Takani Megumi: Beauty and Brains
Takani Megumi makes her first appearance as an apparently innocent woman caught up in the business of a drug-runner named Takeda Kanryuu. She is running away from Kanryuu's guards when she comes across Kenshin, and promptly recruits him as her bodyguard.
Megumi comes from a family of prominent doctors from the province of Aizu. However, at the height of the war between the Ishin Shishi and the Shogun's supporters, while Megumi was still a child, she was swept away from the rest of her family and had been alone ever since. She got involved with Kanryuu's opium business and found herself unable to break free.
Enter the Kenshin-gumi to the rescue! Anyway, Megumi eventually gets Kanryuu off her back and becomes the assistant to Kaoru's doctor.
If there's someone who can truly relate to Kenshin's feelings of guilt and his drive for redemption, it's Megumi. Like Kenshin, she only wanted to help people with her abilities but wound up causing great harm and destroying many lives. When she realizes that Kenshin is the Hitokiri Battousai and that he has found his own way to atone, she realizes that there's hope for her yet and is able to move on.
Once she gets over that part of her life, Megumi turns out to be a very kind, spirited woman. She's not AS hot-headed as Kaoru and enjoys baiting the younger girl and showing off her own "poise." This often results in Kaoru going ballistic and taking it out on the unfortunate Kenshin. Megumi still occasionally loses it, though. Mostly because of Sanosuke.
Unlike the rest of Kenshin's company, Megumi is not a fighter at all. She still supports them in her own way, however. By coming over to heal them all the time, for example, or providing vital moral support, even at the expense of her own heart. She even risked her life and refused to divulge the details of Kenshin's whereabouts to an enemy in the beginning of the Kyoto arc. Also, for all her flirting with Kenshin, she acknowledges that it is Kaoru he truly cares about and doesn't really stand in their way. She just enjoys annoying Kaoru.