A/N: Now, normally I am the most obsessive person about researching what I am writing. However, as you read this story, it will become obvious to you that I did no research what-so-ever for this. I know many Japanese celebrate Christmas, but I'm sure they don't do it in quite the same way as Americans. So why is an American-style Christmas presented here? Mostly, because this is just a short humor story, and secondly because I actually wanted to finish it before Christmas, which likely wouldn't happen if I'd done all the research.

So, my apologizes for this being badly researched. In return, if you care to point out everything I've done wrong, I won't fault you. I'd rather you didn't, but I won't complain.

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In most of Japan Christmas was a pretty laid-back holiday, barely a blip on the radar. Only children paid attention to the idea that they would soon be receiving gifts that arrived magically overnight, as parents clutched their pocketbooks in agony. Single adults would attend parties where small trinkets may or may not be given. Of course, that was the rest of Japan. For Japan's biggest child-at-heart, Amano Ginji, the festivities were just beginning.

Ban moaned and leaned over the hood of his Lady Bug. "Ginji, you're not going to find a real Christmas tree in Japan… that we can actually afford," he pointed out. He glanced sharply at a live tree locked safely behind a glass display. "You don't even have the money for a fake one."

Tare-Ginji made a sour face at Ban. "I'm going to make my own tree, Ban-chan, and you can't stop me!" he replied stubbornly. He had a bent wire clothes hanger in his hands, onto which he kept sticking green-painted pieces of discarded newspapers.

"Your tree smells like garbage," Ban snapped, waving a hand in front of his nose to clear away the smell. "Master is never going to let you keep that smelly thing in his restaurant."

The clothes hanger bent miserably in half, causing Ginji to sigh. "Now look what you've done, Ban-chan. We need to talk positive to make my tree full and beautiful!"

"You've been watching too many badly dubbed cartoons in the department store again, haven't you?" Ban answered. He opened up his cigarettes to find an unexpected surprise in the package. "Ah! Ginji! What is a plant doing in my cigarettes?"

"So that's where I put the mistletoe!" Ginji said brightly, taking the plant out of Ban's carton and hanging it on the antennae of their car. Ban raised an eyebrow suspiciously at Ginji.

"Do you even know what the purpose of mistletoe is?" he asked skeptically as Ginji returned to attempting to straighten out his garbage tree.

"It's a pretty plant you hang to celebrate Christmas!"

Ban sighed. "It's a trap, that's what it is," Ban said, drawing on what knowledge he had gained from his European associates. "When someone stands under it, you run up and BAM! Kiss them without warning."

"That sounds like a fun tradition!" Ginji answered. He trotted over to where Ban leaned up against the car, still grinning in that way that only Gnji could.

Ban smirked, chewing on the end of his cigarette. "I'll be sure to give some mistletoe to Jackal next time we see him."

"Ban-chan, you're mean," Ginji answered, face drooping to the point where he looked as though he had twice as much skin on his face as he actually needed.

Ban pulled poor Ginji's decoration off and threw it into the back set of the small car. "I don't want you hanging a weed from my antennae."

"It's not a weed, it's Christmas mistletoe!" Ginji protested, diving into the back seat to rescue his decoration. "Don't be a… a…" Ginji looked deep in thought for a moment, chewing on his lip as his brown eyes gleamed. "A bah humbug!"

Getting into the car, Ban groaned even louder than he had before. "Scrooge, Ginji. The expression is 'Don't be a scrooge.' It's from classic English literature, you know, a Christmas Carol?" The blank look on Ginji's face told Ban that indeed, Ginji did not know anything about it. This made Ban even more frustrated. "Why are you so determined to have a Christmas if you don't even know anything about it?" he asked as he started up the engine.

Ginji looked down at his scuffed sneakers. "Well… back in the Infinite Castle, the Volts would always exchange presents. Makubex would make a tree for us on his computer, Kazuki and Jubei would bring the music, Emishi would provide the entertainment… this will be my first Christmas outside of the Infinite Castle. I just wanted to make it… special."

A twinge of sympathy pulled at even Ban's tough heartstrings. Of course, he wasn't going to tell Ginji that. Instead, he just reached back and ruffled his best friend's spiky blonde hair. "So this Christmas thing means a lot to you, Ginji?"

"Yep! It was one of the times when I could really just be with my friends without having to worry about being the head of the Volts!" Ginji smiled in response, bounding lightly across the backseat from enthusiasm.

Later, as Ginji resumed dumpster diving in hopes that someone might throw out a Christmas tree, Ban opened his wallet. A starved moth flew out, choking on the dust bunnies. Ban wanted to be able to get something for Ginji that would be better than anything he'd ever received from the Volts, something that would mean more to Ginji than anything else in the world. His empty wallet, however, said otherwise on the matter.

"We should be out looking for jobs, not digging through trash bins on the off-hand chance that someone might have thrown out a tree," Ban argued.

Ginji made a small sound from inside the bin. "I guess you're right, Ban-chan. Hey, what about that big garbage place we went to when we thought the girls had thrown out the briefcase? Do you think someone would have thrown out a tree there?!"

"Ginji…" Ban growled in a low, threatening tone. He had no intent of spending the entire day tree-chasing.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming out." There was a long pause, and then Ginji meekly whispered, "Ban-chan? I'm stuck."

About a half-hour and a stack of garbage later, Ban finally managed to dislodge Ginji from the rubbish bin. Ginji, as childish as ever, just reacted to Ban's absolute rage at having to pull Ginji out of the trash by grinning. He pointed, "Ban-chan, you have a banana on your shoulder."

Ban looked at the rotted peel, and then grabbed it and threw it down at Ginji's feet. "Merry Christmas, Ginji," he snapped, slamming the door as he got back into the car. At least the overhead skies looked like they were threatening rain. That would save him the cash of having to visit a public bathhouse.

Ginji whimpered and kicked the peel away with his foot. "I only wanted to celebrate some Christmas cheer, Ban-chan," he sniffled, getting quietly into his side of the vehicle.

The rain was coming down in sheets by the time they managed to make it through traffic to the Honky Tonk. Ban knew he'd wanted a shower, but this was ridiculous! The pounding rain was bitterly cold, leaving both men shivering as the rain beat against their skin. In the time it took to run from the car into the restaurant they had both practically been treated to a good shower.

Natsumi brought the two soaked men dishtowels from the kitchen, which were good for little more than attempting to dry their hair and faces. At least it was better than nothing, Ban mused as he wiped the droplets off of his dark-purple glasses. His ears caught the sound of the entrance bell tinkling delicately, causing him to drop his towel and look up.

Ban could only stare at the woman who had entered, and knew that Ginji was likely doing the same thing. She had hair as long and blonde as Hevn's, and sharp green eyes. That, however, was not why the two boys were staring at her. She was dressed, you see… like one of Santa's elves, complete with long ears and indecently short green mini-skirt.

"Any port in a storm, miss Elf?" Natsumi asked jokingly, referring to the weather.

"I wish that were true, but I am actually here looking for the Get Backers," she answered, handing Natsumi the remains of a soggy flier.

"That's us!" Ginji said brightly, leaping off the stool.

"What's the matter, did you loose your reindeer?" Ban snickered.

"Ban-chan!" Ginji angrily protested, elbowing Ban in the ribs. They needed the money. Now was not the time to be making fun of clients.

The girl in the elf-costume laughed, but her laugh sounded strained and false. "Actually, I have lost my reindeer, and the truckloads of toys they were carrying." She looked up at them through big false eyelashes covered in green glitter. "Before you think I'm insane, I should explain. I work for the Punkin Toy Corporation. We call our drivers our "reindeer" as kind of a company joke. Several of our trucks of Christmas toys have mysteriously vanished off their routes. They haven't just been robbed; they go entirely missing. The last five trucks to vanish have been carrying toys for underprivileged children. If we don't get those trucks back, those children won't have a happy Christmas at all. Not to mention our worry about what's become of our drivers. Won't you help us?"

Ginji jumped up to immediately say yes, but Ban stuck a hand out to block Ginji's enthusiasm. "What's in it for us?" Ban asked darkly, staring firmly at the elf woman.

"Ban-chan, the children…"

"The children don't pay our bills," Ban replied to Ginji, still looking at the elf. "I'm sure that Miss Elf understands that, working for big business and everything…"

"You will be given a sizeable finder's fee. One that would make any piggy bank burst at the seams," she answered, sliding a slip of paper at Ban. He lifted it cautiously and read off the number on it, face widening into a grin.

"Now this," he said, pushing it back, "is my idea of the Christmas spirit. Consider your case accepted."

The elf, who never actually bothered to tell them her real name, drove the pair to the central dispatch center. The main gates unnerved Ban by playing "Santa Claus is coming to town" to indicate that her ID card had been accepted. Slowly, the car wound its way up to the red and green building as the rain pelted down.

Another man in an elf suit ran out with umbrellas to usher the three safe and dry into the building. Toys of all imaginable shapes and sizes lined the warehouse walls, in quantities that would make any child (or in this case, any Ginji) drool like an idiot with a salivary gland problem. "Ban-chan, look at the transformers! Oooh, look at the toy cars! Baaaaaaaaaaaaan, look! An easy-bake oven! I could eat for weeks with one of those…"

"Ginji, stop it. We're trying to look professional," Ban whispered angrily, quieting the overly enthusiastic Ginji. He was so busy paying attention to Ginji that he didn't notice that the elf had stopped walking. Thus, Ban promptly walked at full speed into the metal building.

After a moment to make sure Ban was okay, the elf gestured to a wall containing photographs and maps. "The pictures are of our drives who have gone missing. The maps mark their routes. You see our problem? No matter who is driving or what route they take, the trucks continue to go missing."

"Sounds like someone in the corporation is leaking information to whoever is jacking the trucks," Ban mused.

"That's what we thought as well," the elf answered, sounding as frustrated as possible. "So we hired a couple of transporters from outside of the company to make a very important delivery for us. They also went missing, and no one in the corporation except my most trusted elves knew that we'd hired them."

"Transporters?" Ban asked, both wanting and not wanting to hear what she said next.

"Hey, Ban-chan, don't we know this girl from somewhere?" Ginji asked, pointing to a picture. Ban looked away from the elf and down at the picture. Immediately, his face lost two shades of color.

"Himiko!" he cried.

Ginji looked closer. "It is Himiko! I didn't recognize her with the hat on!"

Ban angrily turned on the elf. "Tell me she's not one of the missing! Tell me she's not the transporter you hired!" he cried, grabbing the elf by the lapels.

"If I did, I'd be lying," she answered steadfastly. "You know her?"

Ban released the elf, letting the implications sink in. "You have my 100 assurance that we're going to find those missing toys, and we're especially going to find the missing drivers." He paused. "Who was the other transporter?" he asked, almost not wanting to hear the answer to that.

The elf shook her head. "I don't know. I never saw her partner. It's too bad, really. I would liked to have given them both official reindeer uniforms. It's bad for the company image to have employees, even contractors, not displaying the Christmas spirit…"

Ban was grabbing up print-outs of the map off the table. "Ginji, you and I will split up and canvas the areas the trucks went missing…"

"That won't do you any good," the elf argued, grabbing Ban's arm. "What routes have been hit have differed, and what time of night the hits were made hasn't been consistent either. We'll be on the radio with one of our men and then just nothing but dead static, and we don't hear from them again. The only thing that seems to be consistent is that they're targeting any truck that's carrying something valuable." She led them over to a large, shining black truck decorated with fake ornaments and paintings of Christmas lights. "That's why we want you two to ride with one of our reindeer tonight. This delivery is very important to the big Christmas display at our main store. It's too tempting for them not to hit."

"And when we stop them, we'll make them give Hi- the drivers back," Ban said, cutting his statement short. He didn't want it to seem like she was his only concern. After all, if they thought he had a personal reason for doing the job, they might lower his pay.

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To Be Continued