A glimpse of the new Japan if the mad ambitions of Shishio Makoto should succeed is revealed when Kenshin arrives in Kyoto and meets him at last...although the epic battle between them will have to wait. Pitted against Shishio's soldiers, Kenshin's reversed-edge sakabatô is broken--can it be reforged? Should it be reforged? For time has once again begun to flow, and violence once more washes over the land. Although Kenshin has abandoned the ways of the hitokiri and has sworn to take life no longer, a new assassin has now arisen--one whose taste for blood and thirst for power knows no bounds…