"If I win the second time, you'll let me touch you anytime and anywhere," Kenshin declared with a sly smile.
"WHAT?! Never! No, no, and no again! Do you even realize what you're proposing to a daughter of the Nara Clan?! That won't happen!" Kasumi refused outright.
"Fine, I'll raise the stakes. If you win, you can be free starting tomorrow morning," Kenshin suggested, stoking the young kunoichi's excitement.
Hearing such a generous offer, Kasumi pondered silently for a few seconds, then said, "No, that won't do. No one should touch me 'there.' Even if you offer to let me go right now, I won't agree to that. I just can't." Kasumi sighed and shook her head.
"Fine. I can touch you anywhere except your intimate holes. Good?" Kenshin said with a smile. He enjoyed embarrassing the proud daughter of the Nara Clan, and he was having a great time.
Hearing about "intimate holes," Kasumi blushed furiously and called Kenshin a "fool." Then she sank into thought. She remembered the first game, and upon careful reflection, she became more and more convinced that Kenshin had simply gotten lucky. Either that, or he had memorized every move from the start and could run through hundreds of combinations in five seconds, turning it all to his advantage. Even the great elder didn't have that kind of intellect, so she decided Kenshin had definitely been lucky.
"Uuuuf... Fine, but besides not being able to touch me 'there,' you're forbidden from removing or slipping under my clothes in any way. If you break that rule, I'll bite off my own tongue and die right then, got it?!" Kasumi said in a serious voice.
"Fine-fine, no need to do anything to yourself, sweetie. Above all, I don't want anything to happen to you," Kenshin said, and stroked the girl's hand.
Kasumi calmed down a bit, and for some reason, Kenshin's words made her feel so warm and soft inside that the prospect of letting him kiss and touch her body didn't seem so horrific anymore, though it was still far from pleasant.
The second game went almost exactly like the first. Except that Kenshin had to put in a bit more effort and concentration. Kasumi fully lived up to her clan's prestige.
This time, Kenshin started outmaneuvering Kasumi not at the end, but in the middle. With each move, he backed her into a corner. It was very hard for him to maintain x100 concentration to think through every next move, but in the end, he checkmated her again, and Kasumi nearly burst into tears from frustration. She was a very proud girl and hated losing, especially to such a cheeky scoundrel who just waited for another chance to pin her against the wall and grope her young body with impunity.
"How did you do that?! You couldn't have gotten lucky twice!" Kasumi blurted out.
"Everyone has their secrets. Let's just say my mind is stronger than the famed Nara Clan mind," Kenshin replied with a smile, planning to poke at her pride and set up another round.
"You scoundrel! If my uncle Shikaku were here, you'd lose in twenty moves!" Kasumi exclaimed. Anything related to the clan, especially their intellect that everyone was so proud of, was absolute taboo. Every clan was incredibly proud of its traits and didn't tolerate mockery.
"Eh... If your uncle Shikaku showed up here, the mark of his great intellect would be that after losing to a 'nobody' like me in your eyes, he'd kill me with one strike, and no one would ever know about his defeat."
Kasumi had nothing to say to that. She wasn't a little girl anymore and understood perfectly well how things worked when it came to achieving goals. Even in the clan, they'd taught her manipulation, cunning, and deception, explaining that sometimes it was far easier to poison an enemy or take someone dear to him hostage than to fight head-on. That was practiced everywhere and always, while noble do-gooders ended up in ditches.
Shikaku had cited Minato Namikaze to little Kasumi several times as an example of a great man and no less great shinobi, one of the key figures who ended the Third Shinobi World War, and a great benefactor of Konoha who saved it from the strongest bijuu, the Nine-Tails Demon Fox.
However, at the very moment he repelled the Nine-Tails Demon Fox's most horrific assault, Shimura Danzo, a Kage-level shinobi with a sleeve full of aces, didn't make his move. And after Minato and his wife repelled the Nine-Tails Demon Fox at the cost of their lives, Konoha repaid its benefactor by registering all of Minato's personal assets as Hokage assets and transferring them to the treasury, while the newborn son of this hero was left an orphan in a cheap orphanage.
Shikaku himself didn't like the situation, but it was beyond his authority. He didn't tell his little niece many secret details, but after little Naruto was born, his father's teacher, the Great Toad Hermit – Jiraiya – nearly started a real bloodbath in Konoha, furious at Danzo and the Supreme Council.
The heads of all clans and all council members with Elite Jonin strength arrived at the potential battle site. Jiraiya didn't want to fight comrades, many of whom he'd fought shoulder-to-shoulder with in the two previous wars, so Hiruzen put an end to the conflict, promising his student he'd care for the little son of the Fourth Hokage as best he could and not let him be turned into a weapon or experiment subject.
After that incident, Jiraiya was forced to leave Konoha practically forever, spending years on the village's most grueling reconnaissance missions, returning occasionally to check on little Naruto. He explicitly threatened Danzo that if he dared drag the kid into his vile plans, he'd stake his life on staging a "second Nine-Tails Demon Fox attack" on Konoha, and they'd see which Kage wanted to die to eliminate the threat.
Shikaku, like many leaders of other clans, lacked the qualifications to handle issues at that level. If all clans dug in their heels, they could overturn any village council decision, but most clans frankly didn't care about some jinchuriki of the Nine-Tails Demon Fox. They respected his father's feat and wouldn't mind raising him, but only if it didn't mean clashing with Danzo and half the village council.
For Kasumi, the Minato incident was a vivid example that you should only die for loved ones or your own clan, not for an entire village. She could imagine the consequences of "Great Grandpa" or the current clan head's death. The Nara Clan wouldn't see anything good ahead, just like the Uchiha Clan after no Kage-potential geniuses were born there for so long.
She naturally couldn't know it was deliberate policy first by Tobirama Senju, then Shimura Danzo, who did everything to crush Uchiha Clan geniuses in the cradle. In the end, the last clan head – Fugaku Uchiha – could hardly be called an Elite Jonin and was even weaker than Hatake Kakashi, after which their clan was "completely accidentally" wiped out.
Kasumi was sure of only one thing: nothing was more valuable than the clan's needs, and if she had to give herself for the clan's prosperity, she'd do it without hesitation. After meeting this enigmatic guy, that conviction started cracking. Kenshin had told her what no one else dared: she wasn't obligated to live for the clan and could do whatever she wanted, finally being the little girl who loved sweets and pretty outfits. But for now, that thought lingered only in the corner of the young kunoichi's mind, while the principles ingrained since childhood still held strong.