Disclaimer: We might actually be almost halfway done! Or we could be nowhere near finished! Or we could be on the home stretch! I don't know! Aren't you happy? Oh, and I don't own nuthin' but the plot, and not all of that.









Confessions of A Dangerous Hairstyle

A Ruroni Kenshin Fan-Fiction

By

C M Forde









"Well, what're we going to do now?" Sano leaned against a light pole and began fidgeting with his lighter, trying to get the Zippo to flame, but not having much success. The whole deal with Hiko had proven to be a complete waste of time, and now they were stuck without any sort of lead.

Kaoru sighed and looked at Kenshin, who was apparently deep in thought about something. This whole thing had something to do with Kenshin's past, but none of them were going to ask about it, it didn't seem the right thing to do just then. If he thought they needed to know something, he'd tell them. So Kaoru just shrugged, "I don't know Sano. It's not like we have any leads. I guess we just wait until they come to us again."

The tall man scoffed, "Yeah, that's a wonderful plan. Who's going to get shot this time? You? Maybe Yahiko? I'm not willing to risk that, we have to get them before they get us."

"Maybe they won't come back, maybe they're done."

Sano's cigarette flew into the street and he stepped forward, grabbing the front of her shirt, "Do you really believe that Kaoru? You think that killers like that are just going to leave us alone? They'll keep coming back for revenge until all of us are dead, don't you understand that?" As he screamed he felt a sudden pain in his wrist and he dropped to one knee with a yelp of pain. Kaoru took a step back and Sano looked up at Kenshin, who had a tight grip on his arm and was twisting it backwards.

"This is no time to panic and yell. And the next time you lay a finger on her you won't get it back." The red headed man let go of his arm and Sano jerked back, grabbing at his wrist and rubbing it. Kenshin had never acted like that before. Was this still him? Or was this The Wolf of Mibu talking to him? The stress was apparently getting to everybody, and Sano let it go.

"Yeah, right. Whatever." He was pissed, though he knew he had no reason to be. If Kenshin had done that to Misao Sano would've reacted the same way. But he couldn't help it. He was no good to them all right now. Standing up, he adjusted his jacket and turned away from them. "You guys just sit around doing nothing then, I'm going to go find the Juppon-Gatana and teach them what it means to mess with Sagara Sanosuke."

"Sano wait! We shouldn't split up like this!" Kaoru pleaded, but Sano was already walking away, and Kenshin's hand on her shoulder consoled her somewhat.

"He has to do things on his own, men do sometimes. Let's return to the salon, Sano can take care of himself."

She nodded. Kenshin was right, despite how dumb he could be, Sano could take care of himself, he had done fine on his own before he had met them, no reason to think he'd be any worse off now. But back then he hadn't been hunted by the Juppon-Gatana. When she and Kenshin returned to the salon, what awaited them was a complete surprise.

"Kamiya Kaoru and my beloved Mibu-chan." It was the woman, the one who had been fondling Kenshin when they had rescued him… God, was that really only a day ago? It felt like months. Years in the week since this had all started with Kenshin's kidnapping, so much had happened since then. But the woman Kaoru remembered with a hatred she couldn't name. She giggled then, eyes sparkling and too perfect hair cut short and flared. "Hello Mibu-chan, have you missed me?"

Kenshin frowned and glanced around the salon, but she seemed to be the only one there, the Juppon-Gatana had appeared for the first time with a lone agent. "I'm sorry, I don't believe we've met."

A sudden fire burned in the woman's eyes and she swept a hand across the counter, styling products flying through the air and scattering across the floor, "Don't play dumb with me you little midget! I know you remember me!" Almost at once though, the cool returned, the smile going back on her features, "I don't believe we've been introduced though Kaoru-chan."

Kaoru just crossed her arms, "Yes we have, you're Slut Girl right?"

The woman just giggled, "Such a dirty mouth to match such an ugly face. It suits you wonderfully." She laughed out loud at the glowering expression on Kaoru's face and leaned heavily on the counter, "My name is Kamitari, and I'm sure you remember my dear friend Usuei."

"Usuei?" Kenshin started to turn, but it was too late, he was gripped tightly in a chokehold by a large man with a blindfold over his eyes, a deviously evil frown across his lips. Despite how he struggled though, Usuei held him tightly, and then gave a sudden sharp squeeze and dropped the unconscious Kenshin to the floor. Usuei just laughed and Kamitari hopped off the counter.

"The master asked me to come pay you a visit Kaoru, after what you and your friends did to poor Hoji I think it was necessary."

Kaoru frowned deliberately and kept her gaze locked on the other woman, despite the fact that she wanted desperately to go to Kenshin and se if he was ok. "Listen up whore, I don't know who you think you're dealing with, but I'm the successor of the Kamiya Salon, and if you know what's good for you, you're going to apologize for even being here and leave before I get really pissed off."

Kamitari cackled and suddenly leapt over the arm rest of one of the styling chairs, daintily crossing one leg over the other and leaning back into the soft cushions, "And if I don't?"

Kaoru's knuckles popped, "Well then, we're going to have some trouble."



The hair was flying so quickly that Misao couldn't catch all of the movements. Aoshi had seemed fast when he had been styling her hair, impossibly fast, she hadn't even felt his snips and cuts, but that was nothing compared to this kid, this Soujiro who was cutting now. The two men had commandeered a nearby salon and Aoshi had shoved someone badly in need of a cut into one of the styling chairs. They had been going at it for the past two minutes, and it was obvious that Aoshi was losing. He may have stood a chance if not for his injured arm, but Misao doubted it. Soujiro was a blur of movement, his snips and cuts so fast that it was impossible to tell what he had done and hadn't. Aoshi was now just struggling to keep up, fighting his last against the inhuman boy. And through it all, neither of them changed expression, from Aoshi's somber frown to Soujiro's cheerful smile, not a facial muscle moved. It was like watching two men wearing masks; Misao could barely stand it.

"Aoshi-sama, you seem to be falling behind. Would you like to give up now, it would save you much exhaustion." Soujiro seemed genuinely to care about Aoshi, but all of them knew what it would mean if Aoshi gave up now. His life would be forfeit. The Juppon-Gatana were in no way going to let Shinomori's Oniwabanshu survive as competition against them.

Aoshi turned his head and spit onto the floor, sweat pouring down his face and collecting on his lips, forcing him to do so often. And on the arm of his jacket a red stain was swelling again, he had reopened his wound. "I'm not going to lose." Misao didn't believe it, and she thought maybe Aoshi didn't either, but he wasn't going to admit that, not even to himself.

Soujiro sighed and took a step back, tapping his right foot twice on the ground like he had been already, and then rushing forward, his scissors flashing to the subjects hair in a rush of steel that might or might not have happened. The only clue that he had even cut were the tiny strands of hair that floated down past the man's shoulders onto the floor. The boy with the smile tapped his scissors clean and stuck them into the sheathe on his belt. "It's over, I win." The subject's hair was perfect; anything more and it would be overdone. Aoshi had lost.

But the Oniwabanshu master wasn't about to believe that. "Don't be so cocky little boy." His own twin blades moved, one much slower than the other due to the bullet wound in one arm, and he clumsily cut a few more stands, and then with horror watched as one of the blades came back bloody. The subject started screaming and ran out of the salon, clutching at the side of his head, half of his ear lying on the tile floor. Aoshi sank to his knees then, and stared at the piece of flesh.

Soujiro stepped up beside him and patted him on the shoulder, "Don't be sad Aoshi-sama, you tried very hard. I was just better. I am sure that you would have lasted much longer if you had been well." Aoshi said nothing, though he dropped his blades. Then the boy stepped in front of him, "But after what you did to Hoji-sama, I must say that you do have this coming."

After what he had done to Hoji? It had been Saitou who had done that to Hoji, he and Sano, not Aoshi. Aoshi hadn't done anything wrong! Misao's fists tightened into white knuckled balls and she took a step forward, suddenly shoving Soujiro off balance and knocking him into a shelf of shampoo, sending both of them careening into the floor. "You smiling son of a bitch! Who do you think you are?" The boy caught himself as he fell, and stood up among the rolling hair products, his smile never having faltered.

"I am sorry Misao-san, I did not mean to offend. It is just that our leader has asked me to bring Aoshi-sama's head to him, as Hoji-sama's was brought."

Misao frowned, "Hoji's head? You mean hat little weasel is dead?"

This seemed to distress Soujiro somewhat, though he continued smiling, "Do you mean that you did not know of his death? Didn't you tell her Aoshi-sama? Hasn't she wondered how you acquired your wound?"

Aoshi didn't answer, he was still staring at the ear on the floor, so Misao answered for him, "Aoshi got that wound by diving in front of a bullet that was meant for me! Your people tried to gun me down and he saved me!"

Soujiro tilted his head to the side, "Is that why you're still alive Misao-san? I thought they just hadn't gotten to you yet. I wonder who killed Hoji-sama then."" He shrugged, "I will ask when I get back with Aoshi-sama's head. Please excuse me." He grabbed Aoshi's jacket and started to lead him towards the door, but Misao stepped in front of him, barring his exit.

"No you won't. You've still got to deal with me. I won't let you take Aoshi-kun's head."

Soujiro's smile widened somewhat, "Are you challenging me too?"

Misao frowned, "You bet your ass I am."



He beeping was a heart monitor, now that Megumi was fully conscious she recognized it immediately. But she wasn't in a hospital. Where was she? Upon trying to sit up she felt a searing pain and looked down to see her whole chest wrapped in bandages. Not the most effective way to treat a bullet wound, but effective. Though if she was right whoever had done this would've needed to do major surgery to fix her up completely. Looking to her left she saw a steel tray covered in bloody medical instruments and she figured that's exactly what had happened. On instinct she grabbed the scalpel. Not knowing who had done this, it was better to be armed. "Put that down, you're in no condition to use it." Her eyes shot up to a figure at the door, tall and muscular, wearing of all things a cape and a feathered hat.

"Who are you?" Her breathing came in sudden gasps and it hurt terribly to talk. The bullet must have punctured a lung; well there went all of her swimming for pretty much the rest of her life.

The man stepped forward and took a seat on a wooden stool at the foot of her bed, "Hiko. And you're Takani Megumi, the fiancée of Shinomori Aoshi of the Oniwabanshu."

"How do you know who I am?" She remembered the shot, that louse Hoji had good aim; she should be dead right now. If she was alive it meant that she had been treated on sight and within a matter of seconds. Megumi's eyes narrowed, "You were watching me."

Hiko just shrugged and took a sip of something from a large jug; from the smell it was Sake. "I saved your life. You should consider yourself lucky, it's not a favor I dole out very often."

"Why?"

He shrugged again, "My reasons are my own. Go back to sleep and try to get some rest. If things keep going this way you may be the only one of my idiot student's friends to live through this."

The pain in her chest kept her from shouting, but she did sit up and stare at him with as much menace as she could muster, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Your fiancée should be dead by now, and if he is then so is the little girl who's so infatuated with him. My idiot student and his little girl are most likely fighting for their lives in a losing battle. The only one I don't know about is that Sagara."

Her heart jumped, "Sano? What about Sano?"

Hiko smiled for the first time, "That one, I don't know about him. If he keeps acting like a total fool he's not going to live to see the sunrise, but he's got something in him." His smile widened, "I've got my money on him to at least see Battousai before the end. More than I'm willing to say for any of the rest of you."

Megumi wanted to ask more, but the man had left the room, and she couldn't go after him. So she laid back and stared at the half brown ceiling, rotting with age. Aoshi already dead, and Misao. He had probably been talking about Kenshin and Kaoru too. If they were all dead, that just left her with Sano. That damned moron … Her head fell to the side, dark hair drifting over her eyes as she whispered, "You show them what you can do Rooster Head…"



Sano kicked a bottle down the street, this was useless. What was he supposed to do? Misao was at the hospital with Aoshi, and he had left Kenshin and Kaoru. Meaning what? Meaning he was all alone wandering the streets and just plain being a useless punk. He glanced at his reflection in the mirror and sighed. Even his hair seemed to be falling apart. It wasn't standing up straight, instead insisting on drooping downwards towards the ground. Exactly how he felt at the moment. There was no chance for him to do anything, he should just go back to the salon and apologize.

Something caught his eye, a movement in the reflection of the mirror, a shadow running into an alley behind him. Sano turned, but it was gone. That hadn't just been his imagination had it? It couldn't be. He immediately dove over the guardrail and into the path of an oncoming delivery truck. The grill missed him by inches as he ran, leaping over the hood of a speeding Kia and across the median towards the opposite sidewalk. He just about made it when a passing moped clipped his heel and he went tumbling over the rail onto the sidewalk, his shoe left back in the road, smashed to bits by the traffic. "God Sano, are you turning suicidal now too?" He asked himself.

But then he got up and made his way into the alley, he knew he had seen what he had seen, but the alley was completely empty, except for a dumpster filled with trash up against one of the building walls. "I guess I am going crazy." He turned to walk out, but a voice from overhead called to him.

"You still have that Futai no Kiwami?"

Sano spun around and stared up at the fire escape at the ashen-eyed monk leaning over the rail. "Anji…"

"Sanosuke."









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Author's Note: A few questions answered, and a few more arisen! Don't worry, everything will come together eventually, promise. So concludes this chapter of Confessions of A Dangerous Hairstyle, leaving us with a three-way cliffhanger! Kaoru vs. Kamitari and Usuei, can she possibly win? Misao vs. Soujiro for the life of Aoshi, is there any way that she can save her man? And what of Sano and Anji? Who is this mysterious monk? How does he know Sano, and how does he know of the Futai no Kiwami? Some of these questions answered and probably a few more raised in the next chapter: Girl On Girl Action? Kaoru vs. Kamitari! Place your bets now folks, it's gonna be a knockdown drag out brawl.