Disclaimer: Don't blame me if the story's gotten dark, blame yourselves for interpreting it that way! It's still a comedy; you're just missing the jokes! And I don't own Kenshin, his buddies, or his skivvies.









Confessions of A Dangerous Hairstyle:

A Ruroni Kenshin Fanfiction

By

C M Forde









Blood. Everything and everywhere it was just blood. Something had happened, something terrible that she couldn't comprehend. Like the sudden and dreadful bang of a drum it had come. One two. Here's death. Now she was covered in blood, sticky slick, thick and red. Her hands, droplets of it dripped from her fingertips onto the ground, like a final rain come to doom upon the Earth.

Bang bang. It's all over.

One two. Nothing left.

Somewhere someone was screaming, maybe it was her, maybe it was someone else. She was transfixed on the blood. Shock and pain. Something else cut through the too thick fog in her mind, a voice she recognized as all too familiar. Her name perhaps? Someone was calling for her. Too late she guessed, so much blood. Falling from her hands. Drip drip. Bang bang. Good bye.

"MISAO!!!" Her head snapped up, it was Aoshi. His eyes burned, an inferno incased in ice, warmth in the frigid recesses of his soul. He was here, but she was gone. It was all over now. Quick as lightning, hadn't even seen it coming. The car had stopped, the window had rolled down.

One two. Bang bang.

His hand struck her face hard, pain ripped across her cheek like a fire through the plains of her mind. The fog lifted in a sudden rush, clarity restored through the force of his hand. That slap had hurt, but it was all that hurt, she felt fine. Her thoughts wrapped themselves around that for a moment and snapped to an immediate conclusion. The blood wasn't hers. "Aoshi-sama!"

He stood over her; his jacket was ruined, pristine white turned red. An explosion of skin and cloth and blood where his shoulder was. His eyes told her all she needed to know, he would be fine. He would always be fine; there was no question about that. "You're not hurt." It was a statement in his same deep voice, like hearing a glacier crawl across the land, deadly cold and eternally steadfast, unstoppable. "Call the others, I need to get back home." Misao nodded and he added quietly, "Megumi will take care of this."

Something she couldn't explain lurched inside of Misao. Megumi. He'd always go back to her wouldn't he?



Sano was out the door before anyone else could move, but halfway down the street Kenshin had caught up with him, and they both saw Aoshi, a wound on his shoulder bleeding down his clothes, and Misao next to him, looking like she wanted to help support his weight, but didn't know how to go about doing it. "What happened?!" His heart was in his throat; pulse beating in his ears like a rock band that only knew one song.

Misao said something incomprehensible, she looked panicked, and by the way Aoshi was bleeding he couldn't blame her for it. After a few confused outbursts about a car Aoshi answered him much more calmly than Sano would have been able to do in his situation. "The Juppon-Gatana I think. They tried to kill Misao, I got her out of the way."

Anger flooded through Sano, and he was ashamed of it. It was completely irrational, but he couldn't fight it down. I'm the hero. I'm HER hero. Not you with your pretty boy face and you're too cool attitude. You aren't supposed to keep her safe. I am. I AM! Kenshin's hand on his arm eased him for a moment, the red haired man collected in a perfect calmness. "If Misao was the target then it is obvious they mean revenge for Shishio. Aoshi has most likely been targeted as well."

Sano frowned, "Well ya think? Looks like they just about got him doesn't it?"

Violet eyes caught Sano in a dead gaze and he felt the air rush out of his lungs as implications started gnawing at his gut. "Those were meant for Misao, not Aoshi. They wouldn't have expected him here, they would have gone to where he they thought they would find him. They would have gone-" But Sano was already running, and the wounded Aoshi was close at his heels despite his pain. They both had only one thought on their minds. Megumi.



They didn't arrive on foot, but in Aoshi's car. Sano was driving while Aoshi sat silently in the back seat, Karou's makeshift bandage staunching the blood flow of his wound. They'd have to get him to a hospital pretty soon, but he insisted on seeing Megumi. It didn't seem like he was going to be able to. Parked in front of the front gate was a police car, one officer leaning inside to talk on the police band.

Aoshi was out the door almost as fast as Sano, but his wound slowed him, meaning Sano got there first, and the police officer found himself bent backwards over the hood of his car, his uniform in the grip of a spike haired madman. "What happened?! Where is she? What happened to her?!"

The officer tried to respond, but the constant shaking was keeping him from doing so. But soon Aoshi was there, along with Kenshin, and the smaller red haired man pulled Sano off. "My name is Shinamori Aoshi, I live here. What happened?"

The officer pulled himself straight and tugged down the front of his uniform, running hands over his chest to smooth out the wrinkles. "Shinamori-sama, we had a report of shots fired here about an hour ago. I'm guessing it was a prank call, we haven't found anything to suggest otherwise. My partner is checking with neighbors to see if anyone else heard anything." He gave Sano a wary eye, but the tall man had calmed down some, though he was still itching to get inside.

Aoshi merely nodded, "Thank you for your assistance, if you find out anything please let me know."

The officer nodded and looked at Aoshi's arm for a moment, but seemed to think better of asking about it. The way he talked, the way he walked, it was easy to think of Aoshi as a criminal, Yakuza probably. Sprawling tattoos underneath that big white jacket, a gun hidden beneath its heavy folds. He was a man that you didn't want to ask too many questions about if you wanted to stay in good health.

The compound itself was empty, completely. Everything left in the same neat and tidy order that it had been in the last time Sano had seen it. But there was something missing, and all of them knew what it was. Megumi was nowhere to be found.

"Maybe she went out shopping." Karou suggested, but none of them believed it. They had all heard the cop's story. Shots fired. Something had happened here, something with guns, something with the Juppon-Gatana.

"Aoshi-sama, we should get you to a hospital." A few drops of blood were scattered around the courtyard, proof that Aoshi was in no condition to be doing what he was doing in his state, to be searching for a woman they all knew wasn't here. He nodded finally and headed out the gate, hailed the police officer, whose partner had just arrived. Misao went with him, didn't even give Sano a cursory glance. Fine, go. It's not like I need you anyway.

"We should go too." Sano and Karou turned to Kenshin, the man standing by a tree that had once talked to Sano, though he didn't remember it. "We can do nothing here, but there's somewhere I have to go, someone I have to see."

Karou frowned, "Who?"

"An old man named Hiko. He has an obligation to fulfill, and a debt to repay." When he looked at them Sano realized he wasn't the same Kenshin he had been before the kidnapping. He was The Wolf of Mibu, a name feared and respected in the salon wars. A man of dangerous skill and deadly aptitude. "I believe that now would be the best time for me to call on that debt."

Sano's ball had tightened into a white knuckled fist, "I don't think we have time to go see some old man. We have to find Megumi, if anything's happened to her…"

Karou put her hands on her hips, "Oh, Megumi this, Megumi that. It's like you've completely forgotten about Misao."

He turned his head away, "Doesn't it seem like she's forgotten me?" Driving his point home, the police car at the gate started forward, taking Aoshi and Misao to the nearest hospital. Karou had nothing to say, but Kenshin did.

"This isn't the time for your petty games of the heart Sano. It's time to deal with the Juppon-Gatana. Misao has been shot at once, and Megumi may already be dead. If you don't do something soon you won't have anything left to feel this way about. Put it down for now, you can worry about it after Misao is safe, and to keep her that way we have to visit Hiko."

Sano frowned, "Yeah? And who is this Hiko guy anyway?"

Kenshin's glance changed seeing something so far back in the past that Sano couldn't begin to imagine just how much wisdom and experience was in that young looking body, "Battousai's master… And my own."



Bright light invaded downwards, a spiraling fracture of intense white that swarmed down through her senses and screamed through the synapses of her brain like a banshee come to torment her soul for the rest of eternity. And something beeped. Unfocused and untrained, her eyes wandered the unfamiliar recesses of her consciousness, her memories. Her father, with his warm smile and large hands, pulling her forward and upward out of bed in time for school. And something beeped. Her first boyfriend, with his strong arms and bushy eyebrows, giving her her first kiss in her room with her parents on the other side of the wall, the fluttering of the butterflies in her stomach as their lips met for the first of many times. And something beeped. The first time she made love, in her apartment during her second year of college. He was a sweet boy she had been seeing for over a month. They had lain down on her couch and soon everything was passion and pain, the warm rush of pleasure while the radio played an old sappy romantic CD she had put on a few minutes before. And something beeped. Then she remembered Aoshi, and the first time they had met, while she was interning at a hospital. Not quite a doctor, but wanting for it so much, trying so hard. He had had a broken arm, said he had fallen down some stairs. He didn't look like the type to fall down stairs. They had started dating soon after, moved in together a few months after that. The night he had proposed had been something completely unexpected, no ritual or ceremony to it. He had said it over dinner the same way he said everything. With casual indifference, like he didn't care if she said yes or no. He had been rich, handsome, kind in his own way, everything you could want in a husband. Of course she had said yes. Then they had made love all night, and she was content as the happiest woman in the world. And something beeped. She could remember the water all around her, swarming through her senses, then she broke free and looked up and there he was. Rooster headed and gape mouthed, watching as she came out of the pool. He was watching her like she was some kind of goddess. Watching her like Aoshi never had. Sagara Sanosuke. She could remember his smile, his voice, and the way his brow furrowed and his nose crinkled just slightly when he was angry. She had though that was the cutest thing in the world, had tried to see it as often as possible. She could remember the way his chest had felt that night when the alcohol had run like a river and everyone had dropped their inhibitions and followed their hearts. She could remember the way her tasted with the sweat on his skin, the way he had looked nude, the moonlight shining across his bare skin. Had she ever looked at Aoshi like that? She guessed she hadn't, she probably never would. There was something about Sano that she couldn't describe. Did she love him? And something beeped.



"Well?"

The blind man stepped forward, holding in his hands a box that looked like it might have contained some sort of Christmas present if the season had been right. "As you asked, the head of Shinomori.

The figure leaned forward and took the box from the man, watching him take a step backwards, sure of himself despite his blindness, dropping to one knee. The figure smiled, "How nice to have things go perfectly, wouldn't you agree Usuei?"

The blind man grinned a murderer's smile, "Like nothing in the world master."

The figure pulled the bright red ribbon on the top of the box. To: My Lord. From: Your Humble Servant Hoji. So read the card on the lid. Exactly as he had ordered, efficiency made things perfect after all. The lid was tossed aside and there was a ruffling of tissue paper, then silence. For long moments it was dead quiet, and the blind man appeared to be getting very nervous. "Usuei."

"Yes my liege?"

"You tell me that you checked the box yourself."

He nodded and bowed deeper, "Yes sir, it contains the head of Shinomori Aoshi, the man who shamed us."

"IMBICILE!" The blind man's head shot up, eyeless sockets staring forward from behind the blindfold he wore over them.

"What's wrong master?"

The box was thrown, missed its mark and spilled its gruesome contents across the floor. The half bald head of Sadojima Hoji rolled free from inside, a gaping, screaming mouth snapping shut as it rolled over the tile. The eyes were wide with fear, and across his forehead in black ink was a singular message.

Play Nice.



Half a block away, Hajime Saitou, The Black Wolf Stylist, put out his cigarette with a smile and walked away.









__________

Author's Note: Lots of things happening all at once in this episode, hope you can keep up because the pace is about to pick up by tenfold. The Juppon-Gatana are now down two members, but with Aoshi injured do the heroes still have a fighting chance? What debts are owed to Kenshin by this mysterious old man Hiko? Will it be a relationship of love or of hate? Everything seems to be falling apart, but who's going to put it back together? As The Darkness comes in to take over for the day, the saga continues next time. Episode Twelve: An Old Man's Sake.