DISCLAIMER: Trigun and its characters belong to Yasuhiro Nightow.
Showdown
The suns were high in the sky, minimizing shadows and maximizing heat. Grit swirled over the open ground in the desert breeze that flapped both a cape and a duster as two people faced each other.
"You sure you want to do this?" Vash the Stampede asked.
Meryl Stryfe's expression left no doubt. "Absolutely."
Vash nodded slowly. "Let's get at it, then."
No sooner had he finished his sentence than Meryl's hands were a flash, ducking in her cape and coming out with a derringer in each fist. One shot fired as soon as it came level, but Vash was no longer in the same space.
He was incredibly fast, but Meryl had spent enough time both watching him fight and fighting alongside him to anticipate where he would be. She fired there as she went on the move herself, dropping the empty derringers and withdrawing fresh ones.
The shot might have hit its target, except Vash somehow contorted himself just enough for it to miss by a couple millimeters. He had drawn his own gun and now returned his own shot, aiming just ahead of where Meryl was. To her credit, she had kept track of him as she moved; she now swerved as he pulled the trigger, his round spraying sand.
It continued on like this for several minutes, an evenly matched event where each participant was both cat and mouse. Vash was as good as anyone would expect from a man of his reputation, but Meryl's time with him had sharpened her own skills and reflexes. She proved herself no slouch against him.
Finally, both of them sweating from the high-heat exertion, their chests heaving, Meryl grinned triumphantly as she had Vash on his knees, a derringer pressed firmly under his jaw.
He grinned back – his revolver's barrel was against her heart. It was hot from being fired multiple times, but through the thick shirt she wore for these sessions it felt like no more than the heat of a lover's touch.
"Draw," Meryl noted with a happy tone. "Water break and rematch?"
"Deal," her husband agreed with the same happy tone.
The pair treated themselves to a quick training break, good-naturedly ribbing each other over their training match.
Knives scowled as he stood on the house's deck and crossed his arms. "It looks like bad art," he opined of the paint-spattered area where Meryl and Vash had had their "shootout". "Live-fire makes for better training than simunitions. And this is pointless anyway! The short woman has improved, but Vash still has to hold himself back for her to stand any chance. He gains nothing from this!"
Milly Thompson sighed from her seat beside him. "Haven't you figured it out by now, Mr. Knives?" she asked. "This is how they flirt."