Kasumi

Kasumi (Kanji: 霞, Hiragana: かすみ, Rōmaji: Kasumi) is a runaway shinobi and former member of the Mugen Tenshin Ninja Clan, who debuted in the Dead or Alive back during the 1996 arcade release. One of the original eight characters, Kasumi became the main protagonist of the Dead or Alive series (specifically in Dead or Alive, Dead or Alive 2, and Dead or Alive 5), and is often viewed as the series mascot. She was the winner of the first Dead or Alive Tournament.

Originally second-in-line for the title of clan master within the Mugen Tenshin, Kasumi became a runaway shinobi, after she ran away from home in order to avenge her older brother, Hayate. She is also the half-sister of Ayane.

Childhood
Kasumi is the daughter and second child of Shiden and Ayame, and was born into the Mugen Tenshin's head family, making her second-in-line to the title of clan leader, after her older brother Hayate.

When they were children, Kasumi and Ayane - unaware that they were related - played together as best friends, although the clan saw Ayane as a "cursed child" and didn't want Kasumi to be around her. From childhood, Kasumi has lived a privilaged life full of expensive clothes, servants and the respect of the rest of the Mugen Tenshin clan. According to their mother, Ayame, Kasumi and Ayane used have fun catching fish for the family. Her relationship with Hayate was also ideal, with the two playing games and training together happily.

However, once Ayane learned of her true heritage, and the children now knew that they were siblings, Kasumi's friendship with Ayane ended due to Ayane's jealous anger over her mistreatment by the clan, centering her animosity on the "princess" Kasumi.

First Tournament
When Kasumi was seventeen, her uncle, the rogue ninja Raidou, returned to the village to obtain the Torn Sky Blast technique; a ninpo spell used by the clan's leaders. Defeating even the prodigious Ayane, Raidou eventually manages to mimic the technique from Hayate, and rendered the boy both comatose and paraplegic before escaping. As Kasumi was not present during the attack and nobody told her what had happened, she was left clueless as to what happened until much later.

Due to Hayate's dire state and the unlikelihood of his recovery, Shiden chose Kasumi to become the clan’s eighteenth master. Her worry over her brother seemed to effect her training, but she managed to learn the Torn Sky Blast at least. Wanting to know the truth, Kasumi turned to Ayane, and believing that Kasumi will never become a great leader anyway, she tells her that Raidou was the fiend who harmed Hayate.

With the truth finally out, Kasumi decided to take possibly suicidal action and left the village without permission in order to find Raidou and take revenge on him for Hayate, although this meant she would become a nukenin and the clan will kill her if she ever tries to return home. The clan quickly found out about Kasumi's leave, and Ayane was ordered by Genra to find and kill her. Ayane tried to stop her on the bridge just out of the village, but Kasumi was saved when Christie appeared on a helicopter and separated the two shinobi with gunfire. Although Kasumi didn't know Christie, she jumped on the helicopter and they flew away from Ayane.

Now in the company of Christie and Bayman, Kasumi learned that Raidou was taking part in the Dead or Alive World Combat Championship, which was being sponsored by the Dead or Alive Tournament Executive Committee, the company they work for. They took her to the cruise liner Freedom Survivor, where the tournament would officially begin and Kasumi signed herself up.

While the start of the tournament is being officially announced, Kasumi finds Ayane in the crowd. Ayane tells her that she is there to avenge Hayate too, as well as kill her, under the orders of her foster father Genra. The girls quickly discover that Raidou is working with the head of DOATEC, Fame Douglas, but when Ayane tries to get him, even though Kasumi tries to stop her, the girl is beaten back. Fame then tells Kasumi that if she wants to face Raidou in battle, she has to come out as winner in the tournament.

Kasumi fights her way through the tournament, and does come out as the winner of the tournament, meaning that she will have to face Raidou in the Danger Zone. She manages to defeat Raidou, and was happy because she thinks she had avenged Hayate, but Raidou awakens stronger than before, with inhuman strength caused by DOATEC experiments. Their battle ends in a Torn Sky Blast duel, and with the help of Ryu Hayabusa from the sidelines, Kasumi overpowers Raidou in the end and he is finally killed.

Unfortunately for Kasumi, she is kidnapped by DOATEC, and is taken to their DOATEC Germany, so they can use her DNA for their experiments; as she managed to defeat their top experiment, they believe that she will be useful in their plans to create the ultimate fighter.

Second Tournament
After being held captive for a while by DOATEC, Hayabusa manages to find her and sets DOATEC Germany on fire. During the chaos, Kasumi is helped out of her cell by Kasumi α, a clone created from her DNA. Although shocked by the sight of her double, she follows Alpha into one of the labs. Once there, Alpha tells Kasumi that they are "sisters", and Kasumi hasn't been a good sister because she keeps Hayate to herself, so now he belongs to Alpha. Realizing that Hayate had been taken by DOATEC, Kasumi fights Alpha. The noise leads one of the scientists, Lisa Hamilton to them and Kasumi demands to know where Hayate was. Lisa tries to silence her by threatening to shoot her, but Kasumi is saved by Hayabusa, who takes her after from the building, after Lisa and Alpha escaped.

While with Hayabusa and Irene Lew, they learn from stolen DOATEC data that Hayate was actually at DOATEC Germany at the same time as Kasumi. Worried about her brother's safety, Kasumi goes against Hayabusa's orders and runs off to find Hayate. Although Hayabusa sends Ayane after her, Kasumi manages to escape her.

Sometime later, Kasumi finds Hayate alive and well, but as Hayate is suffering from amnesia, he cannot remember her. Hayabusa appears before them and tells the two siblings to fight each other, as "once reunited in combat, fists which are bound by blood will revive the deepest soul of the shinobi", meaning that Hayate will remember his true self. During the fight, Kasumi is defeated, and Hayate remembers everything. While Hayate and Hayabusa have to fight Alpha and a brainwashed Ayane, set upon them by Genra, Kasumi presumbly wakes up and runs away, as Hayate cannot find her after the battle.

Third Tournament
Homesick and constantly hunted, Kasumi still wishes to see Hayate, but has to go into hiding from the Mugen Tenshin Clan again. She spends some time in the geisha district of Kyoto during her running, and to cover up her shinobi identity, she dresses as a normal high school girl and acts like a normal civilian in public to get by. She appears to have become ill from running and living rough, because she develops a fever. When she is half-passed out on the road, she is found by a local maiko Kokoro, but refuses her help. When she sees Ayane, she panics and runs away again.

During the third tournament, Kasumi tries to find Hayate, who is, at this time, with Ayane and Hayabusa trying to track down |Genra, who has turned against the clan. Kasumi crosses paths with Ayane, but apparently her sister is focused on taking down Genra, so she isn't going to kill her; although Ayame has previously asked Ayane to help Kasumi rather then be against her. Ayane does let Kasumi try to get to Hayate, but not before she beats her up for her troubles.

When Kasumi finally meets up with Hayate, he is torn between the code of the clan to kill runaways and his desire to see his sister again. He tries to save her, saying that they can pretend they never met and he can let her live, but Kasumi is prepared to fight her brother. After the fight, Kasumi escapes again and goes into hiding once more.

The Fourth Tournament
During the time of the fourth tournament, Kasumi catches word of the Mugen Tenshin's plan to attack DOATEC and take their revenge against the company. Worried about everyone's safety, Kasumi risks her life visiting the outside of the village, and finds Hayate. As she tries to convince him to stop the war against DOATEC, Hayate remains quiet and Ayane arrives to interrupt them, providing enough of a distraction for Hayate to leave and continue on with his mission.

Although the attack is on the go, Kasumi pursues everyone to DOATEC's TriTower headquarters so she can still stop the chaos. There, she confronts Helena Douglas, the current head of DOATEC, and begs her to leave the shinobi alone. However, Helena tells her that DOATEC's latest creation - a modified Kasumi α, renamed Alpha-152 - is about to become active. Helena is about to shoot Kasumi, to stop her from being involved, but she is saved by Hayabusa, who is there helping Hayate, and Kasumi fights her way past Helena.

She then heads down to the lab to destroy Alpha-152. She fights her clone to her best efforts but in the end it appears Alpha-152 escapes in the chaos of the destruction wrought by the Mugen Tenshin invasion. After the match, having herself escaped the burning building, Kasumi is last seen watching Helena entering the blazing helipad. As Kasumi tries to stop her, Ayane prevents her from going after Helena, who by doing so saves Kasumi's life as the building starts exploding mere seconds later.

Shortly afterwards, she continued trying to find Hayate, and eventually tracked his seeming last location to New Zack Island, although she ultimately decided to stay for the week despite not finding him. During her stay, she had a brief dream as a mermaid and being caught in a net while trying to pursue a fish only to wake up, an allegory to her freedom from the laws of runaway shinobi.

Fifth Tournament
At some point between the events of the fourth and fifth tournaments, it appeared that Kasumi went into hiding with the assistance of Hayabusa and his ally Muramasa, who made sure that no one knew where she was.

However Victor Donovan had continued Project Alpha with his new origination MIST, and False Kasumi|one of the clones produced managed to leave the facility - it's unclear if it was allowed to leave or it escaped. This clone believed that it was the real Kasumi and held the same desire to locate and destroy Alpha-152 as the original did. It turned to Helena for help, but turned away from her when the woman tried to get Hayate involved, believing that Alpha-152 would be too much for Kasumi to handle alone. The clone felt that it needed to face Alpha-152 by itself and left. Its behavior seemed to make Hayate suspicious so he ordered Ayane to follow.

While trying to keep away from her pursuers, the clone traveled to New York and asks Lisa where Alpha-152 was, but received no answer. After much travelling, the clone got fed up and returned to Helena demanding for Alpha-152's location. Helena reveals that Alpha-152 was hidden at an DOATEC-owned DIG oil rig, but she would be sending Hayate, Ayane, and Hayabusa there as well, much to the clone's dismay. After fighting her way past Rig and Lisa, Kasumi finds and defeats Alpha-152, but is soon found and attacked by the other shinobi, who had by then worked out that this Kasumi was a fake. The clone is slain, and the shinobi are attacked by MIST which led to Hayate's capture.

Hayabusa sent a message to the real Kasumi telling her of their problem and she finally comes out of hiding to aid them. She rushes to the oil platform and fights her way past Christie and Rig to get to Hayate, who had been forced into reactivating Project Epsilon. With Lisa's help, the shinobi succeeded in releasing him, however they are too late to stop Donovan from beginning Phase 4 of Project Alpha: mass production of the best clones. Following a long battle against Alpha-152, the clone and the lab is destroyed, with the shinobi managing to escape.

The next day, Kasumi thanked Hayate and Ayane for their help before taking her leave, swearing to defeat Donovan at all costs.

Appearance
Kasumi is a slender, physically-fit and petite teenage girl. She was designed to appear "soft" (based on the idea that Dead or Alive is softer in concept compared to Ninja Gaiden, thus making her symbolic to the series) so she was originally designed with a round face with small facial features, and wide amber eyes. For Dead or Alive 5, her design was altered slightly, so she now has a oval-shaped face and narrower eyes. Her hair is also noticeably shorter than in previous installments, as it only reaches to her lower shoulders, rather than her waist.

Originally, her waist-length hair appeared to be a dark brown color. However, since Dead or Alive 2, Kasumi's hair has lightened over the years to a ginger or copper shade. Today, she possesses four styles to choose from: a low ponytail, a braid, a high ponytail, or her hair down.

Her trademark outfit is a blue, side-tie dress with short puffy sleeves, white trim, her name (written in Japanese) stitched in gold on the back, and a light-colored phoenix pattern on the skirt, complete with stockings, low heeled sandals, blue & white leg guards and arm-guards. As well as this outfit - and variations of said outfit - Kasumi sports other shinobi costumes. She also has modern, casual clothes, and Japanese school uniforms, suited for average, everyday girls. No matter what she wears, Kasumi is usually wearing feminine gear, such as skirts, and girly colors,  sometimes in her favorite color, milky pink.

In the original Dead or Alive, Kasumi's height and BWH measurements were: 5' 5" (164 cm) and B35" W20" H35" (B88 W52 H89 cm).

Personality
Kasumi is portrayed throughout the Dead or Alive series as a more compassionate character than any of the other fighters. She is an honorable and kind spirit, and although a highly skilled kunoichi with deadly abilities, she does not enjoy or wish to fight. Many of the statements she makes in the game series before a round begins reflect her desire to avoid confrontation. Much of the reasoning behind this comes from the fact that in all appearances in the tournaments (with the exception of the first) her motive was not to fight or win, but to meet Hayate. However she is capable of killing in cold blood, as demonstrated when she defeated and killed Raidou. Although she is innocent and meek, Kasumi is shown to be a "soft" character and is not afraid to speak her mind and has a keen mind. Also as a soft person, she is emotional, honest, and always helps people. She is highly intelligent as a ninja. Kasumi is caring and a positive person.

However in Dead or Alive 5, on the last chapter of story mode, Kasumi's personality has changed drastically. She's still the caring person that she is, however, Kasumi is shown to be mentally stronger. She is shown to engage in battle when she needs to instead of avoiding it. An example of this is shown when she engage in a fight with Christie, who was in her way, preventing her to proceed further. She also has a much stronger will as she was ready to destroy the Phase 4 project and willing to defeat Victor Donovan at any cost. She is seen to be much happier as well and is finally at peace with both Hayate and Ayane. She also seems to have great maturity for someone her age.

She is demonstrably family orientated and would like nothing more than to return home in peace. There were instances where she refused to show mercy though, as seen when she willingly goes to look for Raidou in the first game, fighting her clone in the second game, and also when facing Helena when the woman had almost shot her.

Etymology
The kanji used to spell Kasumi's name (霞) means "Mist", a light fog. Mist and fog are often used as a symbol of isolation and loneliness, maybe alluding to Kasumi's isolation from her clan, forced to live alone. Mist can also represent unclear thinking, possibly reflecting Kasumi's personality who, as a compassionate, empathetic character, is powered by emotion and will react by her feeling rather than think things through first, such as her leave from her clan to take revenge for Hayate.

Mist could also be a physical link to her; just as mist cannot be easily contained, Kasumi has also been proven to be hard to "contain" and be captured by the clan's assassins and has been able to avoid them for a long time.

Finally, mist can be a symbol of the indeterminate phase in development, when things have yet to be                                               defined. As she is a runaway shinobi, Kasumi could be seen as living in an indeterminate state, unsure if tomorrow will bring her death or good fortune.

Ayane
Ayane and Kasumi are half-sisters and cousins; sharing the same biological mother, with Ayane's father also being Kasumi's paternal uncle. Kasumi's mother, Ayame, was raped by Raidou, thus conceiving Ayane. As children they were close friends and, despite the village's negative views of Ayane, they enjoyed playing together, even sharing the same hairstyle. Due to her age, she never realized why the other villagers treated her so badly. However, after learning the circumstances of her birth, Ayane became intensely bitter and jealous of Kasumi because Ayane was treated like the "demon child" of the village while Kasumi was treated like a princess and had years receiving all of Hayate's affection. Ayane was not aware that Kasumi, like herself, had also been kept in the dark about Ayane's origins and had no idea that her purple-haired playmate was indeed her half-sister until it was too late. When Kasumi ran away to avenge Hayate, Ayane was finally able to express her now deep hatred toward Kasumi when she was sent to kill her for leaving the village. Subsequently, she also tried to keep Kasumi away from Hayate as much as possible to add to Kasumi's pain of having to be separated from her beloved brother.

It seems the hatred was one-sided from Ayane, In Dead or Alive: Dimensions, when Ayane attacks Raidou and easily knocks her down, Kasumi rushes to her aid and helps her up, though Ayane seemed hardly affected by this. Also, Kasumi was never intentionally mean or cruel to Ayane, and only fought her when it was absolutely necessary; in some games, before fighting Ayane, Kasumi may ask, "Why?", questioning the reasons for their battle.

However, over time, her envy and hatred of Kasumi slowly abated since their circumstances have changed. Due to the events of Dead or Alive 3 and Genra's passing, Ayane became the new Hajinmon Master of the Mugen Tenshin clan, respected and feared alike, and Kasumi was the runaway shinobi - the outcast of the village. Ayame, her mother, had also come to terms with her by then in attempt to heal her emotionally scarred daughter. During the Dead or Alive 4 tournament, Ayane merely delayed Kasumi enough for Hayate to get a head start on their plan to take down DOATEC, rather than killing her. This fading animosity may have also been why she stopped Kasumi from entering the burning DOATEC building to try and save Helena. In Dead or Alive Xtreme 2, Kasumi and Ayane seem to have started to develop a more friendly relationship with each other.

In Dead or Alive 5, when Ayane and Hayate are about to fight Alpha-152, Ayane stops Kasumi from joining the battle by throwing a kunai at her feet. Kasumi quietly grants Ayane's silent request to fight alongside Hayate and the improvement of their relationship is greatly evident. Ayane may have known that Kasumi would not able to finish the battle by her own hand if she was to join at that particular time, as Hayate, Ayane, and Hayabusa seem to have weakened Alpha by the time the building had began to burn.

At the end of the ordeal, In Dead or Alive 5, Kasumi and Ayane are finally at peace, as both sisters smile at each other instead of killing one another. Kasumi returns Ayane's kunai with a word of thanks. In tag team matches, they also have a more cooperative relationship, and there no longer seems to be anymore tension between them, as seen in their entrance, and victory pose together.

Helena
Despite what DOATEC has done to Kasumi's life, she still shows friendly and caring feelings towards Helena and seems to understand the pain that Helena must be going through. However, these feelings are coldly dismissed by Helena when she tries to shoot Kasumi claiming that she has no use for her, only to quickly be stopped by Hayabusa; this is one of the few times that Kasumi has no mercy for Helena. Even after threatening to kill her, Kasumi attempts to stop Helena from committing suicide, which would have resulted in her death had Ayane not stopped her, showing that she still cares for Helena.

After the fourth tournament, she and Helena have been more friendly and have an understanding relationship with each other. In tag battle, they share a full alliance with two tag team-ups. They are two heroines determined to defeat Donovan.

Lisa
Kasumi seems to know Lisa from around before the second tournament. When Kasumi was fighting Kasumi α, Lisa came into the lab during the fight, and demanded to know what was going on. To her horror, she found out Alpha told Kasumi that Hayate was around in the DOATEC facility. She attempted to silence an enraged Kasumi by putting her at gun-point, but Hayabusa came to her rescue abruptly. Lisa didn't like the outnumbered odds, forcing her to flee with Alpha in hand.

Two years later, during the fifth tournament, Kasumi infiltrated the MIST facility alongside Ayane and Hayabusa to rescue Hayate, after she learned that Donovan was trying to reactivate project Epsilon. Kasumi went in the room with Hayate already in the start up phase, and as she attempted to free him, a shocked Lisa came in, and wondered who was doing this. Kasumi, already fueled with negative feelings of Lisa, accused her, and demanded to know what was going on. Lisa denied knowledge, but she went into the control room in an attempt to stop it.

Hayabusa and Ayane came in shortly afterward, and as Lisa started the shut down process, a container opened around the room, exposing hundreds of created clones. Alpha-152 came out of hiding, prepared to fight, and Lisa pleaded for them to defeat it. Hayabusa and the clone, now morphed as Hayabusa, sent energy beams at each other, causing the area where Lisa was to collapse. It's currently unknown if she's dead or alive, or if Kasumi felt any remorse over it.

Momiji
In Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate and Dead or Alive 5 Last Round Momiji calls Kasumi's name during a tag team fight (with those two on a team) and they may have had some interactions and may have met through Hayabusa but none of this has been either confirmed or denied.

Dead or Alive Xtreme Series

 * Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (Playable, 2003)
 * Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 (Playable, 2006)
 * Dead or Alive Paradise (Playable, 2010)
 * Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 (Playable, 2016)