Chapter 11
Of Frogs and Christmastime

The summer had passed away and the autumn as well. The trees were bare, but snow had not yet fallen. All across the land, the celebration of love and friendship, a time for the giving of gifts, the singing of songs had come. And here in the house of the family Hinata, two remaining frogs planned and plotted against the planet Pokopen. They were once five frogs, but one had fled: fled in disappointment and blaming himself for...

Cut the backstory! You're boring us to tears!

Oh, yes, I forgot. So sorry... Though the weather outside was blisteringly cold, within the Hinata household all was warm and cozy as the inhabitants bustled in preparation for this most wonderful time of the year. At least, that's what most people say about Christmas...

----

"Keroro! Get the hell out of the kitchen and quit eating my cookie dough! Don't think that since it's Christmas, that I won't kick you into New Years!"

"Just a little more, please?"

There was a resounding smack as something metal connected with a round, soft face. "OUT!"

Keroro squealed to a stop face-down in the living room, his limbs twitching. "I didn't eat that much," he mumbled into the floorboards.

Mois was wrapping the Christmas tree with grape and yellow ribbons. She glanced down at the blueprint set on the end table and compared the diagrammed tree to the real one. She resumed her labors and hummed an Angol battle hymn to herself, but kept her full attention on draping the ribbons in accordance with the plans. So deep was her concentration that she barely noticed as her next step ended with a squish. She stopped. She looked down in curiosity. She dropped the remainder of the ribbon in horror.

"Uncle!" she cried, as her foot crushed his head. She bent to peel his face from the floor. "I am so sorry! You could say, watch your step?"

Keroro shook his head rapidly until it resumed a proper froggy shape. "I'm okay. Is the tree coming along?" He looked up at the partially festooned pine branches and nodded approvingly, "It looks excptionally nice, de arimasu."

"It is coming. I wish I hadn't dropped the ribbons when I brought them up from the base? Then they became as they are now: all tangled." Mois frowned down at the lengths of satin. I'm such a klutz. I don't know why Uncle puts up with me.

Keroro patted Mois' hip to comfort her. He appraised the tree again with a practiced eye, which in fact had little practice at all with such decorations. "We've done worse. At least this year the Christmas tree hasn't exploded...." Yet.  Mois is cute, and helpful, and she's a competent communications operator and paper-pusher, but she's such a klutz, de arimasu.. Almost as bad as... "Giroro would have immolated it by now."

Mois looked at the branches, and then down at the now hopelessly re-tangled ribbons and sighed deeply. "Do you miss him?" She asked suddenly.

Keroro shrugged indifferently even as his mouth said, "No, he is replaceable. You did send the replacement personnel requisition to Headquarters?"

Mois nodded affirmatively. "Yes. Almost four months ago. I haven't heard anything."

Maybe he's not as replaceable as I thought? Headquarters should have sent a replacement almost immediately. I cannot very well plan an invasion without an assault expert. Keroro collapsed onto the couch and lay with his feet up on the armrest. He motioned Mois to resume her decorating. One of the blessings of command is being able to plan and manage the decorations without having to do anything. "Carry on, Mois. Try not to blow anything up, kerokerokero"

Mois giggled and sat down at his feet with a pile of ribbons to untangle.

He fell asleep while Mois draped the tree, tied on the bows, hung the glass bead ornaments. He woke only long enough to aid her in placing the star atop.

----

Natsumi chopped nuts by the handful and mixed them into a basic honey cookie recipe. The air was redolent with the odor of honey biscuit dough, pecans, almonds, vanilla, and sugar icing. A PSP was jacked into a pair of mini-speakers and Christmas songs played softly. Natsumi mixed the new bowl of dough with vigor. I wouldn't need to do this extra work if that stupid frog had just kept his mitts out of the dough. She thought, frog sweat makes the cookies taste bad... and it gives me a headache.

Saburo Mutsumi watched her toil over the bowls, counter and stove-top from his relaxed and well-studied slouch upon a chair. His sandal clad feet were up and crossed, ankles resting on the adjacent corner of the breakfast table. His grin was fixed and even. He took a cookie from the cooling tray nearest him and took a bite of the Christmas Knot. He sighed contentment.

The sigh caught Natsumi's attention and she swatted at him with a dish-towel. "Stop that!" she scolded teasingly. "You can wait just like Keroro."

Saburo tilted his head cockily and took another bite of the cookie. He grinned around his mouthful, swallowed and pontificated, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but instead by every cookie that proceeds from the oven of an angel." He motioned her closer and then hugged her around her aproned waist. He dropped his legs off the table's edge and swung her firmly onto his lap. Natsumi's arms flew up and grasped his shoulders, where she clung; her own feet flapping in the air until she regained her balance.

His shoulders have broadened so much since the summer, she thought, "I'll never finish before tomorrow if you and the frog eat them all."

Her breasts have gotten so much larger since the summer, he thought, "I shall eat no more then. It would be a shame to have a goose but no cookies. I might starve before then however."

Natsumi smiled and draped her arms about him and briefly touched noses with him, her lips only millimeters shy of a kiss. "Now I wouldn't want that to happen. Here have some sugar... cookie." she fished another undecorated one from the tray and dropped it into his hand before standing. She straightened her apron, dusted off some errant crumbs and strode purposefully back to her mixing bowls.

I wonder if she realizes how much of a flirt she is? Saburo thought as he looked down at the snowman shaped cookie. "Do you realize how much of a flirt you are?" he asked.

He caught Natsumi in mid-stride. She halted and turned back towards him. She blushed a shade north of crimson and south of pink. The blush crawled up her neckline and cheeks and even to her forehead. Her hard-oak eyes cast downwards and she nervously scuffed one toe across the tile floor in a repeating circle. She chewed on her lower lip, flustered beyond answering.

I do love it when she does that. First she's all composed and then a second later she doesn't know what to say or do. Sometimes dating her is like housebreaking a puppy. You never know what kind of dog it will grow up to be. There's a poem in there somewhere. I must write it down later. He nodded, "Quite the flirt. Worry not, oh angel. You shall not seduce me with mere cookies. Nor will I leave should you deny them." He happily placed the cookie back on the cooling rack and was relieved when Natsumi recovered her mixing bowl and was once more stirring the nutty confection with a wooden paddle. He relaxed again and replaced his feet on the table. He slouched in the chair and leaned his head back, eyes closed, and listened to the softly chiming music.

Natsumi's voice was tentative when it came, "Saburo?"

He didn't straighten, nor did he look to her, nor did he open his eyes. He sightlessly stared ceiling-ward. "Yes, my Christmas Angel?"

The voice was even more choked as she asked, "Did you think we'd still be together now?"

If I hadn't rescued Kururu; if I hadn't figured out what you meant when you said you had frog problems; if I hadn't given you my email address; if I hadn't brought Kururu here; if you hadn't gone to the park; if I hadn't gone to the park instead of the coffee house; if Giroro hadn't gone away; would we even be together at all? He blinked and spared her a sidelong glance, It's not like I don't have half the fan-girls on the island to choose from? I even get love letters from the States now. So, why did I choose this one? She's waiting so nervously for me to answer. Always so afraid that I'll leave her. Always nervous when she has to touch me or I touch her. I have to admit I'm nervous myself, but I'll never admit that to her. No, never to her. I wonder how she'd feel if she knew what I was thinking? Wanting? Yes, even imagining? I'm a man after all, not a poetry machine...

Saburo righted himself and regarded Natsumi. He boyishly blew his platinum cowlick so his clear-blue gaze was unhindered. "Yes." She seemed unsatisfied so he continued, "I knew we'd be together, because you were the first with nerve to ask me. And I knew we'd stay together, because after a week I was hopelessly in love with you," he lied.

Natsumi smiled and breathed, "I feel the same way." She turned to the floured board, plopped out the dough, and reached for a rolling spindle. Her cookie cutter was close at hand: a reindeer. She rolled the dough flat and began cutting the cookies in alternating pairs: first facing left and then a mirror image facing right - so that each pair was nose kissing. "And I felt it from the first day I saw you."

Natsumi cooked. Saburo watched and stole the occasional cookie while her back was turned. Not a word was spoken for the rest of the day.

----

The shanty was winter cold and winter damp. The only light was a single bowl of oil set with a burning wick within a waxed paper lantern frame. The flame flickered and guttered and the light sketched weird patterns on the wooden-slat and mud-stucco walls and on the faces of the occupants. Dororo and Koyuki were seated lotus-fashion upon padding mats on opposite sides of a traditional low, wooden table. Koyuki set a bowl of rice flecked with bits of koi and trout before her froggy companion. He sliced a thin piece of Christmas bread for her and set it next to her bowl.

Between them was a miniature pine cut in a modest topiary. Three miniature ornaments were hung from the branches. A single glowing plaque emblazoned with a simple red Torii hung from the side closest to Koyuki. The counterbalance was an equally small bow fashioned of pink and blue ribbons - the knot carefully tied to resemble hands clasping one another. At the top a single metal star reflected a soft yellow light. It was their tree; bedecked with the symbols of what bound their unlikely partnership together: Balance. Friendship. Love.

There's not so much love in the air this Christmas. Koyuki mused silently to Dororo as she poured his tea into a wooden chawan.

Dororo sipped thoughtfully at the tea through the mesh of his mask. He closed his eyes and sipped again. What can I say to her? She's still hurting over Natsumi. I thought being here in the woods would give her peace. He opened his eyes. "There is always love around you, snow-flurry. You merely need to be open to it."

Koyuki nodded and ate a spoonful. Dororo watched her. There was silence as she rolled the taste of freshwater fish he'd caught that morning and the softened wild rice she'd picked as the summer ended around her palate. She sniffed the air. He sipped his tea. His eyes held no message for her.

"You mean that I should stop running from the pain and go back and be in love with Natsumi?" Koyuki guessed suddenly.

Dororo was about to take a bite of his rice. He stopped and laid his spoon back in his bowl. "There is only pain if you admit to pain, Koyuki. And one can love without being in love."

"What's the difference?" Koyuki asked with a raise of an eyebrow and another sniff.

"The difference is you and me."

"I don't understand."

"You will someday." Dororo nodded sagely and asked, "Do you wish to return to the city?"

Koyuki thought for only a moment, "Yes."

She smiled and behind his mask Dororo smiled too. "Then we shall pack the skimmer at first light."

Koyuki heard the snap of a twig outside the window and she was immediately on alert. She rose and spun in one continuous motion. Her spoon was on the table and the tip of the bread knife was in her hand, ready to throw. She listened and listened for another twig, a stray pebble, anything that would tell her where her target was. There was silence, except for the low murmur of the winter wind and the rush of the tree branches, and then a burp honked behind her. She turned. Dororo's bowl was empty. His tea was drunk. There were only crumbs left of his bread. His mask was spotless.

"How do you do that?" Koyuki sighed. She'd seen him, or rather not seen him, speed eat before.

"It is the way of the ninja." He burped again and flicked a few errant rice grains from his chest.

"Dororo", she smiled, fell to her knees, placed the bread knife on the table before gathering him into a yuletide hug. "You take ninja wa-a-a-ay to seriously sometimes."

Dororo neatly fished a needle-sharp fishbone from his tongue behind his mask. He laid the bone on the grain of the table and returned her hug, "Indeed I do, little flurry. Indeed I do." He released her. "Eat. Sleep. We fly to the city for Christmas Day."

----

The Dororo Forest was thick with evergreen pine and denuded maple. The trails once tramped by traders and Ninja wound among the thick and ancient trunks. The blowing wind sliced and diced the scudding clouds above the treetops and flattened the straw remnants of summer grass below the spreading branches. Abruptly, the forest ended. The tree line birthed hectares and hectares of winter-frosted valley. The moonlight cut sharp shadows of every frozen and withered grass blade, every stray twig, and every errant pebble in every patch of bare earth.

At the valley's center was the House: three stories of faux-Tudor splendor canted to the west of the occupied helipad. The eight-passenger luxury air vehicle was roped to rings solidly sunk into the ground. The blades clutched the steely breath of Old Man Winter. A crew of men in winter slickers were tightening the ropes under the watchful gaze of a resolute, svelte, mustachioed man. He directed their moves - micromanaging their actions with precise and clipped instructions and the occasional hand gesture. He looked up at the mansion with deep magenta eyes in his narrow, too-young-for-his-years face and smiled. Home at last.

Light spilled from the mansion's many windows. Most were empty, guarded only by parted curtains. In one, however, a single figure stood. Her gloved hand and slightly upturned nose were pressed to the glass. Her platinum hair framed an exquisite and well-washed face. Her light-violet eyes regarded the chopper and the man with dull resignation. Father.

Tamama tugged at the hem of her skirt and she cast a dull glance down at him. "Yes?" she said with the barest trace of expression.

"Mocchi," Tamama lisped blinking in his largest puppy-dog eyed pleading, "Why are we here? Why can't we go to the city tonight?"

"Dinner," Momoka said.

"But we already ate," Tamama whined petulantly. And I wanted to visit Gunsou-san on Christmas Eve.

"Like you won't eat more if I let you?" Momoka sighed. "There's only one time of year I can count on seeing Mum and Daddy. Christmas. It's ritual. Paul and the staff decorate a giant pine tree. They sing songs. My 'rents shower me with gifts and then we stare at our food and try to think of things to say to each other."

"Gifts!" Tamama piped and emerged from his funk. He playfully spun about arms outstretched and imitated chirping energy blasts. "You like gifts."

Momoka sighed again and traced the characters for 'winter' in the window's watery condensation. "What can you get the girl who has everything?" she asked rhetorically. "All I want are the things I cannot have and they cannot give me!" But I know that 'what I want' will love his gift at least..

Tamama hugged her leg and the two stood and watched as the new arrivals cleared the landing field. Finally the workers extinguished the floods and the chopper sunk into the abyss of stormy night. They did not move. They watched the clouds playing hide and seek with the moonlight. Shortly, there was a knock at the door and the maid's voice penetrated the thick oak panels. "Nishizawa-san? Your presence is requested in the dining room."

Momoka looked down. "You'd better stay here, Tamama. Daddy will tell me not to bring pets to the table. I'll bring a gift and some leftovers back for you."

"I'm not a pet," Tamama protested.

"No, you're not." Momoka sighed. She patted the slick black head. "Most times you're my best friend." Sad as I am to say that. She looked at the dripping characters on the window, now smeared into irrelevance. And I wish I were anywhere else, anywhere else but here. I wish I were with Fuyuki.

----

The Hinatas, the aliens, and Saburo gathered in the living room. A curtain shielded the tree from their view. Keroro the showman was in full-form. He strutted up and down the table and regaled them all with a monologue of the dangers of Christmas tree decoration, of the difficulty and of the victory that can be achieved when the decorators were of one mind. He strutted. He wriggled. He was so proud of his work that he could not stop bragging.

He went on and on until finally Natsumi complained. "I'd like to see the tree sometime before next Christmas, you think?"

Keroro jumped from the tabletop, he walked to one side of the curtain as Mois took up a position opposite. He beat a drum roll upon the wall and then smacked the little gong on the tabletop for a cymbal chime. They pulled on the cords and the curtain parted and everyone leaned forward in anticipation. Keroro waited for them to break into smiles and ohs and ahs of deepest appreciation at his decorating design. No-one even smiled. Keroro blanched and chanced a look at the tree.

The uncooperative tree was decorated with ribbons, glass angels, glass beads, and glass balls, and a single star atop but was otherwise utterly dark.

"Mois!" Keroro wail-whispered behind his upraised hand, "Didn't you plug in the lights?"

Mois face was cluelessly blank. She chewed on her knuckle and cocked her head to one side. "Lights? Uncle? There were no lights on the blueprints."

He looked out at the assembled and disappointed family in the shaded room. Fuyuki looked confused. Saburo had his eyes rolled in amusement. Natsumi's eyes were a blazing fire - the stupid frog ruins another Christmas tree. Even Mama Aki bore a look of whithering disappointment. Kururu seemed to be enjoying himself behind a balled up hand - kekekeke, he giggled.

"I am sorry..." Keroro started, "I don't know what I should say. I... guess we'll have to destroy this and start over?"

That was when Kururu drew a gun from under the table the likes of which no-one had ever seen. Three barrels pointed forward. The stock was a confusing maze of sliders, levers, and assorted meters. He speedily pulled, pushed, and adjusted a few until the weapon keened warningly. He aimed it like a rifle at the tree and Keroro.

"I press!" he enthused.

The whole family was up and diving away from the tree and the yellow hacker.

Not this time! Natsumi thought. She dodged out of the way and braced herself for an explosion.

"Don't!" Saburo shouted as Kururu's finger tightened on the trigger.

"Wait!" echoed Fuyuki. "You don't understand!"

I shouldn't have said "destroy", thought Keroro as he dived out of the path of...

Kururu pulled the trigger and the wide barrels sprayed streams of red, green and blue light. They wrapped wraith-like around the tree, spiralling upwards, and where the light touched, drops of iridescence formed: Saburo sky-blue, Kururu deep-amber, Natsumi oak-red, Aki flaming-scarlet, and Keroro leaf-green, They dripped down the branches and hung spear-like from the needled tips. Within moments the tree was lit by a hundred firefly pinpoints and dozens of reflective polymer icicles. The lights caught the grape and yellow ribbons. Even the star atop the tree glinted with interior fire.

And everyone was staring at Kururu, then at the tree, then at Kururu.

"What?" he protested. He waved the gun at the ceiling. "This is my 'Tis the Season gun."

There was a pause. A beat. Absolute silence. Then Aki clapped and soon Fuyuki joined in and then Saburo and Mois and finally even the reticent Natsumi and Keroro.

Kururu bowed deeply.

The family, friend and aliens stacked their gifts, box by box, under the tree and drifted away. Saburo and Kururu set out for their homes. Aki and Fuyuki disappeared up the stairs. Keroro and Mois made their way down to the base. Soon only Natsumi remained in the living room. She passively admired the tree. From outside she could hear a plaintive catcall. "Meow. Meow."

She went to the front door and let in Nieko. The cat disdainfully strutted passed Natsumi's feet, paused only briefly to admire the tree, and then jumped onto the warm couch to sleep in the one spot in which no-one sat anymore.

His place... Giroro's. "Yes", she thought aloud, "I miss him too. I can't forgive what he did, but I miss him..."

----

Fly west far enough and you're east again, mused the red Keronian bundled from among his layers of ocher blanket. He sat at the entrance to his tent, which he'd pitched well hidden. Beyond the crimson canvas walls , beyond the subdued green glow of the NMP field, beyond the enshrouding branches of the draping evergreen, beyond the brittle white snow was a cliff. The vertical face descended all the way to the blackest of brackish water, and across the water glowed a city of constant light. The scintillating glow cut through the winter gloom and the tree branches and reflected off Giroro's wide and dark eyes.

The City, he thought, that the Pokopenians say never sleeps. With all those lights I can see why... He sat there for hour upon hour watching the wind blow and the city live-sleep-live under an icy shell. Then with excruciating slowness the horizon turned red, then orange, and then a fiery gold as the pitiful excuse for the winter sun crept above the pinnacles and trenches. The buildings' shadows lengthened until they extended all the way to the opposite shore. His sensitive ears could detect the sounds of automobiles, the chatter of 10 million radios in a hundred Pokopenian languages, the clatter of trains on thousands of segments of tracks. His nose could imagine the claustrophobic press of so much humanity, layered one atop another. Even on today, Christmas Day, there was work to be done and people to see and the people of The City gathered and parted to do just that.

I have work I must be about as well. He rose, hunched over so as not to lose heat, shuffled back into his tent and sealed the entrance behind him. The tent was crowded with disassembled skimmer parts. The trusty craft had flown him across an ocean far wider than he'd ever expected, over mountains far higher than he'd expected, across wide rivers plied by ships, and long roads through wasteland painted every color of a Keronian rainbow, across plains of waving grain quite unlike the grasses he knew, to here - almost halfway around this world from his start - and died. He surveyed the greasy, frost encrusted mess. I'm no tech, he thought. I'm a combat specialist. A tech should be fixing this not me.

He knew that the nearest tech was a yellow asshole 22,000 clicks away. For the third time that week he considered turning on his homing beacon and pressing the emergency call. He shook his head and muttered, "Fuck. I'm not going to put up with Keroro's laughter." Or Natsumi's glare either.

He worked on the engine with his field toolkit, Only in the morning was there sufficient daylight filtering into his canvas tomb to work. The self-diagnostics had indicated the tiny blue widget that bound the motivator housing was shorted. He had no replacement, but doubtlessly someone could repair it if he could just remove the unit without damaging it further. More than once already he'd wanted to cut it loose with his beam saber.

As he painstakingly removed bolt after bolt, he could almost hear her voice on the wind's whisper. Cool and constant and somehow sweet, "Christmas is a time for love and forgiveness Giroro."
He spoke back without meaning to. "But could you forgive me? I failed to protect you my... my... lo..." even in her absence, his voice choked on that one syllable. "My Natsumi."

"Of course I could Giroro, someday, but I don't know where you are you stupid frog? Tell me where you are?" the wind begged.

"Tonight, Natsumi. Tonight, I will tell you." Giroro promised silently.

The wind did not reply.

The sun was nearing its zenith and the branches of the tree choked off all direct light. He tucked the screwdriver back in the pouch, chewed his fingers back into warmth and turned the space heater up a notch. He crawled over to his pallet and wrapped himself in the ocher blanket again. Even in the daylight, even in the cold, even here: tens of thousands of clicks away, he wished he could feel her warmth around him as he fell asleep. "I miss you, Natsumi."

And outside the sun barely warmed a Christmas-Day New York City.

----

Christmas day at the Hinata home, half the world away, came and went and was uneventful... well nearly:
By midnight, Keroro was stuffed on Christmas goose and sugar cookies and was warmed by a hint of rice wine in his belly. He wasn't drunk. He was drifting on a cloud of his own endorphins. He lay on the couch and closed his constricted yellow-green irised eyes and thought on the day gone by: the sun had risen cold and hard over portside Okinawa and his alarm had rung. He had rolled out of bed, and still in his tasseled cap clambered up the ladder and pounded down the hall to the foot of the stairs and bellowed excitedly, "It's Christmastime. Christmastime!" Fuyuki had come tumbling down the stairs, practically salivating over the Christmas gifts. Aki had followed more sedately: a pleased and peaceful grin creasing her features. Breakfast was already cooked and half-eaten by the time a grouchy Natsumi shuffled down the stairs, dressed in her bathrobe. She had resistantly eaten a half-slice of toast and then followed everyone to the livingroom. There had been a knock at the door and Saburo-san had leaned in and greeted them all. Natsumi had immediately brightened and smiled as though all was now right with the world...

Keroro shifted restlessly and rubbed his eyelids and his sleepy eyes behind them - the pressure caused a momentary headache and he ceased. He clasped his own Christmas gift to his chest. Aki had procured, by means mysterious to Keroro, a framed and autographed photograph of Yoshiyuki Tomino and he had to admit he loved it - right down to the inscription: "To the only fan I'll ever require." Aki had been equally surprised, but less pleased, by her gift from all three aliens - a small bluetooth-enabled Proxidater, set to her personality profile - and set to buzz whenever she approached a similarly-equipped male with similar interests. Saburo was presenting his gift to Natsumi - a subscription to a new ringtone service ("No more Pokemon!" Natsumi had enthused) - when Mois and Kururu rose from an opening in the floor that magically appeared and disappeared. Natsumi immediately had presented Mois with her own gift: a new Gucci slipcase for the Lucifer Spear's phone-form and a new pale-blue Keshonden sweater. Mois' "oooos" and "ahhhhs" were interrupted by the raucous thrashing of chopper blades in the backyard....

Keroro suppressed a giggle and snuggled further down into the couch. He remembered everyone running out to the side-yard just as Momoka and Paul lowered a five meter high, genuine Moai statue, complete with red stone topknot onto the frozen soil. The statue had sunk a half meter into the ground even on gentle impact and stood commandingly, staring out over the icicle-encrusted clothesline guarding it as it had once guarded Easter Island. Momoka followed her gift, clampering down the ladder with Tamama clutching to her back. She had run to hug Fuyuki. Fuyuki was staring aghast at the statue and he could only stammer "But I didn't get you anything. What could I get the girl who has everything?" His must have been the correct answer, because she hadn't let him go until she had successfully hugged him. After Momoka's gift, Natsumi's gift of a new book "Identifying UFOs: Source and Species" and Aki's gift of "A Spiritualist's Guide to Zen" were anticlimactic...

Keroro rubbed his swollen belly. Tamama had brought bags and bags of candy for everyone and along with Natsumi's sugar cookies, they had a wonderful snack while the goose had baked. They had all eaten at the kitchen table. At the beep of her mobile, Momoka had excused herself scooped up Tamama and left into a waiting limousine. The remaining three children plus Mois were preparing to go to the cinema, when a cautiously tepid knock had sounded at the door. Natsumi had answered and there had stood Koyuki. Koyuki wouldn't look Natsumi in the eye and had traced patterns in the frost with the toe of her much scuffed and abused Doc Martens and had mumbled a "Happy Christmas" when she presented Natsumi with a gift of a hand-carved wooden wood-duck. Natsumi hugged her and before Keroro had realized what was happening all six guests had departed.

He and Aki had sat and sipped rice wine together. Kururu had vanished to wherever it was that mad scientist, yellow hacker frogs went on Christmas Day. Aki and he played a card game she had taught him three-deck "Go Fish", which didn't involve any real fish, he lamented, while they had watched the tree lights blink and the sky darken. The children had returned home  and drifted away to bed. Aki had then excused herself and left him: here, lying on the couch, watching the tree blink Kururu-light patterns in the otherwise dark room.
Overall? A fine Christmas, Keroro reflected, my third. I could get used to these Pokopenian holidays. He settled down to sleep when...

Suddenly, the air was filled with light, and a rumble, a keening whistle shriek, and then there was a resounding CRASH that cracked the deck window and shook the Hinata home. Keroro fell off the couch. He rolled and cowered between the couch and the kitchen pass-through. He hunkered down with his frail hands spread over his wide head and his face ducked between his twiggy knees. He inhaled and held his breath.

Strange lights played through every window... in the kitchen: the burners on the stove glowed red-hot, then white-hot. The kettle began a merry dance and then whistled loudly. The microwave came to life -  its display flashing random characters. The door to the refrigerator popped open and food ejected from the shelves and splashed upon the floor. In the living room, the television came to life with a single five-note theme sounding over random static. The DVD player opened and spat queued disks across the room, where their velocity embedded them in the opposite wall. The Christmas tree shook and all the glass ornaments exploded one by one like a packet of firecrackers.

Everything stopped. Silence. The glow faded.

Keroro peeked out from his hiding place. He wandered around the counter and surveyed the mess in front and behind him.

Silence... He raggedly released his deeply-held breath.

The sliding glass door to his right exploded and the green sergeant was lifted off the ground and flung back. The hallway wall expediently stopped his flight. He bounced off with a thud, flopped onto his back, and rolled onto his stomach. From the corner of his eyes he saw an inexplicably awake Mois peeking, wide-eyed and fearful, around the hallway door frame and into the kitchen. He followed her gaze and regarded the exterior doorway with dread.

A Keronian figure and a skimmer hovered in the blasted-out door frame. The figure was a silhouette with eyes aglow. It floated to the kitchen island, parked and dismounted and strode forward into the dim light flooding from the open refrigerator door. The form clarified: aqua-blue skin, purple eyes half-lidded, gray and white speckled cap, a short combat skirt with immaculate, crisp, perfect white pleats.

Female?

She held out a bottle of Sake to the collapsed and up-ended Keroro and the frightened Mois, and announced with an enthusiastic squeal:

"HAPPY CHRISTMAS!"