Alright I know the OVA is pretty old but recently I decided to watch it again (I've seen it over 6 times now) and I thought I understood everything from the OVA but theres a couple questions that remained:

1.) Is Saitoh in the OVA, the same one with the "Wolf" thrusting techniques in the RK series?
I asked a friend of mine a while back with this and he said no... after watching this again I still hold to my beliefs that he is infact the same Saitoh.

2.) If it is the same Saitoh, how did he survive?
This was what my friend used to counter my question... It might have been explained in the series, not too sure.

3.) In the end, Katsura recruited a new assassin to replace Kenshin, was that Shi Shio?
At first, I didn't have any questions with this because I was watching the dubbed version so I probably didn't hear it right. But while watching the subbed version he mentions that he found a new assassin. All the times i viewed the OVA i thought that it was Katsura that killed the spy but when watching it this time i noticed that he wasnt holding a sword when the spy was dying. So now the question is, is Shi Shio the "replacement" battousai.

I think thats all the questions I have... Love this OVA so much so I wanted to get some final facts strait.