Naruto A Very Naruto Christmas VIII

[daniel_gudman]

The server migration borked up some of the old threads, but you can last seven years' on ffnet.

Merry Christmas!

I I I

Christmas Eve.

A silent apartment, with garlands and lights hanging from the walls along the edge of the cieling. The low table was pushed to the side to make room for a tree, with lights spiralled around it and many ornaments hanging from it's branches.

Stockings were hung from the curtain rod above the window, each marked with names: Naruto, Tenten, Konohamaru, Pops, Iruka, Moegi, Udon, and more. An elf doll was tucked into the one labelled Naruto.

The door slid open, and a man in an orange jacket stepped through, walking into the room, rubbing his blond hair sheepishly.

"I don't want to nag, but seriously, I asked you twice if you had everything." A woman sighed in exasperation as she folowed him, adjusting her white coat as she shook her head, the buns in her hair bobbing.

"I know, I know." Naruto replied. "And I'm sorry."

"Well, it's alright, then." Tenten sighed, as she brushed past him. "Where did you say it was again?"

"I just left it on the kitchen counter." Naruto replied.

"I'll get it." Tenten said.

"You don't have to." Naruto protested.

"It's fine." She easily dismissed, striding past him to duck into the hallway.

Naruto sighed, glancing around the apartment with a warm smile.

The tree that Tenten and him had gotten, and decorated when her dad came over to visit.

He'd tricked Iruka into making decorating his apartment an official D-rank mission, and worked together with Ebisu to harass Konohamaru and his friends over it. Well, he'd made them stockings and they were going to come over later in the day.

He smiled at the stockings, and then flinched back.

There was a dead-eyed elf with a creepy smile tucked in his stocking.

Watching.

Naruto grimaced, shuffling aside. The eyes were pained on, woodenly staring in one direction, but somehow he knew it was still watching him.

"Alright,  I found it." Tenten announced, walking out of the kitchen carrying a wine-bottle with a ribbon tied around it. "Now let's get over to the Tower and party."

"Thanks!" Naruto said, smiling, as he snuck a glance.

"What's wrong?" Tenten asked.

"It's just..." He struggled to find words. "Did you put that doll up there?" He asked, pointing at the thing sticking out of his stocking.

Tenten frowned at it. "No, I've never seen it before." She shoved the bottle into Naruto's hands, and walked forward, fearlessly plucking the plastic-faced monstrousity from his stocking.

"Weird." She said, frowning. "The instant I touched it, it felt like a jutsu was disrupted." She turned it over, examining it. "I don't know about this seal array." She announced, looking up. "We should ask about it when we get to the party."

"Sounds good." Naruto replied. "We ready to go, then?"

She smiled. "Let's head out."

The door closed behind them, and the apartment was quiet once more.

I I I

Deep in the deserts of Sand Country, there was a cave hidden in a cliff. Inside that cave inside that cliff, a lump in black adorned with red clouds stirred.

Behind his hand seals, Sasori of Red Sand slowly opened his eyes, and then spoke.

"They're on to me."

 

[Stormfury]

the greatest xmas tradition.

 

[nixofcyzerra]

I look forward to this more than opening my presents.

 

[Time Shifter]

Unlike with mysterious presents, you always know this tradition will be joyous.

 

[daniel_gudman]

(Ugh, the first attempt at the next section didn't have any gags, so I cut it to start again, and then ended up getting distracted by internet videos.)

I I I

"You know, this thing really bugs me." Naruto said, as he flipped around mid-air between roof hops, turning the doll over in his hands.

"It is pretty creepy, but what about it?" Tenten asked, adjusting the bottle of wine under her arm.

"Well, it doesn't have any Yuletide Chakra at all." Naruto began. "I totally don't recognize the sealing array, either."

"It's from Hidden Sand, probably." Tenten said.

"Oh, you can tell?" He asked. "Still, that just kind of supports my point. Stuff from the North Pole Village is always super-obvious because they draw that snowflake border around their seals."

"That's just decorative, it doesn't accomplish anything." Tenten pointed out. "Well, technically it can act as a diffusor for certain kinds of telepathic augmentation arrays, but even then there are more optimum designs. It's basically a historical artifact."

"Yeah, I know." Naruto sighed, as he bounced off the side of a tree. "Still, maybe we should go ask Gaara about it?"

"That's a little extreme, don't you think?" Tenten replied back.

Naruto sucked in his breath in a disagreeing way, before he responded with a drawn out word. "Yeeeeah, but we've had a string of crazy events the last couple years, I would really feel better if we were more proactive this year."

"You know what they say." Tenten said. "If you go looking for trouble, you'll definitely find some."

"Exactly!" Naruto agreed. "We should go on the offensive and take care of it before it's a bigger problem!"

"That's not really what it means." Tenten said with a sigh. "But I'll trust your instincts on this one."

"Great!" Naruto said, as he landed with a stamp on a raised platform, hands flashing between seals, before he slapped his palm on the ground.

"Gamakichi!" He shouted, and the giant frog appeared in a puff of smoke.

Gamakichi blinked, taking a look at his summoner, before he sighed, rolling his huge amphibious shoulders and turning to Tenten.

"Yo, nee-chan, what's this about?" He asked.

"What the heck is with that disrespect!?" Naruto roared as his hand whipped up to point accusingly.

"You only summon me to deal with crazy nonsense." Gamakachi said, sulking. "We never hang out any more, it's always fighting some rogue missingnins or crazy escaped experiment people or probably demons or whatever those were."

"We totally hang out!" Naruto said, sounding hurt. "What about that time at the volcano with that guy! We drank all that sake together."

"He was a megalomaniac with an army of robots with ghosts trapped in them! He was doing that villain thing where he was trying to recruit you to his side over a hoighty-toighty dinner, you just got cheap cuz he said it was a free bar." Gamakichi shot back, crossing his forelegs in a big X over his chest. "That's not hanging out, that's work!"

"Nuh-uh!" Naruto countered. "That totally wasn't a mission!"

"To be fair, you keep referring to that time we overthrew that dictator attached to all those tubes from his castle wall as our first real date." Tenten interjected.

"See!" Gamakichi shouted.

Naruto sputtered. "But, but that was totally romantic. We did a princess carry as we jumped away from an explosion and everything!"

"The castle was collapsing, we would have been crushed!" Tenten shot back. "And you were half-unconscious from chakra exhaustion! If I hadn't caught you, you would have turned into a smear on the ground!"

"Wait, I remember that!" Gamakicki said. "You summoned me as a glorified landing pad when you first stormed that castle, right? It had all the weird glowy pipe things?"

Then the giant frog frowned. "Why am I even here, again?"

"We're going to Hidden Sound, so we need you to use the Dimensional Frog Leap no Jutsu to teleport us there." Naruto said. "We're probably going to save Christmas."

"So instead of a glorified landing pad, I'm a glorified horse." Gamakichi rumbled.

"Alright, I tell you what. We'll get this wrapped up, and we'll party all night afterwards, how's that sound?" Naruto wheedled. "We're even doing a big Christmas dinner tomorrow, we'll move it outside and you can join us."

"Gamatatsu too?" The giant frog said, his bottom lip sticking out in a pout.

Tenten gave Naruto a supporting smile.

"Yeah, sure." Naruto easily agreed. "That sounds pretty awesome, actually."

I I I

"Yo, what did I miss." Kisame asked, as his astral projection materialized on one of the fingers on the giant statue in the underground cave.

"Leader made us all wait, so nothing." Itachi calmly replied.

"Oh." Itachi said, turning to look.

Kakuuzu coughed awkwardly, as the other seven members in attendance had all been silently standing on their respective fingers.

"If everyone's here, we'll begin the meeting." The Leader announced.

"Wait, where's Tobi?" Kisame asked.

"I left him behind, un." Deidara replied, as he snuck a glance at Hidan. "I dropkicked him."

Kisame could see why. Hidan had big metal spikes driven through his body; on the end of each spike was a tin lantern with an unlit candle hanging on each end of every one.

"You shouldn't pick on Tobi." Black Zetsu scolded.

"He's surprisingly sensitive so you might hurt his feelings." White Zetsu added.

Kisame experienced that vertigo he got when he lost track of who knew how much about the many layers of deception going on here.

The Leader ostentatiously cleared his throat. "It is time to begin the next phase of the plan." He revealed.

"Oh?" Kisame asked, after an awkward pause when no one else responded.

"About that." Sasori interrupted.

"Yes, what is it?" Pein asked in a testy voice.

"I think my spying tools have been compromised. Ninjas from Konoha could be on to us." Sasori explained.

"What?" The Leader asked in a flat voice.

"No, before that." Deidara asked. "This has been bugging me, un." He pointed at Hidan. "What the heck, un."

"Don't get him started." Kakuuzu warned, but it was too late.

"This," Hidan revealed, "is the traditional rite performed on Jashinmas!"

Kakuuzu sighed theatrically.

"But isn't it Christmas, un?" Deidara asked quizzically.

Hidan sneered. "Don't confuse our holy ritual with that half-baked secular sellout! They just moved it so they could commandeer older holidays that are also on the Winter Solstice!"

"But didn't you guys do the same thing?" Deidara asked, frowning.

"Yes!" Hidan agreed without any shame. "But we're a death cult that's explicitly evil! So it's not disgusitingly hypocritical for us to use underhanded methods!"

"That actually kind of makes sense." Kisame allowed.

"Gentlemen." Pein boomed. "If you are all quite done."

Kisame was going to say something smartalecky and clearly Deidara was too, but it was obvious they couldn't push it any further, so clearly the other guy also decided to hold his tongue.

"As I was saying, we are finally ready to move on to the next phase." The Leader raised a fist, and clenched it.

"We are going to declare War on Christmas."

 

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Brilliant as always daniel, glad you've continued this tradition.

 

[violinmana]

I sense foreshadowing.

 

[atlas_hugged]

As always, a wonderful christmas present. Thank you.

 

[da_fox2279]

Love this series. It's always so over the top, tongue in cheek. Thank you for this.

 

[daniel_gudman]

Hey, sorry about the delay everyone.

Normally I write the whole thing Christmas Eve, but I kind of fell asleep in the middle....

Well, right now I'm staying over at my parent's house, we did a Christmas dinner yesterday and a family dinner today, so I didn't get the story finished in time for Christmas proper; I'll finish it tomorrow probably.

 

[violinmana]

Family beats out random people on the internet. Barely.

 

[DIT_grue]

"Yo, what did I miss." Kisame asked, as his astral projection materialized on one of the fingers on the giant statue in the underground cave.

"Leader made us all wait, so nothing." Itachi calmly replied.

"Oh." Itachi said, turning to look.

Kakuuzu coughed awkwardly, as the other seven members in attendance had all been silently standing on their respective fingers.

Itachi is talking to himself? But yeah, I'll join the chorus saying how much we always enjoy these.

 

[nixofcyzerra]

So, uh, seeing as the X-mas season is over now, is daniel going to put this on hiatus until next December?

I mean, I cetainly hope not...

 

[violinmana]

Christmas season is never over. Never. I hate retail.

 

[Time Shifter]

Is anyone else a little worried? Daniel said he would probably finish it three weeks ago.