A/N: I'm back!! And after a (not so) long vacation, I have the next chapter of Puzzled! I would just like to thank everyone that stuck with me through the story so far and I really hope all the veterans and the newcomers as well like the new arc. There's a lot more twists and turns and surprising appearances and revelations. Well, you'll see. So without further delay! Here's chapter 12!!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Card Captor Sakura. CLAMP does and they're probably not going to give me any credit whatsoever. So in this story the only thing that's mine is the plot and OC's.

Emerald eyes darted across the computer screen, absorbing the information that was appearing. So many names, so many people! The woman highly doubted she would find something worth following up on but, she would rather waste her time now than miss something important...actually, scratch that. The auburn-haired girl sighed deeply and exited the window. That was getting her no where and fast. Fushin had killed way too many people for her to possibly be able to find some sort of anagram among the names of his victims.

She was about to get up from the chair, when a blinking light in her peripheral vision caught her attention. She glanced to her right and edged her chair closer to the flashing screen. What was that? She had only recently gained access to this room so she didn't exactly know what everything did. Eriol had given her a tour within the first few weeks but he had cleverly not shown her the exit to the building before he and Tomoyo had to fly out to do more investigating. Now that he was back, maybe she'd finally be able to find how to get out of this place once in a while.

As she got closer, she noticed that the screen asked for her name and password. After a brief consideration, she shrugged and started typing. 'S-A-K-U-R-A'. As she pressed the enter button, the screen stopped blinking and another window popped up in front of her. This window also displayed a list of sorts, however, it was much shorter than the one she had previously been staring at, it wasn't even a whole page. How strange.

Upon further observation, Sakura noticed the list was also one of names and she wondered why these names had been singled out. "Kaho Mizuki, Sonomi Daidouji, Yel-" she whispered to herself, however, before she could read the whole list, the door to the room opened and she quickly turned around. In the doorway stood Namikawa, dressed in his usual suit and tie. He was the only one of the investigation team that did not constantly live at headquarters. He was usually in Japan, he did after all run the JTPS, but whenever he had the chance, he flew over to Hong Kong to join them. Other than these visits, the whole investigation team conferenced with him via a video phone.

Sakura stood up abruptly, a guilty look on her face as though she had just been caught red-handed doing something wrong, and after bowing a little, looked at him embarrassedly. She hadn't been expecting him to return for another week or so. "Hello, Sakura. The others told me you'd be here. Are you getting on fine?" He asked, his eyes glancing briefly to where her attention had been before he entered.

Sakura nodded tightly and replied, "Um, yes sir. I've been doing well here. I think I've managed to adjust and I'm finding my way around a little easier." When she had first arrived, it took her an hour to find the kitchen. She thought she was going to starve. She blushed a little in embarrassment.

"That's good." The older man said and began walking toward her. As he neared, he slowed and his gaze landed on the screen behind her. Sakura turned her head to where he was looking and her blush increased. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to be looking at the information on that screen and now, being caught reading something she may not have had permission to read, was a little more than mortification in her mind. And here she had thought she was good at being elusive. "Sakura, would you like to know how this group was started?" Namikawa asked softly, staring at the screen a little longer before his gaze switched to her.

His gaze was intense and Sakura could merely nod, she did want to know.

He paused a moment before speaking. His eyes were cloudy with memories and although they were focussed on Sakura, his mind wasn't. He was reliving each memory before he would relate them to her. No one spoke for that while. The whole building, it seemed, stayed quiet for the moment when Namikawa would begin the story. However, the pair was disturbed.

The door opened again and Syaoran's frame now stood in the opening, his face frowning. "Toshihiro, I need to speak with you." The younger man spoke, referring to the older man. Sakura still couldn't get accustomed to calling her boss by his first name.

Namikawa seemed to break out of his reverent state and glanced over at Syaoran. "Yes of course. Sorry Sakura, we'll have to take this up another time," he said and walked past Syaoran and out of the room.

Syaoran's glance moved from the older man to Sakura and he glared. "Don't meddle in things you don't understand." He said threateningly, obviously referring to the screen she had been looking at.

Sakura returned the glare. "Well, I wouldn't be in the dark if someone bothered to explain things to me," her voice was dark and so was her expression. She also couldn't get over being lied to and toyed with. To say she didn't trust her new co-investigator would be an understatement. The other members of the team had built up some of her trust over the few months she was here, but it still seemed that Syaoran didn't trust her so she didn't trust him. It was only fair, right?

Syaoran's glare hardened and after a few more seconds, he turned and followed after Namikawa. A triumphant expression crossed Sakura's face. She had won this time. She smiled and decided she would just leave everything alone for now. She grabbed the jacket she had hung on her chair and exited the room, only to come face to face with another member of her new investigating team, Eriol.

"Hello Sakura, how have you been holding up in here?" The man asked gingerly, with a grin across his features.

Sakura glared playfully at him, "Fine, no thanks to you! If you had shown me the exit I wouldn't have been stuck in here in the first place." She hit him lightly on the arm.

"My sincerest apologies," he said, the grin still on his face, "But I didn't see the need in having the possibility of you escaping and having Syaoran have to handle that."

Sakura rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "So how was the trip? Find anything interesting? You two were gone for a long time."

Eriol's face became serious for a few seconds before his eyes softened once more. "Oh nothing out of the ordinary. Frustratingly, there was nothing amiss, Fushin really knows how to set up a murder."

The pair began walking along the corridor. Sakura absorbed this bit of information. Fushin always had the same killing method. Any member of this team could identify a murder as Fushin's doing because of tell-tale signs. There was usually no blood involved. A simple suffocation or poisoning worked effectively enough. He usually struck in the day, which was strange. Everyone expects a murderer to strike at night, which was exactly why he had to be different. Fushin was smart, he knew not to leave any trace of himself behind, and one usually found that the crime scene had been thoroughly cleaned when investigating. He even went so far as to mop the floor once. The only way the team even knew his name was because of an incident that occurred years before, but Namikawa always refused to talk about it.

The two just kept walking with no real place in mind. "Hey Eriol, you mind showing me where the exit to this infernal place is?" Sakura asked and folded her arms. Eriol, in response, chuckled and nodded.

He guided her to her living quarters with the intention of showing her a distinct path. Sakura remembered the first time she had entered the building. The first thing she thought was that it was really white, and clean. He had led her to her room then and left her to get settled. Her room was pink. Obviously they had Tomoyo help decorate it. But she was grateful, it was almost identical to her room in Japan and it made her really comfortable. It was a salvation when things got too much to handle.

When he had returned later in the evening, he had agreed to take her on a tour of the building. He had first shown her the bathroom, then the kitchen and the recreation room in which she found a pool table and a wide screen television. There was an indoor pool along the same corridor and a large library there as well. Sakura had found these two rooms specifically, her favourites.

After showing her the general rooms, Eriol had then decided to show her the rooms more incorporated in investigating. There was the main information room which was where she had just been. The other rooms were mainly for storing evidence and conferencing. There were of course the laboratories in which teams of specialised scientist experimented on every piece of evidence in order to find some clue. But these weren't used very often since there was hardly any evidence to begin with.

Then there were the combat rooms. Both physical and magical combat. Sakura had learnt that Fushin also used magic and that's mostly why the crime scenes never held any type of evidence. Adachi however, couldn't use magic and was therefore the only reason they had been able to track the two of them. He had left fingerprints at various crime scenes and then as if to taunt the law, he went ahead and used his credit cards carelessly. Sakura would expect that though. Adachi was very arrogant about things and death was one of them. But then again, he had been promised unlimited power, she supposed he had a right to be arrogant.

For each type of combat there were different rooms and then even more rooms for the different levels. Both magical and physical combat had varying degrees of aptitude. There was beginner, intermediate and expert levels. Since Sakura had already been trained to fight in the JTPS she hardly used the beginner room and spent more time in intermediate. She had practised at least an hour every day and took Meiling up on her spar. This time, however, they seemed evenly matched and the fight ended only because a meeting had been called, therefore deeming it a tie. There were several more spars after that of course, and they both won alternatively, at the moment Sakura was leading the scoreboard by one win, which she was sure would change in a matter of days.

The magical combat rooms had been a different story though. As soon as she had seen the room, Sakura had begged Eriol to train her. Eriol reluctantly agreed and after gruelling hours in the beginners' room her magic was developing. Sakura practised for hours everyday and now she was almost as good as Eriol and Syaoran in terms of using magic. She had learned to cover her tracks and defend herself against magic attacks. Secretly she had trained by herself though. She was able to block her thoughts and emotions very effectively now without the knowledge of any of the other members, for which she was grateful. Having them able to read her mind was very unnerving, Eriol had done it several times when she had first arrived. Now she could go search for anything from their information base and the others wouldn't know, unless they kept tabs on their search engine.

Now, as Eriol led her through the maze of corridors and doors, she couldn't help but smile as she remembered her first days there. She had come a long way from when she had first met them all and she was proud.

"Okay, well, now that you're at the library, you just turn left and go down the staircase and you're free to leave. Got that?" Eriol said concluding his tour.

Sakura repeated this to herself, left at the library, and nodded her head. "Thanks Eriol."

"Sure, you needed some sun anyway, I wouldn't want you becoming paler than you already are now." Eriol said laughingly.

Sakura slapped him on the arm, "And whose fault is that?" She eyed him.

Eriol shifted his gaze and glanced around the corridor, "You mean to infer that it's my fault?" He asked innocently. Sakura nodded slowly. "But my dear Sakura! You can hardly expect me to be so ungentlemanly as to purposely not show you the exit." He mocked horror.

"Oh shut up Hiiragizawa." She said and they began to walk again with no distinct location in mind.

They had just turned a corner when Eriol's cellphone rang. He answered it and after a brief conversation he turned to Sakura, "There's a meeting now, let's go." They were on the opposite end of the building from the meeting room so they quickened their pace and weaved their way through the labyrinth.

"What's taking them so long?" an irate Syaoran asked as he placed his feet on the large oval table in front of him.

"Geez, Syaoran, he did say they were on the other side of the building. Of course it's going to take them a while to get here." Meiling muttered sardonically. She too was rocking on the back legs of her chair with her feet crossed on the table.

The room they were in was rather small compared to other possible meeting rooms, with only a single oval table in the centre of the rectangular room. The table had ten chairs surrounding it and though most wouldn't be in use at that particular meeting, well, there were other gatherings that took place.

Namikawa sat at the head of the table, which faced the doorway, in silence. His eyes were closed, his head bowed slightly and his hands rested mechanically on his thighs. If one was not familiar with the man, he would be mistaken for asleep, however, he was merely deep in thought. The information that Eriol and Tomoyo had brought was both good and bad. It meant the investigation could concluded in a matter of days with Fushin captured, but it also meant that sacrifices would have to be made in order to achieve that.

He sighed slightly, his mind was muddled and for the first time in years, he honestly didn't know what to do. His confusion stemmed from the choice between doing what he had wanted to do for years and doing what he thought he owed to a good friend. He had always needed to choose between his friend and his wife before. He chuckled under his breath, even in death they were both contrary. But that didn't help the fact that he still needed to make a decision.

It was obvious Syaoran wanted to capture Fushin, but it was also obvious that the boy's judgement was biased. He had lost his mother and he wanted revenge. He didn't take into consideration the fact that the girl he was so willing to sacrifice had also lost someone important. Hm... Syaoran's plan made sense of course, and under any other circumstances he felt that he would have willingly gone along with whatever the boy said. Syaoran was like a son to him. And yet...yet he was ready to scrap the plan and start from scratch.

He clasped his hands together, ignoring the chatter that was erupting around him. Why wasn't his wife here when he needed her. Oh how he needed her right then. This was the toughest thing he'd ever had to decide since that day all those years ago. He still wasn't sure if his choice had been the right one back then, he had chosen his friend and lost his wife. He often wondered if things would have been different had he chosen differently. He waved those thoughts away. No point in thinking about the past.

Silence prevailed around him and he opened his eyes. He was met with a red-faced Sakura and an out-of-breath Eriol.

"Sorry we're late, what did you want to talk with us about?" Sakura asked in between catching her breath. Namikawa let out a low grunt, he needed to decide now.

To be continued...

A/N: There you go! It's a little on the short side I know, but there are longer chapters to come. Besides this was mainly a filler chapter to update you on what Sakura has been doing with the team and what the relationship between them all is now. That's very important mind you, so be sure to remember it.

Anyways! I'm back! And there aren't anymore upcoming preoccupations for me so for the next few months or so you'll get regular updates. Speaking of which, I'll be posting my new story soon, it's another CCS but it's more focussed on Tomoyo and Eriol. I decided to turn that one into a romance but in the beginning it's more of an action/adventure/fantasy type thing. There's some drama in there too. So, be on the look-out for that and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!!

Review, review, review!!

- INVU4URAQT