Kenshin's Tragedy
This is about Kenshin's secret past... This is his reason for not wanting to kill any more. This is where Tomoe and Enishi come in... And this was when young Kenshin was known as Hitokiri Battousai...
We enter the dark era of the Bakumatsu where there was chaos, fighting and even killing... Everything starts off with Battousai being assigned to kill three men. The two older ones died without much of a fight. The youngest, however, managed to put up a good fight in effort to save his own life. Yet he still could not win Battousai. With a swift stroke of his sword, Battousai kills the young man easily but not without the latter scarring the former's left cheek first. As if immune to physical pain, Battousai walks off, carry the memory of the fight with him for the rest of his life...
It was night time. Battousai sat alone in a restaurant drinking sake. To his utmost disgust, it tasted like blood. A lady walks in and her beauty attracts the men in the restaurant. They begin to taunt her and start trying to take advantage of her. In short, basically creating unwanted trouble. Battousai helps her fend them off, and walks out of the place alone. He meets an enemy, who tries in vain to kill the famed Battousai. Battousai swiftly and confidently wields his sword and attacks in self defense. As he delivers the fatal stroke, blood splatters everywhere. He suddenly hears someone approach. Before he could flee, he realises it was the lady he had helped earlier in the restaurant. The blood of the man he'd just killed had stained her clothes and face. She had come to thank him for helping her but ended up witnessing his terrible act. She faints after saying, 'I've heard of it rain blood, but you really did make it rain blood...'
Thinking her fainting spell was due to the sight of so much blood, Battousai's heart softens and despite his own misgivings, he brings the girl home, and even lets her sleep in his bed. Jolting awake the next day, he finds that the lady's name was Tomoe Yukishiro. From then on, she continued to stay by his side refusing to leave, since there was nowhere else for her to go... To the utter frustration of Battousai...
Every once in a while, Battousai receives a black envelope. And on that very night, blood would be shed. Every night Battousai comes home late after receiving the envelope, Tomoe always asks him whether he really decides to continue living his life the way it is now. A reply is never given.
One day, she finds Battousai asleep by the window. Seeing how vulnerable he can be, she tries to cover him with a blanket as an act of concern. He jolts awake, and draws his sword in a blink of an eye. In a pose ready to kill her, he finally realises it was Tomoe. Gasping for breath in attempt to calm down, he advises her to leave before he eventually truly kills her. She drops the blanket in his lap, and prepares to leave. He suddenly says, 'The answer is... I won't kill you.' He was answering a question she had asked him earlier -- Would you kill me?
Days later, a terrible battle breaks out, in which Battousai had to participate. After the battle, Battousai and Tomoe decide to live together until death do them part...
They eventually live together as farmers. Their lives gradually become carefree and easy, always with a group of kids gathering at their house to play.
One particular day, a young boy with raven black hair comes to their house while the usual kids were playing outside. The boy hits one of them, and even bites Battousai's hand. Upon hearing the commotion in their yard, Tomoe emerges from the house. On seeing Tomoe, the boy's eyes light up, and a smile stretches across his face. As it turns out, the boy was Enishi Yukishiro, Tomoe's younger brother. He had come to help his sister.
After Enishi had left, Tomoe confides in Battousai. She tells him that she had been about to marry to a young man, whom she had grown up with. She liked him a lot, and he in turn had wanted to marry her. However, because she wasn't able to express much of her feelings to him, he had gone away with the thought that she didn't feel the same way towards him. Eventually, the man left her side to fight in Edo. He, however, ended up being killed there. Upon hearing the news, she was devastated to realise that she did indeed love the man. (Battousai later finds out that her fiancé was actually the young man he himself had killed earlier. The very man who had contributed to his famous cross-scar was the one and the same man who was to marry Tomoe!) Once she was finished with her story, Battousai steps forward and hugs her. She cries in his arms, and he vows to protect her to the best of his abilities.
The next morning, Tomoe wakes up before Battousai does, and says goodbye. She leaves the house to meet with a gang. She tells the leader of the gang that Battousai was most vulnerable when he was asleep. The leader later finds out that Tomoe really loves Battousai, and the former then realises that Tomoe's warning was a lie. He kidnaps her, and tells Enishi to deliver a letter to Battousai.
Upon receiving the letter, Battousai hurries to save Tomoe. In so doing, he was forced to fight his way through a forest filled with people waiting to fight and slow him down. After battling with the last of them, Battousai was badly wounded, semi-deaf and semi-blind. He finally stumbles to the house where Tomoe is held captive, only to find the gang leader guarding it. They naturally fight. Upon hearing the commotion outside, Tomoe regains her consciousness. She finds a knife nearby, and realises Battousai was outside fighting. She decides to help him. Battousai, knowing he would die from the battle, decides to give it his last best shot. He uses his remaining energy to kill his enemy. However, before he could stop himself, he kills Tomoe by mistake, as she deliberately comes between the two men in effort to shield Battousai.
The gang leader falls down dead, and the knife which Tomoe was carrying cuts Battousai's left cheek.
'Why, Tomoe?' Battousai asks, his eyes fill with tears of grief. 'It's better this way.' She smiles, and dies. 'But how can it be better, Tomoe?' He asks rhetorically, heartbroken and devastated. Nearby, a young boy with raven-black hair, is hidden behind a tree. His eyes fill with hatred and grief for the death of his beloved sister. The stress of her death itself then slowly turns his black hair slivery white as snow...
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