Grass Wonder did not know what Special Week was thinking beside her. If she had, she would have been greatly surprised—and wholeheartedly agreed.
Because if she herself was a shadow, then in her eyes, Special Week was an eternal flame that would never go out.
From before her debut through her Classic Year, injuries had been like heavy shackles, binding her movements.
Even heavier was her status as an imported Horse Girl and the URA Association's regulations at the time. Because of that status and those rules, she had been unable to compete in the Triple Crown so many Horse Girls dreamed of.
Yet at some point, Special Week's bright and optimistic presence had unknowingly dispersed the gloom in her heart, and long since been deeply imprinted within it.
Every time she stepped onto the track and saw Special Week, she could not help wanting to shine with the same light and heat as a blazing torch.
At that moment, the track beneath her feet seemed to become a corridor through time, with scenes from past races surfacing one after another.
Time and again, she had given everything for victory. That was true.
But more than that, she wanted to use these fierce races to convey the Fighting Spirit that had been awakened within her.
She did not know whether their clashes, from then until now, had made Special Week feel it too.
But as long as they could still race together, still run together, she would never abandon that conviction.
As Special Week gradually caught up to Seiun Sky, El Condor Pasa ahead also unconsciously looked back at her and Grass Wonder.
To soar through the skies and become the strongest Horse Girl in the world—that was her dream.
Her brilliant record of eight wins and three runner-up finishes