No Mercy

War is Not Over

Dressed in his black gi, the King Cobra stood there, outside the door, and stared down at the two teenagers on the curb, crossing his arms ominously. His eyes locked in on the bruises and cuts on the students' faces, assessing the situation quickly.

"Was there a fight?" he asked. No starting things off with where he had been since Sensei Lawrence kicked him out, or how or why he was even back at Cobra Kai. There was no time for that at the moment. All of that could wait.

Nodding, Hawk stood up and addressed him. "Y-Yes, Sensei. We fought Miyagi-Do at school, all of us. They w-wo...W-We los... we didn't w-...." He couldn't bring himself to form the words to admit that all of the students of Cobra Kai had been defeated by their counterparts from Miyagi-Do. Not a single one of them had come out the winner, the battle had been an utter massacre. He couldn't confess that to Sensei Kreese, not with the way he was looking at him. "Miguel's hurt, Sensei," he said instead. "He hurt's real bad."

Sensei Kreese's face pinched the slightest at hearing that news. "How did it happen?"

Hawk... Eli couldn't keep from crying as he explained, "He was fighting R-Robby Keene. Miguel had him pinned, he had the fight in the bag. B-But when he let him go, Robby attacked him, he kicked Miguel off the rails, over the stairs. Miguel hit his b-back. He's really bad, Sensei. We don't know whether or not he's going to make it, nobody will tell us."

Processing this information, Sensei Kreese nodded solemnly. Hawk admired his ability to hold himself together, to keep so composed, because he himself was currently failing miserably at it. His instructor's brows creased tighter, however, when he asked, "Why did he let Keene go?"

Hawk looked over his shoulder down at Tory, hoping maybe she would take over. But the girl was almost mute by this point, still curled into herself, trying to control how hard her sobs wracked her chest as she wept. Having no other choice, Hawk turned back to Sensei Kreese and told him the truth.

"Miguel...He...He wanted to show mercy to Robby."
He snapped his eyes shut at saying this, clenching his teeth at the memory, and his cheeks were so heated as tears dripped down his chin.

Sensei Kreese took a step closer to Hawk and glared down at him with his gruff features, thick eyebrows furrowed harshly at the bridge of his nose; his student could feel him, the sheer force of his presence, he could hear his steady breathing. The King Cobra studied Hawk's face for a long moment before asking in a low, hostile timbre, "Are those tears?"

Eli's cheeks heated even more, this time from shame. Opening his eyes, he raised a shaky hand and wiped the offending tears from them with the heel of his palm. "I'm sorry, Sensei," he apologized, and tried to force his bottom lip to stop trembling.

Seeing the boy struggling to pull himself together, Sensei Kreese told him, "The moment those tears leave your eyes, you lose." He sounded almost like his father but much calmer. "And you're not a loser, are you?"

Hawk sniffed hard, taking a couple deep breaths, swallowing his upset feelings back down his throat, like a snake would swallow its food whole. "No, Sensei," he answered, jutting his quivering chin out in defiance, earning him a hard smile from the King Cobra.

From where she was sitting, Tory also took the opportunity to start wiping the tears from her eyes, steeling her resolve so she wouldn't disappoint their teacher, either.

Sensei Kreese reached out a calloused hand and put it on Hawk's shoulder; the boy tensed, but did not remove it. "It pains me to hear what happened to Diaz," said the old man. "His loyalty to Sensei Lawrence's teachings was admirable. It's such a shame he'd be the one hurt most by Sensei Lawrence's change of heart about what Cobra Kai stands for, what it has always stood for."

Hawk's heart thumped harder in his chest. He didn't even notice Tory standing up and walking over beside him. "Sensei?" he could only breathe out.

"Sensei Lawrence has been confused, and I've allowed him to mislead you kids for too long; out of my fondness for him, I admit," said Sensei Kreese, crossing his arms again. "But I'm sure he never meant for any of you to get seriously hurt because of his erroneous instructions. It was just...negligence on his part that he taught you weakness."

The truth of what he said weighed heavily on Hawk, turning his insides cold. An angry scowl darkened his face. Inside him, the rage churned. Sensei Kreese was right. This was Sensei Lawrence's fault. Miguel had beaten Robby at the All-Valley Tournament, when Cobra Kai had preached that its enemies did not deserve mercy. He only lost this time because Sensei Lawrence muddied things up by teaching them to be weak. He had set them up to fail. Miguel would've won the fight, he would be standing there with his friends right now, he wouldn't be strapped on an ER table possibly dying if Sensei Lawrence hadn't filled his head with that sometimes-show-mercy bullshit. Miguel had trusted Sensei Lawrence completely, it wasn't fair that he paid the most for his loyalty.

It made Hawk so angry. It stirred up months of repressed resentment, bitterness he'd tried packing away because Sensei Lawrence had been the man who turned him into Hawk. But it all came spilling out now, like blood from a fresh, deep cut. Eli seethed at remembering the times Sensei had humiliated him unfairly in front of the class; he was so mad about the instances he'd put him in danger, how he'd gotten him bit by a junkyard dog just to prove a point; he was beyond frustrated with how Sensei never just explained things clearly to him, when he wasn't withholding information entirely, how he instead left Hawk to decipher his bullshit metaphors; and he hated Sensei Lawrence for mocking his facial deformity, for ever having called him Lip.

And now Sensei had gotten his best friend critically injured. He stole Miguel's future as a badass karate champion. He'd be lucky if Miguel didn't die.
Denied the outlet of releasing his grief, Eli let the fury of the Hawk swallow him whole again. It calmed him down. It was so familiar by now, like stepping into a well-worn shoe. Hate smoldered in his narrowed avian eyes when he looked back at Sensei Kreese, who gave him a solemn nod.
"Don't worry," he told his students. "I'm stepping in to get Cobra Kai back on track. And I will never let you lose again." He saw the vulnerable desperation in Hawk's and Tory's faces, their desperate need for someone to swoop in and make things better at their darkest hour. Now, more than ever before, they were truly ready for his teachings, now that they knew what was at stake.

"You will get your chance to avenge your fellow soldier sooner than you think. And you will be ready, I'll make sure of it. Miyagi-Do may have won the battle, but Cobra Kai will win the war. Defeat does not exist in this dojo, does it?"

"No, Sensei," answered Hawk and Tory in unison.
Sensei Kreese's white teeth flashed behind his smile at hearing their response. Turning around, he opened the door to the Cobra Kai dojo for them. Hawk stepped in first, ready to learn whatever his instructor had to teach him. At last, he was somewhere safe.

Nobody was ever going to hurt him again.