"Come on, this way," Riku said hurriedly, once the other two members of her quartet had passed out of earshot.
"There some place you've got a pressing need to be?" she asked, as the three of them made for the exit to the Second District once again.
"She really wants to meet you, but she can't risk coming here, or everyone will end up finding out about her."
"And, just who might she be, hmm?" Sarah asked, in spite of the fact that she knew damn well just which evil fairy had been duped into carrying out False-Ansem's plans for him.
"Not here, okay?" Riku said, pushing open the doors to the Second District again. "Wait till we get to the Third District, then she'll tell you herself."
"Well, if you're so enthusiastic about this, she must be a very interesting person," she said.
"Well, she did take me in," Riku said, sounding like he was grinning.
"Okay, so I can't say much for her choice in traveling companions…"
When Riku turned back with an annoyed shout of "hey", he found her grinning back in a way that was pure "gotcha!"
"Oh, very funny," the silver-haired boy groused, sounding more than a bit like he was trying not to laugh, himself.
When the three of them made their way back into the Third District once more, Sarah raised an eyebrow as that same anti-light that she had seen so many times before begin to gather once again, tinged with the green fires that the certain someone who was teleporting in was pretty well-known for. At least, such a thing was instantly recognizable to her.
"Good afternoon, ma'am," she said, as the evil fairy who was nominally in control of the Heartless appeared before her and Riku.
"Ma'am?" Malificent echoed, sounding surprised to be referred to as such, but pleased all the same. "Well, you are a polite young man," the fairy said, her smile widening. "Your young friend would do well to learn from you."
"If you say so," she said, when the silence had stretched a bit long. "But, there's something I wanted to ask you, if I'm not being too forward."
"Of course not, my dear," Malificent said, smiling in a way that was probably meant to come off as gracious, but with her unintentionally-predatory body language only managed to come off as hungry. "You must always seek where your curiosity guides you. Why, however else would you ever learn anything?"
"You're not human, are you?" she asked, deciding to leave off the discussion of caution and discernment for when she and Riku were alone.
"Whatever brought you to that conclusion, young man?" Malificent asked, looking pleased for some reason or other.
"Well, those horns of yours don't move quite enough to be any kind of head-piece that I know of, particularly considering how top-heavy something like that would be to wear," she paused briefly, and then pressed on. "To say nothing of the fact that I'd probably be sending a human with your skin tone back to bed, so they wouldn't either pass out or throw up."
"That's gross," Riku commented, grinning.
"Well, you've no need to worry about my health, young man," Malificent said, after a rather amused-sounding spate of laughter. "I am as well as anyone, and you are quite correct: I am no more human than that Heartless on your back."
"If you don't mind my asking, what exactly are you?" she queried, for Riku's benefit.
"You are a refreshingly curious sort, young man," Malificent said, her smile growing ever wider. "I am a fairy; my name is Malificent, and I am thoroughly pleased to meet you, my dear Sora."
As the two of them shook hands, Sarah had the brief urge to ask a certain fairy if she was from the Summer or the Winter Court, but one of the two most basic rules of success was not to reveal everything you knew, so she instead turned the conversation to another matter.
"She been treating you all right, Riku?" she asked, turning to look back at the silver-haired boy where he stood watching the pair of them talk.
"Yes, Mom," the boy in question responded, with a taunting sort of smirk.
"Don't take that sort of tone with me, young man," she volleyed back, grinning at the expression on Riku's face. "Besides, someone has to make sure you're taken care of, because anyone with working eyes can see that you suck at it."
"Hey! I do not suck at taking care of myself!"
She laughed "Yeah. When was the last time you had a shower? Or a hot meal, aside from the one I just treated you to?" she put "her" left fist on "her" hip, and half-closed "her" eyes. "Have you even tried to negotiate for your living expenses to be covered? I mean, you can't eat Darkness." She turned back to Malificent. "He can't, can he?"
The fairy laughed, looking supremely amused. "I should say not, young man."
"All right, all right," Riku said, waving his right hand as though he was trying to dismiss the whole argument. "I guess if I don't start taking better care of myself, you're going to make me go sit in the corner, right mom?"
She smirked all the wider at the tone of Riku's voice. "Actually, considering everything you've gotten up to lately, the lesson would probably sink in better if I turned you over my knee and spanked you."
Malificent laughed heartily, though whether at the expression on Riku's face or what Sarah herself had just said, she wasn't entirely certain.
"You really must come with me to Hollow Bastion sometime, young man," the fairy said. "If only for the change of pace. I think some of the others there could only benefit from your… unique perspective on matters."
"I'll keep the offer in mind," she allowed, as Malificent patted "her" head. "It was interesting meeting you."
"I completely return the sentiment, my dear," the fairy said over her left shoulder, as she walked out to the center of the Third District's courtyard, teleporting out before she had cleared half the distance.
Before either she or Riku could start up another conversation, the large doors to the Third District swung open, and Donald and Goofy both hurried through.
"What's the problem?" she asked, once she'd taken in the urgency of their respective stances and the fact that they both seemed to be out of breath.
"Did you two hear that bell going off?" Donald asked, his gaze taking in her, Kuromaru, and Riku in a single sweep.
"Vaguely," she said. "Why?"
"Gawrsh, Cid said that something had happened to the bell awhile ago, and it hadn't rang since the Heartless came. He thinks there might be somethin' wrong."
"Huh." She chewed "her" lower lip in contemplation. "What d'ya say, Riku?" she turned back to the boy in question. "You up for an investigation?"
"I am if you are," the silver-haired boy said, though he seemed to be covering up a fair bit more uncertainty than she'd ever seen from him in-game.
Who knew, maybe his brain was actually starting to work.
"So, where's this bell that Cid's so concerned about?" she asked, as the five of them made their way back into the Second District once more.
"It's over the Gizmo Shop," Donald said, as he and Goofy passed her and Riku on their way back.
"And that would be where, again?" she asked, letting the door fall closed after the last member of their current group had made it through to the other side.
"Ah, it's the big, white building at the far end of the Second District's main plaza," Donald said, sounding more than a little sheepish.
"Well, for future reference, do please keep in mind that I don't know this place nearly as well as you both seem to," she said, as the three of them made their way out of the alley that led to the Third District, and over to the staircase that bordered the plaza, making their way up to the raised walkway once more.
Or, perhaps for the first time, in Riku's case.
When they came to the first set of glass-fronted double-doors leading into the hotel where she and her current traveling companions were staying, Sarah pulled Kuromaru down from "her" back.
"All right, boy, it sounds like we might be looking at another fight, here. So, I want you to stay in my room until I come to get you," she said, giving the little Shadow a nudge so that it went over to the doors. "Go on."
With only that last bit of urging, Kuromaru pushed open the doors in front of it and made its way back into the building. As she turned back to the path that would lead them to the Gizmo shop – she wondered if it had an actual name, or if everyone had just called it the Gizmo shop for so long that the appellation had just stuck – she caught sight of Kuromaru making for the door of the room she was staying in.
There was a tense sort of silence as the four of them continued on their way to the shop at the far end of the plaza, as though each and every one of them was completely aware of the looming conflict, but didn't want to call attention to it since none of them were particularly eager to have yet more trouble falling out of the sky on their heads. It wasn't the most promising situation to go marching into blind, but Sarah had been searching her remaining recollections of this particular game, and she hadn't managed to come up with anything more helpful than "trouble", as she and hers had made their way through the eerily half-lit, empty shop.
Scaling a ladder that led them up to the roof, Sarah looked out over the expanse of the Second District's main plaza for a long moment, before turning her attention to the revealed expanse of the rooftop she stood on.
"There doesn't seem to be much here besides your standard crates, and someone's half-finished attempt at a wooden fence," she reported, as the last three members of their group all made their way up onto the rooftop beside her.
"We should at least take a closer look," Donald insisted. "Cid seemed really worried."
"Fair enough," she said, nodding as the four of them fanned out across the rooftop.
Well, three of them fanned out, anyway; Riku stuck firmly to her side as Sarah made her way to the far side of the roof. Passing the crate on her way.
"You're not really Sora, are you?" he muttered in "her" right ear, as she turned to examine the crate.
"You're just now realizing this?" she returned, giving the crate a kick to see if there was anything inside it.
Empty.
Riku didn't seem to have anything to say in response to that, and so the pair of them made their way back to the center of the rooftop once again.
"Did you guys manage to find anything?" she asked, looking between Donald and Goofy as the four of them met back up once again.
"No," Donald said, sounding despondent and rather annoyed. "The only thing we found that might lead to something is that wood-slat barrier at the back of the roof, but that was the only thing we found, besides empty crates."
Sarah chuckled. "You did one better than us; all we found were empty crates."
"I guess we should check behind that wooden fence, then," Riku said, still side-eyeing her a bit, but not so much that either of her traveling companions seemed to notice.
"Well, I've got no objections," she said; really, that kind of suggestion was astonishingly sensible, considering who they were dealing with.
"All right," Donald said.
Goofy nodded his own agreement, and the four of them made their way over to the wood-slat fence that seemed to be set dead-center in the wall bordering the right side – or the far side, depending on which way you happened to be facing – to see what they might be able to find there. Stepping over to the fence, Sarah peered between the slats as well as she could manage in the low light of Traverse Town's swiftly-falling evening.
"I think there might be something back there," she reported, turning to look at her traveling companions plus Riku, before returning her attention to the barrier before them. "Donald, you mind giving me a bit more light?" The requested assistance came, and Sarah thanked the drake for his aid, as she continued to study the space behind the slat-fence. "Looks like there is something behind this; though why someone would fence off a rope is kind of beyond me. Unless they really didn't want anyone climbing it," she mused aloud, speaking more to herself in that instance.
Turning at the sound of Donald and Goofy discussing something in low tones, she raised an eyebrow as the pair of them turned back to her and Riku.
"That's probably the rope to ring the bell," Donald said, his gaze passing over "her" left shoulder to take in the slat-fence that she was standing in front of.
Riku scoffed. "I could have told you that," he said, sounding distinctly unimpressed.
"It might've helped if you did," she returned mildly.
Riku's jaw worked like he wanted to say something, but in the end not a word came out. Blinking as she felt a sudden weight on "her" back, Sarah turned to see Kuromaru looking over "her" right shoulder. Folding "her" arms with an amused sort of annoyance, she asked the little Shadow if it would mind hopping the slat-fence so it could ring the bell, since the Heartless had seemed to be growing more self-aware the longer the pair of them spent together; this latest was pretty much proof of that, considering the way Kuromaru seemed to have anticipated her needs. Sure enough, it seemed like the little Shadow was as perfectly happy to help as it ever was.
After a moment's consideration, she advised the little Shadow to stay behind the slat-fence, so the four of them could deal with whatever it was that was going to happen without worrying about the Heartless getting caught in the crossfire. Nothing of note happened after the first pull, so Sarah signaled for Kuromaru to pull again. Second verse was pretty much same as the first, but the third pull of the rope produced a rather more interesting result.
Yeah, it was in the Chinese sense of the word on this particular occasion, but at least it was something.
Besides, the floating armor that had appeared in Second District's courtyard didn't seem any tougher than the one she and hers had been able to take down after they'd finished their meeting with Merlin and Yen Sid.
The four of them rushed down into the courtyard, and the battle was joined. She and Donald fell back slightly, unleashing punishing lightning-strikes, while at the same time being careful not to hit Riku and Goofy while the pair of them tried to land any number of blows on their opponent. Soon enough, their combined efforts had caused the armored suit to fall to the ground in a disorganized heap. However, considering the fact that the destroyed pieces of the previous suit of armor had vanished when they had taken critical damage, and the breathless sense of anticipation in the air, Sarah wasn't fooled for a second.
Sure enough, the armor rattled and clanked as it stood back up; flipping itself up on its gauntlets – greaves and sabatons rearranging themselves to become a new set of grasping limbs as the gauntlets did the reverse – the armor faced them once more.
She and Donald had naturally taken the opportunity so generously provided for them to swig an Ether each from the drake's stores – Sarah herself making a mental note to replace the thing when she had the chance – and so they were able to resume their barrage after only a moment's pause to catch their breath. Riku and Goofy, naturally, needed a bit more time to recover their own stamina, but soon enough they were back on the offensive, too. This time, the critically-damaged sections of the armor did vanish, and soon the four of them had managed to whittle the thing down to a floating helm and cuirass.
She and Donald were forced to dodge one of the large energy-spheres that went hurtling at them from the space where the helm had been resting up to that point, but she managed to regain her footing and continue pouring down lightning on the shuddering armor.
Finally, with a last blow from Riku's bat-wing sword, combined with her own Thunder Lance striking home at just the same time, the armor dissolved into colorless, misty sparks, loosing a Heart to the sky as it dissipated into nothingness. Seconds later, Sarah felt that same, odd pull that she'd felt beck, back on the little planet with the cards and the rabbit that they'd followed to the Queen and her court. The Keyblade appeared in "her" right hand again, and Sarah braced the thing as it seemed to raise itself up of its own accord, blasting out that same laser-pointer thin beam of light.
This time, into what looked like an enormous keyhole on a purple-mosaic background.
When the thin beam of light struck the center of the mural, however, the entire thing began to pulse, and the mural itself was covered over by another one: this one depicting a swarm of multi-colored butterflies in mid-flight.
"Well, that was a thing," she muttered, turning away from the mural so that she could face Riku more squarely.
The silver-haired boy looked thoroughly pleased with himself, and Sarah smirked in response.
"So, you want to travel with us?" she asked. "We have a ship, so it's probably a lot more comfortable than whatever it is that you've been using to get around," she offered, tucking "her" hands into Sora's pockets as she stood at ease.
"He can't come," Donald snapped, before Riku had the chance to say anything in response.
Rolling "her" eyes, Sarah firmly grasped Donald's beak, holding it shut with "her" left hand as the drake began to struggle.
"What did he mean by that?" Riku asked, an amused expression spreading over his face as he watched their by-play.
"Well, our ship is a three-seater, so he might've been thinking about how you're probably going to end up sitting on someone's lap if you end up coming with us," she grinned, inviting him to share the joke. "Probably hopes it's not going to end up being him."
"You're so weird," Riku snickered.
"Thank you, I do try," she said, her own grin melting into a smirk.
"Anyway, why do I have to be the one to sit on someone's lap?" Riku asked, clearly getting into the spirit of things.
"Well, I could always sit on your lap," she said, as Riku shook his head, chuckling as the pair of them continued to bounce absurd ideas off of each other.
"Yeah well, I think I'll just stick to the way I've been traveling, thanks," Riku said, amused smirk still lingering on his face. "I'm going to head out again; get back to looking for Kairi," he said, turning to head back in the direction of the Third District.
"We should have lunch again, sometime," she said, before he could get too far away from their group.
Riku turned back, a smile on his face. "I think I'd like that."
When Riku parted company with their group at last, Sarah let go of Donald's beak and turned to face the drake again.
"What did you do that for, Sora?!"
"Because, you suck at diplomacy, and you have the tact of a very small child," she said calmly, folding "her" arms as the drake continued glaring up at her.
"Sora, that's not a nice thing ta say."
"That doesn't make it any less true, Goofy," turning slightly to face the anthropomorphic dog where he stood.
"Sora, I know that honesty is the best policy, but you could have been nicer about it," Jimminy Cricket – and wasn't that a first – piped up from his spot, tucked neatly away in the rim of Goofy's cap.
She chuckled. "That was me being nice."
"What do you mean?" the cricket asked, sounding confused enough that seeing the expression on his face would have nearly been superfluous.
"If I'd actually wanted to insult him, you'd have all known about it."
Neither of the two anthros that she'd become most accustomed to dealing with seemed to have anything to say to that, and when she glanced back up at Jimminy, she found that he was writing something or other down in that journal that he always seemed to carry around with him. The five of them were halfway through the Second District's courtyard when Kuromaru rejoined them again. The little Shadow hopped right up onto "her" back, prompting Sarah to pause briefly, before she headed up the stairs behind Donald and Goofy.
The five of them headed back to their hotel, and Sarah was more than glad to do so, considering the particularly eventful day that had just passed. Yawning as she opened the door to her room at last, Sarah closed the door and began peeling off Sora's sweaty clothes, tossing them into the hamper again. As she made her way to the shower room so that she could wash up a bit before bed, Sarah smiled with a weary sort of pleasure as Kuromaru opened the door before she got there.
"Thanks, boy," she said, around another yawn.
Washing up and brushing her teeth, Sarah made her way back out of the shower room and over to the bed that she'd claimed for the duration of her stay, peeling off the remaining clothes she'd been wearing so that she could toss them into the hamper, too. Making her way back over to the bed that she'd used for such a long time during the course of her journey through the many and varied little planets that she'd paid a visit to while she'd been searching for either a way back home, or just for the end of the aforesaid journey, she fluffed up the pillow and threw the blankets over Sora's body.
Chuckling softly as she felt Kuromaru climbing up onto "her" chest, straightening the covers as it went, Sarah closed "her" eyes and settled down. Yawning a last time as she fully relaxed, she drifted off to sleep again.