What the New Year Brings

Merry Christmas, everyone! ^_^

Chapter 58-The First Time KakaSaku Celebrate Christmas

In winter, Konoha, the Village Hidden in the Leaves, becomes a misnomer. It's more like "Konoha, the Village Hidden by Leafless Branches Excessively Dumped on by Snow." How else would we get our lush vegetation if not for the heavy amounts of water we receive during the spring rains and winter snow? And now that all the Christmas presents have already been opened, it's not surprising to see most of the villagers out sledding or building snowmen or throwing snowballs at each other and generally just enjoying what little is left of this Christmas day.

Kakashi and I divert from the larger crowds, however, choosing to hang out on quiet Training Ground 3 instead.

Training Ground 3 is also completely transformed in winter, changed from a thick, grassy field to a barren white one encircled by the aforementioned leafless trees, their trunks and skeleton branches now gray in color rather than their normal rich, earthy brown. The training ground actually looks like a Christmas card with its untouched snow and frozen, winding stream in the background. All it lacks is a spotted deer with a caption above its head that reads "From Our Family To Yours...Merry Christmas!"

So of course, Kakashi and I make quick work in defiling that pristine beauty.

It's so cold that our breaths hang in the air as frosty mist, coming on stronger and harder with each heavily panted breath. Snow is getting carelessly pushed one way and then the other and I'm pretty sure all our racket is what caused a nearby flock of red-crowned cranes to scatter high up above the treetops, but still Kakashi encourages me, pushing me to move faster, pushing him to move faster as well.

"What are you two doing?" a sharp voice cuts through the air, making Kakashi and me immediately look up and stop what we're doing.

Just as quickly, my eyes widen in recognition.

"Naruto! Merry Christmas!" I say, running across the field to give him a big hug.

"Merry Christmas." Kakashi repeats with a happy eye crease, coming up from behind me a few seconds later.

"Thanks. Merry Christmas to you, too." Naruto says with that toothy fox grin of his. "But seriously, what were you guys doing?"

"Wanna show him?" Kakashi asks, looking down at me with a sparkle in his eye.

"Shannaro!" I say, quickly running back to the other side of the field to take my place.

Doing the appropriate hand signs of Dragon and Bird, the bleak, gray sky and snow covered clearing are soon overcome by a large, floating, swirling mass of light pink petals.

At first they seem to hang harmlessly in the air around me, but after spotting a viable target a few yards from Naruto, I shout "Batsu!" or "Strike!" and instantly the flower petals change shape, each one tapering down to a sharp, pointed tip, like an arrowhead. Meanwhile, their edges become thin and sharp, like razor blades. And lastly, the petals harden into something akin to the strongest material in the world, diamonds, making them more indestructible and deadly than the finest katana swords, kunais, and senbons out there. All this they do in just a matter of seconds and it only takes a few seconds more for them to aim and drive themselves into whoever or whatever I point them to, in this case, a fallen tree trunk which has disintegrated into nothing more than sawdust after the petals have swarmed away from it.

Now if it had been a human body, it would have been a completely different story...

The sharp little blades would have either slashed at it with hundreds of thousands of razor-like cuts or sliced it straight through, leaving nothing but a pulpy, bloody mess where the enemy last stood.

"Kaka-sensei..." Naruto asks in a low, shaky voice, "What the hell did you teach, Sakura-chan?"

"I didn't really teach that jutsu to her. She just sort of came up with it on her own. I was teaching her some of the jutsus I had copied through the years, sorting out which ones she's most comfortable with and which ones she's best at, and after a bit of mixing and matching, we learned that this particular combination suits her best."

"It's great, isn't it?" I ask excitedly, running back towards Kakashi and Naruto. "It's my new original jutsu. I'm calling it Reza Juuman no Jutsu!"

"Hundred Thousand Razors. I can see why." Naruto says.

"Oh, but you haven't heard the best part! Not only do the petals slice and dice, but I have complete control of them, too! I can tell them the exact depth and length of the cuts I want, the speed in which I want them to attack, I can even tell them to slice up just certain parts of the body, depending on whether I want to simply interrogate an enemy or kill them. Like if a guy doesn't want to talk, I can tell the petals to swirl around the lower half of his body and nick slowly at his clothes until he finally cooperates. It's absolutely wonderful, isn't it?!"

"Ahahaha! Yeah, wonderful!" Kakashi and Naruto laugh awkwardly, instinctively crossing their legs defensively.

"I KNOW! It's the best Christmas present ever!" I say elatedly, throwing my arms around Kakashi's neck and quickly kissing him on his masked lips.

"That was your Christmas gift to her?! Teaching her how to turn people into ground beef?! Whatever happened to jewelry and pretty clothes?!" Naruto yelps.

"I gave her those things, too, but by far this gift is her favorite one of all. Something about getting a lifetime's use out of it." Kakashi says, his one exposed eye wide in bewilderment.

"As if Sakura-chan wasn't scary already!" Naruto shivers.

"I heard that!" I growl, narrowing my eyes at him.

"Here. Merry Christmas, Sakura-chan!" Naruto says, quickly thrusting a small Christmas bag into my hands before running away without looking back.

"Naruto, I was just playing around like we always do! Come back!" I yell after him, but when Naruto makes it clear that he has no intention of doing any such thing, I cup my hands around my mouth and yell even louder "THANKS FOR THE GIFT! MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU, TOO! SAY 'HELLO' TO HINATA FOR MEEE!!!" then look thoughtfully at the package in my hands.

Thrusting a hand into the tissue filled bag, I pull out a new pair of black fighting gloves, exactly what I had been needing since my old ones were starting to become threadbare at the knuckles.

"I got a pair, too." Kakashi smiles warmly, holding up his own fingerless gloves with a metal plate on the back of each.

"I swear, Naruto can be the most annoying pseudo brother ever, but every once in a while he can be really sweet and thoughtful, too. Now I feel bad for scaring him off." I say guiltily.

"We'll make it up to him tomorrow." Kakashi promises. "You know Naruto. Treat him to a free Ichiraku Ramen meal and all is right with the world again."

"That's true. Plus, I think he'll really like the matching frog pajamas and slippers we got him. It matches his wallet."

"Maybe we should've just gotten him a new wallet." Kakashi says, scratching his chin thoughtfully.

"Are you kidding? He's had Gama-chan for as long as I've known him! It's like a part of him! You can't replace something like that!"

"No, you're right. Some things are simply irreplaceable." Kakashi says with a happy eye crease, giving my shoulders a gentle squeeze.

I smile back up at him and wrap my own arm around his waist, and with the sky already growing dark with approaching night, the two of us trudge through the thick snow and head back for home.

~*~*~*~

There's nothing like a woman's touch when it comes to making a house a home.

Kakashi's normally cold, empty looking apartment now looks warm and inviting ever since I moved in and now that it's the holidays, it looks even more warm and inviting. It's amazing how just a few Christmas cards left standing on a table and a lighted Christmas tree can make an entire room feel Christmasy.

Changed, dry, and warm once more, Kakashi and I sit snuggled up against each other on the sofa with a mug of hot cocoa cupped in our hands, simply admiring our Christmas tree in complete darkness, the soft, warm glow of its small, white lights being our only light source.

"I have one more gift for you, you know?" Kakashi says softly, breaking the sleepy, comfortable silence.

I lift my head off his shoulder and look back at him wide eyed.

"But you've given me plenty already! That justu alone…"

"One more can't hurt," he insists, and before I can say anything else, he gets up from the sofa, exits the room, only to come back a few minutes later to lay a large, neatly wrapped box onto my lap.

"Thank you." I say in grateful resignation.

"You're welcome. Now go ahead and open it."

After ripping off the wrapping paper of my last Christmas present and looking inside the box, I shoot Kakashi a look of complete and utter surprise.

He just smiles back at me with that infuriating happy eye crease of his.

"Merry Christmas, Sakura."

To be continued...