With Kitasan Black's overflowing excitement, coupled with Kitajima Saburou's enthusiastic performance and warm invitation, the strange, unsettled feeling Yasui Makoto had experienced earlier quickly vanished. Before long, they were seated in the familiar banquet hall once again.
Repeating a scene from before, the elderly man showered Yasui with gratitude before eagerly asking if there was anything he could do to help with upcoming training or races.
Just like last time, Yasui saw no reason to decline. As luck would have it, his upcoming training plans required some specialized equipment tailored specifically for Kitasan Black—equipment he could easily entrust to Kitajima-san.
These items were essential for practicing "extreme acrobatics."
Before even meeting Kitasan, Yasui had envisioned incorporating training techniques from this unique sport—tailored carefully to the needs of various races and the characteristics of the Uma Musume he coached.
However, actually starting to coach Kitasan revealed how much more complicated it was than he'd imagined.
For one, such training had almost no precedent in this world. At best, only loosely similar methods existed.
For another, although Uma Musume's bodies looked human, they were fundamentally different in many crucial ways. Actions considered extremely challenging—even near-impossible—for humans were trivial for them.
Take free solo climbing, for example.
Climbing a rock face bare-handed, with only basic safety measures, was practically impossible for humans without extraordinary physical strength, judgment, and psychological toughness. Uma Musume naturally met the physical strength criteria just by entering their competitive maturation phase. With just minimal additional training, they easily surpassed even elite human athletes.
Because of this gap, human-limited exercises from Yasui's memory lost all significance. Creating challenging yet beneficial routines required first-hand experience coaching Uma Musume directly.
Now, having coached Kitasan for several months, Yasui finally had enough practical experience to judge what would work. Based on recent training data and her stellar Satsuki Sho performance, Kitasan's physical condition had clearly reached an ideal state.
Now, he could confidently introduce entirely new, unprecedented training methods to this world.
...
"...So, what exactly is that 'super stunt' thing Trainer mentioned?"
Kitasan asked curiously, strolling beside Yasui Makoto along the neatly graveled garden path behind the Kitajima residence.
"It's called 'extreme acrobatics,'" Yasui corrected her firmly—uncharacteristically earnest.
A flicker of excitement shone in his eyes as he glanced around, quickly noticing a stone pavilion nearby. His eyes lit up, and he immediately headed toward it, unbuttoning his shirt's collar and rolling his sleeves up to his elbows as he walked.
Blinking with intrigue, Kitasan hurriedly followed.
"To put it simply, it's a sport where you push the limits—human limits, of course. Uma Musume are another matter entirely."
Approaching the pavilion, Yasui examined one of the stone pillars carefully. He knocked on it, feeling the rough texture, then turned and nodded decisively to Kitasan.
"Like this, for example…"
Before finishing his sentence, he abruptly stepped back about ten meters, staring intently at the pillar before dashing forward explosively.
Like a bowstring snapping taut, his entire body compressed for a brief instant before springing toward the pillar.
It happened so quickly that Kitasan had no time to react. By the time she managed to cry out, "Trainer! Be careful—!" Yasui was already right next to the pillar, and her cry turned into a startled gasp:
"Ahh?!"
Planting his foot precisely on a carefully chosen spot, his calf and foot forming an acute angle, Yasui propelled himself nearly three meters vertically, like a rocket launching skyward.
He switched feet onto another foothold, soaring upwards another two meters instantly.
A third step, then a fourth—each one raising him roughly another meter into the air.
The fifth step didn't elevate him further; instead, his toes firmly gripped the stone, pivoting sharply. Dust and debris fell as his foot scraped against the pillar and the pavilion's rooftop edge.
Arching his back like a drawn bow springing loose, Yasui gracefully propelled himself backward into the air, tracing a long, elegant parabola.
As gravity drew him downward, he spun smoothly in mid-air, counting rotations silently.
One… Two… Two and a half…
Precisely timing his rotations, he sensed the approaching ground beneath his toes. With practiced ease, Yasui reversed his body's rotation, bending his knees as though reclining gently.
The instant his knees shifted from bending to straightening, he stretched his arms behind him, catching the ground softly. Leveraging this momentum, he executed a flawless backward roll to neutralize his fall completely, finally rising to stand tall.
Remarkably, he landed precisely at his original starting point.
Yasui glanced down briefly at the near-identical sets of footprints beneath him, nodding slightly to himself.
"My sense of distance is still accurate, but only two and a half rotations... I really have gotten rusty."
After this regretful self-assessment, he looked at Kitasan and smiled warmly.
"Well? Do you get it now?"
Kitasan turned her head stiffly as though her neck had rusted, heart pounding like when she had crossed the finish line at the Satsuki Sho.
When Yasui had first charged toward the pillar, astonishment had filled her mind. A heartbeat later, disbelief took its place.
She'd seen climbing stunts in kabuki performances before—but those performers had always used their hands. Her trainer, however, had just sprinted vertically up a pillar for six or seven meters using nothing but his legs and momentum.
His airborne rotations resembled dance moves she'd seen before—but never following such an impossible climbing feat.
Noticing now that Yasui had landed precisely where he'd started convinced her that this entire breathtaking sequence was premeditated, likely something he'd practiced countless times before.
Even more unsettling, meeting his gaze at that moment revealed a look she'd never seen in his eyes—a strange yet familiar intensity.
It was the same fierce passion she'd glimpsed in her own eyes before stepping onto the stage, or before an important race.
Yet she'd never once seen Yasui like this.
His muscular forearms with veins standing out, his sharply raised brows, that determined smirk—
All of it was entirely new to her.
Like a priest presiding over a sacred festival, Yasui radiated an intense, almost feverish devotion.
But just as suddenly, this unfamiliar expression vanished, replaced instantly by the calm, composed Trainer she knew so well.
"It's okay if you don't fully understand yet—that was just a basic routine," Yasui said calmly, casually glancing at the pillar once more.
"On a rough vertical surface like this, the human limit for a running climb is around seven or eight meters. The official competition record on a smooth surface is around four meters—that's far more difficult due to the slickness."
"As for the mid-air rotations, the human record is around three and a half spins. If the preceding movements are more complex, even more rotations—or other moves—can be added."
"But none of that matters right now. The key point is that I'll be incorporating this kind of extreme acrobatic mindset into your special training regimen from now on."
"Uma Musume naturally surpass human physical limits, and among them, your physical capabilities stand out exceptionally. You're fully ready now."
"Remember what I told you that day?"
"To achieve unmatched speed—we're finally ready to take the first real step."