Armour-piercing Shuriken

The Sword

Bushido.

The Way of the Warrior.

Sching.

The malleable yet strong blade of the Japanese-forged katana flashed out of the scabbard.

It was wielded with an almost unearthly calm.

A pair of dark eyes seemed to glow.

With anger.

Chink.

Two swords clashing.

With forces only the blades folded a thousand times could withstand.

Schink.

One man grasped his side.

His hand came away, bloodied.

The other man was poised to strike again.

And strike he did.

Bringing the death-blow.

All was quiet in the darkened street.

On a night in the darkest days of Japan's history.

In the Bakumatsu.

And one man, and only one, walked away from the scene.

Not far away, in a street very much like this one, a different fight was taking place.

Only, the results were similar.

One man walked away from the carnage.

One man, with blood on his left cheek.

A vicious slash of a dying man had left its mark.

The man was short of stature.

Yet, his mere presence brought fear into all.

His name was previously Shinta.

Himura Shinta.

But all others, save one, who had known him by that name, were dead.

All but one.

All but his sensei.

And even his sensei had not called him that.

He had given him a new name after they had first met.

Himura Kenshin.

But now, he was not known but that name.

No, definitely not.

For he was the feared man of the Bakumatsu.

The man known only as the hitokiri.

Not just any hitokiri.

The Hitokiri Battousai.

The man who was rumoured to kill with one slash of a quickly-drawn sword.

Rumoured.

For most who had seen him in action had been his victims.

And they had all died.

The man who was the master of the battou-jutsu.

The art of drawing the sword.

Two men walked away from duels of death that night.

Two men.

From opposite ends of the spectrum.

One, a hitokiri for the Royalists.

The other, a swordsman of the Ishin Shishi.

Their paths would cross.

But not that night.

And not far away, in her ancestral home, a thirteen-year-old slept.

----------end of chapter two----------

Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin does not belong to me...

Author's Note:

Updated at last....sorry for the delay!

Thank you Chiruken, Akal-Saris and DiaBLo for reading and reviewing!

~rurouni