Hero .:VxF Day:.

"I'm not a child," a teenager mumbled angrily to himself, kicking some pebbles down the street as he walked.

There was nothing that made his blood boil more than hearing his older friends tell him that he was too young to go on the same "dangerous" missions they did. Well, perhaps they hadn't said it just like that, but that was what they had been thinking, the boy was sure of that.

His spiky blond hair moved with the wind as he moved through the blustery streets of Twilight Town. The walk had started with the intention of being able to clear his head from the frustration that resulted from being told what he could and couldn't do by his friends, simply because they where older.

"Today Master Eraqus is sending us on a dangerous mission, Ventus. It's not the kind of thing you need to tag along on, Aqua and I won't be able to babysit you. Sorry, but you'll have to stay behind this time." The voice of his older friend Terra and his bleak words where still fresh in Ventus' mind.

"I don't need to be babysat!" The blond boy remembered having shouted in return, "I can watch out for myself and you know it!"

"Ven," his other friend, Aqua, spoke with a usual expressions of caring gentleness on her face, "It's not that, it's just...Terra and I want you to be as safe as possible."

"It's not fair!"

"Don't think of it like you're being left out," Aqua replied, brushing a lock of ocean-blue hair behind one of her ears, "Think of it like a vacation. Why don't you go to Twilight Town and hang out with some friends?"

"I don't have any other friends," the youth mumbled with a slight scowl as he shuffled his feet toward the door, "Fine! Whatever, go save the world without me, AGAIN! See if I care!"

With that, Ventus slammed the door behind him and was gone, but he could still hear the voices of Terra and Aqua inside as he slowly walked away.

"You think he'll be okay?" Aqua asked.

"He'll be fine, he's a tough kid. C'mon, we need to get going."

"I'll prove it to them, one of these days. They're not the only heroes the Master trained," Ventus said to himself as he took a turn toward Twilight Town's sandlot. Surely there would be something of interest going on there.

---

"Who needs this stuff anyway!?!" In an angry huff, a young man known as Seifer threw a pile papers in the air, "Not like I'll ever actually need to know it!"

"Yeah, who's idea was it to give out homework on the weekends anyway, ya know?" His friend and loyal follower, Rai, agreed, throwing his papers into the air as well.

The third member of their trio, a blueberry-haired girl named Fuu, looked up from her own work, which was nearly finished by this time. Fuu said nothing, being a girl of few words, and after a moment of blankly staring at her companions she returned her focus to finishing her own homework problems.

"Hey, check it out Rai, Fuu memorized the answers to the quiz!" Seifer exclaimed as he looked over his friend's shoulder.

"Didn't cheat," she replied with a quick scowl at Seifer for even suggesting such a thing. Maybe Fuu was no angel, but she was smart enough to get by in school without peaking at the teacher's book during breaks, the same could not always be said for her two friends.

"Come on, there's no shame in admitting it. Half the class can't pass these crazy tests the new teacher keeps giving out," Seifer insisted.

"And there's no other way you could be writing down the answers so fast, ya know?" Rai added.

"Smarter," Fuu said, smirking at the two boys. Maybe it wasn't the nicest thing to say to them, but it was a fact, plain and simple.

"Oh yeah? If you're so much smarter, why don't you finish our work too so we can get down to the sandlot sooner?" Seifer's ego was obviously wounded by Fuu's idea that she was smarter than he was, and this injury would only be worth it if he could somehow get his homework done out of the deal.

"Cheating," the blue-haired girl shook her head at the other two. Besides the fact that it was cheating, she didn't necessarily want to do three times her usual math homework.

"But we need to get over there! You know it's the Twilight Town Disciplinary Committee's job to keep the riff-raff out of our sandlot!"

Fuu paused to ponder the boy's words for a moment, could he possibly be right? Though few would have guessed it by her cold exterior, Fuu was really quite shy. Except, rather than stand in a corner twiddling her thumbs like most shy girls, she had adapted a cold and distant mask to her personality. If it weren't for Seifer and Rai, she'd probably be a social outcast, but instead she was a member of a small but fierce group, feared and respected by the rest of Twilight Town's youth. Didn't she owe them for that?

"Fine."

"Great," Seifer grinned, handing her two stacks of paper, "Rai and I will go ahead and get a head start. Come find us when you're done."

Without another word, or the chance for Fuu to object, the boys ran off down the street toward the sandlot.

The girl breathed a heavy sigh, she had never meant for them to leave her all alone. Feeling a damp spot on her cheek, Fuu reached up and wiped the single tear away, then told herself that this wasn't a real reason to cry and that she should be tougher than that.

Yeah, she was tougher than tears. With a defiant look to the papers, Fuu mentally sent a challenge for the math quiz to hit her with its best shot, and she'd have this work done in no time. Because she was Fuu, and Fuu didn't need any help from anyone.

---

"Hey, new kid, what are you doing in our sandlot?"

"Your sandlot?" Ventus raised an eyebrow as he turned around to see a scowling blond youth with a larger tan one standing behind him, no doubt from the way they stood that the second was the first one's flunky.

"Yeah, you heard me right," Seifer replied, his scowl deepening.

"Funny, I don't see your names on it anywhere," Ventus retorted, stretching his right arm toward the ground, ready to summon his Keyblade if this other boy continued to try picking a fight. Ven had had a bad enough day as it was, and he wasn't going to take trash from anyone from this point on.

"You tryin' to be funny?" Seifer scoffed, no one in town who had good sense dared to mock him, "Rai, why don't we show him what happens to funny guys who mess with the Twilight Town Disciplinary Committee."

"Bring it!" In a flash of light, Ventus summoned his Keyblade and held it backwards, as he always did, with a clenched fist.

"Seifer! Rai!"

A new voice,that of a girl, caused the three boys to turn their attention from the impending brawl and toward the far end of the sandlot. A girl with short blue hair that hung over one of her ruby-red eyes was dashing toward them.

"It's about time, Fuu!" Seifer snapped at her.

Ventus, on the other hand, stood stunned silent for a minute. Never before in his life could he remember seeing someone that looked even half as beautiful as she did. Even if she was just casually coming across the way to meet her friends, Ventus could have sworn she looked more like an angel coming to grace them with her presence.

"Sorry," Fuu mumbled with a disappointed gaze toward the ground, having yet to so much as look at the new-comer.

"I guess it's okay this time," Seifer said, enjoying the power-trip he got from having others at his beck-and-call, he then gave Ventus a cold look as he continued speaking to Fuu, "We where just having some problems with yet another punk that decided to invade our lot this weekend."

"What?" Ventus felt like he was snapping out a daydream when it hit him, this lovely girl was with these two lunkheads? Suddenly, he found himself less eager to fight the other youths and quickly dismissed his Keyblade, "No, never mind. I was just leaving anyway."

Even though Ventus meant to be addressing Seifer, his eyes where on Fuu the entire time, who still did nothing to acknowledge his existence.

"Glad to see you came to your senses," Seifer nodded at him, then pointed toward the nearest exit leading toward downtown, "Now scram!"

Without another word, but instead a displeased look toward Seifer, Ventus turned around and made his way toward the edge of the sandlot, looking over his shoulder only once he heard the other teens conversing again.

"We sure showed him, ya know?" Rai exclaimed, jokingly punching Seifer's shoulder as the trio passed by a ladder someone had left in the lot. Obviously whoever it was had left in the middle of a job painting a building's wall, as a nearly full bucket of paint teetered atop the highest step.

"Ow! Not so hard," Seifer didn't take kindly to being hit, even if it was a joke, and he retaliated by shoving Rai a few steps backward. The taller boy crashed into the ladder behind them, sending the balancing paint can the few inches to the side it took to cause it to come crashing down, and straight toward Fuu.

One second Fuu was looking up toward the heavy object tumbling toward her, frozen in place. The next moment she felt herself pushes aside, heard the plunk noise of metal hitting dirt and was looking into the sapphire-blue eyes of her quick-acting rescuer.

"Thanks," she murmured to the boy, her face turning a pale shade of pink. Had he been there a few moments before? What would have happened if he hadn't been?

For a moment, time seemed to stop, Fuu could hear Seifer and Rai babbling aimlessly in the background, but she couldn't tell what about and didn't care. All she could thing was that she didn't know a thing about the boy that had just saved her, even when her own friends did nothing. Going out of your way for stranger was a foreign concept to her.

"No problem," Ventus said slowly, a broad smile on his face as he helped Fuu to her feet, "The name's Ventus, but you can call me Ven."

"Fuu," the girl replied with a quick nod.

Before she could say another word, the angry shouts of Seifer once again began ringing clearly in her ears.

"Rai, you see what you almost did? If it wasn't for Spikey here, Fuu would have gotten her head banged up!" The angry teenager exclaimed at his friend; he then turned to Ventus and made sure to remind him, "Don't think this means you're off the hook either! You're still not welcome here."

"I know," Ventus bit his lip to keep from loosing his cool at Seifer. Who was this guy to assume he hadn't saved Fuu because he wanted to?

With one sound of disgust of the clap of his hands, Seifer walked off in the other direction with Rai followed closely behind, but the confused Fuu hesitated for just a moment.

Fuu took one look to make sure Seifer and Rai had their backs turned, and when she was certain they hadn't noticed her absence yet, she quickly leaned over and softly kissed Ventus on the cheek.

"My hero," she whispered, and then ran off to rejoin her friends.

---

"Ventus, what did Eraqus tell you about making up stories?"

"Stories? Terra, I'm not making this up!" The blond boy jumped up from his seat at his friend accusation. How dare the older boy say he was lying, and after Ventus had just spent the better part of breakfast relaying yesterday's adventure to him?

"Now then" Aqua began, walking across the castle's kitchen floor with her morning coffee in hand, "We have no reason to suspect Ven is lying about this Foe girl."

"Her name's Fuu," Ventus said with the slightest hint of a scowl on his face, "And I could never make up something like her."

"Assuming she is real," Terra replied, "You hardly even know her."

"Come on Terra, Haven't you ever heard of love at first sight?" Aqua smiled and gently ruffled Ventus' spiky hair as she passed by him.

The boy brushed his friend aside and rolled his eyes to hide embarrassment, it had just now occurred to him that he had opened up an entirely new subject for the older Keyblade wielders to tease him about.

"Just you wait," he said, "You'll meet her soon enough."

---

"Fuu!"

The ruby-eyed girl turned around quickly when she heard a vaguely familiar voice calling her name. Surprise overwhelmed her when she was met with the sight of the same boy she had seen yesterday, her "hero", so to speak.

Not a single word left her lips as Ventus approached her, instead she stared at him with her usual blank expression. He had seemed nice enough the day before, but what was he doing there now?

"Hi," he began, somewhat awkwardly, as he rushed up to meet her, "Uh, remember me? Ventus?"

"Ventus," Fuu echoed, signaling that she could indeed recall him.

In fact, she could more than just remember him; Fuu had spent a large portion of her evening thinking of the boy after their paths had crossed. Even as a total stranger the very air about his personality made him seem more friendly and inviting than her usual companions. Had their meeting perhaps been fate? Fuu had heard of such a thing but had always disregarded it as a "fairy tale."

"Yeah, I just, well...Uh," Ventus' felt his face getting warm once he realized he had been so busy thinking about finding Fuu, he hadn't thought of what he was going to say to her once he found her.

"Walk," the girl suggested, sensing the boy's uneasiness. As she did this, she wondered at the strange feeling deep inside her that seemed to be caused by the boy's ridiculously wide smile. Ventus had been giving her that same look after he had pushed her out of the way the day before, and since then that image had been a crystal-clear picture in Fuu's mind.

"Go on a walk, me and you?" Ventus' jaw slacked a little as he decided that maybe this whole "talking to girls" thing was easier than other boys had made it out to be.

"Yes," the girl couldn't help but smile at the way Ventus was tripping over his own tongue whenever he spoke.

"S-sure! Of course!" In true gentleman fashion, Ventus offered Fuu his arm as the pair prepared to embark on an mid-morning stroll.

"Fuu, there you are!" Seifer's voice pierced the air like falling ice shards, "What are you doing with him? We need to get going!"

A quite sigh escaped Fuu's rose-colored lips, between everything that had just happened she had managed to forget where she had been off to in the first place, retrieving some things for Seifer and Rai. Then, with a dramatic and defiant turning up of her nose, Fuu took the arm of the blond boy next to her and sauntered off, away from her "friends."

"Hey Fuu, Seifer was talkin' to you, ya know?" Rai called after her, but once again to no avail.

"I know you can hear me! Fuu, if you don't get back here right now, you're not on this committee any more, hear me?!? You coming or not?"

With a quick smirk as she turn-about, a bright smile to Ventus, and then an attitudinal look toward Seifer and Rai, Fuu placed one hand on her hip, and told them the one thing she'd been wanting to say for a long time.

"No."