The silence was the greatest agony, its pain far beyond the words she dreaded to hear. It was in this silence that the memories came flooding back in vivid detail and the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth once more.
She shifted in her position subconsciously, having been forced on her knees for the past several hours, her hands behind her back, and was reminded of the stinging pain of flesh rubbed raw from the shackles and chains bound around her ankles and wrists, yet the pain was a salve to her mind for it distracted her from her thoughts. Before her were the three elders of the Ogatan clan, Bic, Vesta, and Briquet, who had remained silent since their arrival to these chambers. They had been contemplating their words from some time, no doubt trying to find them after being witnesses to such horrors.
"Penhuoqi..." Bic said, bringing bittersweet relief to her as her fate was finally decided.
"We had little faith in your plans... but granted your permission because of our belief in you."
"In doing so, we angered the guardian of our clan," Briquet said in following.
Guardian? Penhuoqi wasn't sure to laugh at their foolishness or cry at their refusal to realize the truth. Rex was no guardian. No guardian would have taken control of her. No guardian would have made her slaughter and eat the innocent with such relish and fervor. He was a curse in their blood, one she had foolishly thought her ally.
"Before this tournament, the other schools saw us as barbarians; savages who barely knew how to fight. We could only wish they still thought that way now. There is no future for a school that houses monsters and cannibals, but they have chosen to forgive our school...Vesta said, grimly, "No one outside that arena will ever know of this tournament and the Kyōryū Ryū will be dissolved."
Those final words struck Penhuoqi harder than anything else. Her naivety had forced their clan back further into the shadows now and she knew, with great shame and regret, that the Kyōryū Ryū would be lost to history in only a few generations. The sounds of the chamber doors opening the rustling of the movement told her that others had entered, but she found it difficult to see who they were due to fighting back her tears. She didn't need to see who they were to know they were most likely representatives of the other martial arts schools.
"For your crimes, you will be handed over to the five schools to be punished as they see fit," Bic declared and the elders rose from their seats in preparation to leave, but they would pause as Penhuoqi spoke out.
"No..."
It was difficult to push it out past the lump in her throat as she fought back the urge to breakdown and cry.
"I am willing to accept my fate, but I will not allow the other schools to know of Rex any further than the terror he wrought."
The masters of the other schools were quickly alerted as Penhuoqi was encased in the orange hue of the Thyreophora, its power destroying what ki inhibiting properties the shackles and chains possessed. The Elders began shouting orders in an attempt to subdue her, but all three paled in horror as she spoke further.
"Saishū Zetsumetsu..."
There were very few things out of bounds when it came to the methods and techniques the Dino School deployed. After all, the school had been founded from the cruel and brutal lessons learned from survival, but that did not mean there was nothing deemed "forbidden". This technique had been born from the harsh reminder that the Thyreophora, even mastered, was still dangerous. It would be a painful death, but it would be her way of atoning for her actions in this life.
Ogatan Penhuoqi's last hope was to be reborn again as an Ogatan, if only to correct the mistakes she had made.