Shoichi-kun! Don't die!
Target 174 The Truth about the Future
Shoichi-kun!
Here, your glasses.
What happened with Choice?
Sorry...
We lost.
What did you say?!
Whoa, Shoichi-kun!
I can't allow that to happen!
We have to win...
We're gonna win!
Huh?
It's not over!
We're gonna fight!
Hey, stop moving, Irie!
The Choice battle is over,
so communications will be reopened.
I can still...
Shoichi-kun, you're injured!
This is awful!
He needs to be treated right away!
Let's go!
Yes!
Yeah!
Byakuran-san, I can still fight!
N-No, Shoichi-kun!
Moving will make your injuries worse!
Do you want to die?!
I don't care if I die!
If that's what it takes to defeat Byakuran-san,
I'd be more than happy to die!
Huh?
More than happy...
Shoichi-kun... What are you saying?
I have to defeat Byakuran-san...
I don't get it...
I don't get it!
Boss?
Why are you still so obsessed about defeating Byakuran?
I don't get it!
Tsunayoshi-kun...
I know that Byakuran is a bad person,
and I know that terrible things will happen if he takes 7³ Policy from us,
but I don't quite get it.
You could say that we're doing this to save mankind,
but it's so abstract that I have trouble relating sometimes.
The boss is absolutely right.
I can understand fighting to return to the past,
but it doesn't make sense for a bunch of kids
to fight to clean up the mess in the future world.
I see... You're right...
I've been so busy the past few days that I didn't bother to explain anything.
No...I was foolish and assumed that you would understand.
Shoichi-kun, tell us.
Why are you so obsessed about Byakuran?
What happened between the two of you?
I'll tell you everything.
Rather, I want you to listen to what I have to say.
It all started eleven years ago.
I lived in Namimori, just like the rest of you.
One day, Lambo-san came flying into my home.
In return for saving Lambo-san,
the Bovino Family gave us a wooden box.
Huh?! Lambo's got something to do with this?!
A lot happened,
and I ended up not getting a chance to return the box.
So I held on to it for a period of time.
The box also contained some items meant for Lambo-san.
Including ammunition for the Ten-Year-Bazooka.
Ammunition for the Ten-Year Bazooka...
But I didn't realize what it was,
and accidentally dropped one on my foot.
Wait, that means...
It'd have the same effect as being shot from the Ten-Year-Bazooka?!
Yeah.
I exchanged places with a ten-years-older version of myself,
and went to the future for the first time.
When I arrived ten years in the future,
I found myself at an American engineering university.
Where am I?
I was just in my room...
Th-This is...
My picture?
And the date on this newspaper is...
Ten years in the future?
That's impossible...
What does this mean?!
What's going on here?!
Ow...
Are you okay, kid?
Ah, Japanese...
Thought you were Japanese.
You must be exceptionally smart to come here at such a young age, Irie-kun.
Or are you his little brother?
Excuse me!
After a while, I returned to the past.
So you met Byakuran for the first time in the future...
Your story seems to be about standard time traveling.
Yeah, that's all it was.
Since Byakuran-san was still a normal person at the time...
Still a normal person?
In fact, once I returned to the past,
I completely forgot about Byakuran-san
because I was so excited about traveling through time.
But at the same time,
I became depressed about how
I hadn't fulfilled my dream of becoming a musician.
Huh? Shoichi-kun, you wanted to become a musician?
Funny, right?
That's why I thought to change the future so I could become a musician.
Change the future?
That's...
If you change the past, you change the future.
There's more than one future.
Huh? There's more than one future?
Parallel worlds.
Sorry we're late!
Everyone!
Are you okay, Master Irie?
That's right!
We need to get Shoichi-kun's injuries taken care of!
His wounds look bad...
Ryohei, open up your Sun Iron.
Yeah!
Oh, what about Spanner?
Poison Scorpion and the others are tending to him.
Everything's okay now.
What a relief...
His injuries aren't too serious.
I'll heal you extremely, in no time.
Thanks...
Anyway, I need to explain about parallel worlds.
Come to think of it, the adult Lambo mentioned something about para-
What's a parasol world?
You mean an umbrella?
It's parallel! Parallel!
Parallel worlds are the idea that every choice you make is a branching point,
meaning that many possible futures can exist.
Branching worlds...?
For example, take our first encounter.
There's the future where you met me and become a top-class Mafia boss,
and the future where you never met me and lead a lousy, worthless life.
Future
Didn't meet Past Did meet
The idea would be that both worlds exist.
They both sound bad to me.
So you mean if these potential worlds were actually to exist...
Yeah, including every single possibility.
But so much is possible.
Yeah.
That's why it's believed that
Past
an infinite number of branches lead to an infinite number of parallel worlds.
Future
What?!
Incredible!
An infinite number of parallel worlds...
Sounds absurd.
So I believed that there must be a parallel world where I was a musician,
and I decided to visit the future again.
Huh? But how would you make a future where you were a musician?
I burned all of my school textbooks,
and wrote that I'd either become a musician or die, on my career plan.
Huh?
Shoichi-kun's quite extreme!
And then I traveled through time again.
And my future was different from the first time.
This time when I arrived ten years in the future,
I was at a run-down bar on the outskirts of a foreign city.
Yes! It worked!
Apparently, the future me had been performing
and working as a musician in this place.
Where'd that bastard go?!
Are you a friend of Irie's?
That's perfect then.
You can pay us in his place!
Huh?!
If you can't pay...
I'm sorry!
I was being chased by a gang because of financial issues.
What?!
No way...
It's funny, right?
I guess I wasn't cut out to be a musician.
I ran out of there as fast as I could,
and reached a crowded street,
when through a twist of fate...
Ow!
I ran into that man again.
Yes...
It was Byakuran-san.
Byakuran?!
Yeah...
That wasn't all.
I-I'm sorry...
Are you Japanese?
Yes... Uh...
It's the man from last time!
How is this...?
But this should be the first time he's ever met me in this world.
He shouldn't be able to recognize me.
Anyway, I shouldn't get too involved with him.
Sorry about that.
Huh? Hold on.
Have we met before?
Huh? No, you must have me confused with someone else.
Huh? Huh?!
My head hurts...
What is this?
Huh?
A-Are you okay?
I'm on the verge of figuring it out.
I'm about to solve a critical question.
I've met you before in a completely different place.
He must have me confused with someone else...
In a different world.
At a university.
Your name is...
Irie...
How? How does someone in this world know about me?!
I was so creeped out that I ran away.
The next thing I knew, I was back in the past.
Wh-What does this mean?
I didn't understand what was going on at the time.
I would learn of the power Byakuran-san obtained then
when I traveled through time again later.
Huh?
You traveled through time again?
I couldn't accept that future as a musician.
I gave up on my dream and focused on going to college again.
And then, a year later, I had an urge to check on my future.
However...
The future I saw on my third trip through time
defied my expectations once again.
The world was in ruins. A scorched wasteland, ravaged by war.
That wasn't all...
My cell phone was playing a tyrannical speech by the one who
started the war and succeeded in taking over the world.
A man named Byakuran.
No way!
Why him?!
I thought that it was some kind of mistake...
Just a bad dream.
So I tried changing whatever I could
and traveling through time again.
But every time, the future would be under
Byakuran's control with only the slightest in changes.
What did Byakuran do?
He abused the power I awakened within him to satisfy his own greed.
In every parallel world,
he had the most knowledge and the most advanced technology,
and he used them to create an indomitable army.
Th-That's just...
What is Byakuran's power?!
Parallel worlds are separate worlds which run parallel to our own.
Humans have no way of knowing about
their counterparts in the parallel worlds,
and there can never be any interaction.
However, Byakuran-san...
is able to share all of the knowledge and ideas with his counterparts.
Huh? Share?
I don't get it! Extremely confused!
What's so amazing abut Byakuran?!
Like I said...
An infinite number of branches will lead to all kinds of futures.
A future where military technology is highly advanced.
A future where the ruins of ancient cultures were successfully excavated.
A future where medical science has progressed significantly.
Originally, a person could only live in and experience one of those worlds,
Multiple Experiences
but Byakuran-san has experienced all of those worlds.
Which means he can take the best from each future.
Take the best?
He's been through every possibility.
His knowledge and experience can be used in other parallel worlds.
Intelligence is the best weapon in this world.
Allowing you to live with an advantage over everyone else.
An advantage over everyone else...
He can make the impossible happen.
Exactly.
Byakuran-san made use of the knowledge from those other parallel worlds.
Like, knowing of a vaccine which hadn't been discovered in that world yet.
Or finding a royal family in hiding...
Providing the necessary technology for developing a weapon
that would originally have required hundreds of inventions
and finishing development at a rapid pace.
But that would mean that Byakuran only learned
of his power a short time ago.
It's impossible to accomplish so much in such a little time.
That's because as I traveled through time,
I accidentally allowed the Byakuran in the past to realize his power too.
The one in the past?
When I returned to the past,
Byakuran-san planted a transmission device on me,
which delivered a message to the past Byakuran.
Which means that Byakuran was using his power since ten years ago?
Yes.
Irie! What have you been doing this entire time?!
You stood by while Byakuran was doing evil?!
R-Ryohei...
I...
I lost my memory...
Huh?
When I went to the future for the eighth time,
I was caught in a device set up by the future me
which erased all memories concerning time travel and Byakuran-san.
For five years.
F-For five years?
Why did the future version of you do this?
To defeat Byakuran-san, of course!
The future version of me used the past me
to earn Byakuran-san's trust while plotting to strike back.
So I was manipulated into approaching Byakuran-san
without any of my memories,
so he wouldn't suspect that I had any hostile intentions.
When I returned to the past,
there was a letter from the future me.
There were orders stating what I should do.
Shoichi Irie has a crush on...
It also listed a secret I didn't want revealed,
so I had no choice but to obey.
I used the Ten-Year-Bazooka on all of you
because the letter said to do so.
You had no idea when you...
Yes...
And I went to a college overseas, as instructed by the letter,
and became friends with Byakuran-san.
Ironically, that was the most fun I ever had in my life.
This was when we invented Choice.
But after five years, I remembered everything.
My terrible experience with time travel and the ravaged futures I had seen...
That Byakuran-san was the cause and that my duty was to stop him.
I panicked.
After a while, I resolved to become a spy.
I put my memory and the reality of this world in order,
and I realized the current situation, which left me astonished again.
Because among all the possible parallel worlds,
the world I was in was the only one
that hadn't been destroyed by Byakuran-san!
The only world that hasn't been destroyed by Byakuran?
Next Episode
Byakuran's got an incredible power there.
After hearing Shoichi's explanation,
Tsuna finally realizes the gravity of this battle.
But Byakuran shows no mercy as he comes for the Vongola Ring.
When all appears lost, a new hope arrives.
Next time on Reborn:
Yuni Comes.
Watch like your life depends on it.
See you next time!