Disclaimer: All right, some quick points. YES I KNOW IN THE SERIES KENSHIN IS BATTOUSAI!!! He's not in this, deal with it for the love of crikey and stop pointing it out, you're making me cry! The second point? It's been pointed out to my by a contentious viewer that I have been spelling Kaoru's name wrong for pretty much this whole time. Once again, oops. Besides that, on with the show! Oh, and I don't own Ruroni Kenshin, any affiliated characters or a big wide brimmed zebra striped hat.









Confessions of A Dangerous Hairstyle:

A Ruroni Kenshin Fan-Fiction

By

C M Forde









It smelled faintly of urine and hard liquor with the subtle hints of opium and used condoms. Sano frowned terribly and crossed his arms, "What the hell is this place? A crack house or a brothel?"

"A brothel." Kenshin's response was instant and terse, completely unexpected by Sano or Kaoru, who had insisted on coming along despite Kenshin's protests. Sano figured that now she had wished she had been more understanding. The red haired man strode through the hallways of the dilapidated building, the kind of place Sano had crashed a few times, before he had met up with Misao and the others. It gave him some unsavory flashbacks. Their march was accompanied by the booming cadence of headboards against walls and squeaking bedsprings. Sano stole a glance back at Kaoru, who was taking this all much better than he had thought she would. Misao would've been freaking out already.

"Can you tell me more about this Hiko guy we're supposed to be meeting here?" Sano asked as he kicked aside a sake bottle that was filled with something most definitely not sake.

The red haired man shook his head, "Just wait."

Sano didn't have a hell of a lot of choice, so he did what he was told, coming up to a door with a rusty 304 hung on its dirty surface, the 4 upside down. Kenshin knocked twice and was answered by a surprisingly lucid voice from the other side.

"Wait." Inside the room, Sano could hear something he almost recognized. The walls were thin and rat infested, leaving most sounds completely free to hear even from down the hall. There was something wet, a sloshing sound almost that could nearly place, then a sudden gagging cough. Sano blushed despite himself and turned to Kaoru, who had also turned a shade of red that reminded him of a tomato. The door opened and a young woman with bleached blonde hair came out, wiping at her lips with the back of her hand. Kenshin pushed the door open and stepped inside without an invitation. Sano and Kaoru followed, and they were in the presence of Hiko.



There was a beep. She could almost place it, so familiar to her, but it stayed on the edge of her memories. She half realized the beeping had been her constant companion through this twilight existence she was living, just a dim reflection, a slideshow of her past. Everything came in flashes, still pictures that served to remind her who she was, before it had happened. But what had happened? There was a beep. She couldn't remember, something about a bomb perhaps? No, it wasn't a bomb, she was sure of that. But it had been something violent, had she died? She must have, that's why it was like this. This half conscious surrealist vision of who she used to be. She had died. Being dead wasn't anything like she had pictured it to be. There was a beep. Maybe the beeping was God. No wonder so many books had been written and there were so many interpretations of God. No one was going to believe God was a beep that kept you company in the afterlife. It was very under whelming. No holiness to it, no power she couldn't fathom, just a rhythmic beep. It sounded almost like… Her eyes snapped open, and she stared at the ceiling. There was a beep.



Hiko was not what Sano had expected. He was a tall man, and not as old as Sano had imagined, though if he had trained Kenshin then he must be at least in his sixties, though he didn't look a day over forty five. He had piercing eyes, accusatory eyes that seemed to judge you even as you stood there before him. He had long black hair done in a ponytail that hung down his back, ratty looking and unkempt, but almost perfectly so. He was big, there was no mistaking that, his bulk dwarfed anyone Sano had ever met before, Hiko looked like a professional bodybuilder perhaps, the kind of guy who spent all of his time in the gym making everyone else feel inadequate. And he wore a cape, exactly not the kind of thing you would expect a man like him to wear, but it fit, pristine white on the outside, blood crimson velvet on the inside. And atop his head, above those deadly eyes and the grim line of his mouth, was a wide brimmed hat, white with black zebra stripes, and a huge artificial red feather jutting out for what seemed like a mile into the air. Sanosuske the Stylist, meet Hiko… The pimp.

"Well if it isn't my good for nothing little girly boy of a student. Haven't you gotten any platform shoes yet shorty?" As he spoke he zipped up his pants, further proving Sano's theory about what those sounds might have been. His room was a perfect replica of American 70s posh galore. Green shag carpet, waterbed, wood paneling, the walls a sickly yellow that somehow made Sano nauseous even when he closed his eyes.

Kenshin merely bowed, "Master, I have come to ask you to repay the debt that is owed to me."

Hiko scoffed and grabbed an open bottle of sake sitting on his triangular coffee table with the fake wooden surface and steel legs. "I don't owe you shit you little runt. I paid that debt off years ago. Now get out of my sight, you smell like rancid fish." He eyed Sano as he poured up the sake, "Probably this bastard. What is he, a fisherman? Your boyfriend I bet. I knew you were a fruit."

Sano growled and tightened his fist, "Hey you son of a bitch, nobody talks about me like that."

Hiko laughed, "Well obviously somebody does you queer son of a bitch. Now back off, I don't do guys."

Sano started to advance, but Kenshin's hand on his chest stopped him. The Wolf of Mibu calmly knelt down on the floor, "Master, this is urgent. Your assistance is dearly required. This unworthy student asks a boon of his glorious master, that you should assist him in his time of need."

Hiko swallowed his Sake calmly and leaned back in the paten leather couch, "Get off your knees unless you plan on sucking me off." Kenshin stood and Hiko glanced past the two of them to look at Kaoru, who was staying by the door. He frowned quite visibly and shot a look to Kenshin. "Lesbian?"

"No."

He nodded and waved at the chairs, "Sit down. I'm tired of you standing there like that, I'm not used to you being taller than me runt." Kenshin merely nodded and took a seat, in one of the plush recliners arranged around the table, Sano followed suit, but Kaoru seemed reluctant to touch anything. Hiko poured himself another drink and looked at Kenshin, "So what's this about anyway? You want fruitcake here to train with me or something?"

Kenshin shook his head, "There's no time for that. This is about Battousai. He's reemerged and seems to be wanting to start The Salon Wars over again."

Hiko shook his head with a grunt, "Battousai this, Wolf that. Don't you two ever call yourselves by name anymore? It's like you pretend you don't even know each other. You have to be willing to accept your past, I told him the same thing."

Kenshin started forward, "Battousai? You saw him? When?"

Hiko shrugged while he finished off his cup and poured himself another, "Two weeks ago. He said something about a Juppon-Gatana. He wanted to recruit me as a member, to 'Help start a new world' he said."

Sano cringed. This was bad; if he was a Juppon-Gatana then they could all be as good as dead by now. Gunmen could be waiting just in the other room, waiting for the signal to come in and finish them all off. Kenshin just nodded solemnly, "What was your reply?"

Hiko swallowed the sake in his cup and tossed the now empty bottle into a pile of them in the corner, "The same reply I'm going to give to you. I'll think about it. Now get out of my apartment."

Again Kenshin nodded and stood up, motioning for Sano and the others to follow, but Sano didn't. Instead he stepped forward and slammed his foot onto the table, "Listen up you drunk son of a bitch, those bastards at the Juppon-Gatana tried to kill my girlfriend, and they've disappeared another of my friends. I don't know who the hell you think you are, treating us like we're less than shit, but I'm about tired of it. If you're not with us, you're against us, and I'd rather not have you as a liability."

Hiko's eyes narrowed, "Liability? That's a pretty big word for such a small little boy." He stood up, easily outweighing Sano by at least fifty pounds of muscle, and glared into his eyes, "Get your feet off my table."

Sano swallowed hard, he hadn't been planning on this, and he had been so angry that he hadn't adequately thought this through. But it was too late to back down now. "What if I don't?"

Hiko smiled and sat back down, "Then I'm going to have to clean my table." Sano felt his temper waver. There was something about this guy he sincerely hated, and there was obviously something dangerous about him. He would've pushed it, to see how far he was going to go, but Kaoru took his arm.

"Come on Sano, let's just go." He frowned and nodded, keeping his eye on the smiling Hiko as they left, Kenshin closing the door behind them.

Hiko's smile widened somewhat, and he heard a groan from the room behind him. And through the paper-thin walls eroded by decades of termites and rats, there was a beep.



"Aoshi-sama, are you sure you're alright?" The tall man pulled on his jacket without even wincing, though Misao knew his shoulder must have been hurting him terribly. But he ignored the question, which obviously meant that he was feeling well enough to keep going. Misao was worried through, the doctors had said it wasn't serious, it had gone straight through without hitting anything, and had just stitched it up and told him not to have any strenuous use of that arm. Misao had the feeling that he wouldn't be listening to that advice, the same as he wasn't listening to the advice given him to stay in the hospital for at least a day.

"Aoshi-sama, what are we going to do?" He tightened his jacket around his shoulders and looked in the mirror on the door, checking his appearance. 'You're gorgeous,' Misao would have said, if she were braver. It was funny, no one had ever called her a coward before, but now here she was calling herself one for the way she was around Aoshi. Why couldn't she just come out and say things like that? She always had around Sano. This wasn't like her at all.

"Misao, you called for the taxi?"

She nodded; they were heading back to the Oniwabanshu compound to pick up his car. He told her it wasn't safe for her anywhere else. He wanted her to stay there until the Juppon-Gatana had been dealt with. She had asked about her family, and he had told her it was better not to get them involved with any of this. He couldn't protect all of them after all.

They walked out of the hospital room, and Aoshi signed himself out at the nurse's station. Misao wanted desperately to latch onto his good arm, to feel his protective embrace around her, keeping her safe, but she didn't dare. He didn't love her, he was engaged to Megumi. The same Megumi she had wished dead a few hours before in a hurt rage at Sano. She felt so ashamed of that now, and though she knew it wasn't, it still felt like it was her fault that the older woman had disappeared. As they approached the Taxi Aoshi paused in mid step. Misao started to walk by him, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her beside him. "Aoshi-sama, what's wrong?"

He ignored her and raised his voice, "Alright, who are you?"

The taxi door opened and a young boy around Misao's age leaned out with a cheerful smile on his face. "Shinomori Aoshi, Makimachi Misao. I've heard oh so much about you. It's really a pleasure to finally meet you in person, though what you did to poor Hoji was a real shame."

Aoshi frowned deeper than he usually did, "I don't know what you're talking about. Who are you?"

The boy's smile never wavered, "How rude of me, I'm sorry. I was just so excited. My name is Soujiro; I'm a member of Juppon-Gatana. It would be a pleasure to challenge you to a duel. But your arm looks like it hurts your terribly. I am afraid I can't reschedule this however. I really hope you don't mind."

Aoshi nodded while Misao looked on, "Alright. It's your funeral."

Soujiro just smiled.









__________

Author's Note: Have questions been answered? Probably not! But more and more mysteries arise as we stare into the future. Can Aoshi defeat Soujiro the smiling boy, even with his weakened arm? And what part does Hiko have to play in all this? Questions arise and arise while so few are answered. Next time, anticipate the return of Megumi, though in what form I cannot say. But be prepared for anything in the next chapter of Confessions of A Dangerous Hairstyle: Two Masked Faces!