First of all, great stuff!  This is the chapter that actually sucked me 
into HaM in the first place, so I enjoyed the rerun.

"Alan Harnum" <harnums@hotmail.com> wrote:

       "This my father," Shampoo said. "Shan Peine."

Funnily enough, the pun of this name didn't hit me until I read it a
few times.  Slow-brain day for me.  ^_^;

I did describe him as a "bubbly" man in "A Different Faith." ^_^

You know, Gary, there are countries where a sense of humour like that is 
legally punishable by drawing and quartering....  ~_*

       "I'm dying," she replied. Her hands and arms trembled as they
moved. Her gaze moved slowly and often seemed to lose focus. Where 

she

had merely worn the mask of age before, she was now truly elderly.

The last sentence seems a bit awkward to me.  It might work better if
it was shorter and sharper, e.g.:  She had merely worn the mask of age
before; now she was truly elderly.

That does sound better.

I'll just throw in a blanket agreement, here.

       "Have you ever wondered why I am here? Why the eldest and --
until now -- greatest warrior of the Amazons has been running a ramen
shop in Tokyo?"

For kicks?  For fun?  To meet men?

BZZT! The correct answer would have been, because it's an excellent tax
shelter.

Nah... she's just been planting pods in the basement....

Hmm... this seems a little implausible to me.  What's to stop whoever
destroys the Amazons with modern weaponry from using the modern
weaponry against Cologne as well?

Because she's hanging out in Tokyo. Using the kind of weaponry there
that you'd need to take down Cologne would have bad consequences.
Attacking Nerima with heavy artillery would get the Japanese (and
probably lots of others) to declare war on whoever did it.

I think the confusion arose here because, to a lot of people, "modern 
weaponry"="guns", so the reader is left wondering why Cologne can't be 
shot by someone with a .45?  I figured out what you really meant, but 
you might want to make it clearer that you're talking about _heavy_ 
weaponry (artillery, bombs, missiles and the like).

       Ranma and Akane glanced at each other, some odd unspoken
communication passing between them. They were married now; even 

Cologne

respected that. The old games that they used to play were over. But 

what

would take their place?

I'd recommend casual sex.  I've heard it does wonders.  

Hey, they still haven't had their honeymoon....

I don't know why, but this exchange caused a SPAMfic to germinate in my 
twisted little mind.  It'll be posted later tonight.

Look on the bright side... you could reincarnate as a game show host.

Now, that's just _evil_.

       Kaede descended the steps. Her mind burned with curiosity 

over

what the future would bring; but she could not know. It was a play 

that

she still had a role in. It was time to begin that role, if a certain
person were agreeable.

Hmm... I think this is grammatically correct, but it sounds a little
odd.  Might be better as:  "...if a certain person was agreeable."

I'll see if I can find another way to write it.

How about dumping the 'being' verb altogether:  "... if a certain person 
proved agreeable."

       Cologne's only response was silence, and the blank stare of
motionless eyes.

Cue the violins... 

"Ranma! Prepare to die! I'll kick your--"

"He said vioLINS, you stupid jerk!"

@BAP!

       CHAPTER NOTES: I'm still not completely happy with this 

chapter,

but I'm at the point where I need to hear some feedback on it.

I tried my best.  :)

Ya did fine. I appreciate it much!

Generally a nice chapter, though it seems a trifle rushed, 
wanting to deal with the matter of Cologne's death, Kaede's successor
and a few other things.

I agree that this was a bit rushed. I had a lot of trouble trying to
figure out what to do with this chapter, and I eventually ended up
cutting some of the scenes. Towards the end, I was probably a little 

too

eager to get it out of the way and move on to something else. :)

 However, it's good to see the H&M preludes 
have returned... hopefully we'll see some of that main story soon.

Hopefully, yeah. It's all plotted out, and I'll do my best to make time
to write.

Thanks for the C&C, Alan!


Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics

Looking forward to the rest!

--Freemage

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