And only two months late...

	$There's a word I'm looking for here, but I don't think it exists in
any language I'm aware of.  Maybe latin, they've got a lot of nicely
descriptive words.  Ah, well, I'll just use the tired old 'Sweet!' and
be done with it.

Quick author's note:

Despite being a chapter in a lemon series, this one represents
something a little different.  For one thing, it focuses on Sasami,

and

as far as I'm concerned that just throws everything even remotely
related to a lemon right out the window.

Sasami: But I use lemons to make lemonade all the time. It hardly seems
fair
you have to make me give  up my lemons because of my age. [Sasami pouts]

	$Ahem.  *cokanashinoimiugh*  No lemons for you.

This is also by far the best thing I've ever written.  I've learned a
lot since I started this series, and this is the best so far.

Heh. After reading so many people put down their writing, it's nice to
see a
little confidence demonstrated.

	$Great I ain't, but I know when I'm getting better.  No one is as
excited as I am about visible improvments.

Yeah, I'd appreciate some C&C, if you think it's worth your time.  I
call this particular chapter original flavor,

Sasami: Unless it's lemon flavored. [Continues pouting]

 so, in other words, if

this is something you can't see happening, or the characters talk

funny,

or act strangely,

They always talk funny and act strange. Oh, you mean strange for them.
Nevermind.

	$True enough.

"Ahhh..." Kiyone sighed, stretching out luxuriously on a
beach towel and enjoying the warm early summer rays that played
over her too-light-in-her-opinion skin.  Naturally pale, Kiyone
liked to be tan

But she'll never beat Mihoshi, who was born tan.

	$Of course not.  But any natural light beats flourescent lighting.

"Ahhh..." sighed their circle of young male admirers from a
short distance, enjoying the free show.  Both of the girls were
in great shape and wearing two-piece bikinis, making the boys'
trip to the beach worthwhile.

"Whee!" Sasami exclaimed as she was lifted up by a medium
sized wave and carried up the beach.  She hadn't been swimming in
a long time, and after she got used to the unusually high salt
content she

conten, she (I think)

	$Mmm... Okay, I'll take your word for it.

"At least put on a shirt?" Nobuyuki asked.  Although
phrased as a statement, it was definitely a question.

"Nope," his father-in-law replied tersely.

"A towel?"

"Nope."

"Please?"

"Let me see...  No."

Hmm.

Nobuyuki sighed and averted his sight, looking back to the
far more inviting scene with the girls.  Hopefully, no one would
connect him with the skinny old man in a loose pair of Bermuda
shorts beside him, calmly sipping at a glass of lemonade.

Heh. I see

	$I've seen far too many of those old men in my beach experiences.  Old
women, too.

Those knobby white knees were practically blinding!  To say
nothing of the pallid chest and stomach.  It made Nobuyuki
squeamish to even think about it.

Now if this were the OVAverse, he would really be a raging studmuffin
the
girls would leave Tenchi for. :)

	$Yeah, he's probably got a tanning bed in the back of the shrine.

She flipped her long hair back over her shoulders for the
umpteenth time, grimacing as the wet hair clung to her swimsuit
and tugged at her head when she looked around, occasionally
watching the white seagulls dive from the blue sky and snatch
someone's snack

or small child

	$Vicious rats with wings they are!  Evil, vile little bastards, just
waiting for a chance to peck out your eye!  Makes me happy to carry
packages of alkaseltzer to the beach and leave them lying around
innocently.

Farther out, several surfers could be seen on their
colorful boards, riding the waves in for as long as they could.

Usually three, or even for seconds at a time.

	$And that was the champions.

"Sasami!  Don't go too far, okay?" yelled Nobuyuki
warningly, his words barely reaching her through the breeze.

"I won't!" she called back, waving with one hand before

A shark pulled her under.

	$Heheh.  That's mean.

striking out again.

"Ah, kids.  I bet she gets over her head, though," Nobuyuki
sighed.

Kiyone, who had also been keeping an eye out, struggled to
sit her relaxed body up.  "Don't worry, Mr. Masaki.  I'll go swim
with her, just in case."

Mihoshi jumped to her feet with none of her partner's
reluctance.  All thoughts of dosing

dozing (I think)

	$Sorry, when I think of dozing I usually mean pushing dirt.  I've got a
bad tendancy to misspell anything with a z in it.  I don't know why.

Mihoshi was an excellent swimmer, and arrived at her
position quickly.  "Hey, Sasami!  Having fun?"  She shook her
mass of sodden curls to get it out of her face, sending water
flying.

Sasami giggled.  "Yep!  Let's go out farther, okay?"

Heh. Just asking for trouble.

	$Nah, she's safe with Mihoshi.

The two men sitting in the beach chairs waved back, but it
was harder to tell with Kiyone.

Implying she looks like a man in beach chair? :)

	$No...  I guess it does read a bit like that, though.

Sasami kicked her legs, raising herself halfway out of the
water as she strained to see what it was.  She was rewarded by
another flash, this time with a hint of other colors to it.

Ever read 'The Raft' by Stephen King? :)

	$Nope, but I may look for it.

Sasami breathed in as deep as she could, preparing for the
worst as the sea swelled beneath them, carrying them up inside
the curl.

Mihoshi resisted the urge to whoop as they slid down,
knowing she'd need that air later.  They bodysurfed for a moment,

I wouldn't mind bodysurfing Mihoshi. :)

	$Heh.  I doubt not.

"Pbtth!  Ick!" she replied, spitting out water and wiping
at her eyes.  "Yeah, I'm okay."  Suddenly she batted at her neck
as something smooth brushed underneath her chin.  The object came
into view as she pushed it away; a smooth sphere of glass, about
the size of a golf ball, with irregular projections on opposite
ends floating on the sea.  The sunlight caught it just right to
send a flash of amber-hued light into Sasami's squinted eyes as
she snatched it out of the water quickly.  "Hey!  I found it!"
she cried, clutching her prize.

It's a beacon to summon The Old Ones. Cool.

	$Close.  I kinda imagined the oni to be a rogue Deep One out messing
with the humans.

Katsuhito accepted it carefully, turning it over in his
hands.  "Ahh..." he said appreciatively.  "You don't see these
much anymore."

"What is it?" Sasami asked eagerly.

Katsuhito: Shiny glass bauble.

	$Now _there's_ an answer to stimulate young minds.

Kiyone stirred, twitching repeatedly and mumbling something
too faint to hear.  Her eyes were troubled, and her hands seemed
to be clutched around some imaginary adversary's neck.

If her eyes are closed, how can they look troubled?

	$Squinched closed, twitching, REM kinda stuff.  Will change.

She couldn't remember.  It was probably just a fear of
drowning brought on by the earlier swim.

Ayeka had told her that if you named a fear, you could
conquer it.

Yeah, right. Try naming Death and see if you conquor it. :P

	$This is Sasami we're talking about here.  I know I didn't use the OAV
continuity, but she'd already died there and been reborn as a goddess.
Sorta, but basically.

  > Whistling wind filled her ears, and she quickly closed the

doors behind her before it woke her chaperones up.  The wind was
chilly, odd since it was blowing from the land out to sea,
heavily laden with the smell of cars and factories, dirt and
plants, all the smells of land.  She wondered what it would be
like to be on a ship out on the ocean.

Soggy. They sit out in the middle of a huge body of water, you know.

	$Unless you're actually being sprayed or rained on, I've found it to be
really dry.  All that salt just sucks the moisture right out of the
skin.  It's very annoying.

 > A sudden chill swept over her with the speed of the wind,

making her pull her nightgown around herself tighter.  There were
scary things out there, dangerous to little girls.

She'd read things like, 'At the Carrot Patch', and knew what she was
talking
about.

	$Yeah, that, too.  Another fine example of why this is not a lemon
chapter.  I may be a pervert, but I do have SOME morals.

Sasami smiled at the idea, placing her hands on the railing
and looking out to sea.  She had sailed the vast gulfs between
the stars for as long as she could remember, and had been doing
it alone for several years now.  Earth's dark waters held no
terrors for her.

Evidently she needs to see a marathon of Jaws, Deep Rising, and
Leviathan.
Or the underwater ballet version of 'Showgirls'

	$She's spent the last few months watching Japanese daytime television
and cooking.  She's served most of those horrors of the deep with
pickled ginger and wasabi.

o/~  A pretty thing will shine and gleam,
to better catch their eye.
So close, so near, or so it will seem,
They may claim it if they try.
And though their friends may shout and scream,
No matter how they cry,
The child is lost into a dream,
And pulled down from the sky.o/~

Sasami: Bugger that. I'm ditching that sphere right now.

	$That would have made a short chapter.

Sasami listened raptly, gradually getting better at hearing
the words.  She hummed along softly, something which the singer
seemed to appreciate.

o/~I watch it pass,
from within the glass,
A tool of the oni's spell.
Young girls so brave,
hit by a wave,
and drowned in its swell...o/~

Sasami: But I can't drown. I have gills. All Jurainains do.

	$Sasami: Besides, it's in my contract.  No lemon scenes and no
drowning, right there at the top.

It was a picture, she decided, and after much scrutiny she
could make out that it was a picture of a girl, sitting on the
ground with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped
around them.  Then, as she watched, one of the arms moved,
reaching up and waving at her!

Sasami has this annoying tendency to attract young ghost girls, doesn't
she?

	$That's, what, the second one?  There was the one in the TV series, and
now I've written a fanfic with one which actually replaces that episode,
sorta.  Is there a trend I'm unaware of?

Sasami was not startled.  Surprised, yes, but she'd seen
stranger things before.

Like Ayeka and Ryouko falling for a weenie like Tenchi.

	$And those same two making hot yuri luvluv in the middle of a
schoolyard right after being nailed with one of Sasami's own love
missiles.

"An oni, I think," Miko replied.  "At least it looked like
what I'd always been told oni look like, although I've never
heard of one living in the sea."

Mermaids ate them, after all.

	$If by mermaids you mean the Star Spawn of Cthulu or the occasional
Shoggoth, then yes.  ^_^

"Anyway, it grabbed me as I was drowning and magically put

me in this float."  Her tone turned from remembered fear to
sadness.  "I floated back to the surface, but I couldn't do
anything in here.  I could see my dad, though.  I watched him
until I floated away.  I screamed and screamed at him, but he
couldn't hear me."  Miko paused.  "Ever since then, I've been
trapped in this float.  There's some kind of spell on it that
makes girls like me want to get it, but it never gets very close
to shore.  And every time one of them tries, they drown."

Neat little trap

	$Mmm.  Pickled little girls.  Bittersweet delicious!

"That's so sad."  Sasami held the glass bauble close, the
best form of hug she could offer.

"It's okay.  The hard part is watching people drown like I
did."

But she didn't drown. Just came close.

	$Ehh, it's a fine line with Miko.

"It might.  Would you please try it?"

Sasami nodded, then looked around.  "Umm..."

"You could try stepping on me, if you were wearing shoes.
Or you could use a rock."

Miko: A glass cutter would do as well.

	$Or a GP blaster.

"Really?" Miko asked very politely, believing her
implicitly with the confidence only a ghost can have.  "I know
you don't feel like everyone else I've been close to.  There is
something different about you, but I didn't know what it was."

It was probably her magic girl powers, which she kept hidden. Others
would
laugh at her.

	$She didn't want Ryoko and Ayeka to be reminded of who had actually
caused that whole incident in the alternate universe, anyway.

Sasami smiled.  With guardians like this, who could worry
about monsters?

They were monsterous in their own right.

	$Scary, for sure.

Sasami considered it, and the events of the night before
flooded into her mind.  "No, but thanks," she replied, sliding
out of bed and walking over to the box with her new treasure, or
friend depending

friend, depending (I think)

	$Yeah, I'll go with that.

"Be careful," she warned, placing her hand over the cool
glass nestled in the padding.  "There are things in the water you
don't want to meet.  Enjoy your swim, and don't be too long."

"I will, and I'll be back soon."  Mihoshi left the room.

A wave of doom and forbodeing assails me.

	$Nah.  This is the sweet and waffy chapter.

"And hot," Sasami agreed with a straight face.  "Actually,
most of they're

them are

	$Wow, that was a creative mistake.  Usually I make it the other way
around.

"What is it, then?"

"It's a huge ring of space trees around a really small sun,
which orbits around another, bigger sun.  It's a really neat
place, and was our first colony."

Sounds like a lot more effort went into that than something simple, like
colonization.

	$No, they found it that way.  Ever read the books?  Very interesting
concept.

Sasami seemed confused herself.  "Why not?  We like trees.
They shelter us, feed us, protect us, supply us with our
powers...  Trees are great," she enthused.  "We didn't have
anything until we found the first space trees and the spirit they
had.  Now we're the most powerful empire in the galaxy,

Except for the Oni, who can defeat anyone. But they's stupid. Instead of
normal invasions, they play games of tag to conquor worlds.

	$And lose, apparently.  Of course, we only saw the one.

"Because it was decided to see how you would do on your
own.  Earth is a 'Natural Evolution Preserve' and no one is
allowed to come here.  My sister and I, and the rest of our
friends, aren't really supposed to be here, but it's okay as long
as we don't tell everyone."

"So you weren't supposed to tell me?" Miko asked.

Sasami: You're a shiny bauble. Who will you tell and who would believe
you?

	$Miko: Oh.  Umm...  I could tell my mommy?

"An omelet," Sasami replied.

"You want an omelet, Sasami?" Nobuyuki asked.

Heh

	$I should have played with that more, but it wasn't clicking.

Sasami shrugged.  "Swimming."

"Swimming," they all chorused together after turning to the
two men.

Katsuhito turned to his son-in-law.  "I guess they're going
swimming."

"Swimming it is," he agreed.

That was almost surreal.

	$Never done that with a group of people?

At one point the waitress had to squeeze between Sasami's
and Kiyone's chair to set a cup down in front of Nobuyuki.  As
she did so, she brushed against the loose jacket where it hung
down the side of Sasami's chair, and the little float slipped out
of the shallow pocket.  It bounced twice on the floor before the
waitress, unaware, kicked it across the floor.

Oops.

Nobuyuki chuckled again.  "You see?  I told you that you
needed to cover your legs, but did you listen?"  He made as if to
jab at the old man's legs, but soon found his wrist twisted in a
grip of iron.

"Don't.  Push it."  Katsuhito's glasses glinted in the
fluorescent light.

Hehehe

	$Everyone always wants to pick at the people with sunburn.  The trick
is to prove that you'll hurt them worse if they try.

Mihoshi checked several more tables with much the same
results, although several certainly acted like they wished it was
theirs.  Then her pressing need reasserted itself and she hurried
on to the restroom.  Finders keepers, and possession is nine-
tenths of the law and all that.

And since she's with Galaxy Police, she should know. :)

	$Yup.

In the restroom, once her business had been taken care of,
Mihoshi stood back up and readjusted her clothes.  The toilet, a
newer model, automatically started flushing.  Just as she
fastened her pants she heard a high clink of something hitting
porcelain behind her.  She turned quickly to see the float hit
the whirlpool with a splash and quickly spiral to the center.

Oops. Looks like Miko's going to end up in water again.

	$Even Mihoshi can't entirely block the oni's influence.  Besides, I
took out all the lemon in this chapter.  I have to at LEAST have a
little bathroom humor.

Suddenly, Sasami wished she hadn't been so quick to take it
back from Mihoshi.  "Eww!"

Hehehehe.

	$Ever dropped your glasses in?  Or cell phone?  Anything really
expensive.  Sure, it's nasty, but what you gonna do?

"That's what I said!" Mihoshi said reasonably.

Kiyone smiled through her own repulsion

revulsion would be better, I think

	$True, good point.

 >

"That's okay," Sasami replied a little too loudly, quick to
reassure her friend.  "I'm not going to loose

lose

	$Dang it, I keep doing that.

 you again, but you

can stay here if you want to."

"I'd like that."

"I'll put your float back in that box, and I'll be back
here before we go to dinner.

It'll get stolen.

	$Is it that predictable?

The table was small and narrow, for there wasn't much space
in the room, but it had four legs on each corner and was stable
enough that it didn't rock much when the princess brushed it.
The small cardboard box sitting on it couldn't have fallen off.
It shouldn't have slid all the way to the edge of the table where
it could totter back and forth.  There was no way it could have
fallen off.

But it did.

Obviously a curse on the item to seek the nearest body of water.

	$Actually, the oni's direct influence.

Miko hadn't quite recovered from that.

The oni had revisited her, silently praising her work,
letting her know that it couldn't have lured that girl to her
doom without Miko's help.

Truly evil.

	$Nothing like the torture of a young girl to rile a person up.

"Stay out of trouble," Kiyone said seriously, giving her
patented 'Policeman's Eye' to the terrified maid.

Heh

	$It's kinda like the Eye in the Tower, but not as friendly.

Mihoshi, who, having little else to do at the moment, had
watched Sasami walk over, chose that moment to speak.  "Gee,
Sasami, did you think it was going to just get up and walk away
while you were gone?  Most inanimate objects don't do that, you
know."

Heh. But the oni is trying.

	$But how is Mihoshi to know?

Sasami gasped.  "Really?  That's terrible!"

Sasami: Did  you shoot the bitch?

	$Sasami: You just can't trust servants at all these days.  If we were
back on Jurai, I'd have her flogged as an example to the others, put on
public access for the Empire to see, and flogged some more.

Deciding that guileless innocence, which wasn't really now
that she'd thought about it, was better that

than

	$Right.

"Yeah, I remember it," Kiyone replied.  "That was the one
you had on a strap around your neck.  It made you look like a
Vinhart hunter-gatherer in uniform.  I also remember that we
ended up eating it when the engine gave out near Kenji's Nexus
and we starved for two weeks."

Mihoshi nodded.  "And it was a very lucky thing I had it,

Got that right. :)

	$Sure, but is living really worth it?

too."

Kiyone grimaced and shuddered.  "Yeah.  Lucky..."

This has been very entertaining, so far.

	$Thanks, I try.  I think there were fewer lame jokes in this one than
normal.

"Oh, I'm sorry."  Mihoshi looked embarrassed herself.  "I
didn't know that sun burns got worse after you went inside for a
few hours, because you're a lot more red now than you were- see?"
Mihoshi cried, pointing.  "It's still happening.  I don't know,
Kiyone, do we need to put some cream on that before it gets any
worse?  I know you've never been able to handle the sun very
well..."

Heh

	$I seriously wish I had your gift for Mihoshi's dialog.  It's the
trickiest part of the whole damn thing.

Nobuyuki nodded wisely as he mentioned that.  "You girls,
including Ayeka and Ryoko, have been the best thing to happen to
our household in a long, long time."

"Things had been somewhat dull," Grandfather

Katsuhito (calling him 'grandfather' seems awkward.

	$Gotcha.

agreed, but

let Nobuyuki speak his piece.

"Every

Ever

Sasami blushed and looked down at her lap.

"Achika had always said she wanted a boy and a girl,"

Katsuhito: She wanted to name then Shinji and Rei, but I said no.

	$He didn't want that kind of weenie for a grandson, I guess.

The scene was no less horrible for Miko when she looked
away.  Where Sasami had been sitting was a bloated, pasty white
corpse, the once lustrous hair snarled and tangled as it floated
around her head, and as she watched one matted clump tore loose
from her scalp, taking a piece with it as it floated across the
table.  Her eyes were gaping, bloodless holes ringed by the
tattered bits of her eyelids, and her nose, lips, and one ghastly
rent in her left cheek all showed signs of constant nibbling from
fish.  The fingers on the hand she withdrew back across the table
were skeletal, ragged things that belonged on a zombie, not a
vibrant young girl.

Pretty graphic description.

	$I dunno, the mental image of a bunch of rotting sea corpses sitting
around a table and chatting cheerily appeals to me on some level.

Katsuhito nodded.  "Something about that float makes me
think it still belongs to someone.  It has a foul taint to it."

Hmm. Perceptive.

	$He wouldn't be a wise old bastard if he didn't get to say things like
that.

Something inside her awoke.  A part of her that had long
been quiet was now speaking out, and she knew that she had won.
"No," she insisted quietly, ignoring the heat of the glass which
no longer had the power to burn.  "I will not let you have Miko
_ever_ _again_."

Heh. Quite the determination

	$She's mad enough to fight anything that's hurting her friends,
especially one that can't take care of herself.

The young princess frowned beneath her sleeve.  She didn't
want to try and explain all that had happened with the ghost,
Miko, so she tried to think of something more plausible to
explain for her odd behavior.  "I don't know what you're talking
about," she replied.

Heh. Not much more plausible

	$She was pressed for time.  ^_^

Kiyone started to put a comforting hand on her, then
reconsidered.  "I guess..." she started, then trailed off.  "I
guess it just goes with the job, Sasami.  It may not be fair, but
is it fair for someone to be born into a poor family, or to be
born handicapped?  These things happen."  Kiyone use her hands
for emphasis, her voice full of sympathy.  "You may have all the
money you'll ever need, and you don't have a brain defect that
makes you autistic, but you were born the second Princess of
Jurai.  Just being a princess puts you in a glass prison.

And we have the second meaning to the title. :)

	$I liked your idea of having the title really say something about the
story.  That and it gives common ground to the two main characters of
this part.

Sasami twisted around to look at her.  "So?  Why does
everything have to be appropriate?

Because you'll get you ass kicked if it ain't.

	$Mommy might get upset.  You wouldn't like Mommy when she's upset.

Sasami's eyes narrowed and she quickly buried her face in
her pillow.  Not another 'I've been there because I'm so much
older and more experienced so chin up.' talk.  She hoped she'd
never be like that when she grew up.

Heh. It's inevitable.

	$Sad but true.  Only when you're a child do you realize it's a silly
thing to believe.  As we grow older we forget.

"Of course you'll be back," Mihoshi said like it was the
most obvious thing in the universe.  "How could you not come
back?  Unless you decided you really didn't like it and told
everyone that you didn't want to go, or something.  I know I'll
never go back to Rewlnair.  That planet smelled like a bathroom.
A bathroom that really needed cleaning."

If it had been Kiyone to say that, Sasami probably wouldn't
have believed her.  But Mihoshi never lied, and she spoke like
she knew something Sasami didn't.

That's because she does. :)

	$Mihoshi knows things no one else does, including herself.

"But, you shouldn't be listening to this sort of thing,"
Kiyone replied, blushing.

"Let her talk and I'll tell you where Ryoko's secret
hideout is," she offered.

"You will?" Kiyone blurted before she could stop herself.

Heheheh

	$Well, they are still locked in a predator/prey relationship, even
though it's kinda been deferred.

There she almost had some trouble, as she didn't think the
door security staff would be inclined to let a young girl roam
the streets alone.  Instead, she found a large group of laughing,
rowdy people actually leaving the hotel and stuck close behind
them, looking for all the world like child following neglectful
parents.

Heh. Pretty smart of her.

	$She's pretty creative when she thinks she can get away with it.

"Sasami!  He's coming!" Miko shouted out in warning.

Thought as much. Time to fry his ass.

	$Or not.

"litttlehuman foolissshgirl..." it said in a voice like the
roar in a seashell, like the bubbles in the depths,  "didyou
tthink iwould lett myttreasssure go soeasssy?"

Now this is where she needs to get a sinister gleam in her eye and say,
"Yummy. I bet you taste just like chicken." That usually throws the
buggers
off.

	$Heheh.  That'd be fun for a really silly fic.

"You see, Miko?  He's not so scary.  He's just all talk."

Assuming you're backed with the power of Jurai, he is. :P

	$She's just reconfirming her inbred belief that she's more powerful
than everyone else.  Though she's a princess, it's been a while since
everyone bowed and scraped to her.

By sheer chance, or maybe it was some nugget of training
that had actually sank in, Mihoshi twisted it just right the
first time.  A big yellow ring materialized around them, and they
found themselves splashing frantically in a foot of water on the
rubbery floor that made up the inside of the ring.

Heh. Nice

	$The Galaxy Police control cube, AKA 'Plot Device'.

"Hello, Kiyone," whispered the high, girlish voice in
Kiyone's head.

She jumped.

"Thank you for saving me.  And Sasami.  You're very brave."

"Oh, err, well," she stuttered, not sure if she liked the
idea of talking with the dead.  Such things were strictly taboo
in her home culture.

Oh, the dead try to communicate with them often?

	$At one time, perhaps.  It really seems to be a racial necrophobia.

"Do you have any idea how I can break the float, Kiyone?"
Sasami asked in concern.  "Miko says the oni will keep trying to
take her away until he gets her, and she wants to move on."

"Yes, that's a very good idea," Kiyone agreed.  "We should
break the seal, somehow.  Hey, here's an idea.  Let's give it to
Mihoshi.  She can break anything."

True

	$Everyone recognizes her ability to screw things up.

"Goodbye, Sasami," Miko whispered.  "And thank you, Kiyone,
Mihoshi."

"I'll miss you," Sasami whispered back.

The ocean whirled and splashed around her-

and Sasami crushed the prison between her palms.

Nice. Very moving moment.

	$Plus she gets a power up.

They watched as Mihoshi pulled ahead of Kiyone by about ten
feet, then collided with another swimmer in a tangle of arms and
legs.  Kiyone raced by, doing the backstroke so she could laugh
at her partner.  Mihoshi's hasty apologies barely made it to
their ears over the spray of water and shrieks of the gulls.

And then the oni ate her.

	$They never did actually hurt it.  But as they're going to be out of
reach really soon, it doesn't matter.  It can go on to eat little girls
another day.

Tenchi: In part C, you'll get a glimpse of what it's like
to be me.

ie: A weenie

	$Unfortunately, like all experiments, sometimes it blows up in your
face.  The 1st person POV didn't work out nearly as well as I'd hoped,
so now I'm in the process of completely rewriting it.  And I had part A
done, too...

	Ah, well, chapter seven (the finale!) is getting really close to being
done.  I'll worry about six later.

Oh, and The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring are both written by and
owned by Larry Niven, and no profit is made from this work.  I'll
infringe on him more, later.  I think that idea could do much to

explain

Jurai.

I see. So that's where you came up with it. I thought it sounded a bit
odd.

Very  nice work overall. It might be a standalone, or filler, but it's
quite
good, highly entertaining, and I'm sorry I didn't get to it sooner. One
of
the best chapters of AoRF yet. And your prose has improved. Detected
very
few problems within

	$Thanks, that means a lot, and I found your comments very useful, and
entertaining.  Now if I can just smooth out some of the rest of the
rough points in my style, I'll be doing all the good.  Thanks again!

	C&C on the rest of Gestalt should be sitting in your inbox.

-Ragun





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