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Name: DA
Timezone:US central time -6
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IC Information

Name: Himura Kenshin
Canon: Rurouni Kenshin
Gender: male
Age: around 28
History: wiki
Personality:
Once upon a time there was a legendary manslayer. This young man cut a bloody path through the Meiji Revolution. He was considered the strongest of all the assassins. He did this because he believed he was doing the right thing, trying to bring peace to the people by removing the shogun via revolution. He kills over 100 men within the first six months of his time in the revolution. Yet before the war was over this man disappeared leaving the battlefield behind. He walked away from his life as a killer and into a new life. He has kept on walking for the last 10 years. This man is Kenshin Himura.

He seems a far cry from the man he used to be. The man he once was was driven by a goal. He wished to usher forth a new era, but the price of that era was blood. The blood of those he killed, including the woman he loved. The woman he married and had a short life with. It is the death of that woman that effects Kenshin the most. It is because of her that he makes his vow never to kill again.

He is a technical pacifist. He believes in peace and the sanctity of life. He thinks that all life other than his own is precious. He has very little value for his own life, as seen in the numerous times he has risked it for little or no reward to himself. He also feels that taking a life is unforgivable. However, he does still carry the sword, which he is willing to use it to protect those around him. He generally is seen siding with the underdog of the situation, such a when he first meets Yahiko and helps him with the yakuza. He simply doesn’t wish for others to suffer when he can do something to help them. It is his way of trying to find some forgiveness for the many deaths he caused. Especially since he remembers the name and face of everyone he has ever assassinated and feels incredibly guilty for each one regardless of how justified that killing might have been at the time.

He has taken up this reverse blade sword in order to keep a promise to himself to never take another life. If he is forced to fight, his normal killing blows incapacitate. He's still just as good as he once was with a sword, he just tempers it with the reluctance to take lives. It's just another part of the path he's chosen as a wanderer.

Another part of that path is his acting as a fool. He is not, but he has adapted a way of acting and interacting with others that is completely opposite of what he really truly is. Most of the time he is rather clumsy, slightly eccentric, and completely unassuming. He keeps a very low profile as many people still wish to go after him in order to be the one that slays Hitokiri Battousai. He prefers to meet conflicts with diplomacy instead of with a blade. If he can talk his opponent out of attacking he will do that. Most of his fights are simply because he cannot avoid them in any other way. Even then he is almost painfully polite and soft spoken. He refers to others in honorifics such as “dono” and refers to himself in third person. This is because he does honestly see himself as lesser than others. He even adopts a rather archaic way of speaking using what translates in English as “that is it” at the end of some of his sentences.

In such a way he manages to keep control of his warrior self. Because he takes it upon himself to get involved by putting himself in harms way to protect others, he is often faced with life and death situations. When these situations get out of hand and Kenshin is backed into a corner, he will rely upon the way he was in the past This is most obvious with any of his fights with those that were part of the revolution with him, such as the Shinsengumi captain, Saito or the hitoriki Jinei.

That catalyst for this personality shift into a nearly completely different persona is usually an opponent who angers Kenshin enough due to that person’s own disrespect for life. However rehashed battles from the past have also been known to trigger the change. The shift is obvious because the way he acts and talks and moves becomes completely different from before. He talks with a cold, selfish, brazen manner, dropping the eccentric way of speaking and refers to himself in first person. His movements are quicker and far more deliberate. Even his face changes slightly, from the gentle peaceful look he normally possessed to a sharp eyed look of frigid anger and deadly determination. (in the anime, they depict this with his eyes going gold). He loses all sense of kindness he normally has and becomes a bloodthirsty man capable of killing without hesitation. This is not a separate personality, but a part of his true self that he keeps repressed.

It’s also a part of himself that he fears. He know what he is capable of and he does his best to keep from resorting to such a desperate measure. He fears it because he is aware that it wouldn’t take that much to push him over the edge and make him return to the life of a killer. A life he has been trying to atone for for the last 10 years. A life that he tries not to let touch others.

As a wandering samurai, Kenshin has had few close friends. He’s lived a life of a loner, having been betrayed by people he trusted, one of which was his wife, many times before. It was only very recently that he came across a group of people who accepted him as he presents himself. Kaoru opens her house to him and he accepts it, though he also tells her that one day he might start wandering again. He feels if he stays in a place too long, his past might catch up to him.

Through these friends he is slowly starting to open up about his past and who he was. He is just starting to realize that he too is a person and worthy of some sort of forgiveness; even if he has yet to forgive himself. Because of this self-enforced independence, he still feels the need to take care of his problems by himself. This is mostly because he is tired to losing his loved ones.

Powers/Abilities:

"I forgot to say one thing. Hitokiri Battousai’s style of fighting is not that of the Kamiya Kasshin School. It’s an old style of kenjutsu which arose in the Sengoku era, designed to face several opponents at once. Its name is Hiten Mitsurugi. And without the reverse blade, it is slaughter with deadly swiftness." - Himura Kenshin

Kenshin, despite his terribly girly looks, is quite a fearsome and accomplished swordsman. He was trained since he was about 6 or 7 by a very powerful master. He has held and used a sword for the last 22 years of his life. This shows in his fighting skills. His specific sword style, as stated in the quote, is designed for one hit one kill against a number of opponents. It has given him superior speed as well as acrobatic abilities and inhuman reflexes. He can leap high into the air and dodge attacks that would otherwise kill him. It also enables him to fight those far larger and stronger than himself. With his stature that is nearly every enemy he faces.

Most of his techniques were originally intended to be lethal . Because of his vow to to never kill and due to the design of the special sword he uses, Kenshin has had to modify the style somewhat. He has had 10 years to perfect this alteration. His mastery of battojutsu (the art of drawing a katana) is so well developed that he can compensate for the slowness that comes from owning a sword with the edge on the wrong side of the blade.

Combined with his years of combat as an assassin during the Meiji Revolution Kenshin is considered one of the best swordsmen in Japan. This goes beyond the use of a sword though. He has been seen to use his sword skills with a kitchen knife and other such implements of peace. He has not however completely mastered his style as he left before he learned the final technique.

It should also be noted that Kenshin has a working knowledge of medicine from the time period as he was a pharmacist as part of a cover identity during the revolution. He can also cook and clean and does most of the household chores up to and including babysitting at the Kamiya dojo.

It should also be noted that his sword style is built for a much larger, stronger man. It is stated, late in canon, that if he keeps using it, he'll actually die from it from the stress it puts on his small frame.

Keepsakes/Mementos:
-sakabatou = reverse blade sword
- a red gi and white hakama
- an x shaped scar on his face

Sample:

It is nothing short of the fires of hell. The intense heat or Shishio's flames from his sword and the flames around them from where their battle field has been set. There is a distinct smell of sulfur in the air, thick and putrid. But even that cannot mask the stench of blood. It's a smell that seems to follow him no matter how long it's been. The blood of friends, the blood of enemies, and his own blood, dripping from the wounds that the man that had taken over his spot as the killer in the shadows. It seeps into everything. It makes him sick.

Kenshin's small body can't take much more of this. He's already been through the fortress. He's already gone floor by floor. He's already dragged those people through hell, all because he was weak. All because he couldn't kill. Sano-san, slumped, unconscious against the wall, his hand shattered. Sano, who had followed him because they were friends. Friends. This is why he had none. Because those who followed after him got caught up in his messes.

Saito, the Wolf of Mibu, once his enemy, is in much the same state. He tried to go for the kill but Shishio had been too smart for that attack to work on him. Even Aoshi, who Kenshin had recently battled, has taken far too much damage to buy him time. To allow him to recover some. They were all fools. All of them banking on the fact that somewhere within him, Hitokiri Battousai still lived. Certain that if Shishio pushed him enough he would turn his sword around the cut the man down.

He should. He knows he should. He should because this was a ghost he had created. He had made Shishio with his idealism and his guilt. Shishio was his fault and ifr he ever wanted to move forward, he needed to finally put an end to that long ago chapter of his life. Only, when it came down to it, he just couldn't. He had made a promise. He had made a promise while the blood of the woman he married in this very place was still warm and wet on his hands. He would never kill again.

But that vow means that he himself will likely die. Shishio pulls no punches. Coupled with the stress on his body from using the Hiten-Mitsurugi, Kenshin knows he can't last. He can barely get up. Barely stand. The burns and the deep slices on his body are taking their toll, but he has to stand up. He has to. The others have suffered to much.

So he stands. He stands and he fights. He fights even though he shouldn't be able to move. He struggles against Shishio, even as his blood pours from him. Even as he's nearly choked to death and thrown aside. He has one last shot. One last move. The final technique of the Hiten-Mitsurugi style, passed down to him by Master Hiko. A sure kill technique. Only once more, he can't kill. He can't kill and he pays for it. He pays for it right after the woman does.

That woman, so much like Tomoe, putting herself in the way and becoming a sacrifice to a remorseless killer. The sword goes through her and into him. It's too much. Too much for them both. Shishio bursts into flames, combusting from the inside. Kenshin falls backwards.

His eyes stare at the sky. It's full of smoke and fire and the smell of blood. Of course. It's only fitting that Hitokiri Battousai would die surrounded by the Hell he will soon step into. His wonders if it's finally over. If he's finally atoned. If he's allowed to die now. For a second, he thinks of Tomoe...and then of Kaoru. Would she cry? Kaoru-dono was a strong woman though. She would move on and continue to spread the hope of the Sword that Protects. Let the Sword that Kills die. Let it die with him. His eyes slip closed.

Mindset: So much is strange and unknown. The technology is strange and terrifying. It's beyond anything he's seen or known. His death, it seems, was not enough to attone. If he's "alive" in any way, it means that he still has to make up for all the harm he's caused. His vow to never kill again and to protect those that need it remains unchanged. If he is here, then he will do whatever it takes to help those in need.
G̶̶l̨͡i̵͢t̷c͝͠h̕é͠s̷̷͡:
Losing himself to blood lust and becoming a killer again
The smell of Tomoe's perfume. Kaoru's terrible cooking. It would be hilarious to mess with the fact that Kenshin is a whole big 5 foot nothing. He also about 90 lbs soaking wet... He's also girly-looking as hell. He is from 1879. So, he's tech stupid and then some. IDk if his speech patterns would be considered a glitch or not, but those still exist.

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