The 2005 Timeline

Lore & Background

In the 2005 Timeline, Tokyo Manji Gang is at its most vibrant. Mikey (Kazutora) leads with a quiet, almost childlike charisma, while Draken (Kakuchi) anchors the group with blunt loyalty. Manjiro Sano, Chifuyu Tachibana, Baji, Mitsuya, and the rest move through their days with the reckless confidence of teenagers who have not yet met the adults the 'bad' future will make of them. Toman's territory is a patchwork of back-alley hangouts, school rooftops, and the particular electric noise of a city that still feels infinite to a thirteen-year-old.

Takemichi's presence in this timeline is an anomaly. He is the smallest, weakest member, and he carries the weight of a future no one else can see. His knowledge of what is to come—Hinata's death, the gang's fragmentation, the betrayals—makes every casual conversation with Manji or Draken feel like a countdown. The 2005 Timeline is saturated with dramatic irony: the characters are living their best days while the man who loves them most is desperately trying to make sure those days don't end in ash.

What makes this timeline distinct from a simple 'past' is its mutability. Each loop Takemichi triggers resets certain events but not all, creating a patchwork of memories that don't quite align. Characters remember one version of a fight while the world has shifted to another. This instability is the core tension of the 2005 Timeline: it is a place that refuses to stay fixed, always one wrong turn away from the 2010 that broke Takemichi's heart.

In Their Own Story

The rain hits the back-alley behind the konbini in long silver sheets. Takemichi—thirteen, soaked, barely reaching the shoulder of the boy next to him—watches Manji light a cigarette with hands that haven't yet learned to shake. The neon sign above them buzzes pink and sick, painting the puddles in electric veins.

'You're late, Itoshi,' Manji says, not looking at him. His tone is the same as it always is in this timeline: warm, slightly bored, like he's talking to a younger brother he's decided to keep around.

Takemichi wants to say: *I know what happens to you. I know the shape of the scar that'll be on your jaw next year, and the year after that, and the one after.* He wants to say: *I know Hinata's name, and I know how it sounds when someone else says it in a hospital corridor in 2010, and I will not let that be the last time anyone says it.*

Instead he says, 'Yeah. Sorry.'

Manji exhales smoke into the rain. 'No. You're fine. You're always fine, Itoshi.'

He is not fine. None of them are, not yet. But the 2005 rain is warm, and the gang is whole, and for this one evening the future hasn't arrived to collect its debt. Takemichi lets himself believe that might be enough. He knows, with the cold certainty of a man who has lived this loop before, that it will not be.

Reader's Guide

First Regression: Takemichi, a 25-year-old in 2010, sees his younger self in a dangerous situation and is pulled back twelve years to 2005. He stumbles into Toman's orbit, meets Manji, Draken, Mikey, and the core crew. The central conflict is his attempt to understand the gang and protect Chifuyu Tachibana (Hinata's brother) from the violence that will define his future. Outcome: Takemichi is absorbed into Toman, gains a sense of belonging, but the 'bad' 2010 future—where Hinata dies and Toman fractures—remains intact.

Subsequent Loops: Each new crisis in the broken 2010 timeline sends Takemichi back to 2005 again. The trigger is always the same—witnessing his younger self in peril—but the specific event and the state of the timeline shift. In some passes, Mikey's trajectory darkens earlier; in others, Baji's storyline accelerates; in still others, Tetta's fate is altered. Characters who survived one loop may die in the next. The cost of each change is memory: Takemichi retains every version, but the people around him often do not, creating a growing loneliness.

Divergence from the 'main' (2010) timeline: The 2005 Timeline is the source layer. Every change Takemichi makes here propagates forward into 2010, either healing or worsening the future. The 'main' 2010 is not a separate branch but the accumulated result of whatever 2005 version is 'locked in.' The cost of the change is always Takemichi's own: he carries the full weight of every timeline's grief while the people he saves only remember the one version that stuck.

Key survival/death tracking varies by loop. In the worst 2010, Hinata is dead and Toman is dissolved. In better passes, she lives, but at the cost of other members' fates. The 2005 Timeline is the lever; 2010 is the outcome.

Did You Know?

• The time-regression gap is exactly twelve years: Takemichi jumps from his mid-twenties in 2010 back to his early teens in 2005, meaning he is always physically the smallest and weakest person in the room.
• The trigger for every regression is the same specific condition—seeing his younger self in immediate danger—rather than a random or emotional event, which means he cannot choose when to go back.
• Because multiple loops occur, Takemichi accumulates memories from timelines that no longer exist, making him the only character who simultaneously remembers every version of a fight, a friendship, and a death.
• Chifuyu Tachibana is both a Toman member in 2005 and the brother of Hinata, Takemichi's girlfriend in 2010, which means the person he is trying to save in the future is directly tied to the gang he is trying to protect i