A Good Offence

Lihzatu completed her stretches and muttered a final prayer. She was actually uttering the same verse she had picked for the epigraph of her thesis when the adjudicator called her in:

"When profound violence covered all things
and battle was midst its course,
your all-powerful Roar, oh Khorne,
was loosed from your royal skull-throne."

Lihzatu smiled; a good omen! Without hesitation she stepped into the examination-arena.

She'd always excelled in her studies. Her thesis research had already been weaponised and deployed to great effect. One more trial then maybe, finally, she would feel like she deserved to be here? Lihzatu sometimes worried no external validation, no amount of demonstrably maximising murders-per-moment, would be quite enough. But for now: head in the game.

Things were at least off to an auspicious start; the verbal portion of her Offence had gone well. Her examiners had been most impressed by her thesis, and she'd answered their questions with aplomb. The outside examiner, a specialist in Symbolometric Logistical Calculations from the Bītṭuppi Institute, had especially praised her technique for deriving Strategic Insight from the blood-curdling screams of the Blesséd in the warp. That'd made Lihzatu positively blush with pride, and she'd resolved to follow up with him over the noosphere if she survived.

Success in the verbal portion of the Thesis Offence heralded success in the kinetic portion. Students swapped horror stories of those who'd verbal portions had left them ill-equipped for the kinetic portion. It was said that one student had not only failed to cite his examiners but, upon questioning, revealed he was utterly ignorant of their work, and consequently had to fight the kinetic portion with one hand quite literally tied behind his back. That, at least, was the story people told about the previous owner of the skull that now acted as a paper-weight on Academician Kizru's desk. Not so for Lihzatu. In virtue of her examiners uniformly high praise for her work she was well armed and armoured, and those made to fight against her were far from His strongest soldiers.

So it was she'd passed the kinetic portion of the Thesis Offence with flying colours. Indeed, flying all over the place; mostly reds, browns, variants thereof. After all her preparation she'd barely broke a sweat, and had indeed even enjoyed (briefly) catching up with an old professor she'd been surprised to find in the examination-arena.After a brief back and forth where he seemed to take it somewhat personally that she forgot his name, she'd made sure to thank Dumušiddu for his mentorship. Before decapitating him.

As his body fell lifeless to the floor the spectators in the hall came up and, after giving her a moment to wipe the blood from her hands and eyes, patted her on the back and congratulated her. She'd proved by Might that her thesis was right! Dr. Lihzatu was all smiles as she went for a celebratory meal with her friends, her concerns about not being good enough almost entirely forgotten.