"So! There we were, in the middle of the night…" Nora Valkyrie's voice pulled Haruka back into the present around her.
"It was day." Lie Ren tiredly corrected the boisterous redhead.
"We were surrounded by Ursai…"
"They were Beowulves."
You sound like you've had to say this before…
"Dozens of them!" The redhead jumped up from their seat, slamming their hands into the table around which NWBY and JNPR sat. Of the members of JNPR, Nora was in the middle of telling the others about a recurring dream of theirs, Ren was correcting them—Though how he knows the contents of their dream is a rather large question of mine—Pyrrha was listening politely, and Jaune was spacing out as he picked at his food.
Of NWBY, Yang and Weiss were listening, Blake was reading, and Haruka was having a telepathic conversation with Vita, who had somehow managed to get drunk. How a mana-based lifeform who usually wasn't simulating the human body beneath the skin managed to become intoxicated was a complete mystery to Haruka.
Haruka had first managed to re-establish reliable telepathic contact with the other five of Hayate's Knights several weeks ago, when she had established her link to her adopted mother, though for most of that time, the contact had been weak and unreliable. Hayate herself was only rarely in telepathic contact with Haruka, being a bit busy.
As things had turned out, the moment the Archon's signal had been lost, Admiral Haralown had sent a high-priority transmission to the TSAB's Central Headquarters, resulting in a Search and Rescue mission being put together immediately. The result of that was that Hayate's ship, the LS-Class Battleship Wolfram, was now in low orbit over Remnant. According to Shamal, Hayate had practically bullied the Admiralty into giving her command of the ship and mission.
Haruka herself had massively overestimated the scale of the Marriage attacks, as well as the timeframe. Around the same time that she had slammed the Archon into Remnant, the crisis was about over. The Forwards of Riot Force Six and the N2R Team had been in the process of securing the Mariage's progenitor/King, Ixveria, who, as it turned out, was just a girl turned into a living weapon. Another hideous legacy of the Warring Ages, in Haruka's opinion.
She was however, delighted to know that it had been her Wife and Sisters-in-Law who had resolved the whole mess.
Haruka herself had also received some notability on Mid-Childa, as a brave Saint Church Knight who had sacrificed herself to ensure that her ship wouldn't fall into the Mariage's hands. That had nearly been the case, she had to admit, though she did not exactly expect to get medaled for it, as she apparently had been.
On that regard, however, her mother had forbidden the other five Knights from telling Haruka precisely which medal she had been awarded. Haruka actually agreed with this decision, for the reason why Hayate had made it; Hayate wanted Haruka to hear about it from Cinque directly, who had been given the medal in her place, as it had been awarded 'posthumously'. Evidently, her survival had not been expected. A funeral had even been held, though the Nakajimas, the Takamachis as well as the rest of the Yagami Family had insisted that she was still alive. The Scagleitti family had apparently been evenly split on the subject. Jail and Uno were evidently quite insistent that Haruka was too hard to kill to die in such an event, while Tre was, as usual, pessimistic on the outcome. The rest were somewhere in between.
"Yooouuu… Got realalyyyy quuiet. 'S goin' onn?" Vita's telepathic voice pulled her from her thoughts back into her conversation.
"Just thinking. Also, question, how exactly did you get drunk in the first place?"
"Wiith wiiiinee. Howw elllse?"
"That doesn't answer my question in the slightest. And Vita?"
"Yeees?"
"Please go sober up."
"Whyyy?"
"Because in your rambling, you've shared details about things I did not need to know."
"Like whaat?"
"I have no need to know how soft mother's breasts are, for one."
"But theyy'ree reeeeaaaallllyyy sooofffft! Liike piiloowsses…"
"That's it. Shamal!"
"Hmm?" The Wolkenritter Haruka had called for now entered the conversation.
"Please do me a favor, and put Vita to bed. She's manage to intoxicate herself."
"I'm aware. I've been listening. I'm also the one who gave her the wine."
"Shamal. She is rambling about my mother's breasts. Why."
"Because she needed to relax a little. She's been practically running herself ragged trying to find a way down to the surface so we can bring you home that doesn't breach secrecy."
"I didn't know." Now Haruka felt a little guilty.
"I know you didn't. Vita's like that, she'll work so hard for someone, and not tell them she's doing it. And I think she still feels a little guilty for what we did to you. I know I do." Shamal confessed.
"We've had this conversation before. You have no reason to feel guilty. I don't mind what happened to me."
I know that! But we didn't give you a choice before—"
"Shamal. I've told you I don't blame you. You had no choice. You have nothing to feel you need to apologize for. Forgive yourself already!"
"Isn't that what Vivio told you?" Haruka winced at Shamal's words.
"That's different. How long did it take you to heal the damage I inflicted on her majesty?"
"No too long, actually. And she likes the scars, she asked me to leave the ones across her face. Not sure why, actually."
"That just makes me feel worse…"
"Now who's the one who needs to stop feeling guilty for something they've been forgiven for?"
"I… Heh. Fine. I recognize my own hypocrisy, here."
"Is Haruka being self-deprecating again?" Hayate now entered the conversation. "And is there a reason Vita is giggling and giving herself a marshmallow hell with my boobs?"
"Yes, she is, and Vita's drunk, Mistress." Shamal answered their very confused Lord's question.
"No need to do that, Haruka. And Shamal?"
"Yes, Mistress?"
Haruka didn't hear her mother's next sentence, as someone grabbed her shoulder and shook her a bit, pulling her attention for a moment.
"What?" Her voice came out a bit angry.
"Sorry. Just checking to see it you were still awake. You kinda zoned out there a bit." Yang sounded at least vaguely apologetic.
Haruka closed her eyes and sighed, though before she could speak, another voice interrupted her.
"Ow! That hurts, please, stop!"
Haruka opened her eyes, and glanced in the direction of the voice, before sighing, and standing.
Team CDRL had apparently decided to cheer themselves up from their defeat by bullying another student. More specifically, a rabbit faunus Haruka recognized, who had helped her a bit with her written Valian earlier in the school year. Cardin was tugging on one of the faunus girl's rabbit ears, his team guffawing around him and at the girl.
"I will be right back." She muttered to the others, and set off in the direction of Velvet Scarlatina and Team CDRL.
"Haruka? What's going on? You just got a bit angry all of a sudden." Hayate's voice cut into Haruka's thoughts.
Thanks to her link to Hayate, Haruka's emotions could be felt by her Lord and mother, if she wish to know. It was the same of all of the Knights, and they could all feel each other, as well. The Knights's link was quite an amazing thing.
"Just about to go deal with a few bullies at this academy. They all seem to require more of a lesson than has already been taught."
"Ah. Well, have fun, don't do anything that would get you in too much trouble, and if you do, don't get cau—ahh, cold hands, cold hands! Gotta go, bye!" And with that, Hayate's presence receded. I can guess what that was about…
Haruka shook her head slightly to clear it of her thoughts, before she arrived at the table with CDRL and Velvet.
"What do you think you are doing, Cardinal?" The Knight demanded as she neared the five students.
"What's it to you? Screw off." Cardin Winchester didn't even turn to look at her, continuing to tug on Velvet's ear. One of the other students turned to see who was approaching, and his face slipped into mild fear when he noticed that Haruka was the one who had spoken.
"Hey, boss?" He said, nervously, before Haruka reached out, locking one hand around Cardin's wrist, and the other around the back of his neck. She pulled him downwards by both, the pressure on his wrist forcing him to let Velvet's ear go, and the pressure on the back of his neck dragging him downwards so that his own ear was at head height for the combat cyborg girl.
"You will answer when I ask you a question, Winchester." Haruka paused, then slammed his wrist into his own stomach, folding him over his arm with her other hand still locked around his neck, before unceremoniously dumping him onto the floor, letting go as she did so.
One of Cardin's teammates apparently decided that this was the perfect time to attack Haruka, showing that he had far more bravery than intelligence. Haruka wasn't sure whether to approve of his bravery, or be appalled at his stupidity.
She settled for not caring as his fist came around, aimed right at her face. The Knight reached up, caught it, and pulled him closer, into her own fist, which met his face hard enough to put him onto the ground, groaning. A light blow, anything harder from her would have broken his neck, or skull.
The next member of CDRL charged Haruka from behind, though she caught his footsteps quite well with her enhanced senses. She spun around, sidestepping as she did so, took a hold of him by his upper arm with one hand and forearm with the other, and swung him around, into the table on her other side, hard enough to knock over the table.
The last one apparently decided that discretion was the better part of Valor, as his simply helped the boy Haruka had punched in the face to his feet.
Haruka turned to go rejoin her team and JNPR, who were watching her intently, most with expressions of satisfaction, as if they had enjoyed watching her beat down most of CDRL for the second time in a day.
As she began to walk away, a pair of hands tried to take ahold of her ankle. In response, she gave Cardin a light kick to the stomach, resulting on an 'oof!' and his hands curling inward to himself.
Haruka ignored him, and returned to her team and JNPR, all of whom except Jaune were now grinning. Jaune just looked nervous.
"You didn't break his legs." Nora was the first to speak as Haruka sat down again. They sounded as if they were complaining. Did I miss something?
"And got a bit of an audience." Yang commented. "I think half the cafeteria was watching."
Haruka just shrugged.
"I do not care who was or was not watching." She noted, before turning to Jaune. "You seem nervous. Why? I will not attack you. Not unless you give me reason to."
"It's not you, it's… Them. They'll get even with you somehow." The blonde boy responded, not meeting Haruka's gaze. He is not telling the truth. Or at least, not the full truth.
"You worry about me?" Haruka asked, amused, both by how obvious his lie was, and by his excuse. "There is no need. Pity them if they try something."
"That's not what I meant." Jaune replied. "I just… Ah, never mind." He stood up, taking his lunch tray as well.
"Jaune." He glanced back as Haruka said his name. "If you need assistance, do not hesitate to ask."
"Just ask us, Jaune, we'll help." Pyrrha contributed.
"I'll… Keep that in mind."