"I knew it'd been too quiet lately!" Squall snarled, readying his Gunblade even as Sarah felt the Keyblade appearing in "her" own hands.
She turned to Kuromaru, even as the first wave of Heartless began to form up into a wave to attack. "Kuromaru, take this back to my room and stay there," she said, pushing her cooler bag into the little Shadow's as she prepared to move out with the rest of their group. "Go on, boy."
Narrowing "her" eyes slightly as the first wave of assorted Heartless broke over them, Sarah set aside her emotions and joined the flow of combat.
Keeping careful track of her allies, since it wasn't like her strikes would pass harmlessly through them or theirs through her anymore. Sarah set herself to the task of eliminating as many Heartless as she could. It was no easy task, to keep track of them in what amounted to a free-for-all like this, and since it wasn't a vital piece of information, Sarah didn't bother to remember it any longer than she had to.
Launching a Thunder Lance through the head of a Large Body that looked about ready to corner Donald, Sarah paused briefly to charge up a Storm Bolt and let fly to explode a Yellow Opera in its wake. Someone shoved a blue-tinted bottle into her line of sight, and Sarah had only the briefest of moments to wonder just what in the hell was up, before that same person up-ended the bottle over "her" head and Sarah felt a surge of fresh Mana filling her up once again.
The rattle and crash of falling armor pieces drew Sarah's attention away from investigating the seemingly-familiar figure who had appeared at the edge of the latest wave of Heartless, and as the pieces assembled themselves into another suit of empty armor with that familiar Heartless emblem on the cuirass, Sarah had a momentary flash of amusement at the idea of the thing's head sticking out of where its ass had once been.
The five of them, or six, since it seemed that Riku had decided to join this little party of theirs, moved forward almost as a unit to confront the Heartless armor now towering over them as it hovered in the air. Sniping from a distance when she was given the opportunity, Sarah battered an incoming gauntlet-that-had-been-a-greave aside as the thing tried smashing its former sabaton into "her" head. Squall's Gunblade seemed to be doing a fairly good job of whittling down the defenses of this particular armor-set as well, which was a good thing, considering how many other Heartless were still in the area.
As Squall turned more of his attention to dealing with the Heartless armor that had thrown itself in their path for whatever reason, Sarah made herself a lethal obstacle for any other Heartless who might be given the bright idea to attack Squall while most of his attention was occupied with a more pressing matter. She saw Riku out of the corner of "her" left eye, looking a bit like he was trying to catch her attention for some reason or other.
Waving briefly to the silver-haired boy, Sarah waded – slashing, hacking, and blasting away with the occasional Thunder Lance – back into the swiftly-thinning ranks of Heartless.
Once the last of their attackers had been reduced to their component metaphysical elements, Sarah turned to see the cuirass and helm of the Heartless-armor dissolving into the strange anti-light that composed visible Darkness.
Sighing in profound relief as some very nice person poured a Potion down "her" aching back, Sarah stretched to work out the remaining kinks.
"Anyone else up for lunch?" she asked, once she'd gotten her breath back from a yawn.
"Yeah," Yuffie said, grinning as she stretched, herself. "I don't know about the rest of you guys, but that mid-morning snack just didn't cut it after all this fighting."
There was a general consensus on that idea, though when everyone started walking, Riku firmly interposed himself next to her, shoving Donald out of the way in the process.
"So, what're you buying me for lunch, Sora?" Riku asked, draping his left arm around "her" shoulders as he grinned at her in that way that suggested long familiarity.
Long familiarity with Sora, at least.
"What, the people you're staying with not giving you an allowance?" she volleyed back, smirking.
"You mean you're still getting an allowance?" Riku grinned, seeming to latch onto that once piece of info over and above everything else. "You're such a kid."
She laughed. "Yeah. Remind me again which one of us is broke?"
Riku raised the pointer-finger of his right hand, opening his mouth as though he had something to say, then seemed to realize he didn't and closed it again. Grinning as the silver-haired boy side-eyed the boy he still thought she was, Sarah looked up to see Kuromaru dashing through the large double-doors that stood sentinel over the Second District as Squall pushed them open. Rolling "her" right shoulder in a sort of non-verbal welcome to the little Shadow as it clambered up onto "her" back and settled itself there for the duration of their journey through that particular district.
"All right, boy: back to the hotel," she ordered, as the entrance to the First District came clearly back into view. "Go on."
"Aw, come on, Sora," Riku said, and she turned back to see a smirk on his face as he looked at the pair of them. "Why don't you let him stay?"
"Maybe because I'm not too keen on inciting a mass panic," she said flatly, giving Riku an unimpressed look as the seven of them stopped for a moment before the doors of the First District.
Or the Second, depending on where you were standing.
"You won't," Squall said, looking back over his shoulder from the position he'd taken in front of those same doors.
"Would this just so happen to have anything to do with you and your big mouth, Squall?" she asked, folding "her" arms and half-closing "her" eyes in annoyance.
"It's Leon," was all he said in response.
"Kuromaru, swat him for me," she said, rubbing the bridge of "her" nose to ward off a headache.
Yuffie's incredulous laugh prompted Sarah to open "her" eyes once again. Squall had a look on his face that seemed to suggest that he couldn't believe what had just happened.
"That's the first time I've ever seen someone order a Heartless to spank their opponent," Yuffie said, her eyes glittering with the same amusement that had clearly prompted her wide grin.
Raising an eyebrow as Squall straightened up and composed himself once again, Sarah turned "her" head as far as she could manage, even as Kuromaru obligingly stretched itself over "her" right shoulder so that the two of them could look each other in the eye as well as someone riding on someone else's back could manage.
"Not quite what I meant, Kuromaru."
She'd heard badly-stifled snickers coming from Riku's direction for nearly as long as this particular topic had been under discussion, but as the whole situation was pretty funny when you thought about it, Sarah wasn't going to say anything.
The seven of them made their way out of the Second District and into the First, and Sarah quickly put aside her earlier amusement at the whole thing with Squall and turned her attention to the people out and about in the noon-hours of Traverse Town. If there was even the slightest hint of a panic in the offing due to the little Shadow's presence, she was going to send it right back to her room at the hotel. No questions, no hesitation.
However, it seemed that the general populace was merely curious – and some of them were understandably wary, of course – about the Shadow riding on "her" back.
When their group made it inside the restaurant, settling down so they could wait to be seated, Sarah found that it was much the same situation: only a few of the patrons seemed curious enough to care, and the rest seemed to briefly glance and then look away the way they always did. It was just one more example of the kind of things a refugee population like the one that inhabited Traverse Town could come to accept when it wasn't trying to kill them.
What she'd found was their usual waiter – the pig – came out to greet their group and get them all settled in one of the large booths that ringed the main eating area on three sides.
"So, what d'you think you're in the mood for, Riku?" she asked, as their waiter set out menus in front of all of them.
"As long as it's not fish, I'm sure I'll like it."
She grinned. "Really? Even if it was haggis?"
Scrooge's laughter drew their attention as the other drake came over to the booth where the six of them had all been seated. "Did I hear someone impugning the good name of haggis?"
That got a laugh out of both her and Yuffie.
"Wouldn't dream of it," she said easily, grinning back at the top-hatted drake from where she sat.
"That's good; I'd hate to think that my own business partner didn't have proper taste in food."
"Yes, what a tragedy that would be," she quipped.
A few moments after catching the other's eye, both she and Scrooge laughed.
"What in the world is haggis?" Riku asked, his eyes flickering from her to Scrooge and then back again.
"You want to field this one, partner?" she asked, raising "her" eyebrows, and prompting Scrooge to grin as well as anyone could manage with a beak.
"Quite so, Sora my lad."
Watching the steadily more incredulous – or, in Donald and Riku's cases embarrassed and queasy, respectively – expressions on the faces of her fellow booth-mates, Sarah chuckled deep in "her" throat. Opportunities like this didn't just drop into one's lap on daily basis, after all. Best to take them when they did.
"That's so gross," Riku said, grinning slightly in that way someone did when they didn't quite know if what they were hearing was real or not.
Or even if they wanted it to be.
"Do yourself a favor: don't ask about fried tripe," she said, smirking over the top of her menu.
"All right, we won't ask," Squall said, not sounding nearly as stoic as he usually did.
When Scrooge left their booth behind for whatever new part of the restaurant he'd been headed to when he passed them in the first place, Sarah turned her attention back to her menu so she could figure out just what it was that she wanted. Lunch was a bit more subdued on every part but Yuffie's, since the other girl still seemed amused by their earlier discussion. If not by the purely amusing reactions of a good number of their booth-mates.
Once the six of them who could actually eat normal food had finished their respective meals, they all stood up to leave.
"Why don't you guys head off to the hotel without me?" she suggested, as Donald and Goofy both started making their way over to where she and Riku were standing.
"Actually, we were planning to go to Cid's place, so that he could tell us what that new Gummi does," Donald said, as the five of them blended into a larger group on their way out of the restaurant.
"Well, that works, too," she said, as they all filed out through the front exit. "Keep me posted on what you find, all right?" she asked, as their small group prepared to split and go their separate ways for a time.
"Aw, shucks. We wouldn't leave ya out like that, Sora," Goofy said, smiling widely as he clapped "her" shoulders.
"Thanks," she said, smiling back at the pair of them. "I'll meet you guys back at the hotel, then?"
"Sounds good," Donald said, as she, Kuromaru, and Riku parted company with him and Goofy.