Lunar stood on the track, a little farther down the lane. She hadn't moved in a while.
Namawa watched her, arms folded, then broke into a small, restless grin. "Finally! I kept wondering why it was taking her so long," she said, energy creeping into her voice.
Black Caviar reached out and patted Namawa's head, her eyes never leaving Lunar.
"To Lunar," she said at last, "running is more than moving fast down a track." She paused, voice softening. "We don't know what's going through her mind when she runs, or even before that. All we can do is silently support her."
The others fell quiet, understanding settling in. They knew why Lunar was here, with them. They knew what she'd lost. And so, their gazes drifted back to the grey figure on the track.
Lunar remained where she was, standing still. She closed her eyes. but the world didn't disappear. It sharpened, edges drawing clear instead of fading, every sound and sensation stepping forward to meet her.
The world didn't disappear. It sharpened. Sounds came forward instead of fading. Wind brushed past the stands. Distant voices softened into background noise. Beneath it all was the steady rhythm of her own breathing.
In.
Out.
The ground felt comfortable under her feet, firm but forgiving. She shifted her weight slightly, testing it, the way she always used to. The way she was taught.
Listen first, her mother's voice murmured, soft as the wind slipping past her ears. The track will tell you when it's ready.
The wind carried the words away, then returned them, overlapping with the present.
You don't have to be fast, the voice said again. Just be honest.
Lunar swallowed. The tightness in her chest loosened, not gone, but settled.
She opened her eyes. Black Caviar stood at the edge of the track, watching her without pressure, without expectation.
"…I'm ready," Lunar said.
Black Caviar met her gaze and nodded once. She raised a hand.
"On your mark," she said, calm as ever.
The countdown began.
Black Caviar's voice carried cleanly down the track.
"Three."
Lunar's stance was loose at first. Her shoulders low. Arms hanging easy at her sides. She looked almost casual, as if she were standing there with nowhere urgent to be.
"Two."
Her feet shifted. Just a fraction. The ground pressed back, solid and certain, and something in it spoke to her. The ease drained away. Her spine straightened. Her arms drew in closer to her body. Every part of her tightened, not tense, but compact.
"One."
Lunar leaned forward. Her weight settled into the balls of her feet. Her breathing sharpened, shorter, purposeful. The softness was gone. In its place was focus, hard and clear.
Saiya noticed it then.
Her eyes widened slightly. She muttered, almost to herself. "She changed..?."
"Go!"
Lunar exploded off the line.
Her first step struck hard, clean. Then another. Strong, compact strides, each one sending dust flying onto the air. The air tore past her as she surged forward, no wasted movement.
A sharp intake of breath rippled through the group.
"She's—" Anonym started, then stopped.
"That's… that's insanely fast," Persian breathed, eyes wide as she watched Lunar tear down the track, each stride hitting hard and clean.
Saiya leaned forward, almost bouncing. "Her movement—" she said quickly. "It's so sharp!"
Namawa laughed, loud and unfiltered, bouncing on her toes. "Did you guys see that start?!!?" she blurted. "That was crazy! She looked like big sis Invi!"
Then the world narrowed to Lunar.
The track felt alive beneath her feet. Not just firm, but responsive. The air moved differently at this speed, rushing past her ears in sharp, layered currents. She could hear it now. The whisper of wind. The dull thud of impact. The subtle change in texture as the surface shifted beneath her stride.
Adjust, the ground urged.
She did.
A slight change in foot angle. A tighter swing of her arms. Every demand was met without thought, instinct answering before doubt could form.
At first, the voices crowded her. The wind, the track, the rhythm of her breath, all speaking at once. It was disorienting. Usually, her mother's voice would rise above them, clear and steady, guiding her through the noise.
I'm here, she used to say. But now, there was only her.
Lunar faltered for half a heartbeat, thrown by the silence where that voice should have been. The absence felt hollow, exposed, and for a moment the sounds rushed in to fill it.
Then she understood.
The voices weren't competing. They didn't need drowning out. They needed listening.
So she stopped trying to separate them. She didn't push the sounds away or try to bring them into order. She let them come all at once, flooding over her senses. Wind, ground, breath, motion—each pressing in, louder than her own thoughts, louder than her sense of self.
Her presence thinned. The first turn rushed toward her.
"Mama? Why isn't she slowing down?!!?," Saiya blurted, panic creeping into her voice.
Black Caviar's hand tightened on the rail. "Lunar—"
Panic flared through the group. At that speed, the curve could punish a mistake. Black Caviar was already moving, vaulting the rail, ready to sprint out and stop her—
Then she saw it.
Lunar shifted her balance just before the turn. Not a break. Not a stumble. A controlled lean, smooth and deliberate, her stride tightening even further as her center dropped low.
Black Caviar froze.
That adjustment. That instinctive understanding of the curve.
Guair, she thought.
Lunar took the turn without slowing, carried by the track itself, and Black Caviar let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
For a heartbeat, no one spoke.
Then it exploded.
"Did you see that?!" Namawa squealed, grabbing Anonym's shoulders and shaking them hard. "She didn't slow down! She didn't slow down at all!"
"That turn—" Anonym blinked, still staring at the track as Namawa rattled her. "She just… curved around it. Like it wasn't even there."
Persian let out a sharp laugh, half-amazed, half-unbelieving. "At that speed? That's not supposed to work!"
Saiya stayed quiet. She didn't cheer or laugh. She just watched Lunar, eyes fixed, something unreadable flickering across her face.
Lunar kept running.
Her body moved without resistance, each breath falling into place as if it had already been decided. Her heart beat hard and even in her chest, not with urgency, but with a calm that felt borrowed. It didn't hurt. It didn't strain. It simply went on, carrying her forward before she could question it.
The track met her every step. The air parted cleanly around her. The world didn't blur or rush past—it sharpened, edges tightening, sounds thinning until only what mattered remained. She could sense the curve ahead before it appeared, feel the ground shift before her feet touched it, like the track was guiding her rather than the other way around.
Her stride flowed, light and exact, powerful without effort. Each movement folded neatly into the next, seamless and sure, as if her body were answering a call she no longer needed to hear.
Saiya's breath hitched.
Is this… the first time I'm seeing her? she thought. This Lunar was moving, alive—
Saiya's brow furrowed.
—but she wasn't there.
"I can't…" Saiya whispered, the words catching. She shook her head slightly. "I can't feel her."
Lunar ran on, the wind carrying her forward. For the first time in a long while, running didn't hurt. It wasn't home—not fully, but it was close enough to resemble it. Close enough to feel like a place she almost remembered.
Black Caviar didn't move.
She just smiled, slow and disbelieving, eyes following Lunar as she disappeared down the straight. There was a warmth in her chest she hadn't felt in a long time. A quiet, aching happiness.
That running style.
Selfish, in the purest sense. Running only for oneself. For the feel of it. For the enjoyment. And yet selfless too. Accepting the track as it was. Accepting the air, the curve, the limits. Never forcing the world to bend. Only listening.
Guair used to run like that.
Black Caviar's smile softened.
Guair had never been successful by the numbers. No shining records. No graded victories. Not because she lacked talent. If anything, she had too much of it. Enough that Black Caviar, even now, could admit she had been jealous.
But Guair had never been ambitious.
She hated graded races. Hated the way winning there felt like crushing something. Hated how someone's dream always had to end for her to stand taller. Sometimes, midway through a race, she would ease up. Just a little. Enough to win by less than she could have.
Black Caviar had been furious when she found out.
They had fought about it. Loudly. Bitterly.
She remembered her younger self, sharp with pride, calling it disrespectful. To the other runners. To the sport. To Guair herself. Throwing away what she was capable of.
Guair hadn't raised her voice.
She had only looked at her and said, calmly, "I only run for myself. For my enjoyment. And I do not enjoy trampling on others. So as the selfish person I am, I run as myself, even if that myself is considered bad in your eyes."
That was the day they fell apart.
Black Caviar swallowed, the regret as familiar as her own breath. Just as she had for the past decade.
Her eyes found Lunar again. "I understand it now," Black Caviar murmured, so softly no one heard. "I'm sorry it took me so long, Guiar."
And this time, she let herself smile without holding anything back.
Lunar was already approaching the final corner. Anonym let out a breath. "She looks… comfortable."
Lunar felt it too. The steady pound of her heart. The smooth pull of her muscles. Nothing burned. Nothing demanded. If anything, her body felt lighter the farther she went, as if the track had begun carrying her instead of the other way around.
This is it, she thought. Not fast. Not slow. Just right.
The final corner opened before her, and she didn't brace for it. She welcomed it. The curve spoke, and she answered without thinking, her balance shifting naturally, stride tightening just enough. There was no force in it. No resistance. Only flow.
So this is what you meant, she thought, the wind brushing her cheek. Not to her mother this time, but to the memory of her. To the lessons that had stayed when everything else was gone.
Saiya gasped.
Her eye caught every detail—the angle of Lunar's lean, the relaxed set of her shoulders, the way her stride didn't fracture even under the curve. It was flawless. Too flawless.
"She's not just running," Saiya whispered. "She looks like… running itself."
A spark flared in her eyes as Lunar swept past, fast enough to blur at the edge of her vision. Her friend. Her dear friend.
And yet—Saiya's chest tightened. As Lunar drew closer, there was still nothing. No presence to meet her. No sense of weight or intent. It was like reaching out and finding only air.
For Lunar, the world began to thin.
The finish line came into view ahead, bright and distant. She could see the figures beyond it—Black Caviar at the rail, Namawa bouncing on her toes, Anonym, Persian, Saiya all clustered together, arms raised, mouths open in what had to be cheers. Their shapes were clear, familiar.
But the sound didn't reach her.
The wind fell away first. Then the rhythm beneath her feet dulled, like the track was slipping out from under her stride. The pounding in her chest softened, stretched, and then—
No track.
No heartbeat.
The voices vanished all at once, cut so clean the absence made her blink. The world tilted, reality slipping just enough to feel wrong beneath her feet.
Obsidian.
She was there again. That endless black field that swallowed light whole. The place where her legs had once betrayed her. Where every step had felt heavy. Wrong. Meaningless.
Her breath caught.
No—
Her heart stuttered, then lurched to a stop as panic rushed in. There was no ground to feel now. No air to hear. No rhythm to cling to. Just darkness stretching in every direction, vast and unresponsive.
She was stuck.
On the track, Lunar slowed.
Namawa straightened, confusion flashing across her face. "Hey—?" Her voice cracked as she leaned forward. "Why is she slowing down!??"
Anonym's jaw visibly tightened. "That's not right," she said, eyes never leaving Lunar.
She leaned forward to see better, Lunar's face had gone pale—too pale for someone running that hard. Worse, her golden eyes looked unfocused, their usual light dulled, like they were staring through the track instead of at it.
A heartbeat passed. Then another.
Saiya's face drained of color. She took a step toward the rail. "Lunar lost it," she said quietly, fear creeping in. "Something's wrong!"
Amid the rising tension, Black Caviar was already sprinting.
For a split second, she thought it was a [Zone]. That familiar look. That closed-off world only a few could manifest, fewer still could control, and almost none truly master. Black Caviar knew it well. She carried one herself. She knew the strain it placed on the body, even on a fully grown Uma. On a filly as young as Lunar, not yet close to maturization, it could be even more dangerous.
She vaulted the fence, intent on stopping the running filly. But as she sprinted toward Lunar, her instincts screamed otherwise.
This wasn't a [Zone].
There was no pressure in the air. No overwhelming presence. No sparks, no intensity radiating outward. Instead, there was nothing.
Absence.
She felt it even from a distance. Something dense and heavy, like a wall, swallowing sound, space, and thought itself.
That's not a zone, Black Caviar realized, fear spiking. That's like a… void.
Her chest tightened. "I can't feel Lunar at all." The thought hit Black Caviar like a blow, and at the same moment—
Lunar's legs gave out. In her mind, it felt like the world simply let go of her.
In the darkness, the grief rushed in all at once. The weight she had learned to carry, the one she thought she understood now, became unbearable without anything to anchor it. With no sound, no ground, no rhythm to hold onto, it crushed her flat.
She fell, arms slack, swallowed by endless black.
I can't—
I don't know how—
There was no bottom. No sense of falling, only loss.
Then—
A hand closed around her.
Strong. Desperate. Warm.
She was pulled into an embrace, tight enough to hurt, and reality crashed back in pieces. Sound returned in a violent rush. Voices overlapped. The sky flashed white above her.
Black Caviar's face was there, close enough to fill her vision, ocean eyes wide with fear she didn't try to hide as she held Lunar tightly.
"Lunar—stay with me—" she said, her voice breaking.
The sounds rushed in around her all at once. Namawa's panicked voice echoed somewhere nearby, Anonym shouting her name, Persian calling out sharply, Saiya screaming for help as footsteps thundered closer.
Lunar tried to speak, to answer them, but the strength wouldn't come. The edges of her vision blurred, the noise smearing into something distant and warped as the darkness surged back in.
Her vision blurred, then faded completely, as the last thing she felt being Black Caviar's arms around her as the world went black.