Umamusume: Jujutsu Kaisen System! [5]

“SPECIAL WEEK!”

“LET’S SETTLE THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!!”

The earthshaking roar made even the deafening cheers for Special Week falter. The ground itself seemed to tremble beneath the force of that final spurt.

All Seiun Sky could see was the back of the girl in pure-white signature racewear streaking ahead.

The flash of lightning she had glimpsed earlier had not been a hallucination brought on by reaching her limit.

Now that she had been left behind so easily, Seiun Sky could clearly see the figure ahead of her wreathed in lightning—like a thunder god from the age of myth descending into the mortal world!

Her feet pounding against the turf, the exhaustion burning through her, and the helplessness she had felt when Special Week passed her all testified that what she was seeing was real.

This impossible scene before her was real.

No—it wasn’t impossible at all.

Seiun Sky often slept with her head down on her desk during classes at Tracen Academy and always carried herself with an air of laziness, but her grades in Umamusume theory consistently ranked near the top of her class.

She was not like Spe-chan. She had always done perfectly well on the academy’s written exams.

And that was precisely why Seiun Sky understood exactly what the sight before her meant.

The ZONE!!!

The mark that practically symbolized the strongest Umamusume.

An Umamusume who could enter the ZONE was not necessarily the strongest, but the strongest Umamusume invariably could enter it.

It was a power that projected the extraordinary into reality. A power that allowed its user to perform beyond one hundred percent of her ability. A power capable of overturning defeat in the direst circumstances!

Had the lightning surrounding Kashimo been any color other than white, Seiun Sky might have hesitated for a moment.

But white lightning…

The association was far too obvious.

It was the most famous case study in the academy’s theory textbooks, the ZONE of an Umamusume no history of Japanese racing could ever omit!

White Lightning!

White Lightning versus WILD JOKER!

The legendary clash of champions!

It was one of history’s most iconic races, a real example used to educate inexperienced Umamusume like them!

And now that same white lightning had appeared before her eyes.

Kashimo had already mastered the ZONE.

…The challenge letter.

Seiun Sky remembered the letter that one of Kashimo’s upperclassmen from Team Canopus had delivered on her behalf.

A strange look crossed her already strained face.

“Under the circumstances…”

“I’m the one who looks more like the challenger.”

…

“White Lightning!”

“That’s the ZONE, isn’t it?!”

“The ZONE in the Japanese Derby? What is this, Sakura Chiyono O?!”

“Holy shit—I’m just… holy fucking shit!”

The thunderous cheers in the stands abruptly died away for a moment. The racecourse’s high-speed cameras quickly captured Kashimo’s current state and projected it onto the massive central screen.

The existence of the ZONE had never been a secret.

At that moment, every knowledgeable spectator felt as though they had awakened a Kamui Mangekyo—complete with farsighted vision. The figure before them seemed to overlap with that gray-haired runner from nearly a decade ago.

Almost immediately, the venue erupted once more in deafening cheers.

Some were fans of Special Week. Some had never paid any attention to Kashimo before. Some had not even known she existed before this race.

But at this moment, Kashimo had become the center of the Derby.

It was not because the audience still held some profound attachment to that gray-haired Umamusume after so many years.

No one could resist watching a sudden long shot turn a race that had seemed decided into a breathtaking contest once more.

Would the unexpected contender pull off a stunning upset, or would Special Week—the symbol of miracles—defend her lead and claim the Derby with a decisive win?

“The ZONE… No, something’s off.”

“Why doesn’t Kashimo’s ZONE have a shell?”

Who understood the ZONE best?

The spectators?

The Trainers?

Of course not.

The ones who understood the ZONE best were Umamusume who could enter it themselves and had competed against others who could as well.

Near the Derby’s finish line, Tokai Teio watched gravely as Kashimo raced behind Special Week, both runners charging toward the finish.

The ZONE came with a shell.

Even the academy’s textbooks did not clearly explain that point.

Only another Umamusume who could enter the ZONE could sense the boundaries of someone else’s ZONE shell.

Within a ZONE, the Umamusume who entered it received an increase in strength, while other Umamusume caught inside its shell were suppressed or afflicted by some other negative effect.

With one side strengthened and the other weakened, an Umamusume in the ZONE gained an overwhelming advantage in every respect.

The best way to counter a ZONE was to enter your own and clash with it directly.

When two equally powerful ZONES collided, their shells would break down. The negative effects on everyone else would disappear, leaving only the boosts granted to their respective users.

Kashimo certainly looked as though she had entered the ZONE, and it did seem to be the same type as Tamamo Cross’s.

Yet Tokai Teio could not sense any shell around it.

“Could it be a barrierless ZONE?”

Beside Tokai Teio, the silver-haired Mejiro McQueen voiced a terrifying hypothesis.

They were both Special Week’s teammates and her upperclassmen from Team Spica. Now retired, they had come to cheer her on.

Both Tokai Teio and Mejiro McQueen could enter the ZONE, and each had once stood at the pinnacle of Japanese Umamusume racing.

“Are you serious?”

“Only one person in the entire country has mastered a barrierless ZONE.”

That was a truly divine feat. Even the ZONE of Symboli Rudolf, the pinnacle of Japanese racing history, possessed a shell. Hers was an enclosed ZONE!

“What are you two talking about?”

Two large hands came down, one on Tokai Teio’s head and the other on Mejiro McQueen’s.

“When she passed Seiun Sky, Sky didn’t slow down at all. There was no negative effect.”

“Spe-chan doesn’t seem to be affected by it either.”

“Rather than the ZONE itself, I’d call it the beginning of one.”

With a lollipop between his lips, Special Week’s Trainer—one of the Trainers at the very pinnacle of the profession in Japan—offered his explanation.

A ZONE without a shell or negative effects.

No matter how one looked at it, it was only a nascent ZONE.

In other words, Kashimo stood just one step away from a true ZONE and needed only the right opportunity to fully grasp it. Similar cases included Oguri Cap before the third gray-haired showdown and Tamamo Cross before the Tenno Sho (Autumn).

As he spoke, the Trainer’s expression also grew serious.

Even if it was only a nascent ZONE, Special Week would likely have to surpass her own limits to win now.

“Spe-chan!”

While everyone was still reeling from the white lightning surrounding Kashimo, the carrot-haired girl—the Team Spica member with the deepest bond to Special Week—shouted from near the finish line.

T/N: m4eep morp time to vote guysssss

This is a fan translation of 赛马娘，但系统是咒术回战 by 肥伦 Rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!