"Kris? Is that you?"

"Boss? You know this guy?" Mine asked with a look of disbelief on her face.

Najenda paused for a second, then nodded grimly. "That's General Kristopher Kringle. He was known as one of the empires strongest, and kindest, generals. He would always share out his rewards from military victories with the poor and downtrodden people of the empire. But seven years ago he suddenly vanished without a trace."

"This old man was a general? Well that at least explains the crazy strength." Leone murmured.

"Kris, what happened to you?" Najenda asked. "You used to be such a kind and jolly man. Why have you turned into a bloodthirsty monster?"

Santa let out another laugh, a menacing "hohoho" that had none of the gentleness from before. "What happened to me? What happened is that I finally embraced who I really am..."

"Seven years ago I was one of the most powerful generals in the imperial military, and because of that the prime minister summoned me to select an Imperial Arms. What drew me to the Demon's Extract I do not know, but upon drinking a single drop I felt such powerful bloodlust overcome me."

"So it was the Imperial Arms that turned you into a monster?" Najenda asked.

"Not right away." Santa replied. "For the past few years I have been fighting my destructive urges. I used by Imperial Arms time stop ability to deliver presents to children all across the empire, I wanted to spread happiness. But this year…" he gave a savage grin. "I came to a realisation; that as long as the naughty have all the power, the nice will never be happy. When I realised that I finally accepted the voices in my head that cry out for destruction, so this this year Santa's coming down the chimney or every last person on the naughty list and giving them the gift of pain! Everybody who has sinned even once this year won't live to see Boxing Day! It's a Christmas Massacre!" With that Santa roared in maniacal laughter.

"This isn't good; the destructive urges of his Imperial Arms must have finally driven him insane after all these years." Najenda exclaimed. "Nobody is truly without sin, and as things are I think Kris is determined to kill everyone he comes across."

"So his naughty list has become a hit list?" Tatsumi asked. "We need to take him down before he reaches more populated areas and goes on a rampage."

At that moment a single red light blinked into view in the sky, and seemed to be quickly moving closer and closer to the battlefield. "Now what's happening?" Lubbock whined.

Santa gave a soft, sinister chuckle. "Reinforcements have arrived." He declared.

"Oh crap!" Najenda murmured.

"What is it?" Akame asked.

"Najenda glared at the incoming light. "Boneyard Reindeer." She said with gritted teeth.

Now Tatsumi looked harder, the light wasn't just one thing but nine. From a distance they really did look like reindeer, however as they drew closer Tatsumi noticed a few differences. Their pelts were a dead, colourless shade of grey and their horns had many sharp, uneven protrusions sticking out to them. Instead of hooves these reindeer had claws, and the rows of sharp fangs that replaced normal teeth made Tatsumi think these things resemble wolves. The most noticeable difference however was the pair of bony, bat like wings each reindeer sprouted from their backs which enabled them to fly.

The most frightening one was the source of the light, the one at the front of the pack. It seemed about two heads taller than the other reindeer, and its nose appeared to be the source of the red light as it shone angrily like a hot coal.

"Now Thrasher, now Smasher, now Carnage and Crasher. On Slicer, On Dicer, On Savage and Basher." Santa cried, and the eight 'normal' boneyard reindeer charged at the Night Raid, each one going after a different member.

"This guy was tough enough, now we have to deal with his freaky pets!" Leone whined as she dodged a vicious slash from one of the charging reindeer.

"As it stands we've lost our only advantage, our numbers." Najenda grimaced. "The only hope we've got now is dealing a blow with Murasame to one of his vital area's that Kris can't freeze. Akame, I'll handle your reindeer so try to take Kris down. You go with her too Tatsumi, Incursio's the only thing tough enough to survive a direct hit from him."

"Are you gonna be ok handling 3 reindeer by yoursel…?" Tatsumi asked, but was cut short as Najenda dealt a crushing blow to the neck of the reindeer before her, which collapsed like a sack of hammers. "Ok scratch that, make it two reindeer."

"I'm fine, just go." Najenda commanded.

"Right boss." Tatsumi replied. With a quick nod to Akame the duo charged at the festive juggernaut.

"Come get some kiddies." Santa growled. "I'll bash your heads in with the coal in your stockings."

The prime minister was my no means a slim man; in fact there was many a time when, even in the middle of court, the minister could be found distracted by a delicious chicken leg in his hand. But to see the amount he ate at Christmas made those around him secretly wonder if he possessed some kind of stomach based Imperial Arms that allowed him to hold what must be over three times his body weight in food.

And after about three hours of stuffing his face, Honest finally took a break to pull a cracker with the child emperor seated beside him.

"Ready your majesty, and… pull!"

With a pop the cracker split in two, and a diamond encrusted broach fell out on to the table.

"Oh minister, look at this!" The emperor cried with childish glee as he picked up the broach. "It's beautiful. And all across the empire people are getting gifts like these in their crackers?"

"That's right your majesty." The prime minister said with a cheery smile.

"I doubt anyone outside this room will even see a cracker this year." He thought.

"And they're all enjoying a feast like this with their families?" Makato asked with childish innocence.

"Of course, they're having stuffed birds, pigs in blankets and Christmas pudding with all their loved ones." The prime minister replied.

"If they were able to nick some from someone else." He thought.

"And tomorrow they'll all wake up to a big pile of presents right?" Makato asked excitedly.

"They'll have trouble unwrapping them all before next Christmas!" The minister joked loudly, causing bouts of kind sounding laughter from everyone around.

"They aren't getting shit for Christmas." Honest thought.

"Wow, Christmas is always such fun." Makato laughed. "I'm so glad that everyone in this prosperous and fair empire can all celebrate it as lavishly as we can."

If only he knew.

Santa roared in anger, and the blast of icy breath the shot from his mouth narrowly missed Tatsumi's head as he ducked to avoid it. Santa was bad enough before, but now they had to deal with the occasional storm of icicles or other ice based attacks that the bearded old man was now augmenting his fighting style with.

Akame leapt up and brought Murasame down in a strong, sweeping arc towards Santa's head, but the snow in the air quickly clumped together to form a wall of icy blocking the attack. Santa smashed his staff against the wall, sending Akame and large chunks of ice hurtling towards Tatsumi. Tatsumi conjured Neuntote and spun in around quickly, using it as a barrier of sorts that smashed the chunks of ice into little bits on contact, then charged forwards and delivered a series of thrusts at Santa's chest.

Santa was forced to take a few steps back to avoid the stabbing attacks, then swung his candy cane staff in a full circle around him to prevent Tatsumi from pressing his attack. But for the briefest moment Santa took his eyes off the assassin, and when he looked again the armour clad boy had disappeared.

"Turning invisible again huh." Santa growled, keeping alert for any signs of the boy reappearing. "Even if you turn invisible, I'll see your footsteps in the snow, you can't…"

Yet there were no footprints in the snow anywhere. Santa roared in frustration, "Where did he…"

And then Tatsumi reappeared centimetres away from Santa face and hit him with a brutal double kick, sending Santa flying backwards. "In the sky walnut brain." He taunted. "I learned how to mask my presence a while ago."

"I'm gonna shove my staff so far up your backside you won't be able to look at a stuffed turkey without crying!" Santa snarled with a murderous glare, clutching his now broken nose. "Bloodolph, attack!"

The red nosed reindeer charged towards Tatsumi with frightening speed. "Be on guard Tatsumi" Akame cried. "That one's the alpha of the pack. That nose is shiny enough to guide its pack through even the foggiest night, and it's hot enough to melt through solid steel."

Akame wasn't kidding, as Tatsumi brought Neuntote to block the jagged horns that Bloodolph led his charge with he could feel the intense heat through Incursio's thick plating. The reindeer was strong enough to continue pushing Tatsumi back and the young assassin struggled to find a good footing in the snow to stop it. Suddenly something bumped into his back.

"Mine, what are you doing over here?" Tatsumi asked.

"Getting away from that thing!" Mine replied, pointing over to a little distance away where another reindeer was pawing the snow, getting ready to charge right at them.

"That one's gonna charge us as well!" Tatsumi panicked. "We're going to be sandwiched in by a two pairs of razor sharp antlers. Talk about a rock and a hard place."

Mine clicked her fingers. "That's it! Tatsumi you're a genius!" She cried.

"A complement from you, it really is Christmas." Tatsumi chuckled.

"Oh save it." Mine retorted. "Listen, when I say so I need you to take out the reindeer about to charge us ok."

"Umm…ok" Tatsumi stammered. At that the other reindeer began its charge, getting closer and closer to the duo.

"Hey Mine…" Tatsumi murmured.

"Not yet" Mine replied.

The reindeer was coming closer.

"Mine…" Tatsumi said again, a note of panic in his voice.

"Not yet" Mine replied.

The reindeer drew closer and closer, Tatsumi could see the whites of its eyes.

"Mine!" he shouted.

"Ok now!" Mine shouted back.

With that Mine turned to face Bloodolph and pulled the trigger on Pumpkin, the pinch of being mere seconds away from being skewered by two boneyard reindeer giving the gun a massive power boost. A flash of light enveloped Bloodolph, and after a roaring blast that shook the air and levelled the ground all that was left of Bloodolph was a red nose, slowly losing its red glow. The shock of the sudden blast took the other reindeer by surprise. And taking the opportunity Tatsumi shoved Neuntote between its eyes, dispatching it before it had the chance to recover.

"Good thinking Mine." Tatsumi grinned.

Mine huffed proudly. "Of course, what else did you expect from me?"

Looking around, it seemed like the other assassin's had finished off their reindeers as well. They regrouped together to once again to stand against the festive old fighter, who seemed to be running low on his stamina reserves. All combatants could feel that they were reaching their limits, and that this fight would be decided in the next few moves.

Santa held his hands up in the air, and a gigantic ball of ice formed above the Night Raid members. "HOHOHO!" Santa roared, and brought his arms down, sending the small comet hurtling towards the group. Susanno leapt up towards it, smashing into it with his stave to slow it down, while Mine fired a volley of shots, Lubbock formed a metal spear to throw and Najenda fired her metal arm at it. The salvo of projectiles shattered the comet, which broke into small shards of ice concealing Night Raid from view.

As one Leone and Akame charged out from the mist and headed towards Santa with a battle cry. Leone lunged with a double claw slash but Kris parried with his staff. The bearded behemoth then spun his staff around to force Leone to back off. Akame came in low with a strong slash from the left side, which Saint Nick easily caught with the hook of his staff.

"You'll have to try better than that little girl!" He snarled. "A weak attack like that will never hit me."

"It wasn't meant to." Akame smiled softly as a thin line of steam blew off her, turning her back into the form of Chelsea.

"You bitc…" Santa began, but too late he heard the sound of a footstep behind him. Incursio once again reappeared, unwrapping its cloak to reveal the real Akame with her sword drawn.

"It's over." Akame calmly declared. She leapt off of Tatsumi's armoured chest and pierced Murasame straight through Santa chest.

"GRAAAH!" Santa cried out in pain, as Murasame's poison spread through his body. The assassin's leapt back as Santa fell to his knees, gasping for breath.

"Goodbye Kris." Najenda sighed. "We'll remember you are you used to be, not as what you became."

Santa crashed down onto the ground, the tension leaving his body as he fell face first into the snow.

For a few seconds there was nothing but the sound of heavy breathing, when Tatsumi unceremoniously broke it with the words "Guys… have we just killed Santa Claus?"

"It's time like this that I'm not so sure if we're still the good guys." Lubbock sighed.

"We had to do it." Najenda assured them. "It's our job to rid the world of anything that threatens the innocent, Father Christmas is no exception."

"N…Najenda old girl? Is that you?" Santa wheezed.

"Kris!" Najenda shouted, running over to the old man's side.

"They're gone." Santa whispered. "The voices are finally gone. What happened to me?"

"You snapped." Najenda replied softly. "The voices overwhelmed you and sent you on a rampage."

"No… No one was hurt right?" He asked weakly.

"No Kris, we stopped you here before you could do anyone any harm." Najenda assured him.

"I see." Santa said gently with a little smile. "Then the people are safe, thank god."

Najenda grimaced. "I'm sorry Kris, if we could have stopped you without killing you we would have, but you were to powerful."

"No, no. It's all right." The jolly old man assured her. "You did what was best, that's all that matters. Even if I'm gone, the name of Santa Claus will live on in Christmas tradition forever."

"It will." Najenda replied with a small, sad smile. "Goodbye Kris."

"Goodbye Najenda." Santa whispered softly as his eyes closed. "And merry… Christmas."

It was there, in a moonlit field with snow gently falling around him, that Kristopher Kringle passed away.

Christmas morning came around and the members of Night Raid were all seated round a table stuffing their faces with all the turkey, drinking sherry and being merry. Despite their unusual night there was no gloom hanging over the assassin heads, after all death was something they were all well accustomed to already and they all knew lingering in sadness would achieve nothing.

Mine was shouting angrily at a laughing Chelsea over some sort of prank Chelsea had set in Mine's cracker, Lubbock was lecherously expressing his desire to have Najenda in nothing but a ribbon for Christmas and Akame was shovelling down the Christmas dinner like a whirlpool. All in all it was pretty much a standard meal for Night Raid with a festive theme to it.

"And I wouldn't have it any other way." Tatsumi thought to himself happily.

Najenda tapped her fork on her glass, the ringing noise gaining the attention of the others.

Najenda cleared her throat. "This year has been a difficult one, we have lost close friends and gained powerful new enemies. We have all worked so hard already, yet there is still so much more to do. However it has been a kind year as well, for we have made strong new friends and the end of our long journey is in sight. It is at this time of year that we honour those who came before us and look forward to the future that destiny has in store for us." She raised her glass with her robotic arm. "Merry Christmas!" she cried.

"Merry Christmas!" the others responded, clinking their glasses in the air.

Tatsumi grinned, "And a happy new year."

Thanks you all so much for reading my very first fanfiction. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.

Merry Christmas you wonderful people, and a happy new year.