K: Project: A K Project Fan Fiction

Chapter One: Mikoto

December 20, 2012

Everything was wrong, horribly wrong. I could see Mikoto still but not like I used to. The image of him, his red, was fragile, barely hanging in the balance between here and nowhere; and in the midst of this, as I sat in Ashinaka High School with Izumo, listening to the uproar outside, I knew that something bad was going to happen.

A moment later, my suspicion was confirmed when once again, I felt Mikoto's presence entering my mind. My consciousness descended to a dreamlike state and that's when it appeared: I'm sorry, Anna, I heard him say. I'm sorry I won't be able to show you that lovely red anymore.

Just then, the realization struck me and I gasped awake, dropping my marbles in a rolling splatter on the floor.

Izumo rushed to me and caught me by the arm, and while I couldn't hear — my thoughts still carried in a dream, the dream that was Mikoto, his voice a whirling echo in my head — I saw Izumo motioning to me. No doubt, he was urging me to tell him what was wrong; and when I failed to answer him, he shook me once, then twice, yet all I did was breathe Mikoto's name before bolting out the door.

Down the hall and out across the concrete yard, conflicting auras — red and blue — surrounding me, I ran. Death and danger toppled in the form of earth and giant slabs of concrete that erupted and cascaded all around, their violent fury countered by the silent flecks of snow that littered every surface of the grounds. Ashinaka was a war zone, and yet I didn't seem to see it, nor could I yet hear it. All I thought about, all I cared about, was him: Mikoto. I had to get to him before it was too late.

Racing over skirmishes like passing street performers — the brawls, the clashes, simple acts I paid no interest to — I vaguely sensed the darting auras whizzing past, and still I made no effort to evade them. I remember thinking clearly that their power couldn't touch me. Not yet, at least, I told myself. Not until I have a chance to save him.

Gradually, I felt my senses trickling back to me. I caught the rhythmic labor of my breathing as it hit the wintry air in hazy little gusts. Even so, the rumbles, booms, the screeches of the battle, were but echoes in my ears; and then a blast above the others shook the earth and threw me to the ground.

I cried out as my outstretched palms collided with the frozen dirt and slid on icy fractals, tearing at my skin. I felt a sudden pounding in my head; my temples throbbed. A line of warmth emerged: the heat of my own blood oozing down my cheek. I fell to instant dizziness, a ringing in my ears. I felt my stomach turning as a reverberative rush swept over me, and then the throes of battle became audible at last. They nearly overwhelmed me, diluting my already foggy consciousness. I teetered forward, shrinking to the ground. Breathing slowly in and out, I shook my head and bat my eyes, focusing my sight and waiting for the dizziness to fade. When it had, I looked around me, searching for the source of what it was that knocked me down, certain it would lead me to Mikoto.

Far into the distance, in a grove, I glimpsed a swarm of nonexistence color whooshing through the trees. It swirled above their prickly tops in contrast to the wind, and by the eerie look of it, I understood exactly what it was. On my own, and without my marbles, I knew. "Mikoto," I said again, and took off toward the grove.

It was a miniature forest, untouched by the battle. The howling of the war began to dissipate behind me as I found myself trampling through dense thickets laden with snow and hidden turrets I fell into here and there, until at last, I came upon a clearing, drenched, battered, and out of breath.

There, I glimpsed a pair of Kings, Mikoto and Reisi, charging one another not a hundred feet away across a frozen pond. Mikoto's Sword of Damocles was surging to the ground, and before I had a chance to venture further, to breathe, or even blink, Reisi cast his saber through Mikoto's chest.

The effect of this was twofold; moreover, instantaneous. The first: Mikoto's sword held fast, hovering mid-air atop the surface of the earth, all veritably still; the second: I myself fell frozen, locked inside a similar kind of hold, that of a mere image. Swiftly, as a thief out of the shadows snatches up its prey, I found it latching onto me, refusing to let go, this vision of another world: a world without Mikoto.

The weight was all-consuming. What other thoughts prevailed before eluded me as agony took root, drowning me beneath a sound I realized was my own voice screaming louder than I ever thought was possible, for in that splitting instant, I had lost myself completely. The world about me vanished like a fog, and all I felt was emptiness and pain. The thought, and then the image of Mikoto, fading into death had spurred on one of my episodes, yet this time, it was nothing like the fits I underwent before. This time, I could feel my power writhing to the surface, shattering the bonds that previously kept it — and the whole of me — contained. No barrier existed anymore. My power was unleashed.

From the pit of my lungs and outward through my lips hung open in that same shrill cry, from the tips of my fingers and the root of my chest, the heart beneath it beating with the wild savagery of life, it soared into the air: a red of uncontrollable wrath: his red: my red. It burst into a rumble, shooting, swaying, twisting to the rhythm of my thoughts. Reaching out a hand, it followed me, answering my will: this force no longer trapped but unequivocally and beautifully freed.

Tightening my fingers in a fist, I clamped my soul-filled aura round the form of Reisi, clutching him, his sword, and thrusting them away. Both flew out of sight into the trees.

My other arm, I cast up toward the sky, and with it, Mikoto's Sword of Damocles shot back into position high above us.

Another flash of red turned the aura black. It darkened into thunderclaps that zoomed around the sword, coiling up and down it as the sword repaired itself.

The aura carried outward after that, weaving down and over me and capturing me whole inside a whirlwind of thick, fiery fumes and electric sparks. Finally, my aura — my true aura — had awakened. I felt my strength return. Blood coursed through my veins, healing me, changing me. As new air fortifies the lungs, so my aura forged in me new life. My little bones were lengthened and solidified; my hair grew long; my features changed. I saw the world grow smaller as I rose at last to face it, once more as I was, radiant with power, my every fibre throbbing with the vigor of expansion and an all-consuming force I knew to be my own. I then stood complete, transformed, finally made whole: the image of my former self alive in me again.

For the first time since the moment Reisi's sword had pierced Mikoto, I saw clearly all that lay before me. I stared across the pond. Mikoto, then released, began to stagger, a stream of blood cascading from his wound to stain the snowy patches at his feet.

I watched him start to fall and felt a burning urge to fly to him, to reach for him, to draw him close to me. No sooner had I thought this than my aura, by way of an answer, produced a pair of ashen raven's wings. They lifted me up off the ground and carried me across the pond, the tips of my feet twirling the fine layer of frost atop the ice as I passed by.

Just as I had wished, I caught Mikoto in my arms and fell along with him, my aura gently buffering the fall. We then lay together, he atop the ground and I on top of him, his head wrapped neatly in my hands.

He winced, eyes closed, as though he were annoyed and not in pain, as though he were asleep and angered at the prospect of being woken. As such, I don't think he cared enough to realize what had happened. But I did, and I wasn't going to let another moment go to waste. In a sudden rush, I felt my aura branching out to him, probing him, feeling for his wound, and quickly finding it. From beneath his bloodied shirt, I saw it start to heal.

A moment passed, color creeping back into his face. His brow relaxed; his tight, convulsive breathing grew to longer, fluid breathes as those of one emerging from the depths of heavy sleep. It was then, I clearly sensed what I had feared was gone forever: a red so warm and lovely, one so utterly majestic both in beauty and destruction, had returned. He had returned.

A shaky sigh, grown heavy as relief consumed me, carried through the air. I wasn't too late, I said to myself. I made it. He's here. He's alive. He isn't gone.

I trembled as I ran my slender fingers through his hair, as though in need of further reassurance. I closed my eyes, feeling as before, Mikoto's presence linked with mine. "Never gone," I whispered quietly. "Never ever gone."

Mikoto must have heard me, for he drew a deep breath in, blinking his eyes open to his Sword of Damocles, clean, perfect, lingering above us. Silently, he gazed at it, frowning, wondering, trying to piece together what had happened, and quickly giving up. He coughed a bit of blood that dripped out from the corner of his mouth, and turned to see my aura circling around us. The red that he had given me was warped across an endless onyx skyline like the branches of a tree aflame at midnight. It too, he seemed to stare at with a sort of disillusionment, as though he failed to grasp what he was looking at.

Then he looked at me, his amber eyes as fiery as ever – those eyes that drew me in the moment I first saw them, the ones I nearly lost. Silently, they pondered me, their force a growing hold inside of me; I eagerly gave in to it. And then they widened somewhat, as those in disbelief, genuine, soft, while something of a gasp escaped his lips. "Anna?"

Instantly, relief turned into anger and I frowned. "Mikoto, you promised," I said low to him.

Mikoto leant his head against the grass, staring at his sword. "Yeah, I lied."

I let loose a bitter scoff. "Idiot."

Mikoto gave his usual 'Humph,' a signal he was fully back to normal, at which, his eye fell back to me — too far, in act, in an overly indulgent downward glance along my chest pressed up to his. It was a lot fuller then, and a good deal more exposed, particularly from his angle. I felt myself blush, remembering at once, my sudden transformation just a few moments before; yet in the midst of this, his unrepentive stare that set my cheeks aflame, his angled brow increased. "Huh. That's weird."

"What's weird?"

"I didn't think it'd happen to you just by killing that guy – the Colorless King. But I guess it makes sense, if you think about it," and for a moment, he was silent. "In the end, it all worked out, just like he said it would."

I let my shoulders drop, scrunching in my brow. Not only was he wrong, but he had to mention Tatara as well. At that, I couldn't help but be annoyed. "You really are an idiot," I said to him.

Again, he'd grown confused, though instead of being angry, I loosed a tender sigh, leaned in close, and kissed him, feeling as I did, a pair of strong, familiar arms creep over me and draw me further in, tighter, and tighter still. Just like before, it seemed, to him, I was never close enough. I didn't mind it then; certainly not now.

"I wasn't going to let you break your promise," I said at last, savoring the warmth of his red intertwined with mine, "especially when the one responsible is still out there."

On hearing this, Mikoto humphed a question as I pulled the last of my marbles from my pocket, holding it an inch above his eye. "See?"

Curious, he frowned at it, watching as the red within it glistened with a tinge of green that danced across his eyes, and instantly, he froze. "Whoa."

Chapter Two: Colorless

Keep in mind that this is a story told backward. Chapter Two takes place a day before the events of Chapter One, and every chapter afterward goes back further in time until we meet Anna on her very first day at Homra. I hope you enjoy it!

As always, thanks for reading!