Cloud sighed, looking at the mess on the floor in front of him. Three dead in the hall and, from the looks of it, they weren’t particularly clean deaths. Better than some of the things he’d seen since the foundation of the TWINK League, but still not what they hoped to achieve.
“Why do they have to do things like this?” Ramza asked, shaking his head as he kneeled to examine the bodies.
The ex-SOLDIER shrugged, his scanning the scene quickly, looking for some clue as to who could have been responsible for this slaughter. Unfortunately, there looked to be little in the way of definitive evidence. They would have to hope that the victims memories weren’t too muddled after the resurrection.
“Should we get them taken in?” Ramza asked, standing, wiping his bloody hands on the white robes he wore today. The young man frowned, looking over the bodies once more. “Do we have to inform their friends? We found them pretty quick this-”
Cloud shook his head. “You think you can manage to hide resurrection sickness from them too? Go back, report to Orlandu and go get some of your battle gear. Someone is clearly trying to start something again.” His fist clenched involuntarily as he looked over the bodies, his mind flashing back to a time long since past. Even here, he couldn’t forget it.
“What’re we going to do?”
“Put out warnings and up our watch. Hope we can get anything useful out of them when they’re awake again.”
Ramza nodded, grabbing the walkie-talkie that hung so out of place on his robes. “Orlandu, this is Ramza. Yeah, we’ve got…”
Leaving the young man to his report, Cloud walked down the hall, taking this opportunity to make sure that the lower rank recruits were managing okay… and to consider what their real options were at this point.
The TWINK League had been formed early in the arena’s history as a method to minimize violence outside of matches. The simple fact was that, while Their magic made injuries and even death completely surmountable, the ability to be healed or revived was not without flaw. Setting aside issues of non-fatal, but undeniably painful torment, resurrection in the arena was, at best, an unpleasant experience. The very nature of the place required that the duelists use Their magic for resurrection.
There was a reason that losing duelists were immediately given a rest period before they fought again.
Resurrection sickness, the after-effects of their revival magic, was a hellish experience. Cloud had experienced it a few times himself, and it was not an experience he was eager to ever repeat.
Thus it was the duty of the TWINK league to control and put an end to unauthorized violence. Unfortunately, it was also a decidedly uphill battle, given the difficulty of inflicting any sort of lasting punishment. Outside of Their intervention, the best the TWINK League could manage was a sort of house arrest. Given the surprisingly low number of them, it was a decent enough deterrent for casual killers, but did little but hinder the dedicated and did nothing to shut down emotions or plots getting out of hand.
Not wanting to be stopped by anyone, Cloud turned down another hall.
That was the other big problem with violence outside of duels. With so many very powerful and unstable individuals in the arena, the possibility of things getting out of control was omnipresent. Kill a friend or a lover, and retaliation was inevitable. The situation starts to escalate and, before you know it, there are a couple dozen people in need of resurrection and twice that many who’re going to be in traction.
Clenching his fist, Cloud slammed it against the wall. It frustrated him how little they could actually do to protect people in the arena. At best, they were a glorified patch-up service. The real safety came from making powerful friends and sticking close together. The TWINK League only came in after something went wrong.
Still, their presence at least mitigated the presence of most would-be-killers, and the arena had been fairly quiet for the last few months. With any luck – he hated to think like that – this would be an isolated incident, and they’d be able to keep it mostly under-
The sharp static of his radio caught Cloud’s attention, snapping him out of his thoughts. “Yeah, what is it?”
“I found two more bodies, Cloud. Different kind of wounds though.” Ramza’s sigh came clear over the contraption. “This is starting to look like real trouble.”
The radio cracked and crackled as Cloud’s hand tightened around it. Two killers out in one night? “Get a squad over there now and get them resurrected!” Cloud’s voice dropped as he almost growled his orders. “Then tell Orlandu to get everyone together. We need to have a meeting, now!”
