'Twas the night before Chrimmas, and all through Kakashi's apartment complex it was silent. Even Gai slept soundly on Kakashi's couch where he had fallen asleep the night before. A small mouse poked it's head up from underneath the christmas tree and snickered, "They'll never see this coming," it whispered, and tightened a ninja bandana on it's head.
Then came a noise as loud as an explosion and Kakashi jolted awake, his eyes a-wide like a babe. Then came a noise like the sound of a saw, metal againt metal, and Kakashi felt a start in his heart.
"Gai!" Kakashi yelled, and Gai came tumbling into his bedroom.
"Kakashi, what is that noise?" They both crept to the window and looked out at the parking lot.
Kakashi gasped, "There, next to my car!" Gai looked too, and they both saw a tall black van with the sand village symbol on the license plate.
"The sand ninja are doing something to my car!"
"Quick! We must stop them!" Gai shouted and burst through the window, Kakashi soon followed. A ninja weasel slid out from underneath the car and held in it's paws a spinning saw.
"Hahaha! In two cuts I've taken your catalytic converter, Kakashi!" the weasel grinned and slid underneath the black van, then it's enging began with a start and the ninja in the drivers seat pulled out of the parking spot in a woosh of spinning leaves.
"You're not getting away that easily!" Gai and Kakashi chased alongside the van, they aimed their shuriken and kunai at the wheels, but the weasel popped up from beneat the car and blocked every attack.
"I'll try using my sensei's teleportation jutsu," Kakashi said, doing the symbols for the 4th hokage's jutsu as they were running. But, what he didn't realise was that he had failed to change out of his slippers, he tripped on one and landed on his face. This is why ninja don't perform in house slippers.
"That's okay Kakakashi, I fell asleep in my shoes!" Gai shouted. He ran as fast as he could to the side of the van and gave it a heavy kick. The van rattled and the driver shook their hand out the window.
Soon Rock Lee arrived on the scene, landing on the top of the car with a kthunk. He reached out a hand to his sensei and helped him up.
"Great thinking, Lee! Perching in the trees for the right moment to land. But how did you know we needed help?' Gai asked.
"Why, Gai-sense, my dad got his catalytic converter stolen just last week. I'm certain this is the culprit and I have been staking out the neighborhood in search of them!"
Just then, a dark figure swung out of the passenger side of the van and joined them on the roof with a large wind blade.
"I'm going to blow you all away!" the sand ninja shouted, "Just you wait!"
Rock Lee and Gai sensei didn't wait, they readied themselves and pounced at the long distance wind style fighter. But, she had other ideas, swinging her fan in a large gust. She blew both Gai and Lee right off of the top of the van. They floated into the drug store parking lot.
The wind ninja cackled, but only until a third person landed on the roof. This time, it was Tenten.
"I know that fan anywhere!" Tenten shouted, "Temari of the Sand! Why are you stealing Konoha Catalytic converters!"
"Temari of the sand? Why, that's not me at all! How ridiculous."
"Well, if this is your idea of celebrating christmas cheer, then you're doing a horrible job at it." Tenten pulled out one of her scrolls and cast thousands of sharp projectiles towards the masked sand ninja. But, she missed as the ninja used her fan to reflect them.
"Hilarious. You really think that would work agai- I mean would work at all? You Konoha ninja are easy to steal from!" The ninja crouched and readied her fan, "And now to blow you away too!"
But then, the car jerked and the ninja fell forward and rolled off the side of thevan as it burned rubber at swirved out of control. It crashed into a delapidated building and went through someone's bedroom and fell on it's side. The weasel hissed and Tenten jumped up and hog tied it, the catalytic converter clattering to the ripped asphault at their feet,
The wind ninja crouched ont eh ground, "What! What happened?"
Tenten laughed, "Why, I missed you on purpose you know! I was aiming for the road ahead so you'd drive over some nails and blow out your tires!"
The wind ninja cursed and both women looked to the van to see the driver pealing out of the door, it was none other than Gaara of the sand. With a cracking palm, he lifted the van up off the ground with his sand. "Temari, let's get out of dodge."
"Not so fast!" Then Neji arrived on the scene. He was dressed in drag and was holding a large piece of paper in one hand, "According to the shinobi rules, what you are doing is a breach of the truce between our villages."
Gaara and Temari grabbed the paper and read it carefully.
"Ah, I guess he's right." Gaara said. Temari looked up at Neji, "Sorry, we thought catalytic converters were up for grabs."
"Absolutely not," Neji shook his head severely.
"Well, we're sorry for ruining Christmas," Temari said. Tenten handed over her weasel.
Gai and Kakaashi arrived on the scene in a huff and they explained the situation carefully.
"You can come out now, Lee!" Gai shouted into the bushes outside the convenience store, "It was all a misunderstanding!"
Rock Lee came out dressed as Santa Claus, "Well, if you're the ones who stole all the catalytic converters, then we expect them to be returned to us!"
But Temari and Gaara were dumbfoudned. Apparently, this had been their first theft.
"It's all the rage in the sand village." Temari explained, "Kankuro had his stolen a month ago, that's why he couldn't come with us, after all. None of his puppets are in working order."
Tenten nodded, "A ninja puppet won't work without a catalytic converter."
"We had just wanted to get him a new one for his birthday," Gaara said. "He was born on Christmas."
"Wow, so sad." Lee said, "Well, that still doesn't explain who's been stealing catalytic converters in Konoha. I really need to find who took my dad's, you know. Without it, he can't make his deliveries."
The next day was Christmas, so all the mechanics were closed and Kakashi's Prius had to wait another day to be in working order again. Kakashi spent the whole day with his baby, he and Gai sat in the seats of the car and played Christmas music and watched youtube videos on Gai's lenovo laptop. They stole wifi from Kakashi's neighbor, Asuma.
When the man realized his loading speeds were so low, he investigated and found the two jonin crying in the back seat. He knocked on the door and Kakashi turned on the car to roll the windows down.
"You know, you guys can just come over and use my wifi at my house and we can watch movies together." Asuma said. Kakaashi narrowed his eye and flicked Asuma's cigatette out of the car onto the pavement.
"Stop it, Asuma, you'll get your smoke smell in her seats."
"Pf, sorry." Asuma picked up his cigarette and put it in his jacket pocket. They told him about the theft. "Oh yeah, that's what happened to Kurenai's sister too. Seems like ccs are getting thefted all over the place. Well, Merry Christmas, I guess. You know, you can still drive it around since you have a hybrid vehicle. Though, the hokage won't like the emissions."
"Merry Christmas Asuma."
They went back to watching old clips from Americas Top Model and Gai left and came back with some hot cocoa and salt and vinegar chips from inside Kakashi's house, "Kakashi," Gai said, "After we're done with these we should give up."
Kakashi closed Gai's laptop and looked at him seriously, "Gai, what are you saying?"
"I'm saying what you need to hear." Gai said, "We can't sit in this car all day, and we don't have to. Tomorrow's the day after Christmas and car shops all over the world will be open agian, so you can just go ahead and take her to any of them."
Kakashi scoffed and looked away.
"I'm just suggesting you try and put it out of your mind." Gai looked at the man's defiant collar bone, "You can come over to my place, if you want. Me and the team have to exchange gifts, you know. I know your team is kind of afk right now, so you're welcome to join us if you'd like."
And so Kakashi did just that, putting his worry and sour feelings behind him and with a kiss, leaving his dear Prius to rest alone and without a catalytic converter in the parking lot outside of his apartment. Watching Gai exchange gifts with his loving teammates, all ones who had helped him out just the previous night, was bitter sweet. Where were his teammates? Naruto was off getting high with Master Jiraiya's juggalo band, Sasuke went abroad to study volcanoes, and Sakura left the ninja world to become a real estate agent. The only thing Kakashi had left was the company of his precious, sweet prius.
"Hey, what about me?" Gai asked.
Kakashi blinked, blushing as he wondered if Gai could read his thoughts. But Gai was just talking to Neji, who had gotten gifts for everyone except for him.
"Well, you and Lee were supposed to share those dumbells."
"Ridiculous, you know that I need all 8 of these for my training," Lee said, "Sorry, sensei!"
"Drat." Gai sighed. Kakashi patted him on the back sympathetically.
Lee, seeing his teacher's crestfallen demeanor, bowed and handed him all eight dumbell in one hand. Gai's face brightened up and he lifted all 8 dumbell with two fingers.
Now it was Lee's turn to sigh, "The greatest gift I could recieve would be for my father's catalytic converter to be returned."
In the hokage's office, Tsunade pounded her desk angrilly. It was already enough that she had to work on Christmas, but now all these catalytic converter thefts were stacking up and it was just pissing her the hell off. Shizune threw a christmas wreath onto her mistress's head, but nothing coudl calm the boiling hokage. The sand ninja had provided her with all the information about the thefts in their village, and everything seemed identical. Whoever was stealing from the sand village was also stealing from Konoha.
"I wonder if other villages are experiencing this level of catalytic converter theft!" The Hokage shouted, "We should send our pigeons to go check!" she shouted."
"Yes Mlady," Shizune tipped her hat.
"At this rate, it's probably that Akatsuki cell…" Tsunade pondered to herself.
In a distant location in a dank dark cave, the Akatsuki plotted their next moves on a delapidated card table. There were only 5 of them there, but the others chimed in on zoom.
"Okay, well let's all meet at the place, then we'll do the crime," Kakuzu said.
"I disagree, we need to wait until tomorrow, it is Christmas, after all." Hidan said.
"I haven't finished deliveirng presents!" Tobi said.
"I'm Jewish!" Deidara said, "I don't celebrate Christmas! I celebrate Hannukah!"
"Oh, okay." Pein said, "Sorry, I didn't get a menorah in here."
"I think I have a dradle somewhere." Itachi said and rustled around in his sleeves. He produced a dradle and started to spin it on the card table.
"I'm an athiest, actually." Deidara said, "I changed my mind."
"I'm a satanist," Tobi said.
"Okaaaaaaay- let's get back to business." Kakuzu said.
"Just go on the mission." Pein said.
"Fine."
But, when the Akatsuki all went outside to the parking lot and loaded into the van, there was something wrong.
"Umm.." Sasori turned the key but there was no sound, "That's not good."
So, it turned out the akatsuki had their catalytic converter stolen from their van as well.
"Whatver, let's try my van instead," Kakuzu said.
But his also was missing his catalytic converter.
"We can try my sedan!" Tobi said. But his was missing as well. So, the Akatsuki couldn't even complete their crimes because of their missing ccs. They all returned to the cave and opened presents.
And so it was that most of the ninja world went without catalytic converters all of Christmas. And, everyone speculated and pointed fingers, but who could it be? Who was the one stealing all the catalytic converters? Perhaps no one would know, until….
To be continued.