Rurouni Kenshin Manga Translations
Volume Twelve--The Great Kyoto Fire
Part 95--Even If I Throw Away My Life . . .
Kenshin (thinking): Surely charging with divine speed and striking all nine points at once,
there can be no defense or evasion. (aloud) This is the succession technique . . .
Hiko: Now quit standing there admiring it and give it a try.
Kenshin: Just--just like that!
Hiko: What are you talking about. You can't learn this technique by studying footwork.
It's when you've felt its force and you're on your hands and knees that you learn. It's the
way I always trained you.
Kenshin (remembering all the beatings he took as a kid): Oh yeah . . . I was lucky I
survived.
Hiko: Well, it's all thanks to my cleverly giving you just as much as you could take. If
you get it, come on and try it. Full strength.
(Kenshin draws his own sword.)
Kenshin (thinking): I couldn't move a muscle. But that doesn't mean I couldn't see. Nine
points of attack. I saw them all . . .
Hiten Mitsurugi-ryuu Kuzuryuusen
Kenshin (thinking): I did it . . .
(Hiko smiles . . . and returns the attack. They meet again and again, until Hiko finally
knocks Kenshin to the ground.)
Kenshin (thinking): It was the same Kuzuryuusen, but . . . I was beaten . . . My
Kuzuryuusen . . . wasn't perfect?
Hiko: No, it was perfect. But even with the same Hiten Mitsurugi and the same technique, if
the fighters differ, the force will be different too. In wild-attack techniques, it's the
strength of your arms that counts; in charging techniques, it's your weight. In both
respects, you're overwhelmingly my inferior. In other words, before my Kuzuryuusen, your
Kuzuryuusen is, of course, as useless as any other technique.
Kenshin (thinking): So I can't use the Kuzuryuusen . . .
Hiko: If you're going to defeat my Kuzuryuusen, there's only one technique that can do it.
The greatest secret of the Hiten Mitsurugi school, the Amakakeru Ryuu no Hirameki. What are
you looking so shocked for? I never said that the Kuzuryuusen was the ultimate technique.
Kenshin (thinking): He did that on purpose.
Hiko: The Kuzuryuusen wasn't created in real combat or in training. It was made as a step in
the passing down of the techniques, as a test. To learn the succession technique, first you
begin with the Kuzuryuusen. If you can defeat the Kuzuryuusen of the previous master, the
initiation in the secrets of the school is complete.
Kenshin: However . . .
Hiko: Think hard about the Kuzuryuusen you just learned. If you do you'll get a general idea
of the Amakakeru Ryuu no Hirameki.
Kenshin: About the Kuzuryuusen . . .
(He sheathes his sword.)
Kenshin: (thinking) The Kuzuryuusen is a technique which allows no possibility of defense
or flight. Nothing but battou-jutsu could strike quickly enough to defeat it!
Hiko: Well done. That's right. Surpassing divine speed is the greater divine speed of
battou-jutsu. This is the true nature of the secret technique Amakakeru Ryuu no Hirameki.
But the problem is that the reverse blade will handicap the battou-jutsu. Can you still
surpass divine speed?
(Kenshin comes out of battou-jutsu stance, standing square at Hiko.)
Hiko: In formless stance with your sword put away . . . you intend to use Haisui no Jin*?
That's foolish.
*Haisui no Jin--one who prepares to exhaust all his strength, who cannot recover if he fails.
*Formless stance--see vol 5 part 36
Kenshin: I know. But even so . . . Even if I throw away my life, I must master the succession
technique.
Hiko (lowering his sword): Then you are a stupid pupil.
Kenshin: Huh?
Hiko (turning away): You haven't learned anything at all.
Kenshin: Master . . .
Hiko: Take one night. Until morning, search your heart and find the part of you that you lack.
If you can't do that, in mastering the ultimate technique, you really will be throwing away
your life.
(That night, Kenshin gazes up at the stars.)
Kenshin (thinking): I never thought about why I surpassed others. I thought I was a
sinner, hiding the true nature of the Hitokiri deep in my heart. What is it that I lack
. . .
(Hiko sips his sake, remembering the past.)
(Nineteen years ago, Hiko stops at a sake shop.)
Hiko: He didn't come this way?
Shopkeeper: Not so much as a cat's been to the village, much less a boy.
Hiko (walking away): Did he despair of the world and commit suicide? . . . But that happens
often too. Even wielding a blade, following the precepts of the Hiten Mitsurugi school, in
the end I couldn't save anyone. It's happened so many times. An age warped more towards
madness with each passing day, infested with villains that I kill and kill like flies. It
will only get worse from now on. The only thing I can really do is lay the victims' body to
rest . . .
(He enters the clearing again. The field is covered with handmade wooden crosses. The boy
stands alone in the midst of them, before three other graves marked with stones.)
Hiko: You dug graves not just for your parents but for the bandits too?
Boy: They weren't my parents. They were slavers. My parents died last year of cholera. But
even bandits and slavers are only bodies when they die . . . so I made them graves.
Hiko: These three stones?
Boy: Miss Kasumi, Miss Akane and Miss Sakura. They were taken from their families because of
debts. I only met them the day before, but I was the only boy and we didn't have any parents.
I thought even if it cost me my life, I had to protect them.
Hiko: But . . .
Boy: I looked for good stones for their graves but these were the only ones I could find. I
looked for flowers too, but I couldn't find any . . .
(Hiko uncorks the sake bottle and pours out a libation.)
Hiko: Man or woman, it would be a shame to attain Buddhahood without knowing the taste of
good sake. It's an offering from me. What's your name, boy?
Boy: Shinta . . .
Hiko: That's no name for a swordsman. From now on, you're called Kenshin. I'll teach you
all I know.
(Return to the present)
Hiko: That was nineteen years ago . . . and now, whether he masters the technique or not,
he'll say farewell to this life tomorrow . . .