Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. Never did, never will.

Himura Battousai.

I bid him to rest, having debriefed me on his latest mission. He takes his leave, polite as ever. His face is alert and his mind is focussed, yet his eyes look... dead. It is clear to me that his heart does not lie in his work, though he is committed to uphold our cause till the end.

I cannot blame him, after everything has happened.

As I retreat to my private chambers, I hear murmurs in the hallway, voices of men talking about the no-longer Hitokiri. I retired him as a Shadow Assasin after the... incident. That task has now been relegated to someone more suitable.

He now serves as a frontline soldier, an escort, a vanguard. His missions now involve defending our operations from the hounds of the Bakufu. He is still a killer, but one who kills in order to protect.

His reputation grows daily. As a Hitokiri, people regarded him with fear and distrust, Imperialist and Shogunate alike. That stigma still remains, but he is slowly building up admirers. Men whom he defended from the Shinsengumi and the Mimawarigumi, people whose lives he saved. Every week, I receive more and more commendations from prominent Ishin Shishi for whom he worked as a bodyguard. He is no longer an outcast among his peers.

Yet to the few who know him, it would seem that he is lonelier than ever before. No number of admirers and well-wishers could ever make up for her...

Now he is in his room, torturing himself, no doubt. His legendary skill with the blade has left him with few physical scars, yet his heart is gravely wounded. To others his actions may seem cold and remorseless, but I know that every swing of his sword harms him just as much as it harms his opponents.

I cannot but help pity him. Fate has not treated him kindly. What did he do to deserve this? He has done nothing wrong. He slays men, but never for personal gain and never for his own enjoyment. He is merely fighting for a cause that he believes in, one of the few who fight solely for the good of the people. If he is guilty, he is no worse than the rest of us.

But such is his nature that he will not try to defend his actions, only condemn himself all the more. Others may forgive him, but he will never forgive himself. His deeds will be a burden that will weigh heavily over him for the rest of his life. He fights in a war that he does not want, with no reward or compensation waiting at the end, only a life of harsh penance.

This is the real Battousai, not the demon of legend. A boy who loved peace, yet walked a path of violence to ease the sufferings of the people; who threw himself into chaos and bloodshed so that others would not suffer the same; who lost his love and his only happiness for his cause; and who continued fighting even when he had nothing left to live for, solely so that other happinesses may continue to thrive. He killed and killed like a demon, going against his heart and soul to pave the way for a new era. He is a true hero, and deserves to be treated as such.

Yet I know in my heart that in the eyes of the common man, this boy will never be more than a cold-blooded murderer, a slayer of men, a demon who revelled in bloodshed. His name will have scant mention in our history, and his sacrifice will never be remembered.

Much of the guilt for his fate rests solely with me. Shinsaku was right. I should not have asked him to become my Hitokiri. He may have been named 'Kenshin', yet from the very beginning, he never possessed the heart of a killer. I knew this, yet I was willing to ruin his life to achieve my own goals.

All that is past now. Regrets... all I can do to atone is to ensure his sacrifice, and the sacrifices of so many others are not in vain. That the new era will be as peaceful as we claim it will be, that the new government does not succumb to arrogance and corruption like the one it replaced.

And for my part, I will ensure that when the war finally ends, when the Battousai stops killing, his deeds will be accorded the recognition and the respect they deserve. That he will not be marginalised as a mere killer, a scapegoat for burying our more shameful doings. But whatever I do, I know I can never compensate him for what I have taken from him. I can only hope his heart survives the ordeal.

I come upon his room. Gently, I open the shoji, intending to check up on him. He is reclining against the wall in his usual sleeping posture, sword in hand. His eyes snap open and he turns to me, surprised.

"Katsura-dono?"

I gaze at him considerately. "Thank you, Kenshin."

He is taken aback. "You are welcome, Katsura-dono." he replies, after a pause.

He is strong, and he will not be broken by his burden. With a nod, I close the shoji and continue to my rooms, my heart feeling lighter.

Kenshin - 'Sword-heart' or 'Heart of Sword'

Shoji - Sliding door in traditional Japanese buildings

Author's note: I always felt that Kenshin's Battousai side was somewhat misunderstood by much of the fan community. He is often regarded as a cold-blooded murderer, and it is considered a very bad thing for Kenshin to revert to him. That may be how the manga portrays him in earlier appearances, but anyone who read the Remembrance arc or watched the Trust and Betrayal OVA would know this is not the case.

The Battousai was never evil. He was a killer but he never enjoyed killing. He wasn't any worse than Saito, Aoshi, Katsura and anyone else who fought in the war. He was essentially a good man at heart and he killed only for the sake of protecting others. Note that two out of the three times he reverted to Battousai in the series, he did so for the sake of protecting someone(Kaoru from Jin'e, Iori from Chou). If Kenshin were to go back to being the Battousai, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. He would only kill people who deserved it, though he may also inadvertently kill a few good guys in self-defence...

The reason Kenshin going Battousai is regarded as a bad thing is.. well, because the lead characters are mostly pacifist, and also because Kenshin never really learned to harden his heart to killing, like Hiko and Saito did, thus filling him with guilt and remorse whenever he killed someone.

At the end of the manga, Aoshi announces that his new goal in life is to eliminate evil scum, much like Battousai would have done, but Kenshin, who has by then become even more pacifistic than ever before, does not even argue, he merely advices Aoshi to 'try not to kill too many people'.

I wrote this fic to help others understand the Battousai better. Thank you. Read and review.