Author's Note: Please forgive the hiatus. The last few weeks have been pretty tumultuous. Have some lemonade.

One Week Ago…

Ayane was relieved when Hayate changed her orders from hunting Kasumi to pursuit and elimination of all of DOATEC's demihuman experiments, much to her half-sister's surprise. Knowing that Ayane hated her from the depths of her heart, Kasumi confronted her to find out what her estranged sibling was thinking.

"Ayane, I…"

"I mean no disrespect princess," as usual, Ayane spat the word with enough venom to kill a large animal, making it contrast sharply with the rest of her words, which were spoken softly. "But I'm trying to brief the hajinmon special operations force on the mission they will be helping me with, and I have no time to speak to you."

Now that, in a sense, their positions were reversed, the difference between the half-sisters' personalities was made clear yet again. When Kasumi was being pursued, she fled at every opportunity and fought only when forced to. Now that she was the one chasing, she found Ayane waiting to shoot Kasumi down every time she took a step after her. And Kasumi honestly couldn't blame her, now that she could observe one of Ayane's tracking methods a little more objectively, since it wasn't directed at her.

A collection of human experiments was a much more vague target than a single, well-known renegade ninja, and their abilities were generally unknown until observed. As expected, the hajinmon chief's room, now owned by Ayane, was covered with maps of various countries with cities pinpointed. Its center was occupied by a massive globe that had those same countries shaded in with some kind of marker.

The map that Kasumi caught her sister putting up was a very detailed overhead of Tokyo with the schools that the two of them attended whenever they had time, plus one other that Kasumi couldn't identify. While she tried to figure it out, Ayane went over to an open-top container full of pin markers and started flicking them at the map. Kasumi almost deflected one she thought was directed at her, but instead let it pass and watched it strike the third school.

"Are these where you believe the projects are?" the redhead asked her younger sibling, who looked at her like she was stupid.

"Reiko," Ayane said, choosing not to dignify Kasumi's question with an answer.

The hajinmon kunoichi appeared, kneeling behind the princess everyone wished didn't exist, and had for so long tried to convince themselves wasn't truly of the royal line. From her current position, Reiko discovered that there was as much to envy from this angle as well. Focusing on why she was summoned, she followed Ayane's eyes to the black marker on the map of Tokyo and immediately winced. She knew the little bitch would be expecting more information on the target, which Reiko's intelligence team didn't have.

"Well?"

Reiko flinched again, making Kasumi wonder if Ayane got violent with her subordinates whenever they gave her bad or insufficient news. It wouldn't be surprising, since the girl had no hope of gaining approval from the clan, especially if she turned out to be a better leader than her and Hayate. When the intelligence officer spoke, her fear was evident in her hesitance.

"That…that experiment was believed to have been lost… in the destruction of the trit-" she started to say, hoping she would hear or think of something in the next five seconds that would save her life.

"I know that!" Ayane said, whirling to face Reiko, who lost her resolve not to cower under her new boss's incinerating glare. Kasumi didn't, though, and the exchange briefly returned her gaze to the board. She was able to identify most of the pins as her own clones from the little alpha symbols on them. But there was a black one that had no symbol on it on the third school, and it represented the mystery that was vexing her little sister.

"F-f-following it-its r-recent return to um… to the… to DOATEC's new CEO, its location has more often than not been in the same building as- as hers, if not in the same room." Reiko said, wishing she could be as untraceable as this mysterious demihuman.

Ayane towered over her, despite being four inches shorter in actual height, with her arms folded across her chest. Believing that she was going to die, she forced herself to continue. "We…we have determined that he is still in her presence. As for the school, its visits to that location are frequent, but not consistent enough to establish a pattern." Reiko raised her arm over her face when Ayane looked like she was going to kick her. "But but but! We have established his pattern for leaving that facility! It ties in reasonably with the watched person's known habits."

Kasumi watched her younger sister's subordinate as Ayane turned away from her, and the woman on the ground looked like she was finally able to breathe. While Reiko described the pattern, Ayane personally traced it onto the Tokyo map, then appeared to space out while she stared at it. Now that her attention was gone, Kasumi moved to comfort her lieutenant. She soon discovered that she'd have better luck trying to soothe a snake.

"Princess," Reiko said as soon as Kasumi's hand closed over her shoulder. Despite being prone, she looked at Kasumi with a generally demure expression that both masked and highlighted a glare that could rival one of Ayane's. "If you'll forgive me, I wish to present Miss Ayane with something more substantial the next time she calls me."

In an instant, Kasumi was holding air, and a handful of leaves were lying over the spot Reiko once occupied. That glare reminded Kasumi that despite Hayate's best efforts at smoothing things over upon his return, she wasn't exactly Miss Popular with her clan mates in the hajin-mon sect. What disturbed her the most was that she didn't know why, and she worried that the slowly expanding rift between the halves of the clan would grow into a civil war.

Ayane seemed to return from her speculation, but Kasumi decided that now was not the time to ask the question that pressed on her heart and mind the most. Instead, she picked one that, while not directly related, was more pertinent to her sibling's present situation.

"Why do you choose to feed their fear of you?" Kasumi asked, and a slight downward twitch at the corner of Ayane's mouth warned her that she was walking on rice paper, but she pressed on anyway. "You shouldn't encourage them to hate you and wish you were gone. You act like you're afraid to let anybody love you."

Ayane's breath hitched, and it was then that Kasumi noticed that there was a purple haze drifting throughout the room. The wall behind the map Ayane had just turned away from cracked, as did the floor under her and the wall immediately behind Kasumi, who chided herself for forgetting that Ayane was not only powerful, but still developing. Her little sister could level city blocks and still had yet to reach her peak.

Kasumi slowly shifted into a defensive stance while Ayane's right hand balled into a deceptively small fist and the fingers on her left curled into loose hooks. It was not hard to predict Ayane's attacks. She made no pretenses about her intent and her telegraphy was clear to anyone whose eyes were quick enough to track her movements. Defending against them was another story. Kasumi knew her sister's style deviated from even the normal hajin-mon style by discarding all defense for even more brutal offensive techniques.

But the rage behind those ruby eyes was too pure to be delivered by anything so hampered by natural laws as a human limb. Ayane seemed to relax briefly before a purple fireball the size of her body slammed Kasumi out through the door. It dissipated on contact, so rather than burning her it just pushed her outside with its impact and left her staring at the sky.

Kasumi immediately braced herself to counterattack Ayane's expected follow-up: the younger girl usually just burst through the wall herself if the hole her opponent's body used or made was too inconvenient. But there was no attack, so Kasumi sprung to her feet and looked at the door pensively, returning to her defensive stance. She was shocked to see Hayate there, pinning Ayane to the doorjamb by her throat. He wasn't choking her, and she was restraining her body's violent instincts to protect herself from retaliating against him.

The redhead was even more confused to see a pair of healers appear on either side of Hayate and start chanting and directing a ki spell at Ayane, whose struggles slowed, then stopped as she fell asleep. Ein let her down gently, and the healers scanned her ki with their own, then looked up at him with grim expressions and one said something quietly. She couldn't make out his response, but they teleported away with her. Kasumi saw her brother heave a sigh, then look around until he spotted her, and in an instant he was at her side.

"What… what's going on, nii-san?" Kasumi asked Hayate with a sincere concern that was starting to become natural for her. She always thought Ayane was a little unstable, but to actually sedate her… well that was an indication that there was seriously something wrong.

"I thought it would be enough to tell you not to go near her." He said sadly. Ayane was a fiercely loyal servant and he loved that about her. The last thing he wanted to have happen was to lose her to the madness that had been plaguing their clan ever since DOATEC first got involved with it.

"But why? She didn't seem to have a problem with me on the island…"

"That paradise you and the other women from the tournament went to might as well be another world, as far away as it is from the pain and death of our reality. And from what I've heard, Ayane was using one of her alter egos while there." He went over to the deck in front of the door and sat down, facing away from the hajinmon chief's room. Kasumi followed and sat on his lap. "As much as I hate to say it, it's starting to look like the medical profile Lisa sent to us is accurate."

At this, Kasumi, who had started to lean back against him, jerked upright and half-turned to look into his eyes, fear registering in hers. A medical profile? Lisa worked for DOATEC, so does that mean they have one on Ayane now, too? She started to say anything that came from that organization couldn't possibly be true, but Lisa was an honest person.

"So there's something wrong with her? What is it? Is there something we can do?" Kasumi fired off her questions quickly as confusion and concern faded into dread. As much as Ayane hated her, and as much as Kasumi feared her younger sibling, she couldn't suppress the urges she felt to be near her, much like those she felt for Hayate. Ein silenced Kasumi with a finger to her lips.

"According to Lisa, Ayane's power has exceeded her body's ability to cope with it in circumstances where it is used in any way other than under her extreme control. If her emotions release it, it damages her, and it could someday kill her, and everyone for some distance around her. That's why I gave her a mission she could approach objectively, and generally ordered everybody not to upset her. Kasumi, she's been fueling her ki with her hatred for you for a very long time, and now it's turning against her."

"I didn't mean any harm, I just wanted to know why she didn't want to kill me even though she hated me and was ordered to," she said, slowly relaxing back into Hayate's strength. He wrapped his left arm around her and covered her hand with his.

"That is strange. Ayane's adherence to the clan's laws and her own orders is normally stricter than anyone else can expect to be reasonable. I'll have to look into the laws and see if there is something there that stopped her."

Kasumi was at first surprised that he didn't make a reference to the fact that most people abhorred killing their own flesh and blood, but then realized that Hayate still didn't know Ayane was their sister. Not wanting Hayate to become another point of competition between her and Ayane, and also because she wanted to make her brother feel better, she rubbed her breasts against his chest, silently signaling to him that she was ready to be taken to a quiet spot for another round of lovemaking. Instead of going along with it, he sighed and guided her to her feet.

"There's no time for that now, Kasumi. The tenjinmon are preparing to help rebuild and fireproof the Hayabusa village, and as Ryu's best friend, I need to be there to be sure his clan gets the best support that we can provide them," with that, he vanished, leaving her alone with her burning desire. It didn't help that out of the three of them, Kasumi alone had nothing terribly important to do to get her mind off of the immediate past and the present.

Even though she knew she should stay away from her half-sister, her brother had made himself unavailable and her familial lust demanded to be satiated. In a flurry of sakura petals, she teleported into the healers' building. These at least were hajinmon, so she knew she would encounter less, if any, hostility here. All it took was a believable line of concern for her well-being, and they left her alone with Ayane.

Looking at her unconscious body, Kasumi was reminded of those times on the beach when Ayane dared let the other girls come near her while she was lying down. She looked even more vulnerable now than she did then, when she was toying with the apparently foreign ideas of friendship. Kasumi knelt beside her sister and pulled the blanket away from her nude body. It was then that she felt her own dark tide rising within her, one that she hid from absolutely everybody, but which she had been growing progressively more careless with. She had been watching her sister sleep ever since she could remember, but she only started touching her more recently.

She moved until she was straddling Ayane, with her hands just inches away from her shoulders and their breasts rubbing against each other, causing Kasumi's nipples to quickly grow to almost painful erection. Kasumi knew this was inappropriate, and that if anyone caught her, she'd be chastised. And if Ayane woke up… well in her present condition she'd probably annihilate the whole village. But Kasumi couldn't fight her urges, she could only hope that she could slake them before she went too far.

The dominance of her position over her helpless sister only fueled the flames in Kasumi. She trembled as she tried to fight herself, even as she felt herself leaning down to lick Ayane's cheek and kiss her way to her ear before tugging gently on her earlobe with her lips.

"Don't be afraid little sister… I promise I'll be gentle," she whispered. Ayane neither shivered nor stiffened subconsciously. For all her alertness and caution, the younger girl only slept when it was impossible for her to stay awake, or when she was knocked out by a ki spell, drug, or fight. So on those few occasions when one found Ayane asleep, she was as good as a breathing corpse with a pulse. It was for this reason that Kasumi never feared direct retaliation for her increasingly invasive assaults on Ayane.

Kasumi moved to give her sister a more normal kiss, pressing her soft lips against Ayane's. Then she worked her way down Ayane's neck and to her breasts, which she always grabbed roughly and clawed with her nails as her repressed jealousy revealed itself. The deceptively soft skin resisted her assault: she didn't even manage to draw blood. As expected, there wasn't the slightest hint of a reaction from the unconscious sibling, so Kasumi dropped the orbs she was abusing and watched them quiver and bounce against each other for a bit. She clenched her teeth as she realized that she wanted to grab them again, and distracted herself by moving down.

She traced the faint lines of Ayane's abdominal muscles with her fingertips, then grabbed onto either side of her waist and lapped a straight line from the top of her navel to just under her breasts. This was all more for Kasumi's arousal than the slightest hint of stimulation she might manage to stir from Ayane, even if she was awake and not objecting to this treatment. When Kasumi worked her way back down to her little sister's crotch, the hot throbbing need in her own demanded that she continue. So she slowly moved Ayane's legs apart. The barely visible tuft of lavender pubic hair proved more of an invitation than a deterrent, and Kasumi stroked it gently before letting her fingers slide down to Ayane's labia.

Kasumi stroked the nether lips first, then scowled and licked them when her sister's body refused to respond to this stimulus as well. Then, with some effort, she parted them with the index finger of each hand, curious to see how much Ayane had been used, whether against her will or otherwise. Kasumi wasn't really surprised to find that Ayane's hymen was still intact. After all, she did tend to be pretty frigid, and reacted to anyone who expressed interest in her with hostility.

The dark voice in her mind screamed that she should take it, that she wouldn't feel real satisfaction until her little sister was truly hers. But it had reached the point where it could no longer control her, and she carefully closed Ayane's legs and covered her body again. Kasumi adjusted her clothes and sighed, then stood and left the room, and nodded to the healers on her way out of the building. Her sister's dignity would last another day, and Kasumi could relieve herself with her fingers.

Ayane woke to the sun's fading light and immediately began to assess her situation. It was late morning the last she remembered, and now she was in a ward. She also felt distinctly uncomfortable, on a level that she didn't really understand. Rearranging her blanket into a hooded patient's robe, she slid the door open and looked at the two healers whom she remembered having knocked her out earlier.

"It's still the same day, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes, Miss Ayane."

"Did anything happen while I was unconscious?"

"Miss Kasumi saw fit to visit you around lunchtime. She was concerned about your health and felt responsible for your condition."

As she heard that, Ayane pieced together the things that she felt were wrong about how she woke up. The smell of sweat and strawberries was faint but seemed like it was much stronger at one point. Her body was damp… in places. It was generally the same feeling of wrongness and, strangely, violation she got whenever she woke up. Ayane pulled the blanket tighter around her body as a disturbing explanation flashed across her mind, but she dismissed the thought as impossible.

"Please don't let her do that again," she said, although she didn't know why. And she hated how there was an inexplicable fear that she couldn't keep from creeping into her words. Before she risked saying anything else, she teleported back into her own room, leaving the blanket and the outfit that they'd taken from her behind.