Shot to the Heart

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters depicted herein. They are property of Sega.

The continuous sounds of gunfire could be heard on the range. Scouts training with the Gallian 1 carbine, filling her ears with what would be a deafening crack to the untrained ear. For her, such a sound was what she had relied on for many years, for food and for sport. She was no stranger to gunfire, and to be without a weapon of any sort was, to her, comparable to walking in the street without a shred of clothing. She'd already proved herself more than capable with the scout weapons – it was the weapon her father had taught her to use, and the one she had depended on for years.

She'd proven so apt with the weapon, the militia trainers had directed her to more specialized marksmanship training. Trading the semi-automatic weapon for a bolt action GSR, she observed the snipers of various other training classes. Some of them hit, while others missed. While the outside did not clearly show it, nervousness had set in.

Of course, any emotion generally didn't show on the outside of her, and was generally locked inside a safe of coldheartedness, the same mask of an emotionless glare standing in place of every emotion that could be pursued. If only was emotion was ever displayed, it was contempt for her fellow man, which was shown at when someone took notice of her appearance; the short, jet-black hair and violet eyes could easily draw any man's attention, and if Marina so desired she could have herself a harem of sorts.

Such things were not high on her list of things to acquire. If all had gone as she'd wanted, she would not be surrounded by people at the moment. But one of the things she'd learned from her father was that things never went as planned. The only thing she could think of was to pay whatever attempts came to hit on her with ignorance, and hope that the source would go away.

This solution, no matter how temporary, nearly ended up getting her in trouble a few moments later. She nearly ignored the instructor, who decided to bring her out of her intentional ignorance with a swift smack on the head, bringing her back into the real world, while nearly knocking her to her knees in surprise, though a very audible yelp was heard.

"Wulfstan?" the instructor asked, in a tone of voice that indicated this was more of a statement than a question.

Marina nodded to him, snapping into a salute. The pair of violet eyes, still visible at current, stared back at him in a near identical manner to how he stared at her.

"Are you here to learn how to use that rifle, or have a staring contest, Wulfstan?"

Marina sighed, and answered by bringing her rifle up to chest level, making it clear she had no intentions of speaking.

"The silent type, I see," the instructor said. "Well... at least you have the psychology of a sniper."

She responded with more silence. She really did seem to be as cold as she appeared, and merely waited to be directed to a target on the range; a simple paper was handed to her, indicating that she would be using the one second from the end. Fairly out of the way, something she did not mind in the least. Five training rounds were given to her, and she made her way down to her target.

Again, her eyes wandered to her fellow snipers-in-training, and their hits and misses. She could make out a boy who looked no more than fifteen, sixteen at the very most, with an x-shaped scar on his forehead. He seemed to only be hitting out of luck. A woman, older than her, was easily making shots at a slow, deliberate pace, not attempting a 'Mad Minute' like the boy beside her. Four rounds hit, but she did not fire the fifth and final one. From her apparent age, it was possible she was only on the range to get reacquainted with the weapon.

She reached the spot she was to fire from, and looked down range at the target. The rifle was switched from the right shoulder, to her preferred left, and she raised it up to fire. What her father had drilled into her back home, as far as she knew, still applied. Stay calm, let the gun surprise you, relax, but not too much. She popped off a fake shot just to get a feel for the gun, and pulled the right hand away from the forward grip long enough to open the chamber and load her rounds into the gun, and close the bolt.

For real, this time, her finger tightened on the trigger. She lined up the shot, relaxed enough not to be too tense, and pulled, creating her own loud crack.

"AAAAGH!"

The pained cry drew the attention of the others near by. The first shot had not only missed, much to Marina's dismay, but also drove the scope into her eye, creating a red half-ring around the bottom. She instantly brought her hand up, and felt the warm substance oozing out of the wound. As much as she didn't want to, she could not prevent pained tears from forming. Four more rounds were still in the magazine.

Ignoring whatever pain she had from the scope injury, she cycled the bolt with her right hand (as she normally did), and brought it up to her shoulder to fire again.

Ok... let's try this again. Four more shots...

She repeated the steps she had taken, but held the rifle in such a way that the recoil would not drive the scope into her eye again. The last thing she needed was for her main eye to be obscured by her own blood.

As her finger tightened on the trigger again, one of the saltwater tears seeped into her wound, causing more pain and distracting her. Her hand tightened too soon, and the rifle surprised her again. Another puff of dirt and light blue smoke – she'd missed again.

Damn it...

With a groan, she decided that firing left, handed wasn't doing any good, and switched over to her right. It felt alien, like someone else was holding the gun, but she wasn't hitting anything with her normal shooting arm.

"Hey... let me help you out," a male voice said from behind her. It was far too calm to be that of the instructor, and nearly quiet enough to be her own. "You look like you could need help, miss."

As much as she wanted to say yes, or answer one way or the other, for that matter, she simply could not accept his help. It would be him shooting, not her. But before she could answer, he was standing near her.

"Here... hold it like this," he said, placing his hands over hers, moving them so that she held the rifle as the man was instructing her. "There. That's it. Don't get too relaxed, miss. That puts your eye out. You have to be a bit more tense with a sniper rifle, to keep the kick down."

Though he couldn't see it, Marina was beginning to blush a bit. No man, save for her father, had ever come this close to her without getting punched, and certainly had never done so to help her shoot. "There. Notice how it's swaying a bit. When you're about to take a shot, breath out and then shoot. If there's air in your lungs, you'll miss."

With this in mind, she let out a deep breath, emptying her lungs of air. Her aim steadied, and the target five-hundred meters away stopped swaying in her sights. She tensed, but only enough to keep the rifle from striking her eye again, and the man stepped back a bit, releasing his hold on her.

She fired, and the shot hit the target this time. A thought crossed her mind, and she reloaded her rifle, and repeated what the man had said. This round hit, as well. That made two hits.

There was now one round in the magazine, and she fired this one as well. The man who had helped her whistled after the shot, impressed.

"Miss... you seem like you could be very good at this," he said in a louder voice. She sighed again, to see why this was.

The last round had hit dead center, and when she lowered her rifle, a blush had again come to her face.

"T-thanks," she stuttered. "For... uh..."

"Helping you? Yeah, don't mention it," the man said. Now was the first time she'd seen him, and appearances surprised her. Gray hair, blue eyes. It was sort of long for a guy's hair, and some of it fell over her face. "You... might want to get the blood ring checked. One of the things I've seen male lieutenants look for in the women they pick is a pretty face."

Marina blushed again, thinking about what the man may have implied. The only thing that crossed her mind, at the moment, at least, was to move her hair down over the injured eye.

"Well... it works," he noted at her solution, before moving to his own target, on the very end.

An impulse came to her mind. She normally didn't act on them, but this sort of came out. "Why... did you help me, sir?"

The man lowered his rifle before he could fire, and looked over at her. "I doubt I'll be alone out there. I want to be able to count on my team mates, if we end up in the same squad. I'd like to see this war end, after all."

Well, it was a reason, and it was very hard to argue with it. But she could not help but think there was something past that. Deciding to wait a bit, so she could see how well he shot, she stood there.

The first shot he fired hit the outer edges of the the target. The second, a bit closer to the middle, but on the other side. Three hit somewhere between one and two, while four struck just off center. Now it was her turn to be impressed.

Five hit right in the middle. He'd put all five shots on target, though they were scattered.

"Wow." That was just it, all Marina could muster to say, and it perfectly described how impressed she was with his marksmanship.

"Thanks... oh, I never caught your name, did I?"

Marina shook her head. "Marina Wulfstan."

With a nod, he extended his hand. "Cezary Regard. It's... nice to meet you, Miss Wulfstan."

The fact that she'd bit her lip before shaking the hand showed he'd made her uncomfortable, but he figured she'd come out of her shell eventually. "It's... nice to meet you too..."

Cezary nodded to her, and walked away. "Keep working like I showed you. You'll get it soon enough."

Of course, 'getting it' wasn't what the thoughts currently crossing her mind contained.

-End Chapter 1-

Yeah. I know what you might be thinking. There is no possible way Marina could ever think of doing what she seems to be thinking of doing.

Well, you're wrong. I happen to see it as working, under the right circumstances.