"Russel Thrush, Cardin Winchester, Dove Bronzewing, Sky Lark. The four of you retrieved the black bishop pieces." Ritter Ozpin said to the four young men standing at the front of the stage, their pictures appearing on the large screen behind and above them.
The teams had all returned, the initiation test mostly uneventful after Haruka and her new partner Weiss Schnee—Her name is Belkan, and yet she didn't recognize the Belkan language? Curious.—had met up with Yang and her partner, Blake. The only thing that could qualify for any label approaching exciting was the fight between two pairs of students against a large scorpion grimm, a Death Stalker, if she remembered correctly. And that had only been seen from a distance, as it had occurred after Haruka and the other three had already returned to the top of Beacon Cliff. A rather large bird-like Grimm had moved to interfere, but had gotten too close to Professor Goodwitch in the process, and had been flattened against the cliff face. The few hours afterward had been even more uneventful, mostly consisting of the new students standing around chatting while the Beacon Faculty evaluated their performance. And I still need to speak with Ritter Ozpin…
"From this day forward, you will work together as Team Cardinal, led by… Cardin Winchester!" The Knight in question continued from his previous statement, as a final wave of polite applause swept through the audience. The newly-made Team Cardinal left the stage, a different quartet taking their place in front of the senior Knight. Haruka idly noted that the blonde she'd had down as not belonging was one of the four, though, then again, during the battle against the Death Stalker he'd seemed to be in command, and had done an admirable job. The pair of pairs had eliminated the massive Death Stalker Grimm in quite a short period of time under his directives.
"Jaune Arc, Lie Ren, Pyrrha Nikos, Nora Valkyrie. The four of you retrieved the white rook pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team Juniper." Ozpin told them, as the orange-haired girl, Nora, going by the pictures of the students on the screen, latched onto the tall, dark-haired boy in green, his name apparently being Lie Ren. "Led by… Jaune Arc! Congratulations, young man." He added, as the blond's picture moved to the front of the line-up on the screen.
The blonde froze completely, surprise written across his features. The redhead next to him, Pyrrha, going by the screen, nudged his shoulder in what Haruka presumed was a gesture of support or congratulations, but all it succeeded in doing was unbalancing him. As a result, Jaune ended up flat on his rear, much to the audience's amusement.
After a few moments, Ozpin cleared his throat slightly, and the new team left the stage, as Haruka, Weiss, Blake, and Yang walked on, stopping in the same place as all the previous teams.
"And finally: Blake Belladonna, Haruka Nakajima, Weiss Schnee, Yang Xiao Long. The four of you retrieved the white knight pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team Snowberry. Led by… Haruka Nakajima!" Wait, what?
Haruka froze slightly as she processed this. Beside her, Weiss stiffened slightly, as well. Blake started clapping politely, and Yang gave her a friendly clasp on the shoulder, accompanied by a "Nice!".
Ritter Ozpin, you know I am leaving, hopefully before the first school year is out. Why did you choose me?
***
"So, this seems to be our room." Yang said aloud, trying to make conversation as the newly made team entered their assigned dorm room.
The room was both decent-sized and rather small at the same time. If it was to be for two people, it was more than large enough. If it was for four, it was slightly cramped, and judging by the four beds, along with the fact that the team had only been assigned one room, it was for all four of them.
"Seems so." Weiss's response had been rather terse, and she seemed to be a bit annoyed at something, and although they'd only met a few hours ago, Yang had something of an idea why. After all, she'd started behaving like this immediately after Ozpin had announced that Haruka would be Team Leader for the team.
Yang glanced back at the white-haired girl with annoyance of her own, and noticed Weiss just shook her head at something, before walking over to one of the beds, slinging her suitcase onto it.
Blake followed her lead, taking one of the end beds, setting her bags down on top of the pillow.
Haruka took the bed at the other end of the room, leaving Yang with one of the middle ones.
She shrugged, and set her own bags next to the bed before opening one and pulling out a set of nightclothes.
"I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm tired. I vote we set up the room tomorrow morning before classes, not tonight." The blonde brawler said with a yawn, stretching as she did so.
"I second that." Blake agreed. Weiss just nodded, and Haruka did the same, as she slipped into the small in-suite bathroom, a bundle of clothes under her arm.
***
Be honest. Just who or what are you? Blake Belladonna wanted to ask the small girl who'd just emerged from the dorm room's small bathroom, dressed in nightclothes that concealed everything, even her hands and feet.
Oh, Haruka seemed human, on the outside, at least, and most of the time. But the wings that she'd seen in the forest belied that, making her seem to be a faunus from appearance…
Except for the fact that every faunus had the traits of a specific animal, and there was no animal with four feathered wings. Four wings, yes, as insectoid faunus existed, albeit they were rather rare. Feathered winged faunus also existed, quite obviously, but nothing had both traits at the same time.
Add the fact her wings seemed to appear and disappear seemingly at random, and that made Blake doubt she was a faunus, but even that wasn't what sealed her suspicions.
No, what really made her doubt the girl was a faunus was the simple fact she didn't smell like one. But what gave the catgirl pause was that she didn't smell human, either. Her scent was closer to human than faunus, but was still too different. Not to mention, she smelled heavily like metal. Overwhelmingly, in fact, far more than if she simply had a cybernetic limb, which was about the limit of melding flesh and machine.
Well, sometimes she smells like strangeness and metal. Blake amended her thoughts. When Haruka wore that strange armor of hers, she couldn't smell any of the metal or odd scent. Then again, she couldn't smell Haruka at all when she wore the armor, which set more than a few mental alarm bells ringing. How the armor blocked Haruka's scent completely was a mystery to Blake, and that wasn't something she was at all comfortable with. After all, mysteries could come back to bite her later, which was something she always tried to avoid.
Then again, the girl was almost completely a mystery to her. She knew a bare handful about her; she knew the girl knew an alcoholic huntsman, that she seemed to always conceal everything below her neck, that she apparently had lived with Yang, that she spoke a language Blake didn't even find familiar, and that she apparently had a family somewhere that Yang didn't know much about, though Blake had barely caught any of the conversation. Oh, and that she apparently had some sort of claws, provided the Huntsman's comment in the bar when she'd first met Haruka hadn't been metaphorical.
Of course, this all left Blake completely confused as to who and what the girl actually was. Yang, at least, appeared to be a normal human, but that didn't say much, and the fact that she'd partnered with a Schnee with apparently minimal complaints by said Schnee just added to the mix of confusion.
And that brought her mind to the other unexpected complication to her hoped-to-be-uneventful life at Beacon. That she'd been placed on a team with Weiss Schnee.
If Blake were to be honest with herself, that was probably the bigger complication of the two, but it was, at least, a known complication, and thus one that could be planned for. All she had to do was avoid allowing the Schnee heiress to know that she was a faunus, and leave the team after graduation. Assuming the Schnee doesn't get fed up and drop out when she learns that not everything and everyone must bow to her. She thought with something approaching contempt. If the father's behavior is any indication of his children's, then she'll be gone in a few months at most.
Blake shook her head slightly to clear it. Her grudge against the Schnees wasn't relevant right now, she was stuck with one at least for a while, and besides, she'd left the White Fang. Her grudge never had been personal, it was simply that they were the most dominant face of the oppression of the faunus by humanity. Her personal cynicism and contempt for them had much more to do with the arrogance and dismissiveness the patriarch of the family displayed.
She glanced at the last member of her new team. Yang Xiao Long seemed to be a rather simple, uncomplicated girl. Easy-going and laid back, Blake honestly doubted she really had many secrets of her own, and she was very good at telling things like that. Even those who tried to act as if they had nothing to hide had tells, fairly obvious ones to those who knew what to look for. Yang showed none, which meant one of two things: One, that she was the best liar and actor Blake had ever met, or Two: That she genuinely had no secrets of her own to hide, which Blake suspected was the truth.
Of course, she probably knew a fair number of Haruka's secrets if the two really had lived together for a while, though on the other hand, she had no idea under what circumstances Haruka had lived with Yang under, and, again, Yang didn't seem to know much about Haruka's family, going by the previous night.
She shook her head again. It was getting late, and with little sleep last night from staying up reading, she was a bit too tired to continue down these lines of thought. With a yawn, she stood, grabbing her own set of nightclothes and entering the small bathroom to change.