KASUMI 1: The Forest Encounter

A/N: I've decided to make this chapter with Kasumi the first chapter and to delete the previous chapter. I kept reading through it and found that I hated it so *poof* it's gone. And that it also felt too much like when Gohan met Videl for the first time. Asuka will have to meet Gohan elsewhere (or should I say, elsewhen). Instead, we'll start with what was going to be chapter 2 and the next chapter after that will be about Mortal Kombat, chapter 3 about Asuka and Chapter 4… well, I'll let that be a surprise. ;)

Also I feel that just to be on the safe side, I should mention that Gohan and all characters herein will be depicted as being at least 18 years old, unless otherwise noted and in certain specific circumstances.

The first time Gohan met Kasumi, she was in the fight of her life, quite literally.

Icarus had run away and he'd been searching through the forest trying to find him and not having much luck. Icarus's ki was different from a human's and much smaller than Gohan's or anyone else he knew. The sun had gone down and Gohan finally thought he'd located where the dragonling was when he felt two intense ki coming towards him. He only had time to think that he hadn't noticed them earlier because he'd been on the lookout for his dragon friend when a blue, white and chestnut-brown whirl exploded out of the trees in front of him. It was a woman, clad in a white and blue gi, a very brief, very revealing gi, who landed, crouched, before him. She looked up at him and his black eyes met her blue ones and he thought, Wow, she has really pretty eyes.

Then her eyes narrowed and she leapt forward, tackling him to the ground as a quartet of shuriken sliced through the space they had just occupied. Normally Gohan could have dodged that move but he'd been kinda lost in the woman's eyes, his guard down. Now he spun around to face the attacker, automatically slipping into the fighting stance that Piccolo had taught him long ago.

The attacker was another woman, dressed in a purple gi and with a ninjato in one hand and a mask across the lower half of her face. The most noticeable thing about this woman however was her brilliant violet hair and blazing red eyes, eyes that were narrowed at Gohan and then flicked to the blue-and-white woman, who had now slumped against a nearby tree.

"Do not interfere," the purple dressed-and-tressed woman said to Gohan.

Gohan looked between the purple woman and the one dressed in blue and was startled to see that he had failed to notice how badly hurt the chestnut-haired woman was. She was bleeding badly from numerous cuts and lacerations all over her body and Gohan could see more than a few ugly bruises as well. Her ki was also flickering, indicating that she was near to losing consciousness… and from what Gohan could sense from the ki of the other woman, she was probably not planning on taking care of the injured woman.

"What's going on here?" Gohan asked, trying to not sound too aggressive. The purple woman's eyes narrowed as she glared back at him.

"This is NOT your business. Step aside."

"Listen to her," said the blue-dressed woman, trying to get back to her feet now and drawing her own ninjato from a sheath at the small of her back. "She WILL kill you to get to me. Please, I don't want your blood on my hands."

As brave as she was trying to sound, her body had clearly been through too much already and she collapsed down to the ground again. The purple woman made a move like she was going to try and get at her but Gohan stepped into her path.

"Sorry but I'm going to make this my business. I may not know who either of you are or what your problem is but no one's killing anyone if I can help it."

"So be it," replied the purple woman before she leapt at Gohan with incredible speed. For anyone else, this might have been fatal but for Gohan it was just the opening move in the fight. He actually saw the purple woman's eyes widen as he side-stepped her leap and kicked her in the torso, causing her to flip over in the air. She managed to land back on her feet but was clearly winded.

"Not bad," she commented and then charged again, slashing at Gohan with the ninjato.

For her part, the other woman sat slumped on the ground, dazed from blood loss, trying to will herself to get up.

"No… please, don't…" she gasped, but her voice had become too weak for them to hear as Gohan and the other woman exchanged blows.

For Gohan's part, he was growing more and more amazed at this purple woman' fighting prowess.

She's good, really, really good, Gohan thought as he blocked her arm, preventing her from swing her ninjato down in a slash and then side-stepped a kick. Gohan then got lucky when a right cross from him caused the puprle woman to lose her balance and she smacked her face into a tree, knocking her to the ground, senseless. Gohan was about to follow up when he paused, glancing over at the chestnut-haired woman slumped against the nearby tree. She was unconscious and from what Gohan could feel, was well on her way to slipping the mortal coil. And so he decided to end the fight right there. In fact he would have preferred that there had been no fight at all but what was done was done. He scooped up the unconscious woman in a princess carry and with a burst of ki, rocketed up into the sky and towadrs his house.

A few minutes later, he arrived at the riverside glen where his house was located. He noted that most of the lights were off, which hopefully meant that his mother and brother had both gone to bed. Either that or he was about to have a very intense conversation with Son Chi-Chi about why he had just come home with a woman who was currently bleeding to death. he managed to get the door open, despite the load in his arms and quickly moved into the living room. He gently laid the woman down on the couch and turned the light on. Good, no sign of his mother so far. Reaching out his senses, he felt the ki of Chi-Chi and Goten and was relived that they were both in their rooms and definitely asleep. Now, he had to see about tending to his new charge and wether she needed to be taken to a hospital or if she would even make it until them.

In proper light, Gohan could make much more sense of her injuries and what he saw turned his stomach. Many of the cuts and lacerations now looked worse now that he could examine them properly and were still leaking blood. She also had a fair share of contusions and kaleidoscopic bruises all over but mostly on her torso, arms and hips. Gohan also noted, a blush spreading across his cheeks, that the woman's gi, already pretty brief in its coverage, was torn and slashed so much that it was very much in danger of leaving the woman with no modesty. Gohan shook his head, refocusing on the task at hand; this was no time to let teenage hormones get the better of him. He placed a hand lightly against the woman's head, feeling out her ki. He frowned, feeling not just her spiritual energy but the clamminess of the skin under his fingers.

She's lost too much blood and is fading fast… I don't think I can get her to a hospital at this rate! But there has to be something I can do to patch up these wounds so I can…

He paused. It wasn't a long pause, just long enough to mentally slap himself on the head. He then dove for a small table near the front door with a single drawer underneath it. He tore open the door and rummaged in it briefly until he pulled out a small, drawstring bag. he scrambled back over to the woman and pulled an innocuous-looking bean out of the bag. It took some work to get not only the bean in her mouth but for the unconscious woman to actually chew and swallow the bean but as soon as she did, the effect was immediate. Her wounds sealed closed, not even leaving scars, her bruises vanished and her eyes snapped open. Unfortunately for Gohan, he really should have remembered that one shouldn't hover over some one who had just regained consciousness. He tried to block the following blur of motion but his guard had been down and he found himself slammed to the floor, the woman on top of him, her ninjato held against his throat.

"Who are you? How did I get here?" she snapped. Gohan didn't answer immediately, the breath having been knocked out of him somewhat and because he'd gotten a bit distracted by her eyes; he'd only now been able to see that they were strangely the same shade as her hair.

"My name is Gohan and this is my house. I brought you here so that I could treat your wounds," he replied, his voice slightly choked from having the ninjato on his throat.

His words caused the woman to cast one eye along her arm and to her astonishment, she saw that all the cuts and bruises were gone. She stood up off of Gohan and rapidly examined her whole body. She had not just been healed but it was like she'd never even been hurt in the first place! She looked back at Gohan, wonder in her eyes.

"How…?"

"Family secret," replied Gohan, giving her the trademark goofy Son grin, "Your wounds are completely healed and as a bonus, you won't be hungry for the next ten days."

The woman blinked back at him, all of this being a bit much for her to take in. A few moments ago she'd been on death's door and now she felt better than she'd had in weeks. That was until she noticed that Gohan was blushing again and had started pointing in the vague direction of her thighs.

"I'm sorry miss but, um…" he stammered. She looked down and, to her horror, saw that not only was the slashed fabric of her gi threatening to expose her breasts but the right knot of her underwear was frayed down to the point that she was about to involuntarily go commando.

She gasped, color flooding her own cheeks and she turned away from Gohan so that she could try to readjust and tie up her damaged garments as best as she she could.

"Um, I could get you something of my mom's to wear if you'd like," Gohan said, embarrassment making his voice quaver a bit. The woman finished adjusting her blue and white gi and turned to face him again, modesty mostly restored.

"That's not necessary, I need to leave here as soon as possible. I can worry about my clothes later."

"Leave? But…" Gohan started to say, but stopped as the woman executed a formal bow to him.

"Thank you for everything you have done for me, Gohan-san. My name is Kasumi and you saved my life. With luck, I may one day be able to return the favor."

She straightened back up and approached Gohan, putting her hands on his shoulders as if she were about to hug him.

"And I also deeply apologize."

"Apologize? You don't have to, I'll…" Gohan's words ended in a strangled gasp as Kasumi rammed her right knee into his gut and then chopped him on the back of the neck for good measure.

One of these days, our poor, naive hero is going to have to learn to stop letting his guard down around kunoichi.

Kasumi caught him as he collapsed and gently hauled him over to the couch. She frowned as she laid him down on the blood-soaked cushions. She really hadn't wanted to do that, it felt almost like kicking a puppy. But she just could not afford to be delayed anymore than she already had been. Ayane was surely tracking her right at this moment; Kasumi doubted that this kind young man, no matter how good a fighter, would have killed Ayane, but Kasumi still needed to get as far away from here as she could, right now. True to her ninja training, she glided to the front door with nary a sound and opened the door equally silently. She did pause and cast one last look back at Gohan.

"I will repay you one day, Gohan-san, I promise," she murmured. And then she was gone, vanishing into the night with nothing to mark her passage but the faint scent of sakura petals.