And have you ever actually stopped hugging me?"

"Nope."

"Will you start stopping now?"

"Nope."

We fought like crazy after that.

---

The world of racing Uma Musume is merciless and cruel.

For one winner to be born, seventeen losers are sacrificed.

Gate positions, the day’s weather, track conditions—luck can massively tilt the odds.

Every girl’s talent has limits she can’t overcome.

Miss the time limit, and you can’t even enter races anymore.

Truly, hopelessly, mercilessly cruel.

…But, well.

Even in a world that cruel, there are Uma Musume like us, somehow enjoying each day anyway.

The bond between Shissō Beam and Portrait Real was woven together by this place—Tracen Academy.

This cruel world gave me a precious friend.

That’s something I don’t want to forget.

This place is merciless and cruel, and it gives birth to countless tragedies…

But at the same time, it’s also a place that gives us Uma Musume new futures.

And—on top of that—

It’s a place that introduced me to the absolute best oshi imaginable!