Hour 30

Sasha feverishly succumbed to Sang-Wook's injection on the floor of his room, his body rapidly failing. He didn't have a revive and was on the verge of closing his eyes for the last time when he saw the picture he had been painting of Milana, knocked to the floor by Sang-Wook when he had fallen into his painting supplies. Though it couldn't undo the damage flowing through his veins, the portrait ignited something deep in his chest, it was a catalyst for his muscles to continue working beyond their limits, if but for a few more seconds. He used this feeble strength to buy a heal, and for a second thought he acted too late. As he took a breath thought to be his last, his body jolted. Milana's picture appeared much more clearly now, and he realized though he had been looking at her image it was the memory of her he had visualized. That's when he heard a commotion in the hallway, enough to force him back into reality. He took to his feet and approached his front door, still wide open from Sang-Wook's hasty retreat, to learn what was happening, he couldn't afford to be taken by surprise again. He witnessed the majority of Rico's exchange with Akachukwu, thinking about what his next move should be. He knew back from his phone call during the race that Rico was dangerous, so he considered jumping in and helping Akachukwu, but any opening he saw disappeared as fast as it presented itself. He decided to wait out the fight and attack the tired winner off guard but the confrontation with the man in the baseball cap changed things. The man lured Rico dangerously close to Sasha's door, and as he turned his back and bent down over the man's corpse, Sasha knew this might be his best chance at killing him. For an extra layer of distraction he took out his own phone and called Rico, and the second he heard the phone ring, he ran for him armed with his fancy carving knife.

Akachukwu watched in petrified awe as Rico moved his head out of the way of a knife strike from behind. Rico used the beefy man's own motion against him with a dexterous fluidity, flipping him on his stomach and locking the hand with the blade in an arm bar. Rico's right hand held Sasha's own right hand with the blade, and his left elbow dug Sasha's face into the floor while still maintaining a threatening aim at Akachukwu with the .357. Rico sighed, "Seriously, old man? THIS was your big plan?" Sasha couldn't understand him, but it didn't take a genius to realize he was being mocked. Rico arched his neck down and sniffed in an exaggerated pantomime, "What an awful tobacco stench, with a hint of some kinda... Cigar?" Rico shook his head like a disappointed father, "you must've been a heavy smoker for at least 20 or 30 years." Sasha still couldn't understand him, but once Rico started talking, he had a hard time stopping; it was a bad habit. He ridiculed him, "I could hear you before you even left your room; you've grown so accustomed to gasping for air that it's normal for you; you don't even think about it, but I can pick out your breathing easily." His head shook in disgust, "how could Emi deal with that awful sound during the race?" Then his eyes flashed with recognition, and he cackled, "That's right! She had her hearing taken for most of the race!" As Rico laughed heartily, Sasha tried to get up and redirected all of his strength into his free arm, but the leverage Rico imposed on him was too great. Feeling Sasha resist his dominance he punished him by splintering his locked arm in a swift and diligent portrayal of authority. As Sasha growled in pain, Rico inhaled passionately, the reverberation of his bones breaking tingling his nervous system with an ethereal satisfaction. This was bliss.

Predators killing prey was satisfying, but predators taking down predators...

That was true ecstasy.

Akachukwu wanted so desperately to make a move for Rico's gun, but at his distance, he knew it would be suicide. Rico confiscated the carving knife from Sasha's fingers that refused to release their grip even after this arm had been broken and brought it down through the back of his neck. Sasha was still trying to circumvent his broken arm, so as his throat caved in on itself and his breath was trapped in his lungs, he knew it was over. A potent combination of anger and regret tainted his old eyes; he had gambled away his only chance to see his daughter again; everything up until this point had been for nothing. As Rico extracted the knife with a maneuver meant to inflict maximum damage, blood pumped freely down Sasha's neck, and his life ended. 

He didn't get the chance to realize he hadn't died in vain. 

Rico, having finally been fully distracted, was beheaded from behind by an invisible Sang-Wook. Akachukwu jumped in abject terror; from his perspective, Rico's head had ejected from his body in a weak but consistent geyser of blood. As Rico's body fell sideways with the force of the swing, his head tumbled in a sickly mess of loose flesh and gore. Sang-Wook dug the machete blade into the floor to brace himself while he struggled to breathe. As he leaned on the blade he couldn't believe how tired he was, how heavy his limbs felt. Akachukwu tried to warn him, but Rico's headless body raised the .357, never fully letting it go even after being decapitated, and fired 3 rounds into the invisible Sang-Wook.

Rico didn't know how he had been killed, couldn't tell when his conciseness left him as he stared off to the side from his amputated head, but he knew the moment his conciseness returned to his body guided by his revive, similar to how one might not recognize the moment they drift to sleep but can determine the second they wake up. His head hadn't even been able to reform yet; it was pure muscle memory, but he raised his hand and shot at the location where he had been attacked. As Sang-Wook fell to the wall, Rico's body sat up as his neck pulsed, his skin rippling in an unnatural pattern causing all the blood on the floor to evaporate. His damaged spine projected itself out of his open neck, and a new skull began to piece together as brain matter and blood vessels expanded from within, causing his severed head on the floor to disappear in tandem with his new head's growth. Complex muscles and nerves stitched across his face before bubbling flesh sealed it all shut around teeth that formed a smile and eyelids that punctuated evil eyes. He looked to where he had instinctively shot, seeing the bleeding figure against the wall, and thought, "The invisible person, the one who took the elevator, how could I miss the elevator ding of his return?" That's when he realized, "Of course, he used change location." Sang-Wook had held his breath as he had approached Rico, so his chest had already been aching terribly when one of the bullets had passed through and collapsed a lung. He had initially thought of going for the kill with one of his syringes, but he was too afraid Rico would notice him getting close while trying to find a vein on his darker skin. The machete Margaux had bequeathed him in her dying moments seemed like the best option. The thought of Margaux, of all his patients and colleagues at Asan Medical Center empowered him beyond what he thought possible. As Sang-Wook tried to slash him again Rico saw his bloody figure decorated with bullet holes, one moving as if it was powered by sheer willpower. He easily evaded the strike and went for a liver shot, only his fist ended up slamming into his pancreas with a sinister irony, the invisibility obscuring his trajectory. As Sang-Wook gasped in pain, his lab coat fluttered and jettisoned his remaining syringes from his pocket. Some of Sang-Wook's blood had sprayed the hilt of the machete when he had been shot, allowing Rico to track its descent and reclaim it from his grasp. As he felt the familiar grip pull at his fingers, he said, "Shit... Is this my machete?" As Akachukwu tried to jump him from behind Rico was prepared, cleaving his blade down his entire body and causing him to fall forward in a powerless submission. Though Akachukwu had sacrificed himself, Rico realized too late that he had taken one of his throwing knives from the Peruvian man's body, probably when he was in the middle of reviving and couldn't notice, and jammed it into his stomach on his way down. Distracted by this, it gave Sang-Wook one more chance. He took out Margaux's hammer, the hammer she had given him for good luck, the hammer she had said she kept with her as protection on the streets. Rico was able to follow Sang-Wook's outline and comfortably dodge his hammer swing, gouging his machete into Sang-Wook's chest to keep him at a distance. Unpredictability, Sang-Wook pushed his body forward through the blade with a dying strength and bashed the hammer into Rico's hand holding the machete. Sang-Wook had used everything at this point, and as Rico twisted the blade in him, he fell backward, his invisibility disintegrating as he died. He thought he'd feel more anger or sadness, but he was surprised with how liberated he felt. He felt he had truly died fighting for a good cause. Rico looked over Sang-Wook's body, still impaled by the machete, as it, too, lost its invisibility, and he commented, "Ah man, it would've been cool if it stayed like that."

Emi could only watch in numb horror as she pressed passed the stairway door and saw Rico in front of 3 bodies marinating in sloppy splashes of dark red, including Sasha. She barely knew him; it wasn't like he was a friend, but after they had done their best to work together and he had saved her at the end of the race, seeing his corpse was gut-wrenching. It was quite different, but it hit similar emotional notes to when she lost Alex. Rico saw her and tried to wave, but his hand flopped with a disgusting instability. He examined his maimed hand, not realizing Sang-Wook's final strike had done such damage. He tried to move it and only barely flexed his shattered fingers, feeling the broken bones stab his flesh internally. He took his blade from Sang-Wook's chest with his left hand, tucked it under his armpit, and then swiveled his head to look back at her as he took out his own phone. She answered his call, and he asked, "Hello? Who is this?" She wasn't amused as she spat, "So, you killed all these people?" Rico looked offended as he answered, "So, how many people have you killed?" Then he looked at her gaze fixated on Sasha and remarked, "Oh, I see..." Then he smirked, "You should be thanking me." Emi could only look on in disgust as she asked, "What the hell do you mean?" Rico laughed, "If I didn't kill him, there's a good chance you would've had to, or he may have even killed you." As he took a step towards her, he stated philosophically, "I let your friendship remain pure; in the end, you didn't have to hurt each other." He looked at her with genuine calmness and said, "I think a thanks is in order." Emi hung up with an aggressive motion and Rico shrugged lazily. He knew he could end the game here; he had 14 points, so if he just picked up a phone from one of the 3 bodies around him, it would be over. They were all worthy in their own ways, but he didn't want to win like that, not right now, not when Emi was here. He could see she was prey, but a special type, one that could become a predator in the right circumstances. He could see she was on the verge of making it there, on the very precipice of what divided and defined all human beings. He wanted her phone, Her phone would be how he would celebrate his win. He took the machete in his nondominant left hand and spun it in 3 swift arcs as his walk turned into a sprint.

The final showdown had begun