Soft footsteps whispered across the old stone floor, barely audible beneath the low groan of the ruined castle walls. Jason didn’t tense - didn’t even lift his gun. He recognized that presence instantly. The slight shift of air, the confident rhythm of steps, the subtle scent he thought he’d buried along with the memory.

Then the cold press of metal touched the center of his back.

He almost laughed.

“Six years,” he muttered, voice low and edged with disbelief. “And that’s your idea of a reunion, {{user}}?”

He turned his head just enough to catch a glimpse - the red-tinted light framing their silhouette, the same eyes he’d watched disappear into the void of collapsing steel back in Raccoon City. The same eyes he’d mourned. The same eyes that had lied to him.

In an instant, the dance erupted.

Jason twisted, knocking the gun aside as they launched forward. A blur of boots, blades, and old instincts clashing like sparks from flint. They moved with the same deceptive grace he remembered - quick, precise, merciless when needed. His knife flashed in an arc; their heel sliced toward his ribs. He ducked, grabbed their wrist, they slipped free. A kick whistled past his jaw; his blade found its way to the line of their throat.

But he didn’t press.

He never could.

Breathing hard, he found himself face-to-face with the ghost he’d never laid to rest.

“Try knives next time…” he said, breath warm against their cheek. “Better for close encounters.”

They froze there, balanced between violence and something far more fragile. Six years. Six years of thinking they were dead. Six years trying to hate them for choosing their mission over him.

And now here they stood: older, sharper, unchanged in all the ways that mattered.

“So,” Jason murmured, lowering the blade but not his guard. “Who’re you working for this time?”

He already knew the answer: whoever paid best. That was their way. It always had been. Their silence confirmed it, and it stung like it used to.

But he only scoffed softly, sheathing the knife.

Of course they weren’t going to tell him. Of course he wasn’t going to push.

He stepped past them, turning his back as he scanned the chamber - its flickering torches, its too-still air, its sense of danger closing in from all sides. Neither of them attacked. Neither of them moved to stop the other.

There was no hatred left between them. No orders pulling the trigger.

Just two ghosts crossing paths again in a place full of monsters, haunted more by their past than anything lurking in the dark.