A small fic in the Christmas Spirit.

It was Christmas Eve. That magical time of the year when all the good little girls and boys knew it was only hours until Christmas. The new generation snuggled into their beds, pretending to sleep as their ears strained to hear the sound of bells. All was quiet. All, of course, except for one place.

"I lost my reindeer!" Deidara bolted from the stalls where the animals in question were normally kept. This was a normal occurrence. Tobi was right behind him, as he didn't have an attention span long enough to keep track of reindeer either. Hidan, who also didn't know where his reindeer was but didn't really care, followed behind at a lazy walk.

All around them was the complete chaos that occurred every year when the elves realized that there were only a few hours before the Sandaime had to make his rounds and they weren't ready. You'd think by now they'd have the sense to start preparing earlier. You'd also think Deidara would have noticed the rest of the reindeer handlers hanging out boredly in front of Tsunade's vet clinic. Watching their three colleagues in amusement, they supposed that they could have informed them of the pre-flight checkup. This was way more fun, though.

Running like the maniacs they were (well, two of them. Hidan was still leisurely walking and almost managing to pull off a sane look), they eventually made their way to Tsunade's.

"Tsunade! We've lost our reindeer!" The blond was ignored by most of the medics. After several centuries, the scene lost its novelty.

"I know. I had your partners bring them in for you, since I knew you wouldn't remember. I don't want a repeat of last year." Referring, of course, to that little incident over the Atlantic.

"We only lost three, and who knew reindeer couldn't swim?" Deidara pouted and wandered over to where Sakura was checking his reindeer.

Tsunade's eye twitched. He didn't get it. "Do you know how long it takes to train one of those? Wait, you do – because you're the one training them!"

Within an hour the pre-flight checkup was complete and Tsunade had another team hooking the reindeer up. Kiba had his hands full keeping them in line, even with Akamaru, Shikamaru and Shikaku's help. Even so, things were actually going surprisingly well in this department.

When the battered (four hundred years on the job and they still never saw the kick coming) group presented themselves to Shizune and announced that they were done, the young vet glanced over the reindeer critically.

"Are they in order?"

They knew it had been too easy.

Elsewhere, in toy storage, things weren't going quite so well.

"Where are the toys?" The question echoed through the vast, empty storehouse and voiced the thought that was on every elf's mind.

Jiraiya was equally confused, before deciding it was time to look like he knew what he was doing and started shouting orders. "Well what are you all standing there for? Find them!"

Kakashi closed his book irritably. "Arashi probably took them," he muttered. His deduction was confirmed by the evil cackling that filtered through the room. Curse Orochimaru for teaching him how to laugh evilly.

Thus began the mad dash to locate both the toys and the prankster involved. By the end of it, however, they only recovered about half of them.

"I'm telling you, I only took half of them! The rest were gone when I got there!"

The tied up blond glared at the elves surrounding him. They glared back. He stuck out his tongue. Bad move.

Five minutes later, Arashi seemed a bit more willing to cooperate. Perhaps he actually did want to help find the rest of the toys, perhaps it was the threats of giving him a Maito Gai hairstyle, or perhaps it was the elves' glares that promised to give him another beating if he refused to answer.

"Orochimaru probably took them. I saw him eyeing the new batch of electric trains the other day, and he's done it before." This suggestion was enough to make the elves glance at each other, then turn to stare at Jiraiya, who assumed a thinking pose. Whether or not he was actually thinking is open for debate.

"The only place we haven't looked is Orochimaru's lair. But-" He glanced over the crowd. "-who wants to go check?"

He had barely finished the sentence when there was a mass retreat as all two hundred elves simultaneously remembered pressing business elsewhere, and suddenly found the energy to get there remarkably quickly. The only other people who consistently showed that type of speed were his pupil, Arashi, Naruto (only when ramen was involved), and Anko (after a full night's sleep and getting into Deidara's sugar stash). Grumbling about 'traitors' and something about a 'pay deduction' (ignoring the fact that the elves didn't get paid, despite a rather persistent union), the head elf whistled sharply, calling his loyal followers.

Three poofs of smoke answered him. One managed to get out the usual 'Yo!' before whipping out an orange book (Tsunade was busy trying to ban said book. And was currently recruiting supporters.). Kurenai glared murderously at Kakashi and his choice in 'novels' (she was one of Tsunade's supporters.) The final member of the trio, Asuma, blew out a puff of smoke and waited for Kakashi to finish his giggling like a schoolgirl. "You called?"

"Yeah." Jiraiya looked the group over. At one point in time there had been four, however Gai had somehow managed to get a promotion to 'The Spirit Of Christmas'. No one was quite sure how it had happened, but nobody complained as, much to Kakashi's (and the sanity of the rest of the elves) relief, he rarely had enough time to bug the elves now (and it got better when he took his mini-me, also known as Lee, with him). "Find me a volunteer to go to 'The Lair.'" Jiraiya glanced back at them as he moved to get his binoculars. "Now."

Watching their progress (not that he didn't trust them, he would never even think of that) through the binoculars, the head elf wasn't surprised when the trio targeted Arashi. His pupil was running as fast as he could with a chair tied to him (which explained why he was lagging behind the stampede of elves). The white haired elf winced slightly as a cloud of fist and feet appeared around the jounin and Arashi.

"Now, Arashi-" Jiraiya glanced at his pupil to make sure he was still listening; he had a habit of zoning out during lectures, debriefings, or anything that didn't directly involve pranks for that matter. "-as your punishment for stealing the toys, you have to go into Orochimaru's lair and find the rest of them."

If it had been anyone other than Jiraiya, the jutsu Arashi activated would have worked. It was actually a very popular jutsu among children when they wanted something. Nearly as famous as his Rasengan, the puppy dog eyes no jutsu was nearly unbeatable. But as stated before, Jiraiya was, unfortunately for Arashi, immune. Instead of bending to his pupils every whim, the head elf's eye just twitched. "I said you're going to Orochimaru's lair and you are."

"But, but I don't want to." Arashi added a quivering lip to the package.

Again, Jiraiya's eye twitched. "I don't care. Go to Orochimaru's and get the toys before I decide to get rid of all the ramen in the North Pole. Leaving you with a very ticked son." He had to smirk when his student paled.

Arashi was persistent. "But Jiraiya-sensei, remember when I was young-"

"And ignorant." Jiraiya mumbled under his breath.

"-how I hid at Orochimaru's and came back with my 'faster-than-light-speed'?

There was a confused look graced upon Jiraiya's face. "I thought you got into the extra-sweet candy cane mix."

FlashBack

He awoke to a pitch black room. It took a few moments of panicking to realize that his eyes were still closed. Arashi had never been accused of being overly bright. Recalling all the movies he'd watched that involved situations much like this one, he remembered that he was supposed groan and blink his eyes open. Dutifully following Hollywood's example, he groaned slightly and tried to blink. He immediately regretted it, as a blinding light seared his poor eyes. Deciding that perhaps Hollywood wasn't the best example to follow, he decided to keep his eyes safely shut.

Five minutes later he got bored. Deciding that braving the light was better than being bored, he opened his eyes and attempted to stand. Not the smartest idea in the world, as his sore bottom informed him from the ground. It was at this point that Orochimaru decided to walk in. "Ahh! I see the newest member of our little club is awake."

Arashi paled. He, like every other child in the North Pole, had heard the rumours about the poor children that had stumbled upon the snake-lover's lair and never returned.

Over by the door said children, who called themselves the Sound Four (for no particular reason), were making bets on how long the newbie would last before snapping. They didn't get much in the way of entertainment around there.

"Isn't he Jiraiya's brat?" Sakon realized, recognizing the blond hair. "He's probably already snapped."

The group looked at each other. If the kid was already crazy there was no point in the betting pool. Jiroubou finally shrugged. "Let's get something to eat." With that, the group left Arashi to his fate.

"Now, Arashi-" The gleam in the snake-dude's eye wasn't reassuring. "-I hope you don't mind but I need to conduct a few tests -" Orochimaru didn't have a chance to finish his sentence, as Arashi suddenly decided that his legs were stronger than he'd thought and bolted, quite literally, at the speed of light out of the lab and base, leaving a quickly fading yellow trail.

"Hmm. I guessed the experiment worked after all."

End Flashback

Jiraiya stared at his student. "As I said before: I don't care. Get those toys back! Or no ramen!"

Knowing there was no point in arguing (and because Jiraiya could, and did occasionally, get rid of all the ramen in the North Pole), Arashi made his way (cursing his teacher in every language he knew, which was a surprisingly large number) to the deserted area that housed the entrance to 'The Lair'. It was the only place in the North Pole that was totally deserted (besides the dentist's office). Arashi heard that the reindeer handler, Sasori, wandered over here occasionally after a drinking contest with Deidara (when the Sandaime wasn't looking, of course). It was also widely believed to be a bad idea to be within fifty miles of 'The Lair' when this happened. Naturally, Deidara went looking for Sasori there anyway, but even he went only after taking precautions.

'The Lair' was a huge underground complex whose entrance was kept well hidden (though everybody knew where it was). Arashi took a deep breath before stepping into this entrance, praying that Orochmaru wouldn't recognize him. The scene that greeted him, however, was not what he was expecting.

Sitting on a plush carpet in of the room, playing with kunai, shuriken and senbon, were two toddlers. One of them had blood red hair with a pair of fox ears popping out, nine tails swishing across the floor and an adorable expression on his face. The other toddler only had one tail of a sandy coloring along with messy hair and tiny raccoon ears peeking out from the top of his head.

The blond blinked. Part of the Rudolf Project maybe? It was a little known fact that Sasori and Orochimaru had teamed up to create a genetically enhanced reindeer (that could swim). They had called it the Rudolf Project, and had taken to experimenting on humans first, as reindeer were expensive and the Sandaime refused to lose any more of them. If he really wanted to keep losses down, though, Deidara, Tobi and Hidan would have been fired a long time ago.

Arashi was pulled from his musing by the sound of someone running up the stairs. Turning, he saw Sasuke (Orochimaru's newest acquisition) panting hard and glancing wildly around the room. "Where did Kyuubi and Shukaku get to?"

Taking a wild guess, the blond pointed to the toddlers. The raven-haired elf breathed a sigh of relief.

Arashi raised an eyebrow. "Let me guess: Orochimaru has you on babysitting duty?"

Sasuke glared at him, answering his question. He just grinned when Sasuke realized the toddlers/demons had bolted again, and took off after them. Looking at the retreating group, Arashi suddenly remembered the reason he'd come in the first place. Glancing around, he headed for the stairs.

Arashi zipped toward the runway where the sleigh and reindeer were waiting at his legendary speed, with the other half of the toys flung across his back. Orochimaru had been experimenting with the toys at the last minute and didn't take kindly to the blond speed devil 'restealing' the toys. Which was why Arashi was running at top speed.

Arashi leaped over the pack of elves surrounding the sleigh and completing last-minute touchups and slam-dunked the bag of toys into the back of the sleigh. This caused cheers and score signs of 10 to go into the air. "Safe!"

"Not quite." A voice cut into the excitement.

The cheering stopped instantly. The Hyuuga clan, that only left their compound once a year, flittered through the elves, and stood in front of the sleigh. "They haven't passed inspection" Hiashi activated his Byakugan first, and was followed by Hinata, Hanabi and Neji. Soon the entire clan was gazing through the toys without touching the objects, checking to see that the toys were of the proper quality.

A few minutes later the Byakugan were all deactivated and the Hyuuga huddled together, discussing their verdict. Hiashi stood in front of the elves. "The flight will-" The elves waited with baited breath. "-take place as scheduled." The cheers returned to the elves.

As quickly as they came, the Hyuuga disappeared.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get Christmas started." The elves turned to see the boss himself, Sandaime. Tsunade took charge in mere seconds, herding the elves into their stations, and soon all was ready.

The Sandaime got the reindeer into position. Jiraiya brought down the starting flag and away they went. The reindeer built up speed as they charged down the runway and were slowly lifting from the ground.

"Looks like this year might actually go smoothly." Anko commented from beside Itachi.

Tsunade narrowed her eyes as she looked through the binocular she 'borrowed' from Jiraiya. "We lost a reindeer!"

Did you like? Oh, and this is a small parody of a Christmas Carol that was taught to me from my father and my two uncles:

"We three kings from Butternut Square,

Tried to sell some cheap underwear,

So fanastic, no elastic,

3.99 a pair."

Feel free to memorize this, and teach it to all. Oh yeah, don't forget to review.