All C&C welcomed and appreciated, public response is preferred.

Ahh!  He asked nicely again.  I really ought to write that essay on
Great Expectations instead, but...

       PRONOUNCIATION NOTE: "Mu Si" is, as best as I'm able to
determine, the Mandarin Chinese form of the name pronounced "Mousse",
romanized with the Pinyin system. Mu is pronounced "Moo", and Si sounds
like something between "Srrr" and "Szzz". In this series, the Pinyin
forms are used for Chinese names in the framing sequences, and the old
"toiletries" names are used in the flashbacks.

You know, I've never thought about it, but the fact that I'm actually
able to write serious scenes in fanfic with characters named Mousse,
Shampoo and Cologne probably says something about my mental health.

       "Mr. Mu come from hidden village in remotest China. Study for
many years secret techniques there."

Learn many good secret technique.  Leave village and come to Japan to 
work as children's entertainer.  Nice lady like to buy Tokyo Tower?

       Yaku looked at the gift that Mu Si was offering, and backed
away. "Um... thanks anyway, Mr. Mu." It was a mismatched pair of socks.

So THAT'S where they all go.

       "So sorry, Mr. Mu never know what he going to get." It was 

true.

Mu Si's martial arts master had taught him he could never be aware of
what was inside; for if one knew what one could get, then one also knew
what one could *not* get, and that might include something important. 

So

he always found something unexpected when he reached inside. Once he 

had

even found a driver's license from some westerner named Hoffa.

Could be worse.  He could have found the body.

       He picked up the bicycle lying on the sidewalk and got on. It,
along with the pidgin-speech he used in his act, was the only thing 

left

to him from Shan Pu.

Now... I'm unsure as to why you have Mousse using the pidgin speech in
his act.  He's always struck me as fairly proud (aside from when
dealing with Shampoo) and I don't know if he'd stoop to something like
that.  Is there a specific reason you had in mind for having him do
it?

       "I don't care what she says! She'll change her mind. I don't
care if it takes the rest of my life and I have to follow her to the
ends of the Earth. I'll never EVER give up on my dear, dear Shampoo!"

       Mousse's glasses rested firmly over his eyes, his vision clear;
but when he looked down, it wasn't Tsubasa he saw.

Instant epiphany!  Get 'em here.  Five bucks for a life revelation
straight outta Jamie Joyce, folks!

       Mu Si turned around, coming back to his feet and letting the
bicycle drop. "Tsubasa."

You killed my father.  Prepare to die.

       "Sorry, no." Of course, that was the difference between Tsubasa
and what Mu Si had once been. Tsubasa changed the object of his...
affections... every so often; Kasumi was probably just the latest. "She
went off years ago to become an apprentice to a Shinto priestess named
Kaede. I haven't seen her since."

"Oh my.  Could you please stop eating that man's soul and go back to 
the lowest depths of Hell, Mr. Demon?"

       "And you think that would interest me?" Mu Si tried to sound
more confident than he really felt. Tsubasa evidently didn't think much
about offering a recovered alcoholic a drink.

Nice metaphor.

       Shampoo was leaving. Mousse knew that she would be going back 

to

China, leaving him behind, unless he could somehow persuade her not to.
Maybe it was insane of him to keep trying after all this time; but to
marry Shampoo was the dream of a lifetime. If there was any chance at
all of it happening, then he had to try. After all, hadn't people
throughout history triumphed against impossible odds to realize their
dreams?

Only occasionally.  You just don't hear about the ones who get crushed
by the impossible odds, because they don't make for very inspiring
stories.

       "I go airport now. Tomorrow morning catch early flight go
Shanghai." She knelt on the floor next to Mousse. "What you do now?"

       "I'm going to seal up the boxes. I've got this really strong
tape, the kind they call --"

Hasn't everyone had one of those conversations where both of you
aren't talking about the same thing?

       He reached inside and pulled out a bouquet of red roses.

       She struck with her palm, scattering the flowers across the
pavement. "Goodbye, Mousse," she said scornfully.

For some reason, I found this image very effective, perhaps because
it's so easy to see the actions of the characters as Takahashi would
have drawn them.

       The rain stopped. The last dim vestiges of evening light 

emerged

around the clouds. Soon it would be dark again.

Hmm... somewhat confusing.  By evening light, what do you mean?  The
moon, the stars?  

       Taking another look, he saw that it wasn't Shampoo at all. The
newly-arrived person looked down at Mousse, and smiled happily. She
spoke in a child-like voice.

       "Claudette?"

Bing!  Cue the instant character recognition.

       Once there was a girl named Azusa. Azusa had long, wavy hair 

and

big blue eyes. She lived with her Daddy and her friends, in a big house
with a wall around the yard.

The whole Azusa sequence was very effectively written.  As you say in
the endnotes, a children's book style narration.  For her, it works.

       "I take it your daughter is... special? What they call
autistic?"

Awright.  From what little I know of autism, Azusa doesn't quite fit
the profile.  Autism creates a lack of response to outside stimuli,
whereas she's very outgoing and responsive to what goes on around her.
The obsession with cute and the childlike behaviour _could_ be
indicative of some sort of developmental disability, but autism 
doesn't seem to fit as well as it might.  

Then again, I could be completely wrong.  It's been known to happen
before.  This is always the problem with trying to apply real-world
standards to a character played for laughs in the original material.

       She smiled to herself. Hideki had believed her story about the
magazine article. Everything was going according to plan.

Methinks a foul plot doth be afoot.

       "This is your home now, Claudette!"

       Mousse looked around the large room. A canopied bed with frilly
pink covers stood on one side. A white chest of drawers was nearby, 

with

a mirror above it; both had several little pink ribbons tied to them.

And you'll stay here... for-ev-er... for-ev-er...

       Stephanie was a plaque, colored bright sky blue. Graceful
pictures of birds in flight adorned it. Mousse read the words on it. 

*If

you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it's yours. If not,
it never was.* With the heavy leash chafing against his neck, Mousse 

was

not pleased by the irony.

Damn irony.  It'll get you every time.

       There was an old saying, *life is what happens to you while
you're making other plans.* That was certainly true for Mousse's life.
Perhaps some of the Gods were punishing him for something, he mused. 

Why

else would they make Shampoo so perfect for him, and then arrange 

things

so that nothing he did could possibly win her love? Were they trying to
teach him a lesson? If so, he couldn't see what it was.

Because the gods love irony.  And a lot of them have very cruel
senses of humour.

I'm not sure if Gods should be capitalized in this sentence.  If 
Mousse is thinking of a specific group of gods (e.g. the Amazon Gods,
the Olympian Gods, etc...), then yes.  If he's just thinking of the
gods in general, e.g. "Like flies to wanton boys are we to the 
gods...", then I think you should lose the capital.

       Ryoko stepped into the darkened corridor, quietly shutting the
door behind her. Now that everyone had gone to bed, she could search 

the

house. She walked silently down the corridor, keeping one hand on the
wall, flashlight at the ready.

Now... I'm not sure of how realistic a depiction this is of the
activities of the average Japanese tax inspector.  It seems awfully
cloak-and-daggerish, and even possibly illegal.  Than again, I know
two things about the Japanese legal system, and one of them is jack.

       He drifted off to sleep. The pain in his arm prodded him awake.
He rolled over as much as he could, hoping a change in position would
help.

Pain in his wing, perhaps?

       Sleep eventually came. Shampoo fought her way into Azusa's
house, past Danielle and Delphine and all the other guards, to rescue
Mousse. He collapsed into her arms as she said "Mousse, I no mean it. I
no mean all things I say to you." They went back to China together as
she helped him deal with the trauma he had suffered.

Whew!  I didn't think Mousse was going to get a happy ending here for
a moment.  Oh... wait, there's more.  Never mind.

       He was still a duck, tied to a leash. His arm still throbbed,
but not as much as before. Using his other one, he pushed his glasses
into place.

Again, wing instead of arm, perhaps?

       Footsteps and voices came up the stairs. "Search where you 

like,

gentlemen. I've nothing to hide." Azusa's father walked into view,
surrounded by men in cheap-looking suits.

Oh no!  It's the yakuza!

       "Tax inspector Itakura Ryoko, sir. I'm afraid you're under
arrest for income tax evasion."

No!  Even worse!  It's the IRS!

       Azusa stared with big eyes at the long-haired man covering
himself with a hastily-grabbed towel. "Oh, Claudette!"

Goodness, Claudette.  What's that?  Azusa doesn't have one of 
those... <slap>  Sorry.  

       He wondered whether that tax inspector had been right when she
had called Azusa autistic. Maybe it was true.

See my previous discussion of this.  

       But even someone like her needed love, and was capable of 

giving

it.

Very true.  

***

General commentary:

Another good chapter, Gary.  It didn't have the emotional impact of
the previous one, but with what you had to work with in this chapter
as compared to that one, I don't think it could have.

I'm not precisely sure what role Azusa is supposed to play in this,
though.  Is she a substitute for Shampoo (a romantic one) or simply
someone who becomes the focus of Mousse's life with Shampoo gone?
>From the way you've written it, I'm inclined to think the latter,
which I think is much more appropriate.  

Anyway, that's my two cents about the chapter.  Hope it was in some
way helpful.

-Alan Harnum

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