While a raid of bandits slay a group of travelers, a young boy named Shinta is saved from death by a passing swordsman. The swordsman, known as Hiko Seijūrō, is a master of the Hiten Mitsurugi, the strongest of all sword forms. After seeing the boy bury the bodies of not only the travelers but also the bandits, Hiko is impressed and takes Shinta as an apprentice, renaming him "Kenshin", a name which he felt was more appropriate for a swordsman.
After years of training, Kenshin leaves his master following a vehement argument, convinced that the only way to uphold the Hiten Mitsurugi's pledge to help the weak and innocent is to join the revolution poised to upend the Tokugawa shogunate. He joins the Choshu clan's Kiheitai under Takasugi Shinsaku, and soon works for their leader, Katsura Kogorō, as an assassin alongside I'izuka, the examiner of executions. Kenshin soon becomes a hardened killer, feared far and wide as the Hitokiri Battōsai. During a successful assassination, he kills a bodyguard named Kiyosato Akira. The encounter with Kiyosato leaves Kenshin with the first half of his cross-shaped scar. After killing a skilled assassin apparently sent to kill him, Kenshin meets a woman named Yukishiro Tomoe, unaware of the fact that she is the fiancée of Kiyosato. Kenshin, confused on whether to kill her or not after she witnesses him kill, decides to takes her to the inn where he and the men of the Choshu clan are residing. Katsura suspects a spy among the Choshu after Kenshin informs him of the assassin he killed since only a few select members of the clan know of Kenshin's existence.
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