⚜️ Saga 0: The Ash Years
📍 Location: Devil May Cry – Reinforced Anchor Core (Residual Rift)
🕰 Time: 4:01 AM
🛡 Sin System Status: Soul Displacement Phase Resolved
⚠ Conflict Class: "Clone-Echo Fracture Terminated"
"Victory isn't always what survives.
Sometimes it's who still chooses you once the blood steam clears."
—
The Hollow Thorn's back wall was cracked — not by impact, but by story.
The kind of rupture that doesn't scream.
It remembers you wrong.
The clone had bled memories that weren't his — but mirrored too perfectly the rage and ruin Jean once kissed off Dante's mouth. The devotion Wanda once swore to his scars.
Now?
That copy lay eviscerated into rift-dust.
And Dante stood at the center.
Breathing. Still.
But burning brighter than ever before.
▫▫▫
[⚔ Sin System Data Uplink Complete]
– Clone-Echo B6: Terminated
– Entity Match Level: 93.4%
∎ Mirror-layer Evaporation: Confirmed
❖ Dante Anchor Integration: 77.4%
❖ Wanda Maximoff Sync: 79.6% (Restabilizing)
❖ Jean Grey Sync: 70.4% (Anchored by Witness Loop)
New Trait Logged: Sinbreaker: Sovereign of Dual-Forged Peace
Artifact Registered: Oblivion Thorn — [Bloodbound, Twin to Ruin Reaver]
Anchor State: Reintegration / Devotional Stabilization = ACTIVE
—
Dante's form pulsed under fractured firelight.
Wings slowly burned away — not destroyed, just folded outward into ash-pattern curls, like grace taught not endurance, but threshold.
His horns crumbled second. A small cascade of flaked memory. Burnt ego.
And then his fists unclenched — one still bloodied along the edge... the other holding Oblivion Thorn by its spine.
He didn't sheathe it.
Because he'd earned it.
▫▫▫
Wanda stepped forward first.
Ash flecks in her hair. Boots scuffed. Eyes wide with emotion but no accusation.
"You burned through half the leyline bindings I had under the floor," she murmured. "And every soul-thread I laid across this building shook."
Dante didn't flinch.
"You weren't supposed to see that," he said softly.
His voice was low. Not repentant. Real.
Wanda touched his fingers — didn't flinch.
"You weren't supposed to carry it alone."
▫▫▫
Jean didn't speak yet.
She stood just behind them.
Stared at Oblivion Thorn like it might still scream her name in her voice.
And when she did step forward, it wasn't to challenge—but to witness completion.
"There was a second," she whispered, "during the fight—when I couldn't tell which of you was still ours."
Dante looked up at her.
Not offended.
Not retreating.
Just solid.
"I could," he said. "Because I remembered who I bled to protect... and who stood beside me after I did."
Jean swallowed.
Then stepped closer.
[System Scan: Emotional Sync Resonance Detected]
Wanda → 79.6% → 82.1%
Jean → 70.4% → 72.3%
Dante Anchor Linked Threads: DUAL-RESTABLISHED
Rivalry Phase: Still Inactive
Emotional Status: "Shared Territory Stabilized"
Bonus Condition Met: Emotional Weapons Forged – Not Just Drawn
—
They didn't speak for a while.
Wanda pressed her forehead gently to his, silently recalibrating what she'd just witnessed with what she still believed.
Jean sat nearby on one of the bar's half-crushed chairs, watching the dust settle through broken neon and orange-glow jazz vinyl that hadn't stopped spinning.
Even Pietro didn't joke.
He watched from the warped stairwell, knuckles white on the frame.
Because whatever version of his brother-in-hope Dante had reclaimed out there?
It hadn't come back alone.
It had brought accountability.
▫▫▫
Eventually, Wanda handed Dante a mug.
Strong coffee. Extra cinnamon. No sugar.
Jean poured her own quietly, sat nearby.
Wanda leaned on one arm of the counter. Jean on the other.
And Dante, seated between them, sword propped to the side...
He finally said it:
"I only won…
because I remembered that somewhere in the hell of all versions—"
He paused.
"You two reminded me this version was still worth choosing."
▫▫▫
Wanda's hand found his shoulder.
Jean's brushed against the back of his neck.
No rivalry.
No claims.
Just devotion split by memory, stitched by presence.
▫▫▫
[⮐ Sin System Final Log – Combat Closure Logged]
Anchor Stabilization Rate:
➤ Wanda Maximoff: 82.1%
➤ Jean Grey: 72.3%
Dante Emotional Integration: 77.4%
Weapon State Confirmed:
– ⛧ Oblivion Thorn – Synchronized with Ruin Reaver
– Dual-Origin Blade Class: "Memory-Bound / Choice-Sustained"
Anchor Role: "Truth-Embedded Thread Holder"
Legacy Risk: Dormant
Final Note: "He isn't half-demon. Not anymore. He's wholly his meaning."
—
Outside, the world slept.
Inside, they held something heavier than closure:
A reason to keep fighting without giving up what made them human.
Tonight the devil had screamed.
And the man—the man they built with every stubborn moment of loyalty—
He smiled again.
Not because he had to prove who he was.
But because he remembered.
Who held him after.
_____