I had been tossing about an idea of writing a Ninja Gaiden fic that is centred around Kasumi. As most people who have played the game up till its most recent installment (Razor Edge), will know that Kasumi from the Dead or Alive series made her first debut in the series as a playable character. Verdict?
AWESOMENESS
There is nothing better than getting Kasumi to slice her way through hordes of enemies and rain of blood. Nothing quite says perfection and girl power in a single scene like that.
Kasumi also appears in the Dynasty/ Samurai Warrior mix, Orochi warriors 3 Ultimate… or something like that. Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate in Japanese.In that game, she is so good. I mean it. The way she takes out enemies with her category being ‘speed’ is immensely good. While her speed is actually slightly lower than other speed characters, her attack and defence makes up for that. And come on, using a super combination of Kasumi/ Ayane/ Jeanne is like a dream come true. LEGENDARY.
For those who are not acquainted with any of the rubbish I had just spouted above, here is a short summary.
Dead or Alive is a fighting simulator that is more famous for having a whole range of over-sexualised women in its line-up. Also, gravity-defying boobs that have minds of their own. The most recent release did make the boobs less prominent and more obedient to the laws of physics (slightly). The main character (supposedly) and mascot of the game series is Kasumi, a runaway kunoichi who wanted to take revenge on her uncle for injuring her brother (she is quite a bro-con), but running away from the village meant she had to be hunted by her own people for the rest of her life. Luckily, she is one hell of a badass kunoichi and luck is probably her strongest stat. Anyway, yada yada captured, yada yada, cloned, yada yada evil corporation, yada yada wants to find brother, yada yada fight some stuff. Anyway, by the end of the last game released, Kasumi is more or less allowed to return to the village (or something along those lines… basically her brother Hayate and her half-sister Ayane have forgiven her), but she is determined to stop the evil corporation from mass-producing her clone to field an army so she will stay away from the village until done so.
What does this have to do with Ninja Gaiden? Quite a fair bit. Ninja Gaiden’s main character, Hayabusa Ryu, is supposedly good friends with Hayate. When Hayate was forced to order the village to hunt down Kasumi, he secretly asked Hayate to keep Kasumi safe as much as possible. Well, Ryu does have his hands full with saving the World and shit from evil demons and the like, but hey, protecting a goddess like Kasumi is well-worth it. Ryu goes quite far to honour that promise that he actually enters the DoA tornaments. Ayane, Kasumi’s half sister, also appears in Ninja Gaiden to lend aid to Ryu. It is not really known why, but the Hajinmon sect of the Mugen Tenshin clan seem to have a very good working relationship with the Hayabusa clan, particularly in the exterminating of demons department.
On a side, Ayane does appear quite a fair bit herself, with her latest appearance being, out of all games she could appear in, Fatal Frame 5, also known as Zero: Nuregarasu no Miko. She appears in a side mission to save a girl who disappeared in the mountains where multiple disappearance cases occurred. Kozukata Yuuri in that game is very pretty, and a rather decisive, strong character. That is a first in the series.
Ayane is quite well known to be rather impatient and smart-mouthed in the beginning, but recent games had shown her to mature greatly. She used to harbour emotions of anger and envy for her half sister but at the end of the 5th DoA game, Ayane had put all of those aside and now accepts Kasumi. Ayane in Fatal Frame showed the same change as she told the girl that she rescued (who also had an older half sister) that the bonds of family will surely be stronger than whatever turmoils may plague her life. The main reason Ayane risked so much to save the girl is probably because she saw herself in that girl. But what Ayane said at the end showed that Ayane still loves Kasumi, no matter what.
Going back to the end of DoA 5, Kasumi and her two siblings are more or less on good terms again but Kasumi decides that she cannot return to the village until she destroys all of her clones and kill Donovan, the president of the DOATEC company and MIST (basically evil). Using this ending, and while waiting for the next DoA to come out, I had some time to mule over ideas on what to write.
There are a few things to note about Kasumi before we throw her into a story of blood, gore, and violence… as if she hasn’t really been in one or two. Anyway, the big-wigs at Tecmo and Team Ninja are not too keen in getting Kasumi her own Ninja Gaiden story because of “her soft character is not suitable for a Ninja Gaiden game”… first off, bullshit. If it was Kasumi before? Maybe, but now? No reason not to make one. Kasumi has matured greatly and is no longer naive in her thinking. Also, in Razor’s Edge (as well as in Orochi), Kasumi’s choice of weapon is her wakizashi. The problem with that? Wakizashi’s are normally short blades. The blades that Kasumi uses are not that short. If anything, she would be using either a full length Katana, or an O-wakizashi.
So onto a plot for the story. KASUMI GAIDEN… or something. The main idea is to avoid interferring with what could go on with the story in DoA 6…. if ever. One thing about the ending of DoA 5 is showing a clone of Kasumi shedding a tear. Also, the clone that believed she was Kasumi brought about a new possibility. The main focus of the story would be Kasumi chasing after a clone.
The story would begin similar to Razor’s Edge. Kasumi is contacted by a mysterious organisation (calling themselves, the ‘Watchers’). The man who represents the organisation to Kasumi, calling himself Knight, shows Kasumi a video of fiends attacking a building in the UK. The video later shows a clone of Kasumi, seemingly either having control over the fiends, or able to avoid their detection. Using this as bait, the Watchers managed to get Kasumi on their side to chase down the clone and the fiends.
In the UK, Kasumi tracks down the fiends, who are being brought into the World by a group of masked figures. These masked figures have hired the services of varous Private Military Companys (PMCs) and Kasumi fights her way to reach the portal in which the masked people opened. Kasumi manages to close the portal, but not before a giant fiend gets through. Kasumi fights the fiend, but her wakizashi proves to be rather ineffective against the fiend. A cloaked person appears and manages to weaken the fiend enough to allow Kasumi to finish it off. Before Kasumi can stop the cloaked person, that person disappears in a manner similar to Kasumi’s method, leaving a few petals of a sakura flower.
The Watchers then track the masked people to Russia. Kasumi is sent there with several armed squads but before they can reach the city at the base of the mountain where the intel pointed them to, the PMCs fire on them. Kasumi is forced to separate and she tries to find another way into the city. Kasumi then meets Ayane, who was sent by Ryu. Ayane explained that Kasumi’s wakizashi is weak after years of not being treated, and offers to take it to Muramasa, handing Kasumi a shinobi-gata ‘Ku-ten’ to use instead. With her new weapon, Kasumi heads into the Russian city.
Once inside, Kasumi finds the fiends and PMCs have effectively taken over the village, however the two are not necessary on the same side as some fiends are seen attacking the PMCs, who fight back. Using the distraction, Kasumi slips deeper into the city to find the masked people. Along the way, Kasumi finds that survivors of the ‘Black Spider Clan’, enemies of Ryu, were in the city and were behind the fiends attacking the PMCs. Informing Watchers of this, the Watchers deduced that there is currently a struggle for power, with the Black Spider Clan and the masked men not on the same side. Kasumi sees a group of Black Spider Ninja fighting against some unknown ninjas, using the fiends against the unknown ninjas. Kasumi decides to intervene and kills the Black Spider Ninjas who were controlling the fiends. The unknown ninjas revealled themselves to be remnants of the Shadow Ninja clan after its disbandment. They had taken it upon themselves to end the Black Spider clan as the last act of duty. The leader of the group, calling himself ‘Kamui’, tells Kasumi that the masked men are members of a mystic cult who seem to worship the fiends, and that they seemed to be ‘taking orders from someone else’. Kamui gifts Kasumi with a black yumi (Japanese long bow), telling her that it has been gifted with the blessings of a sacred spring and will be able to kill fiends easily.
Kasumi and the Shadow Ninjas part ways, and Kasumi makes her to deeper into the city where the number of fiends drastically increase. Kasumi fights her way into the city hall where the masked mystics had opened another portal. Killing the mystic who kept the portal open, Kasumi is suddenly attacked by a cloaked person, appearing to be the same as the one she met before. Kasumi and the cloaked person fight until they are interrupted by the appearance of fiends that are out of control due to the closing of the portal and the death of the one who opened it. The cloaked person vanishes like before, leaving Kasumi to fight her way out of the city hall. Exiting the hall, Kasumi sees that a large out of control fiend is heading for her, and Kasumi is forced to fight it. Using the black bow, Kasumi manages to take out several ‘orbs’ that surround the fiend before the Shadow Ninja appear and help to weaken the fiend enough to let Kasumi finish it off.
The Shadow Ninja decides it would be best to follow Kasumi since they are after the same thing. The Watchers take back the town and tell Kasumi that they have found another portal open in Australia. As they head to Australia, Kasumi ponders about the cloaked person. While at first helping her, the second time seemed to be aggressive towards Kasumi. Arriving in Australia, Kasumi is once again contacted by Ayane, who seemed to be untrusting of the Watchers, and telling Kasumi of her worries about the Watchers. Ayane told Kasumi that Ryu faced a similar problem once before, but Kasumi reassures Ayane that she will be careful. Ayane tells Kasumi that her Wakizashi is still being prepared, but Hayate had seen fit to lend Kasumi a mugen tenshin anti-demon weapon, an odachi ‘Tenken’. With her new weapon, Kasumi heads to find the next portal.
The next portal is opened in Sydney and fiends are already pouring out. The armed forces of the Watchers engage the PMCs while Kasumi and the Shadow Ninja group deal with the fiends. Kasumi gets to the portal and faces off with a giant machine that the PMCs brought to guard the portal. Kasumi realises that the machine is protected by a electric barrier and she cannot get past. That is when the cloaked person appears once more, and throws a spear at the machine. The spear manages to get through the barrier and stabs the machine, causing a short circuit and disabling the barrier. This allows Kasumi to defeat the machine but the cloaked figure disappears once more. Kasumi takes the spear, seeing as how it contained some magical properties. Kasumi tries to close the portal but finds that it cannot be closed from her end as the mystic who opened it ran inside. Kasumi braves the portal and ends up in the Fiend’s World.
Kasumi finds herself fighting against a large Greater Fiend, who claims to serve a master who is planning to bring all of Earth into hell. Kasumi fights against the greater Fiend, with Kamui and Ayane appearing to help out. As the trio escape to the portal, they are attacked by the cloaked figure once more, with Kasumi being forced out of another portal than the other two. Kasumi now finds herself in Venice… for reasons. Ayane and Kamui find themselves not too far away, in Nuremberg. Ayane and Kamui are now facing off against a large number of PMCs in order to get to a ‘conduit’ that interferes with the portals (it basically allows the mystics to open many portals without actually being there). Defeating the PMCs and reaching the conduit, Ayane spots the cloaked figure and chases after, leaving Kamui to deal with a powerful mystic who empowers a giant walker that can fly (cuz reasons). Kamui uses his own yumi and shoots down the mystic, before taking out the walker. While he wonders where Ayane went, he destroys the conduit and is contacted by the Watchers, who just managed to find them and inform him that Kasumi is in Venice. Kamui decides it would be best to head to Kasumi as Ayane seemed to be somewhat distracted.
For Kasumi, in venice, she fights the fiends once more as a second Greater Fiend seemed to have managed to get himself onto Earth and was taking over the city. Kasumi fights her way through the city to face the fiend, along the way she finds a hidden treasure under the city in the water. Two long arm blades (handles closer to one end protruding out perpendicular and longer part of the blade travels up the fore arm). With her new weapons, Kasumi fights the greater fiend and manages to send it back to hell. Just before Kasumi can close the portal, the cloaked figure appears again and forces Kasumi to fight. After a long battle, Kasumi manages to cut away at the hood of the cloak, revealling the mysterious person to be Kasumi’s clone. The clone seems angry at Kasumi and goes into a rage, trying to kill Kasumi but Kamui arrives in time and the clone runs away. Kasumi closes the portal but wonders why this clone seemed to hate her in particular, unlike previous clones. Kamui then expresses surprise at the knowledge that the cloaked figure was here, since Ayane was chasing the same figure but in the opposite direction.
Ayane, chasing the cloaked figure, manages to corner the cloaked person in a tight streets, but just before she can force the cloaked figure to reveal the face, fiends appear. Ayane is forced to fight the fiends, who seem intent on chasing down the cloaked figure. The cloaked figure kills some fiends with a long double sword weapon before disappearing, leaving Ayane to find the portal that opened. Ayane finds the portal, guarded by more PMCs, and fights a greater fiend that appears. The cloaked figure reappears and helps Ayane weaken the fiend, before being knocked away by the fiend. Ayane finishes off the fiend and goes to find the cloaked figure, whose cloak is slightly torn. The figure manages to run away, but not before Ayane catches a glimpse of the figure’s face, Kasumi’s clone. With no new clues, Ayane goes to regroup with the rest.
The Watchers show intel that they have found the headquarters of the mystics, a two part super structure, one being a super airbourne carrier, the other being a large sea based carrier. The two ends are connected by magic and do not leave the same coordinates as one another. Using the two carriers, the mystics plan to open up a large enough portal to bring the Archfiend into the World. It is also shown that the clone that Kasumi met is the mastermind of the entire thing, helping the mystics get the artifacts needed to open portals. But it seems that the clone’s plan is to draw out Kasumi, with destruction of the World being a secondary objective. Ayane questions how does Watcher know all of this and at this point, Watcher reveals that the organisation Watcher was created by DOATEC, under Helena’s order to find anything related to MIST and to deal with it. Watcher works separately from DOATEC but answers to Helena as well. Ayane knew that something was weird about Watcher but she trusts Helena slightly.
The plan was to attack both the sea carrier and the air carrier at the same time. The ninja will attack the air carrier while the army of the Watchers will hit the sea carrier. Before they go, Ayane brings Kasumi her Wakizashi, Mugettou, which is now enhanced and slightly longer. The plan goes into action and the shinobi attack the air carrier. As Kasumi and the others fight through the carrier, they find that each carrier is actually powered by a greater fiend, and that both greater fiends were halves of one larger greater fiend. Kasumi and the group face the greater fiend but are suddenly caught in a trap set by Kasumi’s clone, who activated a paralyzing electric field. The clone is about to kill Kasumi when… another clone appears. This clone is the one that Ayane tracked down in Germany. Using the longer double sword weapon, the second clone manages to fend off the first clone and destroys the field generator, allowing Kasumi and the others to move. The second clone tells Kasumi and the others to deal with the greater fiend while she deals with the first clone. After Kasumi kills the greater fiend, the air carrier begins to lose control and plummet to the sea below. The first clone jumps through a portal to escape, but the second clone rushes into follow, leaving her double sword weapon behind. Kasumi takes it and together with Ayane and the others, escape from the hull of the air carrier, jumping off and diving straight for the sea carrier, where the battle was still on-going.
Kasumi and the others push all the way to the hull of the carrier, where the second half of the greater fiend was. The greater fiend fought hard, and then burst through the hull out into the open, summoning the corpse of its other half to fuse together. While the greater fiend was fused together again, because one half was dead, it was not as strong. Kasumi and the other manage to kill the new greater fiend and end the fiend threat. However Kasumi still had to deal with the clones, and a portal opened up to hell. Kasumi took it and entered the realm of the archfiend. Kasumi saw the two clones fighting, with the one who helped Kasumi many times being beaten back. Kasumi intervened and fought against the crazy clone. The crazy clone said that when it realised it was a clone, and that everything it knew was a lie, it felt that to ‘be’ the ‘real Kasumi’, she had to kill the ‘original’. The second clone said that though she was shaken, she believed that killing was not the way. Both clones came from the same MIST facility, allowed to escape by a ‘certain’ research (Lisa). However although both clones were different from the Alpha series in that they had their own distinct personalities, they still had some of Alpha’s violent nature. That violent nature made the first one crazy, while the second clone managed to calm herself and control it, but she still suffered from a weak mental constitution.
Kasumi and the second clone worked together to push back the crazy clone, before the archfiend appears and reveals that it was behind the cause of the first clone’s craze, fusing together with the clone. Kasumi and the second clone fight against the archfiend and manages to free the first clone from the archfiend, ending its life. With the archfiend’s world crumbling, the first clone opens a portal (because the archfiend had been manipulating her all this while, she had the power to open portals thoughout the story), and pushes the second clone and Kasumi through, saying that she chose to die on her own volition and free will (also that while she lived, the archfiend might try to come back). She throws a memory stick to Kasumi, telling her that inside contained the details of the facility they came from, and to finish what she started, before closing the portal.
The second clone, while showing restraint on her mental capabilities, showed fear of what Kasumi was to do. However Kasumi decided that the clone showed too much a distinct personality that Kasumi could not really call her a clone. The clone reveals her number, Alpha 398, which prompts Kasumi to call her ‘Sakura’ (3= San, 9=Kyu, 8=Hachi). Kasumi tells Sakura that she should try to live a normal life. The Watchers tell Kasumi that they will take care of Sakura, and that should she require any help, they will oblige. Kasumi tells them that it is her path and hers alone to take. Kamui and the Shadow Ninja clan disappear, vowing to complete their mission no matter what. Ayane returns to the Mugen Tenshin village, contemplating on whether she should be telling Hayate of Sakura’s existence or not, but decides not to.
Epiloge would be Sakura attending a normal high school in Japan, talking with classmaters, before stopping and looking out of the window to a single Sakura blossom tree, where a certain kunoichi stood on its branch, smiling, before disappearing. Sakura merely smiles, before turning back and continuing her conversation with her classmates.
And this would be the basic outline of the story. Why so many weapons? Keeping in line with the Ninja Gaiden game, of course.
Imagination's fart 