Edit: Well now, I've updated my second chapter to make it more like my 6th chapter's writing style. Hopefully I'm not screwing around with a good thing here but I can't stand knowing that there are lots of strange differences between my chapters.
Disclaimer: My second disclaimer is just like the first. I don't own Dead or Alive or any of it's characters, though I wish I did. Too bad.
Blossoming Swallowtail
Chapter 2: Kasumi's Desertion
Ayane waved a small hand infront of Kasumi's now dazed eyes and asked "Big sister?", trying to wake Kasumi up.
Ayane's attention had been brought back to her friend's state and had since been trying to communicate with her.
For a solid 10 minutes.
"Eh?" Kasumi spoke out in surprise as a result of Ayane's snapping fingers.
"What were you thinking about Kasumi?" Ayane asked calmly as she sat down on the soft grass and came face to face with Kasumi.
Kasumi had somehow fallen back on her rump during her daydreaming. So she sat up and straightened up her clothes before announcing that she was simply thinking about this and that with a sly smile.
Thoughts of the past plagued Kasumi's mind as she quickly grabbed hold of her Tanto in one hand while the other quickly prepared a small bag of provisions and basic necessities.
"..." a silent look befell Kasumi's face.
She found it rather odd that she had just now paid any mind to those old childhood memories as they were all part of a time in her life that she was supposed to have forgotten.
Or atleast, that she wish she could just forget.
"Ayane" she whispered softly to herself without even realising it, the dim glow of the moon shining down on her as if to declare her present actions to all the world. Her hands tightened into fists without her consent at the thought of her younger "sibling". It had been 8 years since she had last seen her face to face and for Kasumi, those 8 years had been way too short and filled with way too many flashes of purple to suit her liking.
Quickly tucking her tanto knife into it's sheath on her back, she decided to put those thoughts aside and concentrate on the more important task at hand.
She let out a sigh as she took one last look at the room that she would most likely never see again, her own. Lit up by the moon's gentle glow, her bed looked so inviting at that very moment...but she knew better than to let herself be tempted by such a luxury at a time like this. She glanced at the walls, uncolored as they were it was a truly a sad sight for her as she had always wanted to have her room's walls a nice peach colored tone, on them, some wall mounted shelves hung, displaying some of her most favorite possessions.
Had anyone been watching, they would have easely seen that only one object had captured Kasumi's attention on top of the shelf nearest to her bed.
A small clumsily assembled paper crane that looked as if it had seen better times.
Kasumi looked away.
As she approached the door to her room, a cool gust of wind blew past her from the window, filling the room with a cold presence as if the wind itself was trying to predict how this room would feel in future nights like this.
She closed the door without a sound.
Kasumi tredded quietly throughtout the corridors of her...home, looking past every corner and being careful not to make any sounds on the old panels of the floorboards. She didn't want to alert the patrolling guards of her presence nor did she want to hurt anyone so whenenever she came across a guard who happened to be between her and her objective she would easely get them out of the way by tossing a rock near some dark corner to distract them, the simplest of tricks in the ninja handbook.
The guards were loyal alright but obviously a little overpaid and very undertrained.
As she got closer and closer to the objective of her mission, Kasumi realized that there was still one thing left to do before leaving this place for good. Luckily, the area where she had stopped was as good a place as any to accomplish her last task as a Mugen Tenshin Clan member.
That and...there was someone in there she had to see one last time.
Kasumi leaned back on the door of a room she had just entered. Her small figure outlined by the moonlight once more as she approached the window.
She slowly sat down on her knees next to a mat where a man slept peacefully.Had this been any other man, Kasumi knew that her mission would be in jeopardy but she knew that she had nothing to fear from this person. Because there was no possible way for him to betray her, in fact, there was probably no possible way for him to do anything.
Ever again.
"Nii-san..." she whispered softly to her older brother, grabbing hold of one of his hands in hers and placing it to her cheek as she let roll a few tears onto his motionless form.
"Please lend me your strenght..." she prayed, clasping his hand tightly and leaving a scrawled piece of paper in his palm before letting go.
She moved her brother's bangs away and gazed at his peaceful demeanor for a few seconds before giving him a small kiss on the forehead. Kasumi slowly wiped away her shed tears before deciding that she had had enough time for her final goodbye, now wasn't the time to get sentimental. She left her brother's resting place, not turning back as if she feared that more hesitation would get in her way if she stayed any longer.
"Mother, father, Hayate...I- I love you all, please forgive me for I feel it is something...I must do..." she whispered as she closed her eyes while sliding the door shut.
Of course, life isn't exactly black and white and it is far from being a soap opera Kasumi realised as the heartwrenching moment was cut short by her small yelp as she closed the sliding door a little too quickly, right on her fingers.
Kasumi whimpered lightly, keeping the colorful vocabulary that any normal person would say in this situation under wraps, her eyes wide from the pain as she stuck her index and middle fingers between her lips in an effort to sooth the pain.
Despite that mild disaster, Kasumi was still as resolute as ever as she headed towards the gates that would lead to the village. She leaned back on a wall and took a glance out of the corner of her eye towards the gate, in search of the guard that was to be posted there but she was unable to find any sign of him.
This worried Kasumi, she had suspected that the guard that would be on duty at this post would be a much toughter opponent to fool than the others given that he or she would be the first in line if an attack from opposing ninja factions were to arise(which wasn't all that common she had to say...) meaning her was most likely a member of the elite guard.
She wasn't able to tell where that guard was at the moment just from listening so, to her, either the guard was very skilled in the art of stealth or he or she was stationnary at the moment. She tossed a stone towards a corner that would allow her to see where the guard would come from while she stayed perfectly still in the shadows to prevent from being seen. But the guard never took her bait. In fact, there was not a thing that so much as moved coming from that direction.
Kasumi decided that finding out her target's position should be the first priority as she took out a sleep dart that she kept hidden in her armband and placed it between three of her fingers.
She closed her eyes, controlled her breathing and tried her best to supress the sound of her own heartbeat from her attention in order to catch any sign of the last guard, but all she managed to hear was the steady sound of breathing coming from close by, which she assumed was coming from Hayate's room.
Things remained quiet.
Kasumi had enough, as much as she desired to remain calm about the situation, she felt that time was of the essence and that she had nearly run out of it.
Well, that's the way her mind explained anyways. In truth, she was getting a little bit impatient.
So she chose to risk everything by taking a quick peek around the corner to where she guessed the guard would be, seeing as how she could not see him from where she was. She played with the dart in her hands as she glanced around for the skilled ninja who represented her last obstacle.
And she nearly face-faulted as she discovered how exactly the guard had managed to elude her.
He was asleep.
Kasumi's view on guards had changed so much in just one night, "These people were supposed to protect us?" Kasumi wondered with a sweatdrop. She had read quite a few books wish such comical situations involving guards but she had refused to believe that such noble and loyal men and women(in a lot of cases of her clan) could be prone to such things.
She almost felt like kicking the poor man off his chair and questionning him as to when did he perfect that technique but she knew better than to waste a good thing so she simply walked throught the gate, turning back only once to stick her tongue out at the guard which was definitly from a side of Kasumi that not many people were aware of.
But, like it was stated earlier, life isn't exactly black and white.
If Kasumi met the action of leaving her home forever in such a way it was merely to hide the simple fact that was she terrified.
In fact, it was pretty obvious that going out by the front gate was probably one of the stupidest ways for someone to run away and yet she did it that way because somewhere deep down, maybe she was hoping to get caught by her clan? Ws she terrified of leaving her family and friends? Afraid of carrying out her mission? Or afraid of facing her friends as enemies in the future?
The answer was simple.
Yes.
She'd be a fool not to be afraid.
But in the end, she had finally gone throught with it, she did what she knew was both right and wrong at the same time. She had become a Runaway Shinobi.
Not surprisingly, becoming one had not been so difficult.
Still, Kasumi had very little comfort to fetch from this fact...
Because she knew that the difficult part was remaining one.
The next morning...
"Ayane has arrived as per your summons Lord Genra"
"Send her in"
The young lesser ninja bowed her head and headed back to the door of her lord's training facility, which served as a meeting place when not in use, to tell the guest about her lord's approval.
But she needn't have made two steps before the doors slammed open, letting a small burst of early morning winds creep inside the room.
Up, but obviously not too happy with that state, a purple haired teen stood at the entrance with her arms still spread out wide from when she opened the door with force.
"Umm...Miss Ayane of the..." she was cute short of her introduction by Genra.
"Ayane, need I remind you that respect is a key element to your training here, not to mention patience."
Ayane seemed to ignore all of Genra's last sentence, she was wearing a very menacing glare mixed with eyes that lead to believe that she was not quite awake yet. Genra should have known better than to summon her at such an early hour but the matter needed to be discussed with her favorite student immediately.
The lesser ninja eyed the sleepy looking 14 year old, she knew perfectly well that despite all the intensive training that Ayane had gone throught, she had never quite gotten past her sour morning attitude.
Which added to her already present fear of the purple haired kunoichi.
"Ayane, sit" Genra told the girl while motionning towards a yellow pillow not too far from him.
Ayane however, took the command a little too litterally as she fell to her knees on the hard wood floor.
Seemingly, the fall had little to no effect on the girl so Genra decided to simply get to the point before she did something else to embarrass her teacher.
"We have been assigned a new target. One that we must locate as soon as possible."
"Why?" Ayane mumbled lightly, not really caring that she probably shouldn't question her superiors in such a manner, while gazing at Genra or more precisely, at the oxygen molecules infront of him.
Genra dismissed it, he knew how the girl could be sometimes, besides, that's was part of her charm.
"The target is a Runaway Shinobi and thus a traitor to our clan and way of life."
"When?", at this point Ayane was slightly more awake, if Genra was talking to her about this, it was most likely because he expected her to handle it. It was probably a good idea to be well informed lest she be caught unprepared.
"Last night, the target left a note as a signed confession and to explain the motives to her actions." Genra informed, he slid the note towards Ayane to let her see.
Ayane's eyes widened, she was completely awake now.
"We do not need her alive..." Genra added in a deeper tone.
"I understand." Ayane replied without an ounce of hesitation.
"I will carry out this mission without fail!"
End of Chapter 2
You unlocked Alternate ending 2!
"Last night, the target left a note as a signed confession and to explain her actions." Genra informed, he slid the note towards Ayane to let her see.
Ayane's eyes widened, she was completely awake now, well atleast it looked that way.
"We do not need her alive..." Genra added in a deeper tone.
"Understood, I will dispose of this Mac Ncheese person right away" Ayane replied without an ounce of hesitation.
Genra stared at the girl with a puzzled face and took a look at the note he just handed her.
"Taki you fool! I told you to give me the note from Kasumi! Not my grocery list!" he yelled at the servant girl as she laughed to the point of tears at Ayane who was currently mumbling with her eyes closed
"Must destroy Runaway Mac Ncheese..."
Genra let out a deep sigh.
"Oh well, mind as well pick up some Milk while you're out there hunting for Mac Ncheese." Genra told the sleepwalkin' and talkin' Ayane as he shoved her out the door while she was still sucking on her thumb, hugging the pillow he had wanted her to sit on.
Obviously, this would be the last time he ever calls Ayane in at 4:30 in the morning.
End of Alternate Ending 2!
And here is the updated version of Kasumi's Desertion. Once again I saved over my older version seeing as how I consider this one superior! I've decided to redo all the chapters up to the A Lonely Road chapters to make it coincide better with the story. Hopefully previous readers will catch on, though I plan to place a memo of it during future stories. Again, this story takes place a bit before the events of the Dead or Alive 1 which takes place after the events of Ninja Gaiden on the X-box. So Kasumi is most likely 15 and Ayane is 14 which is probably why they list the two as A/N on the age department, Team Ninja might have realized that it aint politcally correct to oggle minors lol.
Saddened Melody-
A.K.A Final-