The five of them are seated around the battered table in the warm kitchen, on four equally scruffy chairs. Anna has surrendered her normal seat to the woman, and had curled onto Mikoto's lap the second he finished eating. Izumo, as near enough always, had done the cooking. Yata is blushing every time he looks up from his bowl; Hotaru is wearing a t-shirt of Mikoto's with a pair of boxers whilst her own clothes are in the laundry, but the shoulder persistently keeps falling off, exposing a hickie-marked and bite-ridden neck and shoulder to everyone's eyes.

Izumo snickers once or twice whenever he happens to turn around from cooking to look at them, which he seems to make sure to do frequently. Anna sees them, then sees what everyone's reaction is going to be to the Red King's claim on the woman.

Everyone's.

She starts to smile, then her eyebrows furrow, then glare, and then she relaxes and sighs deeply. All within about five seconds. To the men who rarely see her show all of those emotions within a day, it's somewhat surprising.

Mikoto though, Mikoto sees that red and purple hued neck and can't help the feeling that rises up from his chest. Possessiveness. Want. Lust.

Mine.

It's old, and it's primal, and it's so him. He leans back, Anna resting against him, and practically glares holes into his lover's neck.

Mmm….lover…

Suddenly, Anna tenses, clambouring down off him only to go on Yata's lap, whispering in his ear in the process. What the-

A tightness in his jeans has the absolute faintest of blushes appear across his cheeks as he self-consciously glides a hand through his still uncombed hair. He'd….And she'd….Urgh….

He needs a smoke.

"No you don't."

"Hmm?"

"You can either smoke, or listen to me explain. Either/or. Can't have both." Both of them are well aware it's not the smoke he actually needs, but the excuse to leave the room.

"…..That's gonna get real irksome, really quickly." He shuffles from side to side, subtly adjusting his jeans.

"I knew you were going to say that."

The smugness present in that tiny smirk of hers is astounding. It's certainly going to take some getting used to an Anna who overtly displays her emotions.

*_K_*

In an office, several miles away, a blue-haired man has come into work early, in a somewhat discrete effort to find out how the events of yesterday have fully concluded. Awashima's report is swiftly read once, and he pulls back, blinking at what seem like inconsistencies.

Reading it again, he finds that, yes, what Awashima has written is correct, and that young Anna-chan, who'd sounded so calm on the phone to him, had apparently been near enough drenched in blood and viscera upon SCEPTRE4's arrival, and that none of it was her own.

The black-bags of 'remnants' had been sent to the morgue, in an attempt to piece the various pieces together, and that once that was done, (as of zero four hundred hours, the morgue attendants were still trying to match the various pieces together), they were going to be running DNA, fingerprints (of any surviving fingers), and dental records (surely one or two had a complete face?) in an attempt to see if any of them had previously committed crimes, like the silver-haired strain had suggested.

When the clock reaches his official start time, two cadets knock on the door and are permitted entry; one is carrying his morning tray of tea, the other the various reports that manage to accumulate over the course of the evening and extremely early morning hours.

Twenty minutes later, he barely has the sense of mind to get up and stagger to his door, locking it firmly and close the blinds before collapsing back into his chair. Assuredly alone, his spectacled eyes are viewing blurry information on the computer screen, and he takes his glasses off to clean them, only the movement dislodges the growing tears from his eyes, and they trickle down his cheeks. The revelation of the tears sets off a storm, and he throws his glasses across the desk as he begins to soundlessly weep.

He'd thought he could have at least one of them, if not the other. (How stupid of me, he berates himself.) Now, thanks to the machinations of his superiors, it turns out he can have neither. A teardrop falls onto a report, the screen beneath it erupting in a rainbow of colours.

Apparently, he'll always be alone.

*_K_*

By the time Anna is five minutes into her explanation, the no-smoking-inside-around-Anna-and-Yata rule has gone out the window, especially since one of them is halfway down his second cigarette of the day.

"So…you've been seeing different 'timelines', Anna-chan?" Kusanagi asks as he stubs out the remainder of his cigarette.

"Uh-huh." She looks at the second-in-command, seeing some of his potential futures; lover/girlfriend/wife Awashima, their child/children, growing old together, dying young together. Then there're the ones where they're the most fervent of enemies, but still fight with all the passion they would have used to fuck. (It reminds Anna of quite a few other Blue/Red mixes.) "You make a really good father."

She watches as he freezes momentarily, his eyes flaring Red just the once, the insinuation of what she's seen affecting him more than he's showing.

"Oh." Brain overload. Another cigarette is pulled out the box and hastily lit, the carton left open on the table, just in case. His intended line of questioning in attempting to gain information is completely derailed, just like she'd planned.

"Oi, Anna-chan! What about my baseball bat?" All eyes go to her, including Hotaru's, who hadn't been present when she'd mutilated those guys.

"I saw what would have happened if you guys hadn't gotten there in time. Saw some of what they'd done before. They deserved it." Her fingers can't help but twitch at the memories, and they curl slightly into Yata's jumper, making him startle. "And your bat is still in my room."

"Oh." It's not Yata who speaks, but Hotaru, who can guess for herself just what it is exactly that may have happened if her 'Crimson Angel' hadn't shown up. (Her hand tightening around Mikoto's outstretched one isn't missed by anyone….except Yata, who rarely noticed these kinds of things).

"But at least the night ended well, right?" Anna tries to keep the straightest, most innocent look on her face that she possibly can, but it's a bit difficult when all the 'adults' turn various shades of red.

Mikoto looks around; his vanguard is wearing an obviously borrowed shirt, (especially if you consider his words once he'd left school in relation to the abominably tight-collared thing), trying to cover the hickies and bite-marks on his neck. His second-in-command's arms are covered in scratches that he's not caring to hide; he's even got his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Both are trying to avoid his eyes, Kusanagi doing it a lot better than Yata.

He can even guess just who it was that each of them had had a pleasant night with, and can't help the small curl of his lip. It definitely looks like the night ended well for all of them.

The group is startled as the door opens and a cheerful voice calls out-

"Tadaima!"

In shock, Anna looks at the newcomer, then at Mikoto, before passing out from shock.

*_K_*

Mikoto's ear is unpierced.

*_K_*

As Awashima Seri makes her way through SCEPTER4's walls on slightly unsteady legs, to the bewilderment of her subordinates, (who can't even begin to contemplate the actual cause of her unsteadiness), she comes across a runner sent by another of the guard. It takes another moment to read through the for-your-eyes-only document that has been electronically sealed to only be opened by her thumb and eye-print, before with widening eyes she does an about face and heads towards the Captain's office, to the shocked stares of her fellow swordsperson.

That girl…..

*_K_*

Before she even knocks, she hears it through the wood, as for some reason, most likely shock and forgetfulness, he's not remembered to activate the sound-proofing. As such, she doesn't even bother knocking, merely opening the door (her fingerprints automatically unlocking the door, and sliding through the gap before gently shutting it. A head doesn't lift from where it is bowed, tears falling onto a screen beneath it.

He looks so…encumbered. Like Atlas with the weight of the world upon his shoulders.

She places a hand on his shoulder, and twists the chair around so his head is level with her stomach. As his head falls forward, she leans over to the tablet, activating the soundproofing for the room. As she lets his tears soak through her shirt, she slowly glides her hands through his hair, letting him get it all out, making those shushing noises she's pretty sure all females learn to calm down children and the emotionally burdened.

She can't tell how long it's been before the man before her stiffens, suddenly tense, and pulls back, a newly summoned handkerchief sliding across his face. She sees the blush that forms from embarrassment, although it's barely distinguishable from his overheated face from crying.

"You can…." He coughs, his voice thick and heavy from all the crying. "You can go Awashima."

"Yes sir. Before that however," she ignores how he tenses up, "we received a message from Kushina-san."

"Leave it on my desk."

"Very well Captain."

"And Lieutenant?"

"Sir?"

"Tell no-one of what happened here."

"Something happened?"

"Carry on Lieutenant."

"Sir."

*_K_*

He takes a few deep breathes before turning around, reaching for the data-pad. Thumb and eye-print sensitive? However had the only girl in Suoh's little gang of street-thugs managed to acquire such skills? (The thought of 'no longer the only female though, eh?' runs so suddenly through his head that an abrupt tensing has his thumb pressing so hard against the sensor it minutely cracks it.)

He tries to calm down, reaching for his glasses by the old-fashioned penpot, and sliding them onto his face, begins reading the message. At first, shock has him blinking rather excessively, before his jaw drops slightly. He reaches the end of the document, scarcely taking any of the second half in, before he returns to the top and begins reading again. And again. It takes four readings before he actually manages to intake everything the girl has written.

Certain words and phrases stand out, of course. 'Visions'. 'Alternate timelines'. 'Green Queen' is an important one. 'Alliances between Clans of multiple colours in different variations' seems like an odd one at first, before she mentions tangentially that three of his Guard had dated/would date members of HOMRA, with three more being in polyamorous relationships with at least a member of HOMRA and the, as yet unnamed, Green Queen's faction.

Hidden within this is the unwritten phrase, 'don't lose hope'.

For now, it's enough.

*_K_*

Authors Note 10/06/15: Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone! Hope you're all doing well! Sorry about the delay in an update for any of my stories, especially this one and 'Is This Reality? Or Not?'; I'm not long back from a several month trip to Japan!

Anyhow, completely inspired, I got to writing this up, and although it took me a few days, I now present this brand new chapter to you all! I'm actually rather surprised this story kept getting views and reviews in the several months since my last update; has K managed to become more well-known?

Quick note: I haven't seen/heard of much of anything past the first season of K, and anything extra I do know has come from reading up on the wiki. (Of most relevance here is the Green.) If any events seem to occur in the wrong time or place, or with the wrong people, it's because this story is full of intersecting AU's and AR's….

That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

As always, ConCrit/Flames are requested, even if they're just to complain about how long it's been since I last submitted a chapter!