Ryuga invades a village and he and his men quickly take it over, saying that it now belongs to the Fist King. Ryuga then leaves, with Garou and some of his troops remaining behind. A villager manages to escape and is found by Kenshiro, who finds out what has happened and goes back to the village with him. Kenshiro wants to know where Ryuga is, but has to defeat Garou first. Garou uses a sword fighting style known as Taizan ryu zanjin battojutsu (Taishan man-slicing sword drawing technique), but he is eventually defeated. Before he dies, Garou reveals that Ryuga has gone to Toki's village.

Toki now lives in a small village, and heals as many sick or injured people as he can. However, Ryuga then arrives and shoots Toki with an arrow, before threatening to kill Lin. Just before he does, Toki takes the hit meant for her.

Ryuga says he has heard that the true essence of the North Star divine fist is rage, something it needs to be fully unleashed. He's seen two powerful "great trees" -Kenshiro and Raoh -but only one of them can restore order to the world. If Kenshiro cannot defeat him, then he is worthless. He wants to plunge Kenshiro into the depths of sadness, and to do that, he will kill Toki. Toki says he understands, and tells Ryuga to do it -and he can then bear witness to the new era with his own eyes. Ryuga strikes Toki, and Lin cries out Ken's name. Both Kenshiro and Raoh sense that something may have happened to Toki.

Manga Differences

-The opening scene with Raoh was not in the manga.

-The scene where Ryuga attacks the village is quite different in the manga, as there are no punks around -instead, Ryuga kills innocent villagers.

-In the manga, Kenshiro just happens to just enter the village, with the family of three he helped save at the end of this episode. In the anime, they removed the family and had a villager who escaped lead him to it.

-Kenshiro finds an old man with a spear through him in the manga, who tells him that Ryuga was the one who attacked the village.

In the anime, this does not happen. Instead, there was a new fight scene where Kenshiro fights Garou (an anime only character), and finds out from him where Ryuga went.

-The old man with the injured leg gets killed in the manga. In the anime, it was changed so Toki pushes him out of the way just in time.

Notes

-The clips used during this episode's recap have a few differences between what they looked like in the previous episode, click here for details.

-The title card does not have the usual black background, instead it features some stars.

-Three of the guys who try to take over the village at the start are the same guys who encountered Raoh in this episode... clearly they didn't learn their lesson.

Errors

-The guy who gets whipped has a mustache when first seen, but then loses the mustache and his clothes change when he gets hit.
-Ryuga and his army are suddenly on a hill when Ryuga charges forward on his horse to fight the punks. The land they were on was flat a few moments before this.
-Somehow, the guy Garou slices in half manages to say "Lord... Garou..." after being split in half.