[FFML] [Mai Hime, Future] Road Trip (warning: BIG)

[Bert Miller]

John Biles wrote:
> This is very big, but also, I hope, good.
>   
Right.  Better get started if I'm going to C&C this monster!

This is quite enjoyable, though perhaps somewhat chatty and meandering.  
(It's not something I would ever write myself, certainly.)  I would 
hazard a guess it could be edited down by at least one quarter without 
sacrificing any significant plot points; whether it would be good or bad 
to do so depends on one's tastes.  Many readers like length as long as 
they're not bored (and I don't find any of this boring).  The test is 
whether one finds oneself skipping scenes after the fourth re-read.

And I can't be sure which of the children's characterization scenes will 
end up important and which won't.  I suppose it's possible (even if it 
seems unlikely on the face of it) that they all will.

I do have the impression that you've put less thought into some of the 
later scenes than some of the earlier ones.  The pirate
scene just left me confused; the mundane Mitsu/Shun fight seemed 
anti-climactic and over-long for the apparent points.

>     I still can't quite think of myself as an athlete, not compared to
> Crystal or Natasha, anyway, but I do have one athletic talent.  Running.
>   
Technically, I suppose, that second-to-last period ought to be a colon, 
with 'Running' uncapitalized.

> fact, I had more people cheering for me as I warmed up than any of the other
> players;
This might vary regionally (or, for that matter, generationally) but 
when I ran track in high school,
we never used 'players' to refer to members of the track and field 
team.  We might use 'runners',
and I don't recall that we actually had any good general words to refer 
to shot-putters and the like,
but we never used 'players'.
>     "I have mixed feelings about her myself," Mom said softly.  
>
>     Mom's never as comfortable around Aunt Miyu as most of the rest of the
> family, and I've never been sure why.  She isn't hostile, but I get the
> impression there's some past trouble between them.
>   
Heh.  Well, that's inevitable.

>     "Mom, is this connected to whatever happened with Aunt Mai?" I asked
> her, not sure if I'd get an answer.
>
>     "Yes," Mom said.
>
>     Natasha stared and so did I.  I expected something evasive.
>   
Heh.  Akane means the second incident, of course, which Kasumi and Natasha
don't know about.  But accurate enough if you consider them together.

Still, the older generation certainly has reason to be alarmed and make 
SOME changes,
given the demonstration that other-dimensional entities can seek them 
out and attack,
and the announcement that the Crimson Huntsman is after them.

>  and I went to go
> do homework before the secret meeting.
>   
Which begs the question, why have a SECRET meeting?  You later show us 
subsets of the
kids spending much of their day together; nobody would think anything of 
it if the five just
met out in the open.  Okay, Natasha might insist on ostentatious 
secrecy, but Shun seems
like he'd know better, and Crystal seems like she has more common sense.

>     "Oh yes, don't forget to invite Erica to your secret meeting tonight,"
> Chie said.  "I have to go home and do laundry, or I'd come too.  Ugh."
>   
Heh.  Love it.

> clue what she was getting into.  And whether she was going to spy on us for
> her mom.  This would definitely complicate things.
>   
One quick reflection ought to eliminate this suspicion:  Chie already 
knew about the secret meeting
BEFORE you brought Erica in.  So why would she need Erica to do any spying?

>     "It's the sign of the Fuuka legend of the Battle Princesses," Dan said.
>
>     We all turned to stare at him.  He already knew about this thing???
>
>     "Mom has a big box full of things with that sign on it, part of some
> research project she's been doing ever since I was little, but never
> finishes.  And tries to hide," Dan said, looking slightly distracted as if
> dredging up memories.
>   
Heh.  This surprised me, although in retrospect it's not so surprising 
that Midori kept all this
stuff, nor that she tried to hide it from Dan.  Which, of course, is 
what made it stand out for
him from all the other junk.

Although possibly Midori has a lot more stuff she hides from Dan, now 
that I'm thinking
about it.  In this story, Dan's view of history seems more-or-less 
conventional, but in
"Sword of the Lord" we're given to understand that Midori and the 
Professor know great
gobs of details about not-so-conventional history ("close to discovering 
the location of
Atlantis", among other snippets).  Assuming Midori and the Professor 
have records
of some sort, they either hide them from Dan, or Dan knows enough to be 
careful
about how he discusses history outside the family.

>     "Long ago, the Battle Princesses were chosen to fight for those they
> loved.  But one by one they perished, until only the Crystal Princess
> remained to confront..."  Dan paused, staring at me,
Heh.  Gee, you mean Crystal might have been named after someone?

>     "I don't know.  People tie ribbons to this set of railings at Fuuka to
> commemorate them and in the belief that whoever ties a ribbon there will be
> with their loves forever," Dan said.
>
>     "Forever," I said softly.  "Without aging?"
>
>     We all stared at each other silently, while Erica stared at us.
The lack of aging in their parents is a pointer to the kids that 
something supranormal
is behind the secret; that is, their parents aren't spies or mafia or 
anything like that.  But
the kids seem to go back and forth on noticing this fact; we've seen 
Crystal think about it,
and later ask Mai is she's a spy, and then wonder privately about being 
sacrificed to
demons.  Not visibly aging in 20+ years is just on the edge, perhaps, of 
what could
possibly be explained naturally; certainly you don't show us the various 
other adults
remarking on the lack of aging to any great extent.

>     "Ahah!  So we all paint fake tattoos of it on ourselves and then go tell
> them this tattoo just appeared on all of us?" I asked Kasumi.
>
>     She nodded.
>   
Heh.  That could have been a funny scene:  the parent staring in alarm 
at black, hand-sized "tattoos",
then finding that they wash off.

>     "Do you know what color if any they expect?  Or the right size?" Erica
> said quietly.
>   
VERY perceptive and quick of her.  She doesn't ask about where on the 
body, either,
though the description of the searching she's been given hasn't yet 
emphasized that the
adults aren't looking at any one specific spot.

> Kasumi's Tale:
>
>     It soon became clear Mom was serious about this, coming over every day
>   
So the parents live quite close to Rosewood.  Given some of the parents' 
jobs, one
would think everyone would nearly have to live in the Tokyo area.

> wants to know, wants to understand why Aunt Miyu...why she said that.  And
> part of me is afraid of the answer.
>
>     Who did Mom trust too much?
Your Aunt Miyu.

>   Who did Aunt Shiho not trust enough?
Your Aunt Mai.

One can see why the adults aren't so willing to tell the whole story.

>     The door opened and a man with brown hair turning grey walked in; he
> had...an afro?  An afro.  "Hello, everyone," he said.  "I'm Mr. Sakomizu
> Kaiji, your substitute history teacher.
This was a surprise.  There are a lot of directions this could go in.

>      Sakomizu-sensei studied Dan, then looked at the seating chart.  His
> eyes widened slightly.  "Are you Sugiura Dan?  Sugiura Midori's son?"
>   
Interesting way to phrase that.  Is he deducing that "Sugiura Dan" must 
be the son of the
Midori he knew (a bit of a stretch, perhaps), or was he already aware 
that Midori's son
would be a student of his, and simply hadn't put that together with his 
seating chart?

>     I felt my phone vibrate.  It was a text from Erica.  'Maybe he knows
> something about the mysteries.'
>   
Maybe he knows a considerable amount.  He might, in fact, know more than 
any of
the Hime except Fumi.  And only Natsuki has any reason to know how much he
may know.

> think Fuuka's gone down hill ever since the original headmaster left after
> the plague outbreak."
>
>     My eyes widened.  "What?"
>   
Heh.

> it and everything.  I just wish she'd gotten a picture of that bridge
> blowing up.  It sounds really spectacular when she talks about it."
>
>     "..."
>
>     Mandi kicked another rock as we walked along.  "Your mom never mentioned
> it?"
>   
"Oh, the bridge?  Well, honey, I was catatonic at the time, so I didn't 
actually see it.  And your
father was imprisoned in a pillar of stone, so he didn't see it either."

>     "She and Sayuri and Miya were inseperable.
(SP) "inseparable"

> badly, you'll find more loves in the future.  It took a long time before
> Chie and I got together once and for all."
>   
For some values of "a long time", if they've been married for 18 years 
out of 23 elapsed.

>     "Alyssa was younger than any of us except... no, I think she's even
> younger than Mikoto-chan,"
I'm not sure where this came from.  At the end of episode 3, Mai tells 
Aoi that Mikoto
is 14 (I'm sure Mai says "juu-yon", not "juu-san", despite the Wikipedia 
entry which
says 13) and a third-year middle school student, which makes her older 
than Akira, Takumi,
and Shiho.  If you're deliberately making a change to canon, suggest you 
underline it more.

>     Aoi laughed softly, then sighed.  "I actually met her boyfriend a few
>   
Suggest adding the word "current" before "boyfriend" here.

>     "A bridge blew up and a plague broke out and they NEVER MENTIONED IT to
> us?" Crystal asked.
>   
Heh.  Well, I have to call their parents innocent on the plague, since 
they all knew
that the story was false.

> Crystal's mother blew up the factory," Erica said.
Interesting how they ALL come to think of Mai as having been the one who
blew up the factory.  Erica wouldn't seem to have any reason to be teasing
Crystal.  On the other hand, maybe she's just adopting her new cousin's
expressed beliefs.

>     "Would you like me to tell Aunt Natsuki you're here at Rosewood now?" I
> asked him.  Everyone studied me and it struck me I hadn't thought to talk
> about that part of it all.
>   
Heh.  Potentially dangerous lapse, if it repeats.

>     Crystal asked, "Did you know my mother at Fuuka?"
>
>     "I only knew Dan's mother and Natsuki-san very well," he said.  "But I
>   
"...did rescue your mother and Mikoto from police arrest once."

> Mandi had one of them and... I think her name is Sanae... Koyabishi Sanae,
> maybe?  She's tall, skinny, red-haired, and I think her father is one of the
> biology teachers.
>     Wait, his mother was from Fuuka too???  I glanced over the other
> students, wondering if Miya-san had a son or daughter here too.
Interesting that Kasumi does NOT put two and two and two together here 
to get six.
She was told earlier today about Koyabishi Miya, married to one of the 
biology teachers,
by Mandi.  One gets the impression Erica, at least, would have picked 
this up.


>     "So Octavian took his revenge.  Marc Anthony had betrayed his duties as
> a leader of Rome because of his crush on that woman, and betrayed the wife
> he'd sworn oaths to.  He knew Cleopatra was just using Marc Anthony for her
> own gain," Hayao said angrily.  "And so they, who had once been companions
> in battle, turned on each other and led armies to war.  But Marc Anthony was
> a loser, lost in a haze of lust for the evil Queen of Egypt, and when she
> panicked at Actium and her fleet fled the scene, his fleet was annihilated.
> In the end, he killed himself thinking her dead, and she killed herself not
> for love of him but to avoid being humiliated by the victorious Octavian,"
> Hayao finished.  He sounded as angry as if he was Octavian himself.
>   
This still seems odd to me, that Hayao feels so strongly about this.  
However, for story purposes
the cause need not be any incident we've heard of; it's enough to 
establish that he does feel this
way if we're going to see an analogous situation in the future.  Some of 
Hayao's gender, a friend,
betraying his duty for love.

> and when it does, the results are not always good.  And love can turn us
> against each other."
>
>     Mr. Sakomizu sighed.  "Well said.
"Ah, the stories I could tell you... but your Aunt Natsuki would 
probably kill me if I did."

>     "I think she's about 4 years younger than your parents.  But that would
> make her... maybe 35 to their 39 now.  Which is a lot less extreme than 12
> to 16," Sakomizu-sensei said.
>   
See discussion above.

> about it.  "Anything exciting ever happen at Fuuka when my folks were
> there?" I asked, tossing the bush onto the pile of dead bushes in our
> wheelbarrow.
>
>     "Your father won a lot of kendo matches his second and third years,"
> Sakomizu-sensei said.  "Your Aunt Mikoto too."
Heh.  Given what Crystal later hears from Ishida, Sakomizu-sensei has 
just disqualified
himself as a neutral source of information.

>     "Roger Smith," Sakomizu-sensei said very slowly in the sort of way I
> have come to realize usually means someone has just made a mental
> connection.  Now I was very curious.  "What's he like?"
>   
The name means something to Sakomizu, but they've never met.  
Interesting.  Presumably we'll
learn a bit more about Roger's background in the next story, but this 
gets me curious.  If they've
never met, probably Roger has no connection with District One; in fact, 
the last name and
Dorothy rather suggest a connection with Searrs.  Did Roger, by any 
chance, have an uncle or
father named John?

>     "His secretary is kind of creepy, though, I've heard," I told him.
>   
Hey!  I like Dorothy!  These characters need to stop giving her such a 
bad rap!  ;)

> thought hit me.  "So you knew Aunt Haruka and Aunt Shizuru too?" I asked
> him.
>   
Interesting that it never occurs to Crystal how much information she is 
giving Sakomizu here.
Of course, she may have never before met somebody to whom the news that 
the Hime are
still so close would mean anything.

>     Was Aunt Akira really a ninja?  Or had that been a joke?
>   
Given that Shun knows this answer for sure, I'm not sure how plausible 
it is that Crystal doesn't.

> Was he hiding something or was he
> deliberately hiding it?
>   
Did you mean for Crystal to be mentally stuttering?

>     And then she was gone as quickly as she'd appeared.  I decided I'd have
> plenty of time later to try to pry information out of Sakomizu-sensei.  If I
> kept this up, he'd likely wonder why I was so curious about old times at
> Fuuka anyway.
>   
If he didn't already know, that is.  And, once he figures out that your 
parents are keeping it all a
secret deliberately, he'll be far more afraid of your parents than he is 
of you.

>     "I know.  But you need this.  Everyone else is too weak to press you
> hard or too kind.  But I will toughen you up or die trying!" Aunt Haruka
> said.  Then she looked expectantly at Aunt Yukino.
>
>     Aunt Yukino paused in pulling metal ropes.  "What, Haruka-chan?"
>
>     Aunt Haruka looked relieved, while I looked confused.
>   
Heh.  Took me a couple of read-throughs to get this.  Haruka is 
expecting to have gotten
something wrong and to be corrected.  "I will toughen you up or killl 
you trying!"

>     Plus, he seems likely to grow up to basically be a corporate drone
> working for his dad.  Not because he wants to, but because he isn't willing
> to actually fight to have his own life.  I don't know what I want to do with
> my life, but I'll chose it for myself.
>   
Much better than that teaser you sent me!  This sounds like Crystal to me.

>     "I don't know whether to laugh or to get pissed," Natasha said.
>
>     "About what?" Dan asked.
>
>     "Aunt Natsuki's new boyfriend sent me a giant robot model kit with the
> note 'Next time they accuse you of having a giant robot, they'll be right.'"
>   
Heh.  Though very funny, it doesn't strike me as very Roger-like.  And 
how did he find out that
the parents thought Natasha might be the source, anyway?  It doesn't 
seem like the sort
of mistake Natsuki would tell anyone about.  Last we saw, Natsuki and 
Mai were evading
mentioning to Roger anything about having been at the Tallin site 
themselves.  So why
would anyone tell Roger about the Natasha mistake?

Unless the forthcoming Roger story has happened simultaneously with this 
story so far,
and this reflects a development you haven't told us about yet...

>     "Oh, Crystal, Taiki sent me a bunch of 'fuck you' emails full of
> incoherent ranting about you," Dan said.  "Any idea why?"
>   
Heh.

>     There are two kinds of anticipation.  The good kind I call 'beforeglow',
> where you know something cool is coming and you get happily excited.  The
> bad kind is 'reachback' where disaster reaches back in time and starts
> punching you before it even happens.
>   
Heh.  Nice bit of characterization for Kasumi, naming these concepts.

> I had my tonfas in my carry bag, each
> carefully wrapped in dishtowels held on with rubberbands so they wouldn't
> clack on each other all day long making me crazy.
Heh.  Another nice bit.  But why didn't Akane do the same thing?

>     "Since you four are training with tonfas, cross your arms in front of
> your chests, then say, 'Weapon A'," Aunt Yukino said.
>   
'A' for Akane

>     Okay, it does feel real, but we all know this sort of thing can't happen
> for real, so why are they jumpy?
>   
Maybe one of your premises is wrong?

>     Natasha, on the other hand, clearly had no mixed emotions.  "THAT WAS
> AWESOME!" she shouted.
>   
Heh.

>     Sorry?  For hugging her?  What exactly is up with them?
>   
Yes, when are you planning to tell us?  We readers aren't exactly 
surprised, granted; we've
seen Haruka's stance in the late episodes.  But this is 23 years later.  
Surely Haruka and
Yukino have talked about mutual expectations at some point?  Based on 
"Unexpected
Visitor", Yukino seems to understand Haruka, but she's apparently the 
only one who does.

>     "I know he's really busy," I told Mother.  He's middle management and
> they get worked like dogs.
Is this in addition to owning the bakery?  "Middle" management can't be 
in the bakery they own.

>   But the pay's good enough for us all to live
> very well, especially with Mother's extra income.
This implies Akane runs the bakery by herself.

>     Mother seemed to stare off into space for a moment.  "Actually, I think
> they're probably better behaved than she likely was at their age."
>   
You have several people say this, but I have trouble with this being a 
widespread opinion.
I can't see 10-year-old Mikoto pouring applesauce or sugar on dogs or 
cats.  She might
have been more embarrassing to take out in public than the K twins (she 
can be even now),
but I can't think of any time we see her display gratuitous cruelty, or 
even just physically
hurt someone through sheer negligence.

> flutter.  I shouldn't have these feelings!  He's a bad boy and why do I like
> him so much?
>   
Maybe BECAUSE he's a bad boy?

>     "Well, he's definitely looking to sleep with you," she said
> disapprovingly.  "Did he actually sleep with Tate-san?"
>   
No, but not due to any actions on Crystal's part; he probably would have 
if Nao had
let them get together at that party.

>     "I promised your mother to keep my silence for now.  I can't tell you
> anything, yet."
Chie and Aoi have hardly had time to get a complete rundown of all 
events covered by
the children's info blackout.  The other Hime have had 23 years to 
completely brief
each other on who did what when, but Chie and Aoi haven't; we haven't 
even seen them
talk to several:  Shizuru, for instance.  The odds seem high that if 
Crystal pressed harder, or asked
a wide range of questions instead of just assuming she won't get any 
answers, that she
might get answers which would differ from those Mai would give her.  
What, for instance,
might Chie have to say about the Primus Research massacre?  She could 
correct a certain
impression that it came early during the year in question, instead of 
towards the end
(assuming, of course, that she's ever even heard of it).

And it seems odd that neither Crystal nor Erica think of this.

> telling her.  It's pretty clear she didn't know... what happened at that
> factory?  We've GOT to go back and look somehow.
>   
Why would it even occur to Crystal that there'd be any evidence left 
lying around?
Why does it NOT occur to Crystal to just ask Chie what happened?  Chie 
might get
overconfident, start to talk under the assumption that she'd know 
exactly when to
shut up, and make a mistake.

> disasters as the time we convinced ourselves it was a good idea to try to
> teach ourselves how to ride a motorcycle without asking for help.
>   
Oh, OUCH.

>     "IT WAS SUPREMELY KICK ASS," Natasha shouted, in case people on Mars
> needed to know.
Heh.

>     "I was not created to be empathic; I understand Alyssa instinctively,
> but with others, I am still learning, even after all these years," Miyu said
> to me, slowly and evenly.
Odd that it never occurs to the children to even joke about Miyu being a 
robot, if she's
accustomed to making statements like this.

>     "It was a research center, not a factory," Aunt Alyssa corrected me.
> "And it was Natsuki, I believe, who is most directly responsible for the
> explosion."
>   
Heh.  Not the giant robot.  Why doesn't Kasumi report this back to her 
cousins?

>     "Your father says he will try to close up the bakery early enough to see
> you go up against Torio."
>   
He's in middle management but he's going to close up the bakery?

>     "Yes.  First the bridge blew, then they had to close Fuuka because of
> the plague and then the same terrorists wiped out everyone at Primus
> Research,
Well, Mitsu has the sequence of events right, at least.

>     "Wow, I haven't heard your father this angry since the time we
> accidentally burned the mummy," I said to Dan.
>   
Heh.  Now that would get some people angry.

> passing them to Aunt Mikoto.  "Jinnai ran track at your age; he was really
> good."  Jinnai is Father's elder brother. He's blood kin to me, but he's not
> part of the family secret, I think.  He's a good uncle, but I think he can
> tell he's not privy to something, so I don't see him as much as I'd like.
>   
And he looks more than twenty years older than your father?

> Dan's parents were there with him stashed in one of the back seats of his
> Dad's open top jeep.
So they've dismounted the large machine gun?  Must be easily 
dismountable if they use this
jeep for normal driving too.

>     "How about if you ride with us?" Aunt Midori said.  "Shun and Erica can
> ride with Har... Chie-san."  Hmm, interesting, I thought.  It doesn't come
> as naturally to her as the others.
Well, Midori was never friends on Chie or Aoi, only their teacher.  
Which Crystal knows.

> As we walked up to the counter, the manager stared at us.  "Sugoi-sensei, is
> that you?"  He was a middle aged man, going bald with short black hair he'd
> tried to comb over it.
>
>     "It's Sugiura-sensei, but yes," she said.  "Been a long time,
> Ishida-san.  I'm surprised you remember me."
>   
I'm more surprised she can identify him; he's changed but she hasn't, 
and a teacher has a lot
more students to remember than a student has teachers.

> take over the family business.  I own four of these now.  This one's been
> prospering ever since they FINALLY fixed that damn bridge."
>
>     BINGO, I thought.  "Bridge?"
>
>     Aunt Midori looked frantic a moment.
>   
Heh.  This reaction betrays that the Hime have some long-standing 
agreement on how
to handle the info blackout.  Midori doesn't have to wonder whether Mai 
might have
mentioned the bridge collapsing to Crystal and explained it away 
harmlessly; she knows
that the event has never been mentioned to the kids, and that this 
innocent comment is a
major security leak.

The problem is that this long-standing agreement has to cover so many 
topics that
Chie and Aoi can't have been fully briefed.  After all, for THEM, the bridge
had another explanation for twenty-three years (even if Chie had doubts, 
she was
certainly aware of the official explanation), and the plague was real.  
The probability
of them getting out of sync with the other Hime, if pressed, approaches 
certainty.

>     "I'm surprised they fixed all the damage.  What with the crop circles
> and the big fire and the underwear theif and the 'vampire' and a nun getting
> PREGNANT and..."
>
>     Aunt Midori was vibrating.
>   
Heh again.

>     You are the best bald man ever to live, I thought.
HEH!  I love this; Crystal referring to Ishida this way.

> mouth.  A nu... duh, Aunt Yukariko and my rarely seen by us cousin
> Shinichiro.  Shinichiro was concieved when my parents were still in school
> so he's a lot older than the rest of us and we don't see him much.  He lives
> in Hokkaido.  He's twenty three or so, I think, and a school teacher of art
> and math.
>   
Heh.  That was fast.  A complete back history developed for this 
character in less than three
weeks.  Nice work.

>     "So Aunt Mai didn't blow it up?" Dan asked.
>   
"No, that was your Aunt Alyssa."
>     "Your Aunt Mai's ferry sank on the way to school, but she didn't sink
> that
"Your Aunt Mikoto did that one."
>     I cannot imagine her in a maid costume.  She's a professional educator,
> not someone's servant.  I can't even see her serving tea to someone and...
> making cookies.
>
>     My eyes crossed.
>   
Heh.  Welcome to adults having been different than you know them as when 
they were younger.

>     A car now pulled up nearby and two men in suits got out, both wearing
> sunglasses.  "Are you ladies alright?" the first one asked.
>   
Geez, more MIB.  In the series, MIB are usually, but not always, 
associated with First District,
which is supposedly defunct.  Which doesn't mean that someone couldn't 
be gathering back
together the remnants, I suppose.  Which places an interesting 
interpretation on Sakumizo's
presence.

>     I decided not to worry about it; nothing was missing, so they must have
> just been kind to strangers.
Pay no attention to the tracer they planted in the car.

>     "Kasumi wants to steal the guy Crystal refuses to admit she finds
> attractive, Masakuri Hayao," Natasha said, grinning.
>
>     "I am not out to steal him!" I protested.  Crystal turned him down so
> he's fair game.  Not that I should be thinking about him.
>
>     "He's an ass!  You'd better stay away from him for your own good!"
> Crystal said to me.
>
>     "He doesn't seem like a bad guy to me," I said.  "He's so cute and the
> way he moves and... eep."  I put my hand over my mouth.
>   
Move along, move along.  No potential causes for intra-team disharmony 
here to see!

>     So why would Mother care?  It's not like any other star but our own can
> eat the Earth.
>
>     Right?
>   
Heh.

>     Dan killed his and now I could see one of the signs glowed in the dark.
> "Hey, one of them glows," I said.
>
>     "I see three glowing," Crystal said.
>
>     "One for me," Dan said.
>
>     "One for me," Shun said.
>
>     "Two for me," Erica said a little nervously.
>
>     "Two for me," Natasha said.
>
>     "Maybe it's by breast size," Shun speculated.
>
>     "Hey, my breasts are bigger than the guys!" I protested.  "Can we get
> some light?" I asked.  "This is... wait, how can each of us see a different
> number?"
>
>     Dan turned his flashlight on.  "Everyone point at the ones which you saw
> glowing."
>
>      Nine out of the fifteen were glowing when we turned the lights of.  No
> one had any overlap EXCEPT Natasha and Crystal both pointed to the same one
> as one of theirs.
>   
I'm thinking the overlap is Mikoto, principle sword sensei to both, and 
that Crystal's third might
be Nao, but you don't really give us enough evidence to reach any firm 
conclusions.


> The elements will answer their commands, their noble robes will
> protect them, and their children fight by their sides.
Missed that intermediate otome-ism the first few times through.

>     "I'm going to stick my head into the water and see if I can see anything
> underwater," Natasha said.
>   
You just know Natasha is the one who put her head into ovens as a child.

>     Dan saw the moving shadow and shone his flashlight on it.  It didn't
> vanish.  Instead, it suddenly sprouted glowing eyes, as did several other
> shadows, which now rose up like great serpents with glittering ruby eyes.
> They rippled like a struck pond, as if made of a black, oily liquid.
>   
Good description.  I can really picture the anime's not-yet-quite-formed 
orphans.

>     I didn't want to be a banquet for evil oil snakes who probably work for
> some nasty polluting oil company.
Heh. Another nice characterization bit.

>     I would have to figure that out later.  The wind howled around me and
> now I felt my clothing explode off my body; for a moment, I was utterly
> embarrassed, but then the wind collapsed in on me and I found myself clad in
> new clothing.
>   
Rats!  One of the things I really like about Mai Hime is the lack of 
clothing transformation.  I think
it aids belief that the characters are normal people who just one day 
found themselves with
powers.

> by my black belt, then flared out below the waist like a divided skirt.  I
> wore a domino mask in white on my face with a nose guard that flared out a
> bit to resemble a beak.
I can see where the mask might be of subsequent use plot-wise, if you 
want to actually get
the kids fighting the adults.  Although I think it would be hard to 
accept the adults mistaking
their own kids because of a domino mask.

> I ran, grabbing her, and
> jumped out of the way.
>
>     And stayed up.
>
>     I'm flying.
>
>     I AM FLYING!
Another otome-ism.

>     I felt his name inscribed within my heart.  "HORUS!" I shouted.
>
>     And now a great white falcon the size of a horse with black and red
> fringed feathers and light red eyes plunged out of the night sky and plucked
> out one of the eyes of the giant serpent.
No mechanical-looking aspects?

>     "I'm kinda envious," Natasha confessed.  "Only activated by danger,
> hmm..."
>   
Exactly the WRONG thought for Natasha to be contemplating...

>     Crystal stared at it.  "Dammit, where's an all-explaining wise man when
> you need one?"
>
>     We all laughed at that, and Dan said, "He's in the other castle," which
> got more laughs.  We needed a little tension release.
>   
Movie reference?  If so, not one I've seen.

>     "So is it time to confront the adults?" I asked.  "They must know
> something about this."
>
>     "Not yet," Crystal said.  "We need to go into that confrontation knowing
> as much as possible or they may still try to keep us in the dark."  She
> frowned.  "For some reason.  They've done it too many times."  She sounded
> pretty angry about that.
>   
This is a really bad decision on Crystal's part.  Part of her knows it, 
too, given how she later impulsively
asks Midori about Marduk.  What I find really remarkable is that all the 
others just fall in line with
Crystal here.  Erica has no history of obedience, and she must have 
reservations about the wisdom
of this course; Shun has to have reservations; Natasha should be 
somewhat rebellious or loose-
lipped just on general principles.

Crystal is starting to forget her original objective: to learn the 
truth.  Her objective, I think, has
become to learn the truth through her own efforts:  SHE has to be the 
one who forces the truth to light.

>     There was a sixteenth battle princess mark on the wall and it was white,
> unlike the others.
>   
And presumably, had anyone come back her after the next scene, there 
would have been
a seventeenth, in light grey or silver?

>     I paused and looked at myself.  I had huge armored shoulderpads and a
> white and blue bodysuit on with white and blue boots. But the bodysuit had
> two huge diamond shaped cutouts showing my cleavage and my stomach and was
> pretty tight.  I had a belt around my waist with a tiger fur pattern, the
> two ends trailing in my winds to either side of my waist. And I had long
> white and blue gloves.  Something... I touched my head and felt along the
> thing on my head... was I wearing some kind of hairpiece with... cat ears???
>   
Aarrgh!  Otome-Akane's costume!  Her reaction to it is kind of amusing, 
though.

>     The creature came apart, dissolving away into streamers of crimson light
> which burned away.  I heard a scream in the woods and saw crimson sparkles
> of light rise skywards.
>   
??? Don't tell me you're using Otome Black Valley summoning for Orphans 
here?
What kind of crazies did they talk into martyring themselves for this?

>     I just hope I don't end up looking like that every time now.
You're not alone.  Again, one thing I really liked about "Mai Hime" was 
the way the Hime
fight in their normal clothes:  Midori in her waitress outfit (which she 
especially changed into
for the fight!); Mai in her school uniform; Natsuki in her motorcycle 
leathers.

That said, I don't think it's an important point or seriously detracts 
from the story.

> some fresh air, my brain in chaos.  Something I couldn't understand or
> explain had happened.
She can't explain why her parents look her age.

>   I had a strong feeling that our parents knew
> something like this was going to happen?  So why hadn't they told us?  I
> couldn't think of any good reason and it was making me paranoid.
>   
To protect you from making the same mistakes they made?  To protect you 
from having to pay
the price you've just learned about, and are worried about?

>     "Tell me about Marduk," I said.  I didn't mean to say it.  But I
> couldn't help myself.
>   
Interesting.  Crystal believes that she is giving away the game; she 
doesn't know that the older
generation only knows Marduk by another name.  But Crystal is, at some 
level, sufficiently
unsure of her own edict about keeping quiet to come out with this request.

>     Aunt Midori cannot lie worth a damn.  So I knew she couldn't have read
> the Namcub of the Crystal Princess.  Or whatever that thing was.  Or else
> she'd almost certainly know, as we knew she'd been in that cave.  But if
> she'd been in that cave, how could she NOT have read it?
>   
Heh.  Maybe it wasn't there the last time Midori was in the cave?  
Crystal does seem to know
enough to be able to speculate that SOME of the events described in that 
namcub must have
occurred to her folks, ergo this namcub was inscribed afterwards.  
Though she doesn't know
the fairly fresh news about the Crimson Huntsman, which was also mentioned.

It might not be amiss to somewhere tell us and Crystal when was the last 
time Midori was in
the cave; that would place an upper bound on how old the current 
inscription could be.  (To us,
mention of the Crimson Huntsman suggests it's only days old, conflicting 
with Dan's observation
of the weathered rock.  But possibly what Dan was 'reading' wasn't what 
was written there at all;
if so, suggest Dan find that what his notebook now says is completely 
different.)

>     For that matter, what did the sign on Kasumi signify?  Was she a battle
> princess now?
>   
Of course she is.  Why would Crystal even hesitate at that?  She has no 
prior definition of "battle
princess" EXCEPT for the sigil.

>     And then Aunt Akane came out of the woods, carrying Mitsu-san over one
> shoulder;
How strong is Akane outside magic zones?  Or the other Hime?

>     But if she'd run here, she would still be somewhere in the countryside,
> unless she can run dozens of miles an hour.  Though if she took a bus to the
> city, then tried to walk out here...
>   
I'm puzzled by the geography, I find; I suspect you haven't concretized 
it in your own mind.
Fuka, on the north shore of Kyushu, is only "dozens of miles" from 
Rosewood, which is "let's go over
every afternoon" distance from where the Hime live, which is 
sufficiently urban for Mai to do
business consulting, Tate to work for a robotics firm, and Haruka and 
Yukino to run a very, very
large company, and Roger to work as a full-time negotiator.

Easy enough to fix, though, I think; just leave Rosewood and the Hime's 
residences in Tokyo,
and make sure going to and from Fuka is a multi-hour ride on the 
Shinkansen.  Still a small issue
with your characters driving there earlier; might want to move Fuka to 
north-east corner of
Shikoku, much closer to Osaka, and have your characters have driven to 
Fuka from Osaka
("we keep a second jeep stashed here just in case").  Or conceivably 
just have all the characters
live in the Osaka area now.

Again, though, I'm nitpicking.  Yes, this disrupts verisimilitude 
somewhat to me, but probably
not to the vast majority of your readers.

>     "Harada-san told us that fortunately, the appropriate paperwork to come
> on the trip was filed for her two days before you left and it's properly
> chaperoned by two of the school staff, so she won't be in trouble at all;
> she'll actually get some credit for this,"
Heh.  Trust Chie to cover all the bases.

>     "If I bathe with any of our elders, they may notice my... tattoo,"
> Kasumi said slowly.  She ran her fingers around it slowly, studying it
> nervously.
>   
Interesting.  It's still there.  The older generations' aren't there 
inside the shrine.  Which would
appear to mean that the older generation knows that Mitsu's tattoo is 
also still present, since
she's of the same generation as Kasumi.  And it also would seem to mean 
that the younger
generation keeps their powers everywhere, or at least in a wider zone 
than their parents.

Just had another thought:  Akane sort of re-pledged herself, with her 
own recitation, during
her and Mitsu's fight (presumably it was Mitsu's pledge at the beginning 
of that fight which
caused her tattoo to appear, her sigil to appear in the cave, etc).  
Does her tattoo persist
now as well?

>     "Yeah, but how can you hide it?" I asked, finishing Natasha's hair.
>   
Why do you want so badly to hide it?  Actually, Kasumi herself probably 
has another reason, her
general shyness.  The tattoo calls attention to her she'd rather not have.

> extremely quickly. I was a little jealous.  But only a little.  I'm not that
> petty. Usually, anyway.
>   
Ah, another potential source of discord within the younger generation!

>     You know, if the adults in our family are the Battle Princesses, then
> Aunt Haruka must be one of the strongest.  She fights so well and so
> bravely.
>   
Heh.  But with such conflicted, repressed love.

>     I wish I could tell Aunt Miyu, I thought. She'd be proud of me.
>   
Per Miyu's comments in ADOF, Miyu doesn't need to be told.  She can 
sense it directly.  And if Kasumi
still has her tattoo all the time, Miyu should be able to sense it all 
the time.

>     "The real question is whether or not that's Ishida-san singing the Fuuka
> Fight Song," Aunt Aoi said grinning and looking at Aunt Chie in a teasing
> way.
>   
Recognizing a singing voice she presumably hasn't heard for a number of 
years is pretty good going.
Or maybe you meant that Aoi doesn't have any idea that Ishida is 
actually here; she's just saying
this to tease Chie.  Which would mean Ishida is known to both Aoi and 
Chie to be prone to
bursting into this particular song.  Which maybe we should have been 
clued into earlier?  You
might consider having him burst into song back at the gas station and 
having Midori look
unsurprised to Crystal's eyes.

>     To my surprise, Crystal said, "I think I do hear Ishida-san," causing
> Aunt Chie to stare at her in utter surprise, then hide behind me.
>
>     "Auntie?" I asked in confusion.
>
>     "I am not here," she hissed into my ear.
>   
Heh.  I really liked this twist.

>     "Yeah, Ishida-san just called us up out of the blue for a game, so we're
> on our way over to the courts for a game or three," Kajima-san said.
>   
Heh.  The apparently-pointless converrsation back in the gas station 
bears fruit.

>     "It's just... he was totally obsessed with me senior year.  I just
> reached the point where I couldn't deal with him any more."  She glanced
> back down the road.  "Of course, it didn't help when Aoi kept 'accidentally'
> revealing me."  She stared over at Aoi, who laughed.
>   
I can just see the two of them behaving like that, too.

>     "I'm kind of stunned you two of all people got married.
Heh.  Wonderful misinterpretation.

>     "I teach here," he said proudly.  "We've been national champions three
> years in a row!"
>
>     The rest of us now milled forwards.  "Hello, Takeda-san," Aunt Shiho
> said.  "I'll make sure to tell Yuuichi-kun that."
>   
That's the sort of thing Yuuichi would already know; former high-school 
athletes, in my experience,
follow their old alma maters enough to know about events that 
significant.  But Shiho might not know that.

>     Aunt Mikoto grinned.  "She and Natasha are geniuses with a blade.  I'm
> very proud of them."
>
>     "Let's spar like in the old days, Takeda-san!" Aunt Mikoto said
> enthusiastically.
>   
Two consecutive paragraphs with Mikoto as the speaker.  Suggest 
combining:  "She and Natasha
are geniuses with a blade!  I'm very proud of them," Aunt Mikoto 
proclaimed with a grin, then
added enthusiastically,  "Hey!  Let's spar like in the old days, 
Takeda-san!"
>     "That's not true at all," Mitsu-san said.  "If we fight without rules,
> we become monsters."
>
>     "And if you do, monsters eat you," Katsuhito said sagely.
>   
Heh.  U.S. national security debate in a nutshell (with the neocons as 
unruly ten-year-olds).

>     "Aunt Mikoto would save me when Mommy gets eaten, but I'd cry for
> Mommy," Katsuhito said.
>   
Heh.

>     "See, Aunt Mikoto's a super-badass.  She'll save us all while you save
> us from being killed by Aunt Mikoto's cooking," Katsuhito said to Mother.  I
> suppose this is what passes for trying to be concilliatory with him.
>   
Heh.
>     Once the painting was done, we feasted on cookies and tea.  Aunt Fumi's
> cookies are just incredible. Aunt Fumi's cookies are just incredible.
Is the repetition deliberate?

>     Oh man, what happened at Tallin... that had to be one of their cases.
> And she probably joined the Order because of something that happened when
> the monsters killed everyone at Primus Research.  When our parents were in
> school.
>
>     That's got to be how they all gained their powers, having to save the
> school from the invading monsters.
Logical enough deductions, given what Crystal knows, though she seems to 
be ignoring the
actual sequence she's been given.  The 'Primus Research' massacre came 
late, not early.

>     I stepped up and put my hands on my shoulders, "It's okay, Aunt Nao.  I
> grew up with Mother and her endless quest for normality," I told her.
Living in a threesome, with two swordsfanatic lovers... That's an odd 
perspective for a 16-year-old
to have of a mother she's afraid to show off to prospective friends.

>     It took a huge amount of space for us all; I was surprised Aunt Fumi had
> enough tables and food,
The headmistress of a private school with over 2000 students has to do a 
lot of entertaining
to alumni and donors, typically.  Though Crystal might not know that.

>     I'm just tying myself into knots.
>   
Yep.

>     "She was a lot like them when I met her," Mother said.  "Though she
> never would have said anything that bratty to her family."
>   
I just can't see Mai saying this.  Mai spent enough time exasperated 
with Mikoto, but she
never once hesitated about being seen in public with Mikoto.  People 
denigrate Mikoto in
the series by calling her an animal, not a demon, as she's not malicious.

>     "Do you see something?" Aunt Yukariko asked softly.
>
>     Uncle Wataru now looked up.
>
>     "No, and I never will, as you both know," he said.
>   
Well, this definitely settles the question of whether Shinichiro's been 
told the family secret.

You'd think Crystal might be able to put this together with Akane's "red 
star" panic
and come up with some ideas.

>     "I know a little too well," Aunt Yukariko mumbled, while Uncle Wataru
> stared off at the trees.
>
>     Wait, were THEY like that?
>   
Heh.  Surprise, Crystal!

>     "This is where I met Mai and Mikoto and Yuuichi and Shiho," Aunt Natsuki
> said.
>
>     "Where you scared us nearly to death," Mother said, laughing.
>   
Well, technically Natsuki already knew Yuuichi, and possibly Shiho; and 
I don't think Natsuki
and Shiho ever encountered each other on the ferry.  And she didn't meet 
Mikoto ON the ferry,
as she'd already attacked Mikoto once that day.

>     "I didn't know you met Aunt Natsuki on the boat too." I vaguely knew the
> rest of them had all met on the ferry on the way to school.  But not the
> details.
>
>     "My first sight of Natsuki was her kicking me in the groin with her
> knee," Dad said, groaning exaggeratedly.
>   
Yuuichi was already working for the student council (that's what he was 
doing on the ferry,
scoping it as a possible site for the Founder's Day festival, for 
Reito), and Natsuki was already
in the habit of dropping in on Shizuru, and they had been in the same 
grade since the beginning
of the school year, one homeroom apart.  Yuuichi's only sight of Natsuki 
is of her wearing her
motorcycle helmet at the moment she kicked him, so it seems most 
probable that Yuuichi didn't
know that this was Natsuki until long afterwards.

>     We got onto the boat, though something about the crew made me nervous.
>   
It wasn't clear to me what I was supposed to read into this.

>     Aunt Natsuki's wrist watch suddenly beeped and her eyes widened.
> "Everyone, don't turn around," she said softly.
>
>  
>
>     "There's a large number of men with guns coming this way.  Probably
> pirates," Aunt Natsuki whispered.
>   
Natsuki has a watch which can detect approaching men with guns?  
Frankly, this just
completely blew my suspension of disbelief.  How could such a device 
possibly work, based
on science and technology?  They're out in the open air, on a ferry; 
it's can't be based on
metal detector principles, as the ferry itself would throw that 
completely off.  It can't be
based on detecting minute quantities of gunpowder in the air, not when 
they're out in the
middle of a bay and the detection is supposed to be men approaching in 
motorboats;
the motorboats' own speed would outstrip anything else.

>     "Assuming my watch's readings are correct," Natsuki said.  "I suspect a
> few of the ferry crew are in cahoots with them.
I got really lost here too.  Having a few of the crew in cahoots implies 
a regular thing, robbing
rich passengers; but why then the focus on the Hime in particular?  
Having the pirates really be
MIB First District remnants is plausible on its own, except that it 
doesn't really fit with crew
in cahoots and REALLY doesn't fit with Nina Wang later saying that the 
coast guard has
been after these guys for a while.

>     Dad frowned.  "It smells."
>   
I agree.  Something has to be up.

>     Distantly, I heard an odd noise, like metal scraping on metal, up in the
> sky, but it was dark enough I couldn't see anything.  "Does anyone else hear
> that?"
>   
What the heck?  Is Big O here as well?  But if he could manifest here, 
Mai/Natsuki/Shiho would
be able to do things they're not doing, as far as we know now.

>     Mother seemed to concentrate on something, then looked frustrated.
> "Swim faster."
>   
Here Mail clearly tries to summon at least her Element, so she could fly 
to shore, but can't.

>     "Will they have eyepatches and parrots?  I like parrots," Aunt Mikoto
> asked excitedly.
>   
Heh.  Funny, but perhaps a shade too juvenile for this Mikoto.

> felt proud of myself, carrying Mom to safety.  I'd be able to brag about
> this forever.  I guess I'm being shallow, but I don't care.  This was
> totally cool.
>   
Okay, we're getting good characterization for Crystal here:  this is 
definitely a source of
concern, that she can be so excited, without being nervous or afraid, in 
this situation.

>     "At least this time the boat didn't sink," Aunt Shiho mumbled.
>   
>     My ears immediately perked up. The boat sank the first time they came
> here?  No wonder Aunt Mikoto needed mouth to mouth.
>   
Crystal already knew this, from the gas station stop.

> through the bushes we hid behind; I could see a half dozen motorboats
> combing the bay.  What were they looking for?
>   
Presumably you guys, but why?

>     "This is awesome," Aunt Mikoto said.  "We finally get to take Crystal on
> a real adventure with us!"  She came over, hugged me, then bounced back to
> Mom.
>   
That's right, Mikoto:  go ahead and let Crystal know that you and Mai 
have been on adventures WITHOUT
Crystal in the past!

>     The men were slowly getting closer.  Aunt Natsuki bagged her phone.  "We
> just have to evade notice long enough for Haruka to get here with her
> helicopter and get us out of here."
>
>     "I think they're looking for us," Aunt Shiho said.
>   
So do I.

>     But why?
Exactly.

> If Mom is the Dragon Princess... holy shit, she must have a dragon!  An
> actual dragon.  Man, that would rock.
>   
Heh.  This will be an interesting scene whenever it occurs.

> The pirates flailed around the bay; I couldn't figure out why they weren't
> trying to investigate our island but I wasn't going to complain.
>   
I can't figure that out either.

>     "Oh man, Nina Wang?" Aunt Mikoto asked.
>
>     "Yes," Aunt Haruka said.  "You know her?"
>
>     "She's going to totally lord this over me forever," Mikoto grumbled.
>   
Heh.

>     "It's no problem.  I've worked with Suzushiro-san before," Colonel Wang
> said.  "We've been after these guys for a long time."
>
>     "So they are pirates?" I asked, feeling a little surprised.  I thought
> you only got pirates off in places like Indonesia.  There had to be more
> going on here than just piracy.
>
>     "Among other things, yes.  I'll let you know if we find out anything
> interesting from them, Suzushiro-san."
>   
So these men ARE known pirates.  But why were they specifically after 
the Hime, then?
This entire incident is puzzling.

>     Man, everyone else is going to be totally jealous.
>
> ***************
>
>     "Pirates?  DAMMIT, I should have gone with Mom," Natasha said.  She
> sounded utterly, totally jealous.
>   
These kids really need to grow up.  If nothing else, they should realize 
that they do NOT
want to be saying things like this where their parents can hear them.  
It's difficult to even
imagine anything more calculated to increase Mai's determination to hide 
the truth.

> super outfit, in the game.  Maybe she was hoping it would awaken both of our
> abilities."
>   
No, just training you (but mostly Akane and Shiho) to use them IF you 
turned out to have them.

>     "Given we're the same age they were when this all started, it's not like
> we can't handle it.  They handled it," I said.
The kids' key mistake:  the parents did NOT handle it; they SURVIVED 
it.  Very few of the Hime
can be entirely proud of their actions during the festival.  
Fortunately, the parents fare better
than the non-parents, for the most part.  Mai and Midori and (to a 
lesser extent) Akira can
take some pride in how they did; Akane may not have done too well, but 
need not be ashamed
of her actions.  Shiho is the only mother who really might have a 
problem with that, but Natasha
is probably the least inclined of the kids to artificially idolize her 
mother.  But not even the
mothers could actually want for their children to have to go through 
what they went through.

> and Aunt Shiho's parents were dead too and her grandfather was raising her.
>   
In episode 13, while dressing for the festival, Shiho comments to 
herself that her parents are "out", not
"dead", so she needn't worry about what time she comes home.

>     "Well..." Dan said.  "You know, if they told Shinichiro at eighteen,
> that's about when he went totally into King of all Emo mode."
>
>
>     "I can guess why he turned Emo," Shun said softly.
>
>     We all looked at him.
>
>     "If it's true that only women can be Battle Princesses, then he may well
> have gotten Emo over basically being relegated to the sidelines for life,"
> Shun said.
>   
Bingo!  The kids finally got a call right!

>     I suddenly felt horrible for Dan and Shun. I somehow totally hadn't
> thought about that at all.  How do the guys cope with it in our family?
Your father, only with great difficulty, and Reito isn't much better.  
Only Takumi seems
utterly okay with the situation, but then he's spent his entire life 
relying on the women in
his family.

>     "Well... they have been searching you guys too, right?" Kasumi said.
>
>     "Yeah," Dan said.
>
>     "Dad's checked me a few times, but I got the impression they were a lot
> more serious about it with you girls than us guys," Shun said.
>   
So the boy-checks are perfunctory, about what we readers would expect.  
(And I guess Shun
really is a boy.  So why was Akira so ambiguous about whether Shun gets 
checked in UAB?)

>     "Ergo, it must be possible for men, even if it does mess up our attempts
> to guess who is a Battle Princess," Kasumi said.  "Why bother searching them
> otherwise?"
>   
Maybe your parents don't know for sure?

>     "Hey, Hayao is BAD NEWS," I told her.
>
>     "Whatever," Kasumi said, leaning back and looking up at the sky.
>
>     I'm just trying to protect you.  You always seem to attract the worst
> men, I thought.
>   
"You can't handle them.  Only I can."

>     "Anyway, out of my way!"  He slapped Kagami-san in the side of the face
> with tremendous force and I expected her to go sprawling.  Instead, she just
> stood there, putting a hand to her cheek and looking angry.
>   
So Mitsu has her powers in this spot.

>     Then I saw something.  Was a shadow moving?  Or was I imagining things?
>   
Well, that figures if Mitsu has her powers.

The point of this whole scene kind of escapes me.  It's a good way to 
characterize Mitsu, but I
don't think it added much to our knowledge of Shun, other than that he's 
not bothered by having
a woman do his fighting.  It was kind of a long scene to have so little 
point.

> the Battle Princesses make you vulnerable?  Were we endangering ourselves
> probing into it?
>   
Yes.

> seem to have been restored by Miyu's destruction of these pillars.  Are we
> free now?  Or do we accept the risk of the loss of our loved ones every time
> we summon them?  The fact that our powers work only in fairly limited areas
> and that so far, we've been very lucky, has kept us from finding out.  But
> those areas are slowly spreading.  And so far as I can tell, I think soon we
> will have to abandon the lives we've carved out for ourselves and fight.
>   
Nice angsty reflection scene, very Akira.

> the thought of losing him... He is still, after all these years, the one I
> love the most.
>   
That's actually kind of odd for a mother.  Most mothers I've known 
(including, I learned much
later, my own) tend to accumulate small grudges and resentments against 
their husbands over time,
but lavish the kind of blind, ungrudging love on their children which 
they no longer have for their
husbands.  This situation might switch back to some extent, once the 
kids are grown and absent,
and the friction their presence generates is gone (the friction 
typically comes from the kids, but
both parents take it out on each other, as they CAN'T take it out on the 
kids), but I'd have
thought all of your mothers would think of their children as their 
current "most precious" people
rather than their partners.  And, for Akane, that would be Kasumi, as 
the twins aggravate her too
much.

> know what he is getting into.  If he is not yet Kagami's most important
> person, he will be soon, I am sure.  Which means she may be risking his life
> every time she goes into battle, and he doesn't even know.
>   
True.

> then we would have to explain everything.  I feel no shame for my role in
> the Festival. I avoided hunting my fellows until I had no choice and I fell
> honorably.
True, and an appropriate way for Akira to feel, I think (but:  although 
it might not come up in this
context, I'd think someone raised and trained by a ninja clan would also 
feel ashamed of having
fallen so early in the festival, despite being the youngest.  Shiho, 
with no training and a year
older, fell later.).

>   But some among us did horrible, horrible things,
Yep!

>  and I fear if I
> had been a little luckier, I would have been one of them.  I do not wish the
> children to hate Shizuru for her succumbing to the madness brought by the
> Obsidian Prince or Shiho for succumbing to the base impulses of childhood,
> or Mikoto for being loyal to her kin or even Yukino for being weak and a
> pawn.  I was raised to kill without regret or pity and I fear that as the
> power of the star grew, I might have become far more terrible than even
> Shizuru did.
>   
Now THAT'S an awful thing to be afraid of...

> only knows a part of the truth and I fear the consequences of her knowing
> and her not-knowing.
>   
Given the number of private conversations she's been having with the 
older generation Hime, I'd
have thought she'd be completely briefed by this time.  Or, at least, on 
possible prices; by no means
can Mitsu know much more about the Festival than the cousins do at this 
point.

>     Fumi hadn't mentioned this.  Then again, does Fumi know?  What reason
> does she have to come down here often?
>   
Good question.

>     I studied Charon; he looked oddly like an effort to make Death cute.
> Which fitted Fumi, I suppose.
>   
Heh.

> shape of various of the Children.  Fumi led me on silently to the base of
> the massif; I could see three staircases; one in front of me, and one to
> either side.  I expected there were likely three more to match beyond.  This
> one was made out of steel with two huge side rails all the way up.
>     The one off to the right was made of red sandstone and the one to the
> left was made of wood.
I didn't really register the staircases until the third time through:  
Steel, red sandstone, wood,
white ivory, sapphire, and transparent crystal.  This gives us the 
elemental affinities for the new
generation of Hime, with Mitsu as "steel" (metal) and Kasumi as "white 
ivory" (air), leaving wood,
sandstone, sapphire (water, perhaps?), and crystal for Natasha, Erica, 
someone else, and Crystal.

>     "I cannot open the shrine," Fumi said.  "But I think I have an idea how
> now."
>
>     She took me up the stairs to the double doors which had six hime signs
> on it; a translucent one in the middle of constantly changing colors and
> ringing it were five:  white, blue, red (a lighter red than that of our
> marks), grey, and green.  "These marks were just colored circles on my
> previous visits, but now they are colored Hime signs," Fumi said.
>   
Colors corresponding to the staircases, natch.

>     "And Kagami-san has a grey mark," I said softly.
Heh.  Too bad they're not seeing glows, so that they'd know "white" has 
been activated.

Why isn't Midori visiting the store-room behind the shrine, while she's 
here?  (And seeing
the same things on the wall.)

>     "I don't know," Fumi said.  "But where the Festival demanded only one
> winner, I think this requires six people to cooperate."
>   
Good.

>     She produced the book from somewhere and opened it, counting pages.
> "Here on page six..."  She paused and stared.
>
>     "It looks like... some kind of writing," I said, staring at the wedge
> shaped script.
>   
Cuneiform.  Too bad neither seems to recognize it, given that they have 
Midori and the Professor
handy.  Actually, you'd think they'd run it by those two anyway.

>     "But there's only fourteen Hime... fifteen with Kagami-san.  If more
> Hime bearing the colored marks appear..."
>
>     "I think those over there are for the new Hime to come," Fumi said.  "I
> am not sure how we number fifteen, though perhaps Alyssa counts for this.
> All is new and the old lore often does not apply."
>   
Alyssa nearly has to count unless you're planning a switcheroo, suddenly 
revealing that Tate is one
or something.

Although, if Alyssa could count, being artificial, we'd have to 
speculate that Roger might too,
and they can't BOTH count, or we'd have too many. 

Huh.  Too many possibilities.

> the Obsidian Lord dead, there is no single destiny; rather, competing ones.
> And we will be the ones to determine which one wins.  And for that..."
>
>     "We must fight."  I said flatly.
>   
Potentially promising...

> what the future would bring.  Would the others get powers like me?
Yes.

>     Of course, this would be easier if the parents would just confess, but I
> learned that's an immovable object a long time ago, unlike Crystal, who is
> just relentless in trying to wear them down.  So I'll just go around them
> and do what I can.
>   
That certainly well fits with their elemental affinities.

Great work, and looking eagerly forward to more!