Hello readers! This has to be one of my quickest updates yet! And now, enjoy my Christmas special one-shot.


A Very Beyblade Christmas

"'Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!'"

"Yay!" The children clapped and cheered at the conclusion to "'Twas the Night Before Christmas". Their parents then led them from the room, and Kyoya slunk out of the shadows.

"All finished trying to get on Santa's 'Nice' list?" he asked Nile jokingly, for it had been the Egyptian reading the poem to the kids.

Nile shrugged. "For now. I feel like I've finally made up for taking Gingka's candy cane when he wasn't looking."

Kyoya smirked. The look on the Pegasus blader's face had been priceless when he had looked back at his hand and realized the candy cane he had been holding was now gone. "Good for you, Nile. What do you think about heading over to the mall now? I heard a bunch of people are over there, and so is Santa."

"Okay," agreed Nile. He and Kyoya put on their cloaks to keep warm (for it had recently snowed), and walked down the streets of Metal Bey City toward the mall.

Along the way, they marveled at the decorations in the yards and on the houses they passed. All except one: Ryuga's. The yard was completely covered with snow that was undisturbed by any footprints or decorations. "What a Scrooge," muttered Nile. A few minutes later, they then passed the brightest lit house of them all, the Hagane residence. There were no fewer than a dozen Santas in the yard, from the giant inflatable to the poster-like one in the window. Flashing candy cane lights lined the driveway and sidewalk also.

Finally the two friends made it to the mall. Sure enough, it was crowded, but not completely mobbed; there was room enough to move comfortably. After walking a little longer, the two friends heard rather than saw Santa.

"Ho ho ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!" came the jolly-yet-familiar voice of Santa.

Kyoya was about to say something to Nile, but then spotted Ryuga walking swiftly through the crowd.

"Ha! That's not Santa, it's Benkei wearing a red suit and a fake beard!" Ryuga came to stand on the stairs leading up to Santa Benkei. "Everyone knows Santa ISN'T REAL!"

Then Gingka came onto the scene. "Ryuga! How could you be so wrong?! Of course Santa is real! Don't you believe in the magic of Christmas?"

Kyoya rolled his eyes at Nile. Nile smirked back. This wasn't the first time the two rivals had argued over the whole Christmas thing.

"Well then, if Santa is real why is BENKEI dressed up as SANTA?" Ryuga shouted, pulling the fake beard and red had off of 'Santa' to reveal Benkei.

"Because," Gingka patiently explained. "There are thousands of malls, and Santa can't be at every one of them at the same time. In fact, Ryuga, it's time I proved to you that Santa IS real once and for all."

Ryuga looked at his rival's serious face for a second. Then he burst into laughter. "Ha ha! Gingka, that's impossible. What are you going to do, catch Santa in a trap the night before Christmas?"

"Exactly." Gingka seemed sure in his plan.

"I'd certainly like to see that," Ryuga said with a laugh once more.

"Come to my house Christmas Eve night, Ryuga. We'll stay up and then you'll see the perfect trap I made to prove that Santa is real!"

"Whatever," Ryuga grunted. With that, the confrontation was over and Ryuga dramatically exited the mall. Gingka on the other hand, went over to talk to Kyoya and Nile.

"Hey guys, I actually didn't make a trap for Santa," he whispered.

"So you want us to help you," Nile assumed.

"Exactly. You guys can come and see Santa get trapped too, along with me and Ryuga," Gingka added as an extra incentive.

"We'll be there," Kyoya said. "But won't trapping Santa get you on the 'Naughty' list?"

"It's a risk I'll have to take," Gingka said. "I'm sure Santa will understand why."

- Christmas Eve -

Kyoya and Nile had helped Gingka set up an elaborate trap for Santa. Once he came down the chimney, he would step into a loop of rope that would then automatically tighten around his ankle and pull him to the ground. Then Gingka could go in and prove he was the REAL Santa.

Soon after the trap setup was done, footsteps were heard outside and Ryuga entered without knocking or ringing the bell. "There's no way you came up with this, Hagane," he said when he saw Gingka wasn't alone. "It was those two."

Gingka absolutely refuted that point, though most of the work had been done by Kyoya and Nile. All that was left to do from then on was wait.

"This is silly, no one is going to come," Ryuga hissed around eleven o'clock that night.

"Give it some time, Santa's not due to come until midnight anyway," Gingka persisted.

"Dummy, he can't do every single house in the world at midnight," Ryuga pointed out.

"He doesn't have to," Kyoya put in. "Only those houses in the time zone where it's around midnight."

"That's still impossible."

"It's just a song, Ryuga," Nile put in. "Santa probably works magically fast, AND he has twenty four hours to deliver presents to the entire world due to the time zone differences."

"Still impossible."

- About an hour later -

STOMP STOMP STOMP!

"Did you hear that? It must be Santa!" Gingka excitedly crept deeper into his hiding place and pulled Ryuga in as well. "Don't let him see you!"

"Oof! Ho, ho! I'm getting too old for this," said a muffled voice on top of the roof. Some ashes fell down the chimney and a pair of black boots was soon seen. Santa then squeezed out of the chimney and stepped right into the automatically tightening rope, which pulled him to the ground.

Gingka jumped out and pulled off Santa's hat, revealing spiky red hair. The fake white beard fell to the ground. "Ho ho ho?" Ryo Hagane said, realizing his attacker was his own son. Gingka stared for a few seconds and then burst into tears.

"Why dad, why?" he sobbed. "Santa has to be real, he just has to!"

Ryuga simply looked smug. Kyoya and Nile glanced at one another with perfect poker faces. Gingka refused to be comforted by fake-Santa's arm over his shoulder. After what seemed like hours but was only about twenty minutes, Gingka's sobs faded to sniffles, and his sniffles to silence.

"Told you so," Ryuga finally said. The silence was deafening.

"Son, I'm sorry. I just wanted you to be happy, but instead I ruined everything," Ryo apologized.

Gingka pushed him away. "Well, Ryuga. It looks like you were right. You win. I lose." An awkward silence ensued yet again.

"Well if that's it, I'm going. Later, guys," said Ryuga, heading to leave the Hagane residence.

"Wait a minute, Ryuga," Nile called out to the Dragon Emperor. "Do you hear what I hear?"

"'Ringing through the sky, shepherd boy?'" Ryuga spat the line out in reply.

"No no," said Nile, who hadn't meant to quote the song at all. "I hear sleigh bells."

In the following silence, everyone present could slowly hear sleigh bells coming closer and closer.

Ryuga gave a laugh. "No way, it's just one of your friends playing a trick on us, Hagane."

CLICK CLICK CLICK. THUD!

"Hmm... Sounds to me like reindeer just landed on the roof, followed by a sleigh." said Kyoya.

Ryuga gaped as presents fell down the chimney, followed by a jolly man in a red and white outfit who seemed like more of a going-down-chimneys pro than Ryo had been. When he stepped out and saw five people staring at him, he merely smiled and shook his finger at the assembled bladers. "You all shouldn't have been up so late. You're not supposed to see the magic of Christmas in action."

Gingka started to explain. "But mister Santa! My friend here doesn't believe-"

"I'm not his friend," Ryuga clarified.

"-in you," Gingka finished. "I wanted him to see that the magic of Christmas is truly real, that you really DO exist!"

Santa thought only for a moment. "Well, I suppose I'll make an exception for you, young Gingka." He placed the presents under the tree, somehow defied gravity by climbing back up the chimney, and could be heard taking off from the roof soon after that.

Gingka gaped at the chimney, then turned toward Ryuga with a huge smile on his face. "Now who's the loser?"

Ryuga, however, was occupied with what he had just seen. "There. Is. A. Santa? I don't believe it. I can't believe it. It's simply unscientific! Fiction! A lie! My whole life's been a lie!"

"Not your whole life, Ryuga," Nile said consolingly. "Just the Christmas part."

"You're right. I'm still a better blader than you, Hagane!" Ryuga marched regally out of the house and back to his own place, where he saw a single, tiny present under the tree. Did Santa really get me something? He wondered to himself. He reached out and opened it. Inside was a piece of coal. "I've been a bad boy," Ryuga said with a smirk on his face.

Gingka, Kyoya, and Nile on the other hand, had been good boys and gotten exactly what they wanted for Christmas. "I must be on the 'Nice' list because I read that poem to those kids in order to make up for taking Gingka's candy cane," Nile later told Kyoya.

"I can't imagine how I've managed to get on the 'Nice' list after insulting so many people on various occasions, but I got what I wanted," Kyoya said in return. "Probably because I let Kenta film me for his documentary. That's the only nice thing I can remember off the top of my head."

As for Gingka, among his various presents from Santa, he received a candy cane. "Perfect! This will make up for the one that mysteriously disappeared the other day!"

Yeah, he'd never find out who took it.


Kyoya: Ha! Ryuga didn't get any presents.

Ryuga: Actually, that is incorrect. Santa got me coal, and I used Ldrago's high-speed rotation to press it into a diamond. I then sold the diamond and used some of the profits to buy the new Xbox One.

Nile: Cheater.

Kenta: I'm going to ask Santa for coal next year! Then I can turn it into a diamond and be just like Ryuga!

Ryuga: Good luck, kid.

Kenta: Gee, thanks Ryuga!