Time Frame: The next day.

hhhhh

Rrriiinnnggg!

"The exam has ended. Everyone hand in your papers now," said professor Wong.

Surprisingly the first paper to land on his desk was Syaoron's. Normally he would be so bored during an exam that his mind would start to wander.

It had always amazed Wong how Syaoron was able to absorb all of the lessons so readily and ace all the tests with no effort.

Similar musings continued to flow through professor Wong's mind as Syaoron whizzed past his desk and out the door with Liz hot on his tails.

Liz had intended to ask Syaoron out on a date after the exam, but she had been thinking about how she would finally get Syaoron, that she had not studied. So she ended up taking a lot more time than she thought and nearly missed her chance.

Liz followed his quickly moving form out the building and across the quad but lost sight of him in the after midterm bustle.

She let out a huff of disappointment and turned to head to her next class, while in the shadows of a building across the quad Syaoron let out a sigh of relief.

Syaoron felt relieved that Liz had left and resumed on his short trip back to his dorm room.

He didn't want to have to deal with the annoying presence known as Liz while he was worrying about Sakura. Liz was worse then Meiling. At least Meiling had the common sense to quit chasing him after he had made his feelings apparent to the clan. Liz on the other hand was more like a pest that just won't go away. Liz was like a swarm of mosquitoes; you can never get rid of them all.

Pestering thoughts of Liz were replaced by nerve-wracking thoughts of Sakura as he made his way home.

There were two questions that he just couldn't answer. If it wasn't Xin that took Sakura, then who was it? And why?

It had been established for the most part that it probably wasn't Xin who took Sakura. One, Xin was nowhere near Sakura when she disappeared and two; there had been nothing unusual about his behavior recently. This left him with no answers, and that pissed him off even more. It would have been less stressful if it had been Xin who took her; at least then it would have been simple. He would have just gone to Xin and pummeled him until the answer came out. But now he was back to square one.

The sense of helplessness had made him resort to drastic measures. He had ordered all the assets of Xin's family to be frozen so that if he did have something to do with her disappearance then he would be able to stop Xin from leaving the city. Then he had sent orders for all the holdings of Xin's family to be searched. Hopefully this will turn up something.

Syaoron's musing finally ended as he entered his room. He walked over to his laptop and connected his web camera to the unit in the conference room of the clan mansion.

The image on the screen showed half a dozen men and women barking orders into cell phones and checking information on the computer.

"Progress report," ordered Syaoron as the attention of all the people in the room turned to him.

"We have sent search teams to all the real estate holding of the Ran family," responded one man.

"60 percent of the teams have reported back and turned up nothing," intoned a woman.

"We are still waiting on the rest of the teams sir," said the first man. "We also have retrieval units ready to deploy at a moments notice sir. They can reach any part of the city in under ten minutes."

"Good," said Syaoron. "Alert me if anything turns up."

"Yes sir," replied all the clansmen in unison.

Syaoron turned off the camera and leaned back in his chair, then he brought his hands up to his face to massage the bridge of his nose and his temples in an attempt to help relieve the headache that was coming.

None of this made any sense. Sakura was one of the most loved people on campus. The professors liked her and so did the students. She always had a way of making everyone love her. No one could have had any reason to do this to her. Well, almost no one, Xin was a wild variable. He seemed to have developed an obsession with Sakura. No matter how many times Sakura would reject him and no matter how many times it would be made clear that Sakura only loved Syaoron, he would still persist and continue to annoy them.

Syaoron wasn't really all that surprised with Xin's actions, after all Syaoron himself use to be obsessed with her, though not to the level of Xin's condition. To be honest Syaoron was surprised that there weren't more guys like Xin, after all Sakura's beauty was unique and special. Her heart was pure and loving, her eyes the most brilliant set of emeralds God ever created, her voice more soothing than any melody and her scent the most addictive aroma in existence.

The thoughts of Xin's obsessive behavior brought Syaoron's mind to another person, Liz. Her obsession with him could be as bad if not worse than Xin's. She would chase him without bounds; she was almost to the point of stalking him. This realization came as a realization of sorts. Liz wanted Syaoron and she was to the point where she would have done anything to do it, then by this reasoning one might find that it is very possible that she would even resort to the kidnapping of the one that she perceived as her rival, namely Sakura.

Syaoron's eyes shot open wide as it finally hit him. He had been looking in the right direction, the person was from the Ran family but it wasn't Xin, rather it appears to have been Liz. Syaoron just couldn't believe how blind he was to not have seen something that was right under his nose the whole time.

Syaoron jumped to his feet and ran out of his room. While he was in the elevator he called the mansion to give them new instructions.

"Find Ran Liz and contact me when you have her location," ordered Syaoron as he bounded out of the building and jumped into his Jeep. "Once you have found her I want two retrieval units to follow her."

"Yes sir," came the reply from the clansman who was listening on the other end.

"Also, have two units converge on my position," said Syaoron as he drove out of the parking lot.

"Yes sir."

With the orders sent and people deployed, Syaoron headed out onto the expressway. Within minutes there were two Mitsubishi Montero Sports directly behind his Jeep.

The unique license plates of the vehicles identified them as belonging to the clan.

A small smile inched its way onto Syaoron's face at the efficiency of his clansmen. But it disappeared as fast as it appeared as his thoughts once again drifted to the dangerously precarious position Sakura was in at the hands of a madwoman.

He was jolted out of his reverie by the sound of the ringing of his cell phone.

"Wei?"

"We have located Ms. Ran sir, she headed towards pier 17."

"Does her family have any holdings in that area?" asked Syaoron as he took the exit that would lead him to the harbor.

"Yes sir, they own a warehouse on that pier."

"Have another two units converge on that location and have them secure the area once they arrive," ordered Syaoron as he cut off the line before the underling could respond.

Syaoron raced to the harbor as fats as he could without hitting anything. He was already 30 kilometers over the speed limit and he was still going faster.

'Hang on Sakura, I'm coming,' thought Syaoron as he turned off the street and onto the docks and sped past dazed dockworkers and on towards pier 17.

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