Shino's Beef with Santa

WARNING: do not read if you believe in Santa.

I thought that this was slightly amusing; then again my friends often tell me that I have a sick and twisted sense of humour sometimes.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

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The rookie nine, team Gai and the sand siblings were all lazing around one of the parks in Konoha talking about what they each wanted for Christmas.

"Santa's gonna be here soon! Santa's gonna be here soon! Santa's gonna be here soon!" were the elated cries of a blond haired boy that was practically bouncing around.

"Naruto, you idiot, Santa won't come to people that don't behave!" she said to him before smacking him upside. He may irritate her but she didn't have the heart to tell him that Santa wasn't real.

"But I'm sooo excited Sakura-chan. I can't wait to see what I get. May be it'll be a life time supply of ramen."

"Why do you care so much Naruto? Christmas is just so trouble dome. First you have to think about what people want, and then you have to go spend money and actually buy it. Then comes the wrapping of the gift and finally, the giving and receiving where you have to look surprised when you get what you want as though you never expected it or look happy even if it's something you hate." It was Shikamaru Nara that spoke this time, a genius by any standard but also a guy that makes a sloth look energetic.

"Don't like the gift? Santa always gets you something you like." Hinata said to Shikamaru. Shikamaru just stared incredulously, unable to believe that the Hyuuga heiress actually did believe in Santa.

"Hinata, I feel it is my duty as your friend and teammate to inform you that Santa does not truly exist."

"LIES! NO ONE'S FALMES OF YOUTH COULD BE BRIGHTER THAN SANTA'S! NOBODY BRINGS SO MUCH JOY TO THE WORLD!"

"Yeah! What he said!" Naruto chipped in. "Where is your proof that Santa isn't real? You have none!"

Shino pushed his glasses up before beginning his observations about the mystery that was Santa and his reindeer.

"No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen."

"Shino, you really don't wanna do this. You're gon…" Shino continued over Tenten's warning

"There are 2 billion children in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't appear to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children; that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average there are 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west, which seems logical. This works out to 822.6 visits per second."

Sakura realising the impending danger also tried to warn him off this path. "Shino, you're going to get hurt if this continues." Ever dedicated to the use of logic he continued.

"This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house."

Temari and Sasuke could see where this was leading and just decided to sit back and watch as the chaos unfolded.

"Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth; which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept, we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household, a total trip of 71.604 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding etc."

Shikamaru had come out of his daze and removed himself from the danger zone to resume his cloud watching in a far safer location.

"This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour."

The two demons sealed in their containers were now going insane. Kyuubi was shrivelled in the back of the seal sensing the impending doom, while Shikaku was making attempts in vain to take over his hosts body and run like hell.

"The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set weighing two pounds each, the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds."

Ino was simply playing with her hair while hiding behind Chouji who was showing his own stress; he was eating everything that he could reach, as though this would be his last meal.

"Even granting that "flying reindeer" could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth. 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy per second each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms."

Kankuro had by now long gone insane from the strain and was talking to Kurasu.

"What was that? You are real boy?"

"The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa, which seems ludicrously slim, would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force."

Neji tried one last desperate attempt.

"No don't say it! You have no idea what you are unleashing!"

"In conclusion - If Santa ever did deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's been vaporized by now!"

You could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed the statement. Naruto was sitting.

"NOOO! IT CANNOT BE TRUE!" Lee exclaimed in great anguish.

Naruto was looked like someone had killed his puppy.

"Now do you understand my logic Hinata-san?"

"Shino-san. Have just one flaw with your logic." Hinata said with a dark undertone.

"And this flaw would be?"

"The conclusion where you surmise that Santa would likely be dead if he delivered presents." Hinata's eyes flashed murderously.

"That is the most logical conclu…"

"SHUGOHAKKE ROKUJYUU YONSHOU!" Hinata screeched as Shino was sent flying from the force of the blow."

Hinata turned to the rest of the group and addressed them in a sickeningly sweet voice.

"Everybody else agrees with me, right?" her eyes flashed dangerously all of them nodded furiously. "No one else here thinks that Santa is fake, do they?" she finished with an almost demonic aura around her, all shaking their heads so hard they got dizzy.

"Errr…guys. I think he has completely lost it. He was talking about space travel and Queen Elizabeths, whatever they are. And I don't think I've ever heard him talk that much" Kiba said to the rest.

"That was the scariest thing I've ever seen." Kankuro voiced his fears out loud; Neji gave him a look and smiled sadly.

"You think that was bad. There is a reason that Lord Hyuuga never had a third child with his wife before she died." Every male present winced in sympathy understanding what he meant.

Gaara had watched the proceeding and had decided that now was as good a time as any to have his say.

"You better watch out. You better not cry. Better not pout. I'm telling you why. Santa Claus is coming to town." He sang tunelessly.

Hinata had made her way over to Naruto.

"Hinata-chan, is the bad man gone? Is Santa still coming?"

"Yes Naruto-kun he's gone and Santa's still coming. I'm sure you will get a wonderful gift from Santa." Hinata told Naruto as she received a slight blood nose at the thought of Naruto unwrapping her under the Christmas tree.

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OK, sorry if I spoiled your Christmas fun with this, but just remember it was all in good fun.

As a side note Shugohakke Rokujyuu Yonshou is the move Hinata uses against the bee users in one of the filler episodes before time skip. At a guess it probably translates to something like 'eight trigrams 60 strikes protection'.

I can't find a proper translation anywhere and this is going off of my very limited knowledge of Japanese.