**Saga 0: The Ash Years**
🗓️ Location: Outskirts of Eastern Europe | Nightfall, 2006
The snow hissed, steaming under pulses of unseen force.
From the far side of the ruined cathedral, something 'inhuman' approached—the crunch of booted feet echoing too rhythmically, too weighted. The figure was wrapped in obsidian-colored armor, sections of it pulsing faintly blue. Null sigils crawled across the breastplate like malware written in divine scrawl.
And it hummed not like machinery but like a wound in the fabric of reality trying to stitch itself closed.
> *Anti-magic field. High compression, low frequency. Portable soul-dead zone.*
Dante felt it even before the figure stepped into full view—like static crawling under his skin, the ever-present voice of the Sin System flickering in his head like a half-broken radio.
Behind him, Pietro gritted his teeth. "That's not tech. That's… something else. I think it just slowed time around my lungs."
Dante muttered, "Void harmonics. Reality scrapers."
Another pulse spat across the air, and he felt it *dampen everything*—the connection to the Sin System dimming, his internal reservoir of stored chaos muffled like someone dialing down a god's volume knob. Even *Ruin Reaver* in his hand seemed heavier, the hellblade's usual weightless hunger dulled.
He holstered **Redshift**, its magic temporarily dulled, and rolled one shoulder. The sound of metal joints from their enemy hit like a countdown.
**No magic. No system edge. Just steel, bone, and violence.**
Perfect.
The armored figure blitzed forward with surprising speed, exosuit-enhanced strength propelling it across the field in powerful, bounding strides.
Dante met him head-on.
The first punch came wild—fast and brutal—aimed at Pablo's center line. But Dante stepped in deep, slipping under and past the strike, letting the punch whistle past his temple as he twisted his waist and drove an elbow into the side of the armor's faceplate. It echoed like iron cracking slate.
He immediately swept low. His boot slid across ice-packed stone as he twisted, letting **Ruin Reaver** snap upward in a brutal, rising arc at the figure's inner thigh. Sparks sang from the impact point.
The blade *bit*, not deep—but for a moment, the suit's momentum faltered.
The enemy grabbed for him, massive black gauntlet aiming to crush Dante's collarbone.
He ducked—not back, but forward, inside the blow. *Too close for the suit to track.* His left hand hooked upward, fingers clawing into a loosened neck plate seam, dragging the enemy's balance forward. Using the weight and gravity, Dante threw his knee hard into the visor —glass fractured like a spiderwebbing.
He shoved off and backflipped out of close range, landing low to the ground in a crouch.
Snow exploded with the shockwave of another null-burst.
Gritting his teeth against the static lancing his senses, Dante circled right, testing footwork and drawing the enemy away from Wanda and Pietro. Then he flicked **Ruin Reaver's edge downward** and dragged the blade along the ground—heatless flame whispering from the trail.
An old hunter's bait: "Bloodline Calling".
The enemy charged again, this time feinting left—it slammed its shoulder forward, hitting Dante mid-spin. He used the forward momentum to roll across the snow, twisting in air to land hard but upright.
The system flickered to partial strength—just enough.
> [Wrath Sync: 12% Restored — Physical Boost Small]
> *Combat Thread: Locked Inertia Deflection Technique — Available*
Dante surged.
He darted in again with a precise blur holding his blade in reversed. He struck into his knee joint, forced the enemy down to one leg. Momentum flipped, and he pivoted the hilt of Ruin Reaver up into the exposed throat seam.
'A sickening crunch'.
The suit stuttered. The generator squealed.
Now he drew **Redshift**, slipping it from under his coat with reverent speed. He cocked the hammer back with his thumb, one breath, one shot.
The bullet—loaded with a shadow-seal round pierced the mask. It didn't just break plastic. It 'suppressed time', frosting the impact moment inside the helmet like trauma stuck in molasses.
The figure collapsed, twitching. The null hum began grinding to a halt.
Dante stepped close. Pressed **Ruin Reaver's** tip against the chest cavity as it flickered, gurgling.
"Don't get up," he said in a low and absolute voice.
A final pulse pushed outward— reflex as it knocked Dante off his feet.
But the enemy's core shattered.
Silent and Still.
The null-zone peeled away like static burned off old film, and reality rushed back in—not with noise, but sensation.
> [Sin System: Partial Boost Reactivation]
> **Sin Integration: 23.2%**
> Status: *Tactical Wrath Rewarded*
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Breathing slightly heavier than usual, Dante straightened. He didn't glow. He didn't smirk.
But something behind his eyes flickered—*controlled victory*, not satisfaction.
Pietro stared with open wariness and muted awe.
"You're fast," he muttered. "Not me-fast, but… 'efficient' Like a surgeon with a sword."
"No," Dante murmured, holstering Redshift slowly. "Like a gravekeeper. Swords are just better than sermons."
Dante turned to Wanda, his eyes scanning her face—not for wounds, but for what was shifting behind her gaze. He'd felt the flicker earlier, the raw spike of *her will* breaking through the null-zone.
It hadn't been an accident.
She wasn't fragile.
She was waking.
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