Choshu leader who negotiated the Satsuma-Choshu alliance with Saigo and Okubo. Thereafter he played a leading role in the new government’s Charter Oath, abolition of feudalism and other reforms; he accompanied Iwakurato the West in 1872-1873, resigned his posts in protest against the Formosan expedition of 1874, and died during the Satsuma rebellion.
Was the one who ‘hired’ young Himura Kenshin to be a Hitokiri for the Ishinshishi. Made him the embodiment of his master’s teachings, which stated that to create order there must be a guardian of chaos.He was told this role would damage the boy’s soul. Despite this warning Kenshin was chosen to fulfill this cruel role, which was at odds with the feelings of his heart. Realizing that his young Hitokiri was at war with himself, he asked Tomoe to serve as a sheath for Kenshin’s cold rage, hoping to prevent him from becoming an ‘unrepentant killer’. Arranged a safe house for them to live in after the trouble in Kyoto and it was there that Kenshin began to truly understand what he was fighting for and who he truly was. After Tomoe’s death, Katsura asked Kenshin to lend him his skills again but this time as a bodyguard as he had already trained a new Hitokiri for the Ishinshishi: Shishio Makoto.