Girl, don't losd your head. It's time travel, it's always messy and full of discrepancies. And Nene traveled... A LOT. I'm too traumatized from the previous chapter to barely try to make sense of what tomeline we're at. ┑(￣Д ￣)┍
I don't think so. Akane came from the future where Nene figured out when the disturbance is that caused all this. She then told Akane about it and he sent Nene to where the disturbance through the clock keepers accused, aka Hanako s 4th Birthday. So she can now fix all this mess??? At least that was how I understood it...
Didn't you see the last panel? She was sent to Hanako's middle school days, not his 4th bday, that's the whole reason I wrote this entire rant
I know lol but if it really is a plot hole I'm gonna be really upset cuz the right path was so clear and they messed it up just like that. It's gonna bother me for a long time.... Sending Nene directly to the summer of the murder is like missing a whole arc where Nene stopped the clock keepers and fixed the timeline, as she could still go to the murder time to fix the timeline there AFTER returning to the old present, possibly with the cooperation of the clock keepers after she stopped them from making alterations in the 4th bday and they became allies. Idk it just feels like unnecessary sequence breaking to me
a theory I've heard of recently is that since Amane used to work on the big clock a bunch, he likely fixed it and then went back in time to his and Tsukasa's 4th birthday to find out what happened to Tsukasa. Which would also explain why Amane ended up killing Tsukasa, despite the fact he becomes Hanako's yorishiro, and a wonder could never ever harm their precious yorishiro.
So Akane didn't send Nene to the 4th bday. This looks like the summer Hanako kills Tsukasa? What I'm not computing is if that's the case, how did he manage to send her to the old version of the past? If the change occurred as Nene stated, in the 4th bday, likely by the clock keepers making a contract with Tsukasa (turning him into the cat) before the Entity could take him, then Hanako would've been taken by the red house eventually, that leads to the new present where he murders people. That's where we are right now, in this altered version where Hanako is taken instead of Tsukasa. Then... in order for Akane to access the original version of events (where Nene seems to be rn) in which Hanako kills Tsukasa and becomes a mystery, Tsukasa NEEDS to be taken by the Entity in the 4th bday, have the Entity come back looking like him, then be killed by Hanako, aka the version where the clock keepers do nothing. But right now we're in the version where they DID do something, so how did Akane circumvent the change?? Nene was sent to the past PRECISELY to make it so the clock keepers don't interfere with the 4th bday, so why send her to a point in time AFTER the change?? She can't stop the clock keepers if she's not at the same point in time as them! If the change really occurred in the 4th bday as Nene reasoned, THAT DATE already sealed the fate of the entire timeline, making it meaningless to send Nene anywhere else.
This suggests that either Akane made a mistake and sent Nene to the wrong date, and she ended up in the new present version of middle school and is somehow gonna have to find a way outta there, or it's a plot hole where Akane SOMEHOW managed to ignore the changes done to the 4th bday and access the original past (the murder), even tho that shouldn't be possible, since the alteration in the 4th bday would've changed everything that came after, INCLUDING the murder (which wouldn't have even happened, as Hanako lived to adulthood).
The other possibly is that the change happened during the MURDER, NOT the birthday as Nene had thought. Sadly, that raises another question: how tf the clock keepers contracted Tsukasa. The only point he would've been available to go with the clock keepers is during the 4th bday, before he gives himself to the Entity. If he stays, he's taken, and by middle school he's already become one with it, the clock keepers wouldn't be able to do anything, and so there's no point in going there either way. That is to say, sending Nene to any time other than the 4th bday makes absolutely so sense and I if might be a plot hole the author forgot to address.
This all works under the assumption the change was turning Tsukasa into the cat during the 4th bday, therefore "erasing him" from the timeline. If the cat was just some throwaway character and not Tsukasa, and the change was not related to Tsukasa being contracted by the clock keepers before giving himself to the Entity in the 4th bday, then the change still could've been something else and happened during the murder summer instead.
This likely did not make any sense. Oh well.
I'm still hella confused about Akane's knowledge tho. He's the product of one of Nene's attempts at changing the future?? I THINK the future where she stays in the red house (and thus where Akane is coming from) is the future she was about to create that very day, but was interrupted when Akane traveled back to the beginning of the festival before Nene could enact her plan. This is very confusing dude.
Also, minor note, it's really cool when Akane puts the yorishiro up to his mouth. I have no idea what the symbolism is, but it's cool.