It was a scream that awoke Blake in the middle of the night, the cat faunus sitting bolt upright, one hand immediately finding Gambol Shroud's hilt.
"What's going on? Are we under attack?" She asked the first question that came to mind, her years of being in the White Fang coloring her immediate response, as she rolled out of her bed onto the floor between it and the wall. Even here isn't safe!?
She slowly raised her head to peek over the bed, taking stock of the situation. Weiss was sitting up and looking around with alarm, Yang had rolled out of bed with an undignified noise of confusion. Haruka… Haruka was in the corner crying, her hands on the wall as she whispered something in a strange language, most likely the 'Belkan' she'd mentioned earlier.
"Haruka?" Blake stood up, setting Gambol Shroud down on her bed, as Yang untangled herself from her blanket, and stood up herself. What?
"Oh hell… Again?" Yang said, her tone something Blake couldn't quite decipher. The blonde sighed.
"PTSD?" The Schnee heiress was the one to ask this particular query, as she left her bed, to which Yang nodded. And what would you know about that, miss sheltered-modern-aristocrat?
"Yeah. I wouldn't try to approach her right now, if I were you." She cautioned Weiss, who ignored her, and continued toward the girl, crouching near her.
"Haruka…" Blake didn't get to hear whatever Weiss was going to say, as the girl in the corner's nearest hand left the wall and slashed out towards the heiress, who fell back as blood glinted in the dim light. The cat faunus's hand found Gambol Shroud again, and this time, she drew the smaller blade from the larger one.
"The hell?" Weiss sounded less angry and more surprised as her hand went to her cheek. "How the hell?"
The least of what you deserve. Shame it wasn't me who got you like that. Still, how'd she do that? Blake moved forward to get a better look, and stopped, stiffening as she got a good look at her team leader's hands.
Her fingers were black metal of some sort, and the back of her hand was silver, with small crimson lines outlining her knuckles, though the black of her fingers ran all the way up her hand in thin lines to where it disappeared into her sleeve. Thin blades projected from each fingertip, running an inch or so further, and beneath the girl's fingers Blake could see the glints that indicated the blades ran along the entirety of each finger's length. Those are her 'claws'?
"What…" Blake tilted her head slightly. While cybernetic prosthetics were not unheard-of, or even uncommon in the ranks of the huntsman, for someone to have such at such a young age was incredibly rare. And she'd never heard of weapons being built into prosthetics, it simply wasn't done.
"Hmm?" Yang glanced over at Blake, saw where she was looking, and swore. "Crap, she clawed through her gloves, didn't she?" Blake's partner shook her head, her emotions still undecipherable. "Damnit. How bad did she get you, Weiss?" Wait, what?
"Not very, just a minor scratch. It should stop bleeding soon." The heiress replied.
Haruka had, by this point, stopped crying and whispering, and was now in the process of curling into a ball. It was Yang who tried to approach her next, which resulted in the smaller girl slashing at her with the blades on her fingers. Yang, unlike Weiss, was quick enough to dodge completely, though this resulted in the blonde colliding with a bed as she dodged backwards.
"Oof."
"Is she… Usually like this at night?" Blake asked, allowing her confusion to color her tone. She had some experience dealing with PTSD and related conditions, but never really had learned what to do about them, courtesy of Adam's 'Trauma is a sign of weakness' opinions on the matter.
"Yes and no… Usually she's not attacking everyone who comes close. Normally she'll only claw you if you try to touch her." The blonde brawler responded, sitting up.
"Haruka…" Weiss stood up, finally, and moved over to the girl in the corner, who regarded her with terrified eyes. This time, however, she didn't attack the heiress, who gently took her into a light, and rather awkward, hug. Blake tilted her head again as the white-haired girl began to whisper quietly to her partner, who's response was to press herself against the other girl.
Blake sheathed Gambol Shroud, not entirely sure why she'd drawn it in the first place, and tossed the weapon onto her bed, just in time for a knock to sound on the door.
The three members of Team RWBY who weren't curled into a ball glanced at each other, before Weiss sighed, whispered something to Haruka soft enough that even Blake's faunus hearing couldn't catch it, and stood.
"I'll handle it." She muttered, before walking over to the door, opening it to reveal the nightclothes-clad forms of Jaune Arc and Pyrrha Nikos.
"Uhh, Hi? We're across the hall, and, uh, we kinda heard someone scream… Is everything alright?" Jaune asked, looking slightly nervous, his eyes going immediately to Weiss's cheek. Which is probably still bleeding…
"It's fine, we just had a movie up too loud." Weiss replied, smoothly. "I've already told off the one responsible for the volume." Wow, not even a twitch. Guess daddy trained his little heiress well. The bitter thought crossed Blake's mind, before she mentally shook it off. I never would have guessed you'd bother helping someone who hurt you, even just a little bit like that. What's your angle here?
"Well, if everyone's fine… But, uh, what happened to your cheek?" The leader of JNPR asked.
Weiss looked away, as if to hide embarrassment.
"Nothing! Don't worry about it! I was just a little careless!"
"Uh… Alright then? Goodnight?" With that, Jaune stepped away from the door, while the redhead, so far silent, just stepped back with him, allowing Weiss to close the door.
The heiress sighed, waited a few moments, then turned back to the rest of the team, including Haruka, who seemed to have recovered a bit if the fact that she managed to move to her bed without Blake noticing and with Yang still sitting on the floor was any indication.
"Alright, that's the fifth time in three months I've had to use that excuse to cover for someone having a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder induced episode. So I would like an explanation, please." Her expression softened. "After all, I can't help if I don't know enough to do so." Wait, what? The prissy princess has dealt with PTSD episodes before? Blake vocalized this confusion, though in much more polite language, and got a sigh and an eye-roll in response.
"Yes, I have, though 'dealt with' is sort of rude. I know it isn't exactly common knowledge, but my elder sister, Winter, is an active-duty Atlas Specialist." Weiss glanced off into the distance. "She came home a little under three months ago, on mental medical leave. Most of her unit was killed in combat, and she… Well, survivor's guilt exists and is called such for a reason."
Blake stared in disbelief. A Schnee, joining the military? One skilled enough in combat to survive something killing the rest of her unit, and one with enough humanity to feel guilty about surviving when no one else did? Absolutely absurd.
Weiss shook her head in annoyance at Blake, then turned to Haruka.
"Do… You wish to talk about what happened?"
Haruka glanced up at the heiress, then down again.
"Not… Too different." The girl said. "I am… I, too, was the only survivor of my unit. Of my ship's crew." Wait, What!?
"What do you mean?" Weiss was the one to ask, as she sat next to Haruka, and moved to take on of the girl's metal hands. There was a wet metal sound, and Haruka allowed the heiress to do so. "And… If you don't mind… What happened to your hands? Is it… Was it the same, well, battle?"
Haruka let out a sad sound of amusement, before shaking her head, slowly.
"No… To explain the first…" Haruka took a deep breath, and let it out, lowering her head to stare at the floor. "I am the sole living crew member of the warship Archon. I was attached to the crew as a personal request of a Flag-Rank officer I am not allowed to name. During a routine patrol, the ship was hijacked, and during the ensuing fighting to regain control, the rest of crew who survived the initial attack were killed, however, there were still far too many of the hijackers alive for me to kill them all. Out of options, I contacted another Flag-Rank, asked for and received permission to scuttle the ship." She took another deep breath, let it out shakily, and continued. "The Archon's systems beyond propulsion and navigation had been locked down, so I slammed the ship into a mountain at its highest possible speed. While I managed to survive this impromptu scuttling, so too did a few of the hijackers, and I discovered this while leaving the wreckage. Unwilling to allow any to do so, once I was clear of the Archon's remains, I was able to remotely override the safeties of the ship's main gun, setting off a chain reaction within the intact weapons and power systems. There… Was not much left after that."
Haruka looked up, and Blake could see the haunted look in her eyes.
"When did this happen?" Weiss asked, quietly. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to." Haruka glance down again, before shaking her head.
"No, you deserve to know what I am allowed to tell you, after that. The Archon's hijacking and crash happened three months ago. I am still here because… " She shook her head. "That is classified."
"Three months ago…" Weiss muttered, then stopped, her eyes widening, and turned to Haruka. "Does the name 'Mariage' mean anything to you?" At that, Haruka reacted, flinching away.
"Dead things made only to kill by a dead king." She spat out the words with hatred. "Do not speak of such things to me."
What does that mean? Blake wondered, before Weiss spoke again, drawing her attention back to the ongoing conversation, instead of the mental wanderings she was about to get lost in.
"They hijacked your ship, didn't they?" The heiress asked, then continued before Haruka could respond. "They're what killed Winter's troops. She told me this during her first PTSD episode, she though I was General Ironwood," Weiss snorted slightly, "And she said she'd screamed at one, asking what it was, and all it had said was 'Mariage'." She shook her head, then froze. "That means… Your ship is the one Winter was investigating… I asked her more afterwards and she just told me it to forget it, everything was classified…" Now Weiss was the one staring off into space, an contemplative expression on her face.
"So, about your hands?" Blake asked, attempting to move away from a topic that may trigger the smaller girl again. "I saw the blades, so, what's with that?"
"Oh, my hands?" Haruka slowly raised them, once again showing that her hands were made of metal. "I lost my original hands some time ago, and these replacements have a set of built-in weapons."
"How did you 'lose your hands'?" The cat faunus queried. One question at a time…
"I was blown up." Came an almost casual response. "Over sixty-five percent of my body is cybernetic." She shrugged. "All four limbs included."
Wait, WHAT!?