Remembrance 2: The Birth of Battōsai is the one hundred sixty-sixth chapter of the Rurouni Kenshin manga.
Synopsis[]
After carrying out the assassinations of hundreds, Battousai arrives at an inn to meet Katsura Kogoro, leader of the Choshuu Clan. Katsura invites his hitokiri to join him when he attends a secret council during the Gion Festival, but his offer is immediately turned down. Battousai has no interest in such a thing, all he cares about is a peaceful era in the future.
Katsura reminisces to the past when he first met Battousai. The second-in-command, so to say, Takasugi Shinsaku had set up an army of men known as the Kihei Tai. Unlike the samurai, basically anyone could join the Kihei Tai. Among the group of men showing off their skills before Katsura and Takasugi was a young red-haired boy. Not aware of the boy's powers, a man cockily betted one ryo that young Kenshin could not cut down his target, a thick wooden pole wrapped in rope. In two swings, one with his sword and one with his scabbard, Kenshin sliced the pole in half using the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu's Sou Ryu Sen. Everyone looked shocked, including Kastura.
That night, Katsura and Kenshin dined together. An impressed Katsura asks the boy if he could kill for a new, peaceful era, which Kenshin easily agrees. From the first time Katsura had met the boy that would soon turn into the most feared hitokiri, the same pure hearted attitude was kept. Recently, however, Katsura has been noticing a slight change in the boy once known as Kenshin and his personality. He assumes that the lifestyle of a hitokiri is finally getting to him.
Alone at a restaurant in the evening, Battousai drinks sake, but can only taste blood. Commotion rises in the air when a beautiful young woman enters the restaurant and orders sake. While all of the men gawk at her, she takes her seat behind Kenshin, who has his back turned towards her.