Kasumi is a kunoichi of the Mugen Tenshin Ninja Clan, who debuted in the first Dead or Alive back during the 1996 arcade release. One of the first three females that appeared in the series (alongside Leifang and Tina Armstrong), Kasumi is considered to be the main protagonist for 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' character 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 Tenshi, Kasumi became a "Runaway Shinobi" after she ran away from home in order to avenge her older brother, Hayate. She is also the older half-sister of Ayane.
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Appearance[]
Kasumi is a slender, physically-fit and petite teenage girl of average height. 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 small facial features, and wide brown eyes. For Dead or Alive 5, her design was altered slightly, so she now has a oval-shaped face and narrower eyes.
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 copper shade. Today, her hair style is not fixed into one or two fashions like the other girls, as she now possesses four styles to choose from: loose, a low ponytail, a high ponytail tied with a long yellow ribbon, or a low braid tied with yellow bows.
She is usually seen in her trademark outfit: a blue, side-tie dress with short puffy sleeves, white trim, her name (written in Japanese) stitched in yellow on the back, and a light-colored bird pattern on the skirt, complete with stockings, knee-high boots 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, like pink.
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 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.
In Dead or Alive[]
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. 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.
Running Away and The First Tournament[]
When Kasumi was 17 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 Radiou 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 avanged Hayate, but Raidou awakens stronger then before, with inhuman strength caused by DOATEC experiments. Their battle ends in a Torn Sky Blast duel, and with the help of Ryu 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 labs in 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.
Escaping DOATEC and The Second Tournament[]
After being held captive for a while by DOATEC, Ryu manages to find her and sets DOATEC Germany on fire. During the chaos, Kasumi is helped out of her cell by Kasumi Alpha, 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 Ryu, who takes her after from the building, after Lisa and Alpha escaped.
While with Ryu 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 Ryu's orders and runs off to find Hayate. Although Ryu 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. Ryu 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 Ryu 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.
The 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 panicks and runs away again.
During the third tournament, Kasumi tries to find Hayate, who is, at this time, with Ayane and Ryu 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 want to see Kasumi. 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 and The Fall of DOATEC[]
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 Alpha, 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 Ryu, 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.
The 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 Ryu 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 one of the clones produced managed to leave the facility - it's unclear if it was allowed to left 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 perusers, 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 Ryu 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.
Ryu 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.
In Dead Fantasy[]
Kasumi and Ayane are revealed to be the shadows stalking Yuna in the opening of Dead Fantasy I, although it is unknown why. When Kasumi reveals herself she becomes the first Dead or Alive character introduced, and Ayane joins immediately after, and they begin a fierce and fast paced fight with Yuna. Kasumi and Ayane masterfully dodge Yuna's bullets, and just as they were about to win Rikku comes to Yuna's rescue. They split the fight; Rikku focuses mostly on Ayane, and Kasumi focuses mostly on Yuna, foreshadowing Dead Fantasy IV and fights to come. After Rikku evens the odds they start to overpower the kunoichi and were about to finish the them off, but Hitomi comes in and interrupts them. Following Hitomi's entrance the fight begins again, and for awhile is fairly even. Slowly the fight moves upwards and out of the room as it is destroyed by Hitomi, and Rikku utilizes Kasumi's teleportation abilities by tossing her through the air to rescue Yuna from falling. Kasumi and her comrades take control of the fight. They were about to deliver the finishing blow to their opponents when Tifa shows up and kicks them all back, giving Rikku and Yuna a few seconds to get back on their feet and the Dead or Alive girls size up the new enemy.
Dead Fantasy II[]
Tifa and Kasumi exchange magical attacks while Hitomi pushes back the other two FF girls. Tifa is slashed by Kasumi and kneels over in pain. She is joined by Yuna however, and together they kick Kasumi back. Kasumi goes after Yuna, but ends up on the losing end and lays still for a minute. After suffering the FF girl's three-way attack, Ayane is about to charge the Final Fanasy girls, but Kasumi places her arm on Ayane's shoulder and gives her a signal. Ayane smacks Kasumi's hand off and uses Hitomi's assistance to jump to the top of the tower. Kasumi and Hitomi defends her while she charges her spell. She holds back Rikku and Yuna, but when Tifa is about to stop Ayane who is just about to start her spell, Kasumi takes the hit herself inorder to teleport Tifa back where they came from. He ninpo attacked charged, Ayane immediately destroys the tower and Kasumi teleport herself and Hitomi out of the way.
While sliding down the tower, Kasumi teleports close to Tifa, who uppercuts her into the air. Rikku is above them, and kicks her back down to Tifa, who uses her signature Limit Break to grab her by the neck, drag her across the floor, and break open a stone wall blocking everyone's path by throwing Kasumi through it. Even when the FF girls use Haste Kasumi is easily ableto keep up with Yuna's bullets, until a frustrated Yuna unleashes her rain of bullets, finally sending Kasumi down. After the tower is cut in half, Kasumi saves her team by teleporting them onto the ground below instead of falling into the river of lava.
The Final Fantasy teams manages to save itself by falling onto a pice of the tower floating on the river. Kasumi briefly engages Tifa while on the rock, but is beaten back. As the near the end of the lava river Kasumi teleports her team to safety, but once again, Team Final Fantasy saves itself when Rinoa steps in and freezes all of the lava. After the DOA Team realizes that the girls still aren't defeated, Kasumi telports them all to the new ice field.
After battling on the ice field Rinoa creats a tornado to create a fighting field with an advantage. In the tornado, Yuna finally outsmarts Kasumi's teleportation by anticipating her movements and shooting ahead of time, which pushes Kasumi into an ideal position to be slammed by Rinoa Ultima attack. Afterward, when the Lunar portals are brought down, Yuna tackles and shoots Kasumi into one, heralding a battle between them in the future.
Dead Fantasy IV[]
After a stand off between the two compassionate fighters, Kasumi engages Yuna in a flower field, though neither lands a blow on the other. Thereupon Yuna was suddenly attacked by a Kasumi Alpha clone, to Kasumi 's shock and horror. Yuna called forth her Aeons to fend off the clones. Kasumi is briefly seen fighting one of her clones when she is hit by Ifrit's Hellfire. In the end the aeons were unable to defeat all of the Kasumi Alphas. Just as Yuna was about to be dispatched by the horde of clones Cloud intervened and knocked them away. In the pause caused by his entrance Kasumi appears between her enemies and her clones. She then mass-teleports the clones away to deal with them herself.
Dead Fantasy V[]
An injured Kasumi is seen dueling what remains of her clones, whom are greatly diminished in number. Just as the clones are about to finish her off, Ryu Hayabusa appears and kills all the remaining clones in a single attack. Kasumi then collapses into his arms from exhaustion as she drops her blood-soaked Wakizashi into the lake. Momiji then reads Kasumi's mind, reflecting on the events of the series so far. Nodding to Ryu, the three then teleport off.
Story of Joining Sora's Team[]
When her brother Hayate met Riku, she joined after he joined and after she met Sora. When she joined, she was confused of why the Gullwings joined, but figured out they were heroines also, and they broke the ice and became friends after they explained.