This work of fiction, although begun over a year previously, has been revamped slightly and tightened for your reading pleasure. The plot is not largely different, but the structure of the writing itself should be better. I do not plan to let this work die, and hopefully will have new chapters soon.
As usual, this branches from the canon at episode 26 and contains spoilers for everything thereafter. One will probably have to have seen the episodes being branched from in order to get what is going on.
On Wings of Fire
~One~
Some Days are Diamonds, Some Days are Rocks
Aiumi leaned lazily forward, elbows resting on the steering wheel, enjoying the hectic beauty of the city at night. Lights reflected sharply off her car's sleek black hood.
The traffic light blinked green and Aiumi floored the gas, enjoying the feeling of freedom and reckless abandon. She rounded a corner, and the National Library loomed before her.
Something caught her eye as she drove past the building, perhaps just a flash of red, the flick of a tail. Intrigued as to what might have disappeared around the building, she swerved into the back parking lot.
Pitch blackness met her curious eyes. The library was long closed by now, the building dead, all the lights off this late at night. Even the watchmen had gone home. But something was there, she was sure of it. Unbuckling her seat belt with a click, she scooted over to the passenger seat. Peering out if the window expectantly, she suddenly felt an ominous stirring in her stomach, almost as if something were behind her.
Ever so slowly, she turned her head to face the other window…
Nothing was there.
She sighed, grinning, and flipped her head nonchalantly back to the passenger side window. Staring through the glass a half-inch away from her nose was a white tiger.
With a yelp of surprise and fear, she scooted back to the driver's seat. The tiger made no move, only stared at her with its powerful, liquid blue eyes. It blinked once, lazily.
Whimpering slightly, Aiumi turned her head away, to stare directly into the face of a great scarlet-red bird perched on the hood of her car.
She screamed in earnest this time, cutting the silence like a knife, and broke into hysteric tears, willing herself to awake from this nightmare.
Blinking through her tears, Aiumi dimly saw the bird alight from the car with an angry cry and swoop at the tiger, talons outstretched. The tiger snarled and jumped at the bird. The two animals collided and rolled away into the blackness.
Aiumi shakily opened the car door, grabbing a flashlight off of the floor, swinging her backpack over her shoulder, and stepped out into the night. She could faintly hear the sounds of the fighting animals in the distance, echoing as if they were indoors. She shined her flashlight around to see the back entrance to the library smashed open, the wood splintered.
She ducked through the opening, her silvery-blond hair falling wildly about her face. The library halls sprawled like catacombs around her, echoing only with faint growls and squawks. She jogged toward the noises as quietly as she could.
The great staircase of the library was at the end of her journey. The huge bird was feverishly beating its wings in the tiger's face, compromising the tiger's vision and blocking the flames that seemed to stem from the tiger's body. Slowly, the tiger backed up the stairs, submitting to its stronger adversary. It bowed low, hiding its face against the floor, as if in surrender, and turned to pad up the rest of the flight of stairs, followed by the bird.
Aiumi followed slowly, watching the animals slip through a door into a reference room at the top of the stairs. She sighed, turning to leave, when a yell echoed down from the same room the animals had entered.
She burst through the door, panting slightly. An old book was sprawled on the floor, pages hanging open. A few feet away was the person who had dropped it.
"Keisuke!"
"Aiumi!"
Keisuke stared. She was the last person who he would have expected to come bursting in here.
They had been inseparable, the perfect couple, for almost three months. And then, only two weeks earlier, they had ended it.
He had to admit, it was partially his fault. They had just gradually drifted apart, and he hadn't done anything to stop it.
He looked at her, standing there in front of him, panting after her run up the stairs. Jeans, tank top, jacket, the same old Aiumi. The same eyes that flicked from green to gray to blue to almost purple in a matter of seconds in different moods. The same passionate, determined, defiant energy radiating from her. He had known her forever, but why did he feel as if she were a complete stranger?
Aiumi broke the stare first. "What are you doing here? What happened?"
"It…just…nothing, just reading. There was something…" Not entirely true. Keisuke was both trying to hide his confusion over why the book had exploded in heat and light in his hands and the fact that the book was much more than just a book.
"What's with the book?" She reached toward it.
"Aiumi, DON'T!" Too late. The book exploded in light, and Aiumi began to dissolve.
"Keisuke, help me!" Her eyes wide with horror, she struggled against the ancient pull of the Universe of the Four Gods, throwing out her hand to him. He grabbed it and hung on for dear life.
Come, kodora, don't be afraid…Another voice, neither hers nor Keisuke's, enveloped her, deep and powerful, filled with strength and calm, making her go limp. Her hand slipped out of Keisuke's, and she was gone.
Keisuke kneeled by the book, hardly believing the events of the last minute, clutching the last evidence of Aiumi's being there…a ring that had slipped off of her finger as easily as the book had taken her. The pages of The Book of the Universe of the Four Gods turned lazily, as if stirred by an unseen wind, to a page Keisuke had never seen before.
Reluctantly, he began to read. "Suddenly, another girl entered the universe…."
End of Chapter One
Authors Note: One of my main failings in this chapter is that Aiumi, who is seventeen, would not actually be able to drive a car in Japan. The youngest you can be and have a license is eighteen.