The war against the Tokugawa Shogunate ended years ago. But there are some who are not happy with the outcome. Shigure Takimi watched his friends and family get slashed down in the name of freedom and prosperity. Now he and a band of desperate rebels have sworn to settle one final score. Only one man stands in their way: Kenshin Himura. But when Shigure discovers Kenshin's true identity as the Hitokiri Battousai, his fight becomes a personal vendetta.

A foreign prince is attacked by bandits. As Kenshin and Kaoru are returning from a play, they see this and Kenshin intervenes. During the attack the prince was injured, so Kenshin and Kaoru take them back to the dojo. As it turns out, Prince Shin looks exactly like Yahiko, and so Yahiko is put in his place to attend a banquet. At the banquet the bandits attack yet again, but our favorite samurai is there to protect Yahiko, along with Sanosuke.

When he finds himself under attack by the Kenwadan, a gang of masked men, a politician, Mr Takamori, throws the key to his safe into an alleyway. Unexpectedly, the key is promptly picked up by a dog, who then escapes with it into a river, despite the gang's frantic pursuit. While praying at the shrine for better luck at dice, Sanosuke comes across the dog, now half-dead, and carries it back to the Kamiya dojo to be looked at by Megumi. Cue comic adventures as the dog, which Sanosuke names Notaro, promptly tears the Kenshin Group's lives apart, eating their food, stealing and burying their possessions, and generally making a nuisance of himself. But it doesn't take the Kenwadan Gang long to track Notaro down. Will Kenshin and the others be able to fend them off and find the key before the gang do?