Hitokiri Battousai.
Sword sheds sheath
A flash of light
The sword slices through the opponent
A rain of blood
The cross-shaped scar will be his last sight
Instant death
He falls down dead
There was never time to feel pain
Sheath shields sword
Waiting once more for a worthier challenger
In the heat of the Bakumatsu
A young Hitokiri was born
His sword knew not mercy
Sliced through the living and dead alike
Peace came with this violence
Hitokiri Battousai was this legendary swordsman
After the turmoil of the Bakumatsu
The Battousai becomes a Rurouni
A vow is pledged
A wandering swordsman with the burden of many lives taken
The Rurouni will repent for the Hitokiri
A sakabatou takes the place of his fearsome sword
He hopes with deep regrets
The lives he saves
Will atone for the lives taken.
He lives his life by a weak joke
He hides the uncontrollable spirit
Buries it deep within
He carries the misery of the world
His eyes hide deep mysteries
The sword is a weapon
Kenjutsu is an art of killing
Forever until the bitter end
With a cross-shaped scar
And a deep wound in his soul
He walks the thin line between a Hitokiri and a Rurouni.
VOCAB
Bakumatsu - A fight for freedom which happened in Japan history.
Hitokiri - A manslayer/assassin who is feared many for the speed of his sword.
Battousai - A name derived from the speed when comes to using the fighting technique Battoujutsu.
Rurouni - A wandering swordsman.
Sakabatou - A reversed edge sword. Since it's reversed, swordsmen use it in order to avoid deaths.
Bakumatsu Period
This is where the history from the game is drawn; it is set in a time when there was a lot of upheaval in Japan. The Bakumatsu period was from 1860 to 1899, at the end of the Edo era, before the Meiji era began. At this time, Japan had finally opened its waters and its cities to the outside world; for the first time in her existence as a country, foreigners were allowed to come and go, and the first forms of trade and commerce started. Japan's culture and lifestyle was a strange thing to the Americans and Europeans entering her, and the Westerners were just as strange to the Japanese. Yet there was much fascination from both sides, and Japan began to pick up Western styles, cultures, clothing etc. Modernization was showing its effects on Japan.