the story starts out with a boy named Shirou Kamui. he is back in Tokyo after about six years of absence...
the plot unfolds in a [ranging from 'sort of' to 'very'] confusing way...there are a lot of flashbacks, especially with Kamui remembering his mother dying and telling him to return to Tokyo until the "day of destiny."

anyways...Kamui returns to Tokyo. his two best friends, Monou Kotori and her brother Fuuma, still live there and haven't forgotten him. especially Kotori, who Kamui proposed to when they were little kids. Kotori is this sweet girl who has a heart condition and seems able to communicate with animals. Fuuma is this tall, dark, abnormally strong and somewhat scary guy. he's very protective of Kotori and none of the guys at school dare to approach her though she's really cute and all, cuz her brother scares them off.

anyways, Kotori tries to talk to Kamui, but he blows her off and tells her things are different from before. the thing is, he's being followed by these weird psychic people things, which someone has sent to watch him because of his role in the destiny of the earth.

Kamui eventually meets Hinoto, a girl who lives underneath a government (the Diet? Japanese government...) building, and who is a "dreamgazer." it turns out that for a long, long time the Japanese government has been relying on Hinoto's powers of seeing the future to make important political decisions. Hinoto has no "normal" senses... she is blind, deaf, and mute...but she is able to communicate telepathically and with dreams. she sees the future of the world in her dreams, and thus helps the government avoid any problems that might come up.

Hinoto tells Kamui that in her dreams of the future, she sees two paths. one involves the destruction of all mankind, while the other involves destruction of the earth. the deciding factor in the destiny of the earth and mankind is--gee, hard one--Kamui himself. it turns out that there are a group of seven called the Dragons of Heaven, who want to protect mankind...at the cost of the earth? (a prerequisite to being a Dragon of Heaven is the ability to make these shield-things that have various geometric shapes; the shield will cover a several-mile radius and anything destroyed within the shield will go back to normal after the shield is taken down--however, if the person who formed the shield is severely injured or killed, the shield collapses and the damages remain. or so i think. no one can enter a shielded area except...). if mankind is allowed to live, the earth will eventually be destroyed (now you see what environmentalists are fighting about). however, there are another seven people, called Dragons of Earth, who want to protect the earth and kill off mankind, which they believe is basically evil and morally corrupt anyway. there are six dragons of heaven and six dragons of earth out there already, who were foreordained. however, Kamui alone has the potential and the right to choose--will he become a dragon of heaven? or a dragon of earth? the future of the world depends on him. the "day of destiny" is when the two groups clash and the fate of the earth is decided.

Hinoto shows Kamui all this in a series of dreams, and pleads with him to consider saving mankind. (she serves, throughout the series--thus far anyway--as a sort of guide for the Dragons of Heaven.) however, her series of dreams is interrupted with the entrance of Kanoe. Kanoe is completely different from Hinoto, but it turns out that they are sisters! Kanoe isn't a dreamgazer like Hinoto, but she DOES have the power to go into her sister's dreams of the future and find out for herself what's going to happen. Kanoe is slowly gathering the Dragons of Earth, because she believes in the destruction of mankind and saving of the earth. (something like that.)

as the "day of destiny" nears, the dragons of heaven and earth gather in Tokyo; the dragons of earth with Kanoe, the dragons of heaven with Hinoto. Kamui is faced with the decision of becoming a dragon of heaven or a dragon of earth.

ok, there's the main plot for you. if you don't want to hear about any more details, don't read the rest. but seriously, it's a pretty good series. =) here are some links..
Rabi's X Page-- this is a reeeeeeeeeeeally good page on X, it's the most complete I've seen so far, it's got manga translations and stuff about the anime and and and..yeah...everything! go check it out!
Nightfall X Entrance--i think this was the site aaaaallll about the X movie. good, complete info.

ok back to the story...

meanwhile, Kotori and Fuuma Monou are brother and sister and close friends of Kamui. as time goes on, they all find out some pretty disturbing things. for one thing, Kamui finds out from dreams of the past (courtesy of Hinoto) that his mother and Kotori's mother loved each other. (ok...) Kamui's mother came from this one family in which each member was a sort of "shadow" to an important figure. for example, a person might be a "shadow" to an important politician; if anything should happen to that politician, then the "shadow" would suffer instead of the politician. like if someone tried to assassinate the politician, then the "shadow" would die instead, so that the politician could live and play out his or her role in the future of the world. that was Kamui's mother's family. it seems that Kamui's mother has another role to play, though, besides that of a shadow--she's got to give birth to this legendary magic sword that will be used on the "day of destiny." Kotori's mother knew that Kamui's mother was a shadow for a very important entity (ok, this is where my memory gets blurry) and so she decided to take her place and give birth to this legendary sword. Kotori's mother had some strange power with which she could see the future--but only for Kamui's mother, whom she loved.

Kotori's father knew about this, and he knew that his wife was in love with Kamui's mother, but he accepted it because he loved his wife. then--it was sort of gross--Kotori's mother gave birth to the sword...it's like this bright blaze of light, and she pulled the sword from her abdomen and then she split apart into a bunch of pieces and lots of blood. (didn't i tell you it was slightly gory?) and died. Kotori's father vowed to protect and hide the sword until the day of destiny should come.

little did he know that Fuuma had watched the birth of the sword. something seemed to possess Fuuma then, and after his father was gone, he went into the room and, like...licked the blood. (naaaaaaaaaaasty....) his eyes were glazed over, and he looked (seriously) evil.

Kotori, meanwhile, has been discovered to have some unique powers of her own. her mother realized early on that Kotori had some special power of seeing into the future, because she seemed to know that her mother was going to die soon. her mother predicted that Kotori would be great someday...

anyway...things go on, blahblah, Kamui has a ton of disturbing dreams of Kotori being tied to a cross and then getting cut into pieces... Kotori has disturbing dreams of Kamui having two selves, and sprouting angel wings on one side and dragon wings on the other; she also has visions of him destroying the earth. Fuuma goes back and forth from becoming possessed and being "dark Fuuma" and his regular self. it seems he has little or no control over this.

Kamui meets up with his aunt, his mother's sister. she works at Kotori and Fuuma's school as a sort of nurse. she seems to have a lot to tell Kamui, but really doesn't get much of a chance to tell him anything. she gets taken away by strange men, but makes it back later to Fuuma and Kamui right before she gives birth to ANOTHER sword! it seems there are TWO legendary swords. Kotori sees all the gore and stuff, and sort of goes crazy. she holds onto Tokiko's (Kamui's aunt's) head and won't let go, lost in her memories of her mother...it seems she saw all those gory pieces of her mother before anyone could clean it up.

kotori stays in this trance for a long time...she talks to some guy who is also a dreamgazer. he tells her a little about what's going to happen. she is taken into his dream to talk to him...which would explain why she's not "all there" for a while. (this guy turns out to also be a dragon of earth.) anyway, Kamui knows he has to make a choice soon. he remembers his mother's death, and through more dreams from Hinoto, he realizes that his mother was "shadow" to the earth! she burned to death (pretty weird, spontaneous burning) because the earth would have been destroyed. however, it would seem that she wants Kamui to protect mankind and to change fate, because she asks him whether he had anyone he wanted to protect? when he replied, "Kotori and Fuuma," she seemed to be satisfied. i don't know, this part has me slightly confused.

Kamui decides to become...a Dragon of Heaven. he wants to protect Kotori and Fuuma at all costs. right when he makes his choice, though, Fuuma suddenly reverts to evil Fuuma, and almost kills Kamui. he DOES kill Kotori, and Kamui has to watch as Kotori is stabbed with one of the legendary swords, which Fuuma has in possession. however, the dreamgazer that Kotori spoke with before takes over her body and continues talking though Kotori herself is dead. that is, until Fuuma finishes her off. she is sliced into pieces, all that stuff in Kamui's dream, and Kamui cries holding her head. =*(

after that...Kamui's in a daze. it turns out that Fuuma is Kamui's "twin star"...which means that Kotori's dreams were right and there are *two* Kamuis. Fuuma is the "other" Kamui! so while Kamui is a dragon of heaven, Fuuma becomes a Dragon of Earth and starts gathering the others for the "day of destiny."

then come a lot of miscellaneous battles and scenes that depict the characters' relationships with one another, etc...

and that's all i'm telling you! (and basically all i remember) my favorite parts of the manga thus far are the little side stories at the back of each tank, which go into the lives/pasts of the various characters. if you want to know more, go look up those websites i listed above, and go read the manga yourself! go out and buy it! it's really pretty artwork...and the gory parts don't look all that bad....

go back to anime/manga now...