Well, I had to get a chapter up for my birthday/anniversary-of-first-story, didn't I?

Everything is still very much up in the air for the next month or so, but life is slowly getting more and more under control - and therefore giving me time to return to the writing I love but simply haven't had the time for recently. So my apologies for the lack of updates on my other stories!

It's been five years and a day since I posted my first story on here, and in celebration of that, this is my fiftieth fic.

You'll have seen variations on this around the site. You put your MP3 player on random, click next and write a one-shot in the time it takes to listen to the song.

Except that for the first nine I used a single artist and just randomised his pieces. Never mind. I'll use different artists in later chapters.

Songs Of Innocence And Experience

AFTERMATH

Gingka had learned to love the swings. Somehow, when he was suspended between earth and sky, the world seemed to stop spinning away without him.

In the aftermath, it would have been nice not to be quite so alone.

It wasn't his fault, they had told him. Ryuga had chosen to attack like that. Ryuga was always like that – strong and solitary and so very, very proud. Doji had been the one to taunt the bearer of the Dragon constellation into his suicidal match against an opponent too strong even for the Emperor.

But Gingka had watched the armour fall away from Ryuga's defences as Armageddon shredded him to pieces, and knew that if he'd moved just a little quicker then perhaps his greatest rival might still be around to surprise them.

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BY THE RULES

It was Tsubasa's pride and his joy to play by the rules. To win by the rules. It proved a fact to all who had tried to beat him down with every dirty trick in the book: rules were not there to be broken. Rules were there for safety, for fairness, for protection.

Winning within the rules, using his own skill and strength, was his greatest achievement every single time. He and his constellation shone bright as examples to the younger generations, and if he could get to the top of the world with nothing more than his talent, without relying on traps or distractions, then that was perfect for him.

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IF I HAD YOU

Julian had everything. Everything. Money, fame, fortune, titles, trophies – all of it. There was a pure-bred Arabian stallion in his stables, a Steinway grand in his bedroom, a private jet to take him and his team wherever he wanted to go. The world was his oyster and his playground.

But in the dead of night, he knew he could live without it. He didn't need the horse. Or the jet. Or the jacuzzi. He didn't need the antique tables or the overstuffed armchairs. He didn't need the house or the swimming pool. He didn't need the fame, or the money, or any of it.

He only needed two things, really. The first was his blade, his beautiful Destroyer who had pulled him through hell and back and still didn't give up on him.

And the other was his team, who had dived right into hell behind him and had refused to let him go until he stepped smiling into the sun on the far side.

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NEVER CLOSE OUR EYES

He didn't sleep. He didn't have to.

The dragon slipped through his dreams like a crimson thread, threatening and comforting at the same time. His constellation burned brightest when the night was darkest, when nothing else could illuminate the blackness and when the rest of the world hid from the shadows that crept around the moon.

In those dark hours, Ryuga stood silent and still on the mountain top, a sentinel against the Darkness until the sunrise swept up the sides of the peak and chased the cowardly shadows back to their holes. Then he and his dragon would quietly step away and let the living world take over.

After all, there would be plenty of time to sleep later. He had a task to do.

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TRESPASSING

Gingka folded his arms. "You followed me?" he said. "To Mount Hagane?"

"You were there," Madoka explained. "We had to find you somehow."

"You know that Mount Hagane is a sacred mountain, right? Only those from Koma are allowed to step foot inside the gates on pain of death. How did Hokuto and Hyoma let you pass?"

"No idea," Kyouya said.

"But we weren't leaving without you," Madoka added. "We didn't know what that Ryuga guy had done to your head, so we came to get you. You're our friend, Gingka."

"You trespassed on holy ground for me?"

Kenta looked awkward. "Er... yes?"

Gingka shook his head. "You're all crazy. But you're the best friends I could ever ask for. Thank you."

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SLEEPWALKER

"TSUBASA!"

The scream woke everyone in the house. Gingka fumbled for the lightswitch and looked over at an ashen-faced Masamune, who indicated to his left – Yuu.

"Dammit," Gingka swore. Yuu had been so good recently that they had begun to think that perhaps another person was finally getting over the shadows of Nemesis. But this was a massive step backwards.

Slamming doors outside their room told them that someone else had worked out who needed help that night.

"Yuu! It's okay, it's okay, I'm here, I'm alright, shh, shh, shh..."

Gingka relaxed almost subconsciously. Tsubasa always knew what to do.

Quietly, he crept out into the hallway to see Madoka, clad in her dressing gown and slippers, staring back at him from her room across from his. "He'll be alright," he said immediately, seeing how scared she looked. "Tsubasa's good with nightmares."

She shook her head and indicated for him to look into the room two over from his. Peering around the door, Gingka shivered.

Tsubasa was sat on Yuu's bed, the little blonde-haired boy half under the covers and half in his arms. Yuu's shoulders were shaking – he was crying.

"It'll never be over for good," Madoka whispered from just behind him. "There'll always be bad dreams."

Gingka swallowed. "But that's what friends are for," he said firmly. "For chasing them away."

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BROKEN OPEN

Considering that the Eagle blader slept a whole floor below his room, it was pretty impressive that Yuu was already huddled in Tsubasa's arms when he woke up. He had just enough time to take a breath before the sobs shook him as if they were trying to break him apart.

"I know," was all Tsubasa said. "I know."

And he did know. When Madoka said it, it wasn't true. Even when Gingka said it, it wasn't true. But Tsubasa was his best friend, his almost-brother, and Tsubasa knew what it meant to have to see the only people you trusted shattering away from you into shadows.

So Yuu tucked himself more firmly into his friend's side and hid from the world that had turned out to be far more cruel than he had been ready for.

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RUNNIN'

The world swirled around him in technicolour paint-strokes, and he didn't know how to read it any more.

Was this really what he had become? This broken man, reliant on Arrangements as if they were a drug, living for his next fix to get him closer to perfection, to the masterpiece hiding in his brain.

What had happened to the artist Jack who had once painted a whole wall just to find a perfect one-inch square? What had happened to hard work and effort?

The realisation hit him between the eyes like a bucket of cold water. He had become lazy. He'd tried to cheat art, and art had abandoned him.

He had fallen, almost too far, and only defeat had prevented a total slide into the abyss. It was time to start again, to find the artist's heart inside him that he had been ignoring for far too long.

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MASTER PLAN

No-one ever realised, and that was the best part of it.

Ryuga was never the be-all-and-end-all of his plans. He was just a pawn, like they all were. Yes, if Ryuga had reached the end of his board and his pawn had become a queen as he took over the world it might have made his final victory a little quicker. But as it was, Ryuga had been captured and taken down with only one more step to go by the powerhouses of the other side.

But that was what chess was like. Step by small step, other pieces would creep up the board. Some of them would just sit in place quietly, apparently completely innocuous until his opponent made just one mistake and stepped into the jaws of a trap that had been there almost as long as the game had been going on.

It was his master plan.