Disclaimer: As awesome as this game is I do not own it or Seung Mina and Yunsung or any of the other characters to be introduced in this fanfiction. (Besides a couple of very small side characters.)

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Seung Mina sat in a bar stirring an alcoholic beverage. She had come there because of the great sources of information places like this were, but now that she was here she found her thoughts wandering so she only half heard the conversations around her. The thing was she thought she understood where Yunsung was coming from. Both of their talents had been ignored for no reason at all. For Yunsung it was his arrogance and for Mina it was the fact that she was a girl. In Mina's case she was respected for her skills but for the most part she was still seen as an object. You can be sure that when she trained it was not her technique the men were looking at but the movement of her skirt and breasts. And as much as her father loved her, some days it was impossible for him to mask his disappointment that it had been his son who had died.

Yunsung's downfall was for sure more his fault than Mina's. He was quite talented and this led him to have a great bit of pride. Han Myong greatly disapproved of this and went about trying to cure it by never recognizing his accomplishments and highlighting his shortcomings. This gave Yunsung no end of frustration.

In much the same way Mina had felt ignored her entire life. Like she was being stifled in lukewarm water, fighting, just trying to get out. She wasn't the child that Hwang and her father saw her as. She wasn't the beautiful doll the men of the dojo saw her as. She wasn't the defenseless skank the men of this bar saw her as. She was her own woman. She didn't need protection.

As these thoughts passed through Mina's head she took in pieces of the conversations going on around her. Suddenly she heard something that pushed the other thoughts out of her head.

"Did you see that redhead in here this morning?" The speaker was a bald man in his late forties.

"Maah! Little Mi Yeung really had her eye on him. I'm so jealous!" The man slammed his glass down. His eyes were bleary and he was obviously drunk.

The bald man nodded. "Such a fool. He didn't even notice. All he cared about was the Sword of Salvation. If I had his looks I wouldn't waste my time with a fairy tale."

Mina got up and headed to the two men. "Did he say where he was headed to?" The bald man looked up at her moving his eyes up and down her body, letting them linger in choice areas. Now this is what he would be doing with his time if he had the boy's looks.

"Maah!" The drunk had been looking at her as well. "Why do the punks get all the pretty ones?"

Mina glared at him. "He's from my dojo." At this she spun Scarlet Thunder for emphasis. "He and I are not together."

"Then do you and me have a chance honey?" The bald man smiled at her and Mina glared at him pointing her weapon decisively. "Gangneung." The man finished gulping. And Mina left the bar without so much as a 'thank you.'

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Taki had spent the days since she docked at Gangneung shopping and otherwise preparing for her trip. Now she was finally ready to board the ship. Taki brushed off her armor. Even when she was in Japan she had refused to wear a kimono no matter what the occasion. She was not some pretty doll or a geisha. She was a warrior. Still she did not like the stares she was getting. This was enemy Korea after all and she was trying to remain inconspicuous. She glared at a group of women in the corner. Her Korean was quite bad but she had been able to catch 'armor', 'Japanese', and 'unladylike' in their conversation.

"How annoying!" She muttered and walked up onto the ship.

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It took Yunsung three days of almost constant travel to reach Gangneung. But still as he entered the town he was worried his boat might have left. When he walked into the town of Gangneung the sky seemed to open up before him. It was the effect that the sudden blue of the ocean had against the perfect blue sky. But Yunsung had no time to take this in. The dock swayed under his feet, not as strong as it could have been, after decades of wear. It made Yunsung glad to see that there was at least one solid structure nearby. A little seafood restaurant placed directly next to the dock. Of course… This only made the smell of fish that was in the air worse. Yunsung covered his nose. The smell was terrible. It was nothing like he had even imagined. Living in the mountains his whole life he had eaten fish every once in a while but he had never experienced something like this stench.

In his disorientation Yunsung almost fell off of the dock. He righted himself quickly hoping no one had seen. Then to his right he heard the dreaded sound of laughter. He looked up onto the ship that he was to board and saw the form of a woman. The woman who was above him was tall and slender with dark black hair tied up to keep it out of her face. But these were not the first things Yunsung noticed. The first thing he saw were her almond eyes which were not of a Korean but of a Japanese. The second was that she was wearing the armor of a warrior.

"That was some fall boy." She looked a him the corners of her mouth and eyes crinkled in a smile.

Yunsung grimaced. He was not amused. "Why are old women always laughin' at me?" It was true that Taki was older than him. She was still young but she was at least ten years his senior.

"Maybe because you give them reason to." The woman's smile turned around. The comment about her age had been a sharp one. "Who are you to insult me boy?" She walked down the gangway up to him with her hands on her hips.

Yunsung smiled cockily. "Hong Yunsung. And you?"

"I'm Taki. And I will be the one to teach you better than to mess with a ninja." The woman unsheathed out her two swords, Mekki-Maru and Rekki-Maru. "Come on boy. I'm through with words." The ninja ran at him slashing at his chest and successfully penetrating his defenses as a few drops of blood fell to the dock.

Something the reader should know is that though Yunsung had beaten Mina once if that had fought again it could have gone either way. Yunsung's advantage on Mina had been his speed. His weapon was substantially lighter than hers making him more nimble and his movements more cat-like. Mina on the other hand had endurance and reach to her advantage. Her long weapon was heavy and gave her the strength to fight much longer than Yunsung could. So over years of fighting Mina he had learned that speed was his greatest asset.

So you can imagine his surprise when he first fought Taki. Her training as a ninja had made her quicker than anything Yunsung had ever seen. His speed would not be enough in this battle. Taki smiled, utterly amused at how his attempt to evade had failed. Another try to shy away from the woman's attack failed as one of her dual ninjato was slammed into his side leaving him once again open. Taki use the moment to move her other blade down his shoulder creating a large painful gash. Yunsung winced grabbing his wound for a minute trying to stop the flow of blood. Yunsung removed his hand a moment later so he could draw his weapon. Defense would be useless, he just had to get out there and hit her. With this in mind he pulled out the White Storm with his good arm, ready to fight.

The ninja laughed again. "Are you going to hit me little boy?"

He smiled. "Yes, in fact I am." And he charged. His first attack caught her by surprise, as Yunsung was stronger and faster now than he had seemed at first, driven by his pride and determination. The blade hit it's mark and fell across her chest. Yunsung held his arm up in a cry of victory. This was to be his undoing. Taki took advantage of the moment, slamming both her weapons into his abdomen. He yelled in pain and stumbled back, allowing the woman to deal the final blow of the battle. She grabbed Yunsung and threw him against the wall of the restaurant where he fell to the deck like a rag doll.

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Author's Notes: So here I am again with another chapter done that he had to wait longer for than you should have. (At least… I think some people are still waiting… You are, aren't you?) I hope you enjoy it and this time I'm not making any more promises about when the next chapter comes out. I may not have time for awhile because it's almost finals! Anyway… I apologize for beating up Yunsung AGAIN but for this story to work he has to get rid of some of that pride. ;)