Saber (Fate/Crossover - Himura Kenshin)

**Saber** (セイバー, *Seibā*) is the servant of ??? in the ??? Holy Grail War.

## Profile

### Identity

Saber's true identity is **Himura Kenshin**, known as the legendary hitokiri of the Meiji Revolution, Himura Battōsai, is the main protagonist and titular character of the Rurouni Kenshin series. Kenshin has spent ten years traveling Japan as a rurouni in search of redemption, carrying a sakabatō with the vow to never kill again. In 1878, he arrives in Tokyo and takes up residence at the Kamiya Dōjō, where his vow is tested as he fights to keep the country's peace.

### Personality

Soft-spoken, serene and humble, Himura Kenshin's usual demeanor suits his effeminate appearance perfectly. Always willing to put others before himself, both in terms of well-being and social standing, Kenshin usually refers to others with the noble honorific of "-dono" while nearly always speaking of himself with the particularly humble pronoun "sessha" (translated by Viz Media as "this one") and ending his phrases with the formal verb "de gozaru" (translated by Media Blasters as phrases like "that it is" or "that I am"). He carries himself with an air of amicable temperance, politely conversing with the people he encounters and freely giving his meager services to those who need a hand. Kenshin doesn't hesitate to put himself in the path of harm to shield those around him and often attempts to diffuse contentious situations with soft, calming words and a somewhat clownish personality involving feigned clumsiness and his trademark interjection "oro" (a unique pronunciation of "ara"). These traits lead those unfamiliar with Kenshin to view him as ineffectual or easily exploitable, but more perceptive people become aware in short order that his gift for placatory eloquence and veiled redirection of disagreeable situations suggest a deep wisdom belied by his youthful, unassuming visage.

Despite his demeanor in Meji era, Kenshin was a very complex man during the Bakumatsu. As a teenager, Kenshin was impertinent, idealistic, and often easily embarrassed or flustered. He often tried to maintain a certain image among his colleagues in the Ishin Shishi, being quick to anger when dealing with taunts about his relationship with Tomoe during their time before going into hiding, such as when he silently threatened Izuka with his sword for making remarks about him and Tomoe. This tendency to be caught off guard or embarrassed in romantic or sexual matters of women remained with him well into his twenties. One such example was during the Jinchū Arc when Sano lied to Kaoru about what they were planning on doing, telling her that they would be checking out the Red Light district, embarrassing both Kenshin and Kaoru, and earning a blushing look of anger from the rurouni.

Tormented by his past as a hitokiri, Kenshin has developed an acute appreciation for life and has taken a vow in his heart to never again kill another person and to do everything within his power to protect people from being killed. This vow is the defining characteristic of Kenshin's personality and the primary motivation for his transition into a rurouni. Despite this, however, he holds his own existence cheap and carries in his heart a grievous guilt that prevents him from becoming emotionally close to the people around him and compels him to a life of humble service and selfless personal sacrifice. Even with his prodigious skill as a prolific swordsman, Kenshin refrains from wielding his great combat strength for his own sake, drawing his sword only for the well-being of others when words fail to appease. Though unwilling to simply be killed by unrelated attackers, Kenshin freely accepts that any grudges against his past self are well-deserved; he remembers the face of every person he has wronged as the Hitokiri Battōsai and will face their hatred or judgment without complaint, believing that he does not deserve the same happiness as others. Spending much of his alone time in quiet contemplation of his past misdeeds and future retribution, Kenshin often ponders what the right path toward redemption is and laments each life lost due to his weakness. As such, he has a tendency toward trying to solve problems all by himself and alienating his would-be allies with secrecy so as to keep them from becoming involved in his risky endeavors. Having lived his own life carrying heavy regrets, Kenshin is reluctant to judge others for their personal actions, beliefs or mistakes and always offers hopeful encouragement so that those who have stumbled onto the wrong path might redeem themselves in the future. However, when forced to draw his sword against those who abuse their power and undervalue the lives of others, Kenshin's calm temperament gives way to a marked intensity capable of intimidating even other skilled swordsmen and can go so far as to become a powerful fury, despite his compulsion toward diplomacy.

#### Hitokiri Battōsai

But when his strength as a rurouni is insufficient to defend against a particularly threatening foe, or when the most depraved and horrendous acts of evil push him to his patience and limits of his moral indignation, Kenshin's restraint falters and his personality reverts to that of his days as the Hitokiri Battōsai. Born from countless acts of manslaughter and to steel himself from the weight and guilt of felling other human beings like him, such a personality was born in the face of becoming the tool of death without say in the matter and the ignorant folly of denying the truth of reality of the act of murder, embellishing such awful acts as an exceptional and undeniably justified need despite its ultimately grim and miserably cruel nature. In turn, while this allows him the ease to take life without hesitation, so does throwing himself into this darker half of himself, this selfishly justified wickedness and holding the lives of his foes as worthless leads into the tainted and corruptible ground of thought that nears the idea that life too is nihilistic and meaningless, and for Kenshin, the idea that his own life is worthless as well.

He immediately abandons his serene humility, reverting from sessha to the more abrasive pronoun "ore" while dropping de gozaru and oro from his speech. Kenshin's normally warm nature becomes cold and distant, allowing him to contemplate taking the life of his opponent and even make vicious, bloodthirsty threats. Into battle, Kenshin's combat prowess and capabilities are greatly increased as his inhibitions are loosened from his moral considerations, but this in turn also spurs him to access more pragmatic, ruthless, and even vicious tactics, including unrestrained and maiming blows at his greatest might without discrimination, and the possibility he will use the reversed bladed end of his sword at any moment, the very things that dare to risk to break his vow to preserve the lives of all, good or bad, and to never take the life of other men ever again. This side of his personality is one that Kenshin struggles to suppress despite the fact that it keeps emerging when he is under great stress and in need of extra strength. His greatest fear is that, one day, he will return to his former self and become a hitokiri once more.

As time passes, however, Kenshin learns to trust the people around him with the truth about himself as well as with some of the burden he bears, understanding that his life, too, is a human one and that his friends and allies would suffer greatly if he were to die.

## Abilities

Despite Kenshin's very unimposing appearance in all regards, he easily ranks among the most powerful warriors in the series, surpassed only by his master Hiko Seijūrō XIII. His skill in during the revolution was key to bringing about the end to the war and starting the Meji era. He is a living legend well known throughout Japan for his surreal mastery of swordsmanship, able to effortlessly cut through steel, and one of the few last master swordsmen into the Meiji able to perform the act of modoshigiri, in where an accomplished wielder of the sword wielding the best of blades are able to cut so neatly, the target can be reattached as if it was never cut. Having inherited the Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū sword style, Kenshin's skills at age 14 allowed him to become an elite assassin for the government. The focus-point of his style is enabling him to move at "godspeed" to its fullest, striking and running about at speeds so immense and suddenly that he routinely outpaces the human eye and even dodges gatling gun fire. His signature skill in battle is the Battōjutsu, where his mastery of this skill and reputation for defeating his foes in a single blow earned him the moniker, the Battōsai. In the unlikely event his first strike misses his enemies, Kenshin is equally adapt in dual-sword combat, using his sheath as a secondary weapon, able to use his ambidextrous swordplay to instantly unleash a secondary strike from his sheath, making it almost impossible to beat him once he takes the battojutsu stance.

Should Battōjutsu fail, Kenshin is shown able to engage in prolonged battles, using a variety of techniques, enabling him to fight practically assault. With his slim and light frame, he is noticeably agile, able to use his environment to his advantage, flipping about and jumping off the terrain to confuse his foe and find an opening, even running across walls. He is also well known for his remarkable battle instinct, able to instinctively adapt to his opponent's style, letting him seeing through their true nature and read their attack patterns. This thereby lets him effectively counter an enemy's attack after seeing it once if not neutralize the threat completely. While specializing in swordsmanship, Kenshin also shows noticeable hand-to-hand combat prowess, able to calmly fend off a large group of foes with jujitsu and aikido maneuvers (though not to the extent of Sanosuke's hand-to-hand skills). Since allying himself with the Kamiya Dōjō, Kenshin has gradually learned of its Kamiya Kasshin-ryū, employing many of its techniques into his style. Eventually, he mastered the style himself, aiding his second wife in the teachings of it to students.

Outside of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū, Kenshin has displayed independent sword techniques which are indicative of his own acquired skills: Kenshin, in keeping with his soft nature, is quite skilled at domestic work as many of the Kamiya dojo residents comment favorably on his cooking (especially compared to Kaoru's) and he is frequently seen performing such tasks as grocery cleaning of the dojo. Kenshin is also an unparalleled orator, capable of spinning eloquence or humor into an offhand comment and prone to making grand, moving speeches off the top of his head. While maintaining his cool, he is rather adept at philosophical arguments, swiftly seeing the cracks in any opponent's logic without missing a beat in conversation.

### Noble Phantasm

#### **Shinuchi of the Hallowed Sakabatou - Sword of Mercy**

The last great work of the swordsmith Arai Shakku. Taken up by Kenshin after his previous, nameless sakabatou was shattered in order to oppose the terrorist and his successor as Manslayer, Shishio Makoto, and maintain peace. As a sakabatou its blade is reversed and it is meant to allow a swordsman to fight at their full strength without undue worry of killing their opponent. The sakabatou was originally taken up by Himura Kenshin in order to affirm his newfound philosophy of non-lethal force after the end of the Meiji Revolution, Kenshin desire to spare the life of even his oppenents has seeped into the very nature of this blade rendering it truly impossible to strike a lethal blow with its blunt side. the sharp backside of the blade can cut non-living material as though an A-ranked Noble Phantasm but cuts living creatures as an E-ranked Noble Phantasm. Finally as a sword wielded by the legendary Battousai at the time that he mastered one of the greatest battoujutsu techniques ever made its nature amplifies the speed and power of all battoujutsu performed with it.

#### **Blood-Stained Blade of the Manslayer**

The otherwise nameless sword wielded by Kenshin during his time as the Manslayer, it's very nature is drenched in the blood of hundreds of warriors rendering wounds inflicted by it more likely to bleed and fester and amplifying the potential lethality of any strike made by it. It's capability is degraded due to Kenshin's Class; when summoned as Berserker it gains a rank, and when summoned as Assassin it gains two ranks.

#### **Amakakeru Ryū no Hirameki - Fangs of the Heavenly Soaring Dragon**

The secret ultimate technique of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū, Amakakeru Ryū no Hirameki is a powerful Battōjutsu technique whose secret lies in discovering both the significance and insignificance of one's life, the penultimate requirement needed to master the Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū. The single greatest technique of Himura Kenshin, mastered only after he truly let go of the ways of the Manslayer. He used it to strike down Shishio Makoto and save Kyoto from a new era of violence and bloodshed. The technique consists of a super-sonic slash from the sheath which, if blocked, creates a vacuum at the point where it and the opponents blade clash, drawing Kenshin's foe in with the rush of returning air and rendering the follow-up strike all but unavoidable. This Phantasm degrades significantly when performed with the Blood-Stained Blade of the Manslayer as that sword comes from a point in Himura's legend fundamentally seperate from the one in which he mastered this technique.

## References

https://kenshin.fandom.com/wiki/Himura\_Kenshin

https://hero.fandom.com/wiki/Himura\_Kenshin

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/summon-a-servant-mk-5-five-servants-per-second-fate-stay-night-crossovers.285798/page-40#post-17261538