Prologue
Diamond stars speckled the velvet night sky, portraying a cold beauty that was broken only by the light of a solitary fire. Crackling gleefully, the fire threw light upon the neighboring trees and the figure of a very contented looking man sitting and gazing at the beauty of the stars. He was a simple traveler, nothing more and nothing less. Just an ordinary man coming home after leaving for business in a nearby town. He had spent a month away, negotiating with merchants trying to buy their Western goods. Leaving the hustle and bustle of the town and spending time doing nearly nothing was a breath of fresh air to him after living in smog for so long. Now he just sat staring at the stars. So peaceful…
He had been like this for an hour now, enjoying the silent company of the heavens. But all that time there was something that was wrong. Something he could not quite place. He narrowed his eyes, searching the sky above for answers when he noticed it. The sky to the north was slowly getting brighter. His eyes widened with shock and confusion. That light could not possibly be from a rising sun. He stood up quickly, his curiosity getting the better of him. All he wanted now was to find out what was making the light.
After twenty minutes of tearing through the woods and become more desperate, the man stopped when he heard a familiar sound; a fire's crackle. Cursing himself for foolishly running through the woods in a circle, he pushed through the dense forest to where the sound of the fire came from. Only he never got to the fire. He kept walking and pushing aside thorny bushes trying to get back to his comfortable campsite when he broke through to a small cliff ledge overlooking a village. It would have been a sleepy fishing village with the broad stream that flowed near it. Only this village would never again be sleepy or peaceful again. This village looked as if it had been thrown into hell.
Golden flames rose from the roof tops to lustfully lick the cold sky above. The inferno that engulfed the town was so horrid that the man now felt stupid to have ever thought it was his innocent fire. The cheery crackle was nothing to compare to the dull roar that now filled his senses. How could he have though this was his fire? He slowly began to get over the shock of seeing a village on fire when he saw them. The bodies. He sucked his breath in fiercely and fell to his knees, a cold wind suddenly tearing through his hakama and gi. There were still people down there, only a few had survived this far. The rest were lying on the ground, lifeless, burning. The living were running uselessly about trying desperately to escape their fate. Their screams broke him out of his stupor.
He could not take seeing their suffering any longer and tore his eyes away and looked toward the stream. He saw bodies there too, lying halfway in the golden water. He did not see what had caused their death; he did not see the arrows embedded in their backs or the splashes of blood surrounding them, he did not see the stealthy phantoms blend into the dark forest surrounding him. With a strangled sob he once again tore his eyes away from that scene. He saw a pathway leading away from that hell and his eyes followed it, praying to Kami that there would be no more carnage to greet his sight. He followed the pathway up noticing that it led to where the main road would be, and he saw them.
Two figures had come almost to the road, but were standing at the edge of the forest observing the burning village. Two lone figures, looking at the hell before them as casually as one would look over the choices of fish at the market. One was holding a long pole that reached to about the middle of that person's head, while their companion held an unknown bundle. The traveler felt somewhat offended that these people did not show the same emotions that he felt and was wondering who or what they were when they turned and looked at him in the eye. He stared back at them blankly, somehow feeling guilty at being discovered in his position. But before he move or even blink, the two figures turned and disappeared into the absolute darkness.
He sat there feeling a strange morbid curiosity watching the fire burn down lower. After awhile however his legs started to protest being sat upon so long, so he stiffly stood up and made his way back to the general direction of his campsite. All those people dead, the entire village destroyed, and the two people who stood and look upon all that with no emotion. He would go now, to the police to tell them everything. Unfortunately the police would never hear from this man, for he was so engrossed with his thoughts that he did not notice the men sneaking up behind him.
They found his body later. He was tied to a tree near the road, arms and legs tied behind him, embracing the tree from behind. There were countless cut and gashes along his body, none were meant to kill, only to torture, his blood sprayed out before him. His death ultimately was from a cut to the throat. That is how the first travelers along the road found him. Soon, within less then two hours, a whole crowd had come forth to see this queer spectacle. They were so busy spreading rumors on this names death that they did not notice the arrival of a wanderer. Even his flaming red hair and the terrible scar on his left cheek did not tear their attention away from the dead man. And for this Kenshin Himura was glad.
Kenshin walked quietly by the crowd, ignoring whispers of a how Battosai the Manslayer had made an attack on another innocent, and caught a glimpse of the tortured body. Dark brown blood stained the front of his tattered gi, the eyes were white in death. Kenshin never missed a beat in his walking and turned away unblinking. Even after five years of wandering and the tolerance of seeing death he had learned when he was the Battosai was still with him. Still, he thought, those people should a least close that man's eyes.
Five years later Kenshin would meet Kaoru in a back ally and his life would change forever. And soon after that, when his adventures in Kyoto were over, he and his friends would meet someone they once thought was dead and the two figures that looked upon that village and disappeared into the night.