The Rose of Nakajima

"So, you seem awfully chipper this morning." Yang noted from the bench she was sitting on. She and Haruka were within the locker room of Beacon Academy, retrieving their gear for Initiation, though in practice, only Yang had anything to get, as Haruka would be using Rosenkreuz as her weapon, and had 'dressed' in her Knight's Clothing, albeit with Sleipnir suppressed, instead of 'normal' combat gear.

"Chipper?" She asked, unfamiliar with the word.

"Active, happy. You're a lot happier than you normally seem to be." There was a click as the blonde brawler finished loading her gauntlets.

"Ah." The Knight nodded. "I admit to looking forward to this. I wish to test myself on the 'Grimm', and to test Rosenkreuz's Crescent configuration." The modifications made should prove… Interesting to test.

"And what about teams?" Yang asked.

Haruka froze for a moment, then turned away. A complication, honestly.

"I… Have not given much thought to that. I am… Uninterested in working in a team. I am capable of doing so easily, I have in the past, but I do not wish to be here." 

I don't plan on staying too long, after all. Sooner or later, a TSAB Vessel will arrive to investigate the Archon, and retrieve its remains. And I plan on leaving with them.

"Why not?" Yang asked her, then seemed to have a moment of realization, dropping her voice down to a whisper. "You don't plan on staying, do you?" Haruka glanced back, and felt slightly guilty over the fact that the blonde brawler looked like a kicked puppy.

The Knight didn't answer back, instead turning to her assigned locker, closing it. She hadn't actually retrieved anything from it, instead using the locker as a convenient place to transform Rosenkreuz. She turned back right as the other girl began to speak.

"Haruka—"Yang started to speak again, though as Haruka turned back to her, another student interrupted her by walking between the two.

"Ridiculous! There's no way I put my gear in locker six-three-six yesterday, I would've remembered having to count that high! Why does this have to happen today?" He complained, contemplating his scroll as he continued walking down the locker room towards the higher-numbered lockers.

"Haruka—" Yang tried again once he had passed, only to be interrupted again, this time by Haruka.

"Not here. Too many prying ears." The Knight told her, tossing her head to the side, indicating the other students. "We will talk another time, just not here and now. That conversation will be had."

The blonde brawler took a few seconds to process that, before nodding slowly.

"Okay." With that, she began a final check of her gauntlets, and Haruka mentally queried Rosenkreuz.

"Any success in negating or mitigating Remnant's AMF?"

"I've had some, Meister. We should now be able to cast up to AA+ Rank spells without too much interference, and I figured out how to compensate for the magilink bonds weakening over distance, so I'd say our maximum range with spells has increased to roughly seven-hundred fifty meters!"

"Excellent. Any last-minute concerns related to your new configuration?"

"None at all!" Haruka smiled internally, strapping the Interface Bracer onto her left arm just before the wrist. Normally, she could just directly link her arm to the weapon she'd modified, but, due to not wanting to reveal her cybernetics, she'd had to settle for swapping her regular Knight's Clothing bracer for the Interface Bracer.

She brought her hand down to the small of her back, and brought Rosenkreuz around, giving the mental command to unfurl her new configuration as she did so.

The Device unfolded, barrel lengthening, handgrip sliding up into place, supports attaching to the Interface Bracer, linking with her directly, the Heads-Up Display flashing into being in her vision, and the normal feeling of her Device beginning to draw Mana from her made her smile outwardly, along with the sight. The modifications to the Formula Cannon did indeed seem to have gone as planned.

Though she wasn't too fond of the idea of being reliant on a mass weapon for her long-range capabilities, Haruka had admitted early on that she'd need one if she wanted to blend in with the Hunters of Remnant. That said, it had taken a while for her to finally get around to bother using one.

Part of her reluctance was a general Midchildan aversion to Mass Weaponry, that, despite her rather Belkan upbringing, had still been instilled in her, and part of it was simply concerns about ammunition. After all, weapons with physical ammunition could run out long before their wielder ran out of mana. On top of that, physical ammunition could be expensive, jam a weapon if made improperly, could be lost or stolen, and could go off early if exposed to the right kind of trigger.

In all, the only solid munitions weapon Haruka was at all fond of was the Formula Cannon built into the Fortress System, and that was a hybrid: She could cast with it, albeit with less range and power than with Rosenkreuz's normal modes, as well as send spikes of metal downrange, and, thanks to the weapon's ability to form its solid projectiles out of mana, she didn't have to worry about her concerns with ammunition. Thus, when she had finally acquiesced to the necessity of a mass weapon, she had set out to modify the Formula Cannon, instead of getting a standard firearm.

There hadn't been many modifications required after the separation from the Fortress System, if she were to be honest. The main two had been the ability to use magazines and the addition of a large magazine port, where she could load the weapon as to not draw attention to the fact the weapon didn't actually need loading, or load specialized rounds. Given that its solid projectile mode was a railgun, she didn't need more sophisticated ammunition than steel or iron spikes, and it was even advanced enough to compensate for different size spikes, provided they were straight. She'd taken advantage of this, and, with the assistance of Rosenkreuz and Taiyang, fashioned several magazines of specialized spikes, each containing small reservoirs of Dust, to give the rounds special effects in battle.

The only other modifications even worth mentioning were the addition of heat vents so she could cover more of the weapon's internals with plating to reduce potential damage in the field and the aforementioned plating.

"I've said this before, and I'll say it again, that thing's a monster." Yang commented from the bench, gazing up at the Knight's weapon. Haruka hefted the black, red, and silver rail-cannon, turning to face her.

"This 'monster' is one of the handful of weapons I trust." She said, grinning, right hand coming around and taking a hold of the foregrip. "This is the CFW-X-02-F/M/AB Formula Cannon." She raised the 'barrel' to point at the ceiling. "I could kill an airship with this with ease, and mission-kill most armored vehicles in a single shot."

"Overkill, much?" Yang asked, also grinning at Haruka's subtle but still present enthusiasm for the weapon.

"Oh, certainly. But, to quote a source called 'Tv Tropes', 'There Is No Kill Like Overkill'."

The Blonde Brawler shook her head at that with a grin, but before she could say anything, the intercom came on.

"Would all first-year students please report to Beacon Cliff for initiation? Again, all first-year students report to Beacon Cliff immediately." Glynda Goodwitch's voice sounded, before the intercom fell silent again.

"We probably ought to get going." Haruka noted.