Sugimoto will die of cancer.
Specific mention has been made of him recovering of wounds almost overnight. This abnormally high healing rate may be a sign of him having a slightly faster than normal cell cycle, which indeed makes for faster healing of wounds, but also makes for an increased risk of developing tumors. Given exactly what his healing rate seems to be, he may not get to die of old age even if neither man nor beast manages to kill him. His utter lack of fear of death since he entered the Army —which Umeko actually noticed as "the smell of a different man"— could also be caused by a small brain tumor in its initial stages of development causing a change in behavior.The above speculation was true, but Sugimoto will no longer die of brain cancer.
Ogata's bullet took away the tumor.Kōichi Hasegawa is Lieutenant Tsurumi.
As Golden Kamuy Hunting finds out
, there are some facial similarities between Hasegawa and young Tsurumi that become clear when one removes the former's eyeglasses and the latter's facial hair. Hasegawa may not be some minor character because he looks too ordinary in a Cast of Snowflakes. Being a photographer and marrying a native is not bad for a spy either. Furthermore, Hasegawa being Tsurumi would also explain why Tsurumi knows young Kiroranke helped assassinate Tsar Alexander II.- Confirmed in Chapter 179. When his wife, Fina, was dying of a stray bullet, Hasegawa told her the truth that his real name was Tokushirou Tsurumi.
There is going to be a reference to Aimo Koivunen.
. - A recent manga chapter showed that Nikaido has gotten hooked on an exciting new drug, methamphetamine. Bearing in mind how much Noda loves historical references, especially military ones, Koivunen's story just seems way too outlandish for him to pass up.
Kadokura's Tattoo is actually really important.
- It's quite likely that the remaining half of the gold is still buried in the fort somewhere- moreover, its heavily likely that said location is actually marked down on Kadokura's copy of the tattoo. It seemed like every one of the tattooed skins was exactly the same-even if some were destroyed, the overall location could be deciphered- but Hijikata's tattoo specifically revealing the location of the buried land deed throws that perception out-If his tattoo had been destroyed, then the Ainu's right to the land bought with half the gold would have been gone, therefore, it stands to reason that some of the remaining skins were also important as well, beyond being just part of the whole puzzle. When the whole picture is assembled, It seems odd that Kadokura's copy is placed in the exact centre of the diagram the combined skins make, when the borders of the fort would seem to be more important to help identify it. And sure, its Played for Laughs that he had an 'unimportant' skin the whole time, but that might be just a Red Herring to underplay its importance. It seems odd that Wilk would go out of his way to tattoo Kadokura when it happened after the escape of the rest of the prisoners, once the majority of the skins had already made it outside the prison, thus guaranteeing that somebody would eventually find out the general location of the gold- and for it to be a totally 'useless' tattoo to boot, even if it was only half-complete due to circumstances outside Wilk's control. Given that the entire reason for creating the code was for wilk to keep the gold out of Tsurumi's hands, Hijikata was the one prisoner guaranteed never to join up with Tsurumi, and to be skilled enough to survive long enough to find the gold's general location, Thus is makes sense why he got the land deed marking. Since Kadokura was part of the prison staff, and also allied with Hijakata against Tsurumi, it makes sense for him to be given the piece that marks the location of the actual gold, as it's useless on it's own, or even apparently as part of the diagram, but as a specific mark to note the buried gold, a partial tattoo would still suffice for Wilk's purposes, hence his insistence on making one last tattoo. Plus, it fits with the running theme of him being secretly lucky, despite not being aware of it, for him to be given the 'X' on the map to mark the gold. And it fits with Wilk's justified paranoia about anybody else but Aspirta finding the gold, as even if they found the fort, they wouldn't know where to dig unless they had Kadokura's tattoo, which was close by Wilk the whole time, hence the actual marker to note the gold never left the prison until the prison break.
Asirpa will destroy the gold
In the end, Asirpa will get just enough gold for Sugimoto to get Ume's surgery, but she will get rid of the gold by throwing it into the ocean or something, because she realizes nothing good will come out of that much money being used by men like Tsurumi or Hijikata and that both will spend the rest of their lives fighting for it and getting more and more people involved in a bloody conflict and start an even bloodier conflict once one of them gets their hands on it.