We need more info in the first place like: is this life the last one Hawkins has? Is Hawkins fighting style being troublesome to Killer? Etc...
Anyway, these are the possible scenarios in my opinion:
- Killer considers that the damage inflicted to Hawkins will be transfered to Kidd, so decides to cut his left arm (which Kidd misses) to kill the voodoo doll linked to Kidd and go on with the fighting (if there are more lives after that) or winning right there (if there are no lives after that)
- Killer finds a way to bypass/stop/reverse Hawkins hax (he did similar things with Apoo and Kaido) and basically brings the fight back to a skill vs skill battle and not skill vs hax
- Killer actually decides to stop attacking since he prefers being hit himself rather than injuring his Captain with his own weapons, ends defeated cause of this decision
- Hawkins is bluffing cause he realized that Killer is going to kill him in a fair fight, but Killer comes to see his bluff and the damage reaches Hawkins body, meaning that he didn't have Kidd's doll since the start