Whoo, that took a while. Sorry for the sluggish updates, I've been busy, then ill, then busy some more, and I only just got my act together. I think this chapter completely departs from anything resembling real life and settles comfortably into the realms of crack, but hopefully it'll still be fun. Anyway, just an epilogue to follow, probably on Christmas Eve. Until then, enjoy!

Light was beginning to regret the decision to put Mello in charge of the case. L had told him to think of it as an interesting psychological experiment to test his three best students, but Light was beginning to wish that he had merely completed the case himself from the warmth and comfort of his and L's bed. He had not anticipated Mello's method involving so much… action. Especially not this type of action. But L, unusually, appeared to be enjoying himself.

"I have never undertaken this sort of activity before," he said happily. "It is what I would call a family gathering atmosphere."

"What, hair-pulling and bickering?" asked Light, who was the only one with a family. "I would call it more of a community spirit sort of venture, if I was being charitable." If he wasn't being charitable, he added mentally, he would call it a method of elaborate torture for both the participants and the receivers.

"Community what? Screw that, its undercover investigation," Mello corrected them. "This is just a ruse to gather information."

"I'm sure there are simpler ways," Matt whined; the outdoors did not suit him.

"But this way we'll be inconspicuous," Mello insisted.

"How exactly can I be inconspicuous," Light drawled sarcastically, "in this?" Holding up both arms for inspection, Light displayed the rather creative angel costume he was encased in. It was twin to the ones L, Mello, Matt and Near were sporting, but it was still very clear that Light was feeling the absence of his usual casual but elegant attire. The abundance of fake glitter was not helping any. Mello, ever the drama-queen, was unabashed.

"They're great, aren't they? Matt and I used them last year to-"

"Ahem," Matt cleared his throat rather loudly. "Can we just get on with this?" he begged. He was looking the most bedraggled, and he must have been the only angel on the planet to be sporting goggles around his head instead of the more traditional tinsel halo.

"We're waiting for Beta to print us out the song list," Mello insisted. "Do you know, the words to 'Silent Night' actually don't go like I've been singing them all these years?"

"Did you really think that those were the real lyrics?" Matt muttered. "The fact that every second word was rude was sort of a giveaway."

"Yeah, yeah, anyway, I doubt that anyone would give carol singers their chocolate unless we do it right, even if we are the sexiest things that ever walked the earth," Mello dismissed. "I mean, look at Near."

There was a pause while everyone looked at Near. He was holding a slightly floppy teddy bear, and tugging at one silky white forelock, causing his gold tinsel halo to tilt over one eye. Dressed in his usual pure white, but with fluffy feathered wings protruding from his back, and glitter on one cheek, he was possibly the most adorable thing anyone had ever laid eyes on. It seemed that whilst Mello had laid claim to the 'sexy angel' title, he was willing to concede to Near on the cuteness front, if only for the purposes of his mission.

"So, are we all clear?" Mello said, strutting around his small group of heavenly investigators and doling out lyrics. "We sing our asses off from door to door and demand chocolate in return. That way, we can find out when and where this stuff is coming from without having to buy out the whole country. I've arranged so that my contacts across the country are doing the same thing, and reporting back with samples."

"Contacts?" Light asked suspiciously.

"Mostly his and Matt's gaming partners, and also some followers from his blog," Near clarified in a bored voice. "He watched one too many episodes of Durarara! if you ask me."

Whilst Mello tried to strangle Near with his tinsel halo, they shuffled out of the door and down the street in a small, angelic huddle, and began their very important, possibly world-saving venture. According to Mello, anyway.

Singing, it transpired, was not Mello's strong suit, which begged the question why he had come up with the far-fetched plan in the first place. His voice was loud and enthusiastic, but his key was, most decidedly, off. Near settled for mouthing the words, whilst Matt, at Mello's glare, mumbled them half-heartedly and marginally more tunefully. L sang entirely in one note, although Light suspected that this was intentional. It was him, of course, who was endeavouring to bring up the standard with a little harmonising which was, of course, perfect. However many shortcomings Mello might have in tunefulness, however, he was exceptional at wheedling every scrap of Chocofornication out of each household they visited.

"Everyone's a sucker for cute orphans," he explained happily as he munched on a bar of confiscated chocolate.

"That's drugged, you know," Light reminded him pointedly.

"I know," Mello replied, frowning as if Light had some sort of mental deficiency. "What's your point?"

"Nothing," Light said quickly. He gave up on preserving his sanity for the night, and instead let himself be dragged to one last house for a cacophonous rendition of 'We Wish You A Merry Christmas, And Please Give Us Chocolate'.

Returning to Wammy's cold, tired, and weighted with the entire town's supply of chocolate, there was something a bit odd about the atmosphere. Wammy's House was a trap for the unwary on a good day, but there was a definite sensation of the special type of tension which follows the performance of mischief on a really epic scale. Matt was the first to put his finger on the most probable source.

"Hey, where's the tree?"

Five heads turned towards the corner where Light had painstakingly organised the decoration of a tree twice his height and about six times his width; it had completely vanished, along with the presents underneath it, leaving only a few stray pine needles as evidence. In fact, there seemed to be a little trail of needles, which the quintet unanimously began to follow with their eyes. It led through the door into the hallway. Then it led up the stairs. It led past doors, along landings, and finally, into the acrid-smelling space next to-

"K's room?" Mello said, bemused. "What does K want with the tree and all the presents?"

L's face flicked from surprise to careful blankness. "Oh," he said.

"Oh," said Light.

Near and Matt gained momentary expressions of enlightenment a second later.

"What?" said Mello. "What am I missing?"

"Um, let us pay a visit to K for a moment, Mello-kun," said L smoothly. "I think he might have discovered something which will help with your investigation."

Mello, looking a cross between furious and bewildered, nodded, and L knocked gently on the door.

A few seconds later, disturbing crashes and rustles emerged from within, and after a minute or so, a face about level with their stomachs emerged, the same little fountain of brown hair visible on top of his head.

"I found something interesting," K said happily, passing no judgement at all on the angel-clad ensemble. "Do you want to see?"

The five men picked their way through a sea of inexplicable paper-chains, apparently constructed from what was previously K's record of scientific notes, only in bold primary colours.

"I finished dyeing the paper with chemicals I made to create decorations," K explained, "but I think you will be interested in what I found out about the chocolate. Look." He managed to fight his way behind his desk again, and held up two little glass vials, both with identical-looking substances in them.

"What are we looking at?" Near asked blankly.

"I managed to distil the same chemical from the chocolate, and from the Christmas tree," K said, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder. "I have concluded that the extra ingredient in the chocolate is a semi-addictive stimulant derived from pine resin."

He looked around proudly, waiting for a response, but five sets of eyes were too busy looking over his shoulder. Five mouths fell open in horror. Behind K sat the mangled corpse of a Christmas tree, still half-hung with Light's carefully arranged decorations, but stripped of half its branches and pine needles, like a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy, only twice as upsetting. Next to it sat a heap of presents, all torn into and rummaged through as if set upon by a pack of hyenas, or possibly the two resident rats; Light checked the maze covertly, relieved to see them still searching fruitlessly for the exit.

"K-kun, what happened to the presents?" L asked. Light shot him a glance; for one, L sounded genuinely at a loss. There were very few things which did not originate from himself which were able to interfere with L's calculations. This, apparently, was one of them.

"I ran out of chocolate again," K replied casually. "I thought that the most likely source of more would be from within the gifts. And I was right! You see, I also discovered a very interesting correlation between the acid in the chocolate, and the season of Christmas. The availability of large amounts of the drug from pine trees and the scientifically proven endorphins released when the average person inhales the smell of 'Christmas' from a tree, suggests that the drug was put in the chocolate to amplify the association of the brand with the idea of Christmas, therefore more people would buy chocolate as presents. From my survey of the presents bought here, over 70% contained chocolate. I had to investigate every present here, but by doing so, I made a significant breakthrough. Was that wrong?"

Silence hung in the air like lead. Not one of the five geniuses was able to successfully string together an explanation as to why it was wrong to cannibalise an entire orphanage's supply of Christmas gifts for the sake of science. If you didn't already know, there was no hope for you.

"Not… wrong," L said eventually, trying the words out as if he were poking a jellyfish with a stick. "It was, I suppose, the logical thing to do. What concerns me more is that you felt the need to take the entire tree up to your room. Wouldn't a single clipping have sufficed?"

K's face showed honest surprise. "I didn't think of that," he said, his face the picture of truthfulness.

Light observed the reactions of the others. Matt, Near and L had varying degrees of horror on their faces, but Mello looked like Christmas had come early – although that probably wasn't the most tasteful comparison to make, Light chided himself mentally.

"What's made your day?" he asked. Mello tried and failed to stop smiling.

"He's a complete moron," he said finally, his face splitting into a huge smile. "Taking the entire tree, what the fuck? He might have worked out the stupid chocolate thing, but I totally knew that crap anyway. It was obvious from how much of the stuff we got from each house we went to. What were the chances of every single one of them giving us CFC chocolate unless they were brainwashed into associating Christmas with CFC by pine-resin based drugs? I totally worked that out without the need to murder any trees at all. I'm still number one, oh yeah!"

Near turned, and held up two fingers in front of Mello's face. Light put his face in his hands. How could Mello possibly think that serenading the entire town was any more efficient than tearing the house apart for research purposes? He and L had simply reviewed the statistics for the company's sales, with very minimal hacking, and the rest of the deductions had sprung from there. Not for the first time, he wished fervently for Christmas cookies, cocoa, and unmolested gifts with his family and L. There was no way on earth it was possibly to handle more than one eccentric genius at a time. Nevertheless, he tried his best.

"All right, Mello and Matt, please take that… thing – outside, along with this monster paper-chain. Tell the children we're having a bonfire. Yes, Mello, feel free to set it on fire as much as you like, just a safe distance from the house. Near, you're good at making things. Please fix these presents up as best you can and replace them downstairs in any formation you feel like. L, we'd better go and hide the rest of the chocolate before anyone finds it. No you can't eat any but yes, I did hide a few extra cookies for you earlier which you can have instead. And K… good work on the deductions, but it is rarely a good idea to take things which are not rightfully yours. To make up for it, why don't you apply your considerable talents to making us a new tree?"

A few moments of impressed silence followed the assertion, then everyone sprang into action.

"So," said Light, once he and L were alone, "those are the heirs to the title of L, are they?"

"They show a lot of promise, don't you think?" said L innocently. Light looked at him, long and hard, for any signs of sarcasm. Finally, he gave in.

"No wonder you never discovered I was Kira," he sighed. "You were raised in a madhouse."

So yeah, the plot was epically predictable, but who really cares? Wammy's kid of choice dressed like an angel and singing you carols, anyone? Then leave a review :)