Okay, take two. I'm sending this again thanks to our ever playful ML 
overseer, White Wolf

The Demon Hunter High Crew: WW No Baka!!!

Erin 2.5: Shut up, You wanna get removed from this list?!

    Ahem, as I was saying, there are two reasons why these notes are 
in a separate post instead of at the end of "The Letters." 1) I had 
spent four hours in the school's writing lab sending the second half 
and I was technically there after the lab closed, and 2) the more 
important reason, the last scene still gets to me every time I read 
it and I didn't want to spoil the emotional effect by putting a bunch 
of notes after it.
    Okay, the responses I've been getting are very positive. Even 
though it had a tragic ending, most people seemed to like the story. 
I'm glad. The idea spawned from a question that popped into my head 
after reading some of the fanfics I've printed out.
    (I'm not kidding. I have three LARGE three-ring binders filled 
with assorted fanfics, and two others which are exclusively DnR and 
"Ministry of Confusion." And I'm still looking for one to put most of 
"The Crys Saga" in.)
    The question was simply, "How would Ranma and Co. react if 
someone close to them was to die?" A simple question, a not so simple 
fanfic to write. I decided to allieviate the problem by making the 
whole story a trilogy, which means:

                    ----THE STORY'S NOT OVER!---
                    
    I'll get into what happens next in a minute. The next question 
was who was going to die. As I thought about it, I looked at all the 
fanfics that took place some years in the future where Ranma has 
married Akane and noticed a common theme: Ukyou always ended up 
lonely and depressed, she being the one who would sit by and silently 
suffer while everybody else vented their anger in a more Ranmatypical 
way.
    I got to thinking about Ukyou (who just happens to be my favorite 
character, despite my aforementioned lack of source material) and 
realized that of all the Ranma characters, she had the most potential 
to be a tragic hero. (If you don't believe me, check out "Stepping 
Stones" by Benares at the fanfic archive.) The choice, while painful, 
was logical. (Believe me, it was painful.)
    Anyway, I decided to make it a disease that was going to be the 
killer, a very odd disease, whose nature was known only to one 
person: Cologne. The main thrust of the first story was to have Ranma 
and Co. search for the cure, while back at home Cologne slowly 
realizes that if Ukyou isn't around anymore, Akane is the only one in 
Shampoo's way to marry Ranma.
    That's the way it happened with "The Letters,"
    Part two of the story was going to be a little more and a little 
less Ranmatypical. So, here's a preview:

    "Ukyou is dead. Or is she? If she is, who has Ranma been seeing 
every night for the past week? Whoever it is, they're attacking 
Ukyou's heirs and Ranma's the prime suspect. Can Ranma discover the 
truth? And how far will he go to get it?"

(cut to shot of Ranma being arrested.)

   "Coming soom from Erin Mills v2.5: "The Shadows" part two of "The 
Death of Ukyou" trilogy!"

                                    Keep a lookout,
                                    
                                    ---Erin 2.5
                                         OAA