THIRTY-EIGHT

La Paz, Bolivia, two years earlier

“I’ve got your hombres here, Sierra Rico,” the voice of the man hunting Sierra and his friends echoed out through the war-torn streets. “Well… what’s left of them anyway!”

Sierra moved forward through the flickering darkness. All around him, the streets were ablaze with small fires and there were countless looters, protestors, and cartel gunmen scrambling around all over the place.

The day had already been a long and bloody one. The cartel’s battle with the Bolivian Mountain Boys on their home turf was slowly drawing to a close; both warring factions had been reduced to a bare few on either side now as darkness fell. In the carnage that had already taken place, Sierra had already lost many of his colleagues, most of them falling by the hand of the Mountain Boys’ number one enforcer: the sadistic, African Guerrero known as Leon Sphinx.

Now Leon Sphinx stood there out in centre of the street, his gun held firmly to the head of Sierra Rico’s friend, Marco Suarez. He was using the big man as leverage to lure Sierra out of hiding. In his other hand he held the freshly severed head of one of their other colleagues.

“This last one’s still alive, Sierra, but he won’t be for long,” Leon called out. “You hear me, Sierra Rico? Come out and face me, or he dies too!”

Sierra’s mind was working overtime as he approached the Guerrero, desperately trying to think up a strategy to save his friend’s life; preferably one that didn’t involve him sacrificing himself.

“Ten seconds, Sierra,” Leon said. “If you don’t show your face by then, he’s dead! Ten… nine… eight… seven…”

“I’m here, Leon!” Sierra announced as he stepped out onto the street. “Hold your fire!”

“So, you actually came,” Leon grinned, throwing the severed head, rolling it right to Sierra’s feet. “I’m rather surprised, if not a little disappointed. Are you really that brave, Sierra, or are you just plain stupid?”

Sierra glanced down at the head, then back up. “Let him go, Leon! This is between us!”

The two Guerreros eyed off each other fiercely for a moment, then Leon shrugged and shoved Marco down to the asphalt, releasing him. At first Marco just lay there on the street, too shamed to even look up and meet Sierra’s eyes.

“Marco, go!” Sierra shouted to him. “Get the hell out of here! Now!”

Marco looked like a complete shell of a man as he rose to his feet. He turned and ran off down the street without looking back, tears flowing down his face.

“There. Satisfied now, Leon?” Sierra asked him.

“Very,” Leon smiled, holstering his weapon. One of his hands dangled by his gun, the other by the grip of his blade.

“So?” Sierra exhaled sharply, focussing his mind for battle. “What now?”

“Well,” Leon shrugged, “I’m not too big on speeches so—”

Both warriors drew their guns in a flash, their shots ringing out simultaneously through the night air.

...

Sierra Rico awoke suddenly gasping for breath, sweat pouring like a river down his face. It had just been old memories, returning to haunt his sleep. Jesus, he thought, when would they ever stop? When would his old life just leave him alone?

Sierra sat up in his bed and looked around, allowing his breathing to slow again. It was dark outside now, which meant he had been asleep for at least two hours. He wondered why none of his friends had returned to their bedrooms yet.

Wiping the sweat from his face, Sierra decided to get up and go looking for them. He walked over to the door, stepping out carefully into the dark hallway. Not a single light in the condo was turned on, so Sierra felt blindly along the wall for a light-switch. He found one and flicked it, but nothing happened. There was so electricity at all.

“Vincent?” he called out. “Marco? Kenji? Is anyone here?”

No response. Something was wrong.

Sierra checked his weapons on his belt and then carefully made his way down the hall. He came out into the living room. The centre of the room was illuminated by the silver glow of moonlight, which was flooding in through the condo’s large scenic windows, but the fringes of the room were all still shrouded in darkness.

Sierra froze where he was, sensing that he was not alone.

“Your senses have dulled, Sierra Rico,” came a croaky voice from somewhere in the dark. “Much like the steel of a neglected blade.”

The voice was familiar to Sierra; he had heard it only a minute or so earlier, inside of his dream. There was little doubt about it. It was the voice of his old adversary, Leon Sphinx.

“By the way, I hope you don’t mind,” Leon Sphinx said, “I let myself in and had a look around the place while you were all still out cold from the gas. I was tempted just to kill you right then and there. I even considered cutting up your friends into pieces and leaving them out for you to find when you woke up. But no, Sierra, that would have been far too easy, given all that you’ve put me through.”

Sierra focussed his eyes, zeroing in on the source of the voice, forcing his vision to adjust to the dark. That’s when he saw him; the bandage-clad figure was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the corner of the room. The man’s eyes seemed to burn through the wall of darkness like fires.

“Leon Sphinx,” Sierra breathed. “It’s been a while.”

Suddenly a red beam of light cut through the darkness around the Leon’s torso; a laser sight. Sierra flinched as the beam flashed across his chest, coming to a stop directly over his heart.

“Two years,” Leon said. “It may not seem like much, a mere moment in one’s lifetime. But it is an eternity for one to have to live like I have been forced to. I have hurt and I have suffered every waking second of every day.”

Sierra thought briefly about making a play for his gun.

“Think carefully before you make your next move, Sierra,” Leon said. “If you even think about drawing your piece, I’ll turn you into a corpse!” He leaned forward out of the shadows, revealing the laser-sighted SMG in his hands.

Sierra’s eyes started to twitch as memories of their last meeting came rushing through his head. He remembered how his heated brawl with Leon Sphinx, back on the war-torn streets of La Paz, had taken them inside a grocery store. There, Sierra had smashed Leon against a shelf of liquor, soaking him from head to toe with alcohol. After that, their blades had clashed and the sparks from the collision ignited Leon’s entire alcohol-drenched body in flames. Sierra had left Leon to a fiery fate. At the time he had been certain there was no way for Leon to have survived. It now appeared as though he was wrong.

Sierra’s mind brought him rushing back to his current predicament. “How did you find me here, Leon?”

Leon snorted. “Nobody can hide from Death forever, Sierra. Especially not one with as many enemies as you. Do you realise how many men want you dead, and how much money they’re willing to shell out to find you? It’s the type of insanity that only those who have crossed your path could ever come to understand.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” Sierra said grimly. “Why not just pull the trigger right now and be done with it?”

Leon shook his head. “Really? You think I’d let you off the hook that easily?! Oh no, you sent me to a place worse than hell, Sierra, and I have clawed my way back to watch you suffer!”

Sierra looked around the darkened room for a sign of his friends. “What have you done with the others?”

“Oh, don’t worry, they’re still alive, for now. But I hope we can soon remedy that, together.”

Despite the overwhelming feeling of dread inside his stomach, Sierra’s face remained neutral, giving nothing away to his foe. “The others have nothing to do with any of this. Let them go and we can settle this between ourselves?”

“No, you are not going to tell me what to do, Sierra-fucking-Rico!” Leon snarled, his hands shaking with rage. “And don’t you dare try playing the honour card with me. I’m not a warrior anymore. Not after what you put me through! For me, on vengeance remains! It is all I have left! After this is done, I have no wish to go on living!”

“Okay,” Sierra raised his hands in a half-hearted defensive gesture. “You’re right, Leon. You’re holding the gun, you call all the shots.”

“Good. I’m glad we’re finally in agreement about something.”

With one hand still holding his SMG, Leon reached down and picked up something off the floor beside him. It was a cigarette lighter. He flicked on the flame and lowered it to the floor, lighting up a trail of gasoline that he had no doubt made there earlier. The flames spread rapidly across the floorboards, forming two rings of fire around seven motionless figures in the centre of the room.

The four Kojimas were all inside the first ring of fire, and his three hombres were inside the second. All his friends were bound in rope and drenched in what was most likely gasoline, ready to be burned alive. They all appeared to be unconscious.

“Don’t try anything stupid, Sierra,” Leon Sphinx held up his lighter and feigned throwing it over at his gasoline-drenched captives. “One wrong move and I turn your friends into fucking candles.”

Sierra’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell do you want from me, bastardo?!”

“I want you to play a game with me, Sierra, that’s all.”

“And the rules of this game?”

“Do everything I fucking say! Now, on the floor to your right you will find a red jerry can. And just so you know, it is full of gasoline.”

Sierra glanced down and saw it.

“And to your left,” Leon continued, “you will find a cigarette lighter, just like my one here.” He waved the flame of his lighter around.

Sierra glanced down to his left. Sure enough, there the lighter was on the floor. It seemed Leon had planned all of this right down to the finest detail.

Sierra grunted. “What’s all this for? Are you going to ask me to perform a fucking magic trick?”

“Oh no, my game is much more simple than that,” Leon slowly stood up, his laser sight never so much as wavering in his steady hands. “Right now you have a choice to make. And before you get any bright ideas, there are only two options to choose from.”

Sierra said nothing, waiting for his foe to elaborate further.

“Option one:” Leon flashed him a grin, “you pick up that lighter and you burn all your friends alive, just like you did to me two years ago.”

Sierra looked down at the floor, shuddering at such a thought.

“Or option two:” Leon said, “you pour that gasoline can all over your body and then put the flame to yourself.”

“What kind of bullshit choice is that?!” Sierra frowned.

“A fair one. If you prove to me you’re prepared to repent for what you’ve done to me by sacrificing your own life, I will let your friends go. If not, I can assure you, every last one of them will die here tonight in considerable pain.”

“And what happens to me? Even if I were to choose option two, what then? You expect me to believe you will let me just walk out of here?”

“Assuming you can live with the guilt?” Leon shrugged. “Sure. Some things are worse death, Sierra. You will come to know this. It will be my parting gift to you. You will remember this day right up until your last, and you will know that I did this to you!”

Sierra’s eyes darted back and forth quickly between the gasoline can and the lighter, weighing up his options.

The lighter in Leon’s hand lit up brightly again. “Well, Sierra? What’s it going to be?”

Sierra said nothing. His mind was racing, but he was unable to formulate any decisive strategy.

“Well?!” Again Leon pushed for an answer. “I’m waiting, Sierra! Don’t make me count down.”

“Fuck you, Leon,” Sierra snarled. He remembered the choice he was forced to make as a child, out in the fields of San Lorenzo.

“Fine,” Leon smiled, drawing back his arm to throw his lighter. “I guess I’ll just have to choose for you!

Leon’s laser sight left Sierra’s heart for just a second, right at the moment he drew back his arm to throw. That was all the time Sierra needed. With his instincts taking complete control of his action, Sierra drew his Colt Peacemaker and blasted Leon Sphinx off his feet with two clean shots to the chest, right through his cold heart. The lighter flew out Leon’s hand and clattered away harmlessly across the floor.

The echo of the gunshot faded just as the lighter came to a stand-still.

And then there was only silence.

But Sierra’s victory was short-lived as Leon sat straight back up like some kind of undead zombie, seemingly unaffected by the bullets.

“Is that the best you’ve got, Sierra?! You think you can stop me with fucking bullets?!” Leon roared. “The pain of this nothing compared to what I’ve already lived through!” He sprang back to his feet, searching for Sierra’s face in his SMG’s sights.

Sierra took off running just as the Guerrero opened fire after him. He knew there was no sense in trading pot-shots with an automatic weapon. Right now he was severely outgunned by a man who apparently could not he stopped by bullets; running was the only strategy Sierra could think of to avoid being cut to pieces.

He ploughed straight out through the paper wall at the end of the room. Move it, Sierra, he screamed to his body as he jumped over the top of a bed, landing with a tumble on the other side just as Leon shredded the mattress to pieces with a raking burst of fire.

Close. Sierra rolled to his left as Leon’s next burst of bullets churned up the floorboards in front of his face. Closer! He got back up to his feet quickly and kept moving, crashing out through another paper wall with the Guerrero’s laser sight chasing after him relentlessly every step of the way — never tiring, never wavering. He knew he would need to think up a new strategy soon; he could not keep this pace up forever, and Leon didn’t seem to be slacking off any time soon.

Through another wall Sierra went, into the condo’s spa area, where the opposite walls were all made of solid wood. Shit! Without anything left to use as a shield from Leon’s bullets, Sierra raced straight up the furnished set of wooden stairs in front of him and dived inside the hot tub at the top. The gunfire ceased as soon as he disappeared from view.

Leon Sphinx carefully approached the hot tub, his smoking SMG raised. “Dumb move, Sierra!” He charged into the spa room after him and took aim at the side of the tub. “Try running away from this!”

He opened fire, his bullets pounding fist-sized holes all through the wooden tub. Even as his clip finally ran dry he still kept pulling the trigger, trying to will more bullets out of his spent weapon and prolong his enemy’s suffering.

Click! Click! Click!

Finally Leon’s moment of madness faded and he lowered his weapon, taking a breath to calm himself down again. It was done now. All that was left to do was confirm the kill.

Leon pulled out another clip from his coat, reloaded his weapon, and then he moved in to check for a body. He crept slowly up the wooden steps and peered down into bullet-riddled tub…

What the fuck?! There was no blood or body at all. Leon could not believe it. It appeared his foe had vanished. But then he looked down and noticed that a small crawl-space had been carved out through the far wall of the tub amongst the countless splinters and bullet holes. It was just big enough for a man to escape through…

“Alive or dead, it’s your choice,” Sierra growled, emerging out from behind Leon at the base of the hot tub stairs, his six-shooter raised. “Either way, your fun tonight is over!”

Leon did not even bother to turn around. “You expect me to surrender? Ha, I would rather die a thousand times over!”

“Once will be sufficient,” Sierra said coldly.

Leon spun around to shoot, but it was Sierra who fired first; the Guerrero jerked backwards violently as each of the three shots cannoned off his chest, pushing him back to the very edge of the hot tub. The SMG fell from Leon’s shaking grasp as he teetered there.

“Looks like you made your choice,” Sierra said.

“You actually think you’ve won?!” Leon shrieked. “You’re out of bullets, Sierra! And I… am just getting warmed up!” He took out his Colt Peacemaker, but as he did so Sierra drew his knife from his sheath and hurled it.

Leon smiled as he raised his weapon, finding his hated adversary trapped right there in his sights. But then, with a sudden jolt of pain, the smile dropped from his face as Sierra’s knife penetrated deep into the centre of his forehead.

“Sierra…” Leon gasped, his eyes rolling back into his head. He tried to say something else, but then his legs gave out and he collapsed back into the empty hot tub, landing with a thud.

…

Kenji Kojima awoke to a splitting headache, his mind a blur and his vision going in and out of focus. All around him he could see the ring of fire still burning brightly. Then he looked around and saw his six unconscious colleagues lying there motionless around him. It took him five full minutes just to realise that they were all tied up.

What the hell?

Suddenly a sharp odour assaulted Kenji’s nostrils and he gagged.

Shit! Kenji recognised the smell all too well. They were all drenched in gasoline, ready to be burned alive.

…

Sierra walked up the steps and peered down into the empty hot tub. Leon Sphinx was completely still at the bottom, the knife buried deep in his forehead. Taking a deep breath, Sierra jumped down and knelt beside Leon to retrieve his knife.

“Even though we were enemies, Leon, I hold no grudges,” Sierra whispered as the blade came free with one sharp twist.

It was then he looked down at Leon’s torso and noticed a thick plate of steel, which had now been exposed from underneath the fallen Guerrero’s bandages.

A realisation struck Sierra like a punch to the gut: Leon was wearing armour beneath his bandages, which was why he had not been affected by the bullets earlier.

By the time Sierra realised his foe was playing possum, Leon had already drawn his knife and taken a swipe at the side of his neck. Sierra lurched back just in time to avoid a fatal blow to the carotid artery, but the blade still nicked his flesh, blood spitting out from the wound.

“Sierra Rico!” Leon rose back up to his feet, lunging after his prey.

Sierra desperately tried to get away from him, but the Guerrero was quick and his space to move about within the confines of hot tub was tight. The Guerrero’s knife came straight for Sierra’s throat like the blade of a guillotine…

Clink! The sound of steel on steel echoed out as Sierra got his knife up just in time to block the attack, their blades locking up and grinding together between them.

“After I have killed you,” Leon whispered hatefully, “I’m going to barbeque your friends! Every last one of them! You can listen to their screams from the warm comfort of hell!”

Spurred on by Guerrero’s words, Sierra ploughed his free hand up into Leon’s face, his thumb driving deep into the eyeball and pushing the cornea back one full inch into the skull.

Leon screamed out and stumbled away, clutching frantically at the bloody remains of his eye. But then something strange happened as Leon glared back at Sierra; he started to laugh.

“Something funny, Guerrero?” Sierra hissed through his teeth.

“Funny? No, I’m just impressed, Sierra,” Leon said. “When Toma said that you had gone soft, I believed him; I assumed you would be a pushover. But the truth is, whether you realize it or not, you’re still just as ruthless as you were before. This could actually be interesting.”

“Toma?” Sierra’s eyes widened at the fiendish Guerrero’s mention. “Did Mickey Toma put you up to all this? Is that why you’re here in Panama, Leon?!”

“Mickey Toma is the least of your worries right now, Sierra,” Leon grinned. He ripped out the bloody remains of his now damaged eyeball, crushing it tightly in the palm of his hand until red goo dripped out from between his fingers. “He’s not here right now. I fucking am!”

“Very well,” Sierra’s muscles tensioned, his body bracing itself for battle again. “Shall we continue?”

“First, I want to show you something; a closely guarded secret of mine,” Leon said. “I didn’t even get a chance to let you see this the last time we fought.” He clicked a small button hidden on the shaft of his knife and suddenly his weapon was ignited by flames from the tip all the way to the hilt, burning brightly through the dark.

Sierra took a reflexive step backwards as the fire ignited and Leon seized the opening, lunging straight at him, pocking and prodding madly, looking for a quick kill. Sierra struggled desperately to hold Leon at bay, forced backwards by the Guerrero’s sudden flurry. It was no easy feat; his adversary’s blade, now masked by fire, was harder for his eyes to pick up in time and, with Leon’s renewed vigour, seemed to move with double the speed of before.

Finally the barrage became all too much for Sierra to contain and Leon cut right through his tired defences, slicing open the flesh along his right forearm.

Realising he was in serious trouble, Sierra’s instincts of self-preservation took over. He ducked under Leon’s next blow and ran, jumping and climbing up over the top of the hot tub, crashing awkwardly to the floor on the outside.

But even though he had escaped the confines of the hot tub, Sierra did not find any reprieve: Leon smashed straight out through the brittle wooden wall after him. He swung his blade right for the side of Sierra’s neck just as he was still struggling to find his feet.

Caught as he was, off-balance and off-guard, Sierra did all he could think to do in order to keep himself in the battle; he dropped his blade and caught Leon’s arm, stopping the blade just a fraction of an inch from his pulsing carotid artery. But although the move saved Sierra’s life, it left his face wide open, and Leon happily seized the opening with his fist, knocking lose several of his teeth.

Out of shape, out of breath and bleeding from the mouth Sierra collapsed back against the wall of the hot tub for support, struggling to stay on his feet.

“Feels like shit, doesn’t it, Sierra?” Leon Sphinx laughed as he circled around and moved in for another attack. “Knowing you are about to die!”

Sierra took a breath, his mind quickly assessing the dire reality of his situation. Okay, so his brains were still rattling around inside his skull, he was completely unarmed, and he was fresh out of ideas. Sure, technically things could have been much worse; he could have been missing both his arms and legs, or blind, or crippled. But honestly, Sierra had been through enough life or death battles to know when he was in trouble, and right now Leon had him up against the proverbial ropes and on the verge of a knockout.

“Die, Calavera!” Leon charged in, his blade coming down for the top of Sierra’s skull.

One moment Sierra saw the blurry flame of Leon’s blade approaching him and he was certain he was about to die; and just like as Leon had said, it felt like shit knowing the end was at hand. But then something happened to Sierra; time just seemed to freeze at once around him and his whole world was suddenly consumed by blinding flash of light.

For a second there was only silence, but from somewhere then, out in the vast realm of brightness that surrounded him, a voice called out to him. At first it was distorted, almost like a scream underwater, but then it became clearer, drawing closer, and suddenly he could understand the words being spoken.

“You’re stronger than that,” the voice screamed out to him. “Keep fighting, Sierra! Don’t you dare give up on yourself!”

It was Lana’s voice. Sierra didn’t know if it was real or imaginary, but he knew he had to listen. Whether he lived or died, he would keep on fighting until the end with everything he had. He owed Lana at least that much, dying in his place as she had.

Suddenly the bright light faded from Sierra’s eyes just as mysteriously as it had arrived. Without even realising it, he found himself diving forward across the slippery tile floor, sliding like a soccer player and tripping Leon Sphinx’s legs right out from under him. Leon fell hard on his butt, and while he was down Sierra quickly rolled across the floor and retrieved his knife.

“You lucky son of a bitch!” Leon growled in frustration. “More lives than a bag of cats, but you can’t keep cheating death forever!”

“We’ll see.” Sierra readied himself in a defensive stance, content to have stalled his enemy’s momentum.

Leon charged in again, but this time Sierra met his attack head-on, and parried the blow aside mid-stroke. With his free hand, Leon threw a wild punch in an effort to counter, but Sierra was waiting for it; he caught Leon by the arm, pulled him in close and then quickly jammed his knife through the Guerrero’s armpit, right where there was a small opening in his armour. The blow was hard and fast, the blade lodging itself deep inside of the Guerrero.

“Got you, Leon!” Sierra said through his teeth. But before he could pull his blade free for another strike, Leon suddenly sent him spilling to the floor with a powerful shoulder blow, which jarred Sierra’s mouth shut and nearly wiped his entire head off.

With his head still spinning from the blow, Sierra crawled away, taking his time to get back up. He knew he had some breathing space now with Leon panting wildly and bleeding out all over the place. He glared back at his foe, who was still just standing there and trying to plug the massive gushing leak under his armpit.

“Why continue, Leon?” Sierra asked him. “This is pointless now; you’ve already lost.”

“It’s not over! It will never be over! Only one of us is leaving here alive!” Leon wavered around on his feet, but still he refused to go down.

Sierra realised that his foe would not be giving up as long as there was a single ounce of life still left in his body. There was only one way for this to end now.

“If you’re so desperate to die tonight, then I will happily oblige you,” Sierra breathed, wiping away blood from his split lip.

“You think you’re in a position to talk tough?!” Leon slowly started walking towards him, Sierra’s knife still wedged deep in his armpit. “You’re unarmed now, and I’ve still got my blade. In Guerrero terms, you’re fucked, Sierra!”

Sierra could hardly believe it. The crispy-skinned Guerrero had taken more knocks than any man should’ve been able to endure, yet still his body was functioning at a level that enabled him to keep on fighting. It hardly seemed possible. Leon Sphinx brought new meaning to the idea of ‘mind over body’.

“For two years I have endured a pain greater than death,” Leon snarled at him. “There is nothing you can dish out now that even comes close to the anguish I’ve lived through!” His face was a mess of bloated veins and bursting blood-vessels as he rushed at Sierra again.

Sierra stepped inside his lunge, parrying the knife and then clobbering Leon right across the bridge of his nose with his forearm. He struck him once, then twice, shattering the nose and wiping him off his feet.

Leon’s entire face was a mask of crimson as he got back up, his nose left looking like little more than a hollowed-out skate ramp. He thrashed around blindly with his knife in an effort to keep Sierra at bay. Ducking under a wild swipe, Sierra took hold of Leon’s knife-arm with one hand and his throat with the other and then drove him backwards, slamming the back of his skull down hard against the tiles of the spa room floor; blood erupted from Leon’s mouth and spurted out from his ruptured eyeball on impact.

But still Leon would not stay down. He struggled back to his feet again, barely even able to keep his hands up to defend himself.

“Just stay down!” Sierra circled around behind and gripped Leon by the rough of his torn bandages. He launched him face-first into the brittle tile wall at the end of the room. The entire wall gave out on impact and Leon crashed straight through to the outside hallway in a rain of plaster.

Leon got back up to his knees, wavering there like a drunk who had just been tossed out of a strip club. He glared back through the hole in the wall at Sierra. Most of the bandages around his face had now been torn into bloody rags, and the armour plates that had been covering his chest and forehead had fallen to the floor. Leon’s natural face was now in plain view for Sierra to see, and it was like something out of a horror movie; it was covered in charred and peeling flesh, small patches of bone exposed all over it. It amazed Sierra that any man could have survived such devastating injuries.

“Come on, Calavera, we’re having so much fun, don’t stop now,” Leon barked, gagging on his own blood.

“Be with you in just a second.” Sierra picked up a jagged tile shard off the floor, brandishing it like a makeshift knife.

“Let’s fucking finish this!” Somehow Leon forced his body back up to a vertical base and he began walking towards Sierra on wobbly legs. He took a swing. Sierra nipped back and then stepped inside Leon’s initial strike, driving down his shard and skewering the Guerrero straight through his wrist. Then, reaching around his adversary’s body, Sierra jerked the knife out of Leon’s armpit and used it to stab him again in the back.

“Sierra!” Leon swung back with his elbow, but Sierra ducked right under it, pulled his knife out and backed away.

“You’re a fucking dead man!” Leon charged straight after him, looking to tackle his slippery adversary down to the floor and rip him apart, but Sierra dived out of the way and Leon’s miss-timed lunge sent him crashing straight through the thin paper wall at the end of the hallway.

“Fuck!” Leon pounded the floor in frustration, turning wood to splinters. By the time he found his feet again, he was already on the verge of self-destruction. The crazed expression on his face suggested what little composure he had left before was now gone completely.

The two warriors circled, sizing each other up one last time. They were now right back in the fire-lit living room of the condo where their fight had first started.

Finish it, Sierra said to himself. He knew he needed to end things quickly while he still had the advantage, and before his own fatigue entered the equation.

“You can hurt me, Calavera… but you can’t kill me!” Leon growled , reaching up and clutching at his gushing armpit. It appeared as though he was finally starting to realise just how serious his wounds were. A stream of blood trickled out from his lips, his legs shaking beneath him as they struggled to hold up the weight of his bulky, armour-coated body. “Nothing in this world can kill me, Sierra Rico!”

“I don’t need to kill you now, Leon,” Sierra hissed back at him. “You’re already beaten. Look at yourself. You can hardly even throw a punch.” He stopped circling, glancing down at the can of gasoline still lying there on the floor where Leon had left it earlier. He stepped over it, careful so as not to trip.

“Hey, Sierra!” a voice suddenly called out to him from across the room.

Leon and Sierra both turned, searching for the source.

It was Kenji Kojima. He was wide awake now, still tied up inside the circle of fire Leon had made.

“Finish that bastard, Sierra!” Kenji roared. “Do it! Kill him!”

A hint of smile returned to Leon Sphinx’s grotesque face as Sierra turned back to face him. “Well, Sierra…” he coughed, “if I can’t take your life tonight, I’ll at least now I’ll have the satisfaction of seeing you suffer!”

Sierra’s eyes widened in horror as soon as he realised what was going to happen; Leon was going to light Kenji and the others on fire.

Sierra started to move, reaching down, picking up the can of gasoline off the floor. He opened up the cap just as Leon drew back his arm to throw his flaming knife at Kenji.

Out across the room, Kenji saw what was happening and closed his eyes, bracing himself for the pain, hoping against hope that the Guerrero would miss his mark.

But then, just a fraction of a second before the blade left Leon’s hand, Sierra sprayed the gasoline all over the Guerrero. In one horrifying second, Leon was ignited by the fire on his own blade. He howled at the very the top of his lungs as the flames rapidly went to work consuming his body.

“I’m sorry, Leon,” Sierra whispered to his defeated foe. He turned away, unable to watch as the Guerrero’s fat and muscles were melted from his body like dripping hot plastic.

Leon, now coated completely in fire, stumbled straight past Sierra and over to the scenic window at the end of the condo. He collapsed there, his face pressing up against the glass, staring vacantly out at the surrounding city and the far-off darkness of the ocean on the horizon that he wished he could reach. Suddenly then the glass gave out to the heat of the fire and shattered, sending Leon falling outside and plummeting down through the cool night air.

There was a lone car parked down on the street below, and Leon’s burning body sped straight towards it like the lights of an incoming train. He landed on top of the roof and the force of the impact took his body crashing through the frail exterior frame, spraying the interior with blood and flames. A few seconds later the flames from his carcass spread, igniting the car’s ruptured fuel tank, and the whole vehicle exploded in a giant ball of fire.