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The Null Hypothesis by IVIaedhros.
Disclaimer: No Chinese were harmed during the making of this fic': only nerdy white people.
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Catching the crumbling body up in his long arms, Aoshi unceremoniously dragged the corpse over to the right side of the manor and dumped it into the bushes.
Aoshi turned back around to find Megumi staring at him disinterestedly.
"What was that for?"
As Megumi tumbled limply through the interior of the richly appointed, but still cramped carriage, she began to truly wonder what was going on. While it was difficult to keep track of time, she guessed they'd been riding for ten minutes. Meanwhile, the opium haze was wearing off bit by bit. And the more she thought, the more excited she became. Kanryuu had never left her unguarded since she first fell into his hands two years ago. She was the goose that laid his golden eggs after all, and if she were lost, the opium that fueled Kanryuu's empire and set him above his rivals was lost as well.
But here she was, sprung from prison by the chief executioner himself. Megumi desperately reasoned that this was being done against Kanryuu's will and that she would be free of the death merchant. What she was being freed to was another question entirely. She just prayed that it would either be a quick death or some form of slavery that didn't involve her destroying the lives of countless innocents because she was too weak to successfully kill herself. She never considered the possibility of true freedom.
Megumi's grim chain of thoughts was interrupted as Aoshi brought the carriage to sudden halt, causing Megumi to slam into the wooden paneling that divided her from the front passenger compartment. While she was picking herself up off floor, the left passenger door was opened up. Aoshi grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of the carriage.
"Follow me," he said before setting off at a swift pace, forcing Megumi to catch up.
Megumi fell in behind Aoshi without comment. She looked around, her eyes having adjusted somewhat to the darkness in the unlit carriage and she could faintly make out the low silhouettes of shanties and what looked like a forest stripped bare of its leaves. Aoshi had brought her to the bay.
Aoshi turned in the direction of the ships and began walking even faster, while Megumi struggled to keep up. The immediate aftereffects of her spider's web opium had almost worn off and were swiftly being replaced by a terrible ache. Between trying to steal time from the inevitable peak in her suffering and navigating through the maze of buildings, Megumi was sorely pressed. Thankfully, Aoshi eventually came to a halt and dipped into some kind of hole under one of the shanties.
Megumi unsteadily followed after him and found an extremely tight stair way descending into what looked like a storage cellar. It was pitch black and she nearly retched at the smell; a sort of heavy mix of decaying fish and a thick, greasy scent she couldn't identify. Suddenly a faint light appeared inside the cellar and she could make out a small stairwell. Megumi suppressed her nausea as best she could.
After managing to knock her head on the entryway, Megumi entered what appeared to be some sort of crude processing room. The only source of light was an antiquated brass lamp that hung from an iron ring in the center of the ceiling. At the far wall there hung a rack of rusted cutting implements that looked like they had been lifted from a butcher shop. The room itself was covered on all sides with a rough plaster that might have once been white, but was now stained everywhere browns of black and red rust, while empty cubby holes encircled the room on three sides. Once, they had held something, if the extra stains and scraped plaster was anything to go by.
As Aoshi walked towards the center, Megumi's addled brain suddenly noticed the cause of her release from captivity. Splayed naked out in the middle of a large, wooden table was a heavily muscled man that Megumi vaguely recognized as another member of the Oniwaban. He looked awful, more like an almost living corpse than an almost dead man.
A gentle pressure on her shoulder caused her to stop her assessment. Megumi looked up to find Aoshi staring down at her with eyes that held a slight hint of madness; like a slip of mercury in dark wells. She recognized the look because it was so similar to the one she saw every time she looked in the mirror. She could also guess what he was about to say.
"What do I have to work with?" Megumi asked quietly, but with a hint of her old impatience. An internal clock had started ticking from the moment to the second she had walked in and seen the ninja's injuries.
For an instant, surprise peaked through the Okashira's haggard visage before it disappeared like light behind a shutter. Without any comment, Aoshi reached into his oversized robes to reveal a concealed leather harness running between his shoulders and hips. Moving quickly, he pulled off a fairly large wrap that was also made of leather and set it on the ground, unrolled it, and revealed a collection of gleaming kaikens and tantos of various sizes, several needles and plenty of thread. Another foray into one of Aoshi's voluminous robes produced a more conventional first aid kit containing two scalpels, one larger than the other, a few surgical forceps and clamps, acupuncture needles and what looked like ground shiitake mushroom. Inwardly, Megumi felt her heart sink. The kit Aoshi had managed to grab was far better than anything that could have been hoped for under the circumstances, but they were still a long way from a good clinic.
"Give me your robes, Aoshi," Megumi said as she rolled up her sleeves with slightly trembling fingers. That blasted clock was ticking louder than ever.
Unhesitatingly, Aoshi stripped down to the leather harness and an ill-fitting and disgusting pair of silken long underwear. Megumi took the proffered robes along with one of the nearby kaiken and quickly began to cut the thick fabric into strips while she did a quick, visual assessment of the ninja's injuries.
"Please tell me what happened and what you know of his injuries." Aoshi's companion had hundreds of minor lacerations and several large contusions, but those were of little immediate concern. The darkly oozing wound near to his right armpit appeared to be the most obvious problem. Aoshi's description confirmed it and added more.
"We were ambushed in the bay and had to swim to safety under fire from western-style rifles; probably German mausers. He was hit in the water by several rounds, the most serious of which was a wound to the brachial vein and the lower abdomen. We made it to the shore and where I left him to find a safe haven. I found this and brought him in, where I put a tourniquet on his arm and bandaged his wounds as best I could. That was approximately an hour ago." Aoshi mechanically rattled the terse description off while Megumi hastily checked Aoshi's tourniquet and ripped off the old bandages, by then utterly soaked in blood.
Not that there's much left in him to bleed out. Kami, his pressure is so low.
While Megumi examined the newly uncovered abdominal wound in all its bloody glory, she began to instruct Aoshi in what she needed if she were to even have hope for a miracle.
"Listen to me very carefully Aoshi," Megumi instructed while she began applying fresh bandages as quickly as she dared. "First, apply pressure here…yes, that's good," Megumi continued to speak in a rapid, but unhurried tone as she slid her hands out from under Aoshi's as he took over for applying pressure to his subordinate's abdomen.
"The greatest danger was the wound to the brachial vein, however," Megumi stood up precariously on an edge of the improvised operating table and grasped the overhead lamp with both hands, "your tourniquet should keep for several hours," Megumi said as she tried her best to slide the cumbersome light off its hook without stepping on her patient. After removing the lamp, her balance finally gave out and she was forced to hop off the table while her feet were still under her. Megumi's landing was still rough and as she got back up from her knee, she walked with a very slight limp in her ankle. Mentally, she tried to shake herself.
"And, even better, it looks like the bullet managed to get out of the arm and avoid taking anything but tissue with it," Megumi's flat lecture continued on as she removed the glass cover from the lamp and sterilized all of the available instruments, including the kaikens and tantos, as quickly as she dared with the risk of furthering whatever infection had undoubtedly begun.
"However, the problem is now the bullet wounds to his abdomen." Megumi wiped off the black residue from the flame with her improvised cloth and took the lamp and began to climb back on to the table. Probably not wanting his friend to die because the doctor had fallen on his wound or somehow killed herself, Aoshi reached out with one hand and grabbed her by the arm. He pulled Megumi over to his side and placed her hand where his had been.
"I'll get the lamp," he said in a voice that didn't sound like an order, but somehow was.
It took several seconds of mental fumbling for Megumi to figure out the obvious, but eventually she figured out that he was going to put the lamp back up and that she would temporarily switch places with him. The light was swiftly replaced and the two desperate acquaintances resumed their previous roles.
"I'm counting at least one, two, three, entry wounds…pretty distinct…no exit wounds; he'd already be dead, so I'm going to have to go after them." Megumi reached down to the undone leather pouch that served as Aoshi's official field surgery kit set the whole thing beside her on the table. Aoshi moved out of her way and waited until Megumi called for him again. She grabbed the larger scalpel, took a deep breath and made the first incision. Blood from the veins combined with various other internal fluids to form a black ichor that slowly oozed out of the wound. The area around bullet had swollen horribly. As her meticulous incisions slowly probed deeper, Megumi began to notice the first signs of infection: slight lines of redness branching off through otherwise pale flesh and swelling. Her hand started to sweat as she briefly fumbled over whether or not to treat the infections first or go for the bullets.
"Your friend was very lucky, Aoshi," Megumi said as her eyes followed a suspicious looking trail of colored residue and torn tissue, "The cold salt water helped to retard possible infection." Megumi's eyes narrowed as she discovered the first of the bullets smashed up against the base of the tenth through the twelfth rib on the left side of the spine. After packing in some more cloth strips, Megumi reached down with her forceps and pulled the compacted bullet out for Aoshi to see.
"We're getting a lot more of these new bullets these days," Megumi snorted wryly as she automatically began searching for the other bullets. "Amazing how inventive we are about killing each other."
Aoshi didn't bother giving her a response.
Megumi soon found another bullet path. It was actually even more distinct than the first one, but instead of leading straight through the tissues between the organs and then to the bullet, this trail dived downwards a short distance and then disappeared into the guts.
Megumi frowned, her brain sluggishly trying to process the most likely possibilities. The first bullet had missed organs entirely and had been fairly easy to dig out without much damage. The second's path had already punched a small hole through the man's digestive tubing and she didn't see any signs of its ending. She didn't know what to do.
Aoshi noticed her indecisiveness and hovered closer to her, silently demanding an answer. Megumi tried to ignore him and made an indistinct motion that Aoshi somehow correctly took to back up and get out her space. Megumi continued to stare at the unconscious man in front of her, baffled, and utterly hating it. Megumi knew she knew what was needed to be done, but she couldn't for the life of her remember what. Megumi cursed herself for wishing for a small dose of opium, but it would've made it much easier to try and remember her readings on gunshot wounds if she didn't feel the intense withdrawal pains gnawing at her insides. It was only slightly more preferable than the doped up state she'd been in earlier.
Without thought, her eyes roamed up and down the fallen man before her, seeking for something, anything. Suddenly, she saw the vital clue: a horrendous and curiously shaped bruise just south of the man's pubis. Modesty had no place within a doctor unless it comforted the patient so Megumi did not hesitate to examine the man closer, her hand gently probing the wound. After a quick examination, Megumi decided on a calculated risk. Taking up her scalpel again, she began making incisions on the bruised area and began moving up and inward. It wasn't long before metal met metal and she'd extracted the second bullet.
"The second bullet hit your friend at more of a downward angle, Aoshi," Megumi explained while she allowed the projectile she'd just pulled out to full on the table with a soft thud. "Apparently, it hit his right ili-excuse me, hip bone, and followed it before it stopped just sort of exiting down the rear of his body. He probably won't be able to have kids, but if we can stabilize him, I should be able to repair the rest of the damage pretty easily."
Aoshi nodded silently, the invisible tension that had shrouded him since the beginning of their crazy eased slightly. "It's just as well. He always was trouble disciplining around women."
Megumi shook slightly in suppressed laughter as she resumed her search for the third bullet. The stress induced comment had been delivered so flatly and off the cuff that she was sure that Aoshi hadn't intended it as a joke. This, of course, made it all the more funny.
"Perhaps it was karma then, Aoshi," Megumi said as she began the search for what she hoped was the final bullet. Megumi prayed that the man's unfortunate injuries to his manhood would somehow be enough to appease whatever gods controlled his fate. Men always seemed to have a disproportionate amount of concern over the organ. Why not worry about something that could permanently impair your mobility and thus your livelihood, like a shattered kneecap, or third degree burns, which left you constantly vulnerable to infection and in pain for the rest of your life?
Besides, one doesn't need a sword to please a woman.
With a slight smirk on her face, Megumi traced the last path. The entry wound was rather jagged and a small chunk of skin was hanging on by the barest of tissues over the upper left portion of his abdominals, several inches below the last rib. The muscles quickly fell before her swift knife, followed by the connective tissues, and just when she began to despair over how deep she was probing, Megumi found the last bullet. It sat nestled comfortably in a small knot of fatty tissue that had swollen to wrap the lethal object in a bloody clump. Anxious to get on with the perilous operation, Megumi made a mistake worthy of the rawest greenhorn: she reached down with the forceps, grabbed the misshapen lump of metal and tugged.
Now, if Megumi had been critically judging the surgical procedures of some other poor, battered and drug addicted doctor, she might have been somewhat forgiving of the mistake in that the operator was no doubt nervous as hell, tired, hungry and suffering from the beginnings of a horrible withdrawal.
Megumi, however, was judging herself and, even more importantly, she was a Takani. And while the Takani clan and their lost daughter might have been compassionate, they never, ever forgave errors in procedure.
So when her temporarily deadened instinct roared back with a crazed vengeance, Megumi's first thought was let out a stream of mental curses so foul that her grandmother probably rolled over in her grave. Twice. Megumi let out a long breath through her nose and closed her eyes, willing her hand to stay absolutely, completely still.
She looked down.
The gob of swollen tissue she'd almost ripped the bullet from had partially torn to reveal the slightly perforated tip of the liver and one of its many small arteries. Megumi bit her lip. Her carelessness forced her to make a decision: work on the immediate area of wound and ignore the steadily mounting blood loss or take the risk of the liver deteriorating and sew the man up. Her hand, once so faultlessly still, was beginning to tremble. Megumi once again found herself without any idea whatsoever of what she was supposed to do.
The bullet twitched again.
Oh father, if you still watch over your daughter, help her make the right choice.
With the decision made, Megumi pulled.
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As Aoshi quickly moved through the early morning crowds that occupied the harbor, he did his best to keep himself hunched over without appearing unnatural. Holding the posture was becoming difficult, but his height was far too noticeable. The wide brimmed straw hat helped, though. Awkwardly, he adjusted the large pack that carried all of the supplies he had appropriated for the surgery. It wasn't heavy, as most of its space was taken up by new winter kimonos, but it was still big and cumbersome. What was really making his life difficult was the large flask of iodine wobbling tenuously on his belt, demanding constant readjustment.
Aoshi resisted the urge to break out into a run once the impromptu refuge came into eyesight. A few more seconds was not worth drawing suspicious eyes to himself, though he begrudged each second he spent walking, Aoshi was soon at the entrance of the abandoned fish processing house. He paused at the door to rap out a code of identification he'd insisted they use out of professional habit and walked in far too soon for signal to have mattered. Professionalism be damned; the last man of the Edo Castle group was lying unconscious on a dirty fish monger's table.
Aoshi had hardly entered the door when he was nearly knocked over by an anxious Megumi.
"Did you get the iodine?" Her countenance was fevered and terribly agitated, bordering subtly on panic. Aoshi's own fear immediately rose up to meet hers. He curtly nodded and did his best to mask his own emotions. The doctor didn't need someone else to egg her on, not when calm would be needed for Shikijou's treatment.
"And the cloths?" He nodded in affirmation while trying to descend the stairs as quickly as his height and load would allow.
"And the water, tell me you have the water?" He had hardly taken the pack off when she was ripping the supplies out of it. Aoshi nearly shouted back at her, but the sight of Shikijou caused his jaw to snap shut at the last moment. Megumi had the thick, winter kimonos he had bought shredded down to ragged strips in seconds. Clean water was set to the side and Megumi immediately began to cut the stitches she had made only hours ago. With so little time having passed, the old incisions reopened immediately.
"What are you doing?" Aoshi roughly demanded while Megumi washed the tissue free of accumulating blood.
"His liver was clipped by a bullet and it became infected. If I don't treat it immediately, he'll die." Aoshi offered no more protests. Instead, he took up a guard position that still allowed him to observe and fought against the feeling of being useless. Megumi meanwhile worked with a frantic precision that amazed even his untrained eye. Obviously, the neural depressants of the opium had finally worn off, if not the painful aftereffects. It returned to the female doctor her appearance of madness that had slowly grown over the months in Kanryuu's manor, only instead of the dazed melancholy that came with utter abandonment of hope, there was the hysteria of one who despairs to lose something precious.
It was just as well that he seemed to be joining her in madness with the helpless waiting. He tried to occupy his thoughts with planning or simple observations as he was wont. While a young man, Aoshi had spent hours simply observing a particular scene in nature or a fine vase. Aoshi's mind was a vast place and he easily lost himself in the trappings of his own psyche. It was how he had functioned since he had first taken upon the mantle of the ninja. Peace. Cool, collected thought. All angles considered; instincts honed to near prophecy. Now it seemed that his greatest weapon was working against him. He could not or would not shut down while his thoughts followed neither rhyme nor reason.
This was how the minutes wore on into hours while Aoshi watched Megumi's bootless struggle. He pondered death, the kinesthetics behind Kenpo and a list of his favorite teas.
"Aoshi..," Megumi had appeared before him suddenly, her exquisite features marred by sunken eyes and gray skin. "…Aoshi, I…he…"
"He is dead," Aoshi tonelessly supplied.
"Yes," her gaze did not meet his own, instead looking beyond some namely object in the room's corner.
Aoshi nodded.
Why she was telling this was beyond him at the moment. He had known fifteen minutes ago by the way Shikijou's breathing had changed. He had confirmed it eight minutes ago as he observed Megumi's desperation.
Aoshi quietly walked over to where Shikijou lay in death and clinically examined his corpse. It was so pale and life less; so unlike the man to whom it had belonged, the very essence of strength and vitality.
"Well fought, old friend." His hand gently closed Shikijou's half-opened eyes. "Tell the others, I apologize for my failure." A kodachi swept out. Megumi gasped. "And that I will meet with them soon."
The kodachi fell, clean and sure. Megumi dry heaved while Aoshi wrapped Shikijou's head in leather as best he could to disguise it as an item from the butchers and then set it gently on the table.
"Monster!" Megumi choked in horror, "What are you doing?!"
Aoshi regarded the woman dispassionately, before he began sorting through their few remaining items and packing them away neatly into his pack. "Kanryuu has known about my survival and how I took you from the manor for at least four hours, possibly five. By now his men are scouring the surrounding area and all of my known haunts."
The remainder of his old comrade's body was deposited in a corner while Aoshi began ripping apart the room's combustibles. Aoshi felt something inside crack a little further when he realized he would fail to provide even one of his men a funeral worthy of his deeds. At least Shikijou's body would not be defiled by an enemy's hand or the beasts of the sea.
"It is also possible that he will have contacted others within his syndicate with a fabricated story in order to obtain their help hunting us," Aoshi further explained as he removed the robes from his disguise and doused them with excess lamp oil. "This position is unsafe. We need to move." The still burning lamp was broken over the dead ninja's body.
"Immediately."
Flames rose up immediately and putrid smoke began filling the room. Aoshi strapped a single kodachi under his shirt and slid a kunai down both boots before he pulled on the hat of straw. Nothing else was worth preserving. When Aoshi was fully satisfied that his weapons would not be noticeable to the casual observer, he grabbed the still stunned Megumi by the arm and pulled her up the staircase.
They exited the old processing room for the last time. Aoshi immediately slid his grip down towards Megumi's hands and pulled her off to the southwest, towards the docks where he knew the smaller fishing vessels berthed. The journey went rather smoothly, all things considered. Megumi was non-responsive; content to let herself be led, she appeared to be in a daze. This almost caused trouble as he was doing his best to play her off as his wife, but thankfully, the random passerby only saw what they wanted to. Aoshi also took the time to bury the head of his friend the best he could. Aoshi prayed that Shikijou's spirit would pass on peacefully into the afterlife rather than linger in torment and vowed to come back and give what was left of his friend a better funeral after Kanryuu was punished. Every second spent on the interim ceremony brought him closer to death, but Aoshi would not bend.
Despite it all, they did eventually reach the safety of a small fishing vessel just returning from the day's work. Aoshi jumped on with Megumi before the boat could even dock, held a kodachi to the man's throat and told him he could either take sail to Kyoto or his corpse could join Hannya's and Beshimi's while Aoshi sailed the vessel himself. This was no idle threat; however, Aoshi preferred that the man cooperate. Aoshi knew enough to take the already underway vessel on a straight line course to Osaka Bay, but someone who actually knew sailing would be able to go out to sea under a false heading and then turn around to Osaka Bay while out of sight, hopefully fooling any observers as to their true destination.
Once there, he could take the doctor and travel along the Yodo and the Katsura rivers until he reached Kyoto. From there, he could reconsolidate, gather intelligence and plot his vengeance against Kanryuu. The arms dealer had destroyed everything Aoshi had lived for. It was only right that he returned the favor.
"Aoshi…Aoshi…" Aoshi blinked owlishly as he ceased the painful, but ultimately necessary replay of events that allowed him to damn his men. He took a deep breath and resisted the urge to scream.
Gods, it's so painful.
Aoshi looked over towards where the voice had come from and discovered a woman, Megumi he remembered, sitting in meek contrition. Aoshi deliberately stamped down the growing pain and firestorm that was building within his soul. The soothing ice of rationality had to hold a little longer; even it would make the inevitable explosion that much worse.
"Yes?" His voice was as dispassionate as ever while he addressed her.
"Where are we going?" The question was innocent enough, but it profoundly irritated him, made him want to want to wrap his hands around her dainty little neck and smash her head against their ship's gunwales until her teeth rolled around in her mouth like gravel.
That wouldn't do. Aoshi went over human anatomy, but when this inevitably failed, he settled for mentally vivisecting Kanryuu.
"Kyoto," he replied.
The lingering silence returned and Aoshi was fine with that. It let him turn his mind to safer things like the logistics of his upcoming operation against Kanryuu and his musings on just how much he wanted Kanryuu to suffer before he sent the bastard screaming down to hell.
"What will we do there?" Megumi had broken the silence again.
"We're going to an inn run by inactive and retired members of the Oniwaban. You will be free to leave as you please or you may work with them at the inn. I will gather all I can in preparation for my revenge against Kanryuu before I return to Tokyo." Aoshi was about to go check on their unwilling captain when Megumi spoke again. The woman was becoming a nuisance.
"Why haven't you killed me?" Her question was almost an accusation coming from her haggard voice. For the first time since Shikijou died, Aoshi truly looked at the female doctor.
He conceded to himself that it would have been easier to kill her after the surgery had ended. It would have been logical (on the surface) and it would have been a much needed, if temporary balm for the fire that seemed to be slowly consuming his soul. Yet, he had never seriously considered killing her. And as he pondered why he had gone so against logic, Aoshi had an epiphany.
"I have two motives, actually," he stated, his own unrelenting gaze locked with Megumi's own, equally harsh stare. "The first is that there is no reason for me to blame you for Shikijou's death, much as I might like to. It was my own foolish pride that killed him. I had no reasons to believe you would save his life given the conditions within which you worked, though you very nearly did anyway." Admitting that hurt, but he owed it to the spirits of his friends to not shirk from what he had done.
"Furthermore, I don't wish to merely kill Kanryuu because that would be far too good for him." He almost snarled at this, but his controlled nature caused him to clamp down on the foolish display at the last moment.
"I'm going to kill the scheming little bastard with my own two hands and then I'm going to erase every trace that he ever existed: the drugs, the dealers, the buyers, associates and superiors. When I'm done, I will ask a man, 'Do you know Kanryuu Takeda?' and he'll say to me, 'Sir, I don't have a clue who you're talking about.' However, I cannot accomplish this on my own."
Aoshi nodded towards Megumi who now looked simply confused. "Go and live. Train as a doctor. While I erase the ones behind Kanryuu's drug empire, you will help erase its legacy."
Megumi bowed her head and was quiet while Aoshi returned to musing over his plans of blood and vengeance.
"What was his name, Aoshi?" She still wasn't looking at him.
"Hideke Shikijou." Aoshi replied tonelessly, before leaving to go check on the ship's captain. Had he stayed, he might have seen Megumi quietly sobbing.
But it's doubtful he would have cared.
Mokoto walked over to the second level window in the east wing. Nimble fingers unlocked the metal clasps before anyone noticed his suspicious behavior.
"Things're bound to be broken when ya' invite the monsters in to play."
Glossary
Brachial: Refers to the arm. Location of one of Shikijou's injuries.
Edo Castle: The Emperor's own palace in Edo, what we know now as Tokyo. The Aoshi's Oniwaban group was famous as its defenders.
Kaiken: "Short knife." A six-inch knife used by women of the samurai class. One of Aoshi's many knives.
Kinesthetics/Kinesiology: Study of human movement; how muscles, nerves and bone all work together to move us.
Pubis: Crotch; area around his arse. Where Megumi cuts through to access the second bullet.
Spider's Web Opium: A fictional type of opium in Ruroni Kenshin that Megumi created that was many times more addicting than the original substance. It has several similarities with heroin.
Tanto: Japanese knife with a cutting edge 8-16in long.
Tourniquet: A piece of cloth that is tightened around a bleeding limb until the bleeding stops. What Aoshi uses to stop the brachial bleeding on Shikijou.
Wakizashi/Kodachi: A short sword with cutting edges 12-24in in length; usually paired with a katana. The preferred weapon of choice for Aoshi along with Seta Soujiro.
A/N
First off, I want to apologize to my more medically knowledgeable readers for any mistakes I made. Some of them, mostly in regards to names, were intentional as I didn't want to muddle things too much in terminology. Otherwise, I take full responsibility for anything that occurred.
As for the rest of you who no doubt breezed over the medical BS without understanding half it and caring about even less; rejoice! Next chapter vengeance, plotting and handsome maniacs who brood sexily. Who knows, we might even see Kaoru.