The transformation began with a whisper of wind that should not have existed in a place without atmosphere. It carried with it particles of something that looked like ash but felt like memory—gray and white flecks that spiraled through the void in patterns that suggested intelligence rather than chaos. Selena watched them gather, mesmerized, as they danced in the light of the nameless dawn.
"What is this?" she asked, though she suspected Dante had no more answers than she did.
He held up his shadow-threaded hand, letting the ash-like particles settle on his palm. They didn't fall through his incorporeal fingers but rested there, solid and somehow reverent, as if recognizing him. "I think it's us," he said softly. "The pieces we shed when we went through the Gate. The fire you became, the storm I embodied. They're still here, still part of what we created."
