Renji came out of his memories.
'I will always help the people I care about. This is my ninja way!'
He chuckled, 'That was so silly!'
'But..., I don't have any regrets. And, I don't want any in the future.'
'Now, I have another chance at life. I have enough power and skills to have a peaceful life in some corner of this world.'
His expression firmed.
'But, I don't want that. I have a real chance to interact with characters of the anime. People I felt regret for, over their destinies. I also need to figure out what's going on with the System. Afterall, it seemed to have been attacked.'
'Survival comes first, but I want more out of this life. I want to live! I want to be happy! I want to change the destiny!'
Wind howled outside the window as if responding to his powerful will.
---
Next morning, Renji checked noticed Ayame's hair recovered most of the energy he absorbed. Doing rough calculations, he realized, it would take around a week for full recovery.
'So, I need to pace myself when absorbing energy from someone's hair. Absorbing completely would cause the owner to become dispirited for a while. It may also have other negative effects.'
Carefully feeling her hair in his mind space he concluded, 'My instincts tell me, this new hair I grew for her cannot be considered Bonded Hair yet. It may take a while more for that. But the cut braid still feels like if fulfils the requirement to use [Echoes of Past] skill, although a bit less than before. If I want I can also use the second effect to summon an Echo of Ayame right now.'
Imagining the real Ayame looking at the Echo Ayame, he lips twitched in amusement.
Shaking it off, he helped her do her hair and fed her. Once she's gone off to play, he bid Teuchi and went towards the construction place.
There, he spoke to the supervisor.
"We are almost done, just some final touches. You can go in to check it out. Once you confirm everything in place, come back so we can finalize."
Renji thanked him and went in to survey the place. The house more or less looked the same as before, except for the new basement and the salon.
The salon is quite empty now, but he could imagine how it would look once fully furnished. Satisfied, he checked out the basement.
'This is good enough for now. But I need to make it more secretive. As I keep improving, someone would definitely start to suspect my abilities. A simple basement like this wouldn't be able to keep a shinobi out. Maybe I can use Kusnina's Fuinjutsu to secure it.'
Deciding that, he came out and signed the paperwork concluding the contract.
In the afternoon, he visited the market to see if they can deliver his order early. Lucky for him, some of the items already arrived, so he spent the rest of the day furnishing his home and the salon.
In the evening, he ordered some posters and flyers to be made to advertise the salon's opening day.
---
Finally, Sunday came. Today's the day the remaining items would be delivered. He oversaw the whole thing and spent some time setting everything up.
Finished, he looked at the result.
The salon is divided in to two parts. The first area has a reception desk, a waiting area with comfy sofas, refreshments, and magazines. The second area has a single rotating chair, the closest he could find of a styling chair, huge mirror in front and on both walls of the room. On the side, there's a compact sink for washing. And a lot of soap products neatly arranged on the shelves. They are the best he could find at this point. Overall, the salon had a cozy feeling.
There's another separated portion connected to the second part, completely closed off, that had it's own seat, but no mirrors. It had pure white walls, and floor, giving off a clinical feel.
Finally, he added a board he prepared outside the salon, "UNMEI NO KAMI", which translates to Hair of Fate or God of Fate. It's his play on his hair manipulation powers, and his desire to change fate.
Satisfied, he went into the basement and used [Echoes of Fate]'s second effect on Kushina's hair. The crimson hair slipped off his torso, where he always kept it as a layer, and came out of the sleeves. It quickly rearranged in to Kushina's iconic hairstyle and hummed. The translucent figure of Kushina appeared with the hair settling on her head.
Even though he saw it before, it was still unbelievable! He quickly focussed and willed to use her Fuinjutsu. The Echo [Kushina] immediately started creating seals all over the basement. She added privacy seals, alert seals, even self destruction seals, in case he failed to keep others out of the place.
From now on, it would contain all the extra hair he won't be carrying with him all the time.
He then thought about an issue he hadn't foreseen.
'For deceased shinobi like Kushina, her hair still felt the same as before, still can be considered Bonded Hair. But Ayame's hair started to feel just a bit less like that.'
'The concept of Bonded Hair is tied to the identity and recognition of the owner and people around her. If the owner is alive, the recognition of the collected hair would decrease over time, as the owner would recognize the new hair as part of them. With time, the identity would shift, and the old hair could no longer be used for my skill. This process seems slow, but it would definitely happen. Deceased shouldn't have this issue. Hmm... Let's try something.'
Following his thoughts, [Kushina] formed seals and created simple earth based mannequins. One of them shaped itself after Ayame. He took out Ayame's cut braid he brought with him, and manipulated it to unwind and insert in to the head of the mannequin recreating Ayame's twin braids hairstyle.
'It's a bit extravagant, but she's my first customer after all. And, my instincts tell me, this method would play a great role in the Bonded Hair concept.'
'By having arranged the Bonded Hair on a mannequin, or a body, that looks similar to the owner, it seems to trick whatever's responsible for the switch and slow down the process. Afterall, I wouldn't want a kunoichi's old hair to stop working with the skill after a while. It would force me depend too much on regularly collecting the kunoichi's new Bonded Hair, and may cause people to suspect something.'
'Although the hair of the deceased doesn't have this issue, I still prefer the living over the dead. After all, one is a replenishable source, and the other is not.'
'From now on, any Bonded Hair of still living kunoichi I want to use in the future, would need to be stored on a mannequin like this.'
With that decided, he left the place, and went to ichiraku to invite Teuchi and Ayame for a tour.
---
A/N: Another chapter without using AI! I feel like I'm getting good at this. What do you guys think?