Post by Aniu on Feb 18, 2016 22:34:58 GMT -6
Name: Himura Kenshin
known as the legendary hitokiri of the Meiji Revolution, Himura Battōsai (緋村抜刀斎), is the main protagonist and titular character of the Rurouni Kenshin series. Kenshin has spent ten years traveling Japan as a rurouni in search of redemption, carrying a sakabatō with the vow to never kill again. In early 1878, he arrives in Tokyo and takes up residence at the Kamiya dojo, where his vow is tested as he fights to keep the country's peace.
Kenshin's eyes, too, are unusual, being a deep violet. In the anime series, when Kenshin's eyes change to reflect his psychological reversion to Hitokiri Battōsai, their color shifts from violet to gold.
The Legendary Scar:
Kenshin's cross-shaped scar actually consists of two separate scars--a long one running diagonally down his face from just below the outer corner of his left eye to just above his chin and a slightly shorter scar running diagonally across it in the other direction from just to the left of the bridge of his nose to his left jawbone. In a redesign for the kanzenban, Kenshin's scar has been altered so that the lateral scar is longer, stretching across his nose to just below the inner corner of his right eye
Personality:
Soft-spoken, serene and humble, Himura Kenshin's usual demeanor suits his effeminate appearance perfectly. Always willing to put others before himself, both in terms of well-being and social standing, Kenshin usually refers to others with the noble honorific of "-dono" while nearly always speaking of himself with the particularly humble pronoun "sessha" (translated by Viz as "this one") and ending his phrases with the formal verb "de gozaru" (translated by Media Blasters as phrases like "that it is" or "that I am"). He carries himself with an air of amicable temperance, politely conversing with the people he encounters and freely giving his meager services to those who need a hand. Kenshin doesn't hesitate to put himself in the path of harm to shield those around him and often attempts to diffuse contentious situations with soft, calming words and a somewhat clownish personality involving feigned clumsiness and his trademark interjection "oro" (a unique pronunciation of "ara"). These traits lead those unfamiliar with Kenshin to view him as ineffectual or easily exploitable, but more perceptive people become aware in short order that his gift for placatory eloquence and veiled redirection of disagreeable situations suggest a deep wisdom belied by his youthful, unassuming visage.
Tormented by his past as a hitokiri, Kenshin has developed an acute appreciation for life and has taken a vow in his heart to never again kill another person and to do everything within his power to protect people from being killed. This vow is the defining characteristic of Kenshin's personality and the primary motivation for his transition into a rurouni. Despite this, however, he holds his own existence cheap and carries in his heart a grievous guilt that prevents him from becoming emotionally close to the people around him and compels him to a life of humble service and selfless personal sacrifice. Even with his prodigious skill as a prolific swordsman, Kenshin refrains from wielding his great combat strength for his own sake, drawing his sword only for the well-being of others when words fail to appease. Though unwilling to simply be killed by unrelated attackers, Kenshin freely accepts that any grudges against his past self are well-deserved; he remembers the face of every person he has wronged as the Hitokiri Battōsai and will face their hatred or judgment without complaint, believing that he does not deserve the same happiness as others. Spending much of his alone time in quiet contemplation of his past misdeeds and future retribution, Kenshin often ponders what the right path toward redemption is and laments each life lost due to his weakness. As such, he has a tendency toward trying to solve problems all by himself and alienating his would-be allies with secrecy so as to keep them from becoming involved in his risky endeavors. Having lived his own life carrying heavy regrets, Kenshin is reluctant to judge others for their personal actions, beliefs or mistakes and always offers hopeful encouragement so that those who have stumbled onto the wrong path might redeem themselves in the future. However, when forced to draw his sword against those who abuse their power and undervalue the lives of others, Kenshin's calm temperament gives way to a marked intensity capable of intimidating even other skilled swordsmen and can go so far as to become a powerful fury, despite his compulsion toward diplomacy.
But when his strength as a rurouni is insufficient to defend against a particularly threatening foe, Kenshin's restraint falters and his personality reverts to that of his days as the Hitokiri Battōsai. He immediately abandons his serene humility, reverting from sessha to the more abrasive pronoun "ore" while dropping de gozaru and oro from his speech. Kenshin's normally warm nature becomes cold and distant, allowing him to contemplate taking the life of his opponent and even make vicious, bloodthirsty threats. This side of his personality is one that Kenshin struggles to suppress despite the fact that it keeps emerging when he is under great stress and in need of extra strength. His greatest fear is that, one day, he will return to his former self and become a hitokiri once more.
As time passes, however, Kenshin learns to trust the people around him with the truth about himself as well as with some of the burden he bears, understanding that his life, too, is a human one and that his friends and allies would suffer greatly if he were to die.
Abilities:
Kenshin, in keeping with his soft appearance, appears to be quite skilled at domestic work as many of the Kamiya dojo residents comment favorably on his cooking and he is frequently seen performing such tasks as grocery shopping, floor and shoji door cleaning and laundry. While he does all of these things diligently and eagerly, it appears that his taste for them is an acquired one which he displays only to strangers and new acquaintances, as he was loath to perform even the simplest chore on Hiko Seijūrō's orders. However, it has also been shown that Kenshin's handwriting is not very good (with several characters comparing it unfavorably to that of Watsuki's).
Kenshin is also an unparalleled orator, capable of spinning eloquence or humor into an offhand comment and prone to making grand, moving speeches off the top of his head. While maintaining his cool, he is rather adept at philosophical arguments, swiftly seeing the cracks in any opponent's logic without missing a beat in conversation.
Kenshin is perhaps most well known for his almost inhuman swordsmanship. Having inherited the Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū sword style from his master, Hiko Seijūrō XIII, Kenshin's light frame allows him to use the style's "godspeed" to its fullest, moving so rapidly that he routinely outpaces the human eye. In the unlikely event his first strike misses his enemies, Kenshin uses his sheath to attack his opponent, making it almost impossible to beat him once he takes the battojutsu stance. His own prowess with Battōjutsu earned him his infamous moniker.
Outside of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū, Kenshin has displayed independent sword techniques which are indicative of his own acquired skills:
Miscellaneous techniques
Modoshigiri
The most skilled swordsmen using the best of blades were supposedly able to slice an object in two and rejoin the halves together, as if it were never cut at all. Kenshin demonstrates this when he cuts a daikon and then reforms it back together. He doesn't cut it with his sword, but rather a kitchen knife, since his sakabatō was broken at that time.
Zantetsu
The most skilled swordsmen were purportedly able to use their swords to cut through steel. Kenshin states he can use it anywhere except underwater.
History:
Early Life
Kenshin is born into a peasant family under the given name of "Shinta". After losing both his parents to cholera by age seven, he is sold into slavery. With his life turning for the worse, he is taken under the custody of three young women who are fellow slaves; Akane, Kasumi, and Sakura, and group together to take care of him in the face of being a child slave. Later on, the slave-traders' caravan is attacked by bandits who kill all of the peasants except for Shinta, who is saved by a skilled swordsmaster named Hiko Seijūrō. Killing the bandits, Hiko suggests to Shinta that he travel to a nearby village and start rebuilding his life. Hiko travels to the same village, but after spending an evening there and hearing no news of Shinta's arrival, he assumes the boy committed suicide. He returns to the site of the massacre with the intention of burying the bodies of everyone who died there. When he arrives, he is shocked to find that, not only had Shinta not committed suicide, but he had spent the previous night burying the bodies of everyone at the site, including the slavers and the bandits. Impressed by the boy's gentility and kindness, Hiko honors the gravestones of the young women who gave their lives to save him, and renames the boy "Kenshin", as he felt that the name 'Ken' (sword) and 'Shin' (heart) were more fitting for a swordsman. He then informed his new ward that he would teach him everything he knew about swordsmanship.
After a few years under Seijūrō's guidance, Kenshin learned of a revolution that was occurring all over Japan, one whose members professed to the ideals of removing the oppressive shogunate from power and ushering in a new era of peace for the common people. Inflamed by this news, Kenshin desired to join these revolutionaries in order to put his swordsmanship to use in ushering in this new era. Hiko however, was unmoved by both the news of the revolution and his student's passionate desire to play a role in it. He attempted to explain to Kenshin that war was not so simple as his student believed it to be, and that Kenshin, for his own sake, should not get involved. Furthermore, he informed Kenshin that the tenants of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū were at odds with becoming involved in a political war, as the killing involved in such an undertaking would often be of people who did not necessarily deserve to die, and the decision to kill them would not be Kenshin's to make. However, Kenshin was adamant in his desire to aid what he saw as an honorable and noble cause, and he abandoned both his training and his master, leaving his knowledge of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū incomplete. His sword skills soon attracted the attention of Katsura Kogorō, a leader of the Chōshū clan. Seeing the phenomenal power of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū, he recruited Kenshin and brought him to Kyoto, where he was assigned the role of an assassin. Within the first six months of his career, he killed over 100 people, and eventually became known as the "Hitokiri Battōsai".
As time passed however, Kenshin began to grow disillusioned with his role in the revolution. Instead of ushering in a new era of peace, he eventually came to realize that he had simply become an extremely skilled murderer, and that the killing that he was engaged in didn't seem to be doing the good, or any significant difference, that he had hoped it would. Nevertheless, he continued his role as an assassin. One night in his career, he was assigned the task of killing Shigekura Jūbei, a high ranking samurai and a bakufu official. He engaged Jūbei and quickly killed both him and a bodyguard of his named Ishiji. Having killed both men with virtually no fuss, he turned to eliminate the final man in the group, Kiyosato Akiraone. Kenshin and Akiraone engaged in a brief, one-sided duel until Kenshin mortally wounded his completely outmatched foe. However, to Kenshin's astonishment, his opponent managed to cut the left side of his face as he received his mortal injury. Kenshin quickly recovered from his shock and dispatched his dying opponent, before honoring the man's incredible will to live.
Later in his downtime, while drinking at an inn, he recalls a lesson from his master, noticing that the sake that he is drinking tastes like blood, to which it shouldn't. As a pair of men loudly boast upon barging into in the inn for free favors, claiming themselves of the Isshin Shishi (and ignorantly, of the opposing Aizu), before harassing a woman, Kenshin angrily confronts them and tells the two to get lost even though they weren't talking to him. Afterwards, Kenshin departed the inn, inwardly concerned about the fact that the two men had managed to bother him to the point of anger. He comes to the conclusion that all the killing that he has been doing has started him down the road to madness, and reflected upon Hiko's warning not to get involved. However, he was unable to discern the reason for Hiko's warning. As he walked, the two men from the inn who Kenshin had humiliated attempted to ambush him, but before they had an opportunity to attack, they were slain by a bakufu assassin. The assassin, introducing himself by killing off the last of the escaping men who begged for help, was there to eliminate Kenshin, and engaged the Hitokiri, but was quickly cut down. In the midst of this grisly scene, the woman whom Kenshin had seen earlier at the inn appeared just as Kenshin cut the bakufu assassin apart. Shocked to see her, Kenshin momentarily toyed with the idea of killing her; having seen him, the woman was now in a possession to potentially compromise his identity. Before Kenshin can make a decision, the woman fainted, and Kenshin found that he was unable to bring himself to kill her. Instead, he took her back to the house that he and his compatriots were operating out of. Once she awakened the next day, Kenshin learned that her name was Yukishiro Tomoe. Having seen Kenshin, the revolutionaries informed her that, in order for her to continue living, she would need to stay where they could keep an eye on her. Despite Kenshin's desire to have her leave, she agreed to stay on as domestic help around the revolutionary's headquarters. While there, she eventually began to form a relationship with Kenshin, befriending him and helping him to maintain his grip on sanity. After the crisis suffered by the Chōshū clan in the Ikedaya Jiken, both Kenshin and Tomoe act as a married couple to keep anyone from finding out Kenshin's true identity as an assassin and flee to a remote village.
Sometime later, Tomoe meets with the leader of the Yaminobu, a fictional pro-Shogunate covert network of ninjas that had formulated a plan to assassinate Kenshin. She realizes that all along they had actually used her to create Kenshin's weakness. Meanwhile, Kenshin runs off to find his wife, but is ambushed by Yaminobu ninjas and is severely wounded. He manages to defeat them and eventually finds Tomoe with the leader of the Yaminobu. In a desperate attempt to defeat the leader, Kenshin blindly swings his sword, killing both his assailant and Tomoe, who jumps in at the last minute to save Kenshin from a fatal attack. Tomoe's knife flies into the air and coincidentally slashes Kenshin's already scarred cheek, creating the famous X-shaped scar across his left cheek. Before dying, her last words come to reveal the dark tragedy that ultimately leaves Kenshin forever changed.
Following the death of Tomoe, Katsura, feeling heavily responsible for Kenshin's loss and his manipulation under the miserly traitor Iizuka, recruits Shishio Makoto to replace him as an assassin, and reassigns him as a guerrilla swordsman protecting the Imperialists. After the end of the Bakumatsu, Kenshin leaves the Ishin Shishi's ranks, his experiences resolving him to protect those unfortunate without the need for death and bloodshed. Arai Shakkū, a famed swordsmith of the Ishin Shishi and acquaintance of the Battosai, realizing the change that the turbulent era brought on to his friend, the virgin perspective that he now has resolved to keep, and concerned how his friend would carry his journey without the need for self defense and necessary force to carry out his ideals against the wayward, issues him the challenge to uphold his newfound path and tosses him the first of his signature weapon into the future, the kageuchi of the Sakabatou, marking Kenshin's end as a Hitokiri.
Settling in Tokyo
After finishing his job as the murderer "Hitokiri Battōsai" in the Ishin Shishi, Kenshin assumes the life of a wanderer, keeping his promise to protect every individual from danger without harming others through pacifist means, and through the use of Hiten Mitsurgi's powerful techniques and true principles of the art.
Ten years after the Revolution, he arrives in Tokyo, where he meets Kamiya Kaoru. She invites him to stay in her dojo even after she discovers that Kenshin is the "Battōsai". During his residence in the dojo, Kenshin establishes lifelong relationships with many people, and changes the lives of many who he has met; even if his reputation of a notorious assassin in the day of the Bakumatsu and the animosity of those begrudged who have survived its bloody days come to haunt him, his change as a person has even lead ex-enemies, such as the former Shinsengumi member Saitō Hajime, to come to peaceful terms with him. With the many friends he has come to make, many of their experiences come to take them on adventures in the changing world of the historical Meiji era and the events they come to impact on both them, and the world to come.
Although his has kept his promise and fulfills his duty as a swordsman of peace, many of his inner scars still come to haunt him, from his repressed hitokiri personality coming out in times of heavy conflict, to the heavy trauma and unremedied pain that keeps him distant from even his closest friends, and fearful of the consequences his past reemerges should they be dragged into them. New enemies such as Aoshi Shinomori of an Oniwabanshū turned mercenary thug criminal group, comes to bear a near vendetta rivalry to claim his life in order to mark their pride in history as the strongest of the Bakumatsu's days, and Jinei Udoh nearly comes to make Kenshin break his vows and spill blood after holding Kaoru hostage in threat of her life, before leaving behind a dark memento and reminder that the past of a warrior will always come to haunt him and leave no other path open to him than one of destruction.
Kyoto Arc
Though peace and resolute resolve guided Kenshin's days, a surprise meeting between his rival adversary Hajime Saito and old ally Okubo Toshimichi gave news of the advent of Shishio Makoto, the brutal former successor to Kenshin's position as Chōshū Shishi's assassin. Masterminding a movement seeking to overthrow the Meiji Government and establish his own tyrannical Social Darwinist reign for the sake of Japan's future in the face of foreign powers, Kenshin remains conflicted to his former ally's requests and the strained past between them, with the support of his friends to protect him from any treachery that the current Isshin led Meiji Government may bring. However, upon Shishio's planned assassination of Okubo, and witnessing the devastating waves of the Kiyoizaka Incident bringing about turmoil and despair amongst the people, Kenshin comes to leave Tokyo, realizing now of how his past has come full circle at its most menacing incarnation, and that his destiny as a wandering swordsman to save as many lives as possible to escape the shadow of his former self must meet his brutal successor, as it is on his shoulders, that the future of the country lies in the fact that he is the only man capable of stopping Shishio and his plans. On the eve of May 14th, 1878, in the eleventh year of the Meiji, before the darkness of the night, Kenshin departs to only the eyes and heart of Kaoru Kamiya, and begins wandering again.
To defeat such a foe, Kenshin is forced to return to Kyoto, the city of both his pain and the stronghold of Shishio. Along his journey to the Imperial Millennium Castle City, he gains the accompaniment of Makimachi Misao, a traveling ninja of Kyoto's Oniwabanshu in search of a missing Aoshi. Upon the discovery of a battered and bloodied Mishima Ei'ichirō, and the arrival of Saito during the subduing of Shishio's residing forces, they witness both the atrocities Shishio's accomplishments have brought about, and the possible future that would come about under his iron fisted rule, in the hamlet of Shingetsu Village. Having broken his sakabato clashing swords with Sojiro the Tenken of Shishio's upper ranks, and realizing his strength is inefficient enough to stop Shishio without returning to the hitokiri within, Kenshin resumes his quest with a few new friends, a newfound resolve, and new tasks to stop his enemy.
Upon arrival to Kyoto, his first errand would to fulfill the promise of reuniting with his old friend Arai Shakkū, to receive a new sakabatou; second, to complete the final stages of correspondence of the Hiten Mitsurugi school, and mend his severed relationship with his teacher Seijūrō. With a newfound allegiance and introduction to the Aoiya's staff, the now current Kyoto branch Oniwabanshu, Okina of their ranks helped the rurouni scout out and find both persons of importance.
The first person to find, Arai Shakku, was unfortunate, as he passed on years prior to his arrival in Kyoto; however, he was succeeded by his son, Arai Seikū. Although reluctant at first, and still in shame over the shady reputation his father brought upon himself and the craft he was reknowned for, Kenshin, Okina, and Misao came at the call to save Seiku's son Arai Iori from the hands of Sawagejō Chō "The Swordhunter", and revealed to him, not just of his father's own philosophy of how it was up to the men who wield weapons that build the new era, but that Kenshin was also one of those men who fought for the future safety and peace of Japan. From proving to him that he only meant benevolence and noble deeds, the Arai Family happily gave him the final work of Arai Shakku, the shinuchi of the hallowed sakabatou.
After obtaining the shinuchi of the sakabatou, Kenshin was now able to undergo his second errand. Under the pseudonym Ni'tsu Kakunoshin, the current master of the Hiten Mitsurugi school made his current living as a skilled potter. Attacking him to make an entrance, Hiko Seijuro the XIIIth was surprised to see his student return after 14 years. Explaining to him of the situation at hand, Hiko nonetheless analyzed and scrutinized his student with impeccable accuracy; not only did his reckless idealism come to fail to understand that the ideals of the Hiten Mitsurugi school teach that those who wield the school's techniques fight for their fellow man, not for the illusions of sides or allegiances of any sort, and how the tragedies he had inflicted and suffered had now left deep scars on his psyche, while he still held the mind of an immatured 14 year old boy, his actions altogether while in the ranks of the Ishin Shishi indirectly came to bring about Shishio's maniacal agenda and current existence. Infuriated, annoyed, and agitated at the ignorance of Kenshin, Hiko was about to dishonorably dismiss his apprentice, although not before the arrival of Misao, Yahiko, and to great surprise, Kaoru Kamiya, at his master's doorstep.
Moved by the stories, exploits, and experiences his friends told, Hiko reconsidered and came to continue his apprentice's mastery. Through the harsh regiments, teaching him not only powerful techniques, Hiko also was instrumental in consoling Kenshin and the scars the plagued him; from reminding him that, although he sees himself as selfless and one who would be glad to help those in need, to the point of self sacrifice, he is also only a human being, and that if he were to die, no doubt that those close to him would be utterly devastated. This key truth was the very thing for Kenshin to overcome both his fatalistic hitokiri alter ego, and his master's fatal trial of the Kuzuryūsen, becoming the wellspring of power needed to execute the Hiten Mitsurugi school's ultimate and pinnacle technique, the Amakakeru Ryū no Hirameki.
Upon the completion of his training and the nursing of his master back to health, Kenshin left to Kyoto, and with newfound strengths, ready to take on Shishio. Much to his surprise, several of his friends tracked him down to Kyoto to help him defeat Shishio and the Juppongatana. Foiling his first diabolical plan of the Kyoto Grand Fire and the invasion of Tokyo with the blackship Purgatory with his allies, the Kenshingumi had made it known that they were a force to be reckoned with.
Realizing his new foe wasn't just an ordinary enemy, and a formidable threat to his conquests, Shishio and the Juppongatana agreed on the arrangement of a series of duels at their hideout, the Shrine of the Six Tori on Mt. Hiei. Accompanied with Sanosuke and Saito, the three made their way to the compound early morning next day; while Sanosuke took on the vengeful fallen monk and former mentor "Bright King" Yukyuzan Anji, Saito taking on the murderous "Blind Sword" Usui Uonuma, and learning of the underhanded assault on the Aoiya, Kenshin took the brunt of the series of duels on Mt. Hiei, facing off two formidable opponents in a series of rematches; first against the wildcard traitor Aoshi Shinamori, to return him to his senses for the sake of both the Kyoto Oniwabanshu and Misao, his admirer and student, as well as the youth swordsman prodigy Seta Sojiro, responsible for destroying his kageuchi of the sakabatou and the assassination of Okubo Toshimichi, before facing off against his terrible successor, Shishio Makoto himself. Kenshin used Amakakeru Ryū no Hirameki to defeat both Aoshi and Sojiro.
The battle against Shishio for Kenshin was no eased matter. Weakened and wounded earlier by prior duels, and pushing damage even further on to him, not even the combined efforts of Saito, Sanosuke, and even a reformed Aoshi would come to see Shishio fall. But as Kenshin fell during battle, the duration of his ally's attempts would buy him enough time to recover from Shishio's brutal onslaught eariler, from the grisly bite marked on his left shoulder to even the explosion of the Guren Kaina. Fueled with an intense will to live brought on by his training and his promise to Kaoru, and his swordsman spirit surging with the winds and flora of the valley arena, his undying spirit, even pushing his body near the brink of death and to its limits, unleashed furious blows and his most powerful technique Amakakeru Ryū no Hirameki. Shishio countered the first strike of Amakakeru but not the second strike. Shishio was greatly damaged by the move and ran his sword through Yumi in an attempt to hit Kenshin. Kenshin was critically wounded on the floor by the stab. Kenshin thinks that it was the end, but upon remembering his master Seijuro's words that the girl who came all the way from Tokyo (Kaoru) would be devastated if he were to die, his will to survive strenghtened. At the end of the battle, even as he was grievously wounded with little to spare, his will to survive overcame and outlasted Shishio's bodily limits, who ignites into a flame (spontaneous combustion) due to overheating.
Making a full recovery after a month unconscious and with the help of Megumi Takani, Kenshin's quest was fulfilled, and the country of Japan saved, but not without doubts, knowing that if battle and who was the strongest means that victory also means one is in the right, then Shishio was right all along; still, he thought, such a world and where its people would agree on such a brutal ideal, would be wrong no matter what. Even if victory was hollow, this would not mean that his actions were in vain- The ones close and who cherished him, who he changed their lives, and who came to also have done the same for him; Sanosuke, Misao, Megumi, Yahiko, the Oniwabanshu, Hiko Seijuro, Arai Seiku and his family, those who he left behind in Tokyo, and Kaoru, would always be happy and welcome to have him in their family, and proud of his deeds to ensure a world where peace and freedom would come about. Kenshin would return to Tokyo, ending his wandering again, back to a welcome home at the Kamiya Dojo.
Jinchū Arc
A few weeks after returning home to Tokyo a man known as Yukishiro Enishi visits the same grave that we saw Kenshin visit at the end of the Kyoto arc. Upset at the fact that Kenshin left flowers at this grave, Enishi asks Iwambo if Kenshin still has his scar, which he does to the pleasure of Enishi. Iwambo then reveals himself to be not just a brainless fighter, but a man known as Gein, the puppet master. Enishi finds several comrades who all have grievances with Kenshin and form a group known as the six comrades. Together they devise a plan to kill Kenshin no matter what the cost, however, Enishi and Gein have different plans, as the true meaning of Jinchu is much more than just attacking Kenshin himself. Kenshin notices a man who only has one arm at the Akabeko, and immediately remembers that he was the one who cut off his arm. This man, known as "Whale Mouth" is next scene with Enishi and blows up the Akabeko with an Armstrong Canon later that same night. The two behind a note with the word Jinchu (earthly justice) on it, and Kenshin as perceptive as ever begins to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Eventually Kenshin has a direct confrontation with Enishi, in which Enishi declares war on Kenshin, and that in 10 days the Kamiya Dojo will be attacked because of the death of Enishi's sister, Tomoe. Kenshin has no idea how to atone for his sin of killing Tomoe - the reader still doesn't know her relation to Kenshin yet - and returns to the Kamiya Dojo, stressed out and exhausted. Kenshin has a nightmare where he finds Kaoru dead in Hell along with Tomoe and realizes that he must come clean with his friends and family about his bloody past completely.
This part of the arc introduces Yukishiro Tomoe to the Kenshingumi, and it is discovered that Kenshin was married to Tomoe during the revolution, but accidentally killed her. Kenshin had killed Tomoe's fiancé during the revolution during a routine assignment, and Tomoe wanted to take revenge for Kiyosato by killing him. She contacts a group of assassins who instruct her to study him, which she does. After a bloody first introduction, the two slowly begin to know each other, and after two months, Kenshin has very strong feelings towards Tomoe, and decides to marry her and go to Otsú. Tomoe stoically agrees, but her true motive to get close to Kenshin was to find his weak point. Over time, she accidentally falls in love with Kenshin, claiming that he is too gentle to be an assassin. Enishi as a child is then sent to go retrieve Tomoe by the ninja assassins, but she refuses to go back with him. Enishi is deeply upset at Tomoe's choice to protect Kenshin and informs her that it's too late for Kenshin. Later that night, Tomoe decides to open up to Kenshin about who Enishi is and why she was there to kill Kenshin (no mention of Kiyosato) and breaks down crying. Kenshin embraces her by the fire and the two talk about each other's past more in depth. Kenshin says that living with Tomoe has taught him that the only thing he can really do is protect the one's around him and that he will protect Tomoe's happiness to the bitter end. They make love to each other that night (not explicitly shown in the manga like it was in Trust and Betrayal) and Tomoe leaves Kenshin the next morning to tell the ninjas to call off the attack. Kenshin follows where she went, where he is blinded, deafened, and beaten badly until he reaches the cabin with Tomoe. Tomoe learns that she was a part of the plot just to create Kenshin's weakness by making him fall in love with her, and will be killed along with Kenshin since she too is in love, which dishonors the memory of Kiyosato and the Shogunate. Kenshin while fighting a skilled fist-fighter realizes that he will die, and is about to sacrifice his life to kill the assassin saying he just wants Tomoe to live in peace. Tomoe at the last second jumps inbetween the two and she along with the fighter die from Kenshin's blade. Enishi witness's her death and goes crazy, promising revenge on Kenshin. Kenshin completely heartbroken returns to their cabin in Otsú and cremates her body and vows to never kill again after the revolution is over. This tragic backstory created the non-killing and insecure Kenshin that is shown in the Meiji Era.
When Enishi finds out about Kenshin's blossoming feelings towards Kaoru, he comes up with a sinister trick to destroy Kenshin emotionally and spiritually. The day before Enishi is set to fight Kenshin, Kaoru and Kenshin more or less get engaged. Enishi knows that by "killing" Kaoru, it will sent Kenshin into the same living Hell that Enishi went through when Tomoe died. He succeeds and leaves behind a professionally-made decoy of Kaoru with a sword in her heart, making everyone believe that she had been murdered. Upon seeing her corpse, Kenshin has a complete emotional breakdown claiming that he is worthless for being unable to protect the dearest person to his heart. He runs off to the slums of Tokyo where he remains there until discovered by Sanosuke's friends two weeks after the incident happened at the Kamiya Dojo. With his soul completely shattered, he wonders in and out of consciousness, and frequently sees himself in Hell, where he begs Shishio to take his life. His friends words cannot reach him, and the Kenshingumi splits up. Eventually Tomoe's father meets Kenshin, and after a week of talking to him, Kenshin leaves the slums when he learns that Yahiko is in danger.
After saving Yahiko, Kenshin goes to sleep and has a dream. He sees Tomoe in his dream and she tells him that all she really wants is to see Kenshin and Enishi happy. At the end of his dream, Tomoe tells Kenshin that he needs to go to Kaoru and be happy with her. Kenshin wakes up mentally revitalized and proclaims to the group that it was time to savee Kaoru. The Kenshingumi goes to rescue her on Enishi's island. A battle between Kenshin and Enishi follows and after an exhausting duel that lasts for several chapters, Kenshin wins by exploiting Enishi, as he has no defense when using his nerves of insanity. Kenshin and Kaoru return home to live together for the rest of their lives.
Four years later, in 1882 (Meiji 15th year), Kenshin is married to Kaoru and has a three year-old son named Himura Kenji. After an encounter with Kaoru's student Myōjin Yahiko who he has teach his own sword style during the past four years. They have a spare which Kenshin wins but barely as sign of Yahiko coming of age he gives him his own reverse blade sword.
