And that's a first draft?  Except for solving whatever problems you have
with the Japanese, I can't say as I think there's anything you have to fix
in that...  That's one fine piece of work.

I'd agree here.  Even forwarded that fic to a couple friends who aren't on
the list actively anymore, and they all liked it.  Kudos to the author on
making a very unusual idea work very well.

Hmmm.  I should've done that; I know a couple folks who'd like that.

(Just one impertinent question -- how did an orca get to Jusenkyo? <grin>)

Who knows?  How did an octopus get to (and drown at) Jyusenkyou?  That's
from the manga!  How did a young, red-haired (thus probably non-Asian)
young girl drown at a training ground in a remote area of China 1200 years
ago?  There's probably a story there as to why a young European girl was
wandering around the mountains of China in the year 700 AD...actually,
that's not a bad fanfic idea... hrm...

I was just thinking the same thing...

Anyway, the point is that ANYTHING can get to Jyusenkyou and drown.

And *that's* the true horror of the place.  It attracts creatures to it in
order to drown them.  <grin>

MY question is how the orca FIT in the spring. ;)

It doesn't have to, in order to drown.  Just stick its head in so that the
blowhole is covered, and stays that way.

One wonders, though, if perhaps there is a single spring at Jusenkyo that
*nothing* has drowned in... two questions arise from this:  One, can a
container of that water be "tinted" by drowning something in it, and two,
what happens if someone is dipped in the Spring of Drowned Nothing?
("Ah, cold water, cold wa...."  "Oops, where did he go?"  <grin>)