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Rain splattered down on the streets, amassing puddles and pelting the once sunny world into wet smelly submission. In the darkness of an alley, a man in a brown trench coat watched the passing cars running through the wet streets, and ducked his head to light the cigarette dangling out of his mouth. After a few test runs he remembered that it wasn't a cigarette in his mouth, he had stopped smoking a while ago, but the habit still forced itself on him sometimes. No, where there had once been a cigarette oh so many months ago, now there dangled a fishbone, a fishbone with a charred end after he had tried to light it for the third time tonight.

The man was tall and muscular, with dark eyes that seemed to encompass all of the misery of the world and turn it backwards and inside out, just twisting it around until it was no longer what it used to be. A dark red headband was pulled tightly around his scalp at his hairline, a kind of threat to those who knew what it really symbolized. And above this headband, perched beyond that tiny piece of fabric was a sight of magnificence. Standing high above his head, seeming to reach for the heavens was what looked to be a wicked mess of black hair angling around in every direction at once, but if the trained eye looked closely they would see the detail in the style, the way every strand was carefully cut and placed, held together with just the right amount of hair spray, moose, and styling gel. It was the hairstyle of the Gods, and the man knew it. For this man was Sagara Sanosuke, and he was a hair stylist.

Confessions of a Dangerous Hairstyle:

A Ruroni Kenshin Fan Fiction

by

C M Forde

Six Months Earlier:

"Sano!" Before he could turn around he felt himself suddenly get much heavier as a pair of small arms wrapped around his neck, and legs around his waist. He pitched forward and feel flat on his face as the woman on his back rode him straight to the ground. "Hehe...oops. Sorry about that sweetums..."

Sano just groaned, "Misao, I know you love me and everything, but these surprise attacks are really messing up my hair..." He felt the weight on his back lighten and he rolled over to look up at his girlfriend standing above him. A lot of his friends thought it was weird that a college aged man like himself was dating a high school girl, including Misao's parents. Which is why as far as they knew he was her tutor. The girl was very pretty, with ice blue eyes and dark hair that was cut mostly short except for a single dark braid dangling down her back. She was still dressed in her uniform, with the green miniskirt and sailor outfit that Sano just couldn't resist, and those knee socks were just kinky. The man smiled up at her brilliantly, "This is a really nice view Misao, I didn't know you had any black panties."

"Baka Hentai!" He received a swift kick to the side of the head from his underage girlfriend before she squatted down on his chest with a happy smile, "So what's the 'tutoring' for today? You're not gonna try that sex-ed lesson again are ya?"

Sano rubbed his already bruising scalp and shook his head, "You think I'm dumb enough to try that again? I do want to have children eventually you know, and repeated strikes to the groin are not the best way to ensure my seed takes root."

Misao blushed, "Children? You want to be the father of my children? That's the most romantic thing you've ever said to me Sano!" He grinned, he hadn't actually meant it that way, but if she wanted to take it that way it was all cool to him. More points on his side of the board. "But it was still perverted."

After the third time Sano caught Misao's fist with his nose a voice rang out from behind him, "Hey Sano! Misao!" It was Karou, Misao's best friend, and her foreign exchange student boyfriend Kenshin. Sano really didn't see what she saw in him, he was short, scrawny, pale, had an ugly scar on his face, couldn't crack a joke to save his life, and had the ugliest hairstyle in the world. It just looked so lazy, yanked back in that ponytail like that, with hair that startlingly red Sano would have figured the guy would at least have taken some time to try and make it look decent. Hell, the guy had to spend something like three thousand yen a week on hair coloring to keep it that shade. Karou on the other hand had great hair, and despite how it looked, Sano knew she had to spend a good hour and a half a day getting the ribbon to sit just right on her head. "So what'd you say this time Sano?"

Misao halted her beating long enough to hop off of Sano and give her friend a warm hug, "Ooh I didn't see you today in PE, where were you?"

Karou blushed slightly and Kenshin looked around like he didn't know what any of them were talking about. Sano just sat up and laughed, "Oh I get it, you guys were getting your own kind of physical education going on huh? Ken you dog you, I never thought you had it in you." The red headed Scottish exchange student immediately put up his hands and started mumbling incoherently about something that sounded like a lame excuse while his girlfriend just blanched and looked like she was about to pass out from blood loss.

But they were both saved by Misao's spinning roundhouse kick that knocked Sano back down to the ground, "Baka! Mind your own business!"

"I do mind my own business, twice a day since I'm not allowed to mind yours." More of the savage beating continued unchecked while Karou and Kenshin watched in pure amazement. Who knew that the human body could take such a beating and still manage to spout off perverted comments that just invited more pain? When it finally ceased, Misao had run out of juice about thirty seconds into the figure four leg lock, Sano sat up and slowly massaged his hair, "Alright, still good. It's gonna take more than that to mess you up isn't it buddy?"

His girlfriend was on her keister gasping for breath, "I swear you love your hair more than you love me..." She wheezed, "At least you treat it better anyway..."

Sano looked over at Misao and then shot to his feet, yanking the young girl up into his arms and bringing her face up next to his as he stared into her eyes, "You know that's not true. My hair is my pride, but you are my heart and my soul. I would give you the sun and the moon, the stars up in heaven if I could reach them, and present them to you as tokens of our love. When I look deeply into your eyes I can see myself reflected in those endless pools of blue and it makes me happy, because I want to be there, in those eyes, for as long as you can stand to look at me. You are the only thing that matters to me Misao, I would shave my head if you asked, but I know that you wouldn't because you love me so much."

She blushed deeply and found herself suddenly breathless, "Oh...Sano I..."

He shook his head, "No, don't speak. Let our kiss say more than words ever could." And in that moment he pressed his lips against hers and she nearly swooned, he was so romantic sometimes. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she pulled herself up into the deep sensuous kiss that he provided for her. It lasted for a lifetime while Karou and Kenshin stared dumbstruck, and when it finally broke it took long seconds for Misao to regain her breath. Then she slowly broke away from him, hand to her chest as she felt her heart flutter, and immediately yanked Karou off and away to go have chat with her about how utterly romantic and cool that was.

While the girls were off doing their thing Kenshin looked up at Sano, "That was really touching. I never thought of you as one for poetry and romance, you really surprised me today Sano."

He shrugged, "I memorized that line from a romance novel, works every time. Those things are great when you need some kind of BS to get you out of the frying pan, or if you just want to get into her pants." Sano turned to look at Kenshin, who had just completed an Olympic quality face vault and smiled, "Now don't get me wrong, I think Misao is great, I really do, but sometimes ya need a little help to keep the romance alive. You understand right?"

Kenshin pulled himself off of the floor and sighed, "Yeah right..."

Sano shrugged and then nudged Kenshin with an elbow, "So Karou... What's she like huh?"

Kenshin blinked, "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. She looks all tight laced and stuff, but I bet she's a freak when the clothes come off huh? Is she a biter? She looks like a biter."

Whatever Kenshin was going to say, if he was going to say anything, was interrupted as the girls came back, both of them blushing beautifully. Misao was staring dreamy eyed at Sano while Karou looked kind of...angy. As soon as she was within reach of Kenshin her foot lashed out and nailed him right in the shin, which caused him to go hopping around on one leg wildly. "Why don't you ever say anything romantic like that to me you jerk? And quit hopping around like that, you look like a fire hydrant on a pogo stick."

"Sagara... Sagara Sanosuke am I correct?" The voice was cold as steel, monotone and deadly sharp, and it drew Sano's attention immediately. Standing behind him was a man easily as tall as he was, dressed all in black. His face was handsome in a very strange way, and somehow the wrinkles around his mouth and eyes created a strange X shape. But that isn't what drew Sano's attention, it was the four thin bangs that hung over the man's face in ideal unmoving beauty. The perfect balance of everything, they caught the light and reflected it while simultaneously absorbing it, and even as a brisk wind blew they stood absolutely still. They were a masterwork of hair care.

"Yeah, I'm Sanouske..." He couldn't draw his eyes away from that perfect hair, the man was an expert, or his stylist was. And despite his own hair's magnificence, he couldn't be sure that it could stand up to those four omnipotent bangs. "Who are you?"

"I have heard of your hair from an acquaintance. I see he was not mistaken, it is quite good." Slowly the man pulled a cigarette from his jacket and pressed it between his lips before lighting it with a box of matches, the classic way. Sano himself used a zippo, but that wasn't the issue. With bangs like that the hair spray used had to be still lingering in the air around his face, bringing a match that close to those bangs should have caused a massive fireball to erupt around the man's head, but nothing happened.

"How did you do that?"

The man just smiled, "Ahou..."

Sano was starting to get angry, there was no way someone could do something like that, it was completely impossible. Hair did not get that good without consequences, "Tell me! What do you use to keep your bangs like that!"

After a short puff of smoke the man grinned and reached inside of his jacket before producing a small green bottle, no label on it, it was obviously home made. Sano let out a gasp while Misao clutched tightly to his arm, unable to draw her eyes away from the silent man with the bottle. Karou and Kenshin were likewise speechless, just watching The man finally spoke. "It's my own special product, created and used solely by me, no one else knows the recipe. I call it, Gattoutsu."

Misao let out a loud gasp, but Sano just laughed, "Heh... I should have guessed. You're a pro, you wouldn't use anything just sold at a salon, but it doesn't scare me. Nothing can match up to my..." He yanked out a pristine crystal vial filled with a blueish liquid from his own pocket, "Futai no Kiwami!"

The man just smirked, "You think so do you? Well, we'll see. Meet me tomorrow at four at the Kamiya Hair Salon, we'll see who's better." He flicked his cigarette down to the ground and began to walk way, and Misao had to hold Sano back from running up there and ruffling the man's hair. No one threatened Sagara Sanosuke and got away with it. Nobody.

"Hey, isn't that your salon Karou?" Everybody turn when Kenshin spoke, and for the first time Sano saw the look on Karou's face, the pure terror of her features still etched around her beautiful eyes. Slowly she swallowed and nodded, all of the blood gone from her face, as if she had just seen a ghost. Kenshin seemed worried about his girlfriend, "Karou are you alright? Do you know that man?"

With a voice barely over a low whisper she answered, "That was... Hajime Saitou, ten years ago in the Salon wars he was known as the black wolf stylist. His Gattoutsu hair product is legendary, no one has ever found anything that could beat it. I met him once, he visited my father's salon and challenged him to a duel. My father never recovered, I was only five at the time but I remember it like it was yesterday. He's a demon Sano, a demon!" Her eyes went crazy after that and she rushed him, grabbing onto his jecket, "Don't do this! He'll destroy you!"

After Misao yanked Karou off with some exclamation about keeping her dirty hands on her own man Sano smiled and straightened his jacket. "Don't worry about me, I'm not afraid of him. No one's ever beat my Futai no Kiwami, and no one ever will."

Author's Note: And so begins the epic saga of love, jealousy, mystery, bloodshed and hair. Next time, Sano and Saitou duel it out in the Kamiya Hair Salon. Will Sano prevail? Or will the Balck Wolf Stylist claim another victim in his reign of terror? Who is the mysterious woman who will try and steal Sano's heart away from Misao? Will Kenshin have more than just two lines? Will Misao ever stop punching her boyfriend? Will any more of the Kenshin-gumi show up? Stay tuned for part two: Duel at Four!