Mirza Aaqib Beg
In the second episode of ‘Golden Kamuy’ season 4 titled ‘Cocoon,’ Kadokura and Kirawus finally reunite with Ushiyama, who has managed to escape from his coffin. The former head jailer of Abashiri Prison soon finds Sekiya Waichirou‘s hideout and engages in a game of fate with the promise that Hijikita’s life will be saved regardless of whether he loses or wins.
Ushiyama Reunites With Kadokura and Kirawus
While Sekiya is away, Ushiyama emerges from his coffin and manages to walk outside despite his datura-induced stupor. He later comes across Chiyotarou, the young son of a rich miner who is bullied by kids older than him to eat grass moss. They end up leaving him tied to a tree, so when he sees Ushiyama, he promises to give him food on the condition that he helps him.
Ushiyama then follows Chiyotarou around everywhere while still in his datura-induced stupor. When Sekiya learns that he has escaped, he concludes that the datura will naturally not let him be his normal self for at least 12 more hours and even after that he won’t be able to recall the location of his hideout. Meanwhile, Chiyotarou realizes soon that Ushiyama can be dangerous so he decides to get rid of him.
Chiyotarou takes him to the lake and manages to get him to walk into a hole in the ice, hoping that he will drown and die there. Elsewhere, Kirawus is hiding on the other end of the lake, while Kadokura plans to deliberately screw up negotiations with Sekiya so that when he flees the duo can follow him back to find his hideout. Although things go exactly as they had planned initially, the effect of datura finally wears off as Ushiyama emerges from a hole in the frozen lake right in front of Sekiya.
Naturally, Kirawus and Kadokura are also shocked to see Ushiyama there as they struggle to figure out how he must have ended up in the lake. In the meantime, Sekiya manages to flee thinking that he has evaded capture. But Kadokura using the information that he gets about cacoon farming manages to track the serial killer down.
How Do Hijikita and Kadokura Survive After Eating Poison?
When Kadokura and Sekiya finally sit together at the facility where the serial killer has been experimenting with cacoons, the latter like always invites the former head jailer to a trial of fate. While they face each other, there is a rotating machine between them that has cacoons on it. Sekiya tells Kadokura that half of them are poisoned by potassium cyanide, arsenic, strychnine, fugu tetrodotoxin, and wolfsbane, while the other half are unadulterated. He goes on to explain that he is interested in the fates of people who have a strong will and argues that if the former jailer is following the right path, then fate will eventually side with him.
Waichirou also adds that if he ends up eating the poisoned cacoon then he will tell Kadokura where he has kept Hijikita. In case, Kadokura is the one who is going to die, then Sekiya will save Hijikita before the air in his coffin runs out. Although Kadokura knows that he always makes bad decisions in such situations and luck is never on his side, the guarantee of Hijikita’s safety in both scenarios is more than enough to convince him to participate in the dangerous game. So, both of them end up eating one cacoon and sometime later Kadokura starts sweating heavily and falls to the ground.
Sekiya argues that if the poison took 10 minutes to kick in, then he must have eaten the cacoon laced with wolfsbane, which also means that he will suffer for a few hours before his death. As promised Sekiya immediately heads to the room where he has buried Hijikita in order to save his life. However, to his surprise, the leader of Shinsengumi emerges from his coffin as if nothing ever happened and grabs Sekiya by his collar.
It turns out that Hijikita used to work as a medicine seller when he was young and deliberately ingested just the right amount of the cacoon laced with wolfsbane to not be fatal. Meanwhile, in the other room, Kadokura picks another cacoon and by sheer luck, it turns out to be the one poisoned with fugu tetrodotoxin. Both fugu tetrodotoxin and wolfsbane naturally neutralize each other, so it ends up saving his life too.
Is Sekiya Waichirou Dead? Does His Death Finally Provide Answers to His Religious Dilemmas?
After Hijikita finally emerges from his coffin, he attacks Sekiya’s neck with a butcher’s knife. He then grabs him by his collar and explains how he survived the serial killer’s trial of death and fate. The cut on his throat is deep and Hijikita knows it is going to be fatal so he allows Sekiya to walk outside in his terrible state. As soon as he gets out of the facility, the serial killer falls on the ice, realizing that his death is near.
A long time ago, Sekiya’s daughter was struck by lightning and died as they were just going out for a walk. Since that day, he has been struggling with the fact that he somehow survived, which according to him only meant that God did not exist. His trials were always designed in a manner to address and find answers to his religious dilemmas. Now on his deathbed, Sekiya was shocked to realize that Hijikita survived by picking wolfsbane out of other poisoned cacoons and eating just the right amount for it to be non-fatal.
Furthermore, when Kadokura also emerges outside, by ingesting the neutralizing poison for wolfsbane by sheer luck, Sekiya concludes that it is a miracle. He sees his approaching death as God’s judgment as well and deduces that his existence can’t be doubted moments before he passes away. Although he never found peace when he was alive, Sekiya Waichirou finally dies peacefully finding answers to the questions that has puzzled him all his life.
Read More: Is Golden Kamuy Season 4 on Netflix, Crunchyroll, Hulu, or Funimation?
