Orochi, Gaia’s will, terrorized the east for a long time, until his plans were stopped by the three sacred treasures 1800 years ago. However the being known as Orochi is only one of many deities that are regarded as the world’s wills. In fact, some ancient scrolls even talk about as many as 10 wills or gods, each with a different power and each with dedicated followers. One of these beings was terrorizing Europe 1600 years before the events of the first KOF game. Those who follow this deity are known as “those form the distant land” . The deity and leader of this clan is called Saiki and he can control the flow of time. Unlike Orochi who tolerated human existence, Saiki has no need nor patience for humans, and wants them exterminated. Yet this cult’s destructive plan was challenged by a French noble family, the blanctorche, who made it their mission to protect the innocent and destroy those form the distant land. But as the war waged between the noble family and the evil clan, all of a sudden those from distant land along with their leader Saiki mysteriously vanished without a trace. The blanctorche continued to fight those who still follow the path of Saiki for generations and centuries to come.

Back to the present, it has been 2 years since NESTS destruction and a new King Of Fighters tournament has been announced. As usual many fighters and teams would receive an invitation. The organizer of the new King Of Fighters 2003 event is yet again shrouded in mystery.

One the fighters who received an invitation is a young eccentric looking young man with silver hair and green fire powers Known as Ash crimson. Ash would meet with two other fighters, Shen Woo and Duo lon, and asks them to join his team and enter the KOF2003. Shen woo was a famous street boxer form Shanghai who was nicknamed as the God of war within the triads for his sheer strength. He always wanted to participate in the famed kof tournament and accepts the offer. Duo Lon, on the other hand, is a hizoku clan member and also happen to be the son of the clan’s missing leader Ron. Duo Lon is hoping to find clues about his missing father who made an appearance in the previous tournament.

Chizuru Kagura, the guardian of the Orochi seal, has been getting visions of her deceased sister maki. Feeling something is not right, Chizuru request both Kyo and Iori to form the sacred treasures team and once again enter the new tournament, while both of them initially refused, they end up agreeing to enter the contest despite their rivalry.

The ikari warriors have also been invited, and while they do enter the contest, the trio along with heidern have been busy tracking a mysterious airship that has been crossing world borders unnoticed.

The King Of Fighters 2003 tournament has started, with both old and new fighters fighting to their hearts contents. This year’s tournament is no longer allowing the 4 teams system instead each team is now again made of three members. But a new mechanic called the quick shift has been introduced. This new rule allows characters to tag in and out at any time during the battle, switching fighters within the same round.

The new team made of Ash, Duo Lon and Shen woo made it to the finals. And to their surprise, the organizer behind this new tournament is none other than Chizuru kagura who was acting unlike herself. Chizuru uses her powers to transport the team to where the Orochi seal is located, she then uses the power of the Yata mirror to create a living illusion of her deceased sister Maki.

Not too far from the tournament venue, the Ikari warriors infiltrated the mysterious flying ship. Once inside they meet Rose and Adelheied, who reveal themselves to be the children of Rugal Bernstein. The reason behind them flying over the tournament venue using their sky fortress, called the sky noah, remained unclear. Adelheied, the eldest of the siblings takes on the ikari warriors, but loses. And unlike his father Adelheid showed honor and humility accepting his defeat, and will prove in the future to be an important ally to heidern and the heroes.

As for Chizuru and the newly created Maki, the two sisters were defeated by Ash and his team. Then suddenly, Chizuru loses consciousness and Maki disappears. A massive figure emerges: Mukai, along with another character, Botan, who seemed to have been controlling Chizuru like a puppet all along. Mukai reveals that he is a member of the Those form the distant land and their motive is to break the seal of orochi and awaken the evil deity, to feed the demon’s energy to their master.

Ash and his team take on Mukai and were able to get the upper hand in the battle. Yet Mukai, seemed unscathed. Laughing in the face of Ash and his team and promising them that this is only the beginning, Mukai retreats along with Botan. The hero team are then transported away from the seal. Shen woo, not caring about the whole ordeal decides to part way and hoping to team up again in the future. Duo Lon, senses the presence of Ron nearby leaves abruptly. Which leaves Ash crimson, who decides to go back to the orochi seal to achieve his mysterious plan.

At the Orochi seal, Kyo and iori were checking on the wounded Chizuru. Then all of a sudden Chizuru kagura is attacked from behind. It was Ash crimson, revealing his plan all along was to steal the sacred treasures for unknown reason, and he starts with Chizuru as he extracts the essence of the Yata mirror from the wounded guardian. Before Kyo and Iori could get to him, Ash disappears in the shadows leaving a number of unanswered questions. Now that Chizuru has lost her powers, the Orochi seal is once again broken.

Months would go by and as the seasons change, a new King Of Fighters tournament is announced. One of the new participants this year is Elizabeth Blanctorche. The last descendent of the blantorche noble family, which have been protecting Europe from those of the distant land for centuries. The reason for her involvement is that she heard about Ash Crimson’ latest troubles and wants to know the reason behind his actions. It turns out that Ash and Elisabeth grew up together in her family’s mansion. She took ash in when they were both young and considered him her younger brother and part of the family. As he grew up, Ash has also been taught the family ways and life long mission of fighting those from the distant land. Yet it all changed when an accidental fire burned down the family mansion killing most of the modern day blanctorche family members, leaving only Elisabeth with her adopted brother ash alive. But suddenly few months ago Ash disappeared without leaving a trace and would only surface at the previous kof2003 tournament.

Elizabeth joins Benimaru and Duo lon, who also want to know more about Ash and his hidden agenda.

And speaking of Ash, the mysterious fighter teams up with the Shanghai powerful street fighter Shen woo once more as well as the enigmatic Oswald. This middle aged slender poker playing fighter is betting all his odds to find a mysterious drug, known as the dragon pills, which  could save his life from an incurable disease.

Knowing that those from the distant land are probably involved in this year’s tournament, and still not understanding their final game, a broken Chizuru Kagura is unable to enter this new KOF. She requests shingo to ask Kyo and Iori to team up again in order to find the truth, the two arch enemies agree, and also accept to add Shingo to their team after the latter begged them to join.

The King Of Fighters XI is about to start, new fighters join the foray, and new teams are formed, like the new south town team of Terry, Kim and Duck King, or the anti kyokugen team with Eiji Kasumi and Malin.

After few fights and as the new hero team of Ash, Shen and Oswald were advancing in the tournament, the event venue was destroyed, and the Ash team found themselves in front of a new threat, Shion. Armed with a spear, the mystery fighter appears to be  a member of those form the distant land. It was revealed that he follows the orders of another member named Magaki.

The hero team takes on shion and is able to defeat him. Kneeling defeated, shion is surprised that after this long battle Orochi has yet to awake, then before finishing his sentence, suddenly a rift opens behind him, like a door breaking time and space as a hand grabs Shion sucking him into the void. It was Magaki who was unhappy with Shion’s performance. Stepping out from the dimensional rift, Magaki reveals that  he will sacrifice the hero team in order to awaken Orochi, whose energy will then be fed their own master. Magaki turns into his real form and a difficult battle begins.

While it seemed that Magaki is undefeatable, the combined might of Ash, Shen and Oswald was enough to win the fight. Magaki, still standing on his feet is surprised that Orochi has yet to awake. Realizing that their fight energy is not enough and that something else is missing to fully awake the deity, Magaki opens the dimensional rift once again but right before he steps in, a spear, Shion’s spear flies from the rift and goes through Magaki, killing him in the process. It seemed shion has betrayed his master.

Ash Crimson’s real mission is about to begin, but first he reveals to Oswald, that the crimelord who owns the medicine, the dragon pills, will only give it away if his number one enemy is defeated, and it so happens that his enemy is none other than Sehn woo. Having played both his teammates, ash leaves both Shen and Oswald as they fight each other to the death.

Not far from the destroyed venue, the energy released by the broken orochi seal awakens the riot of the blood within Iori. Suddenly the yasakani heir attacks both Shingo and Kyo unexpectedly. Ash crimson uses the opportunity and sneaks behind Iori attacking him and stealing the second scared treasure the Yasakani Jewel form within Iori. As Ash absorbs the Yasakani powers, Elizabeth along with Benimaru and Duo lon arrive at the scene, but were unable to see what is happening due to dust from the battle. The blanctorche last descendent asks Ash for answers. Showing his Yagami powers to them, Ash asks elizabeth to stop schooling him as he is no longer the person she once knew. Ash then promises that Kyo Kusanagi is his next target and uses the yata mirror energy to teleport away form the area. Tournament wise, the benimaru team was declared the winners of KOFXI as they were supposed to fight Ash’s team which disbanded before the official fight.

Those form the distant land are expected to make their next move soon, and what better opportunity than the announcement of a new KOF tournament, one unlike any other previous event in terms of scale. Fighters and teams around the world received their invitation signed with an R seal. The organizer of this latest event is Rose Bernstein, daughter of rugal bernsetein and sister to adelheid. Rose acting unlike herself made the preparations without even consulting her brother, which the latter found suspicious.

Kyo Kusanagi feeling humiliated form his defeat against Iori travelled the world to get ready for his next fight. During his travels, he was ambushed by two member of those from the distant land, Shroom and Rimelo, who tested his skills before handing him an invitation for the new event. Kyo would then team up with his old teammates, Benimaru and Goro daimon and form the Japan team once again.

Iori Yagami, now without his yasanaki powers is visited by two fighters whom he previously killed, Vice and Mature. The two hakkeshu are somehow looking alive, and are interested in stopping those for the distant land from siphoning the orochi power to their master. So they asked Iori to join them for this new KOf in order to help each other, as Iori is betting on finding Ash within KOf and killing him.

As for Elisabeth, she teams up with ash’s previous team mates, duo lon and Shen woo, both feeling tricked and used by ash, want to find him and know the reason for his betrayal.

Rose’s odd behavior prompted Adelheid to contact Heidern and explain the situation, the Ikari leader then tasks his mercenaries, Ralf, clark and Leona to investigate this new event, while he orders his fleet to be ready and in striking position from the tournament stadium.

Ash on the other hand has been working on his own agenda, joining those form the distant land to help them achieve their goal. Their leader Saiki and his followers are actually visitors from the ancient times, when they were pressured by the blanctorche family hundreds of years ago, Saiki using his power escaped from his era and into the current one. His plan is to get the Orochi power then go back and wipe the blanctorche and humanity with it. In order to do that, Saiki had one of his followers, botan, take control of Rose and have her organize the tournament.

KOFXIII began with the fighters battling out In a worldwide event with unprecedented scale. Simultaneously, Heidern’s special unit of Seth, Vanessa, blue mary and ramon were investigating the stadium and found an odd device  underneath the structure. As it turns out, this device was placed by those form the distant land to gather the energy from the fighters to  awake the still dormant orochi.

As the excitement of the tournament reached its climax, and Elisabeth’s team reaches the finals, Saiki used his power and stopped time. All the remaining members form those from the distant land appeared in the stadium, as well as a massive door emerged behind them. The door is Saiki’s way of travelling between eras, and uses both the syphoned energy  as well as time spheres to operate.  Mukai, feeling shame for his defeat in KOF2003 asked Saiki to let him have his revenge but Saiki, having no patience for failure kills Mukai and absorbs his energy, showing his true form. As the heroes battle Saiki, the time door starts closing, the demon realizes that Shroom and Rimelo have betrayed him and have removed  some of the time spheres needed to operate the door, as they realized that Saiki is planning to sacrifice their lives to achieve his goal. Ash , uses the opportunity and strikes Saiki from behind, absorbing his essence. But Saiki’s spirit was too strong and takes over Ash’s body. A final fight between a Saiki controlled Ash and the heroes including Elizabeth took place. While Saiki had the upper hand, Ash was able to take control of his body, and stopped saiki, who is revealed to be ash’s ancestor, from going through the door before it forever closes. With the time door now shut, Saiki no longer exists in the past. And since Ash is his descendant, he could not have existed either now that saiki has been erased. Elisabeth stood still and in shock, Ash, her childhood friend and adoptive brother reveals to her that this was his plan all along. It turns out Ash never abandoned the blantorche mission, and this was his way of taking things in his own hands and defeating those form the distant land, once and for all. Slowly Ash started fading away, as his existence is wiped out from reality and from everyone’s memory. No one seem to remember what exactly happened that day.

Both Iori and Kagura regained their powers back, Heidern and his fleet remember there was a space time disturbance but have no recollection of neither ash nor those from the distant land. Yet Elizabeth is the only one that remembers everything. She cannot help but lament the cost of it all, Ash crimson’s ultimate sacrifice.

The tales of Ash story has ended, but where a saga ends a new one shall begin. The King Of Fighters XIV marks the beginning of the Shunei saga,  which revolves around a new protagonist with unexplained powers. After training for years under the tutelage of the renowned master Tung Fu Rue, Shunei, his master Tung and his best friend Meitenkun enter the newly announced KOFXIV tournament hosted by the self declared champion Antonov. Many fighters return, like Kyo, Iori, K’ and more. while new ones make their debut. And as it became almost a custom, the finals of the tournament brought a new calamity, the being known as Verse  makes his entrance and destroys the event venue. Verse is the result of the same time anomaly caused by Ash’s sacrifice, and his destruction seemed to have resulted in the return of many fighters that were once gone. But how is Shunei connected to all of this, whatis  his true power, and why does he share this same energy with another mysterious girl Isla. All will be revealed in the story mode of the KING Of Fighters XV.