Ghost's footsteps were quiet against the concrete floor as he made his way down the hallway. He passed the armory. The storage room. The common showers. Nothing.

When he reached her door, he noticed it was open—just a crack. Light spilled through the gap, cutting a thin line across the darkened hallway floor.

Then he heard the sound of water running.

He knocked once, a single sharp rap against the doorframe.

And stopped dead.

The bathroom was wrecked. Bright crimson—vivid, almost garish red—was splattered across the counter, the sink, the floor. Streaks of it painted the mirror in messy, careless arcs. Bottles of dye sat abandoned near the edge of the sink, their caps off, some of their contents pooled in small, sticky puddles on the tile.

And in the middle of it all stood Y/n.

Her hands were stained up to the wrists. There were smears across her forehead, along her cheekbones, even a streak near her jaw. Her hair, usually hidden beneath the mask she never removed, hung damp around her face, half-coated in the same vivid color she was working through the strands with practiced, steady motions.

She didn't hear him at first. Or if she did, she didn't react.

Ghost stared. For a long, heavy moment, neither of them moved. He had spent years fighting beside this woman. Watching her back. Trusting her with his life. And in all that time, he had never seen her face.

Four soldiers stood in the doorway of a dye-soaked bathroom, staring at a woman they had all unquestioningly accepted as someone who simply didn't do this kind of thing. And she stared right back at them, hair half-red, hands dripping, looking, for once, completely caught off guard.

<Narrator>For the first time in five years of working together, none of them knew what to say.</Narrator>