(I decided to repost this. Enjoy.)

Hanji Zoe is referred to with 'they' pronouns.

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring— except for the mysterious figure lurking around the brightly lit Christmas tree in the front room.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Nagisa, being the first one to wake of the four that had slept over at Makoto's house after a holiday party, sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes before turning to the other three still forms on the floor beside him.

"Haru, Makoto, Rei! Wake up, it's Christmas!" He shouted excitedly at them, receiving groans. Nagisa pursed his lips and stood up. He walked over to Rei and shook his shoulder as a second attempt to rouse him. "Come on! Let's go see what Santa left us!" Nagisa's eyes glittered like a toddler's, showing his utter excitement.

Haru sat up groggily and yawned.
"I'll start frying the mackerel in a minute, guys," he slurred.

Makoto, now up and throwing on a tshirt, frowned. "Why don't we save the fish for supper, Haru?" He said, trying to save the group from another sea-related breakfast. "I don't mind making eggs and sausage."

Haru grumbled a half-hearted agreement and the other three sighed in relief.

Nagisa, who had been bouncing around excited by the door since he'd been up, ran over to Rei and leapt on top of him in a last ditch effort to wake him up.

The scene appeared to become slow motion as Makoto and Haru stared on in horror to see Nagisa slowly falling towards Rei's sleeping form.

   Then, impact.

"Nagisa!" Rei exclaimed. "What do you think you're doing?!"

Nagisa looked down; his expression the utter epitome of pitiful. "I'm sorry, Rei, but you weren't getting up!" He cried tearfully. "I wanted to go see what Santa had left us under the tree!"

Rei reached beside him to find his glasses, put them on, and sighed. "You are aware that Santa isn-," Rei was immediately hushed by Makoto. "Isn't... Going to take the presents away if we wait a little bit longer to open them."
   Nagisa visibly brightened. "Okay!"

• ~ • ~ • ~ •

After all four had gotten up and eaten the breakfast that Makoto had prepared, they went to the tree and each took a seat on the floor around it.

But one package stood out greatly from the other brightly wrapped boxes. It had plain brown paper wrapping with a simple sticker on the side that read, 'For the Iwatobi Swim Team'.

"I wonder what this could be," Nagisa mused out loud.

"Maybe it's from Gou?" Rei guessed.

"Well, why don't we open it to find out?" Makoto suggested. Haru, of course, remained silent, but joined the others all the same.

Unable to stand the suspense any longer, Nagisa was the first to rip into the mysterious box. Shortly after, he slowly pulled out what appeared to be tangled strips of leather and some clunky metal boxes.
   "Wha-?" Makoto began, then turned to Haru. "This isn't your doing, is it?" Haru mutely shook his head.

"Wait, I think there's something else in here!" Nagisa exclaimed as he reached further into the box. This time, he came out with a strange type of sword. "And there's a note in here, too."

   'Just spreading Christmas cheer!'
                  Signed,
                      ~Hanji Zoe

Attached were detailed instructions on how to put on '3D Maneuver Gear', or '3DMG', and how the mechanics worked; they made it seem simple enough.

Once on, Nagisa was the first to parade around in his gear while Makoto attempted to cajole Haru into doing something that didn't involve water or swimming. Rei was on the sidelines, of course, calculating the potential maximum speed, velocity, and inertia that could be achieved with the 3DM gear.

Suddenly, the doorbell chimes, making everyone inside freeze.
    "Aren't you going to answer that?" Nagisa asked Makoto. 

"Y- yeah, I'm going," he responded lamely. 'Who would be crazy enough to be at my doorstep on Christmas morning?' Makoto thought to himself as he neared the door. Looking through the peephole, however, proved useless; it appeared as though no one was there.

Confused, Makoto undid the latch and slowly opened the door to reveal a rather short man staring angrily back at him. A sleek black car sat in Makoto's drive, a person with glasses and a brunette ponytail behind the wheel and a young man with dark brown hair in the back seat.

The man in front of Makoto clearing his throat regained his attention. "Hanji insisted that we drive all the way here to explain your gift," he said blandly.

Not knowing what else to do, Makoto simply stared back at the short, black-haired man.

"Tch, my name is Levi," he started, then jerked a thumb back at the car. "The one with glasses is Hanji, and the brat is Eren."

Makoto gave a small, awkward wave towards the other two, receiving a spastic arm flail and a calm nod from them.

"Would you and your... uh... Friends like to come in?" He offered hesitantly. The one named Hanji was out of the car and standing behind Levi before he had drawn breath to respond.

"We'd love to!" They cried ecstatically, then gestured to Eren to join them.

• ~ • ~ • ~ •

Eventually, everyone was gathered around the tree once more; plus three, of course.

"I suppose you're wondering what the heck three strange people are doing here on Christmas morning, correct?" Hanji began. Judging from the shocked stares Hanji got in return, they knew they were right. "Well, the truth is, that in our dimension— yes, dimension— we don't have enough manpower to fortify our armies. So we're traveling to different universes to.. 'recruit', if you will."

"For some reason, Hanji decided that you four would be the best candidates from this world to help us," Levi interrupted.

"How did you accomplish something as far fetched as inter-dimensional travel?" Rei queried. "And how did you know where we were? Let alone why you would pick us four out of seven billion on the planet." He pushed his glasses higher onto his face. "Either you're lying, or I'm dreaming," Rei concluded.

Eren scowled. "Okay, so maybe we're not from a different universe, but we do need you to help us win a bet."

"What kind of bet?" Makoto asked.

"Well, Horsefa-... I mean, Jean, bet that I wouldn't be able to teach anyone how to use 3DM gear before New Year's," Eren pouted indignantly.

Levi growled. "And so he got Hanji to come up with this stupid plan and they both drug me into it," he complained.

Rei smiled wryly, feeling somewhat empathetic. "I'm willing to learn." Nagisa and Makoto nodded their agreement. Haru, however, was unwilling to agree just yet.

"If there's no pool, I'm not helping," he stated decisively.

"Fine," Eren grunted. "I don't want to teach an impassionate person like you anyhow."

   Haru's eyes glimmered at the challenge. "I'll attempt your stupid stunts if the three of you agree to swim."

Hanji and Eren agreed eagerly; Levi, however, refused.

"Why, Heichou?" Eren whined. "We'll have four people instead of three! That's one more person to rub in Jean's face!" He pointed out.

"I'm not going swimming, and that's that," Levi snapped.

Eren pouted, but then perked up with an idea. "But Leviii," he whined again, though more playfully. "If you swim with us, I'll clean your office from ceiling to floor for you." Levi's stern expression wavered. "And I'll wear the uniform you ordered for me," Eren murmured seductively.

"F- fine," Levi stuttered. "But you'll hold up your end of the bargain, or you'll know the true meaning of clean."

"Pine sol?" Hanji whispered; Nagisa snickered.

   Levi blushed. "We have a week to make sure that you four are masters of 3DMG. So we'd better start now by helping you get into it."

Two hours later, Haru, Makoto, and Rei had also been strapped into their gear.

"Now we train," Eren said.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Finding a remote place to fly around with 3D maneuver gear was simple; it was the 'using it' part that was difficult.

Makoto was too busy worrying about the dangers of collisions or falls to actually get off of the ground. Haru seemed to be a natural, however— calmly zipping to and fro in moments. Nagisa was... trying his best, while Rei was able to start out perfectly (beautifully), but was unable to land not on his face.

Eren watched all of this before putting a palm to his face. "Just call Jean and tell him that he wins by default because I died of embarrassment," he groaned.

"Already done, Jaeger," Jean said smugly as he sauntered up behind Eren.

   Eren jumped and whirled to glare at his rival. "Fine, you win— I'll stop teasing you about Marco...," he paused. "But I just half to say that you two are simply two parts of a whole when you're together."

Jean's fist started a path for Eren's face before either of them could blink. Suddenly, a blur flashed by, knocking Jean back.

"Haru!" Makoto cried. "What on Earth are you doing?!"

   "Helping," he said blandly. "No one should fight on Christmas; right, Nagisa?"

"Yep!" Nagisa answered cheerily.

   "Now," Haru continued to Jean and Eren. "Shake hands and make up."

Jean begrudgingly held out his hand and waited until Eren stuck out his to clasp it like a dead fish before dropping it almost immediately.

"There!" Hanji said with an emotion similar to happiness. "I think this is the best holiday yet! Enemies calling truce while newly found friends stand close by."

"Tch, whatever... I'm going home; you two better be in the car in five minutes or I'm leaving without you," Levi announced.

Goodbyes were rather quick, including Haru mutely placing a hand on Eren's shoulder— the words "good luck" were understood.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Finally, with the setting sun at their backs, the four members of the Iwatobi swim club returned to Makoto's house to open the rest of their gifts and intentionally forget about the Christmas morning of 2015.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~

I wrote this without any particular plan... So uh... Yeah.... (Sorry)

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