⚜️ Saga 0: The Ash Years
📍 Location: Clone World Ruins – Dimensional Rift Nexus
🕯 Year: Late 2006
🎯 POV: Dante Sparda
🛡 Status: Emotional Overload Discharge | Bond Tension → Combat Translation
⚠ Sin System Sync Phase: Subconscious Compression Ventilation
The world cracked in layers beneath him.
Not broken.
Refusing to hold him.
The cracked black soil shimmered like memory trying to dissolve. Fat lightning arcs split the dimensional sky — a bubble-layer realities between death and dream.
A Rift World.
A place built only to self-destruct.
And Dante?
He walked through the chaos like silence deserved an edge.
His boots crushed old ash as he crossed the obsidian bridge of a realm long dead. Skies above hissed with rift radiation, veins pulsing where timelines used to twist. Every breath here was memory rot.
But he didn't care.
His knuckles flexed once over the hilt of Ruin Reaver — the soul-honed blade now humming from within.
[SIN SYSTEM: Emotional Vent Sequence Triggered]
❖ Dante Sparda – Soul Saturation: 54.2%
❖ Combat Override: Sanctioned Discharge of Accumulated Anchor Weight
➤ Wanda Maximoff: 89.1%
➤ Jean Grey: 62.5%
Emotional Tag: "Clearing Fire Between Names"
Combat Intent Registered: RESTORATION THROUGH DESTRUCTION
A smirk tugged at the edge of his mouth.
"Finally. A fight that won't ask me questions before I draw blood."
And the ground shivered in agreement.
A high shriek rolled across the craters as the first Demon Lord emerged.
Crowned in blades, hulking with forge-born skin and molten marrow bleeding from beneath rib-iron armor. A heretic Vashtra-class entity — former tyrant of ten thousand flesh-rivers.
Eyes like shattered star pits locked on Dante.
"You again," it spat. "The half-born revenant. Traitor of blood. Servant of your guilt."
Dante didn't blink.
He just laughed.
"Servant?" He stepped forward, coat flaring from psychic pressure.
"No. Just a guy who's sick of deciding who burns slower."
[SYSTEM BOOST LOG]
➤ Bloodline Charge: Human 46.1% / Demon 53.9%
➤ Trait Boost: "Confort Demon Rising" — Type: Defensive Catalytic Burst
➤ Anchor Field Repurposed: Emotional Residue Channeled
➤ Status MARKED: Uncloaked Fury Permissioned
He surged.
Boots cracking flame through the dirt, Ruin Reaver not drawn, but exploded into form mid-sprint — steel demonic edge leaving thunder-trails behind every flick.
The demon struck first — tail spike, right claw, heat blast.
Dante ducked under each, differently than before.
He wasn't measuring now.
He was relieving burden.
"One dream says I should've called Wanda's name."
Clang—crash—slice!
"Another says Jean's still waiting to be chosen."
He parried upward — steel to bone — twisting with a Confort blast infused with a spiraling echo Sigil.
"But in here?"
Ruin Reaver surged.
"I don't say either, demon."
[Sin System Special Activation: "Confort Demon Rising – Tier II Initiated"]
Effect: Energy-field suppression blast mixed with emotion-fused kinetic rip
Result: Enemy staggered | Rift structure destabilized | Personal sync increased
Synchronization Boost: +2.6% → 56.8%
Emotional Flow: "Wrath as Mercy / Memory as Blade"
The demon choked as the pulse shattered its right arm into exoplasmic mist. Dante's aura rang red-glow under shadowed skin, wings made of tapering ghostlight flicking behind him. Not physical. Not holy.
Just earned muscle made of myth.
He landed steady.
Built for ruin.
"What burns," Dante murmured, "ain't always the part that screams."
The demon staggered, hissed, lunged again—and Dante moved through the swing. No contact, just phase-slipping motion.
One heartbeat later, Ruin Reaver split the beast at the center.
[Enemy Class Eliminated — Post-Toxic Debris ASCENDING]
→ Environmental Seals Collapsing
→ Rift Instability Level: CRITICAL
Final Log: Anchor Pressure Dropped 6.2% | Emotional Saturation Wounded → Normalizing
He stood in the wreckage. Not triumphant.
Just… steady again.
And as the dimension began to collapse slowly around him, crumbling like old regret—
He whispered into the crackling silence:
"Lioré."
His own voice.
Softer than expected.
[System Note: Spoken Name Recognized | Dual Anchor Reaction Logged]
Wanda → +0.2% (Unconscious Resonance Detected)
Jean → +0.1% (Dream Thread Pulse Responded)
Thread Engraving Stored: "You spoke her name where the world had no names left."
And then—he walked through the exit gate like it owed him something.
Because maybe it did.
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