⚜️ Saga 0: The Ash Years
📍 Location: Devil May Cry, NYC
🕯️ Year: Spring 2007 (Post-Reflection Battle, Ch. 34-II)
🛡 Sin System Status: Emotional Drift / Anchor Deviation
⚠ Synchronization Degradation Triggered
"Not all grief begins with death.
Some of it begins when the version you loved survives... but doesn't come back whole."
—
The smell never left the hallway.
Burnt sigils. Scorch-cracked runes. Smoldered love.
The Hollow Thorn still stood—but it echoed now. Places where laughter once folded quietly through morning haze felt too loud. Too still.
And Dante?
Hadn't spoken much.
Not since the blade lit fully. Not since Oblivion Thorn grew from him like prophecy no one asked for.
—
Wanda noticed first.
The smallest things.
He moved perfectly now. Too perfectly.
No winces. No stretches. No curses under his breath when lifting crates or refitting ward locks.
Just smooth-motioned resolve.
It wasn't Stoicism.
It was something subtracted.
Like the softness had been evacuated to make room for containment.
As though peace had been replaced by control.
And Dante?
Was quieter than silence.
▫▫▫
That night, she found him on the upstairs ledge.
Shirtless. Muscles tight under firelight. Breath even, but not calm. Eyes tracking the ghost-path Oblivion Thorn had burned into midair—echo light curling in soft runes that shouldn't still be visible, but were.
The sword sat five feet away.
Angled. Clean. Waiting.
Like him.
Wanda approached barefoot.
No magic. Just her own fear.
"You didn't flinch," she whispered.
He didn't face her.
"Would flinching have made you feel better?"
Her mouth opened—then closed.
"No," she said, too quickly. "Maybe yes."
He blinked once.
She stepped closer. Pressed her palm softly to his back.
The skin pulsed. Not warm. Not cold.
Other.
"It's changed you."
Dante moved slightly, finally.
"It didn't change me, Wanda.
It was always me.
I just stopped pretending otherwise."
[Sin System Alert: Affectional Drift Detected]
❖ Wanda Maximoff Sync: 79.6% → 74.0%
❖ Condition: "Distorted Recognition"
Dante Emotion Core: Stabilized / Intimacy Friction Flag
⚠ Anchor Cohesion: FRAGILE
Wanda's hand didn't leave his skin.
But something inside her reeled.
"I didn't fall in love with fear," she murmured. "I found you when you were—"
"A man trying not to become what everybody said I already was," Dante finished for her. Eyes still forward.
She nodded.
Tears didn't fall—she wasn't fragile like that.
But she did press her forehead to his.
And it didn't become a kiss.
Not right away.
Just shared breath.
Proximity edged with ache.
Then—finally—she kissed him.
Not with magic.
Just her lips.
It tasted like smoke.
▫▫▫
He didn't reject her.
But he didn't pull her closer.
And when she left the room, padding gently down into the bar core again—
She wasn't sure if she'd just said goodbye.
▫▫▫
An hour later, after midnight, Wanda re-entered the room.
Dante had fallen asleep in the armchair by the carved oak bookcase.
Head tilted back. Exhale low.
The sword sat where it had before, gleaming subtly in blue-violet twilight.
Oblivion Thorn.
Not humming.
Purring.
Like it knew the room was watching.
Wanda approached.
She didn't speak.
Just reached.
Fingertips touched its spine.
—
It didn't reject her.
But it didn't know her either.
Not the way Dante once had.
Its energy slid through her skin like rain—not penetrating, not pushing away.
Indifferent.
[Sin System Record Log: Anchor Recognition Misfire]
➤ Wanda Maximoff → Sync: 74.0% → 71.2%
➤ Flag: "Soulweight Without Affectional Reinforcement"
➤ Bond Type: Dimmed | Thread Drift: Active
Rivalry: Dormant
System Status: Observation Mode
Wanda pulled back—suddenly.
Tears in her throat.
She hadn't expected connection—she hoped for belonging.
What she got was proof:
This wasn't meant for her.
At least—not anymore.
She looked back to Dante.
Sleeping.
Peaceful.
Even grateful, maybe.
But not dreaming of her.
Not the way he used to.
And somewhere deep in her spirit, where names like Lioré still lingered between future breaths—
She whispered into the dark:
"I stayed for the man who tried not to become this."
And Oblivion Thorn?
Despite everything—
Didn't glow.
▫▫▫
[System Update – CHAPTER 35 COMPLETE]
Wanda Maximoff: 71.2%
Dante Emotional Integration: 77.4%
Anchor Phase: Partial Dissociation
Emotional Status: "Familiar Stranger Pattern Set"
Intimacy Field: Rearranged (Unilateral Displacement)
⚠ Note: Anchor may persist...
But only if she meets this version of him without reaching for the one that died.
_______