Chapter 269

## Wilk's Way of Doing Things

**Wilk's Way of Doing Things**, or **Wilk's Way** (ウイルクのやり方, *Uiruku no yarikata*) is the 269th chapter of the *Golden Kamuy* manga.

## Synopsis

Upon learning of Wilk’s background, the six Ainu men turn on each other with Oskeporo and Ratci opposing Wilk while Irenka, Mesira, Siromakur, and Sukuta defend Wilk. As they begin to kill each other, Ratci manages to crawl away and is found by Kikuta. Kikuta questions him about Wilk, but Ratci dies before Kikuta could get any answers out of him. The 7th Division gathers up Ratci’s corpse along with the severed heads of the other six Ainu men killed in the battle. Usami wonders who was the one to cut off everyone’s heads if there were only seven Ainu.

Usami pulls Irenka’s head by its hair and finds out that the Ainu men have had their skins cut off and swapped around and that they did not have their eyes as well. Tsurumi comes to the conclusion that one of the heads must belong to Kimuspu who got caught up in the deadly fight. He also concludes that Wilk must have used him to fake his own death since Kimuspu's involvement was not well known to others. He also removed everyone’s eyes since his own were so distinct. Just then, several gold panners and hunters begin to gather due to the commotion, so Tsurumi tells Usami to go to the health resort facility in Noboribetsu to call reinforcements while informing Kikuta to secure the area and that he will go after Wilk himself.

Kikuta stares silently at the severed heads, and Usami asks him what is on his mind. He responds, wondering how they will break the news of Ariko’s father’s death to him; he is afraid of what Ariko would think if he found out the 7th Division was involved in his father’s death. Usami says that there is no need to tell Ariko that as the 7th Division just gave the Ainu information about Wilk’s true identity and that they tore themselves apart. Kikuta states that their plan indeed relied on the Ainu group tearing itself apart.

In the present time, Ariko manages to regroup with Sugimoto and Shiraishi, while Kikuta walks forlornly in the rain.

Tsurumi commends Wilk for having such a strong resolve to cut off his own face; he says that Wilk managed to avoid being labelled as the one responsible for the Ainu murders while also saving his daughter from the stigma of her father’s actions. Tsurumi then talks about Kiroranke, wondering if he would give up on the gold once he believed that Wilk had died. Tsurumi states that any normal person would have agonized over cutting their face off and still be unable to bring themselves to do it, but Wilk came to his conclusion in the shortest possible time and immediately put it into action.

However, Tsurumi states that the only major oversight in Wilk’s plan was that Tsurumi himself was the one who was pursuing him. Tsurumi was able to locate Wilk who bandaged his entire face but left his distinct eyes out in the open. As the two men face each other, memories of their past come to mind and Wilk recognizes Tsurumi as Mister Hasegawa, the photographer who helped him in Russia. Tsurumi shoots Wilk who tries to escape onto Lake Shikotsu via a canoe, however, Wilk falls into the water, dropping his supplies along with Kimuspu’s face.

Wilk swims across the lake and comes to several prison lodges, naked and with his bandages coming off, revealing his skinned face, horrifying the prisoners and guards there. He asks who their boss is, and they tell him it is Shirosuke Inudou. Wilk asks them to tell the Warden about the seven Ainu who were killed and their location, along with him who knows where the hidden Ainu gold is located. Since the 7th Division and the prison wardens held mutual animosity towards each other, the guards transported Wilk to the prison under utmost secrecy where he thus became known as Noppera-bou of Abashiri Prison.

Asirpa is horrified to learn about Noppera-bou’s birth and asks about Kiroranke and what he was doing at the time. Sofia reveals that Kiroranke wrote a letter to her about the time he attempted to look for Kimuspu himself but heard about the commotion involving the seven Ainu. Upon seeing Wilk's face among the heads of the murdered Ainu men, Kiroranke slumps to the ground and cries Wilk’s name. He then begins to ponder if he would be able to understand Wilk if he started his own family as well. Upon returning from the Russo-Japanese War, Kiroranke hears a rumour that Kimuspu was actually one of the seven Ainu bodies as he had a tattoo on both of his hands which were used to identify him.

Coming to the realization that Kimuspu was with the other Ainu men, Hijikata Toshizou looking for Asirpa, the rumours about Noppera-bou, and then learning about the tattooed codes, Kiroranke begins to have hope that Noppera-bou was Wilk all along. However, Kiroranke states that, despite having his own family as well, he did not come to the same conclusion as Wilk, calling him a weak and pathetic man that could never win against the Russian Empire or the Meiji government. Believing that Wilk truly changed, Kiroranke becomes determined to kill him as he was a wolf within the pack who grew weak. Kiroranke surmises that he was only following the “way of the wolves”, which Wilk had once admired, and did Wilk the kindness of killing him.

## Character Appearances

* Irenka *(Flashback)*
* Wilk *(Flashback)*
* Oskeporo *(Flashback)*
* Mesira *(Flashback)*
* Ratci *(Flashback)*
* Siromakur *(Flashback)*
* Sukuta *(Flashback)*
* Tokishige Usami *(Flashback)*
* Kimuspu *(Flashback)*
* Rikimatsu Ariko
* Saichi Sugimoto
* Yoshitake Shiraishi
* Mokutarou Kikuta
* Tokushirou Tsurumi
* Asirpa
* Sofia Golden Hand
* Kiroranke *(Flashback)*
* Shirosuke Inudou *(Flashback)*
* Toshizou Hijikata *(Flashback)*

## Trivia

* The cover of this chapter mirrors the scene from Chapter 1 in which Takechiyo Gotou was telling Sugimoto the story of the Ainu gold.