Hitomi Kanzaki, a normal high school student on the school track team that likes to use tarot cards to tell other peoples fortunes, is racing toward the school track because she is late for practice. Out of breath she reaches the track and meets up with the manager of the track team and best friend, Yukari Uchida, who scolds her for being late. Hitomi asks Yukari if she missed the boy's time trials. Yukari said that she didn't miss watching her crush's, Amano Susumi, run. Amano is an upperclassman who is also on the track team that Hitomi has a crush on. Yukari and Hitomi look on in awe as Amano breaking the 11 second mark with a time of 10.64 seconds in the 100 meter dash. Yukari then pulls down Hitomi's sweats and tells her that it is her turn to run. She takes her place on the start block, tucks her pendant into her shirt and is ready. At the sound of the gun she is off and running. She is doing well until she sees a boy, about her age, in armor and holding a sword appear on the track in front of her. She doesn't stop running and runs right through the boy causing her to stop running and collapse. She then finds herself falling into darkness. She appears again but in her school uniform. She notices that the air is hot. She opens her eyes to find out she is in the midst of a battle scene. She sees that everything around her is destroyed and on fire. She also sees giant mechanized suits of armor, Melefs, advancing towards her. She is then transported to another scene where she sees Fanelia's king to be, Van Fanel, preparing to go and kill a dragon for its drag energist as a rite of succession to be the King of Fanelia. The scene shifts again and now she is standing before a white Meleft, Escaflowne, fighting another Melef. The scene shifts again and she see a tower fall apart. Then without any warning the ground beneath her trembles and collapses around her causing her to fall straight down. She then sees a figure of a man with wings of an angel flying towards her with a hand held out to her. She reaches for the hand and grabs on. The face of the man is not identifiable because it is shadowed. She looks up at the man and smiles and then wakes up. Upon awakening she discovers that Amano is at her bed side looking down at her. She gets up and sees that she is laying on a bed in the school's infirmary. Amano asks how she is feeling. She says that she is okay. Amano talks to her about her running telling her that she has perfect form. He also gives her some advise on running. The conversation then turns to the pendant that is around her neck. She explains that it was a good luck charm from her grandmother. Hitomi says that an interesting thing about the pendant is that when it is behaves like a pendulum clock. It completes one cycle every second. Amano asks to see the pendant to test it if it was true. He trys and it works just as she said. Amano gets close to her, looks into her eyes and is about to say something when Yukari walks in on them and she leaves with Hitomi. While walking home Yukari tells Hitomi that she overheard some upperclassmen saying that Amano is leaving the country. Still in shock, later that night decides to do a tarot card reading for Amano and herself. She draws the Tower Card, the card of distant separation. Shen realizes what Yukari had said was true, Amano was leaving the country. She also drew the Ace Of Serpents, which stands for courage. She doesn't know what to make of it. The next afternoon she meets Amano at the track and tells him if she beats the 13 second mark in the 100 meter dash that she would like her first kiss to come from him. He agrees and Yukari also shows up to cheer Hitomi on. Hitomi gives Amano her pendant to use as a watch. She is off and running when a huge pillar of light comes down from the sky and strikes the track. In the center of the pillar of light is Van, the boy that she saw in her vision. The pillar of light disappears and Hitomi, still running, sees him but doesn't stop running. She runs straight into him and gets knocked down in the process. Van is confused, he asks her who she is and where he is. Amano and Yukari rush to Hitomi's aid. He yells at the the three in another language accusing them of being people from the demon world. Hitomi is the only one who can understand him and tells him that they are not demons. Their conversation ends abruptly when Van suspects that he wasn't the only thing that was brought with the pillar of light. Sure enough a land dragon soon appears in front of group. Van tells the others to run for safety while he remains to fight the dragon but they still remain and watch. He manages to injure the dragon by shooting it in the eye with a crossbow but that only manages to stun it temperarily and to cause it to be more disturbed than it originally was. The dragon throws Van aside with its tail and then turns his attention to the three watching nearby. Van gets up, coughing up blood and again tells them to run for safety and this time they listen. Van trys to take a slice of the dragon but he can't cut through its scales. The dragon ignores Van and chases after Hitomi, Yukari, and Amano but not before Van latches on to the dragon. The dragon catches up with Hitomi, Yukari and Amano in front of a temple. Van, unhooks himself from the dragon and makes another attempt to kill the dragon. While watching Van fight, Hitomi suddenly has a vision that Van is impaled by the dragon's tail and is killed. Hitomi yells out to Van a warning to watch out for the dragon's tail. The dragon's tail gets close to killing Van but he moves out of the way just in time but the dragon is able to slice through the front of his armor, causing it to fall off Van. Van, knowing that the dragon was now in a vunerable position, takes advantage of the stituation by slicing the belly of the dragon and then stabbing it straight through the heart. He then claims the prize he sought after, the energist of the dragon. Hitomi runs up to Van and tells him that she is glad that he is alive. Van responds to Hitomi by saying that he didn't need some girl worrying about him and that she didn't help him kill the dragon. Hitomi slaps Van and is upset, telling him that she should have let the dragon eat him up and she starts to cry. Van feels bad for saying what he had said but before he can do anything he is interupted by the energist in his hand which starts to glow. The same pillar of light that brought him to earth reappears again and now it takes Hitomi and Van back to his world. Amano runs after Hitomi trying to help her. He reaches out his hand with her pendant still in it and Hitomi reaches out to grab his hand but only manages to grab the pendant. She is drawn into the sky with the pillar of light and Van and they all disappear into the night sky. This leaves a confused Amano and Yukari looking up calling after Hitomi and wondering what had just happened. The pillar of light, with Van and Hitomi, reappears and drops them onto an open grassy field. Hitomi looks up into the sky and sees the earth and the moon hanging over the darkened night sky. Van tells her that they are near the village of Arzas. Then they notice that they are not alone, pairs of glowing eyes accompanied by growling appear all around them in the darkness. END OF EPISODE 1.

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