Character Profile-Hajime Saitou
Hajime Saitou is the former captain of the Third Squad of the Shinsengumi, and Kenshin’s long time adversary from back in the days of the revolution. He is 35 years old (January 1844 ).He works as an undercover policeman and lives by the Shinsengumi motto, which is 'aku soku zan' meaning, 'Slay Evil Instantly'. Saitou is always cool and collected, and enjoys smoking quite a bit. He has no sort of emotional connection to his allies and has no loyalties to anyone buy himself, the exception perhaps being his wife Tokio. He uses a Nihontou (Japanese Sword) as his weapon. Saitou is technically on Kenshin's side, the two are still adversaries and Saitou is always trying to convince Kenshin that he should give up his vow to never kill again and become the man he used to be. This is because Saitou believes that ones a hitokiri, always a hitokiri, and that Kenshin is merely fooling himself by being a pacifist. Saitou also has an adversarial relationship with Sanosuke Sagara, whom he views as 'an amateur fighter who doesn't know the first thing about self defense'. Saitou is very confident in his abilities and is waiting for the chance to finish his dual with Kenshin once and for all.
In the past
As was mentioned
before, Saitou is the former captain of the Third Squad of the Shinsengumi.
After the Meiji Restoration, he chose to work as an undercover policeman because
it was a job where he could still uphold the ideals of the Shinsengumi.