Hikyaku (飛脚, Hikyaku), is a character who was first introduced in Samurai Shodown as the delivery man that ran through the stages and threw items into fights. He is based on the archaic Japanese courier, men who would need to run mile-long marathons to and from places for the shogunate. They developed their sprinting system due to the possibility of being killed for the information they carried; many men also collapsed or died from exhaustion due to the strenuous ordeal of running non-stop for a day's time. __TOC__