Mismatched (Part 2) (ちぐはぐ
Summary[]
Part 1: Babysitting a time-reduced Nene[]
Tsukasa is wandering and hopping around the Clock Keepers' boundary. He complains about how, even though he's been searching around the boundary for a while now, all he can find are gears and bird nests. Wondering aloud where the Clock Keeper's Yorishiro could be, he stops to survey the area before taking notice of a mysterious ticking noise, similar to that of a clock. He tries to listen closely and locate where the noise is coming from, but is ultimately unable to focus because Nene, now a toddler, is throwing a fit in the baby carrier strapped to his back. He grabs her by the leg, hanging her upside down, and asks her why she's being so fussy. She tells him she wants to be right side up, and he easily obliges, but she remains unsatisfied and cries that she wants to go home. Tsukasa patiently reminds her that, because she lost to him in their game of tag, she can't go home until she destroys the yorishiro. Unfazed by Tsukasa's sound logic, Nene screams that she doesn't want to, and starts wailing and calling him all kinds of names, like "dummy" and "kidnapper."
Finally fed up with Nene's whining, Tsukasa attempts to induce a sleeping spell on Nene with his fingers. Nene, realizing what he's about to do, dodges it. Undeterred, Tsukasa keeps trying, but she seamlessly dodges his fingers every single time before putting a stop to it by punching him in the face. Nene lands on the ground, and firmly tells him that she isn't going to destroy anyone's yorishiro, because doing that will lead to her death. Tsukasa wordlessly squishes her cheeks in one hand in response, prompting Nene to aggressively bite him. Nene floats to the ground after this, to Tsukasa's mild surprise, and lands face-first on the floor. She then proceeds to throw a tantrum by thrashing around on the ground, screaming about how Tsukasa is a bully and that she hates him (a fact that she repeats multiple times.) Watching Nene throw a fit with faint discontent, Tsukasa remarks that this would be so much easier if she were Mitsuba, and we see an illustrative example of how Mitsuba shuts up whenever Tsukasa orders him to stop crying.
Then the kokujoudai start communicating telepathically with Tsukasa, looking somewhat stressed as they do. Through Tsukasa's responses to them, they seem to be suggesting that he treat this like a babysitting job. While Tsukasa admits it's a good idea, he tells them he doesn't know how to babysit. They then seem to suggest that he do what his mother used to do, and Tsukasa tries to remember what that was. Glancing around, he spots one of the Clock Keepers' owl guardians teaching its young how to fly, and gets an idea.
Tsukasa grabs Nene, reins in one of the owls by maneuvering it through one of the wires inside of it, and takes to the skies. As the tamed owl guardian flies through the boundary, Nene seems scared at first, screaming as Tsukasa forces the bird to take a nosedive and skim across the surface of a waterway. However, when Tsukasa asks her if she's having fun, she shakes off her dizziness and giggles with joy. Tsukasa smiles with relief upon recognizing that he's finally made her happy, and begins making the bird do loop-the-loops, yelling "Yaaay!" with Nene as he does and eliciting more laughter from her.
Some time later, Tsukasa is shown surveying Nene from on top of the now-exhausted owl with clear disappointment written on his face. Nene is hopping around in excitement, giggling maniacally and recounting how the bird went "whoosh" and "zoom." She begs Tsukasa to take her again, repeating herself relentlessly, and Tsukasa mockingly asks if she's an alarm.
Part 2: Over the Rainbow[]
As Nene squeals and runs around some more, Tsukasa finally decides that he's had enough and tells the kokujoudai to do something about her before walking off. The kokujoudai panic and try to entertain her, one shaking a rattle at her while Nene roughly plays with the other one on the floor. Suddenly, Nene overhears a voice singing, which brings her out of her manic mood. She looks up and finds that Tsukasa is singing "Over the Rainbow", a song made for the 1939 film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, the very same play that her class was going to put on in the Sealed Auditorium.
Nene gets up, approaches him, and tells him that the song he's singing is from the Wizard of Oz. He confirms, and tells her that he learned it back in school. Then, with a faux-disappointed look on his face, he tells her he can't remember the next verse, before not-so-subtly glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. Nene takes the bait and excitedly tells him that she knows, and then proceeds to sing it for him. Tsukasa merrily joins in, and Nene pauses for a moment to watch Tsukasa sing, the boy looking wistfully off into the distance as he does. Nene tries to sing with him again, but suddenly grows very sleepy, and eventually drifts off to sleep.
Later, Tsukasa picks Nene up by the shirt, as if he were holding a cat by its scruff, and bluntly remarks that she fell asleep. As the kokujoudai congratulate him and throw confetti around, Tsukasa, unfazed by Nene's earlier protests, returns to focusing on his mission to destroy the yorishiro. Before he can get too far, though, the ticking he heard earlier returns, louder this time. As Tsukasa comments on this, a gigantic hammer almost crushes him, but Tsukasa, carrying Nene, dodges it just in time. He identifies it as a hammer, and continues to evade it as it relentlessly swings at him. At some point, the shady figure holding the hammer appears behind him, and it almost looks like Tsukasa is going to smacked--but Tsukasa uses his god-like reflexes to slam them into a wall before they can, and the hammer falls to the floor.
Part 3: Judged by the Future[]
The figure is revealed to be Mirai, who Tsukasa continues gripping by the face. Tsukasa, noticing the clock around her neck, realizes that the ticking noise had been coming from her clock the entire time. Suddenly, the hammer begins to shrink to the size of a toy hammer, and it returns to Mirai's hand. She uses it to stamp Tsukasa's hand, and then frees herself from his grasp and goes to stamp Nene's forehead. Tsukasa looks down at his hand and sees that her stamp left behind the Kanji character "罪", meaning "guilty."
Mirai laughs manically, leaps into the air, and lands on a gear high above them. She does a twirl on top of her hammer, which is now a bit bigger than when she was stamping them, and performs a curtsy before introducing herself:
| “ | I am the one who holds the second highest position in The Clock Keepers, the time guardian that presides over the future. I know what you did. You two messed around with the school's time, didn't you? Meddling with the flow of time for no justifiable reason? What naughty kids you are... In light of your misdeeds, you will be brought to justice in our court of law. | ” |
— Mirai introducing herself as the one that holds the second highest position of the Clock Keepers, declaring that both Yugi Tsukasa and Yashiro Nene are guilty of messing with the school's time, and telling them that they will be brought to justice.
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The chapter ends with Mirai aiming her hammer, back to its smaller stamping size, at Tsukasa, declaring that he will be brought to justice.
Characters in order of appearance[]
- Yugi Tsukasa
- Yashiro Nene
- Mitsuba Sousuke (Mentioned and Flashback)
- Yugi's Mother (Mentioned)
- Mirai
Release Notice Only[]
Note: The Release Notice for Chapter 107 was also the Release Notice for After-school Hanako-kun Chapter 26.
Trivia[]
- The song that Tsukasa and Nene sing during this chapter is "Over the Rainbow", the main theme for the 1939 film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz that was sang by Judy Garland.
- This implies that the play Tsukasa's class put on during the 66th School Festival was also The Wizard of Oz.