From ice, to snow then steam and finally water, a fitting comparison, beautifully described :)

I like this. It's almost poetic and quite beautiful. It flows quite well, a real treat.

Gosh, that was brilliant, you know that? Like, epically intense and focused and, like, I forget the word. Crap. What is it? OH! Introspective. Yes. Introspective.

This is probably the least literate review, like, ever but srsly. This story awesomesauce. With a side of /whoah./ ( those are my italics because italics are waaay more important than people seem to think and this site lacks the capability of italisized reviews. So I rebel by using them anyways.)

This is really nice.

On technical notes, I think you could leave out the parentheses - they break up Saito's though process and tend to somehow take me out of his head. The same for Sano's section, and you've got a pronoun mixup going on - something that didn't get deleted when it should have.

Favorite line is this: "the fusion of the ruthless drive of the hitokiri with the protectiveness of the rurouni, but with too much heart to be either side completely" which eloquently explains how I have always seen Kenshin in his rurouni phase when he has someone to fight for and protect, especially at the end of the manga series. He is learning to accept both halves of himself and to realize that they are part of the whole. As Hiko tried to explain the tenets of Hiten Mitsurugi, learning swordsmanship is learning the art of murder and the swordsman only retains his humanity when he remembers that even people who do evil things are people just trying to make it through life, and all he can do is bury the bodies. It is Kaoru, more than anyone, who brings this back to him.

Thanks for a good read.

This is amazing! I absolutely love how you've used the states of water! It really works seamlessly!

Great writing too, perfectly executed. I liked how you used Saito's perspective for ice, Kenshin's for steam, and Sano's for water.

I think this is my fave line:

"(Saitou knows that he has the never-melting ice of the arctic too. It's so close to a hitokiri that he can't bring himself to care.)"