Chase the Sun
Fire was an element that wasn't easy to control. It could range in size from a tiny flame to a raging wildfire, and it could be triggered by something as small as a stove top burner left unchecked. Don't go near your mother when she's cooking, you could burn yourself. Don't stand to close when roasting your marshmallows, you could get hurt. Fire could burn, fire could cause pain, and all good children knew to stay away from it. But no one ever said Kanbara Takuya was a good child.
The sun was made of fire. That's what Takuya had always been told. Go too close to the sun and you won't live to see another day. But Takuya paid no mind to that fact; he just wanted to touch it, to feel the heat under his palms. So it was no surprise when he tried to touch the campfire at a family gathering. Or when he tried to hold a match as it burned up in his hands. He'd always end up with angry red burn marks, but, he thought, it was worth it just to feel that thrill of handling something that could kill so easily, with so little effort.
Kids at school wouldn't give his bandaged hands a second glance, 'Takuya's been playing with fire again.' To them, he was only an adrenaline junkie. But Takuya knew it was more complicated than that. And the first time he set foot in the Digital World, Takuya felt that rush again, the same rush he got when he burned up his hands. At first, he though this world was just bringing out the excitement he felt, amplifying his desires. But, he knew it wasn't so simple.
Then he became Agnimon, and everything started to become clear. This was what he was meant to do. This was who he was meant to be. The pounding of adrenaline through his veins when he evolved, the chills that went through him when he attacked; it was all a part of him. Even when he'd been young, before any of this, this admiration of fire remained. This was his true form.
Vritramon was different. Stronger. More powerful. But with that power came the cost of humanity. Vritramon wasn't like Agnimon. The primitive desires that flooded through Takuya weren't his own. The urge to dominate, to destroy, was a different side of fire. The harsher side. Fire was life. Fire was warmth. Fire was pain. Fire was death. And Takuya was constantly battling with the two sides of fire that wanted to control him.
Aldamon was even harder to control. The forces of fire that were life and death had fused as one, and it wanted Takuya. No, it wanted to be Takuya. To control Takuya and burn everything under the sun until the sun itself was all that was left. The Spirits' combined desires were almost too much for Takuya to handle. And the lust for power that the Spirits instilled in him was there to stay.
The Spirits never left Takuya after his mission in the Digital World was complete, not really. They were still there, whispering to him, keeping him warm in the cold, fuelling his mind with thoughts of the world reduced to ashes until it drove Takuya off the edge. He tried so hard to control it, but the tug of the Spirits was strong. Stronger than anything Takuya had fought before. Stronger than Cherubimon. Stronger than Lucemon.
Takuya was a normal kid. One day he disappeared for about an hour on his little brother's birthday, and came back a different person. No one thought anything of the scorch marks on the grass, or the ashes that tinted the snow grey, or the orange feathers lay scattered across town. And no one noticed the orange-winged beast that flew so steadily upward, reaching higher and higher until it's fingertips brushed the sun…