The False Apocalypse

The Zate Saga

Chapter Two

Mysterious Man

"Sumimasen Daijoubu desu ka? (Excuse me, are you alright?)" A female voice said behind Hitokiri sounding oddly familiar.

"Daijoubu?… Japan grand well that makes it official I'm in Japan" Hitokiri threw his arms up in the air in annoyance at the revelation.

"Sumimasen…nihongo wo dekimasu ka? (I'm sorry… do you speak Japanese?" The mysterious man was obviously perturbed by something though she didn't have a clue. Actually that was the first time she had ever even heard English before. The woman clearly hoped he understood. The situation would be made far more complicated if she couldn't communicate.

"…Hai…(from now on he's speaking in Japanese but it will be in English.) Sorry but where am I exactly I know its Japan but…?"

"This is Tokyo; I'm Kaoru Kamiya by the way… Kenshin, Yahiko stop hiding behind the door before I make you eat it." The woman snapped as soon as she sensed the eavesdroppers' presence.

"Yes mam!" In an instant both men scooted around the door and found a seat on the floor. Both were quite curious about the one they found.

"This is Kenshin Himura and Yahiko Myojin. They pulled you out of that machine." Kaoru introduced and the two men gave their own short greetings. At hearing those names and seeing those faces however, Will was in no shape to answer.

"…. But…. That … that's impossible" 'No, NO this can't be. That…I've lost it. I cant be talking to them. There's no way in hell.' His eyes widened in shock, unable to believe who it was he was seeing.

"What's impossible?" Yahiko replied, somewhat disturbed by the frantic replies they were getting.

"You… them. You can't be real. You, you can't be, can you?... Yet… you look the same…Oh God, did Shiro lace my lunch with something again? Yes that has to be it, I'm high!" Hitokiri flailed his arms around in a very animated manor having completely lost all realization that anybody else was in the room. Yahiko of course was wondering what the hell 'high' meant, while Kaoru covered her mouth, not believing what she was hearing. "Tomorrow I'm going to wake up, the resistance will still be there, Wedge will still be alive..." Kenshin and the group sat there with wide eyes, listening in on the abnormal ranting of what was most likely a crazy man.

"Eeeh, I don't believe we have met before that I don't." Kenshin didn't like this kid, sure he approved of healing the him but the talk of a resistance made him uneasy. He could sense the kid's good nature but also an intense suffering behind the frantic rambling. While Kenshin and the others looked on and contemplated this strange character, Hitokiri had nearly finished his ramblings 'thinking out loud' and finally calmed down into inward thinking in an attempt to rationalize all this.

'Ok …right… I cant be high…that's… different…Was there actually a time machine? Say there was, something must have gone wrong, there is no way 'they' existed in real history… but that would mean…Wait did he asked me something…" Finally realizing that he should answer the question, Hitokiri cleared his thought and attempted to get something coherent out.

"…No… you don't, but I know you… Battousai" In momentary shock that someone knew about Kenshin everybody tensed up at the sudden seriousness in his voice. "Don't worry I mean no harm, but I'm afraid my mission has been compromised and I will need assistance to …. Never mind, well… I guess I will explain later." 'If I am high, who knows who I'm talking to…if I'm not and this is all real…'

"You know I was the Battousai, but we do not know your name that we do not" Kenshin stated trying to be as polite as possible; this was a kid after all. On the other hand, what kind of kid besides Yahiko could know his identity, much less stay conscious around him?

"Oh sorry...um… a name… I guess you can call me….. Nazomishi…uh…..Mitsukoi."

"Haa what kind of name is that! Seriously you had to make that up on the spot to come up with something so stupid!" Yahiko screamed as was usual loudmouth and expressive nature.

"You shouldn't be so rude to our gests Yahiko that you should not." 'Still, why would a kid have to make up a name? Must be in some sort of trouble, poor kid.'

"Kenshin's right after we found him with his face buried between those rocks and that metal thing last night I'm sure he's had a rough travel. I'm sure he has his reasons for making up a name." Nazomishi's eyes widened at the mention of a 'metal thing.' 'Oh God what I'd give to be high right now. Well I guess I'm not, and if they really are who they seem to be…allies could be a real help right about now.'

"Look, I know your trustworthy but still, I made a promise that I would leave my old name behind and hadn't given any thought to a new one…I don't want to startle you but for the past year or so most people have simply called me by my code name 'Hitokiri'."

"Oh cool so you're like a spy or something right! That's sooo sweet!" 'Yea right, there's no way some brat younger than me could be a spy.' Yahiko thought quite differently from what he let on.

'That shouldn't be something to joke about, that it should not.'

"It's anything but Yahiko. I would say what I've seen over the past two years would rival the horrors Kenshin has seen." Nazomishi lowered his head towards his hands, remembering the many battles he's been through. One in specific event stuck out in his head, the most recent armory raid.

"I don't mean to pry but how could you have seen that much, you couldn't be much older than Yahiko. Probably younger." Kaoru replied to the boy, not realizing that Kenshin had been little older yet when he first received the name Battousai.

"I'm… what? That can't be right I'm 23… Oh don't tell me…. " Nazomishi's eyes once again widened in horror at the thought that things could be worse than he thought. He quickly ran outside, looking for anything that could make a reflection. Finally settling on a small pail of water he took a nice long look at himself. He was young, and nothing like his old self. He looked almost like a young Kenshin with silvery almost blue hair and blue eyes yet he was still wearing the leather robes that he was in before being sent back only smaller still fitting. (Think organization 13 robes) Sure his face was a bit longer and more pointed but the resemblance to Kenshin's younger self was remarkable.

"Impossible…" His jaw dropped as he looked on at his image with fascination, horror and astonishment. Somehow, he could no longer recognize himself. This wasn't his face. Who was this? What he hell had happened!

"…..!" Nazomishi unleashed an ever more potent scream that took him to the edge of passing out. This unremarkably earned some strange looks from passerbies.

"This cant be, I'm 23! I'm no ten year old. How did this happen. I… I…i…" Nazomishi's brain was entering overload with quantity of shocking information. It was getting so bad that he was about to hyperventilate. As he knelt to the ground on the brink of tears he wrapped his arms around his legs in the fetal position simply laying there as his mind attempted to process this remarkable twist of fate. A few moments passed and no one spoke until he had finally regained some of his composure. Even Yahiko knew it would be bad to scream at someone with their minds in such a fragile state.

"…This one believes you should start from the beginning that you should." Kenshin finally said once he sensed that it would be beneficial to continue. He walked over the boy and reached out his hand, gesturing for him to come inside.

"Yea, Gensai Sensei is making dinner tonight so let's go inside and relax, you can start while we wait." Kaoru added while walking over to assist Kenshin.

"…Unfortunately… It's probably for the best." Nazomishi took one last look at the machine that had brought him here as they walked inside slowly. He hung his head so low he was lucky he wasn't dragging it through the dirt. It was clear from the momentary glance the machine was damaged beyond repair. Even if Wedge left the blueprints the tech in the age was literal centuries behind what would be necessary to make the proper repairs. After settling down on the porch Nazomishi began telling the tale. It was hard for him to decide where to start. Half of the things from his time weren't even conceived for another century. It took a while but he finally decided on a good place to start.

"Well I guess the first thing you should know is I'm from America in the year 2132 CE by our time standards." This much alone dumb struck everybody making them wonder if he was sane, a question that had already occurred to them several times already. His words were slow and held a somber tone. He was purposely taking things slow, since much, if not everything he was about to say would be a major shock.

"At first I was thinking I was high, or that this was all a dream. Now I just wish our experimental machine had worked properly but now I'm sure it was a complete flop. For starters my real name is irrelevant. I left it behind and most people have called me Hitokiri for the past year or so. I was a sword smith, although until what I consider recently it has become a collector's art more than anything. Thanks to guns…blasters… A little more two and a half years ago I opened my own shop when the world broke out into World War Three.

"Um did you just say 'World War'?" Kaoru asked, afraid she had misheard something. Wars were normal enough to be talked about, but what on earth is a 'World War?

"Oh… sorry, I forgot that none of them have happened yet in this time… Uh… where to start…well the first one will start in a little under fifty years. I'm not sure what year it is exactly here, all I know is I'm in the Meiji era right now. So that means, so soon after your wars means it's the 1870's maybe 80's I think it is right now. No matter, the first will envelop all of Europe and affects every country in the world in some way or another. The second one occurs a few decades later with Nazi Germany trying to eradicate the Jews and basically take over the world with some glorified racial purity crap. Japan and China end up fighting. Japan attacks America, I'd rather not go into much detail. It gets complicated. At some point and after Germany surrenders, Japan is left still fighting rather strong. In the end Japan looses thanks to a new kind of bomb being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"What so bad about a few bombs, they can't be that bad can they?" Nazomishi frowned at Yahiko's innocence in these matters. Oh how he wished he could be so ignorant death on such a mass scale.

"These aren't ordinary bombs, more like city destroyers which between the two leave several hundred thousand people dead or dieing with the cities uninhabitable for decades."

"…..no way…." 'Ok this kid's obviously off his rocker if he expects us to believe that. Seriously a city destroyer, please…'

"That's horrible…" Kaoru commented, shocked by the thought.

"….." 'What does he intend with telling us these things? Does he really expect us to believe it?'

"To be blunt it was the most regretted choice in history. But in the end America's only other option was to send millions to their doom in an endless ground assault. Russia had already lost tens of millions in the battle and the world was essentially in ruins with a broken economy. Needless to say all this was well before I was ever born, In fact, my parents weren't even born till more than a century after of the second war."

"Amazing, what happened next!" 'He may be crazy but that's an awesome story.' Yahiko thought, having not had anyone to tell interesting stories for several years.

"Next Shadow governments around the world took over the world but stayed hidden from the knowledge of the public for centuries. The few that openly took over kept their real intentions secret and pretended to be peaceful groups of countries for the betterment of mankind. Oh how wrong that was. They bided their time developing technology to surpass the nuclear threat of their opponents. The nuclear threat being those bombs I told you about. Things went by … relatively peacefully compared to the Great wars for the next seventy years or so. But in the end the world was essentially ran by three organizations all-intent on taking over the entirety of the world. Or kinda, two wanted to take over and the other wanted to bring it to an end and remake it from their own bloodlines. All three ruled the world for more than a century before they developed enough technology to surpass a nuclear war. It was then that they began a war that left all others in the dust.

"Murderers." 'Who would do such a thing…'

"Exactly… They never had any remorse for killing even the smallest children if they could. It was unbearable. The world became a godless wasteland…a Hellhole. It was literally hell on earth. Most people came to call it the Apocalypse, though the world still stood, even if feebly."

"So which side were you on? You already said you were called Hitokiri. You must have killed a lot of people." Kaoru asked, realizing there may have been little choice in the matter.

"None of them, I was in the resistance trying to stop the meaningless blood shed. By a few months ago the war had already claimed the lives of five going on six billion people" Kaoru Gasped in horror at the information while Kenshin's eyes were livid in anger with what humanity had brought upon itself while Yahiko just looked at Nazomishi dumbfounded.

"Are there even that many people on the planet?" Yahiko asked, surprised that there were that many people in existence.

"In the next two hundred and fifty years or so, the world population should be nearing twelve Billion."

"But that's almost half!"

"Oh trust me, after their most recent plan I'm sure they will have it down to a tenth or lower. I have been fighting, developing better weapons to fight them but their technology is just too great. There's only so much you can do with swords when your fighting machines the size of buildings; even if the metal is capable of cleaving threw steel beams like butter, even if we could become invisible. That's why they called me Hitokiri. I was one of maybe ten people with the courage to get in close enough for that kind of combat, and the strength to survive it. Most of the others just took the armor I made and fought with conventional guns and anything we could salvage between fights."

"It seems you have been through a lot that you have but that still leaves how you got here and how you know us that it does." 'This is amazing. This story is so ridiculous, who could make it up? If I couldn't sense the truth in his words I wouldn't even consider the possibility.

"As for how I know you, have you ever heard of a Phonograph?"

"Oh yea those new things that can record sound right? I saw one for sell in the market a few weeks ago. It was really cool." Yahiko commented with excitement.

"Exactly, well as technology grows, in the next thirty years or so people will figure out how to make things called movies by adding slides. By mixing pictures rotating at high speeds with sound adjusted to fit the fake movement on a screen; people will make moving picture books. By the time my time comes around we have things called television shows where short movies are made in a week and played nonstop all day long to small boxes in peoples houses. One of my favorite shows was an old rerun called Rurouni Kenshin. It was an old story but a classic. A lot of shows that start late in this next century will be replayed for centuries to come. Assuming this isn't some kind of horrible dream on my part the best estimate I can come up with is this is an alternate dimension and the writer had some kind of … telekinetic link to the events of this world and wrote the story based of the things he saw from here. Or, something… I just don't know. It's all so much further out there than I had ever considered before. It's like I went to sleep and woke up in a dream."

"…wow…." 'Oh yea, he's certifiably insane…'

"If you want proof I know Kenshin's real name is Shinta, none of you are supposed to know that for several more years, if my assessment on Yahiko's age is right." Kenshin could only stair in shock at that revelation. No one but Master Hiko knew that name and Kenshin hadn't even referred to himself with it in more than twenty years. It made about as much sense as the story.

"That…that's impossible."

"Hey, I'm having just as much trouble believing the situation as you are. Still, how else would I know something you never even told Sano or your own Son."

"Oro…?" 'I… I have a son?"

"You have a son?" Kaoru practically demanded an explanation.

"I …uh…" Kenshin didn't know what to say. He couldn't have a son. Tomoe died, it was impossible she was the only one he ever…

"Forgive me, I didn't mean to make it sound that way. I'm not sure I should be telling you this but, I mean both of you, years from now." Nazomishi replied while pointing to Kenshin and Kaoru. The blush on both their faces displayed their sudden embarrassment. "Perhaps another time, is there anything else you want to know?"

"Well how you think you got here would be a good one." Yahiko replied blatantly. It was clear he didn't believe a word of this ridiculous story.

"Well, my commander built a machine which he told me was supposed to be a time machine. I was supposed to go back and assassinate the heads of the shadow governments before they revealed themselves. By the looks of things it sent me to an alternate dimension instead, because I'm sure none of you were supposed to have existed in my world. And Somehow I've ended up… somewhat…. Younger." While describing his 'somewhat younger' self, Nazomishi shifted his eyes around his body for emphasis.

While everyone was talking and discussing this man's intriguing past, the Police chief came running through the Gate to the dojo.

"I'm sorry to interrupt." The police chief bowed in traditional manor of greeting despite his apparent urgancy.

"You, you're the police chief!" Yahiko and Kaoru replied in unison the second they recognized him.

"I'm sorry for my trouble the other day" (Watch the show, you will understand the seen.)

"And what is it today" Kenshin asked in his usual peaceful tone, sure the police chief meant no harm.

"Kenshin Dono, I have a favor to ask, for the past ten years there has been a serial murderer calling himself Kurogasa. He has been targeting high-ranking Political officials. His skill is Amazing and he has been capable of killing off guards long before they are even able to draw their guns. He kills everybody even bystanders. Please, I'm begging you to stop him." The police chief bowed lower than his previous greeting, knowing Kenshin was the only man with the skill to stop this monster.

"He must be a Hitokiri from the war like I am. But even now he finds himself unable to stop the killing. It's so sad that it is."

"Kenshin, I would like to come with you, Sano would be of great help as well." Nazomishi commented with enthusiasm knowing that he could help. If he was stuck here then the least he could do was try to better the lives here. His knowledge of future events could be invaluable.

"I would be most grateful, but who are you, wait you're… a… child?" The police chief looked at the kid a little confused that a child thought he would be able to help. Clearly the kid didn't understand severity the situation.

"It does not matter, I am a friend of Kenshin's and am much more experienced than I look, let's leave it at that." Nazo replied with a tone one his apparent age shouldn't have been capable of.

"Arigatou, we are most grateful." The Police replied, knowing Kenshin was little older when he first became that legendary assassin. He left soon afterwards and as soon as he passed through the gates Nazomishi turned to Kenshin.

"His real name is Jinei Udoh. Tonight he will change his target to you upon seeing your skill and kidnap Kaoru tomorrow in an attempt to bring out the Battousai. His entire purpose in life is to find ultimate fight. Nothing would please him more than fighting you at your prime."

"Amazing, you know all this about this guy." Yahiko exclaimed just starting to truly understand the fact that Nazo was who he says he is. Unfortunately Nazomishi himself was still having trouble believing all this.

"Like I said, it was my favorite show." Nazo rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, hoping they would take that no further.

"Then we should prepare for the worst that we should." Kenshin remained sitting so they could devise a battle plan. 'Nazomishi has been right so far. I only hope that he is correct about the rest, that I do.'

"Kenshin, even you say this after fighting him the first time. In your current state you cannot defeat him, at least not without becoming the Battousai once again. You haven't killed since the start of this era. He on the other hand has stained his hand daily."

"That is most troubling that it is." Kenshin commented, knowing all too well how much his skills had slipped over years since the revolution. It would take months of actual training to get anywhere near where he was.

"But, then how does he win without resorting to that?" Kaoru asked, concerned for Kenshin's safety. If there was one thing she hated to think about it was the possibility of him becoming that legendary monster again.

"Before it was your will, you broke free of Jinei's paralysis technique just before Kenshin was about to kill him. Your call got through to him and stopped him from truly becoming that thing once again." Before another word could be said Sano burst into the room, nearly ripping the sliding door out of the wall.

"Oy Kenshin you're not trying to leave me out of this are ya?" Sano shouted as he came closer to the red headed samurai. Despite giving up his job as a fighter for hire he was itching for a good fight.

"No Sano he's not, in fact were planning on using you to take this man down." Nazomishi replied with a smirk.

"Good you know I would never forgive you if you tried something like that." Sano stated shaking his fist in the air as a visual of what he would do if they did. It was then that he realized that it wasn't Kenshin who answered him. There was someone new in the room. "Hey who's the kid?" The fighter asked his friends while pointing to the new kid with his thumb.

With annoyance Nazomishi replied. "I'm no kid. I'm a 23 year old man from another dimension who wound up here in an annoying twist of fate. Either that or I'm high on something and you're all part of some crazy hallucination. Right now I'm wishing for the second of those two options."

"Don't tell me your some kind of sorcerer!" Sano quickly scooted back to the nearest wall, crossing his fingers, somehow thinking the gesture held some sort of anti demon property.

"Unless you think technology is sorcery then no… oh wait you do…Damn it." Nazomishi lowered his head with a sigh when he remembered Sanosuke's distinct fear of train's and anything else distinctively technological.

"This one doesn't know about the superstitions Sano and I don't completely get it but he seems to be telling the truth that he does." Kenshin smiled warmly, hoping to calm everybody down with his own calm attitude towards the matter.

"Well if he turns any of us into bugs you'll know I told ya so"

"Right, whatever Sano. Anyway, we don't have much time to prepare for tonight, Kaoru would you mind showing me to my weapons? I'm going to need them if I'm to be if any use to you." Nazomishi commented hoping his blades made it with him.

"Oh yea, they are in the shed." Kaoru stood up getting ready to show him the way when Nazomishi began speaking again.

"Ok, so they're where Kenshin's staying." He too got up to follow Kaoru to the place, though Kaoru stood there for a moment confused about how he knew that.

"What?…" Nazo turned, wandering what got her suddenly lost in thought.

"Hey …how did…oh yea…" 'This guy knowing the future is starting to get creepy.'

"This is going to be a long lifetime…." Nazomishi smiled at the thought of what he said, thinking 'even if I don't get home, I will have a much better life here…with them…"

After retrieving his three blades and Energy blade Nazomishi began walking out of the dojo when he was stopped by Kenshin's voice.

"Your blades are rather intricately made that they are." Kenshin stated while leaning against the corner of the house. He had examined the blades while Nazomishi was asleep. All three of the blades had the mark of a master craftsman in every inch of their creation. The metal was clearly of a very high grade and though they looked used and warn, they were still as sharp as the day they were made. Two of them had a bland look about them while the third was intricately engraved with waves giving it a very prestigious look. Had Kenshin have never tested them he would have figured the intricate one were ritualistic in nature.

"I built them myself. I would offer you one of them for our battle but I know you will not accept it." Kenshin looked at him curiously. There was something hidden in his words. He knew what he meant, both literally and figuratively.

"You want to learn my style that you do…" Kenshin could see it in Nazo's eyes. It were as if the boy had just seen the solution to a puzzle and known it was unattainable. Nazomishi sighed and turned around looking Kenshin in the eye. The look between them was one that only two highly trained assassins could give. Both of their eyes were serious and cold, as if they were looking into the other's soul. And yet neither set held any indication of an attack. Kenshin's eyes clearly held the more experienced of the two while Nazomishi's merely showed great sorrow, the eyes of one thrown into such a life having never before had any intention of such serious things as death and mayhem. Kenshin could also tell that Nazomishi held a deep desire to become stronger. He held some driving goal that would require it.

"Yes… I don't know if I will ever return home, but assuming I do…if something would even increase my chances of stopping the horror I've seen, by one percent, I would gladly stake my life on obtaining it. I would gladly devote a thousand life times to detour that fate." Kenshin could see the good intentions in the man's soul but he himself had his own promises to keep. 'I will never kill again. It is sad but this style will always kill more than it can save. In my promise I cannot pass it on, even to a son that I cannot.'

"Regardless of the reasons this one does not plan on passing on that style that I do not." Whatever small hope Nazomishi's eyes held, of attaining that most prized style was suddenly dimmed to that of nothingness. He closed his eyes in acceptance of that answer, knowing that it could never have been meant to be.

"I figured that, you never even taught your own son." His voice did not hold any contempt for Kenshin's decision. He understood Kenshin's reasoning. It was in fact the reason that it was his favorite show. That determination to never kill, to always search for a better way was the thing that made Nazomishi look up to Kenshin. He knew that he could never ask such a thing of the man. That if he were to ever obtain the style he would have to seek out Hiko Seijuurou. At least that way Kenshin would be spared the guilt of those Nazomishi would kill.

"…" 'He keeps mentioning this son…'

"As for the style I would prefer if you would teach me. However, if I must I will gladly seek out Hiko and have him train me…" Nazomishi looked over to a family walking down the road laughing happily as the child leaped into his father's arms. "Tell me, if you knew of a way to stop your revolution, would you have taken it?"

"There is not a day that goes by this one doesn't wish he knew a way…"

"Even if it meant you would have to kill every public official in power?"

"I…" Kenshin was dumbstruck, that was partially his original assignments but most of them had ended up being low ranking not quite big enough to yield an effective result, even if he was The Battousai.

"That is the situation I am faced with, either I do just that or let genocide nearly wipe out the entire planet's population. Two horrors for which I must choose the lesser evil; and now I am lost in another dimension without knowing if I will ever find my way back." At this point Kenshin was lost in his own thoughts about the Meiji Revolution and his own role in its fate. Would he have done such a thing if he had known who to go for? Today he realized that without knowing the right targets such a thing was a fool's errand. However, if he knew exactly who to strike and when… He didn't know, perhaps there was that much, if only that much of the Battousai left in him.

"Even if I never make it back I will do anything that ensures such an injustice does not occur under my watch. You repent of your sins even when you are in actuality one man who saved thousands from your actions. And if that is the sin I must live with then so be it. If it must cost a thousand to save a million I believe that is a price worth paying."

"You don't know the horrors this one has seen." Kenshin heard those words and remembered the foolish actions of his youth. It was just the same. The idealistic drivel that earned his banishment from his master. The ideas that brought him into this hell he would forever regret. It was all the same.

"Maybe not with your skill, but I have a good idea. You know what I'm saying is true Kenshin, if you didn't you wouldn't be carrying your sakabatou." Kenshin looked at his hands reminiscing on the war again then finally looked back to Nazomishi and looked at his eyes. Somehow the boy was right. One way or another Kenshin was still fighting the same old war in a different way.

"You mean every word, that you do. But it is a style this one could not teach even if he wanted to that I cannot."

"Yes, you can, even if that does not include the succession technique. Kenshin I'm not asking you to break your vow to never kill again, frankly I that's part of the reason I would prefer to learn from you. My goal is to raise my skill to such a pinnacle that I could do as you do. Even in battle, immobilize the opponent when the kill isn't necessary. Even if it is just an ideal, it's something I have to strive for."

"It's not as easy as you think that it is no…"

"I know, and I don't care. God gave Wedge the dream to build that machine and I must believe there is some plan for me. Some reason I'm here."

"…Nazomishi Mitsukoi… There may just be something about you that there may be… This does not mean I will teach you, however you have convinced me to give it some thought that you have." Kenshin grinned and waved Nazomishi off as Nazo went out with his blades to wherever it was he was going.

Nazomishi went of towards a field drawing two of his blades leaving the third on his back and his energy blade in his cloak. The walk took nearly fifteen minutes but it was time he needed to gain his composure and contemplate his purpose in this world.

'Even if I receive no training I will watch… I will learn… And I will train… I will become strong…and I swear…That atrocity will never occur again!' He hacked away into the air taking away sheets of tall grass as he preformed his katas in series. He hacked away with his full determination as Kenshin and Sano watched him from a distance.

"He has a strong will that he does." Kenshin stated, smiling as he watched the spirit and determination of the boy.

"Yea I guess he's like me, and he's got his mind set on something. Nothing's going to stop him. And from what you told me, the kid's got a worthy purpose."

"Sano, do you think I should train him?"

"Are you seriously considering that? He could become the way you were." Sano was genuinely concerned for both of them. He had talked to Kenshin about his past a few times and come to an understanding of how the Battousai came to be. It was defiantly something he wouldn't want happening to someone else.

"As much as this one hates to admit it, I am. It may seem unbelievable but…there's truth in his words. I don't know what good it could do on such a large scale but it would be a crime to leave him be, that it would."

"Well of all the people to train under, you would probably be best for him. With all your talk about never killing, it could be good for him."

"I believe he will ask you as well that I do."

"You're kidding! Come on Kenshin there's no way he would ask me that not after asking you."

"This one believes he will that I do, he is too determined to limit himself to a single style, considering with the number of blades he has."

"Blah, you of all people should know I can't do that, he's a swordsman and you yourself destroyed my Zanbatou."

"He said he is a sword smith that he did. With the quality of his blades this one is sure he could repair it, that he could."

"That's impossible… but you're not kidding!" Sanosuke concluded after looking closer at Kenshin. The redhead was too serious not to be.

"You know Sano if he does remake the Zanbatou you will have to make him strong as well."

"Heh, I guess it would be fun teaching someone." Sanouske truly felt a sense of pride that someone would want to learn from him, the former Zanza, fighter for higher, and former of the Sekihoutai. "Yea if he can get that strong."

"He has a warriors spirit I have not sensed since Hiko Seijuurou, but I can sense a heart in him that would never intentionally harm an innocent. It's a rare combination, but one that described me in my youth."

"How can you sense this stuff? And who the hell is Hiko it sounds like some kind of Saki." Right now Sano had one thing on his mind and it was making him drool … saki… maybe later he could head down to the Akabeko and…crap he didn't have any money. After the last few time's he'd been there they weren't going to consider giving him anything till he paid upfront…and his tab…

"My master and the only true heir to the Hiten Mitserugi Ryu."

"True heir, what about you?" Sano replied, he figured the style was rare but certainly not that rare. What did he mean by heir?

"I left Hiko before I finished my training so I could join the Imperialists. My is the only true master of the style. If we were to fight he would crush me at my best, that he could." Sano was shocked, that there were people stronger than Kenshin. People he admitted could beat him that easily! It was a concept he had never thought of before. As far as he knew Kenshin was called the strongest for a reason. Of course that also brought up another thought. Could there be other people that strong around the world. Perhaps even here in Japan?"

It wasn't long offer a short silence that Nazomishi was coming closer to a tree and was hacking away at it leaving deep gashes with his blades. The tree was thick and hard yet the blades caved in as deep as his blades clashed into it. Cutting paper with a knife seemed more difficult with the ease he was cutting through the tree. After several deep slashes Nazomishi threw his two blades aside drawing the blade off his back and cleaved the trunk in two almost horizontally. Before it had a chance to budge the swordsman leapt high using the propulsion to run up the remainder of the tree. At the top he flipped upside down and brought his energy blade to life revealing a blade of green light as he dove down the length of the tree, slicing it clean in two vertically, leaving a sizzling flame burning down the center. After turning off the energy blade he sheathed his sword and began walking over to retrieve his other blades. A strong gust came by and the tree began to fall leaving a powerful crash as it hit the ground. One his blades were retrieve and sheathed Nazomishi walked towards Kenshin and Sano with Sano's mouth a gape and Kenshin more surprised with the energy blade. Indeed he would come in handy fighting Jinei