The gray-white powder from the smoke bombs slowly settled beneath the moonlight, like a silent fall of fine snow.
Celysia knelt on the windowsill, the stock of her modified rifle pressed into the hollow of her shoulder.
Mila had chipped away part of the outer ring of the sight, leaving a rough, jagged metal break exposed, but Celysia still held the rifle steady.
Since the age of fourteen, none of the moving targets Celysia had shot had ever been as fast as the Uchiha before her. Yet as she looked through the damaged sight at the woman with scarlet eyes, she suddenly realized that her hands had stopped trembling.
Whether she could hit her was no longer important. What mattered was that she fired this shot.
The last lesson her father taught her had not been in a dense forest, but on the reef beside a dock.
That day, Alder had not taught her any techniques. He had merely rested his polished long rifle across his knees, stared at the horizon, and said, "Celysia, if one day you realize you can't win, don't run. Choose the target you think is most worth it, and fire your last bullet."
She had been fourteen then. She had not understood what a "target most worth it" meant. She had only felt that her father's tone was different from when he normally taught her to adjust a scope.
Later, she understood. That day on the reef, her father had not been teaching her how to snipe. He had been telling her how to die.
She centered the damaged sight over Mila's chest.
Mila did not dodge.
She stood beside the chimney, her Three-Tomoe Sharingan slowly turning as she watched every joint in Celysia's finger tighten around the trigger.
She could determine the bullet's trajectory