A Beautiful Hitokiri - finished

 warning - the paragraphs below contain spoilers of the above fanfic. If you want to read the fanfic first, click on the title above.

 Karen's identity changed about fifty times while I wrote this story. My original purpose was to create a woman who symbolized the ills of the Meiji Era, someone beautiful and as deadly as Kenshin, but a woman (and no, I am not a feminist). While Kenshin has the chance to become happy despite his past, I wanted to make Karen someone who would never really be truly happy until she died. The most important thing that would play a role in this was her background and her past - which is what I had the most trouble with.

 At first I didn't think to make her a student of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryuu. *giggles a little* Actually, at first I played with the idea of making her the runaway daughter of some government official. But the storyline didn't go very far with that. So then I tried making her Saitou's sister. The main problem with this was that I wanted to pair her up with someone, and the storyline kept on pairing her up Kenshin. That didn't seem right, and anyway I knew I would be killed by other fans... ^^; so I finally decided to make her Saitou's lover, and a fellow Secret Police. The part about who her father and mother was came a bit later. A kenkaku and a geisha - two people that disappeared as time went on into the Meiji Era - what better way to symbolize an outsider?

 I almost killed Karen off in this story. ^^; I wasn't planning to write any sequels when I first began this fan fic. So I thought about just killing her and tying the knot off. But later I changed my mind. I think I grew too attatched to the girl. - -; And before I knew it, idea after idea came into my head. Not that I have much time to write much lately... but at least her livlihood leaves my options open. ^^

 Disclaimer - Rurouni Kenshin (c) by Nobuhiro Watsuki, published by Shueisga Inc., Tokyo. All characters are the creation of Watsuki-san, with the exception of Hiko Karen. The storylines were written by Elienta. Please respect both authors. ^^;