Kouhei Nikaidou/Story

Overview
**Story**
Gallery

## Background

In Meiji 38 (1905), Nikaidou took part in the Battle of Mukden during the Russo-Japanese War. When 2nd Lieutenant Tsurumi and Hajime Tsukishima were severely wounded, Nikaidou, along with several 7th Division members carried them to a frozen body of water to be carried away on sledges for treatment. They came upon Sugimoto with a dead body who offered to let them use the sledges with one of the Nikaidou twins asking if he was sure. They then brought the two injured soldiers away to have their wounds treated.

During a blizzard storm, the 7th Division took shelter in a wooden building. While Genjirou Tanigaki and Tsurumi were having a somber conversation, one of the brothers whispered something into the other brother's ear.

## Plot

### Escape King Arc

Kouhei and Youhei first appear when they attempt to catch Sugimoto in a soba restaurant. Sugimoto immediately attacks the twins, lunging at them and knocking off their feet. Nikaidou twins order Sugimoto to get on his knees so they can shoot him. Kouhei whacks Sugimoto on the back of his knees with the butt of the rifle, making him fall on the ground. He hits Sugimoto repeatedly with a rifle, but Youhei tells him to step back so he can kill Sugimoto. However, the twins are stopped from killing Sugimoto, as First Lieutenant Tsurumi intervenes.

After Sugimoto is questioned and tortured by Tsurumi, Kouhei and his brother pay a visit to Sugimoto in his cell. They ask if Sugimoto's still alive, and Kouhei remarks they might have got the wrong guy since Sugimoto got caught so easily. Youhei looks at Sugimoto's face and says that despite taking a real beating, Sugimoto's face is already healing. He remembers the rumors of Sugimoto the Immortal recovering overnight from injuries the doctors thought were fatal. Youhei wonders if cutting out Sugimoto's guts would result in it just being all healed by tomorrow. Kouhei advises his brother against it, saying that if they kill him they won't be able to find out where he hid the skins. Youhei takes out his bayonet and suggests they cut off Sugimoto's fingers one by one until he reveals the skins' location. Sugimoto whispers something, and Youhei gets closer to him to hear what he says. Sugimoto promises that he'll give him a mark so he can tell the twins apart and headbutts Youhei, knocking his front tooth out and making him fall onto Kouhei. Sugimoto takes a deep breath and lunges himself into the twins, breaking the chair and taking Kouhei into a chokehold with his legs. As Youhei stabs him in the chest, Sugimoto continues to fight, once again declaring himself Sugimoto the Immortal.

The fight between Sugimoto and the Nikaidou twins is stopped by the soldiers who heard the ruckus. Lt. Tsurumi orders to keep the twins away from Sugimoto. However, the twins visit Sugimoto once more to take their revenge. Youhei tells his brother to wait outside and make sure nobody comes in while he kills Sugimoto and later makes it look like Sugimoto was attempting to escape. Kouhei advises his brother to not use the gun and instead use his bayonet. When Kouhei leaves with Youhei's gun and shuts the door, Youhei finds his bayonet missing. He turns around and sees Sugimoto charging at him while holding a knife. Some moments later, Tsurumi arrives at the scene and witnesses the aftermath of the fight: Kouhei is crying, Youhei is dead and Sugimoto is heavily injured, with his intestines sticking out of his gut.

### Edogai Arc

In the coal mining town of Yubari, Nikaidou is staking out a fresh grave along with Tsurumi and Sergeant Tsukishima in order to catch a grave robber. As Tsurumi and Tsukishima are talking about whether or not the grave robber will come, Nikaidou holds up Youhei's ear to Tsurumi's, saying that it looks just like his, and asks him to give him his left ear. Tsurumi humors him by saying that he could have it when he dies, just then Tsukishima spots a silhouetted man in front of the grave. Nikaidou steps on a branch, which the man hears and proceeds to flee. Tsurumi tells his subordinate to chase after him, with Tsukishima telling Nikaidou not to kill him.

Sometime after the chase, Nikaidou and Tsukishima are seen inside a house next to the Edogai Taxidermy store, with Nikaidou scouting and Tsukishima maintaining a rifle. Nikaidou questions if the taxidermist really has the skin, to which Tsukishima tells him that he talked to a doctor about the mining incident and that he dug up the grave to find it empty. Getting impatient, Nikaidou also asks if it would be better to just kill Edogai and search his house but Tsukishima tells him if Tsurumi really planned to kill him, he'd have done so once he answered the door. (71)

While Tsurumi is occupied with Edogai, Nikaidou manages to slip inside the Edogai house without Tsukishima noticing, and holds Youhei's ear up to Edogai's mother's ear, saying that her ear won't work. He then drops the ear into her clothings and as Nikaidou is attempting to retrieve it, Edogai comes into the room and finds him and his mother in an awkward position. He is able to obtain his brother's ear and move away to allow Edogai to let go of his past and shoots his mother's corpse. Afterwards, Nikaidou is shown banging a human drum with human bones to commemorate Edogai's recruitment into the 7th division. Sometime during his visit in the Edogai store, Edogai gave him a headpiece with his ear sewn on it.

### Con Artists Arc

Nikaidou returns to Yubari along with several 7th Division soldiers in order to erase the evidence left behind by Edogai and throws a molotov cocktail into the Edogai store to burn it down as he whispers to his ear that they've got to erase everything.

As they burned the Edogai store, Nikaidou ordered his fellow soldiers not to kill Sugimoto as he wishes to deal with him himself. When Ogata appears on the second floor, shooting at them, Nikaidou and the other soldiers rushed to the walls of the store to hide from his attacks. However, Hijikata began firing at them, knocking his cap off, forcing them to move away from the store. Given an opportunity to enter the store, Nikaidou rushed inside only see Hijikata preparing to cut him down with his katana. He was able to react in time to tackle Hijikata and overpower him. When he heard Sugimoto shouting for Hijikata, he stopped and looked up to see him, with an eager grin on his face. He yelled out Sugimoto's name and began to move towards the other man but is stopped when Hijikata cut his right leg off. Predicting Hijikata's attack, Nikaidou rolled away to hide from Hijikata, who gave up on finding him soon afterwards. Once Sugimoto and Hijikata's group left the store, Nikaidou crawled out from the store and roared in anguish.

Nikaidou was eventually brought to a hospital in Otaru where his wounds were treated. He would often steal some morphine and had to be restrained by Tsukishima and a doctor so as not to overdose. Tsurumi then came into the room and scolded Nikaidou, which caused him to fall into a depression. Tsurumi and Tsukishima headed out to meet an acquaintance and came back just as Nikaidou tried to steal another bottle of morphine.

As Nikaidou and Tsukishima struggled over the bottle, Tsurumi called out to him and said that a guest has come to visit him. Suddenly, a strange man came in and Nikaidou and Tsukishima are confused until Tsurumi shooed him away and Narizou Arisaka came in to introduce himself. When he produced a prosthetic leg, Nikaidou showed disappointment until Arisaka revealed that it can be used as a shotgun weapon. Nikaidou is amazed by his new attachment while a doctor came in to tell them to be quiet. Tsurumi, Arisaka, Tsukishima, and the strange man congratulates Nikaidou on his new leg.

### Youichirou the Manslayer Arc

After the raid on Abashiri Prison, Nikaidou was brought to a nearby clinic on the outskirts of Abashiri to be treated for his wounds, including the loss of his right hand. Sometime afterwards, he was told by Tsurumi that Sugimoto had "died", unaware that Sugimoto was in fact still alive and currently on a mission with Tanigaki, Tsukishima, and Koito. With the objective of his vengeance gone, Nikaidou felt he no longer has a purpose in life and refused to move from his bed or eat his food.

Nikaidou was then visited by Tsurumi who had heard of his current state from Usami and tried to get him to eat his food by rewarding him with some morphine. They are then visited by Arisaka who had crafted a prosthetic hand for Nikaidou, which piqued Nikaidou's curiosity. However, after finding out that the hand's special trick turned out to be a chopstick holder, Nikaidou was not amused and returned back under his covers.

### Border Crossing Arc

As Nikaidou recuperated from his wounds, he listened to Tsurumi talk about Kiroranke's past and his involvement with the assassination of Emperor Alexander II of Russia.

### Return to Karafuto Arc

Some time later, the 7th Division visits a hot spring in Noboribetsu and Nikaidou and Usami decides to relax in a waterfall bath, which Nikaidou says feels nice. They are approached by Warrant Officer Kikuta and he says that since both Nikaidou and Usami are here, Tsurumi must be wondering how he is doing. Kikuta proceeds to tell them a time about when Private First Class Ariko met a strange man wearing geta in the middle of the night, calling it an odd story. Usami immediately dismisses the story but Kikuta says that they should hear it directly from the main source as Ariko joins them. He explains that he heard the sound of geta but found that the tracks the strange man left behind were from straw boots. Ariko goes on to say that the strange man was wearing clothes that had odd patterns on them but he was unable to identify them. Fed up, Nikaidou says that since both Kikuta and Ariko have been relaxing in Noboribetsu since the war ended, their minds have gotten soft.

The soldiers finished their bath and got dressed, continuing the topic as Nikaidou questions why Ariko was at a hot spring so deep in the mountains in the first place. Ariko reveals that only the Ainu knew about the hot spring and Nikaidou is surprised to hear that Ariko is an Ainu. Usami wonders if the strange man may have also been an Ainu but Ariko replies that he did not recognize the patterns on his clothes. Kikuta says that he found the story intriguing but that he may have also been overthinking it, asking the anma massaging him what he thought about it. The anma responds that he does not know anything about it but that he will be sure to tell them if he sees a strange man wearing clothing with a strange Ainu pattern.

Nikaidou and Kikuta jumps back into the hot springs to play around and Nikaidou is surprised by Kikuta blowing water out of his mouth. Kikuta turns to Nikaidou and asks him about the tattoo designs on the Abashiri convicts but Nikaidou shakes his head, saying that he has never seen one. Some time later, as Usami is getting massaged by an anma, Nikaidou wonders if they should bring Kikuta and Ariko back with them to Abashiri. Usami says that they will not as Tsurumi is leaving Abashiri and that they will meet elsewhere. Nikaidou then asks about Inkarmat and Kano Ienaga but Usami says that they are none of their business before turning to the anma to complain about his massage techniques.

Some time later, Nikaidou and Usami heads to the Hell Valley to help Kikuta fight against three blind men with Nikaidou providing support as a sniper. Nikaidou misses hitting one, causing him to run away and Nikaidou shouts to the others that the blind man is heading towards the mountain. Once Nikaidou had gone down to the base of the valley, he examines one of the dead blind men and recognizes him as being the anma who massaged Usami.

Four days after the ordeal with the convict, Nikaidou and Usami decides to rest once more at Noboribetsu while Kikuta heads out to search for Ariko, who had disappeared with Usami believing that he had died. Nikaidou asks Usami if he had sent a telegram to Tsurumi, which Usami confirms. Usami notes that Ariko had died, his leg got injured, and they let the convict escape, so he begins to panic that Tsurumi will come to scold him again.