"So this 'Dimensional Sea' is the gap between worlds?"
"Correct. It is analogous to space, and Dimensional Jumps are sometimes thought to simply be a way of traveling through space at FTL speeds via dimensional transfer." Haruka responded to Qrow's question as the two walked down the damaged corridor, Qrow on the left and Haruka on the right. "In fact, that is the current position of most scientific think tanks and major universities within Administrated Space."
"FTL?" Qrow didn't have any idea what she was talking about, and was beginning to accept that that was the normal state of affairs.
"Faster Than Light. Under standard protocol, I'd currently be using the ship's Faster-Than-Light communication system to call for help, but it was damaged in the crash." The knight stated matter-of-factly, every few seconds tapping the metal cross, which was still apparently serving as a translator, but was now clipped to her belt.
"Right. I keep forgetting that you don't seem to have much respect for the laws of physics." Qrow noted wish no small amount of sarcasm, then frowned. "You still haven't told me why—"
Abruptly, Qrow stopped. Something was wrong, and Haruka seemed to feel it too, as she stopped just as suddenly.
The door on their right side was ripped from its tracks with a screech of straining metal, and hurled towards Qrow, who barely managed to dodge in time, the metal slab embedding itself in the wall behind him.
"Umkommen." The voice, left untranslated by the device Haruka carried, was metallic, synthesized, but still carried such an air of menace in its utterly chilling tone that it gave him pause. What truly made his stop, however, was what had spoken. A woman stood there, moderately tall, short brown hair, wearing an odd short robe or dress of some kind, armored but lacking sleeves, armored gloves making up for part of that lack. A strange visor covered the upper part of her face, concealing her eyes, but that was not what nearly stopped him cold. No, it was her injuries that did so; horrific as they were. The right side of her face had been torn away up to the bottom of the mask, revealing bloody flesh and bone. Her right arm had lost all skin, revealing gleaming metal and black muscle, and a gaping hole through her chest shown broken wires, ripped metal, and tattered flesh in equal measure. The fuck?
As he stared, her gaze swing around to Haruka, who was currently nearly doubled over, her head in her hands and whimpering.
"Umkommen." The strange woman repeated, and as Qrow watched, her right arm from the elbow on down morphed into a blade, before she swing the sword-arm at Haruka.
Qrow moved, drawing Bad Luck Charm as fast as he possibly could—
There was a resounding clang where Haruka's left hand shot out to block the blade, catching it with the inside of her hand. From as close as he was, Qrow could see that the glove she wore had disappeared, revealing bare metal.
"Ende." Haruka's tone was the same as the woman's, and he heard the same metal sound from when Haruka had held him at knife-point earlier, before she slashed her right hand up and across the woman's face, spraying blood in streaks and shredding the strange mask. The woman did not stagger or give any response other than drawing back her blade, as if to wind up for another swing. This proved to be a mistake.
With her now-free left hand, Haruka reached into the hole in the woman's chest, and plunged her fingers into the side of the hole, ripping it further open, as her right hand stabbed into the woman's throat.
Now the woman staggered back, ripping Haruka's fingers from her body, causing even further damage.
"Stirb auf den Nägeln des Schlächters." Haruka told her, and, stepping forward, plunged both hands into her already-torn-open throat, before ripping in opposite directions, decapitating the woman.
Qrow stood in place, his mouth slightly open. He'd seen some brutal things in his life, even having recently seen a girl get half of her soul ripped out, but he'd never seen humans or faunus visiting such visceral violence upon each other. It took him a second to speak again.
"What the fuck was that!?" Haruka turned to him, and he was struck by the crazed expression on her face, mixed with tears flowing from slit-pupiled eyes. The hell!?
"That… Was a Mariage. A dead thing made for the purpose of killing." Haruka told him, her expression slowly returning to the blank, neutral expression she'd had earlier, and her eyes returning to normal. "The things that hijacked this ship. I had to crash the Archon to try and kill them." She looked down at the floor a brief moment, then glanced up again. "The things that murdered my friends."
Qrow continued to just stare at her for a few seconds, before shaking his head as he came to a realization. What does that mean, 'a dead thing made for killing'? Wait… So, these 'Mariage' are what killed everyone else here and left all the bodies all over the place. No wonder Haruka ripped it apart.
"Yeah, that I understand." He then came to a second realization. "Wait, how did you…" He gestured at the corpse. "Do that without a weapon?" He did not expect Haruka to give him a sickly smile in response.
"Who says I didn't use a weapon?" Qrow cocked his head in confusion, and Haruka brought her hands up, palms facing upwards. As he looked close at her hands in confusion, he saw the weapon she had used on the 'Mariage'. Or rather, weapons.
Thin blades ran down the inside of every finger, extending to a full inch afterwards, meeting blades projecting from her fingertips, lengthening them by another two or so inches. The knife-edges gleamed dark with blood, running in thin rivulets down the blades and around her fingers to drip from the backs of her hands.
The blades weren't the only things he noticed. Her hands were metal, not flesh, quite obviously cybernetic replacements. It reminded him of Ironwood's right hand in a way, save that Haruka's hands somehow seemed more advanced, though that may have been influenced by the technology he'd seen on the ship and that had been described in detail to him, though he still didn't really believe her, thinking that he was getting played for some unknown reason.
Out of curiosity, he gently prodded one of the blades, and was rewarded with a light slice across his finger, even through his Aura, and despite the fact that Haruka's hand hadn't moved at all.
"The hell?" Qrow drew is hand back, sticking the cut finger into his mouth, and returned his gaze to Haruka's face, noting the edge of her mouth twitching in amusement. "Okay, two things; One, what happened to your hands; and Two; What the hell is with your finger blades? I just cut myself through my Aura on that, and that's not supposed to be possible."
Haruka let out a snort of something approaching amusement, and she dropped her hands to her sides before responding.
"In answer to your first question, I was caught in a terrorist attack, a bombing, about two years ago. Having nearly completed my training as a Knight, I chose duty to help over personal safety, and ran in to help, thinking my Knight's Clothing would be enough to protect me. When the second wave of explosives went off, I learned it was not. At least, not when you are standing directly next to one of the bombs, anyway." She stated, as if it didn't particularly matter, and began to walk down the hallway again. "It took nearly a month to put me back together again, and that was by the premier expert in cybernetics in Administrated Space, a man named Jail Scaglietti and his daughter Uno. Don't bother asking after him, by the way. Everything related to him beyond that is classified." She added.
"Alright… And the second question?" Qrow asked asked, catching up and keeping pace easily.
"That ties into the first, actually. When Jail and Uno were putting me back together, Jail, for reasons beyond me, decided that as a Knight, I needed some kind of built-in weapon. When Uno asked me, during one of my brief instances of regaining consciousness, if I would like such a weapon installed within my cybernetics, I said yes. I did not anticipate the weapon in question being claws of a sort… Or that the Butcher's Nails, as these are called, would be so deadly." Haruka told him, again raising her hands to show him that she still hadn't retracted the blades, now named as the 'Butcher's Nails'.
"That wasn't my question." Qrow clarified, not bothering to touch the subject of the blades's ominous name. "I was asking how I cut myself through my Aura on them."
"If by Aura you mean the crude Mana shield you're covered with, the answer to that's simple. The Butcher's Nails have a natural Anti-Magilink effect, and an incredibly strong one at that."
"Mana shield? Anti-Magilink?"
Haruka threw him a look of puzzlement.
"Mana is the basic energy of magic. An Anti-Magilink effect damages the bonds of Mana, making it harder to cast spells, and damages existing ones. This planet has a weak natural Anti-Magilink Field." She answered slowly, as she retracted the Butcher's Nails into her hands.
Wait, WHAT!?
Qrow stopped dead in his tracks.
"Magic." He said slowly. "Honest-to-god magic. That's what you're talking about?"
Haruka gave him another very slow, measured look.
"I think I need to stop talking." With that, she fell silent, and no further attempts from Qrow could get her to talk again.