Gary--Excellent stuff, as always.  Furthermore, since I missed the first 
few chapters of the Prelude to HaM, I'm enjoying this chance to catch 
up.

One little, tiny, nit (about which I may be totally wrong, anyway):

	He stepped back, slowly and carefully. Saying nothing, he
followed the old woman away from the area. He would later learn that in
so doing, Kuno Tatewaki became the first outsider in recent memory to
leave Jusenkyo *without* having been transformed by one of the place's
cursed springs.

Ummmm.... I'm no expert on the later (ie, untranslated) volumes, but 
from my understanding, wouldn't that description also apply to Akane?  
After all, she cursed a spring, not the other way around....

--Freemage


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