Hello everyone, it's been a long time since I last posted a chapter for this story and that streak continues to live on since this—as you've probably guessed by this point—is not an actual chapter. I hope that I made that clear with the title of this "chapter" and this first line here. I understand that posting author's notes as chapters is against the rules—at least to my knowledge—but I felt the need to get this out there for all of you as my loyal readers and for myself.

To everyone that has been following this story from beginning to end and breaks out in a smile every time a new chapter is posted, I'm sorry to announce that The Will of Fire Still Burns will be going on a temporary hiatus for the time being. I've given this decision a lot of thought and truly think that it is for the best. I had a lot planned for the current arc, the Akatsuki arc, the war arc, and the end, but for one reason or another the creativity just dried up and I can't seem to get anything down on paper that I'm actually happy with. In the past it's been just flooding out and just wouldn't stop until I had everything I wanted down, but now it seems a dam has been under construction for a while and has just been completed.

Some of you have probably noticed that I've started a new story recently, so I just wanted to say that my decision to put a pause on this story is not in any way related to that but because of the reasons that I have already stated.

The last time I posted was in early October and in the time between then and now a lot of things have come up in the real world that have prevented me from spending a lot of time in front of my computer. After that I set a deadline that I wasn't able to meet because of my lack of inspiration and outside influence. But now that I've got all the time in the world for the next month and have spent the last few days trying to get something worthwhile down, I've realized that I just don't have it in me. I've rewritten the start of chapter 22 at least six different times and have gotten up to having around 20% of the chapter completed before scrapping the entire thing after re-reading it. This decision isn't due to a lack of effort or a decision made with little thought behind it, it's one that I feel I needed to make otherwise I would have most likely ended up destroying the story that I had spent so much time crafting.

This hiatus will not be like the one I placed on one of my other stories, Modern Age, which has not been updated in any way for close to six months now. I still have zero inspiration for continuing that particular one (Though I have picked up the Fairy Tail series again) and don't see myself continuing for quite some time. I can see myself picking up The Will of Fire Still Burns once again after the start of the new year after a few months have passed, but until then you won't be hearing much from this story.

I know many will be upset with me and my decision—not that I place any of that blame on you—but at this point I feel that at least providing you all with a little closure instead of empty promises would be for the best.

Until next time.

-hidaruma