A first, the fire merely flickered, a pale imitation of what it could be.  It was hungry, so hungry.  Around it there was so much fuel, a wealth of food … to much.  Surely this could not be all for it?

But it was, and soon the fire outgrew its hesitation.  It leaped upon the waiting food, devouring, consuming, blazing.  The fire danced in glory, and roared, not in anger or warning, but put of the pure joy of existing.

And it was good.

Soon though, too soon, when the fire reached for more food and found none.  Oh well – there was plenty of food to both sides …

But then something hit the fire, something alien and not-hot.  The something hissed and ran away from the fire at first, but more and more kept coming, covering the fire, smothering the fire.  Quenching it.

The fire fought back, with tooth and claw and flaming arm, but it was not enough.  There was too much of the alien thing, and whenever it touched what food was left, it made it nasty, not-food.  The fire had no choice but to relent, however unwillingly.  It shrank, and grew cold, though it left the half-eaten food hot and dangerous to the touch, so they would know that even in defeat, they would not be rid of the fire.

After all, the fire had battle with this alien not-stuff many times before.  It would rise up again, and that time maybe, the not-stuff would be defeated.  The fire was immortal – it could wait.

*****************

Oooo!  Someone's house burned down!  Can you guess who's it is, can ya can ya?

And let me tell you all a little story.  I have that nifty little feature enabled that sends me an email every time I get a review, so usually I have a pretty general idea of how many people reviewed every day when I go to And let me tell you all a little story.  I have that nifty little feature enabled that sends me an email every time I get a review, so usually I have a pretty general idea of how many people reviewed every day when I go to Yahoo.  Well, today I went to the site and was greeted by you have 27 new messages.

*enter sounds of person falling off chair*

Now, three of these were daily newsletter-thingies and jokes I get, and one was a thing telling me I'm not allowed to cancel the stupid horoscope thing I also get.  However, 23, no I don't think you heard me 23 of these were from bot@fanfiction.net – review alert!  Anyways, the point of this admittedly boring story is this: I love you Kuroiyousei.  And you too, FarStrider.  Both of you have officially cemented my resolve to finish this fucking piece of shit.  And, Kuroiyousei, because you reviewed every single chapter, there is now absolutely no doubt about Sano and Saitou getting together.  I'm not quite sure when that will happen, but it will.  Or else I'll give you my address and my real name and permission to send someone (or yourself) over to my house with a nice shiny gun and blow my fucking brains out.  Sound good?

By the way, as a dedicated (and anonymous) fan of your work, you might have an idea of what it means to have you review this, bt I'm not sure.  Here's a parallel scenario.  You, a die-hard LotR fan since B.F. (Before Film), have finally worked up the guts to write a fanfiction about it.  While you're writing a couple chapters you thin , wow, wouldn't it be unbelievable if [insert LotR cast member here] read this?  It's not bad, but you don't really think it's anything special – since you haven't gotten a lot of feedback, you assume everyone else thinks that way too.  Then, wham [enter said LotR cast member here] shows up, reads it, and leaves many, many, very good reviews, practically begging you to put a certain scene that you were already 75% sold on in.  THAT IS HOW THIS FEELS.

And, since there is no possible way I can respond to every individual review you left, I'll just hit the most salient point, okay?

Katsu's Name:  I've heard (and read) both Tsukoida, Tsukoika, Katsuhiro, and Katsuhiko.  First name I myself am convinced is Katsuhiro, but I haven't been able to find an official source for the last name (or I haven't looked hard enough).  Direct me to an official translation and I will go back and change the spelling in every chapter he's mention.  Actually, I'm not being facetious, I really would appreciate this.  Anything to make this better,

Wartime connection to Sano/Saitou/Katsu: not really.  It's more like the connection between Sano and Kenshin.  Both Katsu and Sano saw all this, and while they were very little, to people they knew (somewhat).  So that's one thing.  But Kenshin and Saitou actually committed all this, while perfectly sane and in their right minds, so that's something else.  There's a little connection, but it's not very clear, as Saitou (I think) didn't lose his family in the war (I figure the Sekihoutai was as much a family to Sano as anything), and Sano didn't actually kill anyone.

Chapter 17/ wind kid – I'm just going to assume right of the bat that no one else is going too guess this and answer you right now – it's Katsu.  I'm assuming he moved to Tokyo fairly soon after the betrayal of the Sekihoutai (when he was still little), has been here ever since, and that the betrayal of the Sekhoutai made him grow up a lot, real fast.  Plus, with what I'm doing to the poor kid, I needed to give him a place he could go to cry.  *sniff* *huggles poor Katsu* (yes, it's just an excuse for me to grope him)

And this is to everyone who hasn't caught the general pattern I've got going here (plus, I don't think I've ever said this in so many words): this story is updated once a day.  Usually, on weekdays it's late at night EST, because that's when I have the most time to do stuff like this.  Weekends, the time varies.  The only time this is not true is in the event that I absoulutely, positively could not get out even a third of a page or so in Word.  This isn't going to happen very often at all (say, power goes out, or I am for some other reason deprived of internet access, or maybe someone died – but that's about it), but whenever it does, I will make up the slack by posting the missed chapters on the same day as the supposed-to-be current one.

Okay, I think that's it.  If I didn't answer anything (this is to everyone, by the way) just ask me and I'll be more than happy to explain my reasoning.

… Dear God, that was even longer than the last one … ack!  This is turning into the equivalent of a livejournal!  *hides head in shame*