ANNOUNCEMENT

Hello, my longtime followers and future readers, it pains me a great deal to say this but I will no longer be updating this fanfic. As most of you know or can see, K: Preserving the Blaze of Your Red was last updated in 2016. At first, I didn't update due to life taking up my free time, busy with college and exams, etc. Then, I had started other fanfics for other fandoms. Eventually, as time passed, I lost the motivation to continue this fanfic. I still remember what I had planned for the ending of this story so, if you must know, I will explain it in this announcement. I will also provide a list of quotes that I had planned to include for dialogue in future chapters but, since I will no longer be continuing this work, obviously the planned dialogue would no longer be used.

First, here are some of the dialogue that I would have used in future chapters. I will try to include some context if I can remember what the quote was supposed to be for:

1) "Let's... rest a bit.." (This was going to be the last words of a character during their death scene)

2) "Whether I die here or not, it does not matter. My sword shall burn victoriously across the skies! So, come! It won't only be my blood that will be spilt tonight." (Anna's final battle speech)

3) "I'm trying to save you-why can't you see that?!" (Evil!Anna to Main!Anna)

4) "Mikoto, I'm out of time. What a... funny word. Time…. I wish I had more of it. I would've spent every second of it at your side. There's so much I have to tell you. But.. this moment will have to be enough... I'm so happy I was able to see you again... you and your beautiful red." (Anna's last words)

5) "What a waste... to close my eyes." (Anna's last words)

6) "I didn't believe him when he told me there was no saving you. I just kept wishing… wishing with all my heart that as long as my flame burned, it would burn for you." (Anna to Mikoto)

7) "Time is the fire in which we burn." ( - Evil!Anna)

8) "Don't be afraid. You're a king—you wield power one can only imagine. And I understand that that in itself is frightening. But don't let that fear control you… because it is you—and you alone—who controls that power. It's all a matter of will. And you, Anna Kushina, have a will of fire that burns brighter than anyone else's." (the Mysterious Cloaked Man to Anna)

9) "Please, remember me... even if I can no longer see the world." (Anna's last words)

10) "I think I know what to write for my story now… a young princess who travels back in time to save her dying kingdom, and this time… it will be a story full of happiness…." (Tatara in the epilogue chapter)

11) "He had this 'I'm-so-possessive-over-people-but-it's-like-a-quiet-possessive-because-I-don't-want-to-be-clingy-so-I-just-angrily-stare-at-people-from-afar' look. And Anna always thought it was adorable." (Anna thinking about Mikoto)

12) "You could burn this world to ashes—let it bathe in red. Deep down, you know you can. And that's what scares you."

"No, it's not. What scares me is being left alone. And that's what will happen if I set this world on fire."

"Oh, but don't you see? You already are alone. No matter what, they're dead to you…. And soon, you will be too if you continue like this. You know of what I speak."

"Yes, I do know. And I know I'd rather be together with them in death, than left behind all by myself."

"…. Then so be it." (Evil!Anna to Main!Anna)

13) "Remember, Mikoto, your pain is about as much the same as theirs." (Tatara to Mikoto about the bonds of Homura's clansmen and their King)

14) "I'm sorry…. I am so sorry, Mikoto. I couldn't do anything when you were suffering so much all alone. I'm sure that even now, you are in a lot more pain than I am. And I wish I could bear that burden for you."

"Anna…."

"But I can't. My hands are too small, and my body too little. I can't heal your sadness… your pain… or your agony. And I can't hold for you the weight of that sword you're forced to shoulder. And yet… and yet, I want you to live, Mikoto. I want you to continue living. And I know that's a lot to ask for but... I need you to live. If not for yourself then for those who need you." (Anna encouraging Mikoto to keep on living and not give up)

15) "I have become... a very cruel person…. In my quest to save someone dear to me, I have caused harm to others as well, and taken precious things from them. By choosing to save a life, I've also chosen to condemn the lives of people who have done nothing but share their love and generosity towards me. And it's all for my self-centered reasons…. In the end, I am a monster, and retribution will surely find me someday soon. But even so… I want to guide your beautiful soul to salvation. Just like you did with me… my King… Mikoto." (Anna explaining that, in the process of trying to save Tatara's life and, in extension, Mikoto's, she has had to hurt innocent people and dragged others like Maria into her mess)

16) "Ah, even on such a day… the sky is beautiful." (spoken by Tatara in the epilogue chapter)

Now, I will explain some of the concepts that were going to be clarified in future chapters. I will also give yuou a general rundown of what the rest of the story was supposed to look like. Or, at least, what the ending was supposed to look like.

1) Who was the mysterious cloaked man in Anna's vision in Chapter 23: The Setting Sun? The mystery man was Anna's son from another timeline. In that future timeline, Anna would have had twin children (a boy and girl)with Yata, the only clansman who stayed with her for the rest of her life after the fall of HOMRA. The daughter, Yuki, had given up her life to give Akihito, the son, a chance to cross timelines and make contact with Main!Anna and encourage her to not give up. To keep on fighting no matter how hopeless everything seemed to be. It's implied that her children had inherited Anna's foresight abilities.

2) What was the purpose of the set of marbles Anna would break? The marbles Anna carried were a special set forged by her power as a Strain, the Dresden Slate's power, and the power of time collected when the Slate sent Anna back in time. Anna only had a certain amount of these special marbles as they were different from her typical blood marble. She could break these marbles to ""restart the cycle"" or start a new timeline. If she chose not to break a marble to restart a new cycle, then she would remain in that timeline until the forces of the universe were able to kill her off. In an early chapter, she revealed to Tatara in her first cycle that she was from the future and, by doing this, she had made herself known as a paradox. Because she made herself known as a paradox, she then became cursed with the universe trying to constantly kill her in each timeline she went into as a way of getting rid of the paradox (Anna) and bringing balance back to that timeline's universe.

3) Who was Other!Anna and Future!Anna and what's their difference? Other!Anna was an Anna from a timeline in which Tatara was murdered, Mikoto died, and HOMRA completely disbanded with only Yata staying by Anna's side. Other!Anna would eventually get raped and experimented on by the Colorless King in that timeline and she would blame the disbandment of HOMRA (and thus Tatara & Mikoto's deaths) as the reason she was made vulnerable and got attacked by the Colorless King. Other!Anna would then lose her child and become even more bitter by all the hardships she'd endured. Other!Anna sought to prevent the existence of her timeline through Main!Anna. Other!Anna wanted Main!Anna to become angry and bitter and powerful and fueled by hatred and vengeance because Other!Anna thought such emotions would make Main!Anna strong enough to save Tatara and Mikoto. Other!Anna wanted Tatara & Mikoto saved because then this would prevent her eventual rape and torture by the Colorless King in her own respective timeline. Other!Anna was stealing the powers from her fellow Kings in order to be the most powerful King in her timeline with Yata as her only trustworthy companion. It's implied that the rest of HOMRA had died in a tragedy. Other!Anna sought to amass all this power for herself in order to make sure that she could never be hurt by anyone again and she united 6 of the 7 clans under her rule (with the Silver King avoiding her reaches). Other!Anna would use her vast powers stolen from the other Kings and use the Dresden Slate in her timeline to make contact with Main!Anna.

Future!Anna was an Anna from a different timeline in which Tatara & Mikoto died, HOMRA disbanded but Yata stayed with her. In Future!Anna's timeline, JUNGLE succeeds in capturing the Slate and using it to release anarchy onto the whole city, giving powers to any and all people. Future!Anna and Yata are all that's left of HOMRA with everyone spread out across the country and unwilling to join. Future!Anna plans to recapture the Slate from JUNGLE's forces and destroy it but she ends up getting pregnant after an emotional night with Yata. The two are not necessarily lovers but they also only have each other as both a friend and family. In Future!Anna's timeline, their arc would end with Yata planting bombs in JUNGLE's headquarters as Future!Anna would hold off the main forces as long as she could. Yata would get caught up in the explosion and die, giving Anna the only chance to destroy the Dresden Slate. She is unable to destroy the Slate for good, however, and the JUNGLE forces finish her off. Since she's pregnant, her unborn children (she would have given birth to twins Yuki & Akihito; girl and boy) are also killed and Future!Anna dies with the hopes that Main!Anna would succeed if only to save their futures. Using her own marbles, Future!Anna makes attempts throughout the story to contact Main!Anna and keep her from straying from her path and guide her. But, without the Dresden Slate, she cannot easily contact Main!Anna compared to Other!Anna. Future!Anna and Other!Anna were created with the concept of light versus dark. While creating these 2 characters, I had asked myself: What would happen if HOMRA never reunited? How would Anna grow up without her adopted family? And what would she be like as an angry person filled with bitterness from so much tragedy?

4) Why did the Dresden Slate choose Main!Anna and give her the chance to save Tatara & Mikoto? I had planned to reveal this at the very end of the story. The idea I had was that the Dresden Slate would be revealed as the true manipulator behind everything. It sought its own destruction. It wanted to be destroyed, but it knew that no one would be able to resist its powers or use. So it chose to use Anna because (A) she had made contact with it during her time at the Center and so they already had a relationship prior to everything (B) Anna was a Strain so she had her own special connection to the Slate as a person born as a rejected King (C) Anna had endured personal tragedies and hardships and could see things with an acumen or mature clarity but she still also retained a special kind of innocence. With someone so young but with a special history, Anna was the perfect candidate. The Slate decided to use her to orchestrate its own destruction, knowing that Anna would somehow succeed in doing just that.

5) What about the Colorless King (the fox spirit)? The Colorless King would have been revealed to be a victim of the Slate's doing. I had planned to reveal that the Colorless King was the very first candidate the Slate had attempted to use before Anna. The idea was that, thousands of years ago, the Slate imbued the King power into an albino fox and made it a Colorless King. The fox would then jump into the bodies of humans, learning to become humanistic in the process. The fox spirit did this for many many many years, seeking to fulfill the Slate's desires. But every time the fox spirit jumped into a new human to gain a new host and try to destroy the Slate, other humans and Kings and clans would stop the fox spirit and even kill its human host, forcing the fox spirit to seek a new body. Eventually, as the years went on, the fox spirit went mad, constantly using a new host, constantly dying from his efforts to destroy the Slate, and wash and repeat. The Fox spirit went crazy, having accumulated the personalities of all of his hosts and eventually lost sight of his original mission. This gives us the Fox Spirit/Colorless King we see in this story. He is attracted to Anna because he senses that she is the same as him in a sense.

6) Sukuna? In the Main!Anna's timeline, had she NOT accepted the Slate's offer and instead chose to remain in her own timeline and keep things as they are.,Main!Anna would have eventually moved on with her life and even fall in love with Sukuna. HOMRA would reunite for Anna's wedding with Sukuna and she would give birth to twin boys whom she'd name as Tatara and Mikoto in honor of the men who looked after her as a child. In Future!Anna's timeline, Future!Anna kills Sukuna in a battle although they both express their regrets, knowing that they could have been friends in another time. Other!Anna murders Sukuna in cold blood in her timeline.

HOW THE STORY WAS GOING TO END

At the end of Chapter 23: The Setting Sun, Anna discovers that she was the new Red King in her original timeline. She had been an unawakened King before she made the deal with the Slate. So now, every timeline she jumps into with Mikoto still alive, there are 2 Red Kings: Mikoto and Anna. Chapter 23 ends with Anna awakening her King powers and killing Yukari. She stabs the sword through the protective case of the Slate and makes contact with the Slate, demanding for the truth. It would've been revealed that Anna no longer existed in her original timeline. It was also revealed that, once Anna succeeded in destroying the Slate and saving Tatara & Mikoto, she would be erased from existence in all timelines. That was the price she was supposed to pay from the very beginning the moment she bargained with the Slate.

Anna would then stay in her current cycle (she has been in this cycle for 1 year after Mikoto's death) and work to collect information about the Slate. Because she is a known paradox, the universe attempts to kill her throughout her entire stay in that timeline but Anna, with the power of a King and her foresight abilities as a Strain, is able to avoid her curse from killing her off. Remember that her "curse" is the universe working to kill her from the timeline by manipulating the probability of things (like your chance of getting hit by a car or getting shot, etc.) and thereby increasing the chance of something misfortunate happening to you. Due to her curse, anyone who attempts to help Anna eventually dies around her. Anna stays in the current cycle for several years while her allies die off one by one by being around her until she is alone. She does years of investigation and research.

Eventually, Anna decides that the best chance she has is by doing what Other!Anna did: steal the powers of the other Kings. However, unlike Other!Anna who used the stolen powers to protect herself and rule the city, Main!Anna seeks to use these powers to destroy the Slate just like the Future!Anna had tried to do with bombs. Main!Anna then crushes her last marble to finally restart a new cycle. This is her last timeline and thus her last chance to make things right or else she will be stuck in this timeline until the universe succeeds in killing her. In this last timeline, Anna kills the Fox spirit with the powers she had stolen from her fellow Kings in the previous timeline. She spiritually kills the fox spirit itself while the host body is saved. Tatara is thus saved but Anna leaves to steal the powers of the other Kings in this new timeline. She stores the powers into a blood marble she creates. As Anna journeys around in search of the other Kings, the world hears news of her destructive efforts and the massive battles held between Anna and each respective King. HOMRA tries to find Anna and stop her and they team up with Scepter 4. Scepter 4 & HOMRA find Anna once she finishes stealing the JUNGLE King's powers. Anna is forced to battle with HOMRA & Scepter 4 and she eventually steals the Blue King's powers. Mikoto confronts Anna and she reluctantly fights him too, revealing herself as a Red King (despite Mikoto still being the Red King in this timeline). Anna quickly takes Mikoto down. Anna then steals the Silver King's powers once he allows her to after she reveals the truth of her situation to him. This helps her fight against the Gold King and steals his powers too.

Anna confronts the Slate in a vision. Meanwhile, the military has been ordered to take Anna down as it looks like she is a threat due to her less-than-subtle efforts and battles to collect the powers of the other Kings. The military decides to bomb the Gold King's tower (which is where Anna and the Slate are at). HOMRA is trying to stop the military but everyone is severely weakened due to Anna taking the power of all the Kings. The Military starts bombing the tower while Anna is in the middle of a mental battle with the Slate. Tatara finds a way into the tower, seeking to save Anna, with Mikoto following after him. Anna is losing the mental battle but hears Tatara call her name. Remembering that she wanted to save Tatara, Mikoto and everyone else, Anna continues to mentally battle the Slate even though she is slowly losing her control over the powers she stole as well as her own. During her mental battle with the Slate, she hears Mikoto's voice and looks to find him with her in the mental plane. In the physical world, Mikoto is touching her hand. In the mental plane, Mikoto tells her that "the powers she has are now a part of her red". Anna understands what he means and she moves her hand in the physical world to take out the blood marble that stores the powers she stole from the other Kings. The marble shatters and Anna looks at Mikoto and Tatara to tell them "thank you" and she releases her wings of fire. Anna flies into the sky and everyone watches her as she rises above the tower with some people commenting that she looks like an angel. Her Sword of Damocles appears and it's glowing so bright and intense. Anna rises higher and higher until she grazes the clouds, burning like a flame trailing a blaze in her wake, and then she bursts into a phoenix of varying colors thanks to possessing the powers of all 7 kings. In her phoenix form, Anna dives back down and crashes headfirst into the tower, obliterating the Slate to pieces.

Tatara and Mikoto are found among the rubble, safe and alive. Anna is nowhere to be seen. The city spends the next year looking for Anna and questioning the existence of Strains and Kings. As the months fly by, people start to forget who Anna was and only vaguely remember that there was a huge accident. Since the Dresden Slate has been destroyed, any present Strains or Clansmen have completely lost their powers. The Clans and Kings are no more. A year has passed and it's Anna's birthday. HOMRA is helping out Kusanagi with customers and cleaning and Tatara is busy planning a story focusing on the adventures of a young girl. A butterfly with bright red wings finds its way into the bar even though it is winter. A toddler girl runs into the bar after chasing the butterfly. Her parents rush in and apologize for the disturbance, explaining that it's their daughter's birthday and they're going to an amusement park to celebrate for the day. The little girl looks at Mikoto and calls him "pretty". The family soon leaves and Tatara tries to shoo the butterfly out of the bar. When he opens the door to let the butterfly escape, the sun makes Tatara wince at the sudden glare of light and he sees the family walking down the street. The little girl is walking in between her mother and father, holding both of their hands. The little girl looks back at Tatara and Tatara sees it is Anna. She smiles at him and then turns away to keep on walking. Tatara winces from the sunlight's glare again and the girl and her family has vanished. Tatara and everyone else has already forgotten Anna since her existence was wiped from all timelines (that was the price she paid to the Dresden when she accepted its bargain to go back in time to save HOMRA). In place of where Tatara had seen the family and envisioned Anna is the red butterfly flapping its wings. Tatara starts to cry at the sight of the red butterfly but he doesn't know why. The butterfly starts rising into the sky. Snow begins to fall.

Tatara smiles at the snow and returns to the bar, announcing to Kusanagi and Mikoto that he knows what he's going to write about for his story, beginning with the words, "Once upon a time, there lived a girl of flames..."

So, there you have it! You now know what I had planned for this fic and, even if it was just a summary, I hope this still gives you closure.

If you have any questions about the story or characters, please do not be afraid to PM me! I may not be working on this fanfic anymore but I still use FFNet to update other works so I do respond to PMs.

That said, thank you for coming with me this far. This was my very first fanfic ever and, while my writing for this fic does make me cringe now when I read my old work, it holds a lot of value for me and I'm proud of it regardless. While this fic is officially discontinued, I do still like the idea I used for this fic and plan to create my own original work with that idea and publish it on Wattpad one day after I finish a few priority fics currently in the works.

Again, thank you for following me on this journey!