The Rurouni Kenshin Tsuioku Hen of four episodes tells the story of Himura Kenshin's past, how he became the Hitokiri Battousai and the origin of his cross-shaped scar. The story opens with the meeting between the boy, Shinta and the man, Hiko Seijuro. Hiko rescues Shinta from bandits and takes him on as a student in the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu. After a time Shinta, now renamed Kenshin, leaves his master to join the Ishinshishi of the Choshu clan as their primary hitokiri. At some point early on, he earns the name Battousai and it is thus that the fearsome legend of the Hitokiri Battousai is born. After a year he begins to question his chosen path but can see no way of escaping it until he meets a woman named Tomoe. She begins to change the heart of the feared assassin and shows him that there are more ways to live then by the sword. The young couple fall in love and it is this love that begins to change Kenshin's cold heart, setting it back on the path it once was on. Tomoe is the one who saves his life even though she once sought to take it in revenge for the death of her beloved. When she is accidentally killed by Kenshin's own hand, he makes a vow to never kill again after the new era is established, but first he returns to the war as a common soldier who never attacks until attacked. At the end of the war he leaves the hitokiri's sword behind him and takes to the road in search of atonement for the deaths he caused. He carries nothing but Tomoe's memory and a sakabatou with him on this journey. Hitokiri Battousai disappears from history and becomes a legend.