At Ayami's apartment, the girls slipped out of their snowsuits. The snows hadn't yet begun, but the cold was too intense to endure with only their darkness for insulation. And around the table, the nine sat, and sipped tea while a "rain in the mountains" sound track played.

"The first thing you need to know about guns is this: they are threats. Even showing a gun is a threat in a way no other weapon is," Ayami said over the rim of her teacup.

Akane nodded. "Mm-hm. Even a pretend gun can scare people. Always keep your guns hidden until you want to use them."

Ashi smiled. "We can do that," and produced a kunai, then vanished it.

Akane's jaw dropped. "How do you do that?"

Adi took the question. "Through our darkness, we have power to do things nobody can normally do. We can place objects in it, and retrieve them. We can cling to any surface that can take our weight. And Mother tells us that after we've mastered our current technique, she'll show us how to extend and shape the darkness to make claws." She looked down, voiced freighted with sadness, "You'll never be able to do this. The Pit of Darkness is lost now, we and Rika and Mother are the last who will have this link to the darkness."

"Oh," Akane said, her voice small.

Avi spoke next. "Ayami, what's a bounty hunter? You said you used to be one."

"A bounty hunter," she said, "is someone who tracks down others for money. Sometimes a bounty needs to be captured, sometimes killed. They can be people who have done great harm, or simply people who've chosen to flee from obligations."

"Is the Samurai a… bounty?" Ari asked.

I thought they'd ask that. "Yes, with an extremely high price on his head. But every bounty hunter who's gone after him has failed, sometimes fatally. Single, pairs, even teams. Once, a team of the six greatest bounty hunters of their time tried to take him out with a coordinated ambush; they were lucky to survive. The samurai never kills his opponents by intent, so far as I've heard; if a hunter surrenders or flees, he'll allow that, or if she's out of the fight but still alive, he'll accept it."

Ashi sipped her tea. "That's important to know. Thank you, Ayami."

"Are you going to get guns? Can I come with you? Can I get a gun too?" Akane asked, eyes bright and voice eager, and her mother smiled to her.

"Yes. You'll old enough now, I think, to be trusted with one." She looked over to Ashi. "Her training's not on your level, of course, but she's still pretty good." And Akane beamed at the praise. Ashi simply accepted the statement. After the tea was done and cups and pot washed, they took a bus to a weapons supplier, and Ayami told them a little about guns in general on the way.

.oO()Oo.

Aki stepped up to the man behind the counter. "Good afternoon," she said. "We're not really sure what we're looking for here, perhaps you could help us?"

He smiled, without the odd twist they'd seen so often on men's faces when addressing them. "I can try. Obviously you're here for guns, but what applications do you have in mind? Close up, long range, holdout? How much stopping power do you need? And if you're planning to travel, will you be able to get more ammo?"

"Well… we'll probably be spending a lot of time in the wilderness, away from anywhere we can get more ammo, so that's definitely something we need to think about. And we want quiet weapons."

The dealer thought. The girls were pretty small, better stick to the light stuff. "Let's see… " He unlocked a case of pistols, taking out a white, glossy gun with a bright orange stripe down the side. "This is the Helmson and McKendrick BE-53702 neuronic frequency stun gun. Guaranteed to take down any vertebrate human-sized or smaller in one shot. I don't buy it; I think two shots. Bypasses most armours. Seven shots in the cell, takes about six hours to recharge, depending on the power source. Very good non-lethal weapon."

Ami picked it up. "It's very light, it feels a bit flimsy."

The dealer grinned. "You're right. But the shell is a boron-matrix composite, you'd need a cold chisel to crack it. It'll hold up. And if it gets dirty, a little dish soap and a rag will have it looking new in a minute."

She looked to Ashi, expression questioning. The other glanced to Ayami, then at her approving look, nodded. Ami put it down. "I'll take it, and three cells. How do I charge them?"

"With a charger. There's all kinds, but maybe we should see what your sisters get before I give advice that way."

They nodded as one, and Adi spoke up. "I want something more lethal. Something that could kill a large animal, or large person. Preferably not too heavy." She was thinking in terms of someone along the lines of, well, Rika.

He nodded again. "Well, there's a few options. I've got laser weapons, plasma guns, electrolasers, all kinds of slug throwers. But if you're away from civilization a lot, I'm guessing you'll want an energy weapon. Good choice might be an electrolaser: pull the trigger, low-powered laser ionizes a path through the air, then an electrical discharge follows the path. Instant lightning, even if it doesn't kill it's pretty much sure to at least impair. This one's the DeLameter EES-606. Not too great against most armours, to be honest, but it's great for unarmoured opponents. Six shots a cell, takes about ten hours to recharge." He puled a streamlined, glossy black weapon from its display case and laid it on the table, letting her pick it up. "Again, it's a pretty light weapon, but it's made of seriously tough stuff."

She picked it up, running her hand over it in a decidedly possessive way. "I like it. I'll want four cells." She set it down, and turned to the sister with her bangs cut in an arc. "Aji, what about you?"

She looked over the selection. "We'll want a high degree of tactical flexibility, and we need quiet weapons. So I'll want something different from the electrolaser and stun gun. Something good against armoured targets."

The dealer considered, and pulled out a long matte-grey weapon with a fluted barrel. "You might want this, then. Reynolds MC-23 laser carbine. Melts most armours, inflicts really messy injuries on living things. Six shots a cell, about five or six hours to recharge." He set it down, and looked around the store. "For quiet… that's about all I have. The rest are mostly slugthrower types, chemically propelled and loud. Now, you're going to want a charger. With three different guns, and I'm thinking ten cells total, you'll want a four-barrel with eight extra slots. Solar panels, heat exchanger, and a wall plug. Maybe a vehicle adaptor. It needs to be rugged, am I right?" A nod in unison. Man, that was creepy. "Right. I have just the thing. This is just what you need: The Elphinstone 4DX," and he brought up an image on what looked like a pane of framed glass. The girls' eyes widened at the sight. "The real prestige one is the Fesdam 22C, but honestly, you're just paying extra for the name. It's for people who want to impress their friends, and I don't think you much care about that."

"Function matters more," Ashi agreed. "We'll take them. And three extra cells for the… carbine. We'll need somewhere to practice with them, you know such a place." He conceded that, and told them where to find a range. "And where we can find less sophisticated weapons? I use a bow."

He grinned. These girls were the kind of customers he liked: they knew roughly what they were looking for, and knew when they'd found it. "Those are just display models, I'll put them back and get you the real ones." He did so, disappearing briefly into the back and coming back out with three guns in boxes and three sets of cells. "Don't worry about putting the wrong cell in the wrong gun; they'll only fit the right guns. Now I just need to get the charger." Another short trip to the back. "What about a gun safe? You have somewhere to keep them?"

Aji smirked a little. "We have very safe places to keep them."

"Gunbelts?"

"No need," she assured him. "We have our own methods."

He considered that, then shrugged. There were a lot of strange things in this world, and clearly these girls were among them. "Your choice. Now, let's ring those up. I should tell you, the power cells are too low to use. You can see why, I'm sure."

Aji nodded immediately. "We can." The bill was totalled, and Ashi paid the man.

Akane stepped up when the sisters stepped back. "I need a pistol."

That got a raised eyebrow from the counterman. "Really? You want a real pistol?"

Akane nodded solemnly. "My mother says I'm ready to start learning to use guns properly," and at the man's questioning glance, Ayami nodded.

The counterman's demeanour completely changed and in a serious tone, he said "All right. You want a pistol, do you know what kind? Obviously, it needs to be small and light, with minimal recoil since you don't have a lot of mass to soak it up. So that means an energy weapon. Does quiet matter to you?" She shook her head. "Right. So, how about the kind of stun gun I just sold to your friend?" Akane looked over to her mother, who shook her head.

"I think a laser pistol and an extra cell. And a gunbelt and a charger. Mommy has a gun safe already." The counterman nodded to that, and brought up several laser pistols, ranging from one nearly as long as Akane's forearm to a snub-nose barely as big as her fist. She chose the long one. "I want something I can grow into," she said, and the counterman smiled. Ayami paid for her daughter's pistol, Ashi paid for the sisters' purchases, then it was on to acquire her arrows, Ari's shuriken, and Avi's throwing axes. Explosive arrows… what a thought.

The firing range seemed strangely short, but Ayami reminded the sisters that most firefights were at distances much shorter than the range allowed. At her suggestion, they deliberately lowered the output of their weapons to get more out of their cells. They sat in the lounge while their cells quick-charged, and discussed the basics of their guns' usage.

"Remember," Ayami said to Akane, "a gun's just like any other weapon."

Akane nodded, expression solemn. "Yes, Mommy. Never ready a weapon unless you're ready to kill someone, or to be killed." The sisters nodded to that. Good to see she'd learned that lesson.

Ayami looked over to them. "I didn't dispute your choice of a stun gun, Ami, because I'm sure you've long since learned that lesson bone-deep." Ami just nodded. She had indeed learned it long since.

The partial charge was enough for them to start on, but to their great surprise, after dinner Ayami took them to the outskirts of town, a bus stop so remote it was only marked by a pole and a single, run-down looking convenience store, and from there, she led them further out, away from the shore line. She pointed to a mid-range tree. "Akane, adjust your pistol for maximum aperture, minimum duration. Then fire on that tree." The girl did as asked, all of them keeping one eye shut. The shot didn't burn a clean hole in the tree, but blasted a pit in the trunk as wide as Akane's wrist. She stared at the hole, then at her pistol, then after checking the safety, returned it to its holster. "That is the power of the pistol. It's why a gun is seen as fundamentally different than a bow or a knife." She just nodded weakly, and they returned to the stop, deep in thought.