Chapter 106

Mismatched (ちぐはぐ) is the one hundred and sixth chapter of Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun by AidaIro.

Summary
The chapter starts where Chapter 105 left off with Hanako, Akane Aoi and Teru Minamoto. Teru and Akane contemplate who the culprit behind the sudden pause in time is before making fun of Hanako for being unable to do anything as Tsukasa kidnapped Nene. Teru ties Hanako up with his special supernatural-binding beads and Akane suggests that Nene was taken to the Three Clock Keeper's boundary, stating that if she is there, then they'll have to head over there too. Teru questions Akane on this, telling him that he thought that only a Clock Keeper can get into No. 1's Boundary. Akane tells him "normally", to which Teru asks for clarification. Akane clarifies that normally, the entrance to their boundary only appears when time is stopped, and before he continued his discussion, the chapter quickly changes perspective

The chapter cuts to Nene Yashiro, who is on the floor trying to recollect her memory on what exactly happened. At that time, she still couldn't move her body. She then lands on a large gear, and her time unfreezes. Still shocked at what happened, she is met by Tsukasa Yugi, who asks her if she's awake. He then tells her to look.



Tsukasa then tells her that they're in the Clock Keeper's boundary. And as Yashiro looks around, she sees that they're in a place filled with giant gears and screws. Tsukasa also clarifies that the flow of time works differently in the boundary. Despite Kamome Gakuen's time being stopped, it still flows in the boundary. Tsukasa then gives a grin, and then reminds Yashiro that it's about time that they destroyed The Clock Keeper's Yorishiro. This surprises Yashiro, who protests that she doesn't want to in her mind. Then all of a sudden, she pretended fell asleep.

As Tsukasa wondered what happened to her (And even gave her cheek a few squeezes), Yashiro focuses on calming herself down and staying collected, while figuring out what is exactly going on. She thinks of deciding the best course of action, with how she might deal with saving herself, what to do with the Yorishiro, and how to contact the others, without being distracted by unimportant things. However, she ends up wondering about the kiss that Tsukasa gave her earlier. She wonders if Tsukasa likes her, though she never got that impression from him. Then her imagination goes wild from there, imagining Tsukasa with her in various romantic situations, wondering if that is what he meant. Throughout her delusional imaginations, she considered herself as having become the heroine of the story, and that Hanako's the one for her.

All the while, Tsukasa caught a mouse (How did it enter?) and then shows it to Yashiro, asking her if she's hungry. Yashiro just smiles at him and he concludes that she's probably not hungry. She then promptly went back to "sleep". From there, her deliberating thoughts continue, this time without the delusional romantic imaginations.

She thought that Tsukasa wants her to destroy the Yorishiro, and that he would have to protect her until they are all destroyed. She decides that she has to pretend that she's gonna help him, and then get close the Yorishiro in question. She figured that The Clock Keepers would not want their Yorishiro removed, and they would come out to fight Yashiro and Tsukasa. Then as they confront the both of them, she will betray Tsukasa and let The Clock Keepers stop Tsukasa where he stands. She concludes that such a plan will work.

Unfortunately for her, when she wakes up, Tsukasa comes uncomfortably close to her, and then spooks her to the point that she seemingly jumps to another nearby gear and hits its screw. Shocked by what he did, she asked Tsukasa if he wants her to destroy the Yorishiro. Without waiting for an answer, she puts on her A-game by telling him that she doesn't want to destroy the Yorishiro unless he agrees to some terms and conditions. Only then would she help him out. Before she can continue with her terms, Tsukasa asks her if she is sure that she doesn't want to remove The Clock Keeper's Yorishiro, and then he reminds her that she has already destroyed the previous Yorishiros (#2's Yorishiro, #5's Yorishiro, #4's Yorishiro and while uninvolved, #6's Yorishiro), so why is it only a problem to her now. Yashiro sweats nervously while trying to find an answer to his question, however he surprises her by telling her that she could just not destroy it. After all, she doesn't have to do anything that she doesn't want to, since it is her choice. Surprised by his words, Yashiro asks him if it's really alright, to which he nods further. However, he adds a "but", and then tells her that if Yashiro has already made her choice, then she has to run away from him. After all, it is his job to destroy all the Yorishiros.

Tsukasa suggests to Yashiro that they play a game of tag. The conditions he gave is that after 10 seconds, he will come find her. If Yashiro escapes the boundary, then she wins, but it Tsukasa wins, then he tells Yashiro that he will just take her arm that she uses to destroy the Yorishiro. Panicked by the propositions of Tsukasa's game, Yashiro makes a dash for it the moment Tsukasa begins counting down. She struggles to find the exit, as the boundary is massive in size, and filled to the brim with gears that seemingly lead nowhere. After a while, Tsukasa counts down to Zero, and starts finding her.

Yashiro finds a place filled with grandfather clocks, and stays there, hoping that Tsukasa will be long gone afterwards. Suddenly, some sounds were heard, and she starts to panic. She wonders if Tsukasa has already left, but before long, Tsukasa appears from one of the doors, and shocks her greatly. She then starts running again, with Tsukasa in hot pursuit.

He almost catches her by the back, but a piece of the gear hits his face before he can grab her, and so she escapes his grasp. But relentlessly, he continues his chase. He tracks down Yashiro to a place filled with some lifts or weights. And when Yashiro steps on one, it suddenly falls down really fast. Finding out the left to be an elevator, she uses it to go all the way down to escape Tsukasa, but little did she know that he used the exact same tactic, and just a second later, he is close to her once again. Shocking her once more, she escapes with all that she could. And while she runs away from him, she screams at Tsukasa to stay away from her, and he asks her why.

Arriving at a spot in the boundary, she sits down and takes deep breaths from all the running she did. She then peeks off a window, and sees Tsukasa just lying down one of the lifts and staring at the sky for whatever reason. She hopes that he stays that way. She then wonders why not a single Clock Keeper is around in the boundary, and that finding an exit seemed impossible, as wherever she goes, it's like she's going deeper and deeper. She then worryingly says that she wants to go back to Hanako's side.

All of a sudden, a large own-shaped clock starts cooing, and then it starts moving towards Yashiro is. Yashiro wonders if the large owl is a Clock Keeper, and the owl nozzles her, seemingly making her feel ticked. Then the owl bits Yashiro hand, which makes her tell the owl to stop biting, but in reality, the owl takes off a piece of her time, forcing her to revert to her Middle School Self



As Yashiro wonders what happened to her, several other big owls like the one that bit her earlier all stare down at her from the ceiling. When she sees them, she shrieks out, and runs for her life once again. However, she is unable to run away from them, and instead, the owls take more and more of her timespan away, which reverts her more and more. However just in time, Tsukasa comes in and destroys all the owls with very little effort. Afterwards, he concludes that the owls are actually guards created by The Clock Keepers to protect their boundary, and that they have gobbled up some of Yashiro's time. Or rather, that they took so much of it that Yashiro had been reverted to a toddler, which surprises Tsukasa. She then begins to cry loudly, which makes even Tsukasa cover his ears.

Yashiro complains to Tsukasa that she never did anything wrong, and that she didn't want to be small. Tsukasa asks her if she also turned little on the inside as well, to which she replies with constant flailing, which confirms his suspicions. Tsukasa decides that he will just carry her like that, and so the chapter ends.

Characters in order of appearance

 * Minamoto Teru
 * Aoi Akane
 * Hanako-kun
 * Yashiro Nene
 * Yugi Tsukasa