Hi,
Just a small comment and anecdote. (marked by ##)

--- David Johnston <rgorman@telusplanet.net> wrote:

displaced from their lands they brought everything
they could with them and settled in this remote

and

largely inaccessible region. They brought their
spears and their bows, the secrets of what the
Greeks would later turn into pankration -the basis
for modern martial arts, their magic and one other
thing.

Wow, that WAS awhile ago.  However, modern Asian

martial arts were 

based
off of Shaolin Kung Fu, not Greek styles.  Altho I

guess you could

postulate for the fic's sake that they were derived

off the same root,

to a limited extent.  or something. ;p

Pankration predates Shaolin by a fair bit.  It was

in

fact the ancestor 
of Greco-Roman wrestling, abandoned because of it's
tendency to kill and 
cripple athletes.  There has been some speculation
that pankration and 
boxing were taken to India by Alexander's armies, 
influenced the development of early martial arts
there which then were
spread to China by the early Buddhist missionaries
who provided the
basis for the Shao-lin.  However there is no
documentation of the 
speculation.  

 ##Two thousand years ago Plato described skiamachia:
"shadow boxing" and military dances ,pyrrhichia:  "how
to cope with the enemy" that can be compared with asian
Kata. 
The abdominal shout (Japanese:Ki-Ai---"spirit-meeting")
was used by Greeks, Romans, Irish and other martial
peoples. 
Creugas and Damoxenus (400 BC) at Nema fought in an
arena without a decision until dusk. They agreed to
permit the other fighter ONE blow to decide the match. 
Creugas struck Damoxenus in the head, staggering him.
Damoxenus then ordered Cregus to raise his left arm. 
Damoxnenus then struck Cregus with a spear-like open
hand strike that penetrated his side, killing him. 


Greek Athletes and Athletics, H. A. Harris (London,
1966)
The Muscles and their Story, J.W.F. Blundell (London,
1864)
Zen Combat, Jay Gluck (Ballantine, 1996)

"Let's see, a little over a year and a half ago
a dojo destroyer came through the area and
the Heir to the dojo, Akane, was rather badly
hurt.

You sure she would be?  There's no reason for her

hand to be injured in

this continuity, and if she was in good shape

(she'd

still be beating

legions of boys every day, too) she'd have a decent

chance of taking 

the
Dojo Destroyer, given what we saw of them fighting

in the manga.

Yeah, but he doesn't like Akane, so letting her win
simply wasn't on.

##AH! I wondered why that ending was there. It seemed
VERY forced. Not really part of the story at all. IMO
the story would have been better if it ended in China.
The return to Japan served little or no purpose. 

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