Chapter Text
Your name… is Satono Ruby, that's your name, the name you were given at birth.
You were born the daughter of a woman named Satono Opal, a shining star among the umamusume, and, of course, a member of the illustrious and powerful Satono family—a name whispered with both respect and expectation across the racing world.
Your mother’s career was dazzling. A promising racer with speed and grace that drew eyes wherever she went, she claimed victory after victory in GIII and GII races. The newspapers called her The Satono Jewel, the future of the family.
The Satono family had long carried a burden, an unspoken curse—despite generations of talented racers, not a single one had ever conquered the sacred stage of a GI race. Your mother was their hope, the one destined to shatter that fate.
But then… fate played a cruel trick.
One day, without warning, your mother announced she was pregnant. No one knew the father’s name. No one even dared to guess aloud. And with that, her momentum came to a grinding halt—she was forced to leave the racing world for a full year.
The child she brought into this world… was you.
A tiny girl with eyes the color of purest ruby, bright enough to seem as if they could pierce the darkness itself. That brilliance became your name—Ruby.
You inherited your mother’s nature as an umamusume, but unlike her, you were not born with strength. Compared to others of your kind, your body was frail… painfully fragile.
From the moment you took your first breath, sickness clung to you like a shadow. Your tiny frame was a battlefield of invisible illnesses, each one ready to claim your life. The Satono family poured an ocean of wealth into keeping you alive—each coin a desperate plea to fate not to take you away.
The hospital became your first home. Sterile white walls, the faint scent of antiseptic, the rhythmic beeping of machines—those were the lullabies of your early years. You would press your face to the cold glass of your window, watching the other children outside laughing, running, chasing each other beneath the sun.
You envied them with an intensity that burned in your chest.
They were free. You were chained.
They were alive. You were surviving.
Every day, while your body ached and your lungs struggled, you imagined what it would be like to join them—to feel the earth under your feet, to be able to fall and scrape your knees and laugh about it.
But through it all, your mother never left your side. Nor did the rest of the Satono family. They were your constant pillars, whispering encouragement, promising that someday your body would be strong enough to stand on its own.
And then, one day, it happened.
After years of endless treatments, something inside you changed. You took your first steps beyond the hospital gates. Your first run. The blades of grass bent beneath your feet, the earth pulsed with life beneath you, and for the first time, the wind itself seemed to embrace you.
You fell in love instantly.
The sensation of the wind in your hair. The rush of your heartbeat pounding in sync with your steps. The sweet ache in your muscles as you finally stopped.
You wanted more. You needed more.
So you began to dream.
To run not just for yourself, but to stand on the grand stage of racing. To conquer the tracks. To win. To become the strongest of your generation, just like the mother you admired.
But reality was cruel.
Your body was still weak. No matter how much you tried, you could not match the speed of other umamusume. Your lungs burned faster, your legs faltered sooner, your strength always fell short.
So you decided to fight your weakness head-on.
You trained harder, pushed further. Every day, you drove your fragile body past its limits, even when it hurt. Even when it left you gasping, trembling, unable to stand. You broke yourself down again and again—because each time you rebuilt yourself, you were stronger than before.
It was a path paved with pain. You bled for every step forward.
But you endured it all for your dream.
With time, your body responded. You gained speed, your stamina grew, your form sharpened. But the hospital never left your life—your illnesses never truly vanished. At any moment, they could flare up, threatening to undo all your progress.
The Satono family kept paying the cost. No matter how expensive the treatment, they never hesitated. You were their blood, and they would not abandon you.
That was your life—training, healing, training again, all while imagining the day you would step onto the biggest stage in the world.
And then… you turned ten.
That was when the first cracks appeared in your perfect little dream.
News spread like wildfire: Satono Opal, your mother, your hero, your idol… had been caught cheating. Performance-enhancing drugs, they said. A deliberate violation.
The world blurred. You didn’t understand. You didn’t want to. How could the woman who taught you to fight with honor, who told you to run with pride, do something like this?
The Satono family defended her fiercely at first.
They swore she had been framed, that someone had orchestrated it to bring her down. But the longer the investigation went on, the more evidence surfaced. One piece at a time, the truth took shape—and it was a truth you didn’t want to see.
Your mother was guilty. And she was banned from racing.
You became “the cheater’s daughter.”
You became “the girl whose bloodline broke the rules.”
At first, you told yourself to endure it. You clenched your teeth and tried to ignore the stares, the whispers, the venom in their voices. You weren’t guilty of anything—but to them, your blood was proof enough.
Until the day you broke.
A boy hurled something at you—a heavy, rotting mass that struck your face and splattered across your cheek. The stench hit you before your mind registered what it was: the carcass of a dead rat.
You didn’t hear his words. You didn’t remember his face.
All you remembered… was that everything in your vision turned crimson.
And then—
You were in your mother’s arms. She was crying, trembling, her voice breaking.
You looked down. Your hands were wet. Warm.
When you lifted them, they were painted red red...from fresh blood. The coppery scent of blood filled your nostrils.
The boy lay crumpled on the ground ahead of you, surrounded by a sea of red. His body was twisted in ways that made your stomach knot. His bones—broken. His limbs—shattered. Doctors were rushing in, voices sharp with urgency, trying desperately to keep him alive.
And in that frozen moment, you understood something horrifying:
Even you—weak, sickly, fragile you—were still an umamusume. And even in your weakest state, you could break a human being beyond recognition.
And that was when you felt it—something dark, something wrong—stirring deep inside you.
The warmth of blood on your skin. The sight of a body you had destroyed. The knowledge that you had done this with your own hands.
Why…
Why did it feel so good?