Sai had just finished a beautiful painting of a snowscape. He placed it in the Konoha Museum and admired it.

Suddenly he saw a dot in the painting.

An imperfection?

Sai squinted at it.

The dot got bigger.

Bigger.

Something was coming...a woman.

The woman stepped out of the painting in a flash and grabbed Sai, dragging him inside.

"The Beautiful Planet Earth. With a touch of my cold fingers, I will make this beauty mine!"

She extended her arms and ice crystals fell to earth along with the snow.

Sai looked outside as he was dragged. When had it begun to snow.

The scene changed.

Sai was walking through the snow.

A snow crystal fell into his eye.

"I was lonely. You have gotten the first piece of me. You are my eternal companion." Queen Bandiane wrapped her arms around him. "Stay with me...Stay within the dream...Sai..."

Xxx

Four girls, Sakura, Ino, Hinata, and Tenten were all having the same dream. They were running through the lush jungles of the Amazon. Hinata fell down and started to cry. The other girls stopped and helped her back up. Then, they saw something glittering in a nearby pond. The girls went into the pond and walked up to it. It was a beautiful mirror. They picked it out of the sand. A woman spoke to them from inside the mirror.

The woman had long dark hair to her feet. Her eyes were the blue of the night sky. Her skin was pale moonlight. Her dress was like starlight.

The girls were amazed at the talking mirror.

"I wonder if it's a magic mirror!" Sakura exclaimed.

"Yes, I can use magic," the woman told them. "I am called Madame Bandiane."

The girls were delighted.

"Thank you for waking me up," Bandiane said. "As a symbol of my gratitude, I want to give you these." Four billiard balls, the Dream Stones, appeared before them. "With the Dream Stones, you can use magic too and you can be young and beautiful forever."

Xxx

One day near the end of December, Naruto was in the kitchen with Sasuke baking cookies. Everyone was amazed at Sasuke as he used the bottom of a glass to push down balls of cookie dough to make each cookie a perfect circle. Suddenly, the cuckoo clock chimed and the bird came out of the clock.

"Oh! The 3 o'clock fairy already?" Rock Lee said.

"The 3 o'clock fairy?" Neji asked.

"My mother made cakes for me when I was little," Rock Lee explained. "Once when I asked her why she made cakes at 3:00 and she said, "That's because of the 3 o'clock fairy! At 3 o'clock, the fairies come to tell every mother to make sweet snacks for their children. I didn't really know when she meant so I thought the bird that came out of the cuckoo clock was the fairy."

Naruto took out the cookies.

"Naruto! Your cookies!" Sasuke said.

Everyone laughed, except for Naruto.

Naruto yelled back, "Shut up! My cookies can beat yours by their superb taste! They are special enough so that one bite makes you energetic and powerful hundreds of times over!"

Everyone crowded around Naruto's cookies, which tasted really good despite how they looked.

Xxx

Sasuke was standing outside the bakery looking inside . On the way, he spotted a girl looking into a window of a bakery.

She was wearing a blue cheongsam with white lilies. Her ebony hair was done up nicely, braided and wrapped around her head like a crown. Her eyes were the color of the night sky, a dark blue.

Sasuke thought she was very suspicious-looking. He stood next to her and started to stare at her from different directions. She smiled at him and he frowned back.

"What are you doing here? Are you waiting for someone?" Sasuke asked.

"I'm watching the children come out of the store, they look so happy," Kuri said.

Sasuke frowned. "That's because this is a sweet snack store."

"Yeah, Konoha is really nice! Every mother looks really gentle." Kuri said.

"Yes. The mothers do." Sasuke said.

Kuri laughed, "You are funny. This is a great city! Even the snacks even look happy!"

Sasuke peered into the window. "You know how they feel?"

"Look! They almost start dancing to make children happy." Kuri said.

"To me, they just look like food." Sasuke commented.

Kuri began to play her flute and several cookies formed a dancing figure. Sasuke was shocked. When she stopped playing, the cookies returned to normal. Kuri quickly faced Sasuke and stuck out her hand. "I am Kuri!"

Sasuke looked at her hand in surprise but then shook it and said, "My name is Sasuke."

Sasuke and Kuri walked to the end of the street together. Sasuke handed his cookies to Kuri.

"What are they?" She asked.

"They are my homemade cookies," he replied. Kuri stared at them for awhile.

"Can I keep them?" Kuri asked.

Sasuke nodded and Kuri was very happy.

Kuri said, "Good-bye!" and waved to him as she left.

Sasuke happily waved back.

Suddenly the two looked into the sky. A flying craft with spotted sails appears in the air. Voices call out from it.

Standing on the craft were the missing women: Sakura, Ino, Hinata, and Tenten.

"Come on! Come on! The circus is here!"

"The city of lights, filled with beautiful dreams!"

"The land we've longed for! We've been waiting and waiting for this time!"

"The arrival of our Eclipse Circus!"

The craft vanished.

The light from the Eclipse struck Sasuke and he doubled over, falling. He felt warm arms encircle him, and then...nothing.