Masuyo critically eyed the holes in her last target for the session. Her shot grouping was reasonably tight, in spite of her still healing burns, which said very good things about her consistency. Just as importantly, if not more so, was that her shots were precisely centered around the center of the target. Consistency only mattered when you were consistently doing what you wanted to do, after all.

"You did well today," Pierce said from where he stood nearby. A compliment, practically speaking, but she was familiar enough with his idiosyncrasies by that point to know he was only stating facts, not soothing her ego. Which was good because she wouldn't have tolerated him as an instructor otherwise, no matter how much experience he had from his days in Desert Storm.

"Thank you." There was no sense in being impolite. Doubly so, given he had steadfastly refused all forms of payment for his instruction. The least she could do, so far as she was concerned, was treat him with the respect he deserved.

The least she could do. There was far, far too much that she couldn't do, which made it that much more important that she did what she could do. She couldn't move the bullets she shot with her mind. She couldn't change the meadow where they stood into someplace else altogether. She couldn't shatter concrete, drug people with a touch, or spit acid and flames.

She set aside her binoculars, her target and the holes in it becoming a barely visible speck in the distance. She hefted her Tinker optimized XM2010 back into place. What she could do was give medical attention and shoot shit. And if she happened to visualize her targets as Bakuda's head? Well, she could hardly be faulted for still being sore about that.

The sun had begun to sink below the horizon, the last smoldering embers clinging to a bruised sky. The already frigid air would take a dip soon, but she refused to stop practicing just yet. It was a prime opportunity to get low light practice in. She discarded her spent magazine to the side for the moment and loaded a new one into place, already leaning in to sight the next target. She jumped not a second later when both of their phones chirped, the brief series of tones a familiar, dreaded harbinger.

Endbringer attack.

The sequence didn't impart any special knowledge about where the attack was, but Masuyo knew. Her heart leapt in her throat, contrasting her sinking stomach, but she reached into her pocket with numb fingers. A quick click of a button displayed her notifications and confirmed it. New York.

The world outside that screen faded away, dim and non-existent. She started to set the stock down, when she felt cold metal press against her temple. Her spiraling descent stuttered to an abrupt halt. "Masuyo. Shoot the target."

Her first attempt to speak failed completely, the result closer to a moan than anything intelligible. She took a shuddering breath, the beginnings of a cold sweat coming over her, and tried again. "Pierce—"

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He calmly flipped the safety off, the icy embrace of Pierce's Desert Eagle never wavering. "Do it, or I will shoot."

Masuyo's skin had yet to properly begin healing from Sabah's cruelty not even a week prior. Every inch of seared flesh seemed to scream as she slowly lifted her rifle. Her hands refused to stop shaking as she tried—and failed—to focus on the target through her wobbly sight. She couldn't drag her attention away from the barrel or the feeling of her skin stretched taut over her bones.

He cocked the hammer, the click the loudest sound she had ever heard in her life. "If you miss the bullseye, I will shoot."

He delivered each word so calmly and dispassionately. No anger. No bloodlust. There was no room in his words for anything other than death and his promise to inflict it on her if she didn't do as she was told. She wanted nothing more in that moment than to scream at him, to demand some kind of emotion from him. Sympathy. Regret. At least hatred or anger, a justification for threatening her life.

"And if you don't fire in the next ten seconds, I will shoot."

Ten seconds to live or die. In the face of that cruel deadline, of that callous declaration, she was surprised to find her fear gave away before something else: Determination. Masuyo couldn't—wouldn't—die here. She refused.

"One."

She didn't have ten seconds to save herself. She had ten seconds to prove that Pierce hadn't been wasting his time on her. To prove she was more than dead weight, tolerated because of her ties to June.

"Two."

The sun had finally retreated altogether, but the meadow was illuminated by the blessedly still mostly full moon. Low light practice, just like she wanted.

"Three."

The pain from her straining wounds crystallized her focus, a weakness become weapon. Her shaking stilled.

"Four."

There was a gentle breeze caressing the meadow, ruffling the tall blades of grass covering the mile between Masuyo and her target.

"Five."

She laid eyes on her target and followed the gently bobbing path her unconscious movements traced over it.

"Six."

Now.

"Sev—"

She pulled the trigger.

The suppressor on her barrel diminished the light and sound of the shot, but in the dark quiet of the meadow, for a solitary moment, it felt as if the world were ending. Masuyo froze, almost in a state of suspended animation, as Pierce slowly and carefully released the hammer, set the safety, and holstered his pistol in its normal resting place on his hip. He then picked up his own set of binoculars. Several long seconds passed. "Grazing, but sufficient."

The invisible vice that had been gripping her tight abruptly released, and she almost crumpled against her weapon. At first, all she could only manage was to breathe. Her eyelids fluttered, control of even that little of a task insurmountable. It took time, but eventually she recovered enough to exhale a raw, "Why…?"

He set the binoculars aside, his grim countenance focused once again exclusively on her. "A shooting range isn't real life. Targets move. Windows of opportunity are limited. You will not be safe. You will not be calm. And you will most certainly not have the luxury of taking your time."

Masuyo took a moment to drink that in, slowly recovering enough to begin pulling herself up. "Would you have really shot me?"

"Never point your gun at anything you aren't willing to destroy." He turned away to deposit the binoculars in his bag, exchanging them for a flashlight. "I know the look in those eyes of yours by now. Pack quickly, and let's get moving. I'll take the first shift driving. Rest up so you can take over."

She forced herself the rest of the up. Her hands begin to dissemble her rifle on autopilot. "Thanks, Pierce."