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<br/>​</div>Akena noticed Robin's fascination with her spine, but before she could respond with any witty snark, Shiro decided to find her form quite unsettling. She managed to hold back on reacting in any impolite way as he stammered a quick excuse and ran out of the room, but then proceeded to burst out laughing the moment the door closed behind him. It was really more of a mirthful cackle, and Akena ended up clutching her sides as she gasped for air. She finished pulling the hoodie over her head and sat back on her bed, catching her breath.<br/><br/>"Ha! I'm not<i>that</i>pretty." She wondered, given Shiro's newfound issues with the female form, if there was some way to leverage Robin's particular issues with faunus for any amusement. Probably not, he seemed to be far more grounded. He still seemed to think of her as human, for now. She'd need to bring that up eventually, and probably sooner rather than later.<br/><br/>Akena left him to his packing, and took Nyx Astra out of her pack, transforming it into a pair of gauntlets she slid on. They had lockers for their weapons, she knew, but Akena was loath to be far away from it. It wasn't just a weapon, it was a family artifact - and one of the few bonds back to her native clan. While the Maris family raised her - and truly, they were her only proper family - the Zarammite clan would always run in her blood. This was all she really had. She sat cross-legged on her bed, concentrating on the jagged black gauntlets, while passively observing the rest of the room. Robin seemed to have some serious hardware, but she doubted he was about to blow up their room anytime soon. He reassured her it was safe, and Akena didn't really challenge him, instead sinking into a light meditative state. She turned to face the window from her mattress, and slowly, the day's events began to surface and link together in her mind, various thoughts being pruned and emptied, and the stress began to leave her body. As she did so, her mind acclimatized to the near-inaudible humming of the gauntlets, almost synchronizing the speed of her thoughts to it's thrumming frequency.<br/><br/>Her mind now focused solely on the weapon, she held up her hands, the gauntlets slid off, and recombined and restructured into a black orb. Akena had experimented with the different ways it could all come together, but it would never form a smooth surface - there were always sharp bits of metal sticking out. Her metal bracelets vibrated slightly as the orb hovered over her palms. A few traces of fire still remained after the fight, and tiny sparks played along it's surfaces and points. Nyx Astra always retained trace amounts of dust after use. Over time, that would lead to decreasing potency and capacity. While other weapons needed mechanical maintenance, Akena needed to draw the dust out. The meditation served it's purpose in letting her use Ignition to do so. Akena took a deep breath, and slowly began draining the remaining embers and sparks into her own body, feeling her hair stand slightly on end, and a pleasant warmth suffuse her torso. It was incredibly weak, and incapable of even sparking a discernible reaction. Akena took another deep breath, and exhaled, letting the warmth leave her body.<br/><br/>As the sun began to set outside of the window, the room dyed in a fiery orange. Robin sat across from her on his mattress, engrossed in a book on...Faunus Genomics? Akena took the chance to observe the only other teammate in the room from her peripheral vision, thinking on him as she meditated. He was a strange paradox. His beliefs were easy enough to understand - they came from ignorance. Maybe in his upbringing he had rarely been challenged on them, or his environment had only reinforced his ideas, rather than challenging them. So why the interest in the genetics of faunus? Wouldn't more inquiry simply challenge him further, or was he expecting to find scientific reinforcement for his beliefs? She was broken out of her meditation by a message - from Karmyne. She and Nekro had gone off to the cafeteria, and Akena assumed that was where Shiro had been going as well. She slowly got up out of bed, stretching her arms and legs as she stood, sliding her hands into her jacket pockets. Robin seemed to still be engrossed in his book.<br/><br/>"The others are meeting up for dinner, and I'm getting a bit hungry too. Feel like getting some food?" She was hoping he'd come along, largely because eating together would promote some sort of team bonding, however light. Besides, it was at least polite to offer. Maybe he'd be more receptive if he had a chance to talk about his work? "While we go over there, you can tell me about those strange metal cylinders. I'll take your word that they're harmless, but they're certainly out of the ordinary. And what you're learning about Faunus Genomics."