"Hey guys!" Jaune's voice pulled Pyrrha out of her thoughts, causing her to look up from her plate, which she'd sort-of been staring at as she contemplated life at Beacon Academy, and tried to stay awake.
"Hey! 'Sup?" Yang Xiao Long called back as Team NWBY entered the bistro where Team JNPR had decided to have lunch on their first weekend at Beacon.
As usual, Pyrrha reflexively swept her semblance over everyone again, noting that the amount and types of metal on Yang and Weiss hadn't changed at all between their current outfits and their uniforms, while Haruka and Blake had acquired more.
In Blake's case, it was a metal plate of some sort on her back, itself magnetized. Given that was where her weapon was, the purpose was quite apparent.
As for Haruka, her—nun's habit? Why is the robot-girl in a nun's habit?—incorporated thin metal plates on the sides of her hips, like armor. Armored nun habit?
Pyrrha tilted her head in confusion at Haruka's outfit, drawing a glance from Weiss. Haruka herself didn't seem to notice or care, though she twitched when the champion's semblance passed over her.
"You four having a good time out in Vale?" Yang asked as she sat down, drawing Pyrrha's attention away again.
Get more sleep, Pyrrha. Your attention span is incredibly short and it shows. The champion mentally chided herself. But that movie was worth staying up that late… No, focus.
She shook her head slightly and ran a hand over her face, sighing lightly.
"Everything okay, Pyrrha?" The Blonde Brawler asked a different question, Jaune having apparently answered her first one.
"I was up a bit too late last night watching a movie." The redhead replied, trying to stifle a yawn and failing.
"Heh, I get that." Yang chuckled and Pyrrha's face flushed slightly from embarrassment.
"So, how was your first week?" Jaune asked Yang, changing the topic.
"Eh. Was… Interesting, to say the least…" Pyrrha tuned the rest of her leader's answer out, in favor of examining the girl in front of her, as Haruka sat down.
Pyrrha had gone to Professor Goodwitch after classes on that first day, and told her everything her semblance had picked up about the leader of Team RWBY. At first the professor hadn't believed her, but eventually the Mistralian champion had pushed through enough of her skepticism that the deputy headmaster had agreed to take up the matter with Professor Ozpin.
She had not honestly expected to receive a personal message from the headmaster later that night, stating that he was aware of Haruka's 'situation', as the message had put it, and further, had warned her against discussing it with anyone. When JNPR had been awoken in the middle of the night by a scream, Pyrrha had immediately recognized that it had come from RWBY's room, which had startled her quite badly, but also stirred up her curiosity. Thus, she'd gone to investigate, Jaune tagging along out of worry.
While she had, to an extent, expected Weiss to be the one answering the door, she had not remotely expected the heiress to be bleeding from her cheek, seemingly without a care. Nor did she believe the other girl's insistence that it was an accident. Pyrrha was convinced it had something to do with Haruka, and possibly to do with the scream, as she didn't buy the movie explanation in the slightest.
Of course, she was a bit too polite to directly ask what had happened, even though the question had been eating at her. She needed to know. If she had one flaw, it was her curiosity. Usually it was a restrained flaw, but restrained didn't mean non-existent, after all.
"See something you like?" Haruka's teasing voice interrupted her thoughts, and she blinked several times.
"I, uh—Huh?" Pyrrha's response was less than coherent. Really need more sleep… My thoughts went trailing off, there.
"You were staring." The robot-girl shrugged, with a small grin. "It is fine, stare all you wish, I am used to stares." She stated, casually. "Of course, usually they are not from so close a range…"
Pyrrha paused for a moment as her tired mind put together Haruka's statements, then she blushed a deep scarlet, grasping the other girl's meaning.
Haruka chuckled lightly, and Yang burst out with giggles from where she sat, next to her leader.
"Of course," Haruka continued, "I must turn down any invitation you may give, as I cannot return your interest. I am, after all… Taken, I believe the word is."
Now Yang was struggling to contain full on laughter, while Nora had begun to giggle from Jaune's other side, as Jaune, Blake, and Weiss gave her identical looks of confusion.
"You never mentioned that before." Weiss noted, to which Haruka shrugged.
"It never came up."
"Do your… Does he? She? Know about…" Blake trailed off, tapping the back of her right hand with the fingers of her left.
Haruka sighed.
"Yes, she knows." The leader of RWBY noted with minor annoyance. "And I thought we agreed not to speak of that outside ourselves?" Her voice became sharp. Speak of what? Is it that Haruka's a robot-girl? Or something else? Something she did, perhaps?
"Uhh, what?" Jaune tilted his head in confusion.
"Private matter. It does not concern you. Or rather, should not concern you." The robot-girl half-glared at Pyrrha as she spoke. The Mistralian champion froze as that cold, silver-eyed gaze bored into her own green eyes.
Why is she looking at me? Does she know what my semblance is? Does she know that I know she's a robot-girl?
"Haruka?" Jaune seemed confused at her sudden hostility, even more so that it was directed at Pyrrha.
"You felt it, didn't you?" She asked the robot-girl. She has reacted to my semblance before…
"Yes. Now, please stop." Haruka's tone implied that her statement was not a request. Pyrrha ignored it, and continued her questioning.
"How did you feel it? Normally, no one can feel my semblance. Why can you?"
Haruka's expression didn't change.
"Irrelevant. And even if I felt like telling, I am not actually allowed to. Suffice to say, I can, and that is the main point. So I will know if you pass that… Invasive field over me again."
Pyrrha became quite worried at that statement. Not only can you tell my semblance is being activated and focused on you, you can tell what it does?
Next to her, Jaune seemed to be able to tell something was seriously wrong with the situation, as he leaned over and put his hands on the table between Pyrrha and Haruka.
"Look, I'm not entirely sure what's going on here, but, uh, I'm sure it's not that serious, right? We can solve this, uh, dispute? If this is one, we can solve it, right?"
Haruka closed her eyes and sighed.
"My apologies." Her eyes opened again, her expression still completely neutral. "Where I am from, your using your semblance on others like that without their permission, it is a rather large breach of privacy." Oh.
"I'm sorry!" Pyrrha apologized, shrinking in her chair slightly, embarrassed. "I didn't know!"
Haruka sighed again, and shook her head.
"I did not expect you to. I just… What you have detected with your semblance, it is something I am a bit sensitive about, right now, at least. I would appreciate it if you were to not mention it to anyone." I can understand that.
"I can do that. Again, sorry."
"It is fine. Danke, Fräulein Nikos." Huh?
"What does that mean?" Jaune asked before Pyrrha could. "Also, what're you two even really talking about?"
"A literal translation is 'thank you, miss Nikos', and Haruka did just ask Pyrrha not to talk about it…" Yang spoke up again, trailing off at the end her sentence. "And she was talking in Belkan, before you ask."
"Belkan?" Ren asked this time, speaking for the first time since Team RWBY had entered the restaurant. And Nora's been surprisingly quiet…
Haruka sighed, yet again, before speaking.
"Belkan is my native language. Well, one of the two." She shook her head. "Now, I think we have been talking about me a bit much—"
"Are you a magical girl?" Nora abruptly asked, interrupting the other girl. Everyone present turned to look at the redhead, baffled. "Well, you act like one!" She said defensively, crossing her arms.
"Nicht ganz. Ich bin ein Ritter. Schließen Sie, jedoch."
Now Team JNPR turned to look at Haruka, then Yang, while team RWBY continued to regard Nora with confusion.
"I'm not translating." The blonde brawler put up her hands in a half shrug. "I barely know enough to translate what she said earlier." Now JNPR turned to Haruka, who crossed her arms over her chest.
"Not translating." She said, with a small, teasing grin. "Besides, it is not too important. And, how do I act like a magical girl?" She directed this question towards the smaller of the redheads at JNPR's table.
"Well…"