Jacob watched as Kyo got close, glad that somebody else was taking over. He...didn't know her well. He'd have felt too uncomfortable trying to bring her back to the infirmary. And then she flung the other boy back with a shout. He managed to look into her eyes and his heart nearly broke. What replaced it, almost immediately after, was unbridled fury. Something he hadn't felt in quite a while. These people.....they had hurt him and his fellow students. They'd nearly killed a few of them. Hell, they had committed a veritable act of war. But this....

[i]This[/i] was what made him truly angry at them. He couldn't conceal it in his voice when others arrived, asking questions. "Yes. And whatever happened to her....they'll pay for it. Even if it kills me, I'll see to it that they all pay for it." He barely knew these people. Even the ones he'd been training with, he had at best a superficial understanding of who they were. But this was too much. He'd never been able to stand seeing the people around him in pain, and now that he watched this girl, who looked to be on the verge of shattering, he knew he had to stop them. "Thousands upon thousands of lives have been lost. Thousands more shattered by the knowledge that their son or husband or wife or daughter or father or mother....will never come home."

"This ends. I refuse to stand by and watch. I don't care if I have to stay up days at a time with Balthazar, training until my stump bleeds and the rest of my body burns in agony. I will do whatever I can to stop these bastards." He wasn't saying it to them, or to himself. He was saying it to say it. He was at his breaking point now.