SEVENTEEN, another run of the practice targets. Gun in hand. Trigger finger calm, barrel red-hot and pinging as it cools. Hovering projections splay electric-blue snowflakes in the stale warehouse air; shots I missed and targets I lost.

Clicks echo through the dark as the machines reset. My feet tap restlessly against the cracked concrete. An agitated staccato in tune with my heart. Hot iron drifts near my hip. Motes of dust, dripping sweat. Heavy eyes watch from the rafters as I sneeze and clench my hand tight around the autorevolver. Too tight.

Calm, I remind myself. Let the adrenaline fade. Steady myself breath by breath. Imagine the targets. Listen to them shift and shuffle behind the pillars. Where will they appear? What order? My heels dig into the floor for grip. Mind scouring the shadows even as I prepare to sink into the flow. And when I am still at last, finger caressing the trigger curve,

“Draw.”

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Silent, breath half-exhaled, the zen moment that belongs only to gunslingers. Thunderclap gunshots shatter the dead warehouse, a sound like a bag of heavy metal chains ricocheting from the pillars.

One-two-three from the hip. Pivot. Four-five-six. Swing around to where I feel the seventh rising. Legs spread, cape flayed over one shoulder, hips braced. A fluttering braid of hair twists across my vision. Pull. Gunpowder light pulses behind closed eyelids. Caught in the moment, twinned to the rhythm of the gun, head empty of thoughts as I hammer a slam-fire onslaught into five more targets and whirl to face the last.

My finger tenses against the trigger as my eyes crack open. The powerful woman who gave the earlier command blocks my shot now, her gloved palm jammed against the barrel.

She snaps her fingers to reset the targets. “Why do we pull the trigger, Mori?”

The breath I held captive in my chest finally escapes. Panting, I slowly lower the gun.

“…Because we know what we’re aiming at.”