Chapter 82

The Red House (Part 7) (い の) is the eighty-second chapter of Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun by AidaIro.

Summary
Picking off from the last chapter, Kou is telling Tsukasa that Yugi Amane died at 13 years old after killing his younger brother. Tsukasa and Nene are both shocked.

Kou says he will do something to ensure that it won't happen.

He claims that, because the Tsukasa they know looks identical in age to Hanako, and because the Tsukasa they are currently with is only 4 years old and says he's been stuck in the Red House for a long time, then that must mean that the older Tsukasa is a fake. He also says that Tsukasa being fake may be the very reason why Hanako killed him in the first place.

Kou says that if they return the real Tsukasa to his proper place in the timeline, then maybe Hanako won't kill his younger brother.

Nene agrees, but she and Kou both don't know how to return Tsukasa to his family. They decide to escape the Red House and ask Teru for his help.

However, Tsukasa isn't sure if he wants to go back. He thinks Amane is happier without him.

Kou claims that Amane didn't mean whatever he said, and that he must've just been heated up in the moment during an argument of some kind. He reassures Tsukasa that his older brother would be happy to see him, and Tsukasa guesses that he doesn't know as much about Amane as he thought he did. He decides he wants to go and see his older brother again.

The house then starts to shake. A pillar crashes in front of Kou and Nene, and walls start closing in and dropping in on them. Nene takes Tsukasa in her arms and runs, and Kou holds off the house for their escape and follows after them. He barely makes it out, the walls ripping a tear into his shoulder sleeve.

Nene tries to a calm a panicking Kou down by saying they're safe now, but the house continues it's pursuit. It begins to chase them through the hallways. Tsukasa silently observes that while the house is craashing pillars through the walls, they avoid touching the parts of the wall where flame-lit oil lamps were placed.

As they run, evading the pillars the house is trying to ram into them, Tsukasa asks Kou if they're going to die. Kou says no way, and tells him to think about what he'll do with his brother after getting out of here. Tsukasa thinks, before talking about how he always wanted to go to the Summer Festival with Amane. Nene is reminded of when she time-travelled to the past and met a younger Amane at said festival.

Nene sadly reflects on the fact that Tsukasa must've been so lonely, staying in this creepy house all alone for so long.

They decide to take a break in a library after it seems they have shaken off their pursuers. However, Nene comments that this looks to be a dead end, and Kou says they should go back.

Kou goes to pick up Tsukasa, but a bookshelf starts to fall on top of him. Nene pushes him out of the way, and gets crushed by the bookshelves, her leg starting to bleed. Kou tries to help her out, but more pillars start to fall on him, putting him in danger of being crushed himself. Nene yells and tries to convince him to leave without her, but Kou refuses.

Suddenly, a match of flame is dropped onto a toppled glass of spilled oil. Tsukasa dropped said match, and the house begins to catch fire. The room returns to it's previous state, and Kou helps Nene out from under the bookcase. Tsukasa comments that he noticed the house was afraid of fire, explaining his actions, and Nene and Kou both start to pet and praise him for being so smart.

They then find an opening in the walls, showing them the exit: the entrance that Kou and Nene had first entered from. They rejoice, and Kou offers a shoulder to Nene to help her walk, while finally accepting Tsukasa's request to hold hands with him. As they exit, Tsukasa says that if he makes it back home, he'll write a letter to Kou and Nene that says that he was happy they came to see him.

Outside of the Red House, Kou and Nene celebrate that they were finally able to make it out, but belatedly realize that Tsukasa isn't with them. They turn around, and realize that the Red House was completely burned down, reduced to ruins. Panicked, they call Tsukasa's name, but find nothing...

From inside of a less ruined Red House, Tsukasa watches Kou and Nene yell for him, the house crackling with fire around him. Although unheard, he says goodbye to Kou, and says that he knew how to get back home to Amane the whole time. But he thought that would ruin everything if he did so, so he never went back.

An entity in his chest, looking like a swirly dark hole, asks if Tsukasa is going to go back home now.

Tsukasa says yes, and that he's decided he's done "holding back", just like Amane was. He says he'll go back together with the entity in his chest, because Kou told him all about the parts of Amane that he didn't know about.

The fact that Amane will die at 13 years old, after killing his older brother.

Manically, Tsukasa repeats that same phrase over and over, dancing through the flames around him. There's a flashback to Amane and Tsukasa's fourth birthday party, showing the parts where Amane claims that he will go to space, and where Tsukasa asks Amane if he loves him.

Tsukasa affectionately calls Amane a weirdo, saying that despite Tsukasa granting his wish for him, Amane ruined it all by killing him. Tsukasa says he now wants to know even more about Amane.

Looking forward to how Amane will kill him, Tsukasa is enwrapped in flame, as everything goes dark.

Character in Order of Appearance

 * Hanako (mentioned)
 * Minamoto Kou
 * Tsukasa
 * Yashiro Nene
 * Minamoto Teru (mentioned)