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In the early Meiji era, after participating in the Boshin War as the assassin Hitokiri Battōsai, Himura Kenshin wanders the countryside of Japan with a reverse blade katana. He is offering protection and aid to those in need as atonement for the murders he once committed. When arriving in Tokyo in the 11th year of Meiji (1878), he meets a young woman named Kamiya Kaoru, who is in the middle of a fight with a murderer, who claims to be the Hitokiri Battōsai, tarnishing the name of the swordsmanship school that she teaches. Kenshin decides to help her and defeats the fake Battōsai. After discovering that Kenshin is the real infamous assassin, Kaoru offers him a place to stay at her dojo, noting that he is peace-loving and not cold-hearted, as his reputation implies. Kenshin accepts and begins to establish lifelong relationships with many people, such as Sagara Sanosuke, a former Sekihō Army member; Myōjin Yahiko, an orphan from a samurai family who is also living with Kaoru as her student; and a doctor named Takani Megumi, caught in the opium trade. He also deals with his fair share of enemies, new and old, including the former leader of the Oniwabanshū, Shinomori Aoshi. After several months of living in the dojo, Kenshin faces a rival from the Bakumatsu, turned police officer, Saitō Hajime. This challenge turns out to be a test to face his successor, Shishio Makoto, who plans to conquer Japan by destroying the Meiji Government, starting with Kyoto. Feeling that Shishio's faction may attack his friends, Kenshin meets Shishio alone to defeat him. However, many of his friends, including a young Oniwabanshū named Makimachi Misao, whom he meets in his travels, decide to help him in his fight. After his first meeting with him, Kenshin realizes he needs to get stronger to defeat Shishio without becoming the cold assassin he was in the past and returns to the man who taught him kenjutsu, Hiko Seijūrō, to learn the school's final technique. He finally accepts his friends' help and defeats Shishio in a close fight. After that, Shishio dies, burning to ashes after passing the limit of his abnormal body condition. A reformed Shinomori stays in Kyoto with the surviving Oniwabanshū, Dou watch and enjoy.