"This one took the lives of many, and also lost the person most important to me… Yet… This one still kept swinging my sword. My arms were drenched in blood. My feet stood in a pool of blood. But then… This one realized… This one could never find a place amongst the people who lived in happiness. With no place to go or return to – this one belongs nowhere, even now. That's why this one is Rurouni."
Blood. Blood everywhere. On the sword, the walls. Dripping off his hands. Running into his eyes. Covering everything in sickening crimson.
"You can make the bloody rain fall…"
There was no end to it. He wanted to scream. But the blood clogged his throat. It drowned him. And he couldn't afford to drop the illusion of strength, for it would destroy him completely. … What was that…? A smell of… Plum blossoms?
"…If when I finally lay down my bloodstained blade… There truly is an era of peace… Then…"
He wanted to say it wasn't his fault. That somehow, he could wash the blood away as if nothing had happened. But he knew it was impossible. No matter how much he scrubbed it would still be there, wearing permanent traces into his skin. There was no going back. …He was used to it now.
"If I throw down my sword now, it will negate the meaning of all the lives I've taken. Until the new era comes where everybody will nurture the small happiness that Tomoe taught me – I will keep wielding my sword."
Life was expendable at this point. Others' as well as his own. It was such a fragile thing. So easily taken and carved in two. With a sword that cut as well as any other. A sword which in any other man's hands would have wrought less chaos. Less bloodshed. Less terror and destruction. It was all for a cause, though. He killed for a reason. He killed so that there would be peace later.
"New eras are not created by swords, but by those who wield them."
The act of living was so easily stopped by a hunk of sharpened metal that it was funny. Except it wasn't. And the crushing reality of it almost broke his soul. The revolution had sparked him. Kept him going, fighting with fervor. But now… Now it was just mindless hacking. He didn't even know who he was cutting down anymore. He did what he was told. And he didn't know why. The idealism was gone. He was just killing. He was left disillusioned.
"A new era where we can live in peace. If this one could bring about such a new era for the people and live in it myself… This one swung my sword with that in mind."
He knew he had reached the point of no going back. And still, he kept going. Kept swinging the cursed blade until there was nothing more left to cut. To slash. To destroy. Before he began fighting he knew that it would lead to bloodshed. But not like this. He never thought it would be like this.
"The sword is a weapon. Swordsmanship is learning how to kill."
Blood. Endless blood. Throwing into even sharper relief the cross-shaped scar that now stained his face with a permanent reminder that he could not go back. Back before he became a man whose name struck fear into the hearts of thousands. Even those on his own side. Those who he fought next to, and who had named him in the first place. He hated it. The name. What it meant. What it represented. If he could, he would have cut it off and watched the blood seep out. But names and titles are not so easy to remove. Especially his. For now and forever, that is how he would be known.
"At long last I have found you, Hitokiri Battousai."
And then he lost that which was so precious to him. Some semblance of peace, the first love that he had cherished – all gone, pierced straight through by his own sword. And the only reminder was the scar across his cheek that crossed the first. It was a reminder. Her last gift to him. He would not go and join her. He would honor her.
"Lives can also be paid for by the sword by redeeming other lives."
He lay down his sharp sword and stopped killing because he wanted to stop, he wanted to fulfil her wish which was his own also. A new sword was at his side now. A sword to protect – a sword that could not take life.
"After all the men you've killed, why run away now? Live by the sword and die by the sword. That's the only path you have. Try being a swordsman with that at your waist. You'll soon see how naïve you're being. When that sword breaks and you're still able to believe your own sweet lies, come-"
And he walked quietly away with the reverse-edged sword at his side, never to take another's life again.
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140 years ago…
In the chaos of the Tokugawa regime, during the Bakumatsu…
…There was an imperialist in Kyoto called 'Hitokiri Battousai'.
Amidst this bloodshed, he killed and carved the way to the new Meiji Era.
He was the strongest, this Battousai.
However…
…He disappeared into thin air just as the chaos ended.
His whereabouts are still unknown.
Hitokiri Battousai has become a man of legend!
And so…
The era of upheaval came to a close.
A new adventure now begins…
In the eleventh year of the Meiji era.
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RUROUNI KENSHIN
Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story