Disclaimer: The long awaited and tremendously overdue chapter! Sorry folks, lots of stuff went down, plus I'm a lazy lazy cunt sometimes. Hope you still love me anyway. And if you don't, well.... WHO WANTS MORE NUDITY?!?!?!

Oh, and I don't own none of this Kenshin junk.

Confessions of A Dangerous Hairstyle

A Ruroni Kenshin Fan Fiction

by

C M Forde

Kenshin groaned and Kaoru felt her heart drop into her stomach. This was just like that little bastard, always making her come to his rescue. He was laying on the floor behind her, knocked unconscious by the man in the blindfold. But despite how much she wanted to run to him, to see if he was ok, there were other matters she had to attend to first. Namley, the woman sitting in front of her. Short, flared hair that was entirely too perfect, and a smile that Kaoru couldn't help but want to slap off of her face. Kamatari, one of the members of the Juppon-Gatana. The woman giggled, "Poor ugly girl. Do you really think you can win? I'm one of the ten best stylists in Japan. And what are you? Some little girl whose father was a bit player in The Salon Wars."

Kaoru's fist slammed into her palm, "Don't you mention my father you little bitch."

Kamatari put her hands to her cheeks in a mocking gesture, "Oh my oh me, whatever shall I do? The little ugly girl is mad at me. I think she's gonna beat me up. I'm soooooooo scared!" Her face immediately went grave and she snapped her fingers, "Usuei!"

The blind man picked up the prone body of Kenshin and clutched his fragile neck in two meaty paws. "Say the word and The Wolf of Mibu will never breathe again." He squeezed and even though Kenshin was knocked out, Kaoru could see him reflexively gasp for breath.

"Put him down!" Kaoru started to turn, and Usuei squeezed harder.

"Are you going to make me little girl?"

Even as she began to move she felt Kamatari's hand on her shoulder, then was cheek to cheek with the other woman, Kamatari's deep voice whispering in Kaoru's ear, "Don't do anything stupid now Kamiya-chan, we just want to play." Kaoru could feel her grin widen, and caught the flash of a razor blade from the corner of her eye.

"You want to know about my students? You mean little Shinta obviously." Hiko took another drink of sake and leaned back in the chair, the feather in his hat band seemed to be drooping now. Megumi tried to sit up, but the pain in her chest was too much, and she let herself lie back instead. The older man smiled roguishly and stretched one heavily muscled arm over his head for a moment, the gesture accompanied by the sound of popping bones. "He's good, maybe even better than Battousai. But he is also a damn fool."

"How do you mean?"

Hiko shook his head and crossed his arms, "He got involved in The Salon Wars when they started up. He figured he could change the wold I guess. Make a difference to all the little people or some kind of moronic shit like that. I tried to tell him it was stupid, but he wouldn't listen. Always an idealist. So he joined up, took on that stupid Wolf of Mibu title and turned himself into some kind of legend. What a buffoon."

All of that, from that little man with the cross shaped scar. Megumi couldn't believe it. She hadn't known Kenshin long, and she couldn't imagine him being anything more than the troubled kid she had seen tied to that chair with the woman lounging all over him. He looked so... Helpless. Hard to beieve he was actually older than she was, she had been just a little girl during The Salon Wars, and she just vaguely remembered them. "What about the war? What happened?"

Hiko grinned, "Funny, I figured the fiancee of a stylist like Shinomori would know more about it, but I guess you probably weren't involved with stylists much back then. You look more like a banker's daughter." Megumi's breath caught for a moment, how had he known? "Ten years ago there were two clans of stylists in Japan. The Shinsengumi were the older stylists, ones who continued to practice the old ways and the old arts. They were rigid, strict, unforgiving of failure and unwilling to change. Then there were the Meiji, a new kind of stylist that had come up, using new techniques and products, full of young, idealistic kids who wanted to move the country into a new era of hair styling. To tell the truth both of them were pointless. Most of their members were half crazed anyway, more stuck on the idea that the other clan was wrong than that they might be right. It eventually escalated into all out war as stylists from both clans came together to duel to see who was better. Which would have been fine, if it had stopped there. But instead it got out of control. Honor was tossed aside for treachery. The best stylists were targeted and done away with brutally. Arson, beatings... More than a few ended up face down in an alley with a foot of steel in their back.

"Eventually it all came to a head when the leaders of the Meiji and Shinsengumi had a duel of their three best stylists each. Of course Shinta was there, he was my student after all, and stupid or not, anyone using the Hiten Mistsurugi Ryu style was going to be damn good. Well for a week the duels were waged until finally, after it was all said and done, Meiji emerged victorious. They've been the only clan in existence since then, the Shinsengumi having disbanded in shame."

Megumi nodded, "What about The Juppon-Gatana? Are they Shinsengumi?"

Hiko shrugged and took a long swallow from his jug. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sighed, "You'd have to ask them."

"Kaoru!" The voice jerked her glance away from Kamatari and Kaoru gasped as Yahiko came rushing through the door. Within an instant he had spotted Kenshin, and his voice leapt, "Kenshin! What are you doing to him? Put him down!"

Kamatari laughed out loud, "Well, it looks like we have a volunteer."

"I don't know who you are, but if you hurt a hair on Kenshin's head..." The boy was fuming, but Kamatari waved it off with a sigh.

"Heard it before sweety, don't you have anything original to say?"

Karou leapt forward, "Yahiko run! Get out of here now!"

But it was too late, the huge blind man had already grabbed the boy in one hand and with a careless toss sent him into one of the styling chairs. "We're all set up for a duel now." Kamatiari said, "You think you're ready for it little ugly girl? Or do you want to beg for your boyfriend's life?"

Karou had just about had enough of this crazed bitch, and was just about to let her know it in a flurry of words that would have peeled the paint from the walls when Yahiko interrupted. "Karou, who's this dude in the makeup?"

"What?"

Yahiko pointed at Kamatari, "This dude, in the makeup, who is he? Because he's really starting to get on my nerves with that ass shaking thing he's doing."

Kamatari's eyes were wide in shock and Kaoru just looked confused. "Yahiko," she said, pondering the boy's sanity, "That's not a guy."

The boy frowned, "Yes it is you freaking bimbo, he's got a big ass bulge in his kimono that's been getting bigger since I got in here. It's really starting to freak me out and I was wondering what you're doing talking to a freaky pedophile."

Kaoru looked down and sure enough, the woman she was about to fight had popped a tent. Kamatari raged and a straight razor almost seemed to materialize from nowhere in his hand. "You little bastard! I'm gonna cut you up so bad you won't know left from right!"

Yahiko ducked and spun the chair around, the razor deflecting off the steel frame. Kaoru moved then, and grabbed the closest thing to hand, a hair dryer. Yahiko was covering his head with his arms and the drag queen was furiously grabbing the chair, to send him spinning back into striking range. Kaoru had only one shot, and flipped the device onto high heat. Th blast of hot air from the dryer caught Kamatari right in the face and he shrieked before turning on Kaoru and coming for her. The young stylist ducked and the straight razor smashed through the line of styling products on the counter behind her, scattering them all across the floor, many of them cut cleanly in two.

Kaoru turned the hair dryer back onto Kamatari and blew the burning air straight into the man's face from point blank, blinding him and causing him to shriek in an entirely convincingly womanly manner. He jerked back, clutching his face and Kaoru gasped for breath, crouched and ready to move again if the wild razor came for her again. Usuei was still standing over Kenshin's body, watching the whole thing with a calm, bemused smile. He gave Kaoru the creeps. "YOU BITCH!!!"

Kamatari's scream brought her attention back to the man, who was holding his head back and away from her, "What have you done? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?!?!?!" He turned back and Kaoru gasped out loud. All of the drag queen's perfectly bobbed and waved hair, frilled to movie star good looks and just messy enough to be sexy, had felt the ravages of the hair dryer. It all stood straight up, blown back from his face and on end in every direction. Dark blue and purple highlights which had once been almost imperceptible now stood out blatantly, and now Kamatari's head looked like a rainbow colored zebra that had been struck by lightning.

Yahiko peeked his head above the protection of the chair and stated laughing out loud, "Holy crap! Look at the pedophile's hair! What'd you do, stick a fork into an electrical socket?" He took to both pointing and laughing at the same time, and Kamatari's gaze shifted.

Kaoru started forward, "Yahiko! Look out!" But the cord on the hair dryer caught her up and she almost fell. She wasn't sure if she would have made it in time anyway. The razor was little more than a flash of light as the steel reflected the dim illumination of the flourescent lights in the ceiling. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, Yahiko's eyes widening as the blade came for his head, Kamatari's roar of outrage as his eyes locked onto the boys. Yahiko pulled his arm back and started to duck, Kamatari's aim changed in mid swing, bringing the razor down in a perfect angle with the boy's head. Then the collision and the blade cut away half of Yahikos...

"Hair!" Kamatari took a sudden step back, staggered as he looked at what he had done. Yahiko was heaving for breath, wide eyed and pale as sweat trickled down his brow. His wild frock of hair had been sheared away on one side in a perfectly straight cut. His hair looked almost as hideous as Kamatari's himself. The transvestite stared blindly at what he had done, "No... No that's impossible. It can't... NO!"

Kaoru dropped the hair dryer with a clatter on the ground and strode right up to the chocked man and grabbed him by the front of his kimono. "You see that? You screwed up the subject's hair! You lost! It's over, Kenshin is mine! You hear me?"

"NO!" Kamatari screamed, and started to struggle, but Kaoru had had enough of this bastard. She slammed her right fist into his perfect girlish good looks and spread them generously all over his face. The queen apparently had a glass jaw and slumped down to the ground, unconscious or unwilling to move.

Kaoru immediately went to Yahiko and embraced him tightly, "Oh God, are you ok? He didn't hurt you did he? Yahiko, talk to me."

Yahiko swallowed and shook once, trembling all over, then screamed, "That mother fucking pedophile fucked up my fucking hair!" He pushed Kaoru away from him and stared into a mirror, touching what was left of his mane. "Nonono... This isn't fair, it takes it hours to look like this. Everything just right. No, that fucking son of a fucking fuck fuck. I'm gonna fucking kill him. I'm going to rip his fucking dick off and fuck him with it."

Kaoru backhanded him across the head, "Watch your language! I won't have you talking like that in my salon!"

As Yahiko spun on the girl and began telling her where she could stick her salon, a low grunt from another part of the shop brought both of them spinning. Usuei stood with his arms crossed, that same freaky grin on his face, "You're not done yet children, there's still me. Do you think you can take me as easily as you did Kamatari?" His devilish grin widened and he stepped forward, muscles bulging as he popped his knuckles, "This is going to be a fun game."

"Yes... It is." Usuei stopped and turned. Kenshin stood behind him, in his hand was a pair of scissors, tightly clenched, and his eyes, by some trick of the light, seemed to glow the brightest yellow. The red headed man smiled then, and it was the smile of a predator stalking prey. As he spoke his canines clacked together, the gnashing of teeth and the snapping of bone. "Let's play."

Author's Note: Late and late and late folks, I know. I'd make excuses and explain, but no one wants to hear them! But it is finally here as yet another chapter of Confessions draws to a close. Shorter than usual, but hopefully full of all the action and suspense and humor you've been wanting! And still, no real questions answered, but soon! I promise! With Kamatari defeated all that stands between our heros and safety is one big bald blind guy! Alliteration danger! But with The Wolf of Mibu on their side, can they lose? It's all action and nudity next time with: Duels For Love! Kenshin vs Usuei and Misao vs Soujiro!