"What do mean my technique is sloppy!?"

Clang!

"You're leaving too many openings!"

Clash!

"I do no-"

Woosh!

"See! If you weren't so strong that swipe would have got-"

Bang!

"Ah ha! Look whose so high and mighty now!! If you hadn't been standing there lecturing me…"

And so the skirmish escalated. Ven rolled his eyes. With a huge sigh he looked lazily around the room but a yelp from Terra brought his attention back to the duel.

Terra had been knocked completely to the ground. With a sheepish look he got up, rubbing his hindquarters, the sheepishness being replaced with burning shame. Aqua was right, he left way too many openings.

Aqua meanwhile was standing triumphantly with her keyblade extended a small smirk tugging at the edges of her mouth.

Ven thought back to the humble origins that culminated in this event. Terra teased Aqua about something or rather concerning her keyblade and she retorted back, Terra became defensive and snapped, Aqua returned the hostility…blah blah blah blah… the fight was taken to the arena and ended with Aqua proving her superiority and Terra getting his pride and his backside wounded. Seriously, these two really needed to get over themselves or admit… if light bulbs could be seen over someone's head they would have seen Ventus's pop on and almost shatter from the force of the idea. An impish smile spread across his features. He wasn't usually devious, but when you can clearly see that two of your best friends in the whole world are nuts about each other but are so equally stubborn the task of tiebreaker usually falls on someone else. Ven just happened to be that someone else.

"What's so funny 'Mr. I'm-totally-not-taking-sides'?" Terra grumbled, obviously peeved at being beaten again Aqua and Ventus's mischievous grin.

"Well she was right about you having openings…" Ven started, he saw Aqua glow and Terra glare. Just like the light bulbs, if there were daggers they would be racing towards Aqua at the speed of light.

"However you are much stronger physically so if you could work on breaking her defense you could get the upper hand." He added quickly, this time it was Aqua's turn to glare and Terra's to glow.

"Ha! See!" Terra gloated. "I am stronger." "And handsome" he said smoothly, running a hand through his hair."

"Too bad your brains don't add up to complete picture of perfection." Aqua retorted. Like cats the keyblades came out and they had jumped back into fighting stances. Ven didn't know who was going to hiss first. He was surprised, Aqua usually tried to be civil when they argued, that last comment showed she was getting tired of putting up with Terra's shenanigans.

"Oh well look at the time! It's almost dinner!! And we have an exam on magic tomorrow, my, my, my." Ventus said pushing though the circling wolves, throwing each a look of amused exasperation as he passed.

"I guess it is that time" Aqua replied curtly, keeping her hard gaze on Terra.

"Quite," came an equally chilly response.

"Come on, I heard that there's going to be something special for dessert…"

It was like a switch had been flipped.

"Dessert?" Terra said, the keyblade disappearing, his eyes widening.

"Yea! So let's go…" Ven urged, seeing he had said the magic words. He saw Aqua open her mouth to say something, but not wanting to have the two go at it again he ran behind them as quick as a wink, placed one hand on the others back and began to push them towards the exit, when they made it into the hall without mishap he walked between them, striking up a neutral conversation until he felt the danger passed, soon all three were joking and smiling.

He was the happy go lucky friend, the one everyone thought was cute, the one who cheered everyone up, but he knew that he was going to have to go down another path to get these two sorted out.

"Ventus the Matchmaker Master", he mused to himself, rolling the title around in his head. The smile retuned as he hung back to watch Aqua and Terra enter the cafeteria.

A/N: More to come, and I apologize if it's slightly OOC. Please review, given my recent stints of writers block, feedback is much appreciated!

Also do forgive if there are lengthened periods of time between chapter uploads, having an almost three year old makes life interesting :-)

Many thanks to Fighter le Fey for the inspiration.