and Shishio's fight Watsuki kept listening to the song "In The Blue Sky" from the video game Virtual On; the song's title was used in the final chapter of the Kyoto arc. Additionally, the final shot of Kenshin returning to Kaoru's dojo was inspired by the final shot of the Rurouni Kenshin anime's first opening theme:"Sobakasu" by Judy and Mary. In the next and final arc of the manga, the story took a darker tone as most of the characters believed Kaoru was killed by Yukishiro Enishi which made Kenshin question his own way of living and escape to a village of wanderers. Watsuki did not enjoy angst in Kenshin so his friend Myōjin Yahiko took the place as the series' protagonist until Kenshin recovered. In order to make Kenshin recover, Watsuki introduced Tomoe's father, who is simply referred as "Geezer", who assists him in finding an answer to atone for his sins. Once Kenshin recovered, he runs back to the city in order to save Yahiko from Enishi's former comrade, Kujiranami Hyōgo. The fight was originally planned to last longer than the one-chapter shot but due to difficulties in drawing explosions Kujinarami made with his weapons, the fight ended with Kenshin cutting Kujinarami's weapon. In this arc's climax, Watsuki kept listening to the song "Hurry Go Round" by late musician hide which felt it suited the relationship between Enishi as well as Kenshin but in his darker persona. The author also commented he would like to have given both Kenshin and Enishi's characters a bigger contrast. A reader also asked Watsuki whether Kenshin could defeat his rival Saitō Hajime since they never got a final duel. Watsuki responded, saying the two are equally matched but the result might depend whether or not Kenshin had something to protect. Design Like several characters, Kenshin was influenced the Shinsengumi with Kenshin being affected by Okita Sōji and Saitō Hajime in order to give him an air of mystery. According to Watsuki, when he found that Kawakami maintained a duty to his dead comrades, he decided to create the title character. Since Watsuki's debut work contained a tall, black-haired man in "showy" armor, he wanted to make a character "completely opposite" to the debut character; the new character ended up "coming out like a girl". According to Watsuki, he used "no real motif" when creating Kenshin and placed a cross-shaped scar on his