"Platinum!! Platinum!"
"Can she win by a dominant victory? This is a graded stakes race!"
"She's incredible! She's just like the legendary Heavenly Horse!"
With an astonishing lead, Platinum rounded the final turn and raced down the home stretch toward the finish.
On the track's giant screen, an unbelievable sight unfolded: Platinum was the only one left in view.
Just before she crossed the finish line, the screen kept zooming out to show just how enormous the gap between Platinum and the other Uma Musume had become.
It looked like... she was already more than eleven or twelve lengths ahead, and the others still weren't making up a single inch!
A dominant victory?
No, even if her lead were cut in half... it would still be close to one.
Could anyone catch her? Could anyone stop Platinum, the Big Escape lead runner?
It seemed there was no one...
Shining Platinum raced toward the finish with an overwhelming lead. Victory was within her grasp!
The next moment, the rookie named Platinum crossed the finish line first, unstoppable, and claimed the victory!
At last...
The entire crowd roared her name, their cheers echoing through the vast racetrack.
At the finish line, the girl Platinum slowed to a halt. Her delicate face remained composed, and her chest barely rose and fell.
She hadn't found an interesting opponent like Daiwa Scarlet, so she hadn't been very excited. She'd only wanted to end the hunt as quickly as possible!
She was simply a Heavenly Horse from another world! Her journey was toward the stars and the sea!!
And that final margin was—
A full sixteen lengths!!
Elsewhere, in the school dormitory.
Daiwa Scarlet stared, dumbfounded, at Platinum's perfect start and overwhelming victory.
"Huh??"
"Ugh... I'm sorry I didn't make Platinum give it her all..."
18. Platinum, Will You Join Tracen?
The honors student Daiwa Scarlet was now completely stunned.
On the screen before her, Platinum was crossing the finish line.
After finishing her training, Daiwa Scarlet had started resting. A little while earlier, she'd seen the recommended news: Platinum was entering a GIII graded stakes race!
When she first saw it, Daiwa Scarlet had rubbed her eyes, thinking she must have read it wrong.
After all, it had only been a week since Platinum had beaten her.
But once she confirmed that it really was Platinum—and that she wasn't entering an OP-level race like the Lake Akan Special, but a GIII graded stakes race against senior Uma Musume—Daiwa Scarlet watched the race in astonishment.
But when she saw Platinum make a perfect start, seize the inside rail, then take the lead in a Big Escape...
Her surprise had unknowingly turned into doubt.
She wasn't doubting that Platinum's opponents were too weak. She was doubting...
Had Platinum held back against her?
"Ugh... sixteen lengths!"
"That's a full sixteen lengths!!"
Hailed as a superstar, Daiwa Scarlet was certain she would win a G1 race someday. She was also confident she could win a GIII graded stakes race of this level.
But in her estimation, even at her best, she could only win by a few lengths at most—and might not even manage that much.
Meanwhile, Platinum had started from a disadvantageous outer gate, rested for only a week, and won by sixteen lengths in an Experienced Battles race!
That was a truly overwhelming victory!
A win by more than ten lengths was an extremely rare sight in the entire history of Japanese Uma Musume racing. And most races that ended in such a huge margin were... "fish-in-a-barrel" races!
Usually, an Uma Musume far stronger than the competition would enter a lower-level race and bully opponents who were clearly a cut below her, barely managing to secure such a huge margin.
But what about Platinum's race?
Before it began, no one would have called Platinum a fish-in-a-barrel winner. Plenty of people would have believed she was a fish who'd wandered into a graded stakes race—a high-stakes contest—and wouldn't have expected her to win.
Yet this youngest filly had turned the tables and dominated her seniors with a tired, battle-worn body! And she hadn't merely won by ten or eleven lengths, just enough for a dominant victory. She'd won by a full sixteen!
That made the value of this dominant victory almost impossible to overstate. It was nothing like the usual "fish-in-a-barrel" blowouts.
By comparison, even the confident honors student Daiwa Scarlet couldn't be sure that Platinum had been giving her all when she'd lost to her last time.
"Ugh... I'm sorry I didn't make Platinum give it her all..."
Daiwa Scarlet had to admit that Platinum hadn't gone all out in their last showdown.
It was a tremendous humiliation!
She'd suffered a crushing defeat when her opponent hadn't even been taking the race seriously!
"Being weaker than Platinum now doesn't mean I'll always be weaker than her."
The exceptionally curvy, red-haired girl clenched her fists in frustration.
"Next time..."
"At next year's Classic races, I'll get my revenge!"
At that moment, at the racetrack!
The whole venue had turned into a boiling sea of excitement after Platinum crossed the finish line with a dominant victory!
"Platinum! Platinum! Platinum!"
"This is a real Heavenly Horse! I've loved Miss Platinum since the day I was born!"
"The Triple Crown! Someone as amazing as Platinum can definitely win next year's Fillies' Triple Crown, maybe even the Classic Triple Crown!"
"She's the strongest! The strongest!"
The stands, filled with thousands of spectators, rang with cheers and celebration.
After this one race, it was easy to imagine the name "Heavenly Horse" spreading throughout Japan's Uma Musume racing world!
Yet the heroine of the moment, the victor who'd claimed this supreme glory, stood there looking somewhat uncomfortable in her gleaming silver-white coat.
At the moment, she seemed more comfortable as an assassin taking down her opponents on the track than as an idol.
But with Platinum's incredible adaptability, it was only a matter of time before she got used to all this.
After all... back on the Terra Continent, before becoming a high-level working-class assassin, Platinum had worked as an Idol Knight.
You could say Platinum had a "gift for working" in every profession.
The Heavenly Horse, a born workhorse, calmly turned and bowed slightly to the spectators. Then, cool and elegant, she headed for the winner's stage.
But behind the seemingly cool, handsome, and distinctive Miss Heavenly Horse, her thoughts were—
(Prize money! The prize money for a graded stakes race must be pretty good.)
(If you have a trainer or an Exclusive Doctor, then the race prize money usually has to be split...)
(Working alone really is better!!)
A short while later.
At the entrance to the backstage area of the winner's stage.
As Platinum was about to enter, she immediately spotted an Uma Musume she hadn't seen at the track before.
The white-haired girl's pupils shrank. She recognized the Uma Musume waiting by the entrance almost instantly.
She'd seen her plenty of times in the anime: the famous long-distance runner and heiress to the Mejiro family!
Tokai Teio had broken a bone after losing to this long-distance monster in a race not long ago, which showed just how powerful Mejiro McQueen was.
Mejiro McQueen was holding a dessert she'd apparently bought somewhere, slowly savoring it as she waited.
When she turned and saw Platinum, Mejiro McQueen reluctantly set her dessert aside and addressed Platinum seriously.
"Hello, Platinum."
"I'm Mejiro McQueen. I wonder if you've heard of me."
"I'm here on behalf of Symboli Rudolf, the student council president at Tracen, to ask whether you'd be interested in joining Tracen Academy."
Mejiro McQueen, elegant and earnest, relayed what Symboli Rudolf had told her over the phone.
In other words, she was inviting the Heavenly Horse Platinum, brimming with limitless potential, to Japan's top Uma Musume school, Tracen Academy!
(She seems like a calm and composed junior. She'll surely accept.)
Platinum had met a major figure at the summit of Japanese racing, someone like Mejiro McQueen, and hadn't so much as changed her expression. That was proof enough of how calm and composed she was.
It also meant that Platinum must have a clear vision, along with a cool head and sharp mind.
As a rule, the smarter an Uma Musume was, the better she understood the value of a good training environment, powerful opponents to challenge, and experienced trainers.
Maybe only the clueless Oguri Cap was indifferent to those things.
"Platinum, what's your answer?"
The nonchalant Miss Heavenly Horse gave her reply.
"I'm not going."
Mejiro McQueen smiled and nodded.
"Yes, the benefits of going are—"
"What?!"
The dessert in Mejiro McQueen's hand slipped right out of her grasp and fell to the ground!
19. Heavenly Horse Platinum Makes Her Name Across Japan! She Enters the Oaks and Japanese Derby!
"What?!"
The dessert in Mejiro McQueen's hand slipped right out of her grasp and fell to the ground!
She'd never imagined that the calm, brilliant girl before her would refuse without a moment's hesitation!
Even Oguri Cap, who'd come from the countryside, had probably hesitated and thought it over for a while, hadn't she?
And even Oguri Cap hadn't refused all that firmly in the end. Surely it was only a matter of time before she joined Tracen.
But this Platinum was clearly even calmer and smarter, yet cared less about Tracen Academy than any Uma Musume Mejiro McQueen had ever known??
How was that possible?
"C-could you tell me why? Why don't you want to come to Tracen Academy?"
Mejiro McQueen was so baffled she couldn't keep up her elegant composure and blurted out the question.
But Miss Heavenly Horse quickly shook her head.
"There's no particular reason. I just don't really want to go."
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