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Confessions of a Dangerous Hairstyle:

A Ruroni Kenshin Fan Fiction

by

C M Forde









"Oh God yes! Just like that!"

"Misao, it's so tight."

"Just do it harder Sano!"

"It's too tight, I can't."

"Work it! Just work it!"

"It's starting to loosen up."

"Yes Sano, more more! Do it harder!"

"There, it's coming I can feel it."

"Me too, it's coming Sano, it's coming! Don't stop!"

Karou and Kenshin just stared at the pair with blank features tinted red with blush. Misao was seated in one of the chairs of the Kamiya hair salon, and Sano was behind her tugging at the end of her braid, trying to get the knot out of the tie at the end. With one final mighty tug Sano tore the piece of fabric free and fell back onto the floor gasping for breath. Misao turned around and looked down at him, "God, are you tired already? I swear, you have no stamina Sano."

Karou glared at her boyfriend, "Don't say a word short stack."

"Oro?"

It was 4:12 PM, the black wolf stylist was running late and Misao had been griping about her braid for the last half hour so Sano had to do something about it. The tall man pulled himself off of the floor and shook his head, "It's not that I have no stamina, it's that getting that thing off is a major workout."

She crossed her arms, "Well if that's the way you feel then I'll just get it off myself from now on."

"Honey, you know you can't by yourself, I have to have a go at it or it never gets off."

Karou, "Is there something wrong with this conversation Kenshin?"

"Not really, unless I help you can't get off eith-" The redheaded man's mouth was forcibly plugged with a bottle of hair spray before he could complete his sentence. Sano and Misao stared awkwardly at the unconscious foreign student and the dark haired woman who was currently acting just a bit too innocent for her own good. Gears started to slowly clank around in Sano's head, and eventually he would've gotten to what Kenshin had been talking about had his thoughts not been interrupted by a loud shout.

"Sano!"

He spun around, finger out thrust towards the doorway, "Hajime Saitou, the Black Wolf Stylist, I am ready to accept your challenge! Prepare to meet your fate at the hands of your better!"

"What're you talking about?"

"Yahiko?" Sano's little brother was standing in the entrance of the salon holding a box of doughnuts and looking very confused. Sano had totally forgotten that he had asked Yahiko to stop by and bring them all some dinner, he hadn't had a chance to eat since this morning, spending all day getting ready for this duel. Even Misao had been worried about him, and Misao hardly ever worried about anything, or at least she didn't seem to. "Oh, alright! You brought us some dinner. This Saitou guy still hasn't shown up yet, I bet he chickened out."

Karou shook her head, "I doubt that, The Black Wolf Stylist has never backed down from a challenge, he'll be here."

Sano just laughed, "Yeah, whatever. Anyway Yahiko, bring me some of that grub."

"Kenshin!" The doughnut box was dropped to the floor as the kid dashed past his brother and knelt beside the fallen man. "What happened to you?" With a hard tug he freed the bottle of hair spray from Kenshin's mouth and lifted his head off the ground, "Who could have done this to Kenshin?"

"She did." Karou immediately batted Misao's pointing finger away.

"Kenshin, don't worry. I'll avenge this. I'll find out who did this and I'll make them pay." Tears were already welling up in Yahiko's eyes, but all of the melodrama was cut short as the door to the salon closed with a loud thump. Sano turned, half a doughnut sticking out of his mouth and his dark eyes fell upon Saitou. The man was dressed exactly the same as he had been at the time of the challenge, his facial expression hadn't even changed.

All of time seemed to stand still as the man's eyes slowly took in the salon, stopping for a short instant on Karou with a slight grin. "Miss Kamiya, I haven't seen you in ten years. How's your father doing?"

"He's dead you jerk! He never recovered form his duel with you, you're a monster!" Misao barely caught the other woman before she took after Saitou with her bare hands. Sano didn't want to think what would've happened if Karou had tried to strike the man, but he was sure that she wouldn't have enjoyed the consequences.

"It figures, he was weak. And only the strong survive after all." The man passed his gaze onto Sano, "You're the one I came for Ahou, are you prepared to lose?"

Sano scoffed, "I don't think so old man. I'm going to show you what real hairstyling is."

A slight smirk, "Just don't cry when I break you like a twig. Now where's the subject?"

Sano froze, the subject! He knew he had forgotten something. In all styling duels there was a subject, someone whose hair would be manipulated by the duelers. It had completely slipped his mind. Saitou locked his eyes on Misao and started to speak when Sano interrupted him, "No, not her!" He couldn't subject her to the tortures of a styling duel, not her gorgeous perfect hair, he didn't trust this Saitou one bit. Who knew what he would do to her, no he had to find someone who could withstand the rigors of the match, and who wouldn't protest no matter what the pair did to him. Someone with an iron will, nerves of steel, and enough hair to turn into a masterpiece. Within thirty seconds Kenshin was seated in the chair in front of the mirror. Sano had tried to get Karou to do it, but she had screamed and ranted, so he picked Kenshin because the red headed man was still unconscious and thus couldn't protest the decision.

The two stylists stood on either side of the now smocked Kenshin, and Saitou spoke, "I'll let you have the first move Ahou, it should save us all time when you cut off his ear and finish this for me."

Sano gritted his teeth, the nerve of this guy, acting like that. "Don't worry Sano, he's just trying to psyche you out! You're the best!" The reassuring sound of his girlfriend's voice brought a smile to his face and he snatched a comb from the antiseptic receptacle and slowly dragged it through the still unconscious Kenshin's hair.

Saitou just frowned, "I've seen better technique from three year old girls."

Sano growled, "Yeah? Well why don't you just shut your ugly face and get to styling, or are you all talk?" The other man said nothing as he picked up a pair of scissors and began to snip around Kenshin's head. The movements were swift and precise, but it didn't even seem like he was cutting him, the scissors were just beside the hair, but weren't actually touching it. Misao started to laugh, but Sano knew better, he watched as tiny snippets of hair fell with each snip, alterations in the length so tiny that only a master stylist could have even seen them. This guy was good, he was really good. When Saitou stopped Sano immediately went to work himself, grabbing the scissors that were still warm from the touch of the other stylist and brought them to work. Where Saitou had been meticulous and subtle, Sano was blatant and bold, cutting off wild stretches of crimson locks that fell to the floor in torrents. Everyone in the shop was holding their breath, everyone but Saitou, who was lighting a cigarette.

"Are you done yet Ahou?"

Sano pulled back his scissors with a smirk, "Yeah, I'm done. You're up." Kenshin's hair had gone from long and wild to much shorter and evenly cut, Sano had no doubts in his skills, he was good, he was damned good. Saitou grabbed a container of hair gel and squirted some directly onto his hands before running powerful fingers through Kenshin's hair, scrambling up the mass of red and turning it into a rat's nest of tangled strands. When he pulled away Sano was left in awe of the work, it seemed so disheveled and torn, but Sano could tell that it was in fact done to precise specifications. No amount of wind would tear that hair down, but a heavy rainfall could still dampen it. It was good, it was damned good, but it wasn't perfect.

He took a deep breath and looked over at Saitou, who was smoking smugly, content that he had already beaten the young stylist, but Sano wasn't about to give up. He tore open a bottle of moose and sprayed it down upon Kenshin's head, slamming his hands into the mass and reworking it, altering the subtle manipulations Saitou had done without harming the style itself. That was one of the most important rules of styling duels, you could not harm the style, you could only improve upon what the other had done. If you were unable to improve upon it, the duel was over. Sano moved quickly, but very carefully, he couldn't allow himself to disrupt the style Saitou had started, doing so would mean defeat, but it was heavy work, trying to improve upon what The Black Wolf Stylist had preformed, it was an artwork. After long minutes of careful movement Sano pulled away from Kenshin's head, breathing heavily. That had been hard, he almost hadn't been able to pull it off, but he had managed to tame the wild style that Saitou had put on Kenshin's head, without disrupting the flow of it.

"You're better than I thought Sagara, but it's over now. Prepare to meet your end at the tip of my Gattoutsu." Sano cringed as the man pulled out the same bottle he had shown him before, and carefully dabbed some along his fingers. Then with a loud battle cry Saitou dove onto Kenshin's head and attacked his bangs, pulling and ripping across the unconscious man's scalp and coming away with a masterpiece that solidified instantly. The Gattoutsu had left Kenshin's bangs in a near impossible state, overhanging the man's forehead in a perfect arc. Sano had never seen anything like it, it was almost Godlike. Beads of sweat manifested across his brow as he looked at the Scottish man's hair, beating that... It was unthinkable, the Gattoutsu was unbeatable, there was no way... No! There was a flaw in it. "Make your move Ahou."

Sano slowly wiped the sweat from his brow and withdrew the vial of liquid from his pocket, his Futai No Kiwami. It was his only hope for defeating the Gattoutsu. The vial opened slowly, and a very small amount was dashed out onto Sano's fingers. He could only use one hand, his other one was too slick from sweat to risk tainting the mixture, and he had only one shot at this. "Go! Futai No Kiwami!" And with that scream upon his lips Sano went at Kenshin's hair. Saitou froze, the ash of his cigarette scarcely hanging on, there was a pained look in the man's eyes, as if he had just been stabbed. Sano pulled his hand slowly away from Kenshin's head and stared at what he had done. The bangs had been nearly perfect, it was true, but there had been a slight droop in the arc, a tiny imperfection in the angle they hung. The Gattoutsu hadn't been able to hold it there, but the Futai No Kiwami had been. The angle was perfect, a pure divisible of Pi. There was dead silence before Saitou dropped to his knees in defeat. Sano smiled, exhausted, and then was wrapped up tightly in Misao's arms as she cheered for him.

"Now you know what it feels like to be weak Hajime Saitou." The man looked up at Karou standing over him, he didn't seem to have the strength left to fight back. "Now get out of my salon, and never come back." The Black Wolf Stylist slowly got to his feet and then stumbled out of the door, grasping his chest.

"You did it Sano! You beat him!" He laughed as he spun Misao around.

"Yeah I did, I told you nothing could beat my Futai No Kiwami didn't I?" The two embraced tightly and then shared in a victory kiss as Karou looked on happily. Even Yahiko felt part of the excitement as he looked upon his brother in a new light. Everything was beautiful, it had all gone perfectly, and everyone was happy.

"WHAT HAPPENED TO MY HAIR?!?!?!?!?!?!"



__________

Author's Note: The first duel has been won, but more challenges still await Sagara Sanosuke as he begins his quest to become the world's greatest stylist. Next time: An new challenge is presented in the form of the Juppon-Gatana stylist league. Sano knows that as good as he is, he can not take them all on alone, he must bring in more stylists to help him in his fight. Will anyone come to Sano's aid? Will Yahiko finally come to respect his brother? Who is this woman who will try to steal Sano's heart...finally? Will Kenshin be subjected to more torture? Find out next time with part three: The Mysterious Woman!