"Aoshi Shinomori is in this room?" "What are you gonna do, Kenshin?" "As we stand here, the Aoiya is getting closer and closer to disaster..." "To tell the truth, we have no time to spend here." "Kenshin!" "It was a promise, that it was." "A promise with Miss Misao to bring Aoshi back with us." "And, the promise with Aoshi to have a rematch." "If I don't take this opportunity those two promises will be lost forever, that they will." "The time to make those promises good is now." "I must be the one to open the door of battle this time." "So we finally meet again, Himura the Battousai..." "How I have longed for this day when I can fight you again." "Because of your wish to defeat Kenshin you cooperated with Shishio and almost killed the old man from the Aoiya who used to be your friend." "I am humbled by you, Mr. Commander." "What would the likes of you understand?" "Once I swore a rematch with the Battousai I threw everything away..." "Pride, pity, good and evil..." "And my former comrades as well..." "And everything was for this day." "Aoshi..." "You have changed so much that I can't believe you're the Aoshi Shinomori I met before, that I cannot." "Of course..." "For the flower of the title "strongest" I'll get by defeating you..." "I will change into anything." "Twin kodachi..." "Draw, Battousai!" "Kenshin?" "What do you mean by this?" "Are you going to break your oath and forego our rematch now?" "I will keep my promise." "However, you are not my opponent for the rematch." "I made the promise with Aoshi, the Commander of the Oniwaban Group." "You're not him, that you are not." "What do you mean?" "It's useless, Kenshin." "If he could be persuaded things would have been simple at Kanryu's estate." "No matter what's happened to him, Aoshi is still Aoshi." "You just have to fight and defeat him." "Then, I wouldn't be able to fulfill my other promise, that I would not." "I promised to bring Aoshi the Commander back to Miss Misao but this Aoshi is not the same man..." "If I defeated him and took him back it would have no meaning whatsoever." "I will keep my promise." "But not with you, as you are now a man on the path of a soldier of chaos, that I will not." "Are you done quibbling yet?" "He's coming!" "Draw your sword, Kenshin!" "No." "Hey!" "Stop being so stubborn already, Kenshin!" "This Aoshi I will defend against using only the trappings of our environment." "I will just show him that he is no better at fighting me than he was before." "From there I will look for a way to turn this Aoshi back into the old Aoshi." "So, you won't use your sword now you'll fight him with this room full of books and just doing that you'll defend against Aoshi?" "We have no time at all, yet you use a really slow way of fighting." "Sorry..." "But this way of fighting is so like you!" "I forgive you, so go for it!" "I found it!" "Lord Shishio, we have a telegraph from Yumi." "Anji has lost, and Usui is fighting against Hajime Saito." "Furthermore, Himura has started fighting against Aoshi Shinomori in my room." "This is a bad turn of events, much different than my expectations." "Not necessarily..." "When fighting Anji, it is impossible for anyone to escape unharmed." "I'm sure Usui has already lost to Saito but he probably put his pride on the line to land one or two attacks." "If it's two injured men and the Battousai Sojiro and I are more than enough." "You're relaxed..." "Would you like to see me fret and panic?" "Finally, the battle between Battousai and Aoshi Shinomori..." "Sojiro, take this time to do some maintenance on your favorite sword." "Oh?" "Their battle should take quite a while to finish..." "There's nowhere to run to from the middle of a bookshelf!" "He really is keeping Aoshi back without drawing his sword!" "It'll take a while?" "Why is that?" "It's simple." "Presently, the Battousai and Aoshi Shinomori are at similar skill levels." "If those two cross swords, then the fight will slowly shave away their lives." "Kenshin was forced to draw his sword..." "You finally drew your sword." "Excellent." "Now, I can fight at full capacity." "Kenshin!" "Hiten Mitsurugi Style..." "Ryu Kan Sen!" "Twin Kodachi..." "Onmyou Hasshi!" "H-He's strong!" "Here we go!" "We need to act first!" "Kunoji shuriken!" "Nengi shuriken!" "Koda shuriken!" "We did it!" "His body is so thick that it didn't seem to affect him at all." "Impossible!" "Not one scratch?" "Guys!" "I don't think it's time for you to be worrying about others, now is it?" "Well, I guess we can begin now." "Stand up, Battousai." "If I remember correctly that shouldn't have been enough to do away with you..." "Just like what you said to me..." "From my point of view there is no meaning in defeating you as you are now." "The one I must defeat is the legendary Battousai the Manslayer, said to be the strongest of the Revolution." "By defeating you like that, I will obtain the proof that the Oniwaban Group are the strongest, and give it to the four who lived and died fighting." "For just that, I have thrown everything away." "To become the strongest I am left with no regrets, even if I was sent to hell." "I personally sought out the path of chaos..." "Aoshi..." "Stand up, Battousai." "Now, I will defeat you and pluck the flower called "strongest" with my hands." "Only then can I put an end to everything my Revolution and my life as the last Commander." "Now, Battousai flip over your reverse-blade, and use all your strength to counter my sword." "This guy..." "He is resolved to throw his life away in this battle if necessary." "No, he is resolved to throwing away his life, even if he wins." "He really has thrown everything away for this challenge..." "To live to fight, and to die." "A true sign of chaos." "This doesn't look good, Kenshin." "It's no time to worry about that promise..." "This battle is kill or be killed..." "No, if you don't kill, you are sure to be killed..." "You think you can end it all by getting the flower of the title of strongest?" "Aoshi, you started this battle with such a thought in mind?" "Miss Misao, Sir Okina, Hannya, Shikijo, Beshimi, and Hyottoko..." "None of them are wishing for a conclusion that involves you dying." "Fine, Aoshi." "I will do as you wish." "I knew that I had to win this battle, but part of me didn't want to defeat you because I knew the tragedy of those four." "However..." "I finally understand that such an attitude will not clear your conscience." "From now on..." "I'll use all my strength to defeat you." "However I am nothing but myself, Kenshin Himura, that I am." "You will fight with all your strength..." "But you will fight as you are now, and not flip over your sword?" "Yeah..." "More nonsense." "If you care about your opponent's life during the fight how will you fight at full strength?" "A sword fight is a matter of life or death!" "Furthermore, this is a battle to decide the strongest." "The only way to settle things is for one to live, and the other to die." "I have repeatedly trained on the border between life and death." "And, I threw everything away to challenge you to this fight." "Stop this nonsense resign yourself to killing me right here, right now." "Training on the border of life and death..." "I've done that, too." "And, I've discovered a ray of light that brings out everything inside me without causing me to change back into Battousai the Manslayer." "More nonsense?" "If you want to know, try fighting against me." "Looks like you just have to fight, right Mr. Shinomori?" "It does no good to keep talking when the conversation is going nowhere." "We don't have much time and we have something to do after this." "The strength of one swordsman over another only your swords can decide that." "In this fight, you are the challenger." "No matter how Kenshin decides to fight you're in no position to complain!" "Damn you, Kenshin..." "What?" "I never heard a whisper about your training or this ray of light." "I'm sorry, Sano." "Oh, well." "I just feel bad for the Missie and Yahiko, because I'm the first to see a full strength Kenshin fight without reverting to the Battousai." "Yeah..." "Battousai..." "Let's go!" "Oniwaban Style..." "Twin Kodachi!" "Goho Juuji!" "Ryu Shou Sen!" "Ryu Tsui Sen!" "Battousai..." "Even now..." "You still say this is nonsense?" "It is too early for you to feel good about the situation." "Battousai..." "It was only by a narrow margin that you avoided having your carotid artery cut open." "But that narrow margin is the key difference between myself and you in your present form." "When I was at the brink of life or death I used all my will to survive I drew upon a different power than that of self-sacrifice and mastered an ultimate technique." "The will to live is stronger than anything else." "That was the ray of light that my master risked his life to show me." "As Battousai the Manslayer I have committed so many crimes that I cannot possibly repent for of them..." "That is why I had secretly believed that it didn't matter when I died or was killed." "However, now..." "Even if I am formally punished and restrained I will never lose the will to live." "Aoshi..." "You said you have thrown everything away." "Anyone can throw everything away if they wish." "It's easy." "With your swords, you've become stronger beyond limits." "But mentally you've gotten so much weaker that you're far from what you used to be." "What?" "As their Commander, you wish to give the proof of being the strongest as a flower to four men who had gruesome deaths that, I understand." "However with that weakened spirit of yours saying so becomes an excuse so you can look away from continuing to live!" "You aren't doing anything for those four now!" "All you are doing is swinging your sword full of evil and blaming those four for it!" "Beshimi..." "Hyottoko..." "Shikijo..." "Hannya..." "Kenshin's words sharply pierce the frozen cold heart of Aoshi." "To restart time, which had stopped that day at Kanryu's estate..." "Answering to Kenshin's words, Aoshi's eyes regain their brilliance." "Next time..." "Look forward to it, please!"