Tamahome's trapped in a nightmare that keeps rewriting itself, and you don't realize until halfway through that the confusion isn't a flaw, it's the point. The OVA answers questions the TV series left bleeding for a year, but only if you're willing to follow someone through hell to get them. By the end, when clarity finally breaks through, it hits because you've earned it the same way he has to earn his way back.

A year has passed since Miaka's journey through the magical book ended, and Tamahome now lives with her in the real world, but peace proves short-lived. While visiting the graves of two earlier travelers into The Universe of the Four Gods, Tamahome is swallowed by a red light and vanishes, leaving Miaka heartbroken. Meanwhile Yui begins acting strangely. Miaka's brother Keisuke and his best friend Tetsuya set out to work out what the book is doing and to help her find Tamahome. Back inside the book, Tamahome learns that fifty years have gone by and that he has traded identities with his old enemy Nakago, beginning a confusing ordeal of illusion and betrayal. A lighter episode sends the Suzaku and Seiryuu warriors and their priestesses on a prank-filled bus trip to a hot spring resort.