"Still not good enough, huh?"
On the training track, Barbatos—who had just launched off the line—came to a stop again.
This was already her two-hundred-and-something attempt at refining her start since the Japanese Oaks, yet none of them had produced the result she was aiming for.
Ever since the Oaks, on top of her daily stamina training, she had deliberately carved out a significant chunk of time each day just to practice her starts.
For Uma Musume, start training was a mandatory course.
For ordinary Uma Musume, that "mandatory course" was mostly about preventing a slow or mistimed start.
Even for powerful runners, that was often all it amounted to. For closers, stalkers, or even front-runners, as long as they didn't botch the start, it was usually good enough.
After that, they could simply adjust their positioning based on how the race unfolded, choosing the most advantageous spot for themselves.
That was the norm among Uma Musume.
But for pure Front Runners, the quality of the start was absolutely critical.
A good start let a Front Runner save a huge amount of stamina.
If their initial launch was only on par with everyone else's, they would have to burn far more energy afterward just to chase down and secure the lead.
Barbatos herself was categorized as a Front Runner—at least on the surface. To outsiders, she simply looked like someone who ran too fast, so naturally they assumed she was an escape-type runner.
No one really knew that she went all-out right from the beginning, then relied on her skills for the final sprint.
If you factored in her system, she actually belonged to the closer category. She was just excessively cautious, which made her look like a Front Runner.
Because of that, in most races, the exact style or speed of her start wasn't all that important to Barbatos.
Especially when the opponent was someone like Seiun Sky—another Front Runner—where their running styles naturally mirrored each other.
In those cases, Barbatos's starts were never bad.
You could even say they weren't inferior to true, textbook Front Runners.
But now, with the Takarazuka Kinen approaching, Barbatos had no choice but to think about optimizing her start even further.
Because her next opponent would be the "Otherworldly Front-Runner"—
The Pegasus herself, Silence Suzuka.
Anyone who had ever watched Silence Suzuka race—whether live at the track, through a broadcast, or even on a replay—would notice the same thing.
If you weren't staring intently at the race from the very beginning, if you blinked even once right after the start, you'd suddenly realize that Suzuka had already opened up a sizable gap.
It was as if Silence Suzuka had just used Flash Step.
Normal Front Runners—including Seiun Sky—went through a gradual process from the start to taking the lead. The gap would slowly widen, step by step, until they settled into first position.
Silence Suzuka followed that same logic in theory, but her initial burst was so outrageous that it felt like the distance had been created instantly.
From the very moment the race began, she was already in the lead—like she had teleported there.
The gap itself might not have been huge, but in an actual race, it was deadly enough. What Barbatos needed to do now was to shrink that starting gap as much as possible.
Trying to outpace Silence Suzuka in pure frontrunning was impossible.
A race against Suzuka could never be a repeat of the Oka Sho she ran against El Condor Pasa.
Back then, she and El Condor Pasa had both appeared to be leading the race, leaving every other Uma Musume far behind.
At the time, Barbatos really had gone all out. In her heart, she knew she was running a Front Runner's line—but for El Condor Pasa, that wasn't her full strength.
She had deliberately held back speed and stamina, saving them to settle things on the final straight.
If El Condor Pasa had gone all-in from the very start, Barbatos wouldn't have been able to keep up without relying on system skills.
If you transplanted that situation into the upcoming Takarazuka Kinen—into a showdown with Silence Suzuka—it would be the same.
Silence Suzuka wasn't El Condor Pasa. She didn't need to hold anything back. Treating the race like a time attack and sprinting all the way to the finish was simply her style. In that scenario, the only thing Barbatos could do was compensate for part of the gap right at the start.
Compared to El Condor Pasa, though, Barbatos did have one advantage when facing Suzuka.
Once more, Barbatos began repeating her starts. Beside her, Seiun Sky, Twin Turbo, and Urara were training together, all working to improve their launches.
The other members of Canopus stood off to the side, watching.
For Nice Nature, Matikanetannhauser, and Ikuno Dictus, this wasn't something they needed to train.
They weren't Uma Musume who specialized in leading from the front.
Right now, they were mostly there to cheer and encourage—or perhaps, by watching Barbatos and the others train, to further steel their own resolve to work harder.
Minamizaka, meanwhile, used a tablet and a stopwatch to record the starting data for Barbatos and the others.
After another hundred or so starts—
Twin Turbo had long since stopped, panting heavily. Her stamina couldn't support this kind of high-intensity training.
Only Urara—who had been training with King Halo—along with the now almost monstrously tireless Barbatos and Seiun Sky, managed to keep going.
By then, the sky had darkened, and the streetlights of Tracen Academy had come on.
Barbatos picked up a towel nearby and wiped the sweat from her face and hair. Then she took a small sip from her water bottle and passed it to Seiun Sky beside her.
After that, she looked toward Minamizaka.
"How is it compared to before?"
"There's some improvement."
Minamizaka nodded with satisfaction, looking at the data on the tablet. "The increase isn't huge, but compared to the Japanese Oaks and the Oka Sho, this start is already a big step forward."
As she spoke, she swiped through several sets of data on the screen.
"Seiun Sky, Urara, and Twin Turbo have also improved a lot."
For Canopus members to debut, Minamizaka's standards were strict from the start. She only allowed her Uma Musume to debut when she was confident they could win their debut race.
Under those conditions, Canopus Uma Musume didn't really have issues with their starts to begin with.
Situations like Special Week's slow start back when she was with Spica simply didn't happen here.
That made further improvements in starting ability all the more valuable, laying down a solid foundation for future races.
Hearing this, Barbatos let out a soft sigh.
She could feel just how far away she still was from a start like Silence Suzuka's. Compared to Suzuka's overwhelming escape, Barbatos had never originally positioned herself in that category.
It was only while preparing for the Takarazuka Kinen—studying Suzuka's race videos and treating her as the next opponent—that she truly noticed the gap at the start.
Closing that gap in a short period of time was almost impossible. Maybe Special Week could do it—but for Barbatos, it was extremely difficult.
Still, she quickly pulled herself together.
"Minamizaka, you all go back and rest first. I'll train a bit longer."
"I want to shorten the gap between me and Suzuka at the start as much as I can before the Takarazuka Kinen."
--+--
T/N: I have a Patreon! Webnovel will get 2 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.