You want to talk about old wounds, Tombstone? Fine. Let’s talk about them.

Because you’re right about one thing — we do share one. A wound carved deep, long before Ascension, long before Red Snow, long before I ever lifted a championship or learned how to stand on two feet without shaking.

You were the blade. I was the boy. And yes… the wound was real.

But here’s where you’re wrong, Tombstone. Dead wrong.

That wound didn’t stay open.

It scarred.

And scars — real scars — don’t belong to the ones who make them. They belong to the ones who survive them.

You don’t get to take ownership of my pain anymore. You don’t get to claim my past as your creation. You don’t get to parade around like you defined me.

Because if you defined me, Tombstone? Then I wouldn’t be here. You want to know what an old wound really means? It means I lived long enough for it to stop bleeding.

You kept trying to break me… and somehow, I kept standing. You tore me apart… and I stitched myself back together. You pushed me into hell… and I crawled out of it. You see the scar and think, “That is where I hurt him.”

But I look at the scar and think, “That is where I survived him.”

And that’s the difference between us.

You’re still defined by the wound you caused. I’m defined by the man I became after.

You talk about inevitability. About destiny. About how some stories always end the same.

But this isn’t your story anymore, Tombstone.

It’s mine.

You can stand there with your gravel voice and your cold philosophies and your obsession with death and say “old wounds reopen,” but the truth is… only if you never let them heal.

I did. Somehow, through all the pain, all the trauma, all the torment you put me through — I healed.

You didn’t. That’s why you’re still here trying to drag me backward into that darkness we came from. Because you never left it. You never learned anything beyond it.

But I did. I grew. I rose. I changed. I became OSW World Champion. I found people who cared. I found strength I didn’t know I had. I found myself. You’re fighting the same boy you hurt. I’m fighting the same monster that hurt him.

But the boy is gone. The scar is what’s left. And scars? They’re tougher than wounds. They’re tougher than blades. They’re tougher than anything you can throw at me.

A wound is weakness. A scar is proof.

At Ascension, you’ll look at me and expect to see the child you tormented — scared, shaking, bleeding. But you won’t. You’ll see the man that child became — strong, standing tall, unbroken.

You’ll see that I don’t fear the blade anymore. I don’t fear the ferryman. I don’t fear you.

You’ll see that every strike you ever gave me didn’t make me weaker… it made me ready.

And when that bell rings, you’re gonna learn something you’ve never understood: Wounds hurt. But scars win.

And Tombstone?

I’ve got a lot more scars than you do.