Kitahara had climbed up from outside the building.
As for why he had climbed up, of course it was because he could not stop worrying about Teio and had come to check on her.
That did not mean he had snuck into her dorm, however. He had notified the necessary people in advance and obtained their permission, but in the end, this was still a girls' dorm. Teio's room was on the fourth floor, too. Walking in and going upstairs normally would have been somewhat awkward.
And there was another very important point: if Kitahara had simply walked in, in a sense, it would undermine Tracen's iron law that "Trainers are not allowed to enter and leave Umamusume dorms."
Granted, that iron law did not sound like much, considering Trainers could not freely enter Umamusume dorms while Umamusume going in and out of Trainer dorms had already become completely normal.
The problem was that no matter how fragile the Trainer dorms were, and no matter how casually people came and went, they were still Trainer dorms in the end. They were the Trainers' territory. If some accident really did happen there, the Trainer could still prepare in advance, or rely on those preparations to put up the faintest bit of resistance.
But if a Trainer entered an Umamusume dorm, and those "innocent and adorable," "utterly harmless" Umamusume had certain ideas in mind, then...
All one could do was pray there were still hospital beds available, and that someone would discover the situation as soon as possible and report it to Tracen.
So Kitahara chose to climb up from outside. On one hand, it avoided awkwardness. On the other, if anyone asked about it later, Yayoi Akikawa could say that anyone who could climb four floors barehanded was welcome to do the same, thereby continuing to uphold the iron law that Trainers were not allowed to enter or leave Umamusume dorms.
However, although he had gotten in, met her, and even held Teio in his arms without her showing any resistance, the problem was that the matter was not over. In fact, one could say it had only just begun.
How was he supposed to comfort Teio in a way that could untie the knot in her heart?
Even at the moment he pulled Teio into his arms, Kitahara still had not thought of the answer.
He was not good at comforting people to begin with, and Teio's condition was especially serious. Forget Kitahara—even Rudolf could not think of a way to help her walk out from the shadow of this defeat.
But even without knowing what to do, Kitahara had still come.
"I came to see you."
After pulling Teio into his arms, Kitahara did not rush to speak. He only rubbed her hair and silently felt the small body in his embrace gradually soften from stiffness. The whole time, he said nothing.
Teio did not speak either. Kitahara's sudden appearance, along with his bizarre way of appearing, had struck her with a considerable impact as well. Although it had diverted her attention to some extent, for the moment, it also made her temporarily lose the ability to react in any other way.
Silence.
After that silent embrace had gone on for who knew how long, Teio, gradually coming back to herself, finally realized what had happened. After opening and closing her mouth for quite a while, she spoke softly.
"Trainer-san, why are you here...?"
"Didn't I say? I came to see you."
After a pause, he added, "Don't worry about the fallout. I spoke with the Chairwoman and the others in advance. Mayano Top Gun—your roommate, Maya-chan—agreed too."
After another stretch of silence.
"...I'm sorry, Trainer-san. I made you worry."
Teio's voice was low.
The moment her words fell, there came the crisp sound of a flick to the forehead.
THWACK!
Teio winced and instinctively shrank her head back like a little turtle. Tears even faintly welled at the corners of her eyes. It took her quite a while to react before she lifted her head and looked tearfully at Kitahara.
"Trainer-san, why...?"
"So you do know I'm your Trainer."
Kitahara pinched Teio's nose, looking at her pitiful, faintly confused expression.
"You are my Tantou—my assigned Umamusume—and I am your Trainer. No matter what happens to you, it's only right that I care about you and help you. You don't need to thank me, and you especially don't need to apologize to me."
"Especially when this incident itself is partly my responsibility. I agreed to your idea of training on your own, and I was also the one who helped change everyone else's minds. If you think this defeat was a mistake, then I'm your accomplice. Understand?"
Accomplice...
Kitahara's words made Teio pause slightly. She instinctively wanted to refute him, but before she could organize her words, Kitahara spoke again.
"I know losing the Satsuki Sho hit you hard. It may even have made you start doubting whether you need to exist at all. But Teio, ask yourself honestly—do you really think you're weak?"
"I..."
Faced with Kitahara's question, Teio was at a loss for words.
Although she had indeed lost at the Satsuki Sho, even finishing fourth, if she asked herself honestly, Teio could not possibly say she was weak. She could even be called a top-class Umamusume. Across her entire generation, the only racers who could beat her were those few monsters on the team.
But the moment she thought about the team's situation, that pitch-black figure surfaced in Teio's mind on its own, and her body began trembling unconsciously.
"But..."
"No buts, Teio."
Kitahara interrupted her again.
"I know you want to talk about Eclipse, but I can tell you right now that Eclipse is not a normal Umamusume. You could even say she and Umamusume are two different species. I can't reveal the specifics."
"But there's no need for you to compare yourself with her. Comparing her with Umamusume standards is the same as comparing Umamusume with human standards. The comparison itself is unfair. Even she herself thinks so."
"And if we remove Eclipse from the equation, the gap between you and the other two isn't that large. I rewatched the footage of that race several times afterward."
"Although you were several lengths behind the two of them at the end, I noticed that you only began falling behind after Eclipse accelerated again—after the Domain the three of you had joined together collapsed. Your running form at the time, and your stamina consumption, were both very different from your usual training, and that was what ultimately led to your defeat."
"Or, to put it more bluntly, your raw strength at the time was not that much worse than the other two. It was Eclipse's burst that affected your mentality, which then affected your condition, and finally led to that result."
A moment of silence.
"But I still lost." Teio lowered her head, making her expression impossible to see.
"Yes, you lost."
Kitahara nodded readily, without the slightest hesitation and without trying to comfort her on that point.
"But Teio, Umamusume racing is a competitive sport. Whether you lose or win, both are perfectly normal parts of it. Even the President you admire so much has lost more than once."
The President...
At the mention of Rudolf, Teio's expression in the shadows gradually turned complicated.
She buried her head in Kitahara's chest, gripping the cloth over his heart, her voice somewhat low.
"Trainer-san, can you tell me what kind of relationship you and the President actually have?"
After a pause, she added, "And."
"Do. Not. Lie. To. Me."
How did the topic suddenly veer over here?
Hearing Teio's question, Kitahara was somewhat confused. After thinking for a while, he decided to answer honestly.
"I don't know."
Kitahara's tone was sincere, his gaze clear.
Teio: "..."
Teio: "What do you mean, you don't know?"
"I mean I don't know."
Kitahara gave a helpless shrug.
"To be honest, I'm not clear on what sort of relationship I have with the President either."
"Superior and subordinate? I don't work on the Student Council. Friends? It doesn't really feel like that either. Bros? That feels a little closer. And lately, she seems to have started treating me like a bro too. She's starting to forget we're different sexes, and her jokes are getting more and more out of bounds. I've always wanted to talk with her about it, but things have been busy recently, so I haven't had the time..."
Kitahara was not lying. Although Rudolf had forcibly kissed him and confessed to him during the Yayoi Sho, because Kitahara had remained busy with other matters afterward, Rudolf's follow-up offensive had never had a chance to get going. As a result, while Kitahara busied himself, the feeling of that day gradually faded.
Especially after his earlier visit to the Symboli main house, Rudolf and Sirius had, for all sorts of reasons, staged all kinds of scenes in front of him, effectively inoculating him in advance.
As a result, by the time Kitahara came around to thinking about it again, he slowly began to feel that perhaps Rudolf had said those words that day for some other reason—because she was fighting with Sirius, for example—and that they could not really count as a confession.
After all, as everyone knew, as one of the current top Umamusume, "The Emperor" had enough pursuers to circle Tracen three times. Among them, there was no shortage of people outstanding in all sorts of ways. Surely she wouldn't have fallen for a slacker Trainer like him.
Moreover, according to rumors, Rudolf seemed to have shown no interest in any member of the opposite sex to date. Instead, when facing Umamusume, she behaved rather warmly, even enthusiastically.
Combined with how she allowed the yuri atmosphere within Tracen to flourish in all sorts of ways, it was hard not to suspect her orientation.
Kitahara had even thought further than that. After all, before crossing over, he had watched no small amount of Umamusume fanworks. He had more than once suspected that this tyrannical Emperor might be interested in Oguri Cap, and was afraid that one day she would suddenly take Oguri skating at an ice rink.
Faced with Kitahara's answer, Teio was silent for quite a while.
"...You think that was a joke?"
"Wasn't it?" Kitahara asked back.
After a long silence, Teio lifted her head. Looking at Kitahara's sincere yet somewhat confused expression, she let out a deep sigh.
"I'm sorry, Trainer-san. I shouldn't have doubted you."
Teio's tone was sincere.
Faced with this sudden apology, Kitahara looked very confused.
Why was she apologizing all of a sudden? And what had she been doubting him about?
Then, after apologizing, Teio's thoughts returned to Umamusume racing, and her mood gradually sank again.
To be honest, Teio actually knew she should not be wallowing like this. After all, just as Kitahara said, Umamusume racing was a competitive sport, and wins and losses were normal.
But knowing was one thing. When she truly faced defeat, the things she had carried in the past, the things that had once pushed her forward, all became weights pressing down on her heart.
Her effort, her dream, even her life...
The moment she lost, everything had turned into bubbles and vanished into that pitch-black fog.
Looking at Teio before him as her mood gradually sank, Kitahara could guess what she was thinking, but he had no good solution either.
After all, no matter how he comforted her, losing the race meant losing the race. If he could make her feel a little less sad and lighten the shadow it had cast over her, that was already the limit. He had never expected to say a few words and directly make Teio walk out of that shadow and return to her usual state.
"You admire the President, and I think that's a very good goal. After all, the President truly is outstanding. You want an undefeated Triple Crown, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that either, because you really do have that strength."
"But Teio, what I want to say is that the President is so outstanding and so loved not only because of her undefeated Triple Crown."
"Certainly, her strength is immense and her record is dazzling. Those are part of the reason she is loved."
"But aside from that, there is also the discipline she holds herself to, the efforts she makes for the happiness of other Umamusume, and the optimism she shows by telling jokes every day... Oh, sorry. That last one is one of her few flaws."
"In any case, Teio, you need to understand that the President's excellence does not come only from her strength, nor only from her record. Even if the halo of the undefeated Triple Crown were stripped away, she would still be an extremely outstanding President, deeply trusted by others."
"Not to mention, the President lost later too, and even lost terribly. But did that affect her place in your heart?"
"Teio, I admit that victory and defeat are important. Of course they are."
"But victory and defeat are not everything."
"Do you understand what I mean?"
Silence.
There was no response.
Kitahara was not surprised. After all, no matter what he said, whether she could walk out of this in the end was up to Teio herself. No matter how well he spoke, his words could only provide her with some help.
So he rubbed Teio's head again and said softly,
"It's fine if you don't want to answer. I've spoken with the Chairwoman and the others. Tonight, or even longer, as long as you need it, I'll stay here with you until you're willing to come out."
"And it isn't only me. Everyone on the team is very worried about you too. They're all waiting for you, waiting for you to come out so we can train together and run together toward a more distant future."
"You are not alone, Teio."
The delicate body in his arms trembled slightly, but still gave no response.
Kitahara was not in a hurry either. He simply held Teio quietly, and the room gradually settled back into silence.
But just as Kitahara thought tonight would probably pass quietly like this, a voice rang out.
"A certain someone said I'm different from normal Umamusume, and that comparing me with normal Umamusume can't be called fair. I admit that point too."
"But that someone seems not to have considered that putting him together with other normal Trainers and comparing them can't be called fair either."
"If I'm a monster, then shouldn't someone be called a monster-making machine?"
Hearing this voice, Kitahara turned his head in surprise and looked at the pitch-black figure that had appeared in the room at some unknown point.
"Eclipse, why are you here?"
Eclipse did not answer his question. Instead, she turned her gaze toward Teio in Kitahara's arms.
"Tokai Teio, if you don't mind, I'd like to talk with you about something."
"I know the Satsuki Sho was a great shock to you, but what I want to say is that the impact of this matter may be even more serious than you imagine."
"In fact, if the situation is severe enough, the sport of Umamusume racing itself may fade away from here on out."
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T/N: WHAT?
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