It was Iris, who had regained consciousness and was now sitting up against the boulders. Her voice was weak, but it was enough to make Bill pause.
"You don't have to do this," she said, her eyes locked on Bill's. "You've already won. Please don't hurt her, or else what will be the difference between you and her?"
Bill couldn't believe it. Iris had already fully recovered and was sitting upright. The patrol officer had told him that it would take around 1-2 hours for her to fully heal, but it had only been a couple of minutes.
When the patrol officer was about to leave after confirming that Iris would be alright, Bill knew that the leader wouldn't hesitate to strike them again. Just the sheer thought of her having no remorse or mercy towards Iris was making Bill sick in the stomach and making him very angry.
Bill couldn't understand how he was gaining an absurd amount of power but he knew it had something to do with his anger as the more angry he felt, the stronger he got. Bill decided to give in to his anger and tap into as much power as he could so that he could fight all three girls and teach them a lesson.
Once he had made sure, Iris was away from the area of combat, Bill's vision became cloudy as he could focus on nothing else other than the faces of three girls which were his opponents.
He still had his conscience intact while he fought them and was aware of every single move that he was making, but what he didn't feel at that moment was any kind of emotion toward his opponents other than hatred and anger.
'Why should people who don't give mercy to anyone receive mercy in return?' Bill thought as he fought all three girls.
It was only after hearing Iris' voice that Bill came back to his real senses and he began to hesitate as his consciousness became active and began to suppress his anger.
'I was just like her, wasn't I? I never gave pity to anyone and gladly walked over their injured bodies, and yet he...' Bill told himself as he began to rewind back to his past memories.
'He healed me, gave me a place to live when everyone rejected me, and forgave me for all I did...' Bill remembered about his and Mako's early situation.
'Iris is right! I need to be better than her, if I move with the sole purpose of enacting revenge then I am no better than her! I need to be more like Mako,' Bill thought as finally suppressed his anger and rejected the power which he had gained earlier.
All of this occurred in the span of only a few seconds, but in that short time, the leader was quick to realize that Iris' words had gotten through to him and he won't attack her. Using this great opportunity, the leader quickly summoned all of her wind aur and blasted it on the ground, propelling herself high up in the air and successfully fleeing the battle.
Bill had already made the decision to not attack her but before he could drop his club, the leader had already taken off and escaped, leaving her friends behind.
Bill couldn't believe how selfish she just abandoned the same friends that she was so passionate about getting revenge for after Bill had defeated them, but when it came to her own life, she chose to throw away all her morals and flee just to save her own skin.
A few patrolling officers quickly arrived on the scene as soon as the leader escaped. They must have been holding out because the cadet's injuries weren't so severe that they needed immediate medical attention and could have been potentially saved if the leader stuck around, but since she fled leaving no one to take care of them, the patrolling officers finally made their move and started moving the cadets off the island.
Bill quickly rushed toward Iris and helped her to her feet. Iris was quite weakened as it looked like her body had used a lot of energy in order to heal her wound. Bill couldn't let Iris walk in this condition and so he dropped down and told Iris to get on his back.
Iris denied the offer at first saying that she was alright and that she could walk fine, but her body said otherwise as she collapsed the moment she said those words.
Bill smiled at her with a knowing look and now that she had embarrassed herself, Iris quietly got on Bill's back and he began carrying her as he continued walking on the path leading up to the top of the mountain where their shelter was.
As they walked, Iris looked down at Bill and smiled weakly.
"Thank you," she said. "For protecting me and saving me from getting eliminated."
Bill smiled back at her, his anger now replaced with relief and gratitude.
"Anytime," he said. "I'll always be there to protect you."
*************
After moving a bit further up the path leading to their shelter, Bill suddenly saw a cloud of dust moving toward him from the front. It was moving fast and coming straight for him. Bill was already a bit tired from having expended a lot of energy and wasn't in his best shape but despite that, he quickly took a stance and got ready to face whatever was barreling towards him, human or beast.
The dust got bigger and bigger by the second and within a few seconds, the cloud was almost upon him. From the sound of the heavy footsteps, Bill determined it to be a human. The cloud was covering up the person who was creating it but as soon as the cloud got close to him, the sound of his feet grinding against the ground could be heard.
Whoever, it was, they had come to a complete stop just before them and now the smoke cloud was passing through them because of its continued momentum. Bill was ready for anything and observed the smoke carefully to see if he could spot the person through the smoke.
The person; however, didn't move from his spot whatsoever and allowed all the smoke to pass by so that Bill could have a clear vision of who had appeared in front of them.
"Mako?!" Bill exclaimed as he identified the person responsible for dashing towards them with a huge dust cloud behind him.
"What were you guys? Iris, why is there blood on your uniform? What happened?" Mako bombarded them with questions like a caring and strict mother who was questioning her kids who came home a bit late.
Bill was a bit surprised to see that Mako had run all the way back to make sure that they were okay since they had taken too long to reach the shelter and it was already evening.
Bill could understand Mako's worry especially since all of them were kidnapped a day prior during Mako's absence and so he quickly tried to calm him down and explain what had happened.
Mako listened intently, his expression turning serious as Bill recounted the battle with the group of five that had ambushed them asking for information in regards to Mako.
"Hmmm... I see, so they believed that they could follow to our shelter, and attack me since I was weakened after my duel. They underestimated us for sure." Mako said after listening to the whole story.
Mako explained to them that he was getting paranoid since they hadn't returned even after so much time had passed in which they could have easily made it back to the shelter and so he thought that something must be wrong. So that was why after he regained some of his energy he sprinted back down the mountain to try and look for them.
Bill and Iris both appreciated the concern Mako had but they reassured him that everything was fine and that they had handled it.
After seeing that they were both okay, Mako offered to walk with them so that they could all return to the shelter together which Bill and Iris appreciated.
While walking the three of them began talking about various things. Iris went into great detail as she shared with Mako how she took down her first opponent.
Mako was surprised to hear that Iris actually hadn't defeated anyone up to this point and that during the last battle, she had taken down her first real opponent.
It was quite embarrassing to tell which is why Iris had hidden this fact from everyone but now that she had finally defeated a person, she didn't feel as embarrassed and useless as before and opened up a bit about her life as an ability user and how she trained.
It was quite fascinating for Mako to hear but Bill's mind was still focused on something different. He kept thinking back to that insane rush of power he received when he had completely lost it and gave in to anger.
'What happened to me? What could've triggered such a boost in power?' Bill thought.
No matter how hard he thought he couldn't figure it out so for now he decided to just keep it to himself and seek some answers once they had passed the recruitment exam and entered military school.
The group walked at quite a fast pace as they reached the shelter just after sunset, but something was not right.
As they neared the building from the backside, they could hear the sound of fighting from the front of the shelter. Bill and Mako quickly realized that Erin and Leon might be under attack and dashed toward the shelter to find out what was going on.
