Chapter 118: By a Hair's Breadth

Aoshi: You'll fight with your full strength, but as you are, without turning the reverse blade around...

Kenshin: Yes.

Aoshi: More empty words.

(He strikes the bookshelf to Kenshin's side, destroying it.)

Aoshi: You fight with regard for your opponent's life. How can you use your full strength? At the height of the Bakumatsu, you fought to kill your enemy. That's exactly why you survived as the strongest of the Hitokiris. To fight with swords is to take life! A fight is to decide which is stronger! There is no decision but who lives and who dies! I trained on the edge between life and death and threw everything away to challenge you! Stop chopping logic and prepare to kill me here!

Kenshin (wiping away a smear of blood from his mouth): I trained at the point of life and death as well.

(Aoshi is taken aback.)

Kenshin: For a mere week, I returned to my master Hiko Seijuurou. I gained the secret techniques of the Hiten Mitsurugi school. And without reverting to the Hitokiri Battousai, I achieved the possibility of using my full strength.

(Sanosuke as well as Aoshi is surprised.)

Aoshi: More sophistry--

Kenshin: If you want to know if it is or not, fight me and see.

Sanosuke: Looks like all you can do is fight, Mister Shinomori. Standing there talking is going to get you nowhere. Time's running out; we've got a lot of other things to take care of. In the end only the sword can tell whether the swordsman is weak or strong. You're the challenger. Logically, it's not your place to complain. If the challenger gives up, it's Kenshin's unconditional win. And Kenshin. You didn't tell me anything about secret techniques or possibilities.

Kenshin (smiling): Sorry about that. (I forgot to tell you.)

Sanosuke: Well, that's okay. Instead, it's too bad for the girl and Yahiko, but I get to be the first to see the strongest non-Battousai Kenshin in action.

Kenshin: Yes...

Aoshi: Battousai. Let's do it.

(They charge.)

Aoshi: Oniwaban-style Kodachi Nitou-ryuu

(He crosses the two swords and scissors them across Kenshin's neck.)

Aoshi: Gokou Juuji!

Kenshin (leaping back): Hiten Mitsurugi-ryuu Ryuushousen! (striking upwards. Aoshi falls backwards as Kenshin leaps above him.)

Kenshin (striking down): Hiten Mitsurugi-ryuu Ryuutsuisen!

(Aoshi blocks by crossing his swords above him. He falls to his knees; Kenshin lands in front of him.)

Kenshin (hand on the cuts on his neck): Do you still think I'm chopping logic?

Aoshi: It's a little soon to be getting arrogant. A hair's breadth closer and the arteries in your neck would have been severed.

Kenshin: But that hair's breadth was decisive. It was the difference between my strength and yours. In my training between life and death, when I decided that come what may, I would live... I found a strength different from my abandon and achieved the final techniques. Nothing is stronger than the will to live. I had the honor of proving that on my master's body. I committed crimes as Hitokiri Battousai I cannot atone for... So until then, I lived not caring when I died or was killed, locking away my heart. But now I won't throw away my will to live, to live with my crimes and be punished for them. Aoshi, you said you came to throw it all away, but anyone can do that. It's easy. With the sword, you're strong. But in your heart, you're weak.

Aoshi: What are you...

Kenshin: Hanya. Shikijou. Beshimi. Hyottoko. The most loyal of comrades met their noble death... I understand your wanting to offer them glory as proof that they were the best. But it makes your heart weak! Whatever you say, it's not just an excuse for you to hide from reality! It's not for them, it's because of them you're wielding the sword of a murderer!