DISCLAIMER (pay attention, you'll only get it once)-- I don't own rights to Rurouni Kenshin and its characters. I just like to play with them a bit.

Howdy. So this is my new Rurouni Kenshin fanfic. It's futuristic AU. Kenshin is Battōsai still (because he's just so amazing that way) and he hasn't sworn any no-kill oaths. Nor has he met Tomoe. But, well, you'll find out character relations as you read, I suppose.

As of right now, I have 11 chapters already written of this. I don't know how long it will actually be, but right now it's 11 and the plot's still going strong.

I'm going to do something new with this (new to me anyway) and list 5 or so songs at the start of each chapter. These songs are from my playlist that I listened to while writing. The songs either have a melodic 'mood' that matches the story, or they have lyrics that capture some aspect of the story. So.

Say Goodbye by See-Saw . hack//sign OST 2

Lost Northern Star by Tarja My Winter Storm

Darkangel by Vnv NationEmpires

Anxious Heart Orchestral by unknown

Kita no Daikuudou by Uematsu NobuoFinal Fantasy VII Advent Children Original Soundtrack

ENJOY! And please review!

CITIZEN SOLDIERS

CHAPTER ONE:: HATE

"The hitokiri ruled by emotion alone is doomed to die. Emotion can kill logic;

emotion can cause mistakes. But in the right hands, emotion becomes one

of the strongest weapons available. Strive to temper yourself; weigh

your feelings and determine objectively which may assist in the taking

of a target. Throw away all others."

---Kamiya Koshijirō, to young Kenshin

All Kenshin could hear was his heartbeat, his huffing breath, his stumbling, shuffling step… and the sound of the body he was dragging along with him. Kenshin's own body ached and throbbed in time with his heart and his clothing stuck to him with the unpleasant tacky warmth of blood- his, and that of the man whose arm Kenshin had slung across his own thin shoulders. The man had ceased to make even a token effort at walking himself, and his much larger frame dragged down on Kenshin's diminutive form. Kenshin could feel himself tiring quickly.

He stumbled slightly, tripping over the uneven concrete of the street as his vision grayed out with exhaustion and pain. Kenshin didn't even bother cursing; he didn't have the breath. He was practically deaf, blind, and dumb. He couldn't even tell if his companion was still alive.

Kenshin paused, breathing heavily, and looked at his burden. He gave the man a slight shake and tried to blink his eyes into focus.

"Koshijirō-sama," Kenshin croaked. "Koshijirō-sama?"

He had to strain to hear the other man's breathing. It didn't sound good. Koshijirō's breath was weak and it gurgled in his lungs.

"Kenshin-kun…" his name was spoken almost as an exhalation. Kenshin craned his head to look Koshijirō in the face. Bloody bubbles formed on the man's lips as he laboriously formed the words: "Please… I am finished. Let me go."

"No. No," Kenshin said- almost growled. "I won't."

"Kenshin-kun… I won't… argue. But I will… order. Please." As both Kenshin's senpai and sensei, Koshijirō could order him to leave, to save himself. But to part on such a bitter note; to have their last conversation be an argument…

Swallowing the knot in his throat, Kenshin slowly lowered Koshijirō to the ground. He kneeled next to his comrade and carefully put his hand on Koshijirō's uninjured shoulder- one of the only parts of him that was uninjured.

"Koshijirō-sama, I could still-"

Koshijirō's weak laugh cut Kenshin off. "No, Kenshin-kun. It's too… late for me."

He took a moment to breathe, and then continued: "Please… When you… get back. I have… a daughter…"

Koshijirō's words dribbled into a gurgle and blood dripped from his mouth. He slumped, and Kenshin braced him, alarmed.

"Koshi-!" Kenshin stopped when the other man gripped his arm with what felt like the last of his strength. He met Koshijirō's dim eyes, and understood the urgency in them.

"Promissse," Koshijirō hissed and choked. Before Kenshin could respond, Koshijirō's hand fell and he died.

Kenshin let out an anguished sound. The mission had failed. Somehow, their target had found out about them and had set a trap. A trap both Kenshin and Koshijirō had missed until it was too late. Too late… too late…

The First was dead, the Second badly wounded. The Team was broken. Kenshin- bleeding, broken Kenshin- was left to pick up the pieces. He knew what the protocol was for this situation; he'd read the file, been briefed before heading out.

Even at just fifteen, he was well trained, highly disciplined. And now he was dismally well experienced.

All Kenshin could hear was his heartbeat…

Kenshin blinked and bowed his head. He felt vaguely surprised to see his legs were incased in black dress slacks and not bloodstained, torn hakama. But no… the blood of that night was two weeks washed away. The wounds he'd sustained were beginning to heal under their bandages. It. Was. Over. Over…

"Sir, we're here," the driver told Kenshin, pulling him out of his memories. Kenshin's head jerked up, and then to the side, to look out the window. There were a few people in somber black walking past the car, their heads bowed and eyes downcast.

Soundlessly, Kenshin opened the car door and slid out. His tuxedo jacket hung awkwardly on him, bulging out where his left arm, in its cast, was strapped close to his body. The empty left sleeve hung at his side. Kenshin stooped and grabbed a bouquet of white flowers from inside the car with his good hand. Heading against the slow trickle of people, following in reverse the path they walked, he quickly arrived at the gravesite.

The dark stone of the grave marker gleamed with the newness of its polish, and the characters of the name engraved on it were sharp and clear. Kenshin felt the hole inside him tear open a little more as he saw it.

'Koshijirō-sama, forgive me,' he thought dully. 'It was my fault… If I had been better, if I had only been good enough to sense the trap…'

He didn't want to be there. He didn't deserve to be. But it had been the wish of a dying man. Kenshin looked away from the grave, ashamed, and then caught sight of it. The reason he was there.

The girl stood a few paces away from her father's grave marker, head bowed. She was dressed in black, and her long black hair was unbound, falling around her face like a curtain. Kenshin approached her.

"Kamiya Kaoru?" he questioned. The girl's chin lifted and the hair fell back, and a fragment of Kenshin's mind felt dim surprise at her direct, blue gaze. She wasn't crying, he noticed, but there was a slackness to her features that he recognized. His own face mirrored it, and so he knew, at least a little, of what she felt. Numbness. A grief so sharp it sliced away all other sensations. A feeling of loss, and of being lost. Despair.

She was older than he expected. Koshijirōhadn't ever really mentioned her age, but Kenshin had always pictured her young- five or six, maybe. The girl standing before him was twelve or so. But he couldn't summon any feeling of shock or surprise at the revelation. He felt too tired, in his heart.

Kamiya Kaoru nodded as if in slow motion. Kenshin bowed to her, and then turned and bowed to the grave. He stepped up to it, knelt, and laid the bouquet next to the incense that burned in front of it. He stood, and bowed again. Still facing the grave, he said: "I knew your father. I'm sorry he's gone."

Koshijirō's daughter did not respond. Her eyes were on the bouquet, and after a breath, they slowly rose to Kenshin's face. He faced her and met her gaze.

"I have something that he would have wanted you to have," he said, and reached into his jacket. "Here."

The silver chain contained two items- two rings. Kenshin knew, because he had once asked his late partner in a fit of inexcusable spontaneity, that they were Koshijirō and his wife's wedding bands. Koshijirō had always won the chain around his neck, even (or perhaps especially) on missions. Kenshin had taken it off Koshijirō's body before he'd…

Well. No reason to dwell on that.

Kenshin held the chain and its two unusual pendants out to Koshijirō's daughter. Her hand twitched at her side and then lifted, palm up, to catch the trinket as Kenshin released it. It fell into a silver pool in her small, cupped palm. She stared at it with empty eyes.

Having done what he came to do, Kenshin turned and began walking away. He almost didn't hear the whispered "Thank you" from the girl behind him.

Suddenly, Kenshin hated it. Everything. He hated that the girl's father was dead. Hated that she didn't even know why he was dead. Hated that they lied to her, that they lied to everybody. He hated that the urn under Koshijirō-sama's grave marker didn't even contain his ashes, because they hadn't been able to recover his body, because Kenshin had had to destroy it. He hated that he couldn't turn around and offer any real words of consolation. He hated that he just kept walking away.

He hated…

Kenshin's eyes were unfocused as his attention turned inward, so he very nearly ran headlong into the man walking up the path to the gravesite. He just barely twisted to avoid the collision, and ignored the man's murmured "Sumimasen" as he continued walking.

At the bottom of the path, Kenshin climbed back into the nondescript black car that was waiting for him, and the driver took him out of the cemetery.

---SEVEN YEARS LATER---

Kenshin walked into the plush office, and the secretary seated at the desk gave him a pre-packaged smile. She leaned over to her phone, pressed a button and said: "Himura Kenshin is here to see you, sir."

A click and a buzz and then: "Send him in."

Kenshin walked past the secretary without acknowledging her nod or her "Go right on in, Himura-san."

He didn't care. For any of it. He hadn't for seven years. Of course, they didn't need him to care. They just needed him to do his job, and that he did with an almost contemptuous speed and efficiency.

Through the door behind the secretary's desk there was an abrupt change of décor. Katsura-sama's office was sparse and utilitarian. Kenshin bowed to his boss and dropped a black envelope onto Katsura's desk.

"It's done."

Katsura lifted an eyebrow and looked from the envelope to the redhead standing at attention before him.

"Shigekura Jūbei is dead?" he asked Kenshin.

"Yes sir."

Katsura eyed his operative, and gave a little sigh. "Kenshin-kun… Why do you work for us?"

Kenshin didn't even react to the question. He merely responded: "To eliminate those who threaten the Revolution."

"And why do you do this?"

Kenshin was silent a moment and then he asked, perhaps a little sharply: "Are you displeased with my work?"

"No, but that is not the point, Kenshin-kun," Katsura said severely. "What use have I for a sword that is broken? The way you are acting will only end up killing you. If you lose yourself, I will have to order your execution."

"I will not fail you, Katsura-sama," Kenshin said stiffly. His boss sighed again and shook his head.

"This is not about failing me, Kenshin-kun..." He paused and eyed Kenshin once more, taking in the tense posture, the blank expression and hard yellow eyes, and said heavily: "Never mind. Dismissed, Himura."

"Sir," Kenshin bowed and left. Katsura sighed a third time, dryly noting that such exhalations were becoming common during his meetings with his redheaded operative.

"Himura Kenshin," Katsura murmured, staring at the black envelope the youth had dropped on his desk. "Don't you know what you are becoming?"

The vice-commander of what was known simply as the Shishi, the "men of high purpose," turned his attention to the neat stack of files on the corner of the desk. Withdrawing Kenshin's, Katsura flicked it open and carefully scribed Shigekura Jūbei's name onto the growing list of targets eliminated by Himura.

Katsura leaned back and scanned the list after he was done.

Going just by Kenshin's file, one could assume that the twenty-two year old hitokiri was in fine form. His medical analysis was perfect; the injuries he'd sustained seven years ago had healed wonderfully, and he hadn't gotten even a scratch since then.

'Perhaps that could be taken as evidence that he really isn't 'alright.'' Katsura mused wryly. 'Even the most senior operative will come back from a mission with a few bruises… But not Himura.'

The psychological evaluation noted that, while he was curt and occasionally impatient, Himura Kenshin was not suffering from any mental maladies. Katsura could only view that diagnosis with extreme skepticism. Only a fool could talk to Kenshin and think nothing wrong with the redhead. But… perhaps grief, even extreme grief, wasn't considered a mental disease. Katsura knew Kenshin still felt pain over the death of his mentor Kamiya Koshijirō. But he also knew that the group's psychologist couldn't really retire Kenshin over such an insignificant thing; the grief did not impede Kenshin's functionality, and he was, without a doubt, their best operative. Putting him on the inactive roster would be unwarranted, and a poor choice, in the eyes of their benefactors. They could withdraw their backing from the Shishi. And without their benefactors, those who supported the Rebellion, they wouldn't have the power and success they had now. The patrons were those rich, non-Syndic, Citizens who wanted the Syndicate out of power for some reason or other. They happily supported rebel groups like the Shishi… as long as they saw success and the Revolutionaries did not do anything that could compromise that success. Such as retiring their best assassin.

Not that it would help Kenshin, if they could take him off active duty. He had been out for six months immediately following the… incident… and the only thing that had healed during that time had been Kenshin's body. His mind and heart were still bleeding.

Not that people could tell. Katsura knew, but that was because he had a vested interest in the redhead and made it his business to know. Maybe the company psychologist suspected, but if the evaluation on file was any indication… Well. Katsura knew, at least.

The rest of the Shishi called Kenshin "Battōsai" and treated him as if he were a wild animal, unpredictable and terrifyingly deadly. The redhead's propensity to ghost around HQ and thumb out his katana at the slightest provocation helped with that image.

Katsura rubbed his forehead. Even though Kenshin refused to work in a Team, he was still quick and professional in accomplishing his missions. That was indisputable; the list of names in Kenshin's file was testament to it. But there was more to being a hitokiri than simply killing or getting information from your targets… or at least, there was for Shishi hitokiri. One of the (many) points of contention the Shishi had with the current government was that the present leaders saw people as tools. They viewed their soldiers as weapons and not people, considered their casualties as numbers on paper and not as brothers, fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, sisters…

The Shishi wanted to depose those corrupt leaders, and wanted to do so without hypocrisy. So they treated their men as men. They still used concepts such as 'acceptable losses' in their tactics and strategies, but each troop killed was mourned and honoured. The Shishi dead were sped to the afterlife on the wings of their comrades' gratitude, their sacrifice was mourned reverently. Their names were logged into the Books of the Honoured Dead so that future generations may know they died for a just cause.

But it was hard to think of a man as a man when he did not act as one. It was hard to mourn a man who terrified his comrades as much as he terrified his enemies. And it was hard to value a life when its owner seemed already dead.

Katsura pressed his face into one hand, leaning his elbow on his desk wearily.

"Would that I knew how to save you from yourself, Kenshin-kun."

Kenshin made his way back to the small apartment he rented in the Black Roof District of the city. It was the worst part of town, true, but that suited him just fine. With all the less-than-lawful goings-on in the district, his comings and goings were insignificant and overlooked. If the government ever tried to find the Shishi hitokiri in Black Roof, they wouldn't get far. It would be like trying to find a pin in a pile of swords. Unfruitful and potentially fatal.

Kenshin essentially just used the apartment to sleep, anyway. He was rarely there, and even when he did retire to the privacy of his bedroom, he slept lightly and with a customized security system.

The second rule of the Revolutionaries (the first being to keep your head down and keep the secret): Never trust the tech on the market. The Syndicate standardized everything that made it to the general public (and everything it gave its military, too). You could be sure the government had hidden loopholes installed in all the programs and systems available on the regular markets. Just in case they wanted to drop in and check on you… without your consent or knowledge. The Syndicate found it expedient to ensure they had a back door into each of their citizens' personal files and residencies, rather than trying to bypass each individual security program. With their loopholes programmed into every system that was installed across the City, they had unobstructed access to… well, essentially everything.

'They know where you sleep, where you get your morning cup of coffee, where you celebrated every birthday you've ever had…' Kenshin thought grimly. There had been a series of bills proposed before the Syndicate Board of Trustees that suggested other, rather… radical… means of policing. Fortunately, the Board had found the idea of surgically fixing ID chips into every citizen to be "unnecessary." Kenshin, and the rest of the Shishi (and the other various revolutionary factions), knew that what they really meant by that was "we think the people would find it too overtly intrusive and would rebel against us if we tried to implement the idea." So they had dropped the idea of tagging the people like cattle, and settled for tracking them like wild prey. Not that the people realized that the government could track them through the chips in their cell phones and PDAs... Anything that sent or received a signal was registered to its owner, and flagged by the Syndics for easy tracking. It was known among the Revolutionaries, and rumoured amongst the regular civilians, that there were vast vaults within the Syndicate Headquarters filled with computers and that all of them were running and filing the data the tracking tabs sent them. There was a file for every citizen. You couldn't sneeze without the Syndics knowing.

Kenshin stopped in front of the door to his apartment, and thumbed the keypad. It hummed thoughtfully at him for a fraction of a second, then flashed green and slid the door open. Kenshin stepped into his dark foyer and the door slid shut behind him. He lifted his chin and said, quietly but clearly: "Tripwire security deactivate. Authorization: 0-6-0-0-4-7-5."

Somewhere in the depths of his apartment, his security system 'queep'ed at him, accepting the pass code and disarming. It was a tri-level system; if the front door was forced or opened without the thumb-scan clearance, even giving the pass code wouldn't disarm the alarm. Even with thumb-scan clearance, if the pass code were to be given in any voice other than Kenshin's the system would not disarm. So the first level was the thumb-scan, the second was the pass code, and the third was the voice recognition. It was a somewhat simple system, but it was extremely effective nevertheless.

He had never had occasion to see what exactly the system did to intruders, but Kenshin had asked Katsu to make it painful and permanent, so it had to be good. From one point of view, anyway. It was unlikely any intruders would find it 'good.' In fact, they probably wouldn't have enough time to find it anything but "hey, what's that noi- AAIEE!" The only downside to it would be that Kenshin would then have to clean up the leftovers, and find a new residence.

The lights flickered on as Kenshin waved his hand over the switchplate. It was dim, yellowish… the type of lighting common to the Black Roof District. In the higher districts, the light was pure and white, comfortably bright. Kenshin could probably find some of those bulbs on the black market, just as the Shishi found many of their supplies from 'underground' sources. Katsura's plush outer-office was furnished entirely with items obtained illegally. But in the case of Kenshin's apartment, it wasn't worth the effort. He didn't stay there long enough to warrant the installation of any luxuries.

The apartment was barren: white walls (blotched with stains of unknown origins) bare, cheap plastic flooring uncovered, and rooms unfurnished. The bathroom was really the only room that showed any evidence of human habitation. Sure, there was a futon folded in one corner of the bedroom, but it was covered with a layer of dust. Kenshin couldn't sleep on it; not that he wanted to. He preferred to sleep seated against the wall, sword resting reassuringly against his shoulder.

Some of the Shishi laughingly called Kenshin paranoid, because of his small habits (such as never eating any food he had not watched be prepared, or prepared himself). Kenshin didn't think it counted as paranoia when there really were people trying to kill him. Then it was survival.

Kenshin went into his bathroom, locked the door, and, assiduously avoiding looking in the mirror, stripped out of his 'uniform.' The clothes weren't exactly required by Katsura or the other Shishi leaders, but they were what Kenshin felt most comfortable in when he was… doing what he did. Loose for easy movement. Dark cloth for shadow-walking, and to lessen the appearance of bloodstains. Soft, flexible shoes for silent stalking. Tekko for protecting his hands and arms.

He dropped the garments on the floor without ceremony, and leaned his katana against the wall, within easy reach. He stepped into the shower and cranked up the hot water. The apartment's old pipes creaked and moaned in protest, but soon coughed up the water. The room filled almost immediately with steam, and Kenshin stepped unflinchingly under the showerhead. It felt kind of like the skin of his back would peel off in broiled strips, but Kenshin took the pain quietly, leaning his forehead against the tiled wall.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, he held it for a moment before letting it out in a slow, controlled exhalation. The water pounding his back started to work at relaxing the tense muscles in his shoulders. Kenshin would have sworn he heard the muscles click as they unclenched. He lifted his chin and the water started pummeling the crown of his head, running through his hair. Kenshin reached up and pulled out the tie that kept the dark red strands in their high ponytail. They slapped against his back, clinging to his wet skin.

"Shit…" Kenshin sighed, slumping against the wall, suddenly painfully fatigued. The hot water did its work in turning his muscles to pudding, but there was a tightness in his throat and deep in his chest that would not abate.

He had nearly perfected the skill of killing without getting blood on him, but after every hit, he still felt filthy. Moving with a jerky slowness more suited to an elderly arthritic than a youthful master assassin, Kenshin washed himself, scrubbing so hard it pinked his flesh. The spigot squealed in protest when he twisted it shut, and there was a thump from behind the wall as the water ceased flowing through the pipes. Kenshin stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel.

"I… eliminate those… who threaten the Revolution…" he murmured, as he rubbed himself dry. The words seemed stuck in his mind, along with what Katsura had said in reply… And why do you do this? What use have I for a sword that is broken? "I do this because… because…"

Kenshin frowned. "I… cannot stand what the Syndicate does to the people of this city."

There were no longer any citizens who remembered the world before the Cataclysm; there hadn't been for a great many years. Everyone alive today was used to living constrained to the City; caged by the Synthetic Atmosphere Macro-Complex. Born to the city, you stayed in the city; outside of the SAM-C were wastelands and death. Nobody dared venture out there. And even if you dared, you were not allowed. The Syndicate, which had taken power after the Cataclysm by virtue of the fact that it had been their tech that had created the SAM-C, had forbidden all citizens access to the outside almost immediately. Granted, in the beginning, this decision was made wholly for the protection of the remaining populace. The radiation of the Outside could (and, according to the stories, did) cook a human into a twisted, crispy bit of unidentifiable matter. But once the Syndicate realized it had a massive city in the palm of its hand, its true nature came out. Over time- and slowly, oh so craftily slowly- the Syndics had made little changes to its policies, to the laws of the city, to the rights of the people… They changed from the company that had allowed the human race to survive to the godlike entity that ruled of its people with wrath, greed, paranoia, and a measure of uncompromising militarism.

Everything in the City was under the Syndicate's control… or so it would have been had there not been underground groups like the Shishi, Shinsengumi, and Sekihōtai, to name a few. The rebel groups, as a part of their larger plan to completely eliminate Syndicate totalitarianism, provided the people with the means to gain small freedoms. They offered customized tech, uncensored news and information, and black-market goods, among other things.

Kenshin wrapped the towel around his waist, and braced his hands on the edges of the sink. He lifted his eyes, somewhat hesitantly, to stare at himself in the mirror. His hair hung around his face in damp strands; weighed down by the water, it had lost its usual slight scruffy bushiness and now, plastered against his head, it accentuated the thinness of his face, the weary and drawn look of his features. His eyes were blazing gold, changed from their original violet colour by the intensity of his purpose and the chill with which he'd shrouded his soul. Against the pale skin of his cheek, the thin lines of a scar stood out vividly, unfaded even over the passing of years.

The Syndicate did not suffer any threat to its power. If you tried to infringe upon what they considered their territory, they had no qualms about using any and all means at their disposal to shut you down. Early attempts at free press died quickly… sometimes literally. The regulations on travel between certain sectors of the City had been instated slowly, one by one. The power of the Syndicate had been placed lovingly around the collective metaphorical neck of the people like a string of pearls, but little by little that string had been drawn tighter and tighter, until it had become the noose that it was today.

Kenshin saw the suffering the Syndicate caused every day; he lived in one of the poorest areas of the City. He saw starving children on the streets, watched hollow-eyed men and women going through the empty motions of living even though life had long since fled their hearts… It hurt him to see the pain. So he'd decided, long ago, to put a stop to it.

"See, Katsura-sama?" Kenshin whispered to the air. "I have reasons… What more can you ask of me?"

He knew, of course, the answer. But he shied away from it; feeling was dangerous. Feeling opened the door to heartache, and heartache could distract you at inopportune moments.

'I can't die,' Kenshin told himself dully. 'I can't die, because I have to do my duty. I can't leave this unfinished.'

In his heart of hearts, Kenshin knew that he was teetering on a dangerous edge. He knew that the fate Katsura feared would befall him was a legitimate threat and that it loomed all the closer as he shut himself away behind wall after metaphoric wall. But he also knew that, if he gave into his emotions, he would not be able to keep his resolve. The war between the Revolutionaries and the Syndicate had taken too much from him; he had nothing to live for. If he allowed himself to feel again, his depression and grief would destroy him.

And he couldn't die. He had a duty. He had a duty…

Kenshin turned away from the mirror.

TERMS

senpai—someone who is older and/or more skilled than you. However, more than simple seniority, it implies a relationship with reciprocal obligations, somewhat similar to a mentoring relationship.

sensei— means teacher, put most simply.

hakama—wide skirted pants worn over gi or kimono.

Sumimasen—a word with many different uses in Japanese culture. In the context it is used in this chapter, it would mean 'excuse me (apology).'

Shishi-- "men of high purpose." A term used to describe Japanese political activists of the late Edo period. While it is usually applied to the anti-shogunate, pro-sonnō jōi ("Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarian[s]") samurai primarily from the southwestern clans of Satsuma, Chōshū, and Tosa, the term "shishi" is also used by some with reference to supporters of the shogunate who held similar sonnō jōi views. This is the historical info on them, but it's not necessarily how I use the term in this fic.

Hitokiri—assassin. Man-killer.

Battōsai— a compounding of Battō which means 'sword drawing' and refers to the martial art of Battōjutsu (a technique which requires unsheathing and striking with a sword in one fluid motion) and the suffix –sai which is added to pen names or professional working names.

tekko—arm guards, hand coverings. Think what Kenshin wore in Samurai X.

Sekihōtai— this was a group of Japanese political extremists(allied with the Ishin Shishi) in the Bakumatsu, the Japanese civil war in the 1860's. They were shafted by the Meiji government and denounced. Members from the First Unit were arrested and executed. This is the historical info; I have taken liberties with the group in this fic.

Shinsengumi—a special police force of the late shogunate period. The name means the "newly selected corps" and they were also called the Miburō which meant "ronin of Mibu" and later "wolves of Mibu." They were opponents of the Ishin Shishi and their allies. This is the historical info; I have taken liberties with the group in this fic.