Death struck through the wide plain that night harder than lightning. Usually, the bandits would attack the odd wanderer, or two, but not on a scale like this. Miryu carefully shadowed Hiko's footsteps, treading carefully where he had stepped as her Shishou killed the bandits one by one. Soon, they came to a man who had the audacity to murder three women huddled over a child older than Miryu was, the last one, had been grabbed by her hair, and a katana was slid through her neck. Death was instant.

"Who are you?" the man asked Hiko when he noticed his comrades dying around him, the last one, decapitated into several pieces. Thankfully, he did not notice Miryu's presence, for with her small body, she was hidden perfectly behind Hiko's broad exterior.

Scoffing, Hiko raised his katana and said, "There is no need for me to reveal my name to a dead man." The ruffian was dead before he could say anything else. In his heart, Hiko knew that Miryu was not meant for a life like this. Every single time he raised his katana to defend those who could not do so themselves, every single time he spilt blood for their sakes, Miryu would always be right behind him, watching him… But he knew that she was strong, as much as she was resilient, just like her mother…

Once he made sure the surroundings were safe, Miryu began to step out of his shadow, grasping as much of his cape as her little hands could, and as tightly. Even the bravest of adults would have cringed at such a sight, of corpses littered like paperweights; Hiko could not blame her for being afraid… "Stay here," he told her firmly, and she nodded obediently, although she eyed the red-haired boy curiously. "You're pretty unlucky, boy," he told the boy, who just stared at the dead, traumatized, no doubt. "Since the coming of the Black Ships, the Bakufu has failed to keep the peace, ronin turn into bandits just to survive… I just happened to be here to take revenge for you." Still, there was no response… It did not matter. "Go to the village nearby, they will take care of you…"

It was nineteen years ago…

Miryu was peeling an orange to eat while Hiko was seated a rock, Kenshin sprawled on the ground before them. There was little chance for them to stop training, and Kenshin knew it very well, but he was just too… damned tired. Although he was in peak physical form, he was no longer an energetic teenager, and a few day's worth of getting beaten up by Hiko… It really made him wonder how he and Miryu had survived their training. "Wake up," Hiko ordered, while Kenshin continued to pant. "If you don't get up, I'll continue to remember everything that happened in the past, like the last time you wet the bed the autumn you were eleven…" It was enough for Kenshin to rise and glare at his Shishou. "Or the day you were so hungry that you ate those mushrooms and almost died."

There was no surprise that Miryu would burst out in laughter when Hiko said those words. Yes, she had her fair share of mishaps as well, but since Kenshin's were now in focus, she just could not resist it. She had been with the two of them ever since Hiko decided to retrain Kenshin, just happy that they were almost back in the days of her childhood, although she had no part of the instruction and the training, whatsoever. "Shishou, if you could remember those embarrassing moments that even I have forgotten, you would have to be truly evil," Kenshin muttered.

Hiko raised an eyebrow. A gesture which said volumes about what he was going to say next. Rising to his full height, towering above Kenshin, Hiko said, "What are you talking about, you show up after leaving for fifteen years and I've been training with you for the whole week! You cannot ask for a better Master." Well, that part held some truth. Most teachers would have already abandoned their apprentices when this kind of thing happens to them. But not Hiko Seijurou. He was just too lazy and uncaring to take another apprentice. "And now, I have grown tired of this… If you cannot hit me in the next round, I will not teach you the ougi."

Miryu looked at both men as they started to stare at one another. Despite their differences in build and in personality, the two of them had one common characteristic. They were equally stubborn. None of them was going to let down on what they had decided to do, and Kenshin knew that if he had to learn the ougi, he would have to work for it, and work hard. If Miryu could do it, there was no possibility that he could not. At least, it was where logic had resided.

"Hiko Seijurou, the Thirteenth Master of the Hiten-Mitsurugi Ryuu," Kenshin muttered under his breath. "Sneaky, tactless, anti-social," one by one, Kenshin began to list down Hiko's shortcomings, "As someone who knows my past, he is a million times worse than Saito…" But there were other things as well. This was a man who could see through any cheap tricks up his sleeves, and there was no doubt that he was the singular most powerful warrior that he had ever known. If the coming attack was his last, he had to do it with his body and soul.

Go… Miryu said to both men in her heart as Kenshin looked towards the sky and leapt upwards, with Hiko following soon after. Kenshin would use his favorite, Ryu-Tsui-Sen, and to counter it, Hiko would use Ryu-Sho-Sen. The impact was so great, that even the flow of the waterfall's water was affect for a slight moment. However, when Kenshin landed, he did so on his head, and blacked out once again. "You do not know how desperate he is to learn the ougi," she told Hiko, breaking her silence. "Shishou, if he failed, please, consider…"

"Ahou, I did not say that he did not manage to hit me at all," Hiko growled. And when he woke Kenshin up, he told the other man, "It was not a perfect hit, but you hit me nonetheless." There it was, where Kenshin had struck him, a nick in his arm-guards. "I shall indeed teach you the ougi."

From the waterfall, the trio moved to the clearing in front of Hiko's house, where there was more space to run from one point to the other in relative safety. It was then when Kenshin noticed that Miryu had retrieved her own katana, with a life-sized puppet that she had constructed standing right next to him.

Hiko told him that he was not to move, lest he be killed, and immediately, Kenshin did as he was told. One by one, Hiko lectured upon the nine basic cuts that kenjutsu was based upon, and that all other techniques were based on these nine cuts, as well as the maneuvers to defend against them. And after he had finished, Kenshin saw that both he and Miryu were in the same stance, and in mere seconds, the attack had flashed before him, with nine small cuts on each point that Hiko had just told him about, while Miryu's puppet was obviously cut into the corresponding pieces.

It happened so fast that if Kenshin had blinked, he would have missed it completely. "If you move with the shinsoku [god-like speed] of the Hiten-Mitsurugi Ryuu, and attack those nine points, you will be unstoppable. This is Ku-Zu-Ryu-Sen, and the technique that I am best at," Hiko said with a flashy smile, as though a random passing teenage girl would die of his handsomeness.

It was unbelievable, and it was only then did Kenshin comprehend how powerful Miryu actually was. She was side by side Hiko, her movements completely matching his, and until now, he was under the impression that she was still on the same level as he was… But that flare of Ki that had come from her, it almost equaled that of Hiko's… She was able to mask her abilities, even to him, for fifteen years… His respect for both of them immediately grew by leaps and bounds…

"Now, you try," Hiko said, after Miryu had cleared the debris, leaving Kenshin shocked to no end, arguing that it was impossible, because he had only seen it once. "You can't learn this technique just by watching, but by doing it! Wasn't that how I always taught you?"

Kenshin was oblivious. But then, he remembered the number of beatings that he and Miryu had to endure during the training, and realized that Hiko was right. "I wondered how we survived it…" Kenshin muttered, reduced into a ball while Hiko burst out in cruel laughter before telling him that in his genius, Hiko was able to hold back enough that they could take his attacks.

"You were not able to move, but it does not mean that you could not see it," Miryu said gently, while mumbling words at Hiko, for being an old, conceited cow, or at least that was what Kenshin heard. Miryu was right, though, and Kenshin knew that Miryu was always right.

He mimicked Hiko's movements, only to find that Hiko returned the attack as well, matching every single one of his blows. After both Ku-Zu-Ryu-Sen were complete, he crashed onto the ground, surprised, and demoralized. If he could not deliver a perfect attack, how could he ever defeat Shishio?

However, it seemed that Hiko read his mind completely. "No, it was a perfect attack, but because of the differences in the strength of arm, and weight, you are overwhelmingly my inferior… These aspects cannot be gained in a short term's worth of training, but there is one way to counter it, and that is the ougi… You didn't really think that Ku-Zu-Ryu-Sen was the ougi, did you? Even an ahou like Miryu saw through it."

"What did you call me?" Miryu shouted angrily, one of her rare outbursts on Hiko. "You almost gave me a fright that day! I should have killed you in your sleep when I had the chance!" Her sapphire eyes quickly turned to amber as Kenshin tried to restrain her, she, the only woman who ever mastered the ougi. By right, she was to carry on the title of Hiko Seijurou XIV if she was a man, and even then, Hiko still spared no quarter in giving her a hard time.

The time of play had ended, and it was time for Kenshin to figure out the way to break the Ku-Zu-Ryu-Sen, and in the end, he sheathed his sakabattou. There was nothing to stop the nine attacks unless he attacked first, and for the first time, Hiko had something good to say about it. "Good, at least you have an idea of what to do. Beyond the shinsoku of Battou-jutsu, there is also, one that surpasses it, chou-shinsoku [literally beyond shinsoku], and this is the true nature of Amakakeru-Ryu-No-Hirameki… However, your sakabattou will mar the speed of the attack, are you sure that you will be able to do it?"

"I am willing to risk my life for it…" Kenshin replied, he too, having amber in his eyes. It was not rage, it was resolve, and this was always evident in both Hiko's apprentices. He knew that because of their resolve, they were strong beyond belief, but that did not mean, that they were no longer fools.

"If you still think like that, you really are risking your life, baka," Hiko berated once again. "I will give you one night to think it over, and find what you have been lacking. At dawn, your time of reckoning would come."

Miryu looked at the both of them, and knew that nothing could be said. She spent half the night with Kenshin, and the other half, with Hiko. The three of them did not have any sleep at all, and when the rain fell… it really brought back memories of the past.

"Nobody came?" Hiko asked the man who always sold him his Sake. "But…"

The man just shook his head. "This village is so quiet that not even a cat passes by, the only child that passed by this week is Miryu-chan, right now."

Where could the boy have gone to? Hiko nodded and paid the man before leaving with Miryu. "Shishou, could the boy have… killed himself?" She had heard whispers from the grownups that people would do such things when they were utterly overcome by sadness. Who knows if the bandits killed the people most dear to the boy?

Hiko did not answer Miryu's question, but prayed that nothing of the sort happened. But just to be safe, he would go back to where the massacre had happened, and he would at least help the child to have a proper burial. But what they saw shocked them to no end. The entire place was filled with crosses made from dead branches, and not a corpse in sight. Only the boy was there, and he seemed to have toiled the whole night.

"Boy, did you do this?" Hiko asked, and the child nodded. He told them that his parents had passed on the previous year, and he was sold to those slavers, and met the three women who protected him, even if he tried to hold the bandits off… As a tribute to those women, Hiko poured some of his Sake over the stones that marked their graves. "Man or woman, it is a shame that they attained Nirvana without tasting Sake," he told him. "Tell me, what is your name?"

The boy looked at him, revealing the softest eyes of violet. He had the strangest coloring indeed, but that did not matter. "Shinta…" he replied, while Miryu introduced herself to him. If he is a boy, name him "Kenshin", the heart of the sword, but if she is a girl, name her "Miryu", the beautiful dragon… Ryumiko's final words resonated in Hiko's mind. He would have the children that he and she had always dreamed of, and he would raise them to be the greatest warriors in all of Japan.

"It is too soft for a swordsman," Hiko told Shinta. "From now on, you shall be Kenshin. The two of you, shall receive the greatest weapon of all!"

It was nineteen years ago.

Morning came quickly, and once again, Kenshin faced Hiko in battle. "So, have you found what you have been looking for?" Hiko asked him, only to have met with a negative answer. "Then, you are at the end of your road, for an incomplete man such as you shall never defeat Shishio, because you cannot even defeat the demon that you have repressed for so long. If I allow you to live, you would have no ability to anyways… Think of it as my last gift to you as your Shishou."

With that, he removed his cloak, and with the swing of his katana, creating a small chasm upon the ground. The cloak that he always wore was then revealed to have weights attached to it, weighing ten kan each, or thirty kilograms, which acted to limit the power of Hiko Seijurou in times of peace. Now that Hiko had taken it off, he would be at his full power.

Miryu saw Kenshin's hand shaking. It was what she had done too, for even with the cloak on, Hiko was able to beat the living daylights out of them. She had been using bokken when she learnt the ougi, and it completely disintegrated at the impact… She just hoped that Kenshin knew what he was doing. Amakakeru-Ryu-No-Hirameki could not be taught in any way. It had to be discovered. And for Kenshin's sake, he had to do it now.

"Meet your end!" Hiko shouted as he came charging towards Kenshin, who delivered a battle-cry as he waited for Hiko to get in range. Kenshin, I am getting married! Miryu's voice came into his head. Baka, it is the rurouni I want to remain, not Battousai! Kaoru… You're so cool! Yahiko… There were people who cared about him, people who loved him… He could not die now. He still had to defeat Shishio Makoto… Yes, he could not die now!

It happened within a flash. The fifteenth time in history, the realization of an heir of the Hiten-Mitsurugi Ryuu of the ougi. "Yes, this is it…" Hiko murmured. "These ten years, you have been mocked by guilt and shame, so much that you do not see your own life worthy to be appreciated, which held back your strength, allowing the hitokiri to surface. Now, you know that there is nothing stronger than the will to live, because they will never be truly happy without you… Live on, Kenshin! Live, and take care of Miryu for me… I loved a woman once, and we prayed to have children like the two of you… Do not think of this as the breaking of your vows, Kenshin. It is a tradition of our Ryuu, likewise, I have killed my own Shishou in the same manner…"

With that, Hiko Seijurou XIII collapsed into a puddle of water, with Miryu and Kenshin screaming , "Shishou!"