Well, I did say February... so here's something to chew on.
-rod m

*gnaw gnaw gnaw*

  As stated before, he was once observing a frog leap
about, and watched as it dove into the spring where his car
had, technically, drowned.  Nothing came out.  His curiosity
piqued, the Guide strolled over and had a look.  Submerged
and stuck deep within the spring was a Nissan Pathfinder. 
How odd, he thought, did I not have my car towed away
already?  With a scientific experiment in mind, the guide
carefully filled a cup with the water, strolled over to a
passing ant, and let the liquid drop. 

And the Jusenkyou-produced Pathfinders... do they have
any sort of life of their own, as Ryouga did when he was
temporarily a car?  

angry stampede of pathfinders. 

Capital "P."

  She eyed the airborn Mousse once more, calculating
trajectory, wind speed, and velocity.  Then she took one
step to the left.

  *WHAM*

Very cute bit of visual humor.

Kuno stopped short, thrown off by the little girl standing
in her way.  He looked at her as one would look at abstract
art, with lots of blinking and a general sense of
unfamiliarity.

I like that description quite a bit.

Without warning, she grabbed him by the arm and hurled him
into the air, across the school grounds, and into a fourth
floor classroom.

The morning audience was speechless.

"Damn, I didn't see THAT coming," said Hiroshi.

Mmm... I think I'll save my Kyoko thoughts up for the end.

"It's me, moron!"  She stared at him, noting the utter lack
of comprehension.  "Ukyou!  Me!  Ukyou!" she said as she
pointed to herself.  "Understand?"

Is she wearing the spatula?  That's usually a dead giveaway.
But of course, Ryouga has been known to miss the very,
very obvious.

Apologies would definitely have to be forgiven.  

That sounds a little awkward.  

It was the kind of smile only worn with an effort.  The kind
of smile that's usually meant to be reassuring, but usually
fails.

I know the kind.

This conversation was taking unwanted and somewhat
embarrassing turns.  Ryouga tried, unsuccessfully,
to stop it.  "Guys..."

Now that seems a little moderate for Ryouga, just in my
opinion.  He seems much more likely to act without thinking
based on his feelings, which would probably involve threats
of violence at the very least.  Just might want to consider
it, seeing as that's what he would always do if anybody said
anything about Akane.

"You're kidding," said Ukyou weakly.  "Right?"

Nabiki looked left, then right, then leaned towards Ukyou.

"Yes, I am," she replied, that nasty grin returning to her
face. 

A peculiar jest for Nabiki to be making....

"NO OKONOMIYAKI FOR YOU!  OUT!  NEXT!"

*snort.*  The Okonomi-nazi.  Oh dear.

The basic male instinct for survival has several features.

One of them is to do what an enraged woman tells you to do,
unless fleeing is an option.

Surprising that Ranma has any of this sort of instinct left,
since he's been supressing it for so long...

"Shaddup, you aquatransexual cross-dressing fem-boy."

Just a suggestion here - if Ukyou is lashing out, the odds
would seem to be against her using "cross-dressing" as
an insult.  In Ranma's case, she'd probably be more likely
to snarl something about him being a two-timing, womanizing,
freeloading, thieving... that sort of thing.

as quite a few mini-spatulas.  Stains from soot bombs added
to the wall decorations.  Yakisoba noodles spun lazily from

I'm assuming that should be "flour bombs," unless Tonya 
tossed in a few projectiles without us knowing, or Ukyou has
adopted a radical and questionable new cooking style.

Ranma and Ryouga sulking?  Peacefully?  Together?  This
sceen was more than enough to pique Nabiki's curiosity.
She sauntered into the dojo, walking that particular walk
that she knew made Saotome a little nervous.  Much to her
delight, it also seemed to make Ryouga a little edgy.

"Hello boys," said Nabiki, her voice silky smooth.  "You two
seem troubled.  Anything I-"

I take it they found some hot water, or the lake they landed in
was warm.

One would think you guys have a fetish or something."

The boys stared at her blankly.

A joke about Ryouga having picked up several fetishes (as
in little statues) for souveniers in his travels suggests itself
here.

 - - - - -


And the next arc of "Pursuit of Happiness" kicks off, much to the
delight of your many fans.  I'm interested, as always, to see where
things are going and how the various set-ups will pay off.  The 
Ukyou-nazi thing was very funny in this chapter.

I have some concerns, however, about the character of Kyoko.

Looking back over the previous chapters of the story, I believe that
Kyoko's best moments have been when she has been interacting
with her family, especially Ryo.  In that context, she was very 
interesting, and helped bring out some of Ryo's better-hidden 
characteristics.  But now Ryo is out of the picture, at least for a
while, and Kyoko is going to have to stand on her own a bit more
as a character.  

The thing that bothers me about her is not necessarily her carbonated
personality, but how accomplished she is in spite of it.  She is an
intellectual genius, we are told.  It doesn't just seem to be that she
has a photographic memory - she comprehends as well as she recalls.
She is also a physical, martial-arts genius.  It's not just that she throws
around Kuno and such.  She predicted, if I recall correctly, that she 
would surpass Ranma's skill in two years (and since she is not stupid,
we can assume that she takes Ranma's own phenomenal learning curve
into account - so in essence, she is predicting that the 14 year old 
Kyoko will be a better martial artist than the 18/19 year old Ranma
will be).  While she may be wrong in her predictions, nothing in her
character thus far has indicated that she is capable of making 
mistakes of that sort.  

All in all, it seems a bit overkill.

On top of all this, she has this personality.  Why, if she's so brilliant,
does she act this way?  Perhaps there's some deeper reason for it,
which would be a good thing.  Perhaps it's just for laughs... which is
not so good, because I think the humor value of the permanent bubble-
head (especially one who is really a super-genius) will not last for all
that long.  

So basically, what I'm saying is that I hope you have something in mind
for Kyoko beyond what we've seen today.  Otherwise, she could really
begin to grate, at least to me.


Other than that, I enjoyed the beta version of this part, and I am always
looking forward to more.

Grayson Towler
grayson@rigroup.net
http://www.rigroup.com/~grayson/relentless