Cat Who wrote:

Gah! I noticed titles tend to be very long on this ML. ^_^;;

Second draft of chapter one.  I'd like to thank everyone who took the 
time to C&C the first draft; I will repay the favor as I can (I C&C 
best when I'm not in one of my Horribly Creative Moods as I have been 
for the past week.)

For my part, I consider the omission acceptable if it results in more 
fic. ^_^

For those who have never seen Noir or Tenshi ni Narumon, the former is 
a series about a kickass female assassin team, and the latter is a 
series about demons in Tokyo raising an angel. (It's a shoujo spoof, 
yet it blends in almost seemlessly with the Inuyasha universe . . .)

Thank you. I had wondered about these.

Inuyasha and Ranma 1/2 belong to Rumiko Takahashi.  Noir belongs to Bee 
Train.  Tenshi ni Narumon belongs to Studio Pierrot and the Heaven 
Project.  This is a work of fanfiction. I make no profit, although 
Nabiki is probably making some money off of it, knowing her.

I like this last sentence, by the by. Very amusing.

Corrections are made in the (original:correction:alternate correction) 
format.

Hundreds of years ago, the forests were filled with them.  The waters 
(teamed:teemed) with them.  The sky blossomed into a rainbow of youkai every 
full moon, every new moon, every sunset and sunrise.

Those days seem to have disappeared.  As the human (populatation:population) grew, 
the demons left little by little, until no more remained in Japan.

In fact, the demons of Tokyo have become so numerous that the 
technically qualify as a minority.  No government survey, especially in 
Japan, bothers to ask people their species in a census.  

A lot of them, for inexplicable reasons, have jobs in the Games 
Division of Sony.

(This explains a lot about the Playstation, when you think about it.)

Nice.

On all counts.

Though officially, it's technically spelled PlayStation. Or at least it 
was; they may have changed it.

The preceding pre-chapter-title bit is rather better written than the 
earlier version of the chapter had been; from the brief skim I've given 
them, it's better written than this draft, too.

Four figures reflected in the wall to wall mirrors of the Tendou dojo.  
The mirrors, which had been installed several years ago, showed one 
master, one apprentice master, and two students, all wearing the 
traditional white martial arts uniforms, which had darkened with their 
sweat.

Excessive commage in the second sentence.

Akane, Ranma's wife of nine years, exhaled slowly and stretched her 
arms a bit. The younger students groaned and massaged their sore limbs. 
They had tried to learn the (Amuraguri-ken:Amaguri-ken) earlier, leaving them with 
burnt knuckles and bruised pride, but soon they'd be picking up speed 
as they practiced.  The students, one boy and one girl, had looked 
surprised at Ranma's suggestion that they seek a part-time job as 
servers in a restaurant.  

Sounma, the third generation living in the house, toddled through the 
kitchen to the porch where his grandfathers were engaged in a battle of 
go.  

The phrase "battle of go" reads somewhat oddly; possibilities include 
"battle of wits over go" or the simple "game of go" (or you could even 
combine the two). I'm not satisfied with my suggestions, but what you 
have doesn't work quite right.

Sounma ignored the voice of the women in the kitchen.  Before him, a 
war waged on the metaphysical plane.  White was winning, but only 
just.  If black were to go there . . . and then white went *there* . . .

I think you mean either "raged" or "a war was being waged".

Ranma set his son back down, and Sounma immediately concentrated on the 
go game before him.  Ranma wandered over to the central table, where 
today's newspaper lay neatly, only mildly mangled after his father in 
law had finished with it.  Idly, Ranma flipped through the paper, 
noting the baseball scores, blinking at a few advertisements, pausing 
over a few headlines.  By chance, he found the classified ads, and 
something inside prompted him to find the Help Wanted section.

Rather than "Sounma immediately concentrated on", consider something 
like "Sounma's attention immediately returned to" or "Sounma immediately 
returned his focus to" or some weird mix... "concentration" could 
certainly be used, but since he's going back to the game, indicating 
that seems appropriate.

You might also want "go board in front of him" rather than "go game 
before him".

"Scoot over," she commanded, and Ranma obliged.  They shared a full 
sized bed now, one that had been hastily purchased after an unfortunate 
instance with a cat accidently locked in their room with Ranma.  The 
wooden furniture had survived with only a few claw marks, but Akane's 
poor twin bed had to be vacuumed up.  After that, Akane had forbidden 
animal of ANY kind (except pot-bellied pigs) in their dojo.

A cat locked in Ranma and Akane's bedroom with Ranma? How did THAT happen?

Then again, maybe I don't need to ask. It's just the sort of weird thing 
that can be relied upon to happen at some point in a life like Ranma's.

"Tomorrow," Ranma said, a note of determination in his voice.  "If I do 
get the job, you're gonna have to take over all the (clasess:classes) except the 
advanced one."

"Hi, Auntie Ranko," Sounma said.  It was what they had termed Ranma's 
cursed form after Sounma was born.  Sounma was too little to understand 
that Auntie Ranko was his father, so to prevent any bizarre Freudian 
things that might haunt the little boy in his later life, they simply 
pretended that Ranma-chan was another person entirely.

Of course, that could cause problems of its own...

The others nodded.  Luck didn't keep people in dire financial (straights:straits) 
afloat.  In their world, luck was something that happened only when you 
made it.

"Arrestation? Arson? Assassination?"

I don't think "arrestation" is a word... and "arrest" would probably 
work just as well.

The creators of history stared at the dull orange flames of the fire in 
front of them.  On the scale in which their universe worked, there was 
no such thing as a really drastic measure.  Control was the key, of 
course.  It was one thing to force two nations into terribly, bloody 
combat.  It was another to lead them on a merry waltz to economic 
deadlock.  Both methods eventually (lead:led) to the destruction of the 
nations in question.  The latter was so much more interesting, though, 
and usually a lot more profitable.

"We are not here to pass (judgement:judgment)!"

This one is optional; as far as I know, both are valid spellings. I just 
happen to prefer the latter in this instance.

"The pieces of this game are being assembled onto the board, now," the 
woman said, a hint of deadly smile creeping into her voice.  "And we, 
gentleman, are the players."

Perhaps "amusement" instead of "smile"?

And I wouldn't bet that these particular 'pieces' will necessarily 
remain that way. ^_^

"Sara-chan?" the receptionist from personnel said into a phone. Away 
from the lobby, she'd let her disguise spells relaxed, and two enormous 
cat ears sprung from her curly blue hair.  No wonder Ranma had been 
nervous around her.

Instead of "let her disguise spells relaxed", you want either "let her 
disguise spells relax" or "relaxed her disguise spells".

Unless she knows about Ranma's phobia and the last sentence bears some 
relation to her thoughts, it isn't really appropriate... the sense of it 
is, but it would have to be presented differently.

She really wasn't a very powerful demon, as far as demons went.  Not 
like Sesshoumaru, who was over five hundred years old and had a true 
form the size of small islands.  Her one main ability was that she 
could go entirely invisible, if she so desired.  It wasn't that useful, 
not like some youkai abilities, such as being able to devour humans in 
one gulp.  It did make her popular at office parties, when she would 
strip and wander around invisible and naked.

Now one of Sesshoumaru's plans had begun, and Sara anticipated being 
the one to tell him about it.  She had met Sesshoumaru a long time ago 
(about four hundred and fifty years ago, to be a little more exact) and 
in all that time, she'd found that his plans were always a lot of fun.  
She loved Sesshoumaru, and would do almost anything for him.  

In the first paragraph you appear to imply a relationship between 
Sesshoumaru's power and his having lived five hundred years (which 
direction it goes is not clear). In the second you indicate that the 
demon out through whose mind we are presently looking, who you 
previously indicated was not particularly powerful, is over four hundred 
fifty years old - that is, over nine-tenths of Sesshoumaru's age. You 
need to either make something more clear, or change your numbers somewhere.

"Sesshoumaru-sama," she said, opening the door to his office a crack 
and peering in to look at him.  No other being, mortal or demon, dared 
to do such a thing.  Sara had (privledges:privileges).

Sesshoumaru set his paperwork down then, and Sara caught her breath.  
Even though he was well over half a millenium old, he didn't look a day 
over twenty.  He was entirely himself today; the spells he used to keep 
his true nature under wraps had been dropped in favor of the natural 
look.  Two stripes graced each high, proud cheekbone, and a large blue 
(cresent:crescent) moon glowed from the center of his forehead.  His long eyes 
glittered a dangerous lemon yellow from inside a face that was too 
pretty for a man.  His neatly brushed hair hung loosely down his back.  
In public, he pulled it back into a gentlemanly ponytail, and his 
cheeks bore no marks.

"We just sent out his letter yesterday.  I believe he should be along 
either this afternoon, or sometime tomorrow."  Automatically she began 
tidying up the office.  Sesshoumaru was a neat person, in both speech 
in manner, but he had never really understood the true need for a 
filing cabinet, a quirk that resulted in cleaning maids not being 
allowed in his office anymore under any circumstances whatsoever.  She 
picked up the stacks from the floor and arranged them near the wall, 
clearing up a (signifigant:significant) amount of floor space.

"You don't need to do that, Sara," Sesshoumaru said softly.  He told 
her that (everytime:every time) she started the task, which was usually every time 
she stepped in his office.

"I won't tell Dad, either," Ranma said, looking nervously in the 
direction of the porch where a panda bear and Soun Tendou were playing 
shougi.

A panda isn't a bear.

* * *
(Luxemborg:Luxembourg)
* * *

I think...

The fire burned again that evening.  The fire always burned, although 
those in the room who watched it changed (occassionally:occasionally_.

"The bait has been eaten."

Eaten? Sure you don't mean "taken"? It's a nonstandard usage the way it is.

Despite how I felt about some of the comments on the previous version, 
this does appear to be a somewhat improved work.

-- 
       The Wanderer

I feel I should warn you I'm slightly mad.

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any 
side of it.

A government exists to serve its citizens, not to control them.

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much 
liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
  - Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, 1791. ME 8:276


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