A/N: Thanks for your reviews and for continuing to read this story! Any feedback (bad or good) helps me improve my writing! So in fact you're doing community service! No one can say you didn't help someone in need.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Card Captor Sakura, I merely wish I did. In the mean time, however, I only use the characters in this lovely story of mine!

NOTE: I've decided not to add the honorifics to the names. I did in chapter one for Sakura's boss but not for anyone else. So for that reason, I will be referring to him as 'Mr.' instead.

Now, on with the story!!

Saturday. The day when most people are eager to stay at home after a long stressful week. However, to Sakura, she was anxiously awaiting today for the completely opposite reason; this was the day she was to return to work. She practically skipped to work, ignoring the odd looks she received from passers-by. She was even more excited at having received the last missing book of her collection yesterday. At this thought her smile widened. She was forever in debt to Eriol for giving her the book with no charge to her.

As she entered her office and put her belongings down on her desk, she instantly switched into 'work mode' and remembered that Mr. Namikawa wanted to see her. She exited the room and walked down the corridor to her boss' office and knocked. "Come in." she heard her boss say from the other side of the door. She walked into the room and he looked up, "Ah Kinomoto, I see you've returned from your vacation. I trust it was relaxing."

"Yes sir." She replied while nodding.

"Very well then let's get down to business, shall we? I've had some robbery cases for you since last week and between then and now, more strange things have happened which lead me to believe that all of these recent robberies are linked. I put a team of cryptologists to work on it for the past week but none of them are as skilled as you." He stopped and rummaged through his desk draw, "I would like you to take a look at these videos and photos of the crime scenes and tell me what you come up with." He handed her a stack of seven videos and a folder filled with photos and newspaper articles. She took them and nodded to him, then proceeded to walk back to her office.

She sat on her chair and placed the folder on top of the other files she had scattered on her desk and then took the videos and put them on top of her video player. She looked over to her puzzle book and sighed, 'I guess I'll have to finish you another day then.' she thought as she placed it with her other incomplete logic books. Her attention was then drawn back to the task at hand and she popped a video into the player ready to scrutinize it.

Four hours and seven videos later, Sakura sat back in her chair her eyes wide with disbelief. She had replayed each video several times over and she still couldn't figure out how the bandits had managed to enter each building. One second they would be loitering outside and the next second they would appear inside the store. It made no sense, especially since the store was locked up tightly. Then, when they were inside the store, they would remain in one spot for three seconds exactly, then vanish and so would the object they had intended to steal. However, one thing she noticed was that the only thing stolen from each store was a small amount of money and a piece of jewellery, not even an expensive one at that. These thieves obviously had skills, so why didn't they take something more expensive than a simple pair of earrings or a bracelet?

Sakura sat there for a minute or two contemplating the true motive of these bandits and then decided to take a look at the photos and articles. She glanced through the articles noticing they were reporting the same thing just at different stores and different times:

"...the locks on the doors were still intact and so were the locks on the display cases of the jewels in question. Police have refused to comment but sources tell us that no fingerprints were found and it seems as though the only evidence of a robbery is that items have gone missing..."

The pictures were all the same as well; police scouring the buildings, curious onlookers, worried store owner. There were no clues at all as to who commited the crime. Sakura decided to take a closer look at the videos and see if she could make out the facial features of the culprit. She examined the moment they appeared in the store and zoomed in to see the face, however most of the face was covered with a dark cloth, only the eyes were uncovered. She looked closer as the video played and noticed that the thief looked at the camera and winked. 'How cocky,' she thought, and was instantly reminded of Syaoran. She cleared the thought from her mind and paused the video when the bandit winked. She observed his eyes carefully and found them to be a shade of dark gold.

As she observed the other videos she found that there were only two thieves between the seven videos and their method of 'breaking and entering' was the same, linking them together. One bandit had deep blue eyes while the other had dark gold. Now she was getting somewhere. She decided to then take another look at the photos and see if anything else matched up. She studied the police, the shop owners and the crowd, all were different in each picture. Different stores, different districts. There was no connection. Sakura sighed exasperatedly and decided to take a break.

She stood from her chair and walked to the coffee room where she bumped into Yumi; another girl from the cryptology department.

"Hey Sakura! How's that case coming along for you?" The brunette asked.

"Um, not so good. I can't seem to make any connection between any of the pictures, and the manner in which they entered the buildings is just so confusing. But, I did manage to figure out that there are only two culprits rather than a gang related thing." Sakura replied while stirring her coffee.

"Oh really? We didn't see that, but we noticed that there are two men that keep appearing in all of the crowds. Well not in the crowd exactly, more like off to the side. It was tough, we spent days trying to figure it out but the rest of the cryptology department practically gave up on it. Oh well, I better be off, good luck!" Yumi said as she took up her coffee cup and walked out.

Sakura froze, 'Two guys in all the pictures? Two guys stealing?' She ran back to her office, leaving her unfinished coffee, and spread all the pictures out on her desk next to each other, and peered closely at each one. Sure enough, there were two men loitering just at the edge of the crowd in each picture. She carefully examined the men, the first few pictures had a clear view of their eyes, and she noticed that one man had golden amber coloured eyes while the other man had deep azure coloured eyes, practically the same colours as the thieves in the videos. Sakura's eyes widened, 'These guys did it! Or at least they're the most likely suspects. But there are probably several people with amber and azure eyes. But the fact that they keep showing up in these pictures...' Sakura's thoughts trailed off. 'I need a better look at their faces.'

She looked through the photos and found that almost all of them had obstructions blocking the men's facial features from view; one time it was a newspaper, or they faced away from they camera, finally, however, she found a single picture amongst the thirty something photos, which gave a clear view of their face. In this picture though, they were much closer to the crowd than in the other photos, and they were focussed on what was happening. She looked carefully at the picture and gasped at the persons that she saw. 'Eriol and Syaoran?' she thought.

She glanced through the articles and noted the time the robberies took place; Monday night: six thirty, Tuesday night: nine o'clock, Wednesday night: seven o'clock, Thursday night: eight o'clock, Friday afternoon: five o'clock. 'Whew, well it couldn't be them I mean, we were having dinner at nine on Tuesday, we were at the movies on Thurday and having ice cream on Friday. She shuddered at the thought of the ice cream remembering the awkward conversation that she had had with the two of them. She shook her head and focussed her thoughts back to what she was doing. 'Okay, so Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are out but who's to say they couldn't have been the thieves on Monday and Wednesday?' she thought. 'But that's impossible, there are only two thieves and they can't be in two places at once... I'm just a little paranoid I guess. Like I said, there are probably lots of people who look similar to them.' She nodded her head as an absolute.

Sakura spent the rest of the day frantically searching through police records of the citizens of Tomoeda in hopes of finding matches to the description of the suspects in the pictures. Like she had predicted, there were several people with those characteristics and her job definitely was not made easier after seeing the number of results that she had received in her searches. Sakura groaned in frustration and sat back dejectedly. This was the hardest case she'd ever had to crack. There were just no leads!

She placed her elbows on the desk in front of her and gripped her head; slightly massaging it with her fingertips. If only she hadn't taken her vacation, she had practically wasted a week's worth of researching and stressing and...okay scratch that. Sakura was glad she had taken her vacation, not only because she had relaxed for once in her life but also because she had actually opened herself up a little to the two people she had met. She shook her head. She wasn't going to continue down that path of thought.

She glanced around her office and noticed the small digital clock buried under some of her books and papers. She picked it up and sighed as she read the time; 11:43. The entire building was empty, of course, except for her, and outside was still and dark - not that many people would be up at that hour of the night. Sakura had pulled 'all-nighters' before but mainly because she had gotten carried away with one of her word search puzzle books. Tonight was different. She felt, for the first time in a long time, completely and utterly useless. Her grip around the clock tightened and she willed herself to calm down. Sakura was never an aggressive person and she intended to keep her reputation.

She stood up abruptly and placed the clock back down on her desk. She had quit for the night. Maybe when her brain was fresh tomorrow morning she could continue cracking this seemingly unsolvable case. She picked up her jacket and handbag and walked out of her office, turning the light off as she passed through the threshold. She turned on her heel and walked along the familiar corridor, her feet guiding her to the exit. She entered her car and drove off to her house.

As she turned the corner to enter the street on which her house was situated, the first thing she noticed was a foreign car parked in front of her house. She slowed down as she drove closer to the car and watched closely at it. She definitely didn't know the owner. Her vision then landed on a figure leaning against her front door. From her distance, it looked like a man and he had his arms crossed around his mid-section. Leaning forward in her seat, her mouth dropped as she recognised the man as Syaoran. 'What is he doing in front of my house?' she thought as she quickly parked her car and walked to her door. Her heels clicked as she walked briskly along the concrete driveway toward him.

The sound awakened him from his light slumber and he opened his eyes to glance at the source. He stood up straight when he recognised Sakura coming toward him, unfolded his arms and dropped them to his sides. He looked into her eyes waiting for her to speak before allowing any explanation to pass his lips.

"What are you doing here? And at this hour of the night too." She asked just above a whisper, as though anything louder would disturb the otherwise peaceful environment.

He shrugged and replied, "I got kicked out...from my own house by my stupid cousin and well I needed a place to stay for a few days."

"Here? What about Eriol's place? I'm sure it's huge." Sakura said as she reached in her bag for her keys. He looked at her increduously. Had she just said what he thought she said? She seemed to notice his gaze and cleared her throat. "Nevermind, stupid question. I guess it's fine if you stay here. But don't expect to get anything for free. You'll have to do chores and go grocery shopping, and make your own food especially since I hardly have time to do anything with my work and all..." She rambled on as she inserted the key into the lock. She pulled open the first door and went through her multitude of doors before finally stepping inside the carpeted house. "Oh yeah, and don't expect me to clean up after you either." She finished and motioned for him to follow her to his room. He stepped after her, not having paid attention to a word she said, his mind only focussed on one thought, 'Phase one complete.'

There! Chapter 7 finished way before I planned, but I just got a surge of inspiration. Anywhose, I hope you like it. Leave a review! You know you want to...or at least you should know that I want you to. It'll make me happy! And I need to be happy, especially since I have exams starting this week. Ah well. I'll try to get out chapter eight before Christmas but knowing how I am I'll get writer's block or something. If not, then consider this an early Christmas present from me to you!Signing off til' next time.

- INVU4URAQT