On a Pale Horse (Umamusume/Youjo Senki)

[9ballSeraph]

The air was thick with gunpowder smoke, and the sky itself seemed to groan beneath the weight of thunder and musket fire. Byerley Turk staggered in the mud, her breath ragged, the sharp taste of iron flooding her mouth. Her forehead burned—blood streamed down into her eye, blinding one side of her world. She could still feel the tremor of steel on steel in her hands, the memory of that desperate clash with the enemy uma's bayonet. Every muscle screamed. Her knees buckled.

The cries of men and horses mingled in a chorus of violence around her, but they grew faint—muffled, as though she were sliding beneath water. She collapsed, cheek pressed to the cold mire, staring upward through the smoke and chaos.

And then she saw it.

The heavens split, not by cannon fire, but by the streak of something impossible.

A girl. Small, blonde-haired, clad in a green military uniform that did not belong to this war, soared across the sky. Not riding, not leaping, but flying—cutting through clouds as though the world had granted her dominion over air itself. Bullets—no, not bullets, something stranger—sought her out, and she twisted between them with unearthly precision. She corkscrewed, rolled, danced among murderous bursts of fire. Around her swarmed enemies—uniformed men wielding weapons she did not recognize, their flashes sparking against the dark—but none could touch her.

The world should have trembled beneath such fury, yet Byerley's eyes caught on something else.

The wind caught the girl's hair as she soared higher. Golden strands shimmered in the light of explosions. And though her face was twisted in some terrible frenzy, though her mouth was pulled back in a snarl of battle-madness, Byerley did not see the fury. She saw the glimmer of joy burning in the filly's eyes, brighter than all the fire that rained around her.

It was freedom.

That was what it meant. To cut through the sky unbound, to feel the air as a living current beneath your body, to dance where no hoof had ever touched. Byerley's heart lurched with a pang sharper than her wounds.

She wanted that.

She wanted to run—not across fields of mud and blood, not through the clamor of musket fire and dying screams, but across endless green. She wanted to feel the same wind, the same sky, brushing against her skin.

Her lips moved, barely a whisper, swallowed by the noise of battle:

"Ah… to run…"

The vision shimmered, like sunlight off a blade, and faded. All that remained was the smoke, the mud, and the slow trickle of her blood painting the earth beneath her.

A shadow fell over her. A strong hand gripped her arm, hauling her upright.

"Come now, lass!" Captain Robert Byerley's voice thundered, though muffled in her daze. She could barely make out his grin through the haze, his face streaked with mud and powder, eyes alight with reckless joy. He pressed a fresh musket into her hands, slapping the stock against her shoulder as if to rouse her spirit. "Up! Up! We've work yet!"

He gestured wildly, rallying, chuckling at her state as though this was all a game. He bellowed something more—orders, encouragement, maybe a jest—but the words were lost in the ringing of her ears.

Still, his laughter reached her.

Her vision of the flying girl burned still in her mind, lending her a strength that surprised her battered body. Her legs, trembling and slick with mud, steadied. She wanted to live. She wanted to run.

For a moment she wavered—ashamed of her lapse in discipline, ashamed of how her spirit faltered when her comrades still pressed forward. "Fool," she muttered under her breath, chiding herself. An uma must not drift into dream while the muskets roared.

And yet—because of that dream—she found her footing again. She snapped the musket to her chest, gritted her teeth, and surged forward beside Robert.

Through smoke and steel they charged.

The war was won, though not without blood. Months later, in a grand mansion far from the battlefield, the air was heavy with firelight and conversation instead of powder and death. Colonel Robert Byerley sat among gentlemen, his uniform polished, his wounds mostly healed, his wife seated elegantly at his side. Crystal glasses clinked, and the talk had turned—as it always did—to the war just passed.

"You should have seen it," Robert said, his booming laugh filling the chamber. "There I was, near cut off from my men, reconnoitering far too close to the enemy line. A fool's errand, but orders are orders. They spotted me, and I caught a ball for my trouble. Would've been finished there and then—aye, captured, dragged before their officers—had it not been for my friend."

He raised his glass toward Byerley Turk, who lingered at the edge of the gathering, half in the shadow of the mantel's glow. "Owing my safety to her superior speed, no less. Carried me as though I weighed no more than a sack of oats, though blood soaked us both. A finer comrade no officer could pray for."

The men of the Jockey Club chuckled appreciatively, though some looked at her with curiosity—this soldier, this uma, who fought in fields where most of their kind were seen only in races or hunts.

Robert's wife smiled faintly, though with that restrained air of a woman accustomed to war stories retold for effect. She laid a hand on her husband's arm, murmuring for him to temper his boasting.

But Byerley Turk stepped forward then, the firelight catching the scar still faintly visible upon her brow. Her eyes were steady, though within them flickered something other than battle. Something freer.

"Colonel," she said, her voice quiet but firm, "I want to join the club."

The room paused, the chatter stilled. Robert blinked, then broke into a grin, his teeth flashing.

She lowered her gaze for a moment, then raised it again with quiet resolve.

"I want to run."

 

[9ballSeraph]

"What we have here people is Shirogane Orzel"
"Cute, promising and studious. Unusual studious."
"Look at her ears people. Umas only have one ear ornament. Left or Right."
"How come she has two?"
"SEE THIS IS THEIR PLAN PEOPLE. THEYRE BRINGING IN INTERDIMENSIONAL SOLDIERS TO TAKE OUR CARATS AND FEED IT TO THEIR DEMENTED FOUR LEGGED GIANT DOG THINGS THAT THEY CALLED UMAS."
"ORZEL IS AN INTERDIMENSIONAL MAGIC CHILD SOLDIER WHO LIVED IN WORLD WHERE UMAS ARE WEIRD GIANT DOG LOOKING THINGS."
AHHHHHHH WERE BREAKING THE CONDITIONING!
THEY'LL NEVER TAKE OUR CARATS, NEVER TAKE OUR RACES AND NEVEER DEFEAT THE THREE GODDESSES

 

[Neo3932156]

Would be funny if they go home at the end of the day then come back in the morning to her still running at the same speed haha! With the motion sensor counting and timing the laps recording a consistent pace the entire time.

Click to shrink...

How I would have justify it

---

"Hey, isn't this supposed to be home room period?" One of the student called out to a friend sitting beside her, seemingly distracted by something in the track field and question asked with a confused tone.

"Yes, it is." She replied, "why do you ask?"

"There's a student there," she pointed out to the field. "What are they doing there missing out on the first day of class even, or how?"

The conversation attracted the attention of various Uma student, suddenly curious and ears attracted by potential rumors of things happening in their running race track.

"Oh, that's just a new student." The teacher, caught wind of their distraction, explained. "Apparently there's some issue with some of their running record they weren't able to resolve properly before the start of the new semester. She was given special exemption and allowed to skip the first homeroom so that they can resolve it together with the Student Council and the school administration."

"Wait," one of the student exclaim. "You can skip the first day of class and go straight to the running, how?"

"I don't understand it myself, but we've been informed that due to an issue of scheduling and booking, they weren't able to complete their records until now."

"Something about needing to book the entire track for an extended period of time, and the class period was deemed quote should be long enough end quote. Anyway, it isn't something you need to worried about, we were informed that the student will go straight to class as soon as they finish their run."

And so, their class continue on, with those student lucky enough to be sitting next to the classroom windows was able to see the student started her run.

---

"Hey, isn't this the third period?" the very same student asked again with a more incredulous tone to it, this time her attention is fully on the race track while class is slowly exiting due to the bell ringing.

"C'mon," her friend obviously focusing on getting to the next class. "You're gonna make us late."

Her attention now fully on the race track. "That girl hasn't stop running yet since this morning, what the hell?"

"Lucky, how did they able to get away with missing class like that?" Her friend now started to pay attention the run happening outside.

"Not the pronoun referring to multiple people, it's the same girl, and even trainer, from this morning."

"What!"

Disbelief lacing her next words, "I don't think they haven't stop running yet."

"No, not that." her friend stared at her back, "since when have you paid attention to class?"

"Hey, I made it to Tracen, remember?"

"That really isn't saying much."

---

"Huh, that's odd." One of the cafeteria lunch lady remarked, "is it me, or is there less students than usual today?"

"Yeah, it is." One of them wonder, "there's even more leftover than usual this time. I wonder what new student antic would cause an entire schools of Uma Musume to forget lunch?"

"Last I remembered was back when Oguri Cap eating her third lunch in the cafeteria in one of her fugue state."

Yet, the expected response never come, either from the students who seems a bit distracted or hurried by something or from their third co-worker, completely transfixed by a scene outside the window overlooking the race track.

---

"So, how long do you think she's been running?" Ask the old man with glasses, watching the scene through the window with a old but extremely fascinated eyes.

"Ever since first period." Answer the student airily, attention fully on the scene through the classroom window.
"Em, sensei?"
"And she haven't stop since?"

"Nope, honestly shouldn't you guys know more about her?" Attention slightly wavered towards her sensei, curious about the new student.
"Seriously, isn't this supposed to be literature class?"
"Only that we have a new student who wouldn't be joining us in the first day, her name being Shirogane Suzuki, and that the student council will be overseeing whatever it is they're doing there."

"Huh, that doesn't sound like any Uma Musume name I know."
"Guuuuuuys, c'mon, don't ignore me like this."
"Far as I know, both her parent's are human."

"Huh."

"Huh indeed. my young padawan"

---

Unfortunately for Trainer Toujou and the rest of the Student Council debilitating curiosity, with the growing crowd of captivated Uma students and bewitched teachers forming in the stand, they reluctantly have to stop Shirogane run as the generous class period timeslot is reaching its end.

Aside from the ridiculously consistent pace, and can be proven with the run being meticulously measured by the school various advance recording machine, her run proves to be far too distracting for the students to ignore, especially this early in the school year.

And even entranced by the ridiculous feat of endurance, no professional Uma Musume is willing to waste or give up their timeslot in the field especially to someone this patently ridiculous, suddenly appearing in their midst and challenged the status quo, again.

The person in question herself even complained that she's missing the first day of school, even though she gotten permission for it, and won't be doing this again until she "catch up" to her fellow student. And as punishment for making her missed the first day of school.

She can never understand their obsession whenever she demonstrate her run but as the only legally delinquent student with military-sharp wit, she understand enough to know where it'll hurt the most.