⚜️ Saga 0: The Ash Years
Location: Remote Forest Camp outside Slovakia | Pre-dawn
Character Focus: Dante
The fire hadn't been lit.
Dante sat with his back against an old pine, boot planted on one bent knee, the other pressing flat against frozen dirt. The coals in front of him had long since gone cold, but he hadn't moved.
He wasn't blinking.
He was listening—but not with ears.
There were ripples curling through his anchor threads. Two at once.
One pulse—rooted, weighty with certainty, sharpened by jealousy and ferocity—was Wanda. Her chaos-glow brushed just beneath his skin lately, so close it kissed his breath when she slept too near. But tonight, it didn't ache with warmth. It bit back—a snapping tether that screamed in red:
'Don't leave me again.'
The other was like a breath too bright to belong in this world.
Jean.
Her signal crackled across the skin of his subconscious like sun through a cracked cathedral window. All fire and scream and ache. It was not instability—It was clarity born from sacrifice. A woman who had shed her shame and now cut reality in half to walk a single line toward him.
She wasn't flaring uncontrollably anymore.
She was choosing him—deliberately.
> [Sin System Status: Bond Error / Dual Ping Interruption]
> Wanda Maximoff — 54.6% Obsession
> Jean Grey — 6.1% → 8.7% Claim-Driven Flamepath
> Thread Convergence: Tension Class ❖ Waking
> Next Event: Ascendant Collision Inevitable
Dante exhaled slowly.
Most would flinch, hide or run from such obsessive love.
He didn't.
He could feel his own thread tremble—strained by two absolutes. One wild and rooted in fate. The other infinite, born in flame from a past he hadn't asked for but now remembered too well.
He wanted to retreat. To sever everything. That had always been the answer: sever the bond, walk away, let the world burn and whisper his name in hate or longing but *never in touch.*
But something... held him.
Not their need.
Not desire.
But clarity.
He chose this. Now, willingly.
For once, he didn't run.
Dante stood, joints crackling faintly, and opened his coat to let the wind bite deeper. Cold had never hushed him. And fire never scorched without his permission.
"They're both going to come," he muttered to himself. His voice didn't tremble. "And I won't turn away."
He drew Ruin Reaver from across his back—not for battle but for company. The blade hummed like it, too, remembered pain.
From the darkness beyond the clearing, he whispered:
"Wanda. Jean. If fate wants to test obsession..."
He turned his crimson eyes skyward—relaxed for the first time in years.
"...then it should know I've stopped running."
> [Sin System Bond Update]
> Primary Thread: Stabilizing Under Shared Pressure
> Dante's Emotional Status: Acceptance | Defiance | Prepared to Be Chosen
> Internal Limiter: Released (Stage Alpha)
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