FranConejo

1 [Side text: The Choice battle lost...!!] Tsuna: Shouichi-kun!! // Don't die!! Shouichi: Unhh... Tsuna: Shouichi-kun!! // !! Gokudera: Here... your glasses... Irie: ......What happened... // ...in the Choice battle...? Tsuna: ! Gokudera: ............ Tsuna: ......I'm sorry... we lost... Irie: What?! // That's just not permissible!! // We have to win...!! // We must!! 2 Irie: It's not over!! We can still fight!! Gokudera: Oi, Irie!! Don't try to move about!! Cervello: As the Choice battle has come to an end, // all communication lines will now be opened. Irie: Byakuran-san!! // I can still fight!! Tsuna: No, Shouichi-kun!! If you move, the blood will - !! Gokudera: Are you trying to kill yourself?!! Irie: I don't care if I do die!! // If it meant defeating Byakuran-san, I would die gladly!! // Gladly...... Tsuna: (Shouichi-kun... what are you saying...?) // ......I don't get it... // ......I just don't get it... 3 Katekyo Hitman Reborn! Target 252: The Phalaenopsis Paradox [Insert text: The reason for fighting Byakuran... The reason why he must fight if it costs him his life... Tsuna confronts Shouichi with his accumulated feelings!!] Tsuna: Why do you feel so strongly about defeating Byakuran that you would even push yourself this far...?! // I don't understand it!! 4 Irie: ...What? Tsuna: I mean, I know he's a bad guy... and I understand in theory that if the Trinisette are stolen, there'll be terrible consequences... // But I can't really appreciate it...... Irie: !! Tsuna: No matter how much people tell me that this is for the sake of humanity... it's just so disconnected from me personally... // There are times when I feel like I just can't follow it all... Irie: ............ Gokudera: The Tenth has a point...... // Fighting to get back to our own time is one thing, but all this stuff about coming to this time and fighting to deal with the issues this world is facing or whatever... I'm still not really feeling it... Irie: ............I see... // Yes... of course...... // I've been so busy these past ten days that I never got a chance to explain... // No... / Perhaps I was just selfishly believing that you would simply understand without my having to do so... 5 Tsuna: Tell me, Shouiichi-kun... / Why do you fight so hard to defeat Byakuran...? // What on Earth happened between the two of you? Irie: ...I'll tell you everything... // In fact, I want you to hear this...... // It all began eleven years ago... // I was living in Namimori, just like all of you, when suddenly one day I ended up helping Lambo-san out, and I received a wooden box from the Bovino Family as thanks. Tsuna: Huh?! // Lambo... he's involved in this?! Irie: The box also contained a number of shells for Lambo-san's 10-Year Bazooka, but I missed the opportunity to give them to him... // Not even knowing what they were, I accidentally dropped one of them on my own leg while cleaning the room... Gokudera: You don't mean...!! // You got shot by one of those things...?! Irie: That's right... // I changed places with myself from ten years later, making my first trip to the future. 6 Irie: I found myself in the place where my self from ten years on had been - a university of engineering in America. // With no idea what had happened, I began to panic... // And then, finding my future self's identity card and seeing the date on a newspaper, I was shocked to the core. Flashback!Irie: (Ten years later...?!) Irie: Terrified, I fled into the university grounds. // And it was there that I bumped into a certain man...... // Byakuran-san... // "Owwww..." / "......Are you all right?" / "Ah... Japanese..." // "So you are Japanese... I thought so. To be at this university at your age... // ...You must be something rather special, Irie-kun!♪" / "?!" // "...Or would you be his little brother?" // "Ah..." // "I'm very sorry!!" // I ran away, and it wasn't long afterwards that I returned to the past. 7 Tsuna: So your first meeting with Byakuran was in the future...! Gokudera: ......Sounds like a pretty average bit of time travel to me. Irie: Yes, quite... // After all, Byakuran-san was just another person at that point. // In fact, after returning to the past, I forgot all about Byakuran-san; it was the fact that I had travelled through time that had me excited. // But at the same time, I was horribly disappointed that my future self hadn't been a musician; that had been my dream, you see... Tsuna: Huh? Shouichi-kun... you wanted to be a musician? Irie: Ridiculous, isn't it? / But that's why, at the time, I resolved to chance the future... to become a musician after all... Tsuna: Change the future? But that's... Irie: If you chance the past, the future changes along with it... There is more than just one future. Reborn: ...Parallel worlds. 8 Tsuna: Everyone!! // Quickly, you have to treat Shouichi-kun's injuries!! People: ! // Ah... what about Spanner?! // The Poisonous Scorpion is already seeing to him! // Leave this to me. Reborn: (Those are some nasty wounds...) // Ryouhei, release your Sun Iron. Ryouhei: Right!! Irie: I'm sorry, Reborn-san... // But more importantly... please, explain about the parallel worlds... Tsuna: Come to think of it, Adult Lambo was saying something about that a while back!! // Those "para - Ryouhei: What exactly is a "parasol world"?! // [aside]some kind of umbrella?[/aside] Gokudera: It's "parallel", you idiot!! 9 Reborn: The theory of "parallel worlds" refers to the idea that the world branches off in all kinds of directions... // ...resulting in a number of different futures existing side by side. Tsuna: The world... branches off...? Reborn: For instance, let's take the day you and I met. / In one future, we met one another that day, and you end up being an awesome Mafia boss. / In another future, you didn't meet me, so you ended up leading a hollow and meaningless existence. [Labels: FUTURE // Met // Didn't meet // PAST] Reborn: According to this theory, both of those futures would exist, side by side. Tsuna: ...I don't like the sound of either of those... // So let's see... hmmm... // Basically... you're saying that all kinds of different "possible" worlds actually exist at the same time? Reborn: That's right. As many worlds as there are possibilities. Ryouhei: But there are an awful lot of possibilities in the world!! Reborn: That's right... // So all those countless branches would theoretically create countless different parallel worlds. [Labels: FUTURE // PAST] 10 Tsuna: Ahh...! Ryouhei: No way! Irie: ...As such, I was certain that there would be a parallel world out there somewhere in which I had become a musician... // ...and with that in mind, decided to go into the future again... Tsuna: Huh? // But how could you be sure to find a future where you had become a musician...? Irie: I burned all of my school textbooks... // ...and wrote on my careers guidance form "If I can't become a musician, I'd rather die!!"... Tsuna: Ehh?! // (Shouichi-kun can be surprisingly extreme...!!) Irie: And after doing that, I tried using the 10-Year Bazooka shells to time travel once more... // The future I arrived in was different from the first time, that much was certain. // The self I had traded places with this time was in a run-down bar in the slums of a foreign country... // It was filled with all kinds of dangerous-looking people... // ...and apparently my future self had been working there; performing as a musician. However... // He'd got into a bit of financial trouble... // ...and was being chased by some kind of gang... 11 Tsuna: Whaaat?! Basil: How terrible... Irie: Hahah... Crazy, isn't it...? // It looks like I was never cut out to be a musician after all... // I fled from the shop as fast as I possibly could...... // And it wasn't long before I found myself on a crowded street, where by some twist of fate... // I ran straight into that same man again...... // That's right... // Byakuran-san. // "I... I'm so sorry!! ...Ahh!!" // "You're... Japanese, are you?" // "Yes... I, ah..." // I was surprised, but I thought I could just walk away and nothing would come of it. 12 Irie: After all, the Byakuran-san of this world had never met me before; he shouldn't know anything about me. // "Hmm?" // "?!" // "Just a moment... // Hmmmm... Have I met you somewhere before?" / "!" // "N... No... I think you must have the wrong person." // "Ungh!!" // "Ahhh... Unghhh!!" // "!!" // "My head... it hurts...! Ngh... What is this...?!" // "Huh?! A... Are you all right?!" // "It feels as though... I'm on the edge of grasping something... // Like I'm about to solve... a very important puzzle..." // "...??" 13 Irie: "I have met you before. Somewhere else... somewhere completely different from here..." // "!!" Flashback!Irie: (He must be confusing me for someone else, surely...) Irie: "In another world!!" Flashback!Irie: !! Irie: "It happened in... a university...... // Your name was... I...ri...e..." Tsuna: ! Reborn: ! Flashback!Irie: (How does a person in this world know about me?!) Irie: Creeped out by the whole experience, I fled once more. // I ran, and ran... // Before I knew it... I was back in the past again... 14 Tsuna: ?! // Huh? // Wh...... What does this mean?! Irie: At the time, I didn't know what to think about what had happened, either...... // It was only through my future time-traveling experiences that I would learn of the ability Byakuran-san had obtained... Tsuna: You... travelled in time again? Irie: I couldn't stand the thought of that future in which I had become a musician, you see...... so I gave up on my dream, and aimed to get into university again... // And a year later, I felt the urge to check up on my future one more time... // ...But when I did...... // ...the future that I discovered upon time travelling that third time betrayed my expectations yet again... // The world was in ruins... // Reduced to rubble and ashes by war... 15 And through the mobile terminals of the time... // ...I saw a speech given by the dictator who had caused this war and conquered the world as a result... // A man named Byakuran. Tsuna: !! // No way...!! Ryouhei: Why him?! Irie: I thought it must be some kind of mistake... some kind of bad dream... // So after making it back, I worked to cause as many changes as I could, and time travelled to the future many more times. // ...But every time... 16 Irie: Though my changes did have some effect - the worlds were not identical - // Every future that I visited was under the control of Byakuran-san... Tsuna: !! Reborn: That Byakuran... what did he do? Irie: He had used the ability that I had awakened in him... for his own greedy purposes... // In every parallel world, he possessed more knowledge than anyone else, and he used it to secure advanced technologies for himself, and create a powerful army...... Tsuna: B... But that's terrible... // What is this ability of his?! Irie: A parallel world is a complete separate reality, existing independently of the world that we live in... // Nobody has any way of knowing about all their other selves who might exist in the worlds parallel to their own; there is no way for them ever to come into contact. 17 Irie: But Byakuran-san has the power to share all of his knowledge and thoughts... // ...amongst all of his selves from the same point in time across the multitude of parallel worlds. [Labels: FUTURE // SYNCHRONISED // PAST] [Insert text: What is the significance of the power Byakuran holds?! And what will happen to Tsuna and the others... to the Trinisette?! Next issue, the truth of the Future Arc awaits...!!]