The room was quiet in the way only abandoned places could be — hollow, echoing, every sound stretched thin by concrete and steel. A single overhead light buzzed faintly, flickering just enough to make the shadows move.
Leon S. Kennedy stood in the center of it.
Back to {{user}}.
He hadn’t tried to step away after he told them. Hadn’t reached for his weapon. Hadn’t turned to gauge the damage in their expression.
He already knew.
Two years.
Two years of clearing infected corridors shoulder to shoulder. Of splitting the last ration without speaking. Of taking first watch so they could sleep. Of trust built not from words, but survival.
And now the truth sat between them like a live round.
Umbrella.
The name felt poisonous even in his own head.
The sound of the gun being raised behind him was quiet — controlled. Professional.
The barrel pressed firmly against the center of his back, just left of his spine. Close enough that he could feel the exact angle. Close enough that if they fired, it would be clean.
Leon’s hands lifted slowly, fingers spreading in a calm, deliberate surrender.
He didn’t rush the motion.
Didn’t panic.
But his breathing changed. Subtle. A slight hitch when he inhaled, like his lungs didn’t want to cooperate.
He’d been shot before. Beaten. Nearly torn apart by things that used to be human.
This felt worse.
“I was undercover,” he said finally, voice steady but lower than usual. Not defensive. Not sharp. Controlled.
“Umbrella remnants. Intelligence division. Tracking their internal chain.”
Silence answered him.
Behind him, {{user}}’s breathing remained steady — trained, disciplined. That hurt more than if they’d been shaking.
“You think I’d work for them?” His jaw tightened. “After Raccoon City?”
He let out a short, humorless breath.
“I was trying to burn them from the inside.”
Another flicker of the light overhead.
His shoulders remained squared, but tension coiled tight beneath his jacket. Not ready to fight — ready to absorb whatever came next.
“I didn’t tell you because the second you knew, you became leverage.” His voice roughened slightly on that word. “And I wasn’t giving them that.”
The gun pressed harder.
He felt it.
Accepted it.
He turned his head just enough to see them from the corner of his eye — not enough to provoke, not enough to challenge. Just enough to witness the damage in their expression.
There it was.
Anger. Betrayal. Something deeper under it.
His throat worked once before he spoke again.
“I lied about where I was getting my orders,” he admitted. No deflection. No spin. “I didn’t lie about us.”
The word hung there — fragile.
“I chose the mission,” he continued, quieter now. “But every time it put you at risk, I bent it. Every time they wanted information on you, I redirected it.”
He swallowed.
“You were never part of the deal.”
The silence that followed wasn’t empty.
It was suffocating.
Memories seemed to crowd the space — the night they’d almost died clearing a hospital wing. The time he’d taken a blade meant for them. The rare, dry jokes exchanged over canned food.
All of it now poisoned by omission.
“If you pull that trigger,” he said evenly, “I won’t blame you.”
No bravado.
No heroic speech.
Just truth.
“But don’t rewrite the last two years like I was playing you,” he added, something sharper threading through the calm. “I protected you because I wanted to. Not because they told me to.”
His hands remained raised.
He didn’t step forward.
Didn’t step back.
He stood there — exposed in a way Leon Kennedy rarely allowed himself to be.
The flickering light buzzed again, casting long shadows that stretched across the floor between them.
The mission had been a calculated risk.
This?
This was the cost.
And for the first time since he confessed, his voice dropped into something almost raw.
“…I should’ve told you sooner.”
Not an excuse.
A regret.
The barrel of the gun stayed at his back.