Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal

Synopsis

In the days leading up to the Japanese Revolution, Hiko Seiijuro, a wandering master swordsman and hermit, comes across bandits ransacking a slave wagon. With the hope of saving as many lives as he can, Hiko cuts down the raiding bandits, yet only manages to shield one child from the slaughter. He leaves the child behind, telling him to head to a nearby village where the locals can raise him. A few days later, Hiko returns to check on the child he saved and is struck by what he finds: the boy has shaped gravestones for both the slaves who had become his friends and the bandits who had killed them. Seeing great potential in the child, Hiko takes him in, gives him the name Kenshin—meaning "heart of the sword"—and mentors him in the swordsmanship of the Hiten Mitsuruugi Ryu. As his ideals clash relentlessly with the cruelty of reality, Tsuiokuhen tells the sorrowful and dark tale of Himura Kenshin, one of the most dreaded assassins of the Japanese Revolution: the Hitokiri Battousai.