For the first time in months, Western Woodland woke up early in the morning. Her single-room apartment wasn’t big enough for any proper stretches, so she went outside, standing in the small yard behind the building as she went through a series of warm-up exercises. After that, she ran - ran! - to the nearby park. Finding the longest stretch of land, she ran from one end to the other, coming to a sudden stop and turning, only to run back to the side and do it again. She ran faster and faster, trying the stop and one hundred and eighty degree turn at faster and faster speeds as the sun slowly rose.
Covered in sweat, she walked back to her apartment to shower before work.
“Do any of the famous racehorses drink this?”
Her facade faltered at the question, but only for a moment. She quickly recovered. “The top competitors are very secretive about what they drink.” She said, looking down at the young horse girl who asked the question. “They always give generic answers because they don’t want to give away the specifics. Tokai Teio loves honey tea, but what kind? Did she ever say?” The youngster shook her head. “That’s right. So anyone who says they enjoy energy drinks. They might drink these, but I couldn’t give away anything they wouldn’t give away.”
“So…do any drink energy drinks?”
Crouching down, she put herself on the same level as the child. “Do you know Crystal Spark? She races in Fukushima.” The girl nodded. “Crystal Spark loves energy drinks.” Woodland had seen her old rival downing multiple cans in a row during training sessions. It was not the brand she was selling now, but that wasn’t the question.
“I want to run like Crystal Spark! They say she’s going to be in Tokyo next year!” The horse girl squealed, before trotting off. Western Woodland stood up, her mouth dry. If things had been different, that girl might have said her name. If she hadn’t changed her appearance, the girl might have recognized her.
She might have been the one going to Tokyo.
Shaking her head, she pushed those thoughts aside.
No use thinking about the past.
“Come on! Pick up the pace!”
She chased Atlas Spirit down the mountain.
Just one day of practice wasn’t enough to put her on the level of a practiced mountain runner, but she could tell that her partner wasn’t holding back as much. She attacked the straights harder, turned faster. Every sprint out of the corner was faster, more strength in those steps. Western Woodland preferred to stay in the middle of the pack, and never had a reason to fight hard for a good opening position. Repeatedly accelerating from nothing was another new skill to learn. Yet she could still see the difference in their abilities in other areas. After the third run, Spirit was panting and sweating, while Woodland stood upright, taking deep breaths. Her old training regimen was harder than this.
“You’re unnatural.” Spirit said as they walked up the mountain before their last run of the night.
“I’m a hard worker.”
“I guess the official racing life isn’t all that easy.”
“I don’t go to training after a nine to five, at least.”
Spirit gave a small chuckle at that. “I was bitter about them when I was young. Then I just ignored it. You’re the first view into that world I’ve had.”
Stolen novel; please report.
Woodland frowned. “You don’t even watch the races? Read the magazines?”
“None of that. I focus on myself. There is no place for me in that world, so I don’t let it have a place in mine.”
This was a girl that would never have seen Western Woodland. Probably didn’t even know the name. Didn’t know she was discharged. She could reveal her full identity to Spirit and the girl would still just think she was a washout of some kind. It was a good feeling, but there was no reason to say anything. She just smiled. “I want to see what your races are like.”
“You will. Two weeks from now, the last friday of the month. If you feel confident by then, I’ll put you in as part of our team.”
“Team?”
“Yeah. Bongo and I are the only active members now, but Haruna used to have a strong team of racers. Sometimes you defend your home turf, sometimes you go and challenge other teams on their tracks. I’ve never done that, but I’ve beaten a few girls who came here looking for a challenge. The upcoming race is different, though. The Akagi team is coming. They are supposed to be really strong. Haven’t been here since I started racing, but they’ve beaten the other teams in Gunma. I want to be as good as I can when they show up.”
“Hence the training partner.”
“Well, if there’s two of us, we can put up a real fight.”
“Then I’ll have to get better and start pushing you more.” Woodland said, turning the final curve and seeing the starting point again.
“You’re already freaky strong for someone who started running this yesterday. They must have fed you something strange in Fukushima.”
“If anyone has been eating strange things, it’s Bongo. How else would she get so tall?”
As they took their positions on the makeshift starting position - a white line painted across the road - both of the girls laughed, the sound dying as Spirit started a countdown on her phone. When the speaker buzzed, the two burst into motion.
On a regular course, she’d probably outperform Atlas Spirit in most aspects. She had to weigh those advantages in. The opening dash was against her, which put her on the back foot. She pushed herself as hard as she could on that short first sprint to the first corner, almost catching up before she fell behind, her technique on the sharp eighty degree turn making her lose ground.
Feet pounding, she pushed herself again, catching up before the more gentle second corner, which didn’t require a hard stop and start. The third corner was a hairpin, necessitating a nearly perfect one eighty spin. Atlas Spirit turned perfectly, dashing off to the next gentle corner as Western Woodland stumbled it, losing more ground than she should have. It was only her second day, and she needed more training, but she didn’t like being consistently the slowest horse girl on the track, even if there were only the two of them.
As much as she pushed herself over the rest of the track, she couldn’t make up the distance, and fell further and further behind, only making up lost ground on the long stretch after the double hairpin. The double hairpin put her so far behind that the long stretch was spent recovering what she lost rather than making gains.
By the time they got to the bottom, Spirit had a strong lead on her, an amount that would be embarrassing on any real track. The numerous turns, especially the four consecutive hairpins near the end, made the difference in their ability stand out more. Western Woodland’s chest burned, not just from exertion but with frustration.
“That’s four. Going to call it for today. You look like you could do another one or two, but don’t. You don’t want to run this pass alone.”
“Why not?”
Spirit met her eyes. “There’s a ghost on this mountain. A black and white horse girl haunts the pass, running and turning impossibly fast. If you end up behind her, you’re safe, but you’ll never catch her. If she appears behind you, though, she’ll hunt you down. Nobody has ever escaped her.”
“What happens when she catches you?” Woodland asked, her heart pounding faster than it had been a moment ago. Someone even faster than Spirit was here? That sounded exciting.
“Nobody she caught survived to tell.”
“If nobody she caught survived, how do you-oh. You’re just making stuff up.”
The shorter horse girl burst into laughter. “You were really going to go ghost hunting!”
Exasperated, Woodland threw up her hands. “I don’t believe in ghosts. I just thought there might be another fast runner here I could find.”
“There isn’t, sorry. I made that all up. No, you just don’t want to be alone here if you fall. Nobody will find you until morning. Don’t want to spend all that time bleeding on the ground.”
Western Woodland nodded. That wasn’t something she’d ever consider training on a proper track. Safety was an entirely different scenario here. “Thanks for the advice. I’ll go home and get some sleep.”
