Not a whole lot to C&C in this one -- no spelling or grammatical errors 
caught my eye.

The stare triggered a sudden, alarming thought in her mind that made her
recoil.  How could the Lord of Death and the Lady of Life be companions?

       Well, looked at from another angle, how could they *not*?  In the 
"pantheon" that Ranma and Akane (and, I'm beginning to suspect, Ukyou and 
perhaps others) are part of, are Life and Death polarized enemies, or simply 
opposite sides of the same circle?
       Yeah, yeah, I know: keep reading and find out. 

The clones moved, their motion instantly snatching her attention.  Akane
felt her throat tighten, the encroaching terror that emanated from these
creatures closing around her neck with its vicelike grip.  Within the
darkness Ranma stood fast, her bright blue eyes locked firmly upon Akane.

Why would Ryukyu, Ryujin's nemesis, strive to protect her?

       I'm not sure even Ranma knows, fully.  My guess is that Ranma needs 
Akane to balance her -- she's certainly been displaying dangerously 
single-minded behavior so far.  Which isn't surprising, given that she's been 
living in a constant state of combat for who-knows-how long, but... in order 
for Ranma to be anything more than a mystical version of the Terminator, I 
suspect she needs Akane.  Death needs Life in order to give it some higher 
purpose.  

Akane continued to stare, unable to move, but she no longer stared at
Ranma.  She could feel the essence of humanity in the Hidari but they were
in every other sense artificial - they moved, attacked as one autonomous
unit.  They were imbued with life in what suddenly seemed to her the most
sickening way possible - they were little more than empty shells filled
with the energy of existence, compelled to obey some will that was not
their own.

       I think "autonomous" is almost exactly opposite of the word you want, 
here.  I'd suggest "unified," or "synchronized," or even "gestalt."

Their very presence repulsed her, the sight of them flooding her mind with
images of their creation, the tearing of life from the waters to fuel their
unnatural existence.  Everything about them, from the empty looks upon
their faces to the the barcodes tattooed across their chests combined to
fill her with disgust.

       But if they're not "alive," then what are they?  Or is free will part 
of the criteria for being truly "alive," in this case?

She felt a familiar excitement rushing through her veins, a hunger so
intense that she could not ignore it.  The bloodlust she had carried for
eight hundred years could never be sated, but the demons could be driven
back with an appropriate sacrifice.  It was a high price to pay - but there
was no shortage of Hidari currency.

       Charon:  "Okay, now, what's the exchange rate between Hidari and Yen?  
Damn, I hate making change for these oddball currencies.  Oh, well, at least 
it's not those five-ton Pacific Island things..."

These were the latest models, she thought, with the newest upgrades, the
most advanced combat algorithms.  They would not stand a chance.  The might
of machinery could not hope to compete.  She was the essence of Death
itself; how could they possibly compare to her?

       At that moment, the doors blew in, driven by a massive explosion, and 
a hulking gaijin strode through the swirling smoke, wearing black leather and 
sunglasses and carrying a BFG.
       "I be back," the newcomer intoned mechanically...

Apparently, she realised, she had surprised it.  She glanced at her hand,
at the grazed skin on her knuckles.  She had surprised herself as well.
Obviously, being the Lady of Life did not prevent her from injuring others.
She felt a momentary comfort, a realisation that she was not totally
defenceless.

       Well, it wouldn't make sense if she was, really -- in most 
mythologies, the "Life" role is associated with motherhood, and a mother 
protecting her children is widely acknowledged as the worst kind of opponent. 
 But I suspect Akane really hasn't had a chance to think this through 
thoroughly, yet.
       <grin>  Too bad this isn't a crossover -- Belldandy could give her a 
few pointers on how this works.

She could not kill this creature - but she would stop it.  There had to be
a way.  There had to be.

       Well, "kill" can mean different things...

The one aspect of life these creatures understood, their sole insight into
the nature of existence, was fear.  They knew fear; they understood it,
they could create it, and they could feel it.

       Untrue, from what Akane remembers.  But again, Ranma is currently 
being pretty one-dimensional... which I suspect is part of the point of this 
entire story.

Spinning her sword, Ranma brought the tip to bear upon the creature's chest
and with a cry of satisfaction lowered herself to one knee, driving the
blade through its heart.  A short scream touched the air, then nothing, as
the body was incinerated.  A cloud of ash spread across the floor,
propelled by the the creature's last gasp.

       Well, there's *one* way of killing them...

She could feel the loss inside her; one of the souls had been destroyed,
burned, forever removed from the world.

No ... Ranma, what have you done?

       ....with consequences beyond the usual meaning of just seperating soul 
from body.  

She could feel the blood draining from her head as the sound drained from
her ears, a cold rush of horror building within her as her skin turned
white.

She had killed him.

       Yes... but....

With time even those stopped, leaving her utterly alone.  Perhaps, she
realised, she had contravened some sacred decree; perhaps the Lady of Life
had undone her very purpose in the universe, perhaps it would all come
crumbling down around her.  Perhaps this silence was the beginning of the
end.

       Or the end of the beginning?  Oh, Akane, things aren't so 
black-and-white... something I suspect you're about to learn.       

She had killed him.

It was at that moment that something happened, something she had not in her
wildest imaginings dreamed of.

The Hidari laughed.  A choked gasp of relief as the clone's artificial
body ruptured and its flesh turned to water.  The water burst free,
shattering the body, and with an enormous outpouring of liquid the Hidari
was gone, leaving nothing behind.

       Ash vs water.  Heh.

Slowly, Akane turned and looked down at the puddle of water.  The white
glow was faint but unmistakable, and within the water a small patch of moss
had already begun to grow.  Her sword felt warm in her hand and as she
raised it to her face, she began to understand what she had done.

       Raiser her *sword* to her face?  I don't get it.

"I love to kill your kind," Ranma whispered in a conspiratorial tone, the
blood upon her face smearing across the cheek of her victim as she ran her
lips along its jaw.  Smiling, she nibbled at its chin, staring directly up
into its eyes even as she pressed the edge of her sword to the creature's
neck.  "Making you suffer is one of my few pleasures."

       Again, no balance -- Death as an out-of-control consumer, devourer, 
not just cold, but actively cruel.  Ranma, as Death, is currently completely 
devoid of the death-as-transition element -- what she kills, simply *ends.*
       Akane:  "Yeah, I'm gonna have to teach this baka to recycle.  She's 
just so *wasteful.*  She never seperates her trash, she won't return bottles 
for deposit, she won't put souls back on the Wheel for reincarnation..."

She had done it.  She had freed him, and now, she could hear the voice of
the soul she had rescued calling out to her, its voice tiny but perfectly
clear.  Lowering herself to one knee, she lowered her hand to the fuzzy
green growth and gently brushed it against her skin.  A smile touched her
face as she listened to the sound, her voice wavering as she offered the
only response she could think of.

"You're welcome."

       "I wasn't saying 'thanks,' I was saying 'why the hell did I get 
reincarnated as a patch of MOSS, fer cryin' out loud?'  I mean, geeze, this 
isn't Hindu mythology!"
       Kidding aside, here's another meaning for 'kill':  sometimes, death 
can be a release.  
       Of course, if she can do this for the Hidari solo, what does she need 
Ranma for?  Hm...

bubbling from between its lips as it stared up at her.  A burning anger
churned within her, compelling her to plunge the sword right between those
shining blue eyes, those eyes that were hers but not hers, to take from it
the life it had stolen from her.

       Hmm... Ranma may have something more personal going on here than just 
lacking balance.

"Stop it!" Akane cried, her voice filled with desperation.  Ranma stepped
back, stunned by the power lurking behind the words.  Akane marched toward
her, speaking again.  "Don't kill him!"

"It'll ... kill you if I don't," Ranma replied, hesitantly, her sword still
pointed directly at the clone's chest.  The redhead frowned, her eyes
darting back and forth as she struggled within herself to hold back the
blade.

       I can see the movie now:  "Death Goes Postal."  An out-of-control 
Death strikes me as being a *bad* thing, cosmologically speaking.
       I have to wonder:  if the "pantheon" (for lack of a better term) is so 
badly out-of-whack, what effects is it having in the mundane world?

The noise pounded at her mind but still she refused to hear it, focused
entirely upon this mysterious green growth.  Moss?  Growing on a metal
floor?  In the middle of a sterile laboratory?

It was soft, it was warm; it was alive.  It was not supposed to be there.
Ranma stood, suddenly aware of the deafening sound that was drilling into
her ears, and spun towards Akane.

"What did you do?" she called, loud enough to be heard over the din.

       Nice bit of confusion on Ranma's part.  Obviously, her knowledge of 
the Order of Things isn't as complete as she thought.  That's gotta be 
unsettling.

"I understood when I did it," Akane said, drawing Ranma out of her fitful
concentration.  "I knew exactly what I was doing, it was all perfectly
clear.  Now that it's over, I can't remember what the hell I was thinking.

       I've had days like that.  It's going to take her some time to 
integrate this epiphany into her worldview.

Ranma nodded sympathetically as Akane glanced at her.  In truth, she did
not know what Akane was talking about - she could not remember the last
time she had slept, let alone dreamed; however, it was not the time or the
place for such thoughts

.

       Ah, so that's Ranma's real problem:  sleep deprivation!

"I don't think we'd be here anymore if you had done the wrong thing," Ranma
offered, her voice thoughtful as she regarded the moss once more.  "Ryujin
isn't -allowed- to kill.  I don't know what you did, but you didn't kill
it."

       At least not in the sense that Ranma uses the term.  But we're getting 
into semantic deep waters, here.  Suffice to say that she didn't *end* the 
Hidaris' existence.

Ukyo sat quietly at the cafeteria table, trying her best to concentrate on
the meal before her.  It seemed to her that it was meant to be bacon and
scrambled eggs.  She supposed at one point it might have been, but what had
happened to it since then eluded her and, quite frankly, she did not care
to find out.  Ignorance is bliss, after all.

       Ukyo:  "Geez, I didn't realize that the mess was operated by the 
4077th M.A.S.H. unit..."

Six other members of the Alpha squad sat around the table with her, each
devouring their meals with gusto, talking amongst themselves between
mouthfuls of food.  Obviously, the local cuisine was an acquired taste.
She glanced at them momentarily, her curiosity getting the better of her.

       Eh, experienced combat troops'll eat anything that doesn't move... too 
much.

There were a few Japanese around, but for the most part, the inhabitants of
the vessel were foreigners.  That fact struck her as slightly unusual; she
had wondered on the odd occasion why that was the case, but her desire to
maintain a low profile overrode any urge to ask unnecessary questions.

       I wonder if that's significant?  For that matter, how do the Dragons 
relate to the world outside of Asia?  Do their roles encompass the globe, or 
do other regions, with other mythologies, have their own equivalents?  The 
answer to that question might relate to the number of gaijin involved in this 
group.

For her entire life she had been alone in a world of strangers; she wanted
to treat the current situation no differently.  The only problem was, these
strangers had names.

       And if they have names, they start becoming less expendable, in your 
eyes.  But caring about anything, or anyone, is a distraction from killing 
Ranma, which is why she's been avoiding "connecting" to anyone for so long.

At the opposite end of the spectrum was Sergeant Akusawa, the drill
sergeant for Alpha Team.  Akusawa seemed to care little for her welfare,
regularly insisting the team exercise until well past the point of
exhaustion. He was a fearsome man, enormous in stature, with a body shaped
like a bullet and an attitude to match.  The members of the Alpha and Bravo
squads were all hardened soldiers, and so the sergeants had to be tougher
than the squad members to keep them in line.

       And *that's* about as good a justification for the existence and 
nature of Sergeants as I've ever heard.

Hammer and Anvil were twins, and they seemed to move with uncanny
synchronisation.  When they spoke, more often than not one would start a
sentence only to have the other complete it.  As she thought about them,
she realised she had never seen the two of them apart.  The strange nature
of their cooperation made her intensely curious, which only made her lack
of knowledge about the pair all the more frustrating.

       Hmmm.  After the description of te Hidari earlier, I can't help 
wondering...

Scar was the team leader, his nickname apparently derived from the large
scar that streaked diagonally across his face.  He was young - they were
all young, now that she thought about it, rather young indeed for soldiers
- and Japanese, but other than that, Ukyo knew nothing.

       Fatality rates as high as Alpha and Beta seem to have *would* tend to 
keep the average age of the unit below average.

"Hey, he told me to hit him," Baker said, raising his hands defensively.
"I just do what I'm ordered."

       "Besides, Morpheus *needed* taking down a peg or two."

Ukyo shuddered at the name.  It was something of a foregone conclusion that
she would be named Wing by the others.  She had been paraded in front of
them, exhibited as the vehicle for the Seraph Wing, it was inevitable that
she would be remembered for that above all else.  She sighed, having long
given up trying to convince anyone to call her Ukyo, or - even better - to
not talk to her at all.

       Suggest breaking the sentence between "Wing" and "it was"
       Heck, it's a combat unit -- nicknames are non-optional.  And not 
talking to anyone isn't an option either -- these people need to know how far 
they can depend on Ukyo, they need some insight into what's going on in her 
head.  

"My fight is with Ranma, not some instructor.  I only fight those I mean to
kill," Ukyo continued, considering each word carefully.  She was slightly
unsure of herself, but as the words rolled off her tongue she found a
comfortable familiarity with their meaning.  Her fight was with Ranma.  She
would kill Ranma.  She did not want to fight anyone -but- Ranma.

"You -can't- tell me you've only ever fought one person," Scar said,
incredulous.

"Only Ranma," Ukyo replied.  She knew these soldiers expected her to be
some sort of super-soldier, that they had been told by their superiors she
was the answer to their problems.  The looks on their faces as she spoke
varied, some looked disappointed, others disbelieving.  She shrugged in
response to their questioning gazes.  It didn't matter what they thought of
her.

       Well, it *does,* but she's not going to realize that yet.  I wonder, 
though, how they'll react if/when they find out that Ukyo has been fighting 
Ranma for *years,* and survived (mostly).  Given their unit's history with 
Ranma, I suspect they might fall down and worship her.  Or freak out 
totally...

"I'll kill Ranma, and that will be the end of it," she said, her voice
carrying a note of finality.  She glanced at the others for a moment,
waiting for a challenge, but none came.  She had won, and silence was her
reward.

       Most of the others probably haven't given much, if any, thought to 
"after," since the odds are they won't live to see it.

She returned to her food and began to eat in earnest, the foul taste of the
food preferable to the flavour of conversation.  The silence of the others
lasted only a few moments before their conversation sparked up again, and
before long the discussion had turned to the merits of alcohol.

       Heh.  "Rum, sodomy, and the lash," as Churchill was wont to say.

Ukyo tuned their words out and concentrated on her food.  It was strange;
she had not thought of Ranma for some time now - her new training regimen
had made sure of that - but when she lay in her cot at night, staring at
the ceiling while the others slept, she sometimes pictured Ranma in her
mind.  Always, every time, she saw two others alongside her nemesis, two
figures whose identities she could not quite discern ....

       Two?  Innnnteresting.  One is probably Akane, but who's the other?  I 
suspect Ranma's little "who's-who" list was missing a dragon or three...

"At ease," Sergeant Akusawa instructed.  He gestured toward Ukyo.  "You,
come with me.  The rest of you, sit down and shut up.  You've got another
round of CQB training in fifteen minutes, ladies!  I suggest you cut the
chatter and get eating."

       "But I hate doing CQB on a full stomach!"

She stared at the back of Asukawa's neck as she followed him.  It was lean,
firm with muscles from a lifetime of hardship.  He was a tough man, a
strong man; a soldier.  She drew an imaginary line across his neck, just
below his shaved hair, around which her hands would close as she throttled
the life out of her tormentor.

       Well, that means he's doing his job.  He wouldn't be a good DI if his 
troops didn't fantasize about killing him now and then.

Ukyo glanced back and forth.  Where were the guards?  Ever since she had
arrived on board the Leviathan Spring, there had been large men with guns
to guard her.  An ineffective measure - she could easily kill them - but
one notable by its absence.  She thought upon it for a moment, until
noticing Ryoga's insistent smile once more.

       "Insistent"?  I'm not sure what you're trying to convey, here.

"Hello, Ryoga," she said, smiling at him.  He smiled in return, and waved
a clipboard animatedly.

       Wasn't he already smiling?

"Where are all the guards?" she asked, turning her attention to him.
"Normally there's a couple of guys with big guns ready to take me down if
I try anything."

"Obviously, they don't think you're going to hurt me," Ryoga replied with
a smile.  His eyebrow twitched slightly, but noticeably.  "You're not, are
you?"

       Ambiguous.  Is he just teasing her a bit, or is he really afraid of 
her?  He certainly doesn't show it, normally.

    
"Of course not," Ukyo replied with an exasperated smile.  She laughed it
off, but did not let her eyes linger too long on her companion.  There had
to be a reason for the change.

       I think she liiiiikes him....

"You're really going to like the work we've done," Ryoga enthused, his
enthusiasm strongly reminiscent of his younger sister.  "I wouldn't want to
be Ranma right now."

       Repetition of "enthus/iasm"

"It means you're going to have this stuck to your skin," Yoiko said,
holding a thin strip of what appeared to be black rubber for Ukyo to see.
"You'll have a strip along the back of each arm, one along each leg, and
one up your spine.  Other than that, you won't noticed a thing."

       Notice, not noticed.

"But what is this going to do?"

"Wait and see," Yoiko said, in a sing-song voice.  Ukyo frowned, imagining
the delighted smile that was no doubt dancing across the young girl's face.

       Yeah, you gotta hate cheerful mad scientists...

"You're going to like it," Ryoga assured.  A quiet hissing sound filled the
air, and Ukyo felt herself growing lightheaded.  "Relax; this will be over
in no time."

"Easy for you to--" Ukyo began, unconsciousness taking her before she could
finish her sentence.  Her body slumped, her eyes closing as her body shut
down.  She quickly became still, relaxed, the only movement in her body the
rapid flicking oscillation of her eyes as she began to dream ....

       Technically, the anaesthetic ought to take her below REM sleep before 
long, but that's a minor quibble.  Although I do remember having some of the 
*strangest* dreams while undergoing surgery...



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