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In the early Meiji era, after participating in the Bakumatsu war as the
assassin "Hitokiri Battousai", Himura Kenshin wanders the countryside of Japan
offering protection and aid to those in need as atonement for the murders he
once committed.

In the story Kenshin is said to revert to the murderer Hitokiri Battousai he
once used to be. Why would killing revert his full personality back in to that
of a murderer permanently?

NOTE: He did sometimes temporarily revert to his murderous self but soon after
gets pulled out of it by people such as Kamiya Kaoru.


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rurouni-kenshin
Why would Himura Kenshin turn back into Hitokiri Battousai?


In the OAV series _Rurouni Kenshin: Trust & Betrayal_, we get to learn more
about Kenshin and his trip from being a simple orphan to Japan's most feared
assassin Hittokiri Battousai, and then to the peaceful Ruroni.

As Hittokiri Battousai, he wasn't exactly evil. He had good intentions, and
saw assassination as the only way he could help the weak and the downtrodden.
Through his interactions with Tomoe, and her final fate, Kenshin begins to
realize that he had been doing it all wrong. Helping people by spilling blood
was not the way to go. That's when he dons the character of pacifist Ruroni
Kenshin, who refuses to kill no matter the provocation or how _evil_ the other
person is.

But that conviction is a very hard one to keep, especially for a trained
assassin such as Kenshin. He knows that if he slips just once, and kills as a
means to an end, he would fall back in to the endless cycle of blood letting
that dominated his life as Hitokiri Battousai.


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He took a vow to never kill again, and that forms the core of his being.
During the war his psyche became extremely fragile from killing as he is
naturally a kind and good person. Killing required him to bury those parts of
himself. When the final battle is over he disappears from the world vowing
never to kill again. He heals mostly but he is not stable. If he kills again
there is a chance that his mind would break and he would no longer be able to
find the parts of himself that were good.

Kaoru is able to appeal to Kenshin's good side as he loves her, which gives
him the strength to fight the killer in his heart.


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