Revision notes:
11/20/10 – fixed the shifting perspective. Shifted from angels to shinigami. A good deal of re-write.

AND I really have to say, I am getting FRUSTRATED with formatting here in FF.N it strips CENTER. of all things. If you want better formatting, please go to archiveofourown. org.

Marriage at best is but a vow,
Which all men either break or bow.
Samuel Butler
The Lady's Answer to the Knight

Rendezvous with Fate V.3
by iCe
Chapter 2

...It turns out I was married to this brute named Ranma Saotome. He was completely awful to me...

There was blood everywhere, and he'd felt her skin slide over her skull, much like when she'd been told to remove the skin of a chicken when she'd been learning to cook when she was young. The blood, she'd dealt with easily, with as much martial arts she was surrounded with growing up, it was common place to see that much blood, and it was a head wound, it was bound to bleed until someone could sew it properly.

What bothered her more was that it shouldn't have been possible for her to be quite lucid with that much blood loss and with a gaping wound on her head. A wound that with a little close scrutiny, Akane was sure would show skull. She was becoming distressed and more as she noted the costumes that the people were wearing. They were mostly working class kimonos that she'd seen in ryokans, but there was something a little off with the colors and the style. Some of the other men were wearing swords, and she was sure that no matter how formal this inn was, no one was supposed to be wearing swords in broad daylight. It was like she'd been dropped in the middle of a historical play, and everyone had been given grand costumes - except her black and dreary kimono.

Sge saved from commenting when what she presumed to be a doctor swept into the room, cutting where their conversation was going.

"She says she can't remember anything," Ranma informed Doctor Kinzaki as the young doctor walked towards Akane. He was a thin, youngish man, with a smooth face and a receding hairline. His kind and intelligent eyes, and soothing manner, were a lot of help in calming Akane down. It also helped that his personality reminded her somewhat of her sister's husband.

She gazed in wonder at the doctor, a house call in the middle of the day. Something that usually only the rich could afford. She had wondered briefly why she wasn't brought to a hospital, but usually with martial arts families, they had their own doctors that would come and visit.

"My lady, I am Doctor Kinzaki. I'm here to examine you," he introduced himself as he came closer. It was the first time she noticed the long gash on her head, and the blood that had seeped through stop-gap bandages that they had wrapped around it. "How do you feel? Do you remember what happened before the fall? Did you lose consciousness immediately after? Did you vomit?"

"She vomited and fainted five minutes ago," Ranma answered for her ignoring her disbelieving look.

"You couldn't walk that long a distance in five minutes!" Akane said out loud as the doctor felt around her wound. The wound felt numb to deep and light touch, but there was a small when the doctor re-explored the wound, as if her flesh had parted. The examination of the doctor caused black spots to re-appear in her field of vision. She felt faint and light headed. The doctor removed layers upon layers of cloth mixed with the deep red stain of blood, something that Akane hadn't noticed. She lost some sense of time when she had fainted. She didn't even realize that someone stopped her bleeding before hand.

Ranma gave her another one of his gazes. She seemed to be receiving a lot of those from him. "You know well enough I could have crossed that in one."

"The bleeding is bad, but that's to be expected from head wounds," the doctor confirmed her initial assessment, effectively stopping the fight. "There seems to be a hairline fracture. Regardless, we can't do anything for skull fractures other than careful monitoring."

"Fractured? Am I bleeding inside?" Akane asked horrified. She didn't know what happens with skull fractures. Her face had been spared, so mostly it was the head, and there were no operations for that unless she was bleeding looked at the doctor then his clothes. She looked at the seemingly very traditional house that still used futons for beds and then at idea suddenly struck her. It did not seem possible, but then, after all that she just went through, just about anything could happen. "What year is it?" she asked, afraid of what the answer could be, her heart beating painfully in her chest.

"I should be asking you those kinds of questions, my lady. What year do you think it is?" The kind doctor smiled at her reassuringly as he smoothed back her hair, which she had noticed to be sticky with what had to be blood.

"1999?" At their blank and bewildered looks she tried again, "The tenth year of Heisei?"

The doctor nodded in reassurance then covered her head with the bandages again, wiping his bloody hands against one of the rags. Akane tried stared in morbid fascination. There was so much blood. She'd noticed she was bleeding, yes, and she noted that she had bled a lot, but she hadn't thought it was that much. "It's the Year of the Dragon in the Fifth Year of the Keichou. Today is Risshun. Could you tell me where you are?"

She let out a small groan of displeasure. Risshun was the traditional name for the fourth of February. Enough poem readings in high school taught her about the traditional name for the beginning of spring. The Era year of Keicho was from 1596 to 1695, and the fifth year would land exactly on 1600. If she remembered correctly the current reigning emperor was Go-Mizunoo. "Uh, Edo?" Akane hazarded a guess. She had been in Tokyo when she fell, surely at least Edo, the old Tokyo name should be familiar.

"We're at the border of the Tokaido region, which is Saotome land. Specifically we're in Sagami, your husband's fief. This is the Rose Brier estate in the city of Kamakura," Dr. Kinzaki supplied, looking at her with renewed interest. "Your husband's main donjon is located in Nerima. This is a summer house of sorts."

Tokaido, or the east sea way, was one of the eight great subdividing circuits of the country. Sagami was an old province name, before the prefecture system was established. It was an area that would roughly be Kanagawa in current day Japan, not precisely where she had been in last. 'This is worse than I thought.'

Akane repeated it slowly, again and again, disbelieving it and yet... she sighed. She knew nothing of feudal Japan, nothing! She only has the fleeting memories of her high school history lessons. And furthermore, Japan's history was clouded in myths, legends and more myths, rendering anything she did remember from high school useless to her. She suddenly wished for a crash course. Bringing her back to the present would be better.

"Do you remember your name?" Doctor Kinzaki asked kindly.

"Akane," she answered promptly, and there was a loud disbelieving snort coming from her husband. "I'm really not Kodachi," she couldn't really expect anyone to understand a situation that she didn't understand either. "Could you please not call me that? Kodachi sounds well... deadly," Akane observed as she thought about the short swords his wife was named after. And since their entire culture didn't use more than one name, it was no use asking if she had a second name. "Could you read the characters of her name differently?"

Ranma and considered the question for a moment, then his scowl deepened. "No." He gave a grim smile that told her he clearly thought her name suited her perfectly. Akane couldn't even make a nickname out of Kodachi, except by adding honorifics to the end. Ko-chan just sounded juvenile on someone her age. "And you want to be called... Akane." At the mention of her real name, Akane noticed that Ranma tensed.

"Hmmm..." The doctor thought a moment then looked at her to ask questions, "Lady Kodachi, you are not oriented to neither time, nor place. Do you know who this man is?"

"He said he's my husband. I really don't know him," she confessed as she looked at Ranma.

Ranma rolled his eyes in disbelief. Doctor Kinzaki just ignored the argument between the husband and wife while he cleaned her wound. "This is Ranma-sama. He is the Lord of Sagami." Then he prepared a needle and thread.

"I'm going to be sewn here?" she protested, eyeing the needle. She was currently feeling numb but she knew that the fall must have been bad for her skin to feel like it was peeling off of her skull. She would have protested more but she swayed and then slipped into unconsciousness.

oOo

After the doctor finished his job, he motioned to Ranma and moved into the hallway, closing the door behind them. "She's really rather... feisty." He chuckled then went right to the point. "It looks like a serious injury, Saotome-sama. The fracture is linear and not depressed, a good sign, it means that the underlying structures would not have been damaged. Regardless, head injuries are very varied, Saotome-sama. There are people whose skulls I have seen with plenty of blood and gashes and walk away without care, and some who looks normal only to die after a while." Ranma felt the doctor gauge his reaction, but his face had fallen to the flat mask of disregard. It had been bad between him and Kodachi for ages, and he couldn't muster enough sympathy to care. "I do believe that your wife sustained an injury enough to kill her, but her being touched by the Kami itself must be true. I would advise close supervision for the first twenty-four sticks (1). Her breathing sounds regular and deep, but if she falls into a deep sleep, she might not wake up from it. There still remains the possibility that Kodachi-sama will die."

When Ranma saw Kodachi fall, she was too far away for him to catch her. But it might not have mattered, he had not wanted to. He gave her specific instructions not to jump the horse and she disobeyed him. It was supposed to be a lesson. Kodachi knew how to fall, gracefully at that. He had not been worried.

The accident replayed over his mind: as she was thrown into the air by the frightened horse he saw her start to alter her movements so she would safely land on her feet, a move he knew she mastered since childhood. Then something went wrong. It was as if she stopped at the turning point of the jump, when she was still headfirst to the ground. That was when she landed, head-first.

The doctor's words snapped him out of that as he said, "The first six hours are the golden period. We would see if she lapses into a coma or not. I expect swelling, maybe fever. She may act differently, she may rant and rave and take out restraints placed on her. She would be combative. This is normal for patients with severe head wounds. I would suggest you call a priest and the family who would want to see her." Ranma noted that the doctor was used to giving the dire prognosis. He regarded Ranma with cool professionalism and just a touch of sorrow. Ranma wondered if that small sympathy would have remained if the doctor truly knew who Kodachi was. "If she survives the first six hours, we should still observe her for a few months, maybe for the entire year. Bleeding from the brain can sometimes be very small and leaking continously. Even if she gets better, an internal bleed might suddenly creep up and kill her."

"She seems to have had a very vivid dream a hallucination regarding this - Akane. She looks like she truly believes that she is not Kodachi-sama and is in fact Akane. My initial assessment of the memory lapse is amnesia. I couldn't perform a full exam because she fainted, so I will check later. The memory loss is not uncommon for her type of injury. If she survives, I could recommend that she be sent back to her Kuno-sama, but I suggest you have patience with her. In most cases, memory returns within some sticks. Some within days, but there are rare cases that it will not. I'll stay for a few sticks, and then one of my lord's servants can take care of her. We can make a more thorough assessment when she can talk. "

Kodachi had given him an impatient look when they were discussing her condition. Kodachi had always been impatient and had a very short rein on her temper. Ranma was sure she would stop pretending when it suited her and begin ranting when that didn't help. Ranma listened impassively to what the doctor's droning. Though he showed no emotion, the diagnosis affected him, he told the doctor, "I'll expect you to be here on call, doctor. See to it that she gets cared for. I'll tell Nabiki what happened."

oOo

Akane slipped in and out of consciousness and did not recognize anyone except the doctor. Not once did she see Ranma to tend to her. In her feverish daze, she did manage to talk to a red-haired woman who had been about to blow out the lantern lighting her room. Apparently, she had been watching her sleep. "Tired," she barely managed to say. She could not force all the words out of her mouth.

"Rest," she ordered curtly as she put a wet towel atop Akane's forehead. "You are in no condition to go mumbling out your tirades."

The girl did not care to hide that she did not like to spend time with her patient. Akane felt her displeasure as much as she did the pain of her head. Though she wanted to follow the woman's curt advice, she placed her hand on her wrist and croaked out, "Do you hate me too?"

The woman raised her eyebrows, looked at the hand restraining her, thought for a second then replied, "You are not in a position to ask."

Akane faded into unconsciousness again. That was all she could ever recall of those four days, rising halfway to wakefulness before slipping back down into the blackness, over and over, and the blurry images of those who came to watch over her. On the fifth day, she woke feeling like she came out of hibernation and stretched her muscles out. Looking around the room, another wave of panic engulfed her. 'It wasn't a dream!' she thought as her eyes touched on every detestable piece of furniture and color in the room.

She sat up gingerly, afraid that the movement would set off a giant headache but was surprised to find out she felt none. As she looked at the spacious room, the bright windows on either side of her futon caught her eye laying golden rectangles across the silken rug.

Bringing her knees up, she rested her arms on them, and was surprised when she found them not her own. It was then that what happened to her dawned on her fully: she completely changed. She was given a stranger's body.

Her skin which once was golden because of her daily runs was now Kodachi's delicate, fragile and almost pale against the white linen. At least her hair didn't change much: before, when the sun shone off it, it would show streaks of blue, but now it was just completely black. As she looked down, some of the curls fell forward. 'Another surprise' she thought as she brought her hand up to them, as if testing them. With her hands she explored her face, wincing when she touched the wound. She had the urge to look at herself in the mirror to see what kind of face stared back.

She sat up and took into account her body. Because she was a martial artist, she had been taught since she was young the consequences of falls like the one Kodachi suffered. A head-wound was to be avoided at all costs. She moved her hands and her feet, both protested from brief muscle sprain, but were moving at her commands. She reassured herself that she could feel well enough from all her limbs, and that they were working properly before she tried to stand up.

She moved out of the futon and then winced. She was off balance, mostly because she suddenly had big breasts, big thighs and big arms. She had been lithe and agile in her own body, and this one felt slow and sluggish. Surprisingly when she tried to stretch out the kinks on her back, she noticed that at least, this body was flexible. She realized that she was off balance, not because of any problems with her brain, but rather, just that she had just been granted a different body to work with. She was expecting muscled, strong and compact, but she was given large, flexible and voluptuous.

Padding across the tatami, Akane went over to a beautiful cherry-wood full-length mirror and stood there, staring at herself. Long, curling black hair fell from a high-set ponytail, while her face held a little nose and a full pair of lips. The doctor hadn't shaved off all of the glorious hair, but there was a small part that was bandaged. It left some part of her face down to her forehead and her eye extremely swollen, so she couldn't appreciate Kodachi's looks. Akane covered the edematous half of her face and looked at the pretty girl that stared back. Kodachi was dainty, and pretty if a little bit on the plump side. She had been put in a dark black yukata stitched meticulously with black roses that it was almost unseen in all that unrelieved black.

Akane wondered how much training in martial arts she'd have to undergo again for her mind to get used to this body and treat it like second skin. She briefly wondered what her duties in the house were, wondering if the man had told her about it.

'That man!' she thought suddenly. "Oh, Kami-sama, I hope I don't have to sleep with him!" Closing her eyes, she took a deep, calming breath and tried to picture his face. Blue eyes, angry and cold, flashed back into her mind. She tried to think of something positive but the only thing she could come up with was that he was handsome.

'Ranma and Kodachi probably had an omiai gone badly. But he had wealth and position,' she thought as she looked at the richly, if badly decorated room. She was about to examine her face closer when a woman came in, all dressed in black. "Hello," she offered in greeting to the woman. After all, she needed her friends right now. And she hardly knew where she was.

"Kodachi-sama! I thought you were asleep," she said with obvious unease. "I am Ifuku, your personal maid."

Akane watched as the maid approached with light-footed steps. She was soft-spoken and motherly, even though she looked like she was just barely out of her twenties, dressed in a black kimono as most household servants were prone to be during the time. Light-skinned, with large brown expressive eyes and almost fey-like, it was a wonder that she was a servant; she could almost pass for a noble herself. Her long brown hair was curled tightly in a no-nonsense bun that most of the servants employed. Akane answered the maid with a smile, "I'm all right, but starved."

"I'll have Sara bring your food here," Ifuku informed her. Akane paused for a moment at the name, thinking it was Western, but corrected herself since she was in the past. The old government had mostly an isolationist tack, so it would be unusual for a woman to be named similar to a gaijin. There probably wouldn't be even characters for the roman words.

'But the only other "sara" I know is another word for tray,' Akane thought. After awhile, Akane finally realized that she meant 'sara' meaning 'tray' as a person and not the object walking up the stairs. "But," Akane started. She really wanted to see the house. "I'll just take it in the kitchen."

"We could section one of the rooms near the kitchen and serve you there. We could move the walls and make a three tatami room, would that be enough?" the woman suggested. She was very uncomfortable now, as if the suggestion would forfeit her life. She was obviously horrified at the thought of a lady eating food in the kitchen. The kitchen, as a rule, was limited to the servants.

"Ahh, would that be too much trouble?" Akane asked, the walls were easily movable, but for larger meals, they would probably have set aside a larger room which could be converted into a meeting room of sorts. Castles rooms were quite fluid, especially since the inner walls were detachable. Akane followed the maid to what seemed like a closet.

Ifuku helped her into a huge, low-cut kimono which, like everything else in her wardrobe, was black, and piled over endless layers. Some of the clothes had flashier colors, but Akane shied away from those. She was married, and it was going to be a grave insult if she wore the flashier kimonos. This brought her to wonder how Kodachi had gotten away with wearing them in the first place.

Akane became uncomfortable at the fact that someone else was dressing her but Ifuku put her at ease. Especially since Akane couldn't possibly dress the kimono by herself. She had worn yukatas before, for festivals, but the kimono was another thing all together. The obi tying alone was terrifying her. And the layers were bound to keep her guessing. When they were finished, Akane felt overburdened with all the cloth. She hadn't worn this much layers in a kimono since her wedding. And that had been a Western style dress! The kimono hampered too much of her movement and was made up of too many parts for her to just move in, especially because there were laces tied in the knees. Maybe if her mother had lived, she would have learned how to dress with the traditional clothes. As it was though, it was hopeless.

Akane looked out the door, pleasantly surprised to see that the hallways looked better than her room. She smiled at Ifuku. "Sorry, Ifuku, could you show me around the house?"

The maid nodded, in agreement, and did not show the bewilderment of leading her mistress around the house which she lived in since late childhood. The servants were well trained and followed orders. "Of course, my lady. Saotome-sama has informed the household of your condition."

The hallway that leads away from her room was made of dark wooden panels with big polished floors that shone brightly. The usual sliding windows were in place, barred with square shapes. The hall stretched in both directions, and at the end a large window had been thrown open to let the light through in the warm colors of yellow and orange.

Oil lanterns were hung outside each shoji, decorated with an exquisite hand of nature. Dark moldings in the same rich hinoki(2) wood that bordered the ceilings bordered the shoji. The corridors and the rooms were richly carpeted with tatami, soft and kind to the feet. It was of the best quality, more than an inch thick and flawless. Ifuku waved her hand towards the large rooms. "This is mostly what is partitioned for the bedrooms. The floor below is what is partitioned for hearings and parties."

"Ranma-sama's room is at the farthest end of this hall. It faces the water so that it would be more difficult to reach in an attack." She waved her hands at the direction of the shoji that probably led to her husband's room. "Sometimes, when we're in battle, the rooms are shifted and re-shifted. It's procedure, my lady. (3)"

They walked around the house as Ifuku showed her the area. Rose Brier in itself was large; it had an entire section that was almost a hundred tatami size wide, which could be partitioned into almost twenty-four rooms with shoji. However, there were several permanent rooms: a library and the kitchen were among them. There was a separate tea house for the Cha-no-yu or the formalized tea ceremony, a dojo and a separate lodging for samurai who were on duty. Most of the rooms were not touched with accessories, giving the house a casual air despite its elegance, the beautiful shoji walls, the nice carve of the ceiling design and the trim were constant.

Finally, they walked out to the garden-cliff, which overlooked the expanse of endless blue, with waves crashing against hard rock. The rocks tapered off to a small sandy beach far off to the side. "This is a great view." She loved the water, though she could not understand why, since try as she might, she simply could not swim. She loved its uncertainty, its moods, so to speak. So far, this was her dream turned real, a mansion by the sea. She'd been angry at the pig, which she named P-chan. Perhaps P-chan knew what he was doing after all. He at least gave her some compensation.

The maid, attentive to Akane's interest and trained well as a personal servant told Akane what she was seeing, "It's Sagami Bay, my lady. That land there is O-shima, part of the Izu peninsula."

At least that set her location in her head. They were near the North Pacific and Tokyo. She couldn't wait to tell Ryoga of all her adventures. Suddenly, she felt a tightening of her chest. It had been a silly wish, to tell Ryoga. This wasn't just some grand adventure; she had been thrown back in time. She had a different husband, and she couldn't just add another landmark to Ryoga's ever confused sense of directions. She followed Ifuku with a heavy heart. She had lived all her life with her father, in their dojo. It hadn't been a small house, with three rooms an entire court yard and the dojo itself. But Rose Brier was simply larger, almost the size of an innermost castle keep, the donjon. However, since it was only two floors, it remained simply, a well fortified rest house.

Rose Brier was built into almost a structure of a castle town. The main house, was at the far end of the cliff, its side bordered by the bay and the cliff's edge. Surrounding it in increasing increments was a town, where the samurai who were off duty were residing. There were no walls, because this was just some fishing village that Ranma spent his summer in. Most of the main fortifications and his keep, from what Akane understood with Ifuku's explanation, were in Nerima.

When they were about to move towards the dojo, they passed by a row of samurai out in the other end of what seemed to be training grounds, almost near the dojo. They were being talked to by a woman dressed in an exquisite kimono, topped with what she would later learn to be Ranma's crest, three triangles: the uppermost standing on the tip of two other triangles which formed its base. She had her hair in the usual style Ranma kept his, in a long braid that trailed behind her back. Unusual since most ladies in court put up more ornaments in their hair and styled it lavishly. Ifuku bowed to the woman in respect when they walked near, and the woman gave a small nod in return.

"That was Nabiki-sama, my lady," Ifuku informed Akane when they were out of hearing shot. "She is a Saotome samurai, a hatamoto and twin to the heir, my lady. She also runs the house." A job should be mainly in the hands of the wife. Akane paused thoughtfully at that, wondering what caused these responsibilities to be handed over.

When they reached the dojo with its beautiful wooden panels, the takonama was there with an ikebana arrangement of a black rose standing on the pile of red rocks. (4) The perimeter was circled by immaculate white rocks that contrasted the raven rose. There was some side rooms to the dojo which contained the weapons, and shoji doors pulled aside for spectators to watch a fight if need be. Akane smiled as she breathed it in. "A dojo. I can practice katas here for days."

Her heart constricted, as memories assailed her again. Before she married, she had trained in her father's dojo. When she married Ryoga, she started going on his innumerable training trips, getting lost with him in Hokkaido, only to find out that they were in fact in Fukuoka. There was no point in trying to correct his sense of directions. It was utterly hopeless. And getting lost with him was part of the adventure. When she thought of 'husband' Ryoga came to mind, and Ranma, although looked similar to Ryoga was a completely different person.

Ifuku looked like she wanted to say something, but firmly held her mouth closed.

"This is the main room?" Akane asked as she touched the flower arrangement held in a low shelf arranged beautifully framing a small scroll. It was the household takonama. It was a wife's duty to make the arrangement for the takonama... if she didn't do it then she wondered who did. The woman in kimono flashed against her mind's eye, someone who held the samurai's respect. Something she wouldn't know how to do.

"Maybe it's time for you to eat, my lady." The change in topic was abrupt, and Akane wondered if it was because of her interest in the takonama or because of her presence in the dojo. From the minute they stepped into it, Ifuku had showed some unease. Ifuku looked at her, and then slowly suggested, "You haven't eaten solid food in a while, so perhaps it might make you feel like your usual self."

Akane looked towards the direction of the inner house, and then sighed. It looked like Ifuku was starting to get uncomfortable with the tour. "I'll look at the dojo more some other time. Thank you, Ifuku."

By the time Ifuku led her to the room that the servants prepared for her meal, Ifuku was wide-eyed and almost open-mouthed. Kodachi-sama never thanked any of the house help. She thought that the compensation of her lodging and "protection" was enough for them. Furthermore, she never addressed them by their given names. The sudden friendly demeanor and small-talk was a drastic change.

Another maid, also dressed in black, brought her platter after platter of dishes: rice, soups and fish; it went on and on. After she was finished serving, Akane turned to her.

"What's your name?" Akane asked, shocked at the frightened look of the young girl.

"Sara, Kodachi-sama," she answered shakily.

"Will I be eating alone?" Akane asked, gesturing to the food that could easily feed ten starving men. "We don't have any... children ... do we?"

"Alone, my lady," the servant replied.

Akane almost gave a visible sigh of relief at that. "I'll just have onigiri for breakfast, maybe some pickled vegetables, if that's all right. And coffee. I'll be down at five o'clock in the morning. I don't really have a large unending appetite as you seem to think I have."

"I am sorry, Ko- Akane-sama, but I do not know what 'coffee' is. And what is this seven o'clock?" Sara tested the unknown words in her mouth.

Akane almost groaned but stopped herself in time. Of course they didn't know that! It was a western idea, a western breakfast that she was used to having after Kasumi married and she was left to her own devices. Her cooking skills have never been good. And the time... she didn't know how people told time. She hoped she remembered enough of the zodiac times to translate it with the two hour segments that she knew from history. "Ahh... well, rice and just one of the dishes, OK? And tea. My meal will be served early in the morning, the hour o the hare. Just before dawn."

She nodded, satisfied that matter of her morning meals was straightened out, but that worried about the issue of children. Akane wished she has children. Unless, of course, Ranma has children with other women... but then...

When she returned her attention to the food, she ran a mental list of things to do. She still has a lot of things left to finish. She cursed the shinigami who sent her to this century, particularly that little black pig. She needed to make the best of the situation before her, and that would require making friends with that idiot of a husband. She cursed the pig again for good measure.

Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 was borrowed from the brilliant mind of Rumiko Takahashi. The book this was based of was When there is Hope.

Special Thanks to:

MJ, Maurice Phillip, Tony Loco , Tin and Angel, Jourdan Bickham, Jose Aragao, Byooki Desu, Anno Nimus, C. Jones, Richard Robinson, David Bateson, David Stanley, Jitou,King Chan, Lawrence Chu, Bert Miller, The Dragonbard, Darthcwader1, Erin, Outlawone1, David Calvarese, Larry F, khymchanur

And to the person reading this.

Author's notes:

I noticed a lot of medical inconsistency in the beginning of the head wound. I wrote this when I knew NOTHING about medicine, and re-wrote it now that I do. So let me just say that hair line fractures, there's nothing to do there. Depressed fractures are different. Head wounds can be a little traumatic due to all of the blood though. Which was lacking in chapter one... because I already mentioned that Akane was being spacey. I also didn't notice the medical discrepancy until AFTER I uploaded chapter one.

I rewrote a lot of the scenes here. The chapter parallels When there is Hope, since the earlier parts are a meld, as most of those who followed the original story know. Go read and buy that book.

Was amnesia a known illness at that particular time? To be honest, I don't really know, but the Eastern countries have proven to be far more advanced in medicine than any of the Western countries, so it is possible they know this ailment, but not to term it 'amnesia'. Still for plot purposes, it's amnesia.

This revision Nov 2006 marks the beginning of my de-footnoting revisions. Less numbers in the pages means less unsightly breaks in the text. If the explanation is unnecessary for the story flow or could be explained in the main body, then a footnote was taken out. However, since it's mostly historical and Japanese some terms which don't have English equivalents were retained.

If you didn't know, originally this was set in the 1600's Virginia etc etc (because it was based in When there is Hope). However I brought on the challenge of changing it into 1600's Japan to add difference because it ran so much like the original book. (I had to research a lot). Anyway, that is the reason why there is a discrepancy on the dojo scene with Akane looking on the dojo. Although the description of the dojo was added, mostly Akane was saying she was looking at a library which threw off the entire sequence. I fixed that.

iCe

Endnotes:

Japanese Year Eras, old names: copied down word per word from Shogunby James Clavell (which might have a lot of embellishment... since it is fiction):

All years were chosen by the ruling Emperor. A catastrophe or a godsend might end an era or begin one, at his whim. Scholars were ordered to select a name of a particularly good omen from the ancient books of China for a new era that might last a year or fifty years.

Each year was given a number as well as a nameone of the same succession as the hours of the day. The first year of the Tensho had fallen on the year of the cock, so it followed that 1576 was the year of the Rat in the Fourth Year of Tensho.

Initially I placed 1600's as the year of the Tensho. With the advent of the year 2006, and more importantly Wikipedia I finally found reference to Japanese era names. 1600's is the year of the Dragon in the Fifth Year of the Keichou.

The fifth year of the Keichou also marks the battle of Sekigahara clearing the path for the Shogunate of Tokugawa Ieyasu. We are not delving into real history politics here, therefore the Sekigahara Battle is nonexistent in my text.

(1) A stick is how they measured time. It is a rough estimate on how long an incense stick burns which is roughly equivalent to an hour. I still refer to 'hours' when it's the narration though.

(2) Hinoki: Japanese cypress, the best is often used in shrine architecture.

(3) Shoji... um paper doors, if you don't know them, slide in and out of place. In the hot summer days, most move it out of the house to let the cool air come in. When an important daimyo came to town, they rearranged the shoji so the daimyo has the center and biggest room of the house.

They also rearrange the rooms when there is a perceived attack, so that the attackers don't know where the daimyo is.

(4) What's a takonama? It's this small alcove in the main room where they place the flower arrangement and a scroll hanging, usually where the swords of a samurai of the house were placed.

Ikebana ? The art of flower arranging grouped into four kinds (to which I will not delve into in the moment). The goal is to arrange the flowers to represent heaven, earth and humanity. Proficiency in the arts improve marriage prospects for the ladies.

Meaning of Names:

Kinzaki: 'Golden seated heart'. For the first time, I'm not taking the blame for this name, because this one just popped out of my head. Really. Oh yeah, and doctors are allowed to have nice names too. :)

kin: gold
za: seat
ki: heart, mind, spirit, feelings

Seravants aren't allowed to have good names, so anwyay they have names of the things that they currently serve... soo it follows that...

Sara: although it does seam English, it's Japanese, it means dish, plate or tray. (whichever you prefer still suits my needs)

Ifuku: dress, clothes.

Intial references:

Shogun: Minor details. Hey, it's useful.
Kasaysayan ng Mundo [World history]: OK so it's my second year text book. So what I'm 15 I'm gonna be a senior, where else will I get it?
Webster's Dictionary: Now you know why I sound like a dictionary
Japan Hanbook: Little ittie bittie info I could never do without
Wikipedia: VERY INVALUABLE source of information. You learn everything in Wikipedia

Yoshino Newsletter: Elements of a traditional Japanese Interior; Time in old Japan
Great Buildings: Pictures of castles, so I can describe the interiors
Japan Guide: Castle structures and castle towns. homaru, ninomaru and sannomaru.

I've also been to a Japanese castle twice, as a tourist two years ago.

All other little ittie bittie info I find will be stated in the endnotes.

If you don't read endnotes, well that's fine with me also. :)

There, now we're finished :)

Revision Notes:

11/22/06 – fixed the Japanese era names, fixed old Japanese provinces names. Some sentence flow
04/02/06 – common grammatical errors in the English language
01/14/06 – punctuation revision, revised hads
10/18/05 – grammar
06/25/03 – fixed discrepancy over scene with Akane looking over the dojo. Added some descriptive lines and fixed the punctuation.
12/25/02 – grammar

website: ice dotesmartdesign dot com (largely defunct. I suggest livejournal or the best place to be right now... archive of our own)
e-mail: siuane atgmail dot com
livejournal: ice underscore of underscore dreams

I write when the spirit moves, and I make sure it moves every day.