Kasumi α

"Hayate is all mine." - Kasumi Alpha, to Kasumi.

Kasumi Alpha (かすみ・アルファ, Kasumi Arufa, stylised as Kasumi α), also known simply as Alpha, is one of the many clones of Kasumi that debuted in Dead or Alive 2.

Created by Victor Donovan and the Dead or Alive Tournament Executive Committee, Alpha was a product created during the early stages of Project Alpha, a science experiment with the aim of creating the perfect fighter and human-weapon. She was later transformed into the inhuman creature Alpha-152 as part of Project Alpha-2.

Creation
After the first Dead or Alive Tournament ended, Kasumi, the winner of the tournament, was captured by DOATEC, and was used as a subject for an experiment known as Project Alpha. The committee successfully copied her DNA, and started to create clones of Kasumi.

The Second Tournament
One of the first clones was a prototype known as "Kasumi Alpha", which was a perfect copy of the original Kasumi, right down to her fighting style. Kasumi was shocked and angered when she first saw her clone, and went on to defeat Alpha in combat. After the fight with Kasumi, she fled with Lisa Hamilton.

After Ein regained his memories as Hayate and Ryu Hayabusa defeated Gohyakumine Bankotsubo Alpha fought the two ninjas alongside Ayane, who was being controlled by Genra. But when they were defeated, Alpha immediately disappeared.

The Third Tournament
Afterwards, Alpha met with Donovan and Christie, in which they agree to hold a third tournament to lure Hayate and the ninjas out of hiding by using Genra as their bait, and to also kill Helena Douglas if she discovered too much of their plans. When the clone found out that Helena, Bayman and Christie were all plotting to have Donovan assassinated, she became angry at all of them with their plans. Christie then ordered Alpha to take down Helena, which the clone surprisingly obeyed despite her suspicions, but was defeated herself.

Transformation and the Fourth Tournament
Sometime before the fourth tournament, Donovan modified Alpha's gene, transforming her into the final product of Project Alpha: Alpha-152. During the attack on the DOATEC TriTower, Alpha-152 fought Kasumi, but the clone somehow escaped in the midst of the chaos and later went on to fight Hayate and Ayane. Whether it is alive or not and its whereabouts if it is alive is currently unknown.

Appearance
As a clone of Kasumi, Kasumi Alpha looks just like her: a slender, physically-fit teenage girl of average height, with a round face, small facial features, and wide brown eyes. Her copper-coloured hair is worn loose.

The clone wears a pink body suit, with a matching scarf around her neck, and dark-pink boots, sleeves and sash around her waist. Kasumi can also wear this outfit in certain games, so to avoid confusion, when the real Kasumi wears the pink suit, Alpha's suit turns to black.

Personality
As the clone was only seen briefly in Dead or Alive 2, little of Alpha's personality was known. She doesn't seem to share the same compassionate, friendly nature of the original Kasumi. Just before Kasumi fought her, Alpha gave out a menacingly amused laugh, sounding almost mad and evil, and she was willing to fight Kasumi without a second thought, giving a smug grin as she did.

In Dead or Alive: Dimensions, Kasumi Alpha's personality is revealed to be similar to that of a misguided child, immature and irreverant to anyone other than Donovan, whom she refers to as her father. Alpha also appears to have inherited Kasumi's strong feelings for her brother Hayate, and becomes completely obsessed with him as his crippled body undergoes Project Epsilon. When Hayabusa infiltrates the Genetic Biolab in DOATEC Germany, Alpha goes as far to free a confined Kasumi, whom she refers to as her sister, with the sole intention of killing her so she could have Hayate all to herself. When Alpha escapes with DOATEC when the lab goes down in flames, she is clearly distraught when the helicopter carrying Hayate goes down, and remains worried about his fate as events unfold. Her obsession seems to come to an end when his memories return and he and Hayabusa engage a possessed Ayane, which she views as two mean tough men picking on a poor, small girl. Though confused at first, he quickly realizes she is a clone, and she engages him with a sinister glare in her eyes.

Alpha has shown a degree of being perceptive as well. When Christie approaches Helena on Donovan's orders, Bayman intervenes and reveals his own intentions to take down Donovan. Alpha overhears and appears frightened by such words, but isn't fooled when Christie claims loyalty to Donovan; Alpha reveals that Christie also wants him dead. Despite this, Christie denys the claim and orders Alpha to capture Helena, an order she obeys without question.

Etymology
The kanji used to spell the name Kasumi, 霞, means "mist", a light fog. "Alpha" (Greek: άλφα) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, represented by Α (uppercase), and α (lowercase). In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 1. It was derived from the Phoenician letter "Aleph", meaning "ox". Both as a symbol and term, it is used to refer to or describe a variety of things, mostly for the first or most significant occurrence of something.

Kasumi
Despite being her clone, Alpha considers Kasumi her "sister," but the clone is jealous of her because she believed that Kasumi was keeping Hayate all to herself and wanted to kill her for that reason.

Kasumi was infuriated when she found out that Alpha was her clone and sought out to destroy her imposter.

Hayate
Alpha appeared to have a fondness for Hayate as she considers him her "brother," going so far as to kill Kasumi so she can have him all to herself. But once he regained his memories, her fondness seems to have faded as she engaged him and Hayabusa alongside a possessed Ayane without a second thought.

Like Kasumi, Hayate was enraged when he realised that Alpha was his sister's clone and sought out to defeat her with Hayabusa.

Victor Donovan
Alpha has a fondness for Donovan as he was her creator and even considers him her "father." She also seems protective of him, as she does not want anyone to kill him.

Christie
At first, it appeared that Alpha was on good terms with Christie as they were both working for Donovan, but when the clone found out that the assassin was planning to have Donovan dead, she began to show signs of mistrust.

Gameplay and Strategy
The clone is an exact duplicate of Kasumi, so she also has Kasumi's fighting style: balanced character traits, with good speed and execution, but with a small range and with single strikes doing little damage.

If the player knows Kasumi's own moves and mannerisms when if comes to fighting, it will be very easy to counter the clone's attacks and defeat it.

In Dimensions, her gameplay is that of the way Kasumi was before Dead or Alive 4. Those familiar with her old moveset will adapt quickly.

Dead Fantasy
''Also see: Kasumi Alpha on Dead Fantasy Wiki  The clones, although not just Alpha herself, appear in multitude in the third, fourth and fifth installments of the fan-made CG movie Dead Fantasy''.

They were sent by Helena in the third to fight Kasumi and Yuna from Final Fantasy X. In the fourth episode, the clones managed to defeat Yuna's powerful aeons and were about to take her life as well, but Cloud Stife of Final Fantasy VII came in and saved her life. In the fifth episode, most of them were killed by Kasumi. As she became overcome by exhaustion, the remaining clones were about to finish her off, but they were all killed by Ryu Hayabusa.