"Aww, what's wrong, honey? You should be strong enough to face the consequences if you are going to trample over someone's love life!" Erin taunted as she hit Haruto in the face with a baseball bat made of ice.
Haruto was completely worn out at this point as his left eye was so swollen, he couldn't even see through it. Some of his teeth were missing and he was oozing out blood from several spots on his face. His body was also very badly beaten as his military uniform was torn from multiple places and he had many cuts and bruises on his body all over.
Erin made sure that she controlled each and every attack that she landed on Haruto such that it would cause the maximum amount of pain and suffering, but won't be enough to knock him unconscious or have the patrolling officer stop the fight midway, because her attack could potentially kill him.
Haruto had angered the wrong girl as she was ruthless as can be. He wanted to ask for forgiveness and apologize, but Erin didn't even let him speak as the beating just kept on coming. He had only been able to dodge and avoid some of Erin's direct attacks by shapeshifting into different creatures of various sizes, but it wouldn't help him as the next attack would come before he could have the chance to transform again.
On the other side, Natasha was also in a similar condition, but she was still better than Haruto as the only one that was dealing damage to her was Iris.
At the start of the fight, Erin had said that she wanted to fight Haruto alone so that left Bill, Leon, and Iris to deal with Natasha. At first, all three of them rushed forward and tried to attack Natasha because they thought that she must also be strong like her partners but Natasha used her speed ability to run away as much as she could, but it was futile against Leon who much much faster than her and cut her off every time she tried to make an escape.
After a couple of exchanges, both boys realized that the only thing special about this girl was her ability which she couldn't properly use since all three of them were attacking at the same time making it quite difficult for her to focus on one target.
Natasha's ability didn't just have the skill to put people in a dream-like state but it had many more useful skills such as creating illusions and manipulating the brain all based around fear, but these skills were completely dependent on the emotions of the user and the opponent.
Right now, Natasha was the one who was afraid as their friend had defeated the strongest person that she knew, and it also happened to be her boyfriend. All the emotion-based abilities were nerfed in this manner as they were fueled by the emotions of either the user or the opponent.
For example, the fear ability is at its true peak when the user is fearless while the opponent is shivering with fear. This was why the illusions were so strong on Mako because Natasha herself loved heights while Mako was afraid of them which acted as catalysts to boost the already immense effects of the Fear ability.
Since Natasha was the one scared, her illusions were weak and could be easily broken through, and if she successfully put one of them in the dream-like state, a simple shake from their teammate was enough to break the effect and bring them back to reality.
Once the boys affirmed this, they agreed by just staring at each other from a distance and nodding alone that if they were to fight her, she would be defeated too easily and they didn't want that as they wanted her to suffer for all the horrible things she made them relive. So, they decided to only let Iris attack as she was the weakest out of the three of them while they supported her from behind and stopped Natasha from potentially harming Iris.
Iris felt like she was fighting a living punching bag as all she had to do was keep attacking and the boys made sure that she wasn't able to run or counterattack in any way.
The only reason why Haruto and Natasha were holding on for so long and taking more punishment was that they were looking for absolutely any way to get out of their current situation without being eliminated.
They couldn't afford to be eliminated and removed from the island because it would mean that they would have to return back home... back to HIM. Mikhail, Natasha, and Haruto were all sent by El-Diablo with a mission that they obviously failed at this point.
Nobody had the guts to face El Diablo after failing a mission that they were assigned, especially one that was assigned to them by him directly. Bill was quite a low-ranked member and he had not disappointed El-Diablo enough to receive a real punishment by him so he ended up being let off the hook easily by only receiving life imprisonment in one of those prison warehouses.
They knew that they had to do absolutely everything to not get eliminated here so that they go on to survive the test. They had done decently in the test so far and were confident that if they were not eliminated, they could achieve the special class and go directly to the military school without having to face El Diablo.
However, Mako had other plans.
[Sprint has been activated]
Mako displayed a new level of speed that shocked literally everyone present including his friends and the hidden patrolling officers as well as the officials who were watching from the military headquarters.
Mako hadn't used this level of speed before, not even against Mikhail, but somehow after defeating him, he could now move a lot faster.
Mako quickly interrupted both fights as he quickly placed a light punch on both Natasha and Haruto's faces knocking them both toward the same tree behind them which they crashed into as a result of the punch.
All of his friends were so confused as they had never seen Mako move this fast, but more than that they were angry as Mako interrupted their fight out of nowhere which he didn't have the right to do.
"What do you think you are doing!" Erin exclaimed as she was the first one to approach Mako who was standing ten feet away from the tree looking at both Natasha and Haruto laying against the tree.
Mako turned around and for a split second he noticed Erin's eyes glow white but just as he completely turned around her eyes were back to normal. Mako was sure that he saw her eyes glow, but Erin did let Mako focus on that detail as she grabbed his shirt and started shaking him asking for an explanation.
Mako chalked up his observation to him probably imagining things or else he would have observed a change in Erin as her eyes changed color but there was nothing.
The rest of the gang were close behind as were equally upset at Mako for interrupting their fight and wanted an explanation so Mako did just that.
"Listen, the only reason why I stopped you guys was that I think you guys have gone a bit too far with the beating. Guys come on, just look at them. They are almost half dead and if we continue beating them until the patrolling officers stop us then what's the difference between us and them?" Mako explained.
"WHAT!? DO YOU KNOW WHAT HE DID TO ME!? I STILL HAVEN'T GOTTEN MY REVENGE FOR WHAT HE DID TO ME!" Ein shouted with rage as she pointed at the barely conscious Haruto.
"I understand your concern, Erin. Trust me, I know how you feel. I know he has hurt you a lot and you deserve to get your revenge but this is not the right way. If you do it like this then you are just as cold-hearted and ruthless as he is. Just hear me out for a bit." Mako said trying to calm Erin down and try reason with her.
Mako was the most sensible and smart person Erin had ever met. He was the only reason she was still not eliminated, and whenever he made a move that looked odd or wrong, there would always be a reason behind it and he would be right. So if it was anyone else, Erin would not have listened and would continue to beat up Haruto, but since it was Mako, she calmed down and listened to what he wanted to say.
Seeing Erin calm down, enticed the rest of the gang to calm down too and Mako began explaining his thought process,
"Don't get me wrong, I want revenge against these people just as much as you do, but doing it this way will not only get our hands dirty and we should only do that if absolutely necessary but it will also delay our REAL revenge," Mako said.
"What?! Real revenge?" The group questioned in unison to which Mako smirked.
"Yes. We are not going to be the ones taking our revenge because someone else can do it a whole lot better than us." Mako said.
All four of them were visibly confused but they let Mako finish what he was trying to say.
"During my fight against Mikhail, He told me that he was personally sent by El-Diablo... and that it was their task to eliminate me," Mako added.
Erin and Iris were still confused as they didn't know what Mako was talking about but Leon and especially Bill had a completely changed looked on their faces. The girls noticed the boy's reaction to Mako's statement and were intrigued to learn just what it was that could take their revenge better than them and Bill was the one to respond to them.
"They are going to learn about why the people who work for him call his personal assignments the Curse of El Diablo," Bill stated while having a visibly shaking body and eyes that were actually showing empathy toward Natasha and Haruto as he remembered back when he went through the same thing.
