Christmas 2012: Birth of a Legend

Edit: Yes, this is late. It was supposed to be online on Christmas. Either ways, I hope you enjoy it.

Warnings: Plenty of plot-holes, not enough details and not part of actual AtO timeline.Just something for Christmas.
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Our Christmas tale begins in a far-away land. On this Christmas Eve night, two cousins sit in a warm kitchen, oblivious to the world outside. Let's have a look at what they're up to.

Naruto craned his head up impatiently as the mouth-watering scent- a mix of meat, sugary sweetness and something fruity maybe- filled the kitchen. But he forced himself to stay seated. Eager to keep himself distracted, he said, “But what's so important about tomorrow?”
Nii-san glanced over his shoulder in amusement. “It's just a holiday from back home.”
“What kind of holiday?” Naruto persisted and leaned forward to take a deeper sniff of the food in the oven. But he still couldn't tell what it was, even as he looked at all the dirty dishes in the sink.
“One I never celebrated until just a few years ago. When I was younger, years ago, the only thing I really bothered remembering about the holiday was...Santa.”
“Santa?” Naruto repeated carefully, trying to get a look of what was in the oven while still being seated at the dining table. “Is that what you're making?”
Nii-san chuckled loudly. “No, no. Santa was sort of a... magical figure of Christmas. Father Christmas. He brought gifts to all the good children.”
Ignoring the foreign sounding word, Naruto said, “Then you must have gotten tons of gifts.”
Nii-san snorted. “I never ever asked for gifts.”
“Then what did you ask for?”
“Something that was probably too hard for him to give. Something impossible,” Nii-san said softly.
Naruto bit his lip, wondering if he could ask what nii-san had asked for. Before he could say anything though, the oven bell tinged and he leaned forward in excitement as nii-san opened the oven.
Nii-san pulled out a large tray and placed it on the dining table carefully, looking highly pleased as he looked at everything on the tray.
Naruto glanced at the fat rough biscuit-looking pastry things on the tray curiously.
“Mince pies,” Nii-san said happily. “Not exactly a meal-time food, but I think we can make an exception for the season. I better put the second tray in.”
Naruto knew he should have waited. But the smell was so different and nice that he couldn't help  picking a pastry from the tray. He yelped and blew at his slightly burnt fingertips.
“Honestly, are you a kid?” Nii-san huffed, turning back from the oven, and waved his hand in an odd motion.
Naruto grinned when the scorching heat from the pastry immediately lessened to a comfortable warmth. Even his fingertips felt cool and comfortable. “You're the best.” He took a big bite, chewed slowly and stilled as the food seemed to melt in his mouth with a burst of flavour. With another two large bites, he finished the pastry in his hand and reached out for another only to stop when he noticed nii-san's amused grin.
“Here,” Nii-san waved his hand and held up another delicious whatever-it-was-called.
Naruto took it carefully, but before he took a bite he said, “Tell me about Santa-san. How does he give gifts? How does he know what you want?”
“Hmm, well, Santa wears a red outfit and has flying rein...”

Let's leave those two, to finish their warm feast. Instead, let's go a little away from them. To a rooftop at the edge of the village where a single man stares up at the moon.

He adjusted his mask as he looked away from the moon and stared out at the familiar streets of his old village.
“Pathetic,” he scoffed. “Ignorant.”
He casually jumped onto another roof watching as an ANBU team rushed past him on some errand or the other, not even noticing his hidden presence. “So very ignorant.”
How had he considered them the epitome of strength before? Why had he wanted to be more like them?
He looked down at the quiet streets he passed, as he jumped forward, confident in his direction. It didn't take long for him to find his target. There on one of the rooftops, illuminated by the moonlight, was an unmistakable blond child wearing orange lying beside a black-haired boy.
“You're making this too easy.” He landed on the roof beside the two boys. He ignored the black-haired boy and moved to the blond, clenching his fists at the face that brought back so many unpleasant memories.
He knelt down slowly, amused that he was so close to his target without anyone knowing or even trying to stop him. It was just more proof that his old village had fallen.
Knowing that he couldn't push his luck in capturing the brat and getting the Kyuubi, he decided to cast a strong Genjutsu on the brat.
“Santa-san,” the kyuubi-brat muttered nonsensically in his sleep, drool dribbling the side of his face. “Nii-san wants to fly those...”
He snapped his fingers, pooled chakra to his fingertips and prodded a point on the brat's neck, allowing blue eyes to open even though the brat stayed asleep. For a moment he wanted to wake the brat to better enjoy his fear.
But he decided against it. Using something as new and untested as the Limited Tsukuyomi would have a better chance of success if there weren't too many unknown variables.
Thrilled at finally getting the Kyuubi, he moulded his chakra and activated the genjutsu.
For a moment things seemed all right. But a flash of bright red and the sound of bells disrupted his concentration and grabbed at his chakra, draining him completely.
Before he lost consciousness, he activated his fail-safe and entered the familiar world of jikukan.

Well, that was ...unexpected.

Harry woke up uncomfortably chilled to the sound of tinkling bells. He stared up at the starry sky in confusion for a few moments before he remembered that Naruto and he had been on the roof to watch for Santa.
Harry hadn't told Naruto that Santa was just a story, since Naruto had been excited about the whole thing.
He sat up when someone chuckled.  He blinked a few times, thinking he was dreaming, and stared at the person standing on the roof. Clad in bright red ninja clothes- shirt, pants, sandals and even a long red overcoat- a man with long white hair stood and chuckled.
Naruto gasped, apparently awake. “Santa-san! You heard my wish.”
“Wish?” Harry turned to Naruto, glad not to look at the red-clad person.
Naruto nodded. “I wished that you'd be able to meet Santa-san at least once, even if he couldn't give you what you asked for. Because you really seemed to like him.”
“I could always use some helpers." The red-clad man grinned and snapped his fingers. The air around him shimmered and three large deer appeared on the rooftop. Three deer, that was at least twice the man's size, flexed their cream coloured wings as they stood beside the man.
Naruto eyed the deer in awe. “Nii-san, you didn't tell me that the flying deer were this huge.”
Harry pinched his arm and winced at the pain.
“But other than that, everything you said fits exactly like I imagined.”
“What?” Harry said. “How does any of this fit? He looks like a ninja.”
Naruto stared at Harry. “He wears red and enters people's houses without waking them up or getting caught. Obviously, he's a ninja with super pranking skills.”
Harry ignored that logic and said, “The deer have wings.”
“You said flying deer. They obviously need wings to fly, nii-san.”
Harry wondered if the mince pies had somehow messed with Naruto's head. “Obviously.”
“The only thing I don't really understand is how he knows what everyone wants, even if they don't ask him for things. I can't wait to get the secrets to his success.”
“Yo! It's rude to talk about me like I'm not here,” the red-clad man said with a laugh.
Harry turned and stared at the man's red coat. “Look, I don't know who you actually are, but there's no way...”
The man tilted his head and then, in perfectly fluent English, said, “Harry Potter, when you were five and first understood the concept of Santa, you asked me to make you more likeable. But from the next year onwards you asked me to give you a different family, one that actually liked you.”
Harry looked up into unnaturally bright golden eyes.
“The problem with your requests, Harry Potter,” the red-clad man said with a kind smile.“I couldn't give you things you already had. And i certainly couldn't give you things that you would get much later.”
“There's no way,” Harry said in disbelief.
“Well, the only way to really know if I'm the real deal, is to come along with me,” Ninja-Santa said. “I promise to bring you back by midnight if you want.”
Harry briefly why no one in the village had interrupted. Surely they'd find this man suspicious.
“Looks like your cousin has already made his choice.”
Harry turned and watched Naruto whisper and pat one of the large winged-deer. “When did he...”
“You won't let him go off on his own, will you?”
Obviously, Harry couldn't let Naruto go off with the suspicious person. He told himself that it was worry, not excitement that made him cling to the winged-deer's saddle and reins tightly.
“Ah, I suppose I should let time return to normal now,” ninja-Santa said and snapped his fingers.
There was a burst of something in the air, just before a large number of ninja- including some that Harry recognized- surrounded the three of them in an instant.
But ninja-Santa laughed and before any of the ninja could say or do anything, the deer lept up into the sky in a rush of air. When Harry looked down, he saw pinpricks of light from the village below disappear in a blur of speed. He laughed in delight at being high in the air.
“Nii-san, look how bright the stars are,” Naruto yelled.
From a little ahead of them, ninja-Santa yelled back, “Our first stop is Kumo.”
Kumo, it turned out, had a lot of mountains. It also turned out that ninja-Santa could just snap his fingers to deliver gifts in multiple houses but sometimes he liked sneaking in anyway. While he went off delivering gifts, he tasked Naruto and Harry with decorating the village.  Harry practised his wandless magic by levitating and sticking long strings of red Christmas lights – that ninja-Santa had given him- while Naruto used his clones.
As they got back on the large flying deer, Harry felt proud that no one had bothered them during the entire escapade. That pride vanished when ninja-Santa mentioned something about putting time back to normal and snapped his fingers. Instantly a large group of black-clad ninja surrounded them, but again ninja-Santa just laughed as the deer leapt up into the air. 
By the time they were back in Konoha, which buzzed with activity before ninja-Santa fiddled with time and froze everything, Harry felt like he could identify each village's ninja by their uniform correctly.
“Here,” ninja-Santa pushed two bottle into Harry's hands when they finished decorating Konoha and delivering gifts. “A little something extra for you both helping me out tonight.”
Harry looked down at the bottles and laughed in disbelief. He passed one bottle to Naruto and looked up into golden eyes. “Thank you... Santa.”
Ninja-Santa grinned with obvious delight. “I take you all over the elemental countries in one night, stop time while delivering gifts, even tell you your old wishes... and you only believe me when I give you two bottles of Butterbeer?”
Harry shrugged and opened his bottle.
“I suppose I better let these ninja stop worrying about you two,” Ninja-Santa said and snapped his fingers.
It didn't take for the ninja to gather around them, some even putting themselves in front of Harry and Naruto as though to protect them from ninja-Santa.
“Now, I totally understand why you like Santa-san and this whole holiday,” Naruto said, gulped down the Butterbeer and sighed in satisfaction. “Best night ever.”
Harry laughed and watched as ninja-Santa waved at everyone and then disappeared in the blink of an eye.

And so the legend of Santa-san was born in this vast and distant land. Some people, who'd been visited by Santa-san, even took pains to spread this happy legend to every corner of the land.

“You forgot to add his ability to bypass any type of barrier and enter forbidden areas,” Danzo said in irritation as he looked down at the newly created Bingo book page. He pushed away the book, irritated at the picture of the red-clad man posing with a large uncaring grin.
“My apologies, Danzo-sama.”
Danzo winced as he glanced at his subordinate. “Are they still unable to remove all the red dye from everyone's clothes and weapons?”
“The dye is very persistent, Danzo-sama.”
Danzo grimaced. “What about those hideous socks that were left in my bedroom?”
“The analysis showed no signs of poison on it, Danzo-sama. Only...”
“Only?” Danzo prompted.
“It had aloe vera inside it.”
Danzo sighed and rubbed his forehead in irritation.
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A/N: Harry would have actually called Santa “Father Christmas”. But for the sake of the story, I just preferred using Santa.

Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year. 

Best Wishes,

Polar

Holiday time news...

As you may have noticed, I haven't been updating this blog the past few weeks. It's mostly because I've been preparing for a rather long (travel and time-wise) holiday-ish trip.

And preparing for long distance travel is a serious hassle- visas and shopping and travel clinics and more shopping (the shopping just never seems to end). Somehow you're just never completely prepared/packed until it's time to leave.

I will be out of the country till the end of January- and I won't be taking my laptop with me- which means no updates on ffnet until the start of February at least. But I might schedule a post on this blog for Christmas day (I actually wrote a Christmas omake in November)

I can't put up chapter 14 of AtO before I leave- it's not quite done and I can't work on it till I get back. It's rather frustrating (and emabarressing) that I've only managed to update AtO once this year- I really wanted to have more than three chapters up this year but the time just seemed to slip away.

When I look at the fanfic folder on my laptop I see a lot of files in there- lots of them created this year- all stories that are waiting to be finished. I really hope that 2013 will be the year of "completing everything".

Polar