[FFML] [C&C] Re: [Naruto] Dead Garden - Chapter Eight: The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox

[David Smith]

First: Exceptional story.  Somewhat sorry it took me so long to take notice
of it, but not really, since it let me read a whole lot of chapters at once
:)

Also: Love the cat mission.  As someone who really doesn't like cats, it
captures cats' natural aptitude to gravitate towards the people that can't
stand them.

Technical corrections for all the chapters, as I go through them, to catch
up to this one:


Ch. 1

That was why, on the day of the final graduation exam, Sakura slipped into
her classroom a few minutes before class was to start and took the empty
seat in the back near the door, next to Nara Shikamaru. [[Before the first
class of the year, he'd moved away once she was seated, but the next day he
had apparently decided sitting next to her was less of a pain than sitting
closer to the teachers. So long as she didn't bother him, he didn't bother
her, and he'd even shared his rather thin notes without being asked when
she'd missed class on the tenth of October. That made him the closest thing
she had to a friend in her class.]]

~ Very confusing.  Shikamaru moved away from where? To where else? Had he
previously taken a seat closer to Sakura? Had Sakura taken a seat close to
him?  Did he move before or after the earlier incidents?

When he had told her to never have anything to do with Uzumaki Naruto was
one of those few times.

~ Awkward phrasing.  Introductory clause is long enough that the predicate
of the sentence loses its connection (though it gets more natural after 
several
read-throughs).  Fixable by inverting the sentence order ("One of those 
times
was when he had told her to never have anything to do with Uzumaki 
Naruto."),
though that changes the tone of the sentence slightly, and may not be 
exactly
what you want to convey.


Ch. 2

He also saw the boy approaching long before her. "Sakura-chan," Naruto said
as he drew near, his teammate starting in surprise.

~ Grammar incorrect; should be subjective pronoun, not objective pronoun.
"before she did" would be better.


Ch. 3

Ch. 4

If she shut him down now it would fall on Sasuke to try to bind this team
together, and he wouldn't even call Sakura by name unless Naruto had
threatened him enough in prior hour.

~ in 'the' prior hour, or perhaps 'in the last hour'.

That was when the search party that had set out from the gates when Sasuke
reached them found them.

~ Eh.. technically correct, but sounds bad.  Rephrase.

She did, however, notice the glare Naruto shot at his retreating back as
their escort returned to their other duties, which only lightening when the
other guard gave her teammate a solid punch to the shoulder and began a
lecture on politeness.

~ lightening > lightened

The bright eyes of one of the three wolf-like dogs stayed on the pair, even
as the only other member of the the team awake, one of the male genin,
poked the dying embers of their campfire with a stick.

~ "of the the team" > "of the team"

Ch. 5

The water erupted upward, forming the image of water element using
kunoichi, inside Zabuza's guard.

~ "of water element" > "of the water element"

Ch. 6

Light-headed, Sakura clawed at the hound's leathery underbelly with her
nails, she thought for a moment she was drawing blood.

~ two separate sentences; needs period or semicolon

"Kill it, Sakura-chan!" Naruto shouted. It took effort for Sakura to
recognize and obey the order

~ Missing final period.

"I said to leave them out of it," Kakashi growled as he appeared a dozen
paces away, but he didn't move any close.

~ close > closer

The Uchiha didn't have time to listen to Sakura's panicked.

~ "panicked" > "panicked voice"

There wasn't time to worry about, though, and he stood and turned to face
his enemy.

~ "about" > "about that"

In a deafening boom and a flash of light that should have been blinding,
lightning stuck in between Kakashi and Hidan.

~ "lightning stuck" > "lightning struck"

The girl - Eimi - emerged from hiding, drawing close to Sakura.

~ suggest: "The girl" > "The other girl"

The hidden campsite was quiet, the only person stirring the young medic
currently standing watch.

~ "the only person stirring the young medic" > "the only person stirring
was the young medic" ~ While original intent is understandable, it doesn't
read well.

Ch. 7

"You know don't have to stay up all night, pervert."

~ "know don't" > "know you don't"

"Man, only the civilian seems how funny all this is?"

~ "seems how" > "seems to see how"

The two Cloud genin stayed by their teacher's side; so far as Sasuke could
tell doing nothing but keeping wary eyes on the road and the Leaf ninja.

~ "tell doing" > "tell, doing"

"It's none of your business how we train," Sasuke said bluntly. "What do
you want?" He sought out their teacher, and found him sitting on the same
stump Sasuke had used the day before, clearly ignoring the confrontation.


Ch. 8

The massive stone faces the loomed over the village caught her gaze

~ "the loomed" > "that loomed"

"I know," the man answered calmly. "Your kind is far too dangerous to be
allowed to run free, Nine-Tails," he said, "and I fear my village and the
world will need your power in the years to come." The girl in his hands
started to cry again.

~ Feels like there should be a "but" there instead of an "and".

Takeru's explosive kunai flew through on dissolving replication.

~ on > one

She knew that this was not the fury of the Nine-Tails, that it did not
belong to demon girl who wore her face.

~ "belong to demon girl" > "belong to [a|the] demon girl"

It wasn't like focused killing intent Hidan had used to paralyze her. It
was wild, uncontrolled, and that made it hard to judge, but Eimi was
certain it was more powerful than the man who had destroyed the Hot Springs
village.

~ "like focused" > "like the focused"

They traveled in silence for some distance, and when they paused in a grove
of tree overlooking the road, Sasuke spoke again.

~ "of tree" > "of trees"