"N...nnn..."

The early morning sunlight soaks through the blinds of the master bedroom, and the birds sitting in the trees outside chirp enthusiastically, happily greeting the entrance of another sunny day. Hakurei Reimu, in Losira's extra set of red and blue pajamas and nightcap that resembles a Santa Claus hat, stirs and wakes, her eyes blinking sleepily and trying to get into focus.

"...morning..."

Reimu squeezes her eyes to help gain her vision. When she does, however, the first thing she sees -

"...who...?"

Losira's head is rubbing slightly against Reimu's collarbone and bosom. Her arms have somehow managed to tug Reimu over to her left side during the night, hugging the miko like a body pillow. Reimu can smell the soft, fresh conditioner still lingering on Losira's hair and her breathing on her cleavage.

"...how did things end up like this..."

Reimu, unable to decide on a correct course of action, remains in the posture that she woke up in. Her eyes travel along the length of Losira's dark brown hair, its color accentuated in the sunlight that pokes through the window blinds. Then, she spots the yin-yang eyepatch.

"..."

Her curiosity getting the better of her again, Reimu inches her hand towards the patch. Just as her fingernails touch the leather to pull down the eyepatch, Losira whispers, causing Reimu to almost ripoff the patch in surprise.

"...O..."

Losira's head presses harder against Reimu's body.

"...nii-chan..."

Reimu blinks awkwardly.

"...Onii-chan...?"

Losira's left eye pokes open. Then, the arms that Losira has put around Reimu dart out and push Reimu sharply away. The shrine maiden yelps, not expecting such a violent reaction.

"Ow - hey, what was that for...?" Reimu sits up, rubbing her shoulders where Losira has pushed her away. The eyepatch girl is sitting on the edge of her bed, her back facing the others.

"Did I do anything weird to you over the night?" Losira's voice is hardly one notch above a whisper.

"...huh? Say that again, I can't hear yo-"

"Did I do anything weird?"

Reimu notices that Losira is shaking slightly.

"...other than me waking up to find your head in my boobs, no, not really...I don't think..."

Losira stands up quickly and walks straight for the bathroom to get ready for the day. The fan of the bathroom begins to whir noisily as the sounds of drawers opening and closing accompany it. Reimu gazes over to the drawers to the left of the canopy bed, on top of which sit rows of folder files and an alarm clock with its alarm off. 8:26am.

Next to the alarm clock, an old, standing 4''x6'' picture frame depicts a picture Reimu has overlooked due to her inattentiveness from the previous night. An extremely faded picture, one that has clearly seen much age and abuse during its time. Crinkles, small rips, and fold lines pepper the photo like sand at a beach. In it, a girl with short dark hair is hugging another smiling boy, also with short dark hair. A slightly taller boy can be seen behind them, bearhugging them both.

"...Onii-chan...right?"

Reimu gazes at it and subconsciously allows her mind to wander, getting lost in the picture until Losira emerges from the bathroom, her hair neatly combed and her face washed and soaped.

"Reimu, I'll take your clothes and stick 'em in the washer. It'll take about an hour and a half to wash 'n dry 'em, so take any clothes of mine that fit you. We're basically the same height, so they should all fit on you."

"Eh? W-Washer? What...is..." Reimu gives a helpless chuckle, still vastly unfamiliar with the strange technological inventions of the more modern outside world.

"It's a machine that washes your clothes for you. There's also a machine that dries clothes after they've been washed. Do you still do laundry by hand at your place?"

"Yeah, mainly. We don't have fancy gadgets like...washers...or driers...or whatever they're called, hehe."

Losira points at the still-snoozing Yukari. "When's she gonna get up?"

"Yukari? Uhhh..." Reimu simply shrugs, again in a helpless fashion. "Either we'll have to kick her until she gets up, or she wakes up on her own."

"Leave her alone then, we're not leaving now." Losira strips off her red-and-green checkered pajamas, throws them back in her wardrobe, pulls on a pair of running shorts and a tanktop sporting the words THEY LIED TO ME WHEN THEY SAID THIS WAS A TANK TOP and a little picture of an immobilized Sherman missing its main gun battery. She bends over to scoop up Yukari's and Reimu's clothes and nudges open the door with her toe. Reimu listens to Losira trudge down the stairs to the garage where the washing and drying machines dwell and lets her eyes wander around the room again. The stone-faced, emotionless firearms that line the wall to her left stare relentlessly at anyone and anything that sets their eyes on them. Ignoring them, however, the master bedroom, flooded with warm sunlight from the windows whose blinds Losira has opened to let in the rays, gives a very homey feeling, tempting Reimu to snuggle back underneath the covers next to the gently snoring and slightly drooling Yukari. She is just about to do exactly that when something that is hanging on one of the posts supporting the canopy bed roof catches her glimpse.

"...?"

Reimu discerns a small jade-colored necklace with a black strap hanging on the thin upper right beam. The luscious beauty of the emerald causes Reimu to wonder how she didn't see it the first time she climbed into the bed the night before. A red-white jewel penchant, its strap made of pure and luxurious silk thread, reflects back the sunlight into Reimu's eyes. Unable to hold back her overflowing curiosity, Reimu crawls towards it on the bed and lifts it off its hook to hold the precious jewel in her hands.

"..."

As she gazes into the swirls of red and white within the circle jewel, Reimu feels a strange warmth develop in her hands. A warmth she didn't know she had known, a warmth that told her that she should know where she felt this kind of warmth before in her life. But she cannot identify the warmth; she cannot recall when the last time was that she held such a warmth in her hands. Her memory becomes hazy and mushy as she struggles to remember. Unable to stand such an anxiety that she is feeling just from holding the jewelry, Reimu hangs the penchant up on its hook again and opts to simply look at it from afar.

"...why do I feel like I've seen that somewhere before..." Reimu finds herself muttering. Two floors below her, the rumbling of the washing machine begins to churn and rotate, and Losira's footsteps can be heard ascending back up to the first floor. The early morning habits of the shrine maiden begin to kick in, and Reimu has a hard time again deciding between joining Yukari in slumber or getting up and being productive.

"I should be lazy when I have the chance..." But as she says this, Reimu swings her legs off the bed and hops off, throwing her own dark brown hair behind her shoulders before browsing through Losira's wardrobe for a fresh batch of clothes. Selecting and donning a black shirt patterned with a white outline that forms a yin-yang, a pair of plain white socks, and polka-dot shorts, the miko yawns for the last time as she descends the stairs to the first floor to join her host in the kitchen, who is preoccupied with the task of fixing breakfast.

"You need something?" Losira asks without looking, spreading low-fat butter onto six pieces of sweet Hawaiian bread and dropping them onto a wide skillet doused with a light layer of olive oil. The frying of the butter against the oil at oven temperature throws the kitchen into a cacophony of sizzles instantaneously.

"Not really. I just came down to see if there's anything I can help you with."

"You like cooking, huh."

"I have to feed myself, and sometimes a lot more people if I'm throwing parties or festivals at my shrine. Or if someone else throws them," Reimu says as she opens the fridge and grabs a bottle of Fuji water. "Naturally, I've gotten quite good at it."

"You haven't answered if you like it or not."

"Like it? Meh. I pass."

"So it's a chore for you, mainly."

"It involves work. So of course it's a chore."

"That how you see it."

"Yeah, more or less." Reimu pops the cap and chugs the water. Losira flips the bread slices and opens the rice cooker to check the amount of purple rice remaining from the previous night's dinner.

"What about you, Losira? You like cooking?"

Losira closes the rice cooker top and starts cutting slices of fresh tomato on the cutting board.

"I didn't like to at first. Like you, I just thought of it as another damn chore. I mean, all the effort you put into making meals for people, let alone yourself, is tiring enough, isn't it?" Losira's knife thumps against the board. "That's what I used to think, until I knew what starvation felt like."

"...you too, huh..."

"..."

Losira sweeps the cut tomato slices with her knife onto one side of the cutting board and puts the knife in the sink. Reimu sidesteps out of Losira's way as the latter reaches into the fridge to take out a plastic bag of cured ham.

"After I tasted starvation, I never found cooking to be a chore again. I'm pretty thankful that I have a house with food in it that I can cook and eat, y'know. And eventually, it became something I love to do, either as a hobby or as something that's supposed to be a chore."

"That's good, I guess."

Having pulled the lightly fried slices of buttered Hawaiian bread out of the frying pan and putting two on each of the three nearby plates, Losira then scrapes the tomato slices and ham together into the frying pan in the frying butter and olive oil.

"Lemme ask you, Reimu. If you don't like cooking, do you like cooking for other people?"

Reimu ponders the thought, tapping the neck of her water bottle against her lower lip.

"I dunno. I guess...it's just another chore for me. Whether I'm cooking for just myself or for other people, it's still effort I need to put into preparing food, so I guess for me, doesn't make too much of a difference."

"Really. Because I'm the opposite."

"Opposite?"

"I enjoy cooking for other people way more than if I'm making food just for myself. I suppose my reasoning behind it is that whenever I cook for someone, I can be relieved that they don't have to experience the kind of starvation I suffered. At least, not for a little bit longer."

"...that's a really dark way of looking at it."

"But that's how I look at it, so deal with it."

Losira turns and looks Reimu straight in the eyes. "Then let me ask you something else."

"Y-Yeah?"

"Does food taste better when you eat food you've made yourself, or when someone else made it for you?"

The delicious sizzling of frying ham pops and crackles behind Losira.

"...um...I mean...honestly...to me, food's food. I'm not going to complain about where it came from, as long as it's edible and I'm not gonna get food poisoning or whatever from it."

"Hm."

"Why, what about you?"

"I prefer my own food. It's proof that I can sustain myself without having to depend on anyone else."

"Then what if you had a close friend make something for you?"

"That only applies if I had 'close friends', ya see."

Losira turns and shakes the skillet by the handle.

"The only ones I know who could fulfill the role of 'close friends' don't have time to be cooking for others, if they even know how at all."

"That sucks."

Losira sprinkles some pepper onto the tomatoes.

"But what I don't get is how you still thinking cooking is a chore when you've been through starvation before."

"Huh?"

"You said that you've starved, right?"

"Oh, yeah...well...that's because my mom and I fell on some hard times before. We went lots of nights going to bed hungry. The days when our shrine was destroyed altogether were the worst, though..."

"..."

"...I mean, I can tell you're kind of disappointed at me. I don't know why I don't take cooking more seriously either, in a gratitude kind of sense. It's just...how I came to think of it. It's not really a big deal to me anymore, because that's the past."

"'Disappointed' is an understatement."

Losira's voice turns sharply sour.

"I get the whole 'we're different people with different situations' kind of deal, but as much as I know we're two different girls, I can't help but think you're an ungrateful bitch."

"Huh...? Well...why?"

Losira shuts off the oven and turns to face Reimu, leaning against her stove and wiping her hands of oil with a towel.

"You think starvation's just something you experience and let go saying 'Oh, it's just the past'? There are hundreds of thousands of people around the world who're starving right now, and if you're really one of them, is it really possible for you to have that kind of attitude? I find it extremely hard to take you seriously, Reimu."

Reimu narrows her eyes and tosses the empty water bottle at the recycling bin. "So what's it to you? That you think I'm an ungrateful bitch? I wasn't trying to be ungrateful to you, either. Just because I don't give as much of a shit about starving once before as you do doesn't mean you can just judge me like that."

The miko crosses her arms with a frown.

"So if you think so passionately about going hungry, why don't you go out there and solve world hunger or whatever they call it here? You said that hundreds of thousands of people or whatever are starving right now? Then go feed 'em all, if you think you're such a saint!"

"Nah, I pass," Losira mumbles nonchalantly, filling their plates with food. "I've got my own agenda."

"...then why even bring them up?"

"Because considering what starvation does to people, I'd've expected you to take it a little more seriously."

"Oh, so now you're saying that there's some sort of...correct way of approaching the whole idea of starvation? That me not caring about it as much as you do is somehow incorrect?"

"Not so much incorrect - just downright asshole-ish."

"...yeah, okay, how's that being an asshole..."

Reimu hears the loud smack of a palm being applied to Losira's face.

"...why are you facepalming?"

"...you know exactly why."

"Just because I choose to believe a certain way about a certain something? Is there something wrong with that?"

"I guess not..." Losira snorts sarcastically, dumping purple rice onto their plates. Reimu, unappreciative of the sarcasm, clicks her tongue, irritated by Losira's behavior.

"Deal with it, then."

"Hmmm? Say that again?"

"Deal with it."

Losira turns her gaze at Reimu, giving her a very dark and false smile.

"No breakfast for you."

"...haaah?"

Reimu gawks in disbelief at her host.

"I said, no breakfast for you."

Losira takes only two plates with her and swiftly exits the kitchen for the dinner table, leaving Reimu gaping after her.

"W-Wait, why? ! What'd I do to -"

Losira's voice trails from the dinner table into the kitchen. "Deal with it."

"Bullshit, you're just mad, that's all it is!"

Losira then gives a sharp laugh, full of bitterness and amusement. "Learn to take a joke, will ya? I'm not gonna get salty over someone's opinion on something. C'mon, your plate's still there in the kitchen, bring it over here."

Reimu sits at the table with her plate of food, across from Losira. "How should I've known if you were serious or not?" She mutters, taking the sandwich with her hand and biting a mighty chunk out of it.

"Nah, I was being pretty serious. I feel quite strongly about starvation because I've felt it before. And, to be honest -" Losira also bites into her sandwich much in the same manner as Reimu's - "I think I'd be the same as you if I never knew what starvation was like. I wouldn't give a shit either."

"Hey, don't go sounding as if I'm some sort of villain just for thinking what I want. You're trying to make me sound all evil and stuff."

"Perception's a bitch, isn't it."

"It's not even that. When I say cooking is a chore, I say it not 'cause I really don't care about my own days of going hungry, but because I think more of the present, what I'm doing right now."

"You don't let the past bother you much."

"Couldn't have said it better myself."

They eat for a minute without talking.

"I'll go out on a limb and say you're the type to think a lot about the past, right?" Reimu asks, with a slight hint of timidness.

Losira does not answer right away, letting the juice from the tomato seep in between the rows of her teeth. "Sometimes. I definitely don't like dwelling on it longer than I have to, that's for sure."

The two girls finish their breakfast and clear the table of their plates. Dumping them back into the sink, Losira glances at the clock outside of the kitchen.

"9:16...let's go wake up your friend, she's been in my bed for too long."

Reimu groans, embarrassed by her youkai companion's hefty sleeping habits, and they trudge up the stairs into the master bedroom. Sure enough, Yukari is still gently snoring the passing minutes away.

"I really hope she's not like this every day."

"She is, that's the thing."

"Fucking goddamn it."

"Sorry."

"Nah, I was exaggerating that. But still, if you two wanna save Gensokyou with such urgency, sleepin' in someone else's canopy bed for nearly nine hours isn't exactly the way to do it." Losira picks up one of her animal plushies, a black cat, and starts to smother Yukari's face with it.

"...mmmfff...mffpfpfhfhhff...waaa...who..."

The sukima youkai opens one sleepy and slightly harassed eye at the thing that is cutting off her breathing.

"...oh...Chen...it's...just you..."

Yukari simply stares at the black cat toy, then rolls over onto her left arm and snoozes again.

"WAKE UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPPPPPPPPPP! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !"

Losira, having enough of Yukari's shit, tosses the black cat plushie over her shoulder, grabs hold of the bedsheets, and hurls it away from Yukari, who lets out a small shriek at the sudden shrill yell of the eyepatch girl. Picking up Yukari who is a good half a foot taller than her by the ankles and shoulderblades, Losira dumps her on the ground in front of the wardrobe, rips off Yukari's nightclothes, tosses them back into the wardrobe, and forces Yukari into a set set of clothes for the day.

"I've made breakfast already, Yukari, so eat and get ready to leave by 10. I need to make a call, so I'll be with you two in a second."

Losira quickly storms out of her own room, leaving Yukari still sleepily oblivious to all of the most recent events that have occurred. She blinks slowly at her Abercrombie shirt.

"Good morning, your Majesty," Reimu giggles as she walks over to Yukari. "It seems Losira doesn't like people being lazy, haha!"

"..."

Yukari begins to careen backwards, but Reimu swiftly kneels and catches her before Yukari can touch the carpet. "Now's probably not the best time to go back to sleep, Yukari, just saying."

After a few minutes, Yukari rubs her eyes. "...I am not accustomed to waking so early..."

Reimu scowls at her. "It's barely half past nine and you're bitching about how it's early? I get up two hours before this back home, now quit your whining and come down to eat."

"Waaaahhhh...Raaaannnnn, Reimu's being mean to meeeeee..."

"Ran's not even here with us! ! ! !"

Reimu leads Yukari downstairs, and they sit at the table, where Losira has already placed Yukari's breakfast plate.

"My, my, how considerate of her."

"Just hurry up and eat, we don't have much time, considering how long you normally take to eat..."

As Yukari consumes her breakfast, Reimu, sitting next to the sukima youkai, lets her eyes wander again.

"Oh...I forgot she left that jewel thing down here still..."

The Beta Block still floats with soft, dull white essence above the glass table where they had first talked and forged their alliance. Yukari gazes at it as well.

"It is a wonder, that something as small as that jewel is able to cause such a disturbance to the Dai Kekkai, is it not?"

"...it's probably not just that Beta Block alone. I feel like you'd need to have a substantial amount in order for the Dai Kekkai to malfunction."

"Still, it is astonishing to consider that such a small entity has the power that is causing us this incident."

"You know, we don't know for sure if it's serenity that's causing those holes in the Dai Kekkai."

"Then what else could it be?"

"I don't know, but I'm just saying, we shouldn't just assume that right away."

The two girls gaze at the jewel until Yukari finishes her breakfast sandwich.

"Perhaps I ought to have Ran take some cooking lessons from this girl. Eating Japanese style meals everyday does get a little tiresome, after all."

"She'll throw a fit, you know."

"How so?" Yukari takes her plate and puts it in the kitchen sink, Reimu following close behind.

"It's your own damn shikigami, and you don't know how she acts? She's gonna think she's not good enough for you and start crying over it!"

"Oh, she gets over it within a day's time or so, it is no big matter."

"And you do realize that it's me she comes all whining and crying, begging me to teach her how to cook other kinds of dishes?"

Yukari conveniently dodges the question, humming cheerfully to herself, as the front door creaks shut and Losira walks back to the dinner table to join them.

"Mkay, so here's today's agenda. I'm going to drive us down to a gun range I go to pretty often, and I'll train you in using guns. Afterwards, I'm going to introduce you to the team that I mentioned that collects Beta Blocks from me. They're close associates of mine, so they can be trusted. They were supposed to feed me more info that they've scrounged out of their research for the past couple of weeks today, so this is nice timing on your part. They'll explain everything they know so far about serenity, and maybe you can learn something that'll help you."

Yukari and Reimu nod. "How long will this training take? Reimu asks.

"All day, pretty much."

"Are you serious? !" Reimu scratches her head violently in frustration. "Come on, we're not here to learn anything besides what we need to know to fix the Dai Kekkai!"

"Then I'll drive you two back to that parking lot and see you off; hopefully you'll find your answers there. That sound fine to you?" This sharp retort shuts Reimu up immediately, though she still sulks. "I'm going out of my way to do as much as I can for you two, something that I almost never do for just anyone I meet off the street, and I really don't need to deal with a shit attitude like that."

"Then why are you, then? We never asked you."

"Because I can tell that you're not bullshitting me. If you were, I'd've known right when I saw you two. Your clothes should be done drying, so I'll get 'em so you can change. We'll leave in five minutes, give or take a couple."

Some four minutes later, Losira is standing in front of her computer office desk. She tightly fastens her leather pistol holster onto her belt, making sure her Colt M1911 MEU has its safety switch on and is ready to fire. She tightens her auburn necktie, adjusts her knee-length dress skirt, and reaches into her business jacket's inner pocket, making sure that the Beta Block she has recovered the previous night is tucked safely away inside.

"..."

She walks over to the drawers in front of her room windows and holds up the picture of the two boys and lone girl.

"Ittekimasu."

Bringing the picture frame to her mouth, Losira presses her lips against the glass, partially warmed from the sunlight. It stares after her as she shuts the door behind her and descends the stairs to regroup with her guests.

"If y'all're ready to go, follow me," Losira calls as she walks straight past them down to the garage, putting on a pair of aviators from her formal jacket pocket.

Hakurei Reimu and Yakumo Yukari, in their clothes from the previous day, climb into Losira's Lamborghini, and the Aventador roars and backs out of the garage, whose door rolls down after it.

"So what's a gun range?" Reimu asks, sitting directly behind the driver. Yukari is sitting shotgun.

"It's a place where you practice shooting guns. Basically the place to go to learn gun shooting and what not. It's built specifically for that reason, and it's got a lot of rules that people need to follow to make sure there's no one going around blasting guns and killing people."

"I have studied the geography of this area, so may I ask the name of this gun range that is our destination?" Yukari glances over at the driver, who has unwrapped another Jolly Rancher lollipop from her dashboard and stuck in her mouth. Losira removes the candy to speak, manning the wheel with her left hand.

"Sharpshooter's, off Western."


Tucked away from plain sight of the major streets of Torrance, Sharpshooter's could easily be passed off as an ordinary warehouse or storage facility if there were no big red letters above the two security cameras eyeing the entrances and the Aventador as it pulls up into its small parking lot.

"We're here. Roll up the windows and let's roll."

The three ladies exit the vehicle, and Losira strolls in through the front door, raising her car remote and locking the vertical doors as soon as they click shut after Reimu and Yukari. The girls enter the compound to find a medium-sized rectangular room: on the walls stand two vending machines selling snacks and beverages, a large bulletproof window allowing vision into the gun range itself, posters advertising gun classes and the latest firearm technology, and a counter where a young man wearing a hat embroidered with the wordSharpshooter's greets Losira casually. The rack behind the counter is stocked with all kinds of civilian firearms, ranging from handguns to shotguns. The counter itself and the display cases that are strewn about in the middle of the room also contain their own varieties of handguns and bigger civilian weapons. For a place that sells gunpowder-based weaponry, the room is almost completely devoid of the smell.

"Eeeyyyyy, sup, Losira? You haven't been down here in some time, where've ya been? Been gettin' pretty lonely down here, and by that, I mean both ways, hahahaha! !" the employee behind the counter laughs heartily as Losira scoffs at him coldy.

"I don't ever remember bein' the slut of this place, Damon. If anything, I'm the biggest bitch y'all're ever gonna have to deal with as long as I'm here."

"Oh, but that's already been our assumption ever since you started poppin' shells here!"

Losira approaches him and gives him a knuckle bump with her right hand. "Jokes aside, nice ta have ya back, for now, anyway. What'dya need today?" Damon leans against the bulletproof glass display counter and arcs his neck at Losira.

"I'll need your practice M9's. I'm here to train these two; I picked 'em up the other night, long story so don't ask," Losira mutters, thumbing over her shoulder to Yukari and Reimu, who stand there rather awkwardly in the middle of the room. Damon peers over at them.

"Holy fuck, normally if I see some hot chicks, I'd holla at 'em, ya know, give 'em the slip or some shit. But these two? Where'dya go ta get yer hands on some sexy-ass assistants? You're not fuckin' lesbo, are you?" Damon whistles, stroking his small but neatly shaved mustache. Losira flicks his forehead.

"If I were lesbian, you'd be gay. Like I said, long story, don't ask. Just get me those guns, dude."

"Mkay, mkay, all I'm sayin', if you for some reason don't wanna work with 'em anymore, ya know, we could use a gal 'round here helpin' us out, y'know, in more ways than one -"

"I ain't standin' here to listen to your horny ass, Damon! Shut the fuck up and stop wastin' my time!" Losira barks at the gun range employee, who ducks in pretended fear into the back room.

"I'm jus' sayin'~! ! !" he yells from inside the back room, the sound of locked metal drawers being unlocked and opened.

"Yeah, yeah, give yourself a quickie in there while you're at it!"

"But why? !"

"So you don't talk like that when I've got company along!"

"What does it matter, there's no one else here!"

Losira sighs exasperatedly and leans against the counter herself, facing Reimu and Yukari. "Sorry, bit of an awkward convo, but it's how I get along with the peeps here."

"But why'd he call us...'sexy-ass'...ughhh, I don't understand English colloquialism..." Reimu just stands there, confused by Losira's discourse with the man.

"You really need to get a hold of your own looks, Reimu. Do you even meet a lot of guys back in Gensokyou?" Losira says, almost condescendingly.

"Er, no...not really..."

"The last time she has even seen a man was three months ago, prior to our entry into Earth yesterday," Yukari gloats.

"That's pathetic." Losira facepalms and Reimu hisses at Yukari, who is pulling a rich lady's laugh, trolling Reimu even further. Damon soon emerges from the back room with two black bulletproof cases and stacks them onto the counter.

"Here ya go. They're assembled 'n ready to go."

"They been cleaned? You know I'm a stickler for maintenance 'n shit."

"Duh. It's you I've gotta deal with here."

"Damn straight. We'll be a while, so stock up some ammo for me."

"Which kinds?"

"Training 9mm's and live."

"We should have 'em, so holla at me once you need 'em."

"Sounds good, I'll drop the dosh once we leave."

"You know you don't have to, right? You've already done enough for my boss. Actually, there's no physical way he can pay you back for what you did for us."

"Shut up and take my money," Losira sneers in a lighthearted tone as she opens the gun cases and inspects the products. "Since I get to do what I want 'round here 'cause I made all of you my bitches, I'ma pay for the ammo I'm burnin' because I feel like it, problem?"

"Hey, jus' sayin', but..."

Damon leans in to whisper discreetly into Losira's left ear.

"That dark-haired chick, she looks basically the same like ya. You two related, or know each other, 'r somethin'?"

"..."

Losira glances over at Reimu, who is chatting with Yukari as they wait.

"No idea. I can't deny she looks exactly like me. But I didn't know 'er until last night."

"So you are lesbo."

Losira puts her left hand on the top of Damon's hair and pushes his face into the glass countertop.

"I think putting a bullet in this dumbass brain here'll solve all my problems."

"I-I can assure ya that's a real bad idea."

"How so?"

"'cause the world needs me. It can't do without a Damon Haggsworth."

"I can do without a Damon Haggsworth." Losira takes her hand off Damon's head. "But I get whatcha mean. It's almost disturbing how similar we look."

"Yeah, totally. I jus' feel like there's somethin' between ya, even if neither of ya know it yet."

"Wow, Damon, I never took you to be a superstitious type."

"Jus' lookin' out fer ya, Losira."

"Why, how considerate of you."

"In case I want some head from you later, that is."

Losira strikes Damon's left cheek with the back of her left hand, pimpslapping him with a sound like a gunshot. As Damon grovels on the floor behind the counter, the eyepatch gunslinger snaps her fingers at Yukari and Reimu, beckoning at them to follow her into a separate lecture room at the corner of the compound. They pile into the surprisingly spacious lecture room, a makeshift classroom with cheap chairs strewn everywhere in front of a whiteboard that is hanging at an odd angle on the wall.

"Just need to explain the basics of firearm discipline 'n shit like that, explain protocol here and whatever, so sit down and listen to me drone on about this crap," Losira blabbers nonchalantly. Reimu and Yukari seat themselves in the seats directly in front of Losira.

"Mkay, to start, rules of this gun range."

Losira takes the black marker sitting on the whiteboard marker rack and starts scribbling in fast but neat handwriting.

"First rule: Unless you're inside the actual gun range itself, don't have a gun out. Purely safety reasons. We don't give two shits if it's got its safety on, or if it's got parts missing, or if it's unloaded, or if you're trying to blow your own brains out. Don't have it out, period, unless you can, like me."

"Um...blow your own brains out...?" Reimu squints her eyes in a "huh, what" moment.

"We had someone try to commit suicide here. Don't ask. Anyway, only exceptions to this rule is if we're getting attacked or robbed for whatever goddamn reason or if there's a zombie apocalypse, by which point rules wouldn't exist anyhow."

"Zombie apocalypse...?"

"Trying to cover everything here. Next rule, never point a gun at anyone, ever. Unless you're me. No one knows if you've still got a bullet in your chamber. Maybe even you don't even know. Part of gun etiquette, but it's part of our rules here too because people are stupid sometimes. No, actually, all the time. So don't be stupid and don't do it."

The whiteboard rocks back and forth as her marker scrapes against it.

"Next...if you can't bring it to an airport, you can't bring it here. List is on the other wall over there, too lazy to go through specifics."

Yukari and Reimu narrow their eyes at the whiteboard. Although Losira's handwriting is like calligraphy, the drawings that she also sketches to accompany them are very horribly drawn.

"Final rule, if you see the owner of this place, give 'im a Heineken, and you can shoot all the bullets ya want here."

"Why is there a rule like that?"

"Hey, these ain't my rules."

"And what's up with your drawings?"

"What about 'em?"

"Well...they suck."

Reimu dodges the marker that Losira chucks at her.

"Shut up! I know they're bad, so what if they are! ?"

Yukari and Reimu snigger, much to Losira's angry embarrassment. Sighing, Losira tosses them two pairs of soundproof earphones and two mics.

"Put the mics - the smaller ones - into your ears. It's labeled left 'n right. Put the bigger headphones over them, it'll block out the sounds of the guns while we're inside so we don't blast our ears out. Once you've done that, follow me to the doors."

Losira picks up the two gun cases again and trudges out of the room. Yukari fiddles with the mics and heavy earphones, and Reimu, with her own equipment already placed appropriately, helps Yukari with hers.

"I do not understand this strange apparatus..." Yukari mumbles as Reimu flips down her mouthpiece.

"Old women usually don't understand technology, after all."

"But I'm not old."

"Compared to normal humans, they'd think how you're not a pile of bones already."

"What about my hat?"

"Dunno. Take it off, I guess."

Yukari removes her hat so Reimu can snap the heavy headphones in place and carries it with her to meet up with Losira again in front of the first of two heavy bulletproof steel doors that lead into the gun range.

"There's a counter inside, so you can put your hat in there. Just don't forget about it when we leave," Losira points to Yukari's hat as she pushes open the door. They cram inside the tight containment space, the first door sliding slowly shut before Losira opens the second. The residual smell of gunpowder, absent from the other rooms, is very apparent within the gun range itself.

"Can you hear me? These earphones are military-grade noise cancelling, so if you can't hear me, tap me on the shoulder 'r somethin'," Losira says, her voice having turned metallic and staticky. Yukari and Reimu nod, the sukima youkai still tampering with her equipment to make them fit as comfortably as possible. Losira clicks open the two black gun cases again and presents its treasures within to the two residents of Gensokyou.

"Today, we're only gonna worry 'bout shooting. I'll teach you the actual parts later tonight or something and field strippin' 'em, so for today, if you have any problems like gun jams, just ask me. Now..."

Losira quickly assembles the two handguns and sets one on the counter with the other in her hands for demonstration.

"This is called a Beretta M9 pistol. It's an easy gun to use because of its low recoil and easy to practice with since it shoots 9mm's, which're real cheap. At least, compared the other ammo types. Fifteen rounds, clean iron sights. Should come naturally once I show you how to actually shoot the thing." Losira shifts her body so they can see the weapon at a better angle, and she starts pointing at various gun parts. "Here's what you need to know right now: grip, where you hold the gun with whichever's your dominant hand; magazine release, the button you press when you're out of ammo; safety, button to press when you're done shooting and don't wanna pop a cap in anyone else; slide release, you push down on it like this to throw the slide, I'll explain how it works when we actually shoot; trigger, the thing you pull to fire; iron sights, line 'em up on the thing you wanna hit; muzzle, where the bullet comes out of; trigger guard, makes sure your trigger doesn't get pulled by anything on accident; and finally, the magazine, the thing that holds your bullets."

Reimu's eyes follow with sharp precision as Losira slaps the magazine back in and racks the slide to chamber a bullet.

"Now follow me, I've got a target set up on the far booth for one of you to practice on."

They walk over to the furthest booth away from the double steel doors, and Losira sends the paper target downrange with a flip of a switch on the panel inside the booth.

"Watch my body posture and the way I hold my gun. Note angles at which my elbows are bent. This is standard firing procedure, you'll need to get this down right before you go anywhere with a gun."

Once the target is some twenty five meters away, Losira opens fire. The sharp clacks, dulled by the soundproof earphones but still very audible, reverberate within the once-silent gun range, and fifteen bullet casings are ejected from the pistol slide. Once all rounds are spent, Losira hits another switch to bring the target back and faces Reimu and Yukari with her gun.

"Once you've fired all rounds, press the magazine catch, take out the mag, and set it on the table. The magazine'll either fall out by itself, or it'll get caught inside so you'll have to pull it out manually. Either way, do that, and start loadin' up the magazine again. I'll give you boxes of ammo, so don't worry about wasting any." Losira sets down the gun and the ejected magazine and opens up a box of 9mm training rounds. "9mm's are bigger than you think, so they're easy to load into a mag. Take a bullet, hold the mag firmly, and push down. It'll lock the bullet in place by itself, so just keep doing it until you've got 15 stocked up in there, then it can't take any more."

Losira smacks the fully loaded magazine back into the gun and throws the slide, glancing at the target she fired at.

"This is what you're aiming for. A tight group. Doesn't matter where for now; if you can do this, your aim is good for the time being," Losira says, pointing at the very small group of rips in the paper in the head region. She sends the target downrange again and commences shooting once more until the gun jams.

"This'll happen a lot; it's called a gun jam, caused by a malfunction in the gun ejection system. Sometimes it's the gun's fault, sometimes it's your fault for not cleaning the thing. These guns've been around here for years, so they're not in the best of shapes no matter how well they're cleaned. Most of the time, you can get rid of these jams by pulling back on the slide, and the casing should pop right out." Losira yanks the slide back, and the casing jumps out in sync. She quickly fires the remaining rounds with her left hand at the target and releases the magazine again.

"That's basically it. Just remember that even though these're training rounds, they'll still hurt like a bitch if you shoot anyone, so remember our rules here and don't point those things at anyone unless you wanna kill 'em for a good reason. Either point 'em downwards or downrange. The word 'up' isn't allowed here."

"Excuse me, but for how long will we be doing this...?" Yukari inquires, Losira handing her the second Beretta M9.

"Until you can pull off what I just did. I'll get you more targets and ammo, so go ahead and practice. Good shootin'."


Some eight hours later...

"How's your target lookin', Yukari?"

Reimu exhales deeply out of exhaustion, her brow brimming with sweat. She leans against Yukari's booth, watching the tall straw-blonde woman fire her last round from her M9.

"Oh dear...this is certainly much more tiring than what it seems," Yukari sighs as well, taking the handkerchief that Reimu hands her and wipes her own forehead while she pulls back on the lever that draws her paper target back to her. "Though, at the same time, it is certainly very interesting."

"It's weird. It's kinda like danmaku, except we can't see the bullets 'cause they fly so fast."

"And that they are almost always lethal."

"That too. But the control is basically the same. These gun things are like what our control over danmaku would look like if they were given form, you know?"

"I understand your sentiment. The mechanics seem to be very similar. Perhaps these guns and bullets are to our own danmaku back home in Gensokyou."

"Well, we've always known there've been parallels between Gensokyou and Earth, so I don't find this surprising."

"Neither do I. What I do find surprising, however, is my aim."

Reimu and Yukari peer at Yukari's target. Her cluster of bullet holes closely resembles Losira's from earlier that day during her demonstration.

"Comes naturally, doesn't it?"

"Apparently so."

"But what gets me thinking is what happens when we get into a fight with these. How do you fight back?"

"...I suppose whoever connects the first shot would be the victor."

"I guess..."

"Mannnn...and why do they have to be so heavy? When we first started, I didn't think they'd wear me out to this point...we've been at this for like seven or eight hours now..."

"It is no doubt tiring, but our friend seems not to mind. She has been practicing alongside us with no word of complaint."

They glance over to the next booth, where Losira is one-handing a Five-seveN with her left hand.

"Well, she's already a pro at this. Didn't you see her take out all those guys yesterday?"

"You need to learn discipline from her. You always slack during your training in your shrine, after all."

"But that's because I already know danmaku inside and out; I'm the one who invented it, damn it. This stuff I take more seriously right now since I know nothing about it. And now that I do -"

"There is no harm in more training."

"There is."

"How so?"

"I'm tired and hungry."

"So am I, but you do not see me whining about it."

"Shut up."

Losira fires her last bullet and pops out her spent magazine, setting her weapon and magazine on the counter of the booth.

"Lemme see how much you've gotten done so far. You've collected your targets like I told you to, right?"

Reimu and Yukari hand Losira their paper targets, and she inspects them, her black left eye scanning each one as a few other occupied booths erupt in gunfire.

"You guys naturals 'r somethin'? Eight hours of practice and you're already this good?" Losira wonders aloud, stacking the papers together.

"You remember the ofuda I used on you last night? Those things are like our bullets in Gensokyou, you know," Reimu says, putting her hands behind her head and hairbow.

"Yeah, I know. Whatever; faster you learn, better for me. Alright; we're gonna go grab some dinner and meet up with the guys I mentioned we'd meet earlier this morning."

Reimu cheers the imminence of the acquisition of food.

"Who exactly are these people we will be meeting?" Yukari inquires.

"I told you, associates of mine, the guys I work with. These're professionals I'm talkin' about here, an active military squad, that is."

"Military squad?" Reimu asks as she puts away her gun into its case.

"Seal Team 6."