Matt had more than had his chance to back down. Instead, he'd pulled out the failure card, and had sounded entirely too much like the unwanted litany in Mello's own mind, the one telling him he was too late, not good enough to get out of here and win. He'd sworn to fight that with every stratagem he could devise, with every breath he had.

"You don't know that! You didn't see the end!" If Matt was going to try to use being dead against Mello, Mello was going to turn it right back on him. There was a strange exultation humming through him, adrenalin and rage with somewhere to go, for once.

"And no one calls me a failure," he gritted out, his hands clenching into fists. Not Matt, not some fucking part of his own mind he couldn't control. No one.

He went in low, aiming to headbutt Matt right in the solar plexus and knock the wind out of him before the bastard could use that crowbar.