It wasn't like her to worry about such petty things.

She had enough to worry about- Donovan, her clan, her brother, her sister. Ryu Hayabusa should have been a safe haven from thought and concern. He was her protector, her friend, and there should have been nothing more to think about. But, regretfully, there was. As of late, with tensions between her and the Mugen Tenshin dying to a quiet mutual understanding of extenuating circumstances, she had more than ample time to consider Master Hayabusa. Rather- she had ample time to ponder the way he'd always made her feel; safe, strong, unbeatable, happy. She'd always known, of course, that Hayabusa was important to her, but she hadn't recognized this specific yearning as anything but a need for a moment's peace, something she rarely got when he wasn't around.

But there were no ninjas chasing after her with deathly intent, anymore. Her day-to-day trials no longer consisted of running from the family she so loved and missed and the pain of being unwanted. Well, she was certainly unwanted now, in a very different sense.

She understood, upon waking up in tangled white sheets, covered in sweat, aching terribly for a warmth and body that wasn't there beside her and never had been, lips parted and skin tingling, that Hayabusa had become something very different to her.

It was stupid. She was nothing but a duty to him, a chore he'd sworn to take care of to a friend. He'd demonstrated as much time and time again. The day he'd slapped her across the face like some common wench- she wondered if there was more than one reason she'd detested that memory so, why she wished him to never lay a hand on her like that ever again. Not for pride sake, though that was certainly a factor, too, but because it reminded her that she was to him as insignificant as any of the other women he'd come across. No, the only woman who mattered to him, she'd been standing there that day, affronted by Hayabusa's treatment of her. That was the woman who mattered to him, the only one he cared about.

It was so childish to pay any mind to such a trivial thing when she had a thousand other problems to deal with. She shouldn't have been spending the late hours of the night and the early hours of the morning nursing a heart she'd broken herself, but that was what she had unintentionally set out to do every damn night. So, she'd used that restless energy, that jole of pain that kept her awake at night, to be productive.

"If you want to know that, sweetheart, you're gonna have to do something for me."

He wasn't somebody significantly high on the totem poll. He was a handyman who transported the chemicals and machinery and parts from Point A to Point D, and oversaw quality and quantity. The pull he had was his personal relationship with Donovan, something about college friends who had been in the same chess club. She'd spent many a sleepless night tracking this man down, asking questions in strange alleys and scoping out dingy motels; he was the only person her intel told her would know where Donovan's current hideout was, and she intended on getting that out of him. "I don't make deals with criminals."

He smirked, one twisted lip pulling up to show his yellow teeth. "Whatcha' gonna do, then? Torture me?"

No, she wasn't the type to. He knew that, and she knew he knew that. She could kick him around and hit as many pressure points as she wanted and he wouldn't spill to her. She wouldn't kill him, because he was only a pawn, probably didn't know exactly what he was protecting, and she could never take a sad, harrowed life. She grimaced, and he looked her up and down. "I promise, I'll make it good for both of us. You're a real lady. I can appreciate that."

Oh. Oh how grotesque. But did she have much of a choice? She pulled back, momentarily, just to think, and he took that as an opportunity to lay his hands at her hips and pull her closer. She grinded her teeth and raised one hand to pinch the nerve at his neck, but she never got the chance.

There was a sudden hand at the back of his collar, and the hands that were at her waist very suddenly were behind his back with a shuddering crack. He gasped and whimpered, but Hayabusa had no intention of letting go. "You will tell us what we want to know or you will spend your last moments begging for your life. Evil like you does not deserve to walk this planet." Kasumi watched with wide eyes as that man, now so tiny and scared, squealed like a pig and dropped every name he could think of associated with Donovan, every truck number he could remember, every address in which he'd known Donovan to hide his experiments away. Then, when he had nothing left to give, Ryu released his arms and let him run away as fast as his trembling legs could carry him. Then she watched as his legs gave out and his blood ran heartily down his neck and back as a kunai lodged itself into the back of his head. She looked to Ryu, and she wasn't sure what she was feeling.

"You didn't have to do that."

"I've killed better men than him."

"That's not what I meant. I wasn't in any danger."

"If you believe that, then your brother was right in seeking my assistance, for you surely would not have survived on your own this long."

"He was a coward! That man at most knew how to use a knife, and you thought me incapable?"

"I'd think no such thing, had that been the situation, but he was propositioning you and you seemed none the wiser."

Her blood boiled. "I was well aware of his suggestions, Hayabusa. As I recall, protecting my honor is not something my brother asked of you."

No, because at the time, Hayate would never have thought such a thing would be an issue. Should a man such as Raidou try something as heinous as what he did to their mother, of course, he'd want Ryu to step in then, but protecting her from her own choices? Her own means of gathering information? Sex was as much a weapon as torture, and any ninja knew that.

Ryu's eyes narrowed at her from behind his mask, dangerous, dark and ominous green, like a forest who's trees sang of death, and she clenched her fist. "You're correct, my promise to protect you in no way extends to defending you from yourself."

"So then why…?"

"Is that a question you really must ask?"

His tone sounded… hurt? Angry? Disgusted? She wasn't sure. She glanced at the body of the man she'd been so reluctantly considering, and a comforting thought rang like a bell's chime: Did Hayabusa truly care about her? "I suppose I should thank you…"

He hummed.

She led him back to the small village she was staying in, told him he was welcome to spend the night. He said nothing, and then he followed her to the hot spring and sat on the other side of a stone with his back turned as she stripped and climbed into the water. She wanted to clean herself of that man's hands- she could still feel his nasty palms at her hips, imagined what they would have felt like driving downwards. She nearly gagged.

"One day you'll be welcomed back to the village, Kasumi," he called from over the stone. "You should move forward taking that into consideration."

"For what? Fear of being unwed?"

"Your brother would have already promised your hand had you not made yourself a traitor."

She nearly snorted. "And to who do you think my hand would have gone, exactly?" He fell silent, and she welcomed the change with her open, bare arms. Kasumi lifted the hot water in her cupped hands to her face and sighed as the soothing heat fell in spurning waves down her neck to her shoulders and met the pond at her arms. It was odd to think about sex, odder still to think about marriage. Even before she'd left to pursue revenge, her eventual husband had never been a question her mind sought to answer. Her father or brother would find the best in the village and, one day, send her off to bear children and live as her mother had- honorable, motherly, but more dangerous, as her father had been sure she was trained. It wasn't an idea she disliked. She would have preferred it to the life she led as a runaway kunoichi, but it wasn't something she'd thought about.

"All things considered, it's likely your hand would have gone to me."

She jolted, and she hoped he didn't hear the sudden shift in the quiet waves of water. Wed off to Ryu? Was that truly what her brother would have had planned for her? Her heart skipped a beat, and she allowed herself a moment to imagine that future. The Princess of the Mugen Tenshin and the wife of the legendary Ryu Hayabusa, eventually mother to his children. The shivers that came over her body were wrecking her with exhilaration.

She hummed, picturing what that wedding would have looked like, windy with sakura trees on a sunny day. She imagined her mother raising a finger to her lips to color them in red as she recalled her childhood and prayed for a happy future. She imagined her mother and brother walking her towards Hayabusa, Hayate taking her hand and placing it ever-so-gently into Ryu's, trusting him with her as he had all their lives, as he would continue to. She wondered what their children might look like, with hair as deep auburn as his, if they'd have his eyes and her face. Truly, she fell in love with the future- a hypothetical future. A future, it occurred to her, that would never pass, for many a good reason. Her heart had never sank so low into her stomach after being so high in her chest. "Would have…"

He said nothing, and that confirmed it. Would have. As in not anymore.

There was nothing else to be said, so she ducked her head under the water and surrounded herself in the dull sound of water rushing by her ears, the sensation of her hair floating devotedly into the abyss of blue surrounding her. She wondered, half-jokingly, if Ryu would eventually think her drowning and jump in to once again "save her from herself". She closed her eyes and let the world around her disappear for just a moment. For a moment, just a moment, Ryu didn't exist, or at least her misguided affection for him didn't, and Irene Lew didn't have all of his heart, and she was back on Zack Island, twisted up in her sheets, rising to a bright sun and warm sand. She existed there, in that perfect world, until her lungs begged her for the cold air of reality again, and she pulled herself up and out. She gasped as quietly as possible as her head resurfaced, hair sticking to her neck in straight strands of golden brown silk.

"I was wondering when you'd come up for air. Something weighing on your mind, Kasumi?"

"No," she whispered as she wiped the water out of her eyes, "Nothing."

He made no move to respond, and she was almost thankful for it.

She almost wished he'd never told her. Because the next time they crashed Donovan's lab, the next time she saw him making eyes at Irene as she stood idly by wishing that Hayate and Ayane would finish their mission and join the three of them quickly, she felt her heart break into twice as many pieces. Irene smiled at him, and Kasumi turned away so she wouldn't have to watch.

Sometimes she wondered what she would do after ridding their world of Donovan, if she'd truly be welcomed back home, or if that was as much a pipe dream as anything else she dreamed of these days. Maybe it would be in her best interests to fade into obscurity once Donovan was gone, or cut her losses and join their ancestors in the next life. She doubted the village would be so open to her return- Ayane, at the very least, would not be so inclined. She wondered if her mother would be the only one so open to her coming home, and if the backlash Hayate would get would be worth it. So shameful, so ridiculous, how she could waste her time thinking such things.

Kasumi squeezed her eyes shut and hoped the burning in her eyes would stop before anybody noticed.

When Hayate and Ayane found their way to them, when finally Hayabusa and Irene stopped making those damn eyes at each other, Kasumi found relief flooding her chest like that water in the hot spring.

Donovan was gone. Finally. After nearly a decade of excruciating isolation, Kasumi was home. The village… it was more welcoming than she'd anticipated. She stepped through the gates to find smiling faces, those she knew, and those who had been born since she had parted. Ayane was perpetually pouting, but even she welcomed her back as Ayame cried tears that streamed down her cheeks in thick drops and wrapped her arms around her, so full of love. Hayabusa and Hayate stood by as the rest of the family welcomed her, smiling and chiding each other the way they had as boys. It felt like a dream, something so delightfully surreal that she dared not reach down and pinch herself, or stare too long at her sister's face to see if it morphed into something more sinister like Christie's bloodthirsty grin. She was home, at long last, and some part of her, some part that had been waiting for this for years, was scared of what it meant from now on.

Weeks passed, and she worried. Then months passed, and she continued to worry, because she was long overdue to find a husband, and she was terrified about what that might mean.

It was Ayame who called her into the main room, who offered her tea and asked that she join her in watching the children play outside. Kasumi gratefully took her cup and sipped modestly at the rim. Ayame smiled at her and gestured to the children.

"You will be having your own soon, Kasumi."

She nearly spit her tea out. "What makes you say that, Mother?"

She giggled, like a schoolgirl, like they were discussing Kasumi's most recent crush and not her future as a wife. "I've seen the way you look at him, Kasumi. And I've seen the way he looks at you." Oh? Who was she talking about? Kasumi hummed and said nothing, her own way (and her brother's way, and her sister's way) of asking for clarification. "He's always been quite fond of you, you know. Even when you were children, your father and I knew that someday you'd be married."

"Mother, I do not understand."

Ayame giggled again. "Don't be so snide with your mother, Kasumi. You and I both know you're going to wed Ryu."

Ayame looked at her in surprise, and she vaguely registered that it might have been because she dropped her cup and spilled her tea all over herself. Ayame raised one hand to her lips. "Oh, I suppose you really didn't know?"

"Hayate!"

"Kasumi, what is the matter?" Hayate looked up from his board game with one of the village elders, a playful smile toying at the corner of his lips, like they had never been forced apart, like they were still children and she was coming to tattle on Ayane for stealing the fish she'd caught.

"Brother, you must cancel my engagement at once!"

His eyebrows raised, and the village elder looked between the two, eyes alight in mirth. Hayate cleared his throat and waved the old man away, gesturing for Kasumi to come sit across from him instead. She bit her lip and took her place as soon as the older man got up, but not without the wink he casted her. Once they were alone, Hayate looked up at her. "Awfully bold of you to be making demands in your place, Kasumi."

"Brother, please! It's for Hayabusa's sake."

The levity in his eyes grew by three times. "For Ryu, huh? Why would canceling your engagement to him be at all in his favor?"

She glared at him, because how could he be so oblivious to his best friend's truest heart? How could he unblinkingly set him up with a woman he'd never love that way he already loved another? How could Hayate be so blind? "You know as well as I do that Hayabusa isn't in love with me."

Hayate's eyebrows arched again, and that damned merriment in his eyes grew all the brighter. "Oh?"

"Yes! He-" it physically hurt to say it. "He loves that woman, you know."

"What woman?"

"Irene. Irene Lew. I've seen the way he looks at her."

"Have you, now?"

She would have appreciated it if he stopped sounding so goddamn amused. "Hayate, please! You've seen it too, haven't you?"

He uncrossed his arms, and leaned forward to move the last piece on the board, the move that clearly would have crowned him victorious had she not interrupted the game. "I'll speak to Ryu myself and see what he thinks."

She'd thought that would be the end of it, that Hayate would speak to Ryu one-on-one, and she'd find herself engaged instead to a man that she didn't love. That was fine. She'd anticipated that. What she hadn't anticipated was Ryu's sudden appearance in her room as she readied herself for bed. She sat at the floor with her mirror poised in front of her, hair to the side as she brushed every tangle out. He stepped out of the shadows, suddenly, and without a fair warning for being in a woman's room.

"Is there a reason you're so opposed to marrying me?"

She nearly jumped, but the brush in her hand merely stilled for a moment as she caught his green gaze in the mirror. She raised her nose and shook her head. "No, Hayabusa. I apologize if I came off in such a way."

"Then what is this I'm hearing from Hayate about your refusal?"

"I respect and admire you, Hayabusa. I would never wish to burden you with a wife you cannot love."

There was a dead silence, and she took to brushing her hair again. That hurt, she would pretend it hadn't, and remind herself that it was for the best. She could feel him approach her, and she glanced in the mirror to see him standing with his arms crossed, glaring at her in the reflection. "You've grown quite arrogant, Kasumi. It's not your place to make assumptions about my heart."

She nearly winced. "Then I suppose I am arrogant. But my arrogance has saved you the trouble of juggling a wife and a mistress."

His eye twitched. "I am not so dependent on my lust that I would betray you in such a way. I find the insinuation insulting."

"Not your lust, Hayabusa. Your heart." She set her brush down, finding each strand silk, smooth, perfect, and that was the closest she'd get to feeling perfect for the moment because she was wired and strung inside. She watched him in the mirror with empathy in her eyes, trying to convey that she meant him no disrespect or ill will. "I'm not the woman in your heart, and I understand that. The woman who is- you should make her yours soon. Your village will be expecting an heir soon, won't they?" She looked away from the mirror before she could see his eyes, see what emotion was swimming in them. She knew if she let him, he'd see pain in hers, feel burdened by her as he always had.

He grew closer, and she could feel his legs brush against her back. "And what woman would this be?" She said nothing, and he took that as a sign to continue. "Momiji? Rachel? Perhaps you're referring to Ayane-?"

"Hayabusa, please stop!" She whipped around to glare up at him, and he glared right back at her. She sighed, and shook her head. "That woman, Irene. You care for her. Anyone can see it."

"Care for her, I do. But what does that have to do with promising myself to you?"

Fine, fine. He wanted to be that way? She'd be honest. He'd pushed her to this, he'd known what he'd been doing. She stood up, not quite tall enough to match his height, but mad enough to dare him to slap her again. He met her fiery gaze with a more consumed one. "Do you expect me to bear your children knowing you'd prefer another woman in my stead? I am a member of the Mugen Tenshin, Hayabusa, and I will not be your wife if that is all you will offer to me."

"What else would you want?"

"To be your lover- your only lover. To be the only one you think about when you're in our bed."

"And can you offer the same to me?"

"I already have, every day, for the last ten years. My devotion has been yours with no title, and will continue to be yours until the day I part from this earth." Her fists clenched. "But I will not give you my hand nor my body if it is not my devotion you seek."

He eyed her, and she bit down on her lip.

"And if it is your devotion I seek?"

She'd be dreaming. "Then I would make you the happiest man alive." She would, if she could, if he'd let her. Have as many children as he wanted, love them all ardently, be true and loyal to him, die with him- in body, in soul, in heart, she'd be his, but only if he wanted her. Ryu's eyes gazed over her face, inching left and right for her to see, then he nodded.

"And what would it take for you to believe that I am as steadfast?"

He got closer, and her heart rate skipped. His chest was centimeters from hers, and his lips were so tantalizingly close. It got hard to think, and she nearly backed up, but she knew he wouldn't allow that. "I'd need to hear you say it."

"How many times?"

"Just once…"

He grasped her wrist in one hand, then brought it to his chest as she watched with awestruck eyes. He squeezed her fingers in his palm, and she found, for once, his touch was warm. He watched her with a gentleness she could not name, and she felt her skin burning as her heart melted.

"Kasumi, from this day on, until I take my last breath, I swear to you my allegiance, as your protector, as The Dragon of the Hayabusa Clan, as your husband. I will be true to you on my honor as a shinobi."

She swallowed hard and reached towards their joined hands with her free one, only for him to catch her and hold them both to his chest. She glanced down, feeling shy. "Hayabusa… is this what you want? To marry me?"

"Have you ever known me to be indecisive?"

"N-No, of course not! I-" She ducked her head. "I just- wasn't- I wasn't expecting…"

"Your brother knew what he was doing when he trusted you to me." There was a lilt in his voice that sounded alight with humor. "I'd hope you'd have more faith in him."

She blushed and huffed up at him, because she knew he was teasing her, but she couldn't find it in herself to care. She exhaled, almost like a laugh, and moved forward to place her head on his chest. He wrapped her in his arms and held her there, firmly, and she thanked every god she knew that, somehow, The Dragon was hers. She pulled away and glanced up at him, and reached up to pull his mask down. He was smirking at her, and she was almost surprised. Instead she leaned up, and he met her halfway, and he took her in a kiss so warm that her knees would have fallen out from under her had he not held her so firmly to him.