Under everyone’s watchful gaze, Santa Hajime walked back to his sleigh and took a box out of the giant white bag sitting in the back. It was a very cute box with glittering jewels on the front. For a moment, it seemed like the box itself might be the present, and the crowd gasped in delight. A couple of girls tugged on their parents’ sleeves and begged for a box like that.
As Myu took the box, she looked questioningly up at Hajime, wondering if it was okay to open her present now. He nodded solemnly, and she opened the lid. The spectators leaned in expectantly, wondering what would be inside.
“Ah!”
Myu’s face lit up with a beaming smile. Everyone assumed it had to be an accessory, or perhaps a cute toy or something, but what Myu pulled out of the box defied their expectations.
“It’s Donner and Schlag!”
Indeed, held in her hands were two revolvers.
The spectators looked completely taken aback, while Yue and the others smiled wryly to each other. They’d expected Hajime’s present to be something like this.
The crowd started murmuring to each other.
“Is that a model gun?! Is that really something you gift a little girl? And it doesn’t even got anything to do with the park!”
“Yeah, if you’re gonna go through all this trouble, why not pick a better present?”
Of course, Myu herself was overjoyed.
“I finally got my own pair!”
The peaceful citizens of Japan had no way of knowing that while the revolvers had been slightly customized to fit Myu’s tiny hands, they were otherwise very real guns. She’d been asking for her own revolvers ever since she’d started training with Hajime, and now she’d finally gotten them.
“Little lady, their names aren’t Donner and Schlag. They’re called Donna and Schlak.”
“Donna and Schlak?”
“Yep, Donna and Schlak.”
It seemed the name distinction was important. Hajime then went back to the present bag and started sifting through it. It seemed Myu would be getting more than one present.
“I also gift you a hoppy hammer, in the hopes that you grow big and strong like a certain overpowered rabbit.”
“Hoppy hammer!”
“And to remind you never to end up like a certain worthless dragon, I gift you this weapon. Never forget, this whip is a weapon.”
“Yaaay, a weapon!”
“And we can’t forget these either. Your very own Muraymasa and...”
“Muraymasa!”
“A Kolatetsu.”
“Kolatetsu!”
Myu was unbelievably excited to have been gifted a full suite of weapons that resembled the prized weapons of her beloved older sisters. All in all, she had a mini warhammer, a white whip with a fancy ribbon attached to it, and a pair of katanas with star-shaped crossguards. She was also gifted a belt to holster her guns and a harness to hold all of her other weapons, as well as a set of enchanted magical jewels dubbed “Yue-oneechan’s love.”
Myu wanted to grow up to be strong, so that she could protect the people she loved just like Hajime and her cool older sisters. Next time everyone was in trouble, she wanted to be there to save them, which was why these gifts meant the world to her. She hugged the weapons tight, then handed them over to Remia for safekeeping and looked up at Hajime.
“Da—I mean, Santa-san! Thank you so much! I love you sooooooooo much!”
She ran into his open arms, and he hugged her tight. The crowd was still shocked by the gifts Myu had received, but a lot of the younger boys were staring at the weapons with envy.
It was around this time that the staff finally broke out of their stupor and started heading toward Hajime. He could tell his time as Santa was almost up.
“I also have a present for all of you lovely ladies who worked so hard this year!” he said, turning to Yue and the others.
“Fu fu, you got presents for us too?” Yue asked.
“He was asking us all what we wanted around a week ago, remember?” Shea said with a smile.
“Oh, so that was why. You truly are too kind, Master,” Tio said.
“We got you presents too, but...don’t be disappointed if we just hand them over normally, okay?” Kaori said.
“You really like going all out for these kinds of things, don’t you, Hajime?” Shizuku said with a shake of her head.
“Ha ha ha ha, Hajime-kun really loves his family, doesn’t he...?” Aiko said with a smile.
“Ufu fu, he’s quite a handful, isn’t he?” Remia said with a smile.
“Wait, you mean everyone got presents for each other? Oh no, what should I do? I didn’t bring anything. I didn’t even know there was a holiday like this on Earth...” Lily said, panicking slightly.
Hajime handed presents out to each one of them individually, and they blushed slightly as they took them. Right as he finished, he spotted security guards pushing their way through the crowd, and he knew there was no time left.
Sounding like he was reading off a script, he turned to Myu and said. “Congratulations for being the group that made up this park’s 100 millionth visitor!”
It seemed this was the reason he’d come up with for the special performance. Of course, it was hard for the crowd to believe this was actually part of the park program, so he went one step further and decided to share the joy with everyone and make them worry less about how sanctioned this event had been. He climbed back up into the sleigh and snapped the reins. The reindeer—which were just mechanical golems he’d made—took to the sky once more. As he flew up, Hajime shouted through a loudspeaker, “As a token of the park’s appreciation, take whatever you’d like as a Christmas present, everyone!”
The bottom of the sleigh slid open and a large number of boxes started parachuting down. There were thousands of them, and they’d all been wrapped up nicely into gift boxes. They contained accessories made from jewels and crystals that could be found on Earth for the girls, and keychains and other small trinkets shaped like swords and dragons and so on for the boys.
The crowd started cheering, fully believing this was some kind of event that the park had put on.
Hajime had also spread the presents out over a wide area so people wouldn’t jostle each other and fight over spots, and the crowd quickly dispersed to chase after the falling presents. As he flew away, all the security guards could do was point up at him and stare. Then, before long, the leaving crowd swept them away.
He also teleported a few gifts into the staff room for the park workers he’d caused so much trouble for, then used telepathy to coordinate with Yue and the others and ensure no one got hurt.
As he vanished into the sky, he bellowed out one last, “Merry Christmaaaaaas!”
The guests all clapped and cheered and Hajime looked down to see Myu and the others all waving at him. Smiling, he flew off into the distance before surreptitiously meeting back up with the others.
Unsurprisingly, his stunt was featured on the next morning’s news, and the internet was abuzz with speculation as to how the theme park had pulled off such an amazing show. The park management said it was something they’d only done for that one day, but nevertheless, visitors to the park continued to increase, as did sales in their gift shops. Everyone was impressed by the event they’d coordinated, and of course, they were secretly hoping to see something like that themselves.
Incidentally, the park managers held a meeting where they desperately tried to figure out who that Santa had been, and to either scout him or at the very least buy the rights to whatever technology he’d used to put on that show.
Meanwhile, the Nagumo family watched on as Myu took to her training with newfound zeal and started sleeping with her beloved weapons. Honestly, Hajime began to wonder if he hadn’t somehow gone wrong in raising her.
Is it really all right for my daughter to be like this...?
It wasn’t long before he held a family meeting to discuss how to turn Myu back into a normal girl.