Hello, everybody. This is my first fanfiction, so please be kind. I do not own Naruto.
Warning: Sakura bashing.
Gentle snowflakes were falling in the quiet town of Konoha. It was Christmas Eve, and everyone was anticipating the next day. Toy stores were packed with frantic shoppers. Houses were decorated with Christmas lights. Little children ran happily through the streets, dreaming of the new shuriken and kunai blades that they would surely receive the next morning.
Standing on a snow-covered bridge on the outskirts of town, impatiently waiting for their teacher, were our three heroes (or rather, two heroes and one worthless sack of crap): Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, and Haruno Sakura. Sakura was wearing a long grey coat. Sasuke was wearing a black, hooded jacket trimmed with white fleece, and long, navy blue pants. Naruto was wearing an orange coat over his orange sweatsuit.
"Rrr, that Kakashi! Making us train on Christmas Eve! And he could at least show up on time!" yelled Naruto.
"Pipe down, you little dobe. I'm trying to concentrate," said Sasuke. "Maybe if you spent less time screaming and more time practicing ninjutsu, you wouldn't be so weak."
"What was that?!" Naruto shouted, balling his right hand into a fist.
"Naruto, leave Sasuke-kun alone," Sakura said.
"He's the one that started it!" Naruto said, pointing angrily at Sasuke.
"That's enough, you guys," said a voice.
With a start, Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura all looked up and saw Kakashi standing on top of the arc of wood over the bridge, calmly reading a manga volume titled: Icha Icha Paradise: Christmas Edition.
"You're late!!" Naruto and Sakura screamed in unison.
"Hey, Sasuke. How's my favorite shinobi doing?" Kakashi asked, showing blatant favoritism to Sasuke while completely ignoring Naruto and Sakura, as usual.
"Whatever," Sasuke said, too über-cool to answer Kakashi's question, or even show any respect to Kakashi at all. "Conformist," he muttered under his breath.
"All right, today we'll be training in Area 7," Kakashi said, while gleefully flipping a page of his perverted manga book. "We're going to practice our teamwork."
"Aargh! Why do we have to train on Christmas Eve?!! Every other squad has the day off!!" yelled Naruto. "This sucks harder than Sakura's fighting skills!"
"Well," said Kakashi, with a sudden note of anger in his voice, "since two out of the three kids on this team are orphans, I figured you wouldn't have to do too much last-minute Christmas shopping."
Naruto stared at Kakashi, open-mouthed.
"Kakashi-sensei, that was inappropriate," Sakura said. "That's no way to talk to your students, especially on Christmas."
"Christmas? Bah! Humbug!" said Kakashi. "If I had my way, every fool who celebrates Christmas would be boiled in his own pudding. Don't you dumb kids understand? Christmas is just a way for stupid people to waste their money and pin their hopes and dreams on a false reality. It's all lies."
The three genin gaped Kakashi for a full minute (well, actually, Sasuke was too cool to gape, so he just kind of glared at Kakashi and muttered some stuff about killing Itachi).
Suddenly, Naruto jabbed his finger out indignantly at Kakashi, a look of incredulous rage on his face. "Kakashi-sensei, you'd better stop saying things like that, or Santa Claus won't bring you any presents! Believe it!"
Sasuke rolled his eyes, amazed at Naruto's stupidity. And did the little dobe have to add "Believe it!" to every friggin' thing he said? Sakura attempted to roll her eyes in order to imitate Sasuke, but accidentally crossed them instead. Because of her incredible lack of physical strength, this was enough to cause her to pass out.
"Naruto," Kakashi said, ignoring the unconscious Sakura, "you're a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Look at you. You're a slack-jawed moron eager to buy into all this Christmas baloney. And you're too stupid to even realize that Santa doesn't exist."
At the sound of the words "Santa doesn't exist", Naruto's heart shattered. Could it be true? Was it possible that Santa really didn't exist? 'No!' a voice inside him said. 'If Santa doesn't exist, who leaves the presents under the Christmas tree? It can't be Iruka-sensei, because he doesn't have a key to your house, and everyone knows that there's no way an experienced chuunin can enter someone else's house without a key. Therefore, logically, Santa must exist!'
"You're wrong, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto yelled defiantly. "Santa does exist, and I'm gonna prove it to you! Believe it!" With that, Naruto ran off in the direction of his house, training forgotten.
Kakashi watched him go, then turned to face Sasuke. "All right, Sasuke," he said. "It looks like we'll be the only ones training today. C'mon, let's go."
"Whatever," Sasuke muttered, roughly kicking Sakura's unconscious form before following Kakashi to Area 7.