The Shrine of the Six Torii (六連ねの鳥居の叢祠) is an important location featured in Rurouni Kenshin. Hidden in the depths of Mt. Hiei, northeast of the city of Kyoto, the Shrine is a religious temple converted into a stronghold for the underworld militia warlord Shishio Makoto and his followers. In the Kyoto Arc, this place serves great importance as the location of the arc's final battles.
Layout[]
As to its namesake, the Shrine is marked by the six religious torii that stands outside of its entrance.
The Shrine is hidden in a cave, and is said to hold a treacherous maze in its entrance for those that do not know of its layout, filled with traps and snares.
Deeper in, the main layout is built extraordinarily well, with its hallways and common rooms with a paneled hardwood floor and one color plaster walls, with a traditional Japanese grid ceiling. In some halls of the Shrine, professionally made art and works are displayed akin to a gallery.
Specific Rooms[]
The Ice Cellar[]
Shown only in the anime, a cold looking room kept in darkness was used by Shishio as a training room, as he performed his Homuradama technique on two hocks of meat.
The Fudo-Myoo Room[]
Though not named exactly in the series, this room enters from the entrance to a balcony, which at its back, features a large statue of the Buddhist God Fudo Myoo, and dimmly lit with several candles standing evenly side to side before it.
The Room of Screams[]
A dark, and gloomy room, with its layout like a symmetrical cube, and its surface laid out with square tiles. All throughout the dark room, simple, but uncanny eyes are painted in an even patterned fashion.
Hōji's Study[]
A vast two story high room, akin to what could be called the Shrine's miniature library. All within are shelves of Western styled books lined up and categorized for reading and study. It can be safely guessed that all of these books are of Hōji's property.
The Room Without Space[]
An oxymoronically named room of vast area and volume. It is a room matted with traditional tatami flooring, and bears German styled windows, which lights up the room with the sun from an outside opening.
Shishio's Lair[]
An extravagant room that lies deep in the back of the Shrine, which the master of the Shrine rests and commands from. Within holds many works of Western and Japanese art, and in the back, is a large Victorian styled purple couch used as a throne by Shishio. Adorning the couch is a translucent white silk brocade that hangs and droops from the ceiling. From a desk, lies a Morse code machine used to communicate with outside contacts. It is big enough to accommodate the Juppongatana (with the exception of Fuji), and many more people.
The Inferno Room[]
A poetically named area of the Shrine, located deep and beyond Shishio's resting place. Through following a large and long stairway up, the Inferno Room is a valley deep in Mount Hiei, with a grand elevated pavilion at its center, supported with huge red lacquered wood beams, floored with black square tile and walled. All around the pavilion, are gas flares, as deep within the valley, is a natural source of petroleum, and are a part of a refinery that distills and extracts the fuel from deep within. Due to the frequency of the gas flares, the area is constantly heated to a high temperature.