On Sun, 03 Jan 1999 00:04:05 PST, you wrote:

   {Oh well, time fo--} her thoughts slammed to a halt as she
saw them.  Roses.  Blood red and midnight black, the bouquet sat
on her desk like an imp waiting for an unwary moment when it
could steal her breath.

Nice desription; it really conveys Nabs' surprise and fear.

   "Now I begin to see why Son-i--why Ranma always chose you, in
the end, Akane.  You have a wonderful spirit."

   "Wait a minute!  Cologne?!  Ranma said something about--you
mean this is all a dream?  None of it's real?"

   Cologne allowed a grumpy look to cross her features.  "Of
course it's a dream--but who's to say it's not real, too?  You
continually deny your feelings for your fiance, as he does for
you, and yet those feelings are still real.  So what difference
does it make that this place exists only in your mind--maybe the
metaphor is still true, and maybe we can each construct our own
realities by force of will.  Or maybe you have just been eating
too much of your own cooking before bedtime."

I think you could make the messages in this scene a tad less explicit.
I know it's a communication from Cologne, but Akane's mind might not
be receptive enough for it to come in this clearly, and it seems like
it would serve the story better to make her (and the reader) wonder.

   Sgt. Abe's sympathy had been genuine when he had told
the young man--what was his name?  Oh yes, Happousai--when he
had told Happousai that he couldn't release any information at
all about the bombing of the Maiden's Luck.  After all, the boy
was obviously just looking for some solace in knowing how went
the investigation of the explosion which had killed his fiance.

Nah, he just wants to know what they did with the victims' undies....

   On the one hand, he had a break-in that had lead to no theft
or property damage.

Not any obvious, anyway... shouldn't he have to spend some time
checking? (It's 'led,' BTW.)

   "Yes, and I know why, I think.  I also think you can guess
the real reason he took off, too."  Akane pressed on, not
guessing the real reason behind Nabiki's guilty flinch. 

Did you mean to repeat "guess the real reason?"

   Unbidden, the words from the note her "admirer" left came

"admirer" had left

   Akita Sakue sat long enough to be sure she had retained her
composure, and then very quietly fled the building, praying with
all her soul that the rest of her life would be dull and
lifeless.

The repetition of 'life' is a little awkward here... might want to say
'the rest of her days' or something.

   Ii Go watched the video tape from the security cameras over
the open-air market one more time.  He had never seen anything
like it.

"Ii Go?" Weird name.

   And then _she_ would go through some lesser maneuvers
herself, dodging frantically to get away from someone she had
apparently just caught a glimpse of.  It took Go awhile to
figure it out, but eventually he realized that she was reacting
whenever she saw the one player Go did recognize, a pretty,
sweet-faced young woman with long brown hair in a ponytail he
had often noticed in the market.

'Scuse me a sec....

AAARGH! Why does everybody take these silly anime hair colors at face
value?! Why? WHY???

OK, I'm better now. Let's continue.... :)

   The part that stopped him cold every time was when they tried
to describe their assailant.  If he understood them correctly,
nearly a dozen of his burliest workers had been taken down by a
sixteen-year-old girl.  Not only that, but she was asking all

she had asked all

The use of one-shot characters was kind of a new thing for me, so
I'd really like your opinions on that--was it too much, should I get rid 
of it here, but maybe use it for another story, did it
work for this chapter but not for most others, should I go back
and write the whole story from strangers' perspectives (mind you,
I'm not saying I'm gonna _do_ everything you suggest, but I'd
still like to hear about it).  ^_^

I think it worked well the way you did it. The scenes you used it for
were ones where we could pretty easily figure out what was really
going on. All in all, this was a really good chapter, and I'm
anxiously waiting to see how it continues.


Gary