This story was just a crazy ride... and i loved for it

Survivors of tragedies tend to be drawn close to each other, Ranma and Kasumi are the survivors and the closeness is not unreal. Soun did not survive the tragedy of his wifes death, not really, the body lives but not much else. This is a pretty good fic, the Shampoo/Akane match has been done by others but that's ok. The only thing I regret is that Genma and Happy are still breathing.

Prologue

And now, she never would. Ukyou could live with that.

[Dark.]

Or what if the decide to redo it?

[they]

when it boarded on unconsciousness.

[bordered]

but now he would be her executioner as well. The two positions were not mutually exclusive.

[Chillingly, in patriarchal and honor-centered societies like Japan (or the Near East), that's not extremely uncommon or unexpected.]

"Since these are your last moments, I'll humor you and let you know.

[Why do they always monologue?]

Six times she pulled, and six times all the pistol did was roll its cylinder and click.

[But that's a revolver. A pistol works on a magazine feed.]

"NO! Nabiki wailed

[Missing closing quotation marks.]

goes rifling through other's possessions."

[If she's referring to 'other' as plural (which I think would be the case), that should be punctuated: others']

but the final Shampoo 'betrays' Akane bit, and several other things occurred to me

[I personally thought that the scene would have worked better without that. I guessed that it was Nabiki, and the comment about greed made it certain, though my only poke there was 'why not use the femnine second-person article', particularly as all the potential culprits would be female. Back to the scene, that little bit didn't really seem to add to the story and though I'd have thought it was interesting if she did go after Akane and everybody died, but besides the astronomically low chance of her ever acquiring access to the Akaneniichuan, much less Chiisuiton, I thought that little blip then followed by the rather confusing scene with her and Akane later didn't really add to the otherwise dark and duplicitous story.]

And there are probably several holes in the story that would lead someone to say 'Of course the police would know Ukyou was murdered because 'Item A' was missed by Nabiki,'

[Though true, things like the angle and ending depth of the blade would have indicated that it was homicide instead of suicide, you covered yourself very well by pointing out that the police would be effectively 'squeamish' about the rash of youth killings and eager to get the case wrapped up and out of the public eye.]

True, this work distorts the characters we know and love, Akane especially, from their original flavor, but hopefully enough of them remained true to form without being too distorted.

[I thought that the story was fascinating (the dark and backstabbing is something I despise in real life, but I like in fiction). While I like seeing possible variations, I'll admit that I'm rather a canon purist and the stretching became too much, particularly with Akane (who, more clearly in the anime than manga so far as I've read, _is_ interested in men and in love with Ranma), and Shampoo actually falling in love with Akane as long as Ranma's alive (besides the low possibility of Akane falling for her) was just too far outside the realm of possibility for suspense of disbelief. Despite those disagreements, I have to confess that this was an interesting and fairly good story.

Holy crap! This has got to be the most convoluted plot I've ever laid eyes on! How did you even keep track of all the betrayals, schemes and twists? You say Alfred Hitchcock influenced this story, but I've yet to see a Hitchcock plot with that many turns or so surprising an ending (which, by the way, I loved). I'm finding better authors on FFNet than I do in my bookstore!

my god! This thing made my head hurt...

But I liked it. Very well writen, even if Ukyo was a BIT too psycotic for my liking.

one BIG thing I have a problem with.

It ends up as a Ran/Kas pairing, when Kasumi said all that Anti-lesbian stuff to Akane when she was a kid... do you see a problem there?

I mean your Kasumi would probably mmediatly distance herself from Ranma every time it rains... That's a SERIOUS relationship killer.

I'd say this fic has more twists than any Hitchcock mystery. Almost as if you said to your self: Let me see how many turnarounds can I put in a fic and make it look good? You did a splendid job of it by the way. I wasn't confused on the whole 'Nabiki is the mysterious person' thing, but the twist with Akane&Shampoo befuddled me utterly.

holy shit! that was freakin awsome.
(clears throat)
anyway great story. i thought i had a few thiongs worked out but within seconds i was thrown off balance by a plot twist. i've got to say that that doen't happen much... so yeah.
great story
demonsaint

I've read this a number of times, and each time realize it's a very excellent story; the twists do feel Hitchcockian. But, the ending never quite feels right to me. The discussion between Ranma and Kasumi implies that Soun is in fairly bad straits, while Akane is blithely assuming that believing her dead is better than coping with a lesbian relationship. Illustration of imperfect information, I guess, but it really doesn't reflect well on Akane's feelings for her father.

There's also the thing that the Kasumi/Ranma relationship feels dirty to me. I can't figure out why (I have nothing against the matchup in general; it's not my preferred coupling, but I've enjoyed a number of fics that do it). It feels like a betrayal of true love or something (Shampoo's love for Ranma; Ranma's love for Akane; so many existing loves, shunted aside)

Wow, this was on hell of a really well written/thought out/presented fic! I got pretty upset when I thought Shampoo had really killed Akane, but THAT turned out okay, and I was pretty pissed at Nabiki... but than THAT turned out okay... sort of, kind of, in this morbidly satisfying way... so it was just really good all around! Whoo hoo, congrats!

Hummm... I liked... very very dark... but also very believable...

I was impressed by all the twists & turns in the story & the fact that it was complete was a big bonus as well _

Wow, that was a really great story. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Keep up the good work!

Wow... what an incredibly great story! I love it! This is definitely my favorite in awhile (while I'm certainly a big Akane/Ranma romance fan, this was just cool...). And while it was true that the figure could be identified as Nabiki and Akane/Shampoo surviving were clearly possibilites, the suspense was still there... and the ending was great! Though a little cruel... ;) I was very upset when I thought Shampoo had really killed Akane you know, even though I thought it was a great twist. And then it was so great to find out that she really hadn't... anyway, enough of my rambling. Great story!

One of the two or three best mystery/thriller Ranmafics I've ever read. I did not guess the identity of the mysterious figure-or any of the plot twists. I spent most of this story on the edge of my seat with a racing pulse. Kudos to D.B. Sommer. He's an amazing writer.

I loved this story! I would suggest making some of the twists less sudden, though. It was getting pretty jumpy near the end.