Before the wandering swordsman of the Meiji era, there was the Hitokiri Battosai: a teenage Kenshin Himura killing for the Choshu clan through the last years of the Bakumatsu. Trained in Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu by his master Hiko Seijuro and pointed at targets by the Choshu leader Kogoro Katsura, he works without hesitation until a woman named Tomoe Yukishiro draws him into a life away from the fighting. These four OVA episodes trace the origin of his cross-shaped scar.