"Steve!" I called out, spinning around. "Steve!"

"Claire!" I heard his voice, but only through the ear piece "you alright?"

"Where the hell are you?" I asked into the microphone, this was not good. "God damn it, we'll never find each other in this place."

"You two alright?" Sapphire asked sounding concerned.

"Yeah, we just got separated" I said and sighed. Tonight was really starting to suck.

"There's no point looking for each other in here" Steve said with a sigh "just follow the path you're on"

"Right" I said with a nod of my head and started to continue on my way.

With every step I could feel myself getting more and more weary, I had been in this god forsaken place who knows how long, time just slipped away down here and after a few fights my patience was really starting to wear thin. I wanted to find this bastard who called himself Kuchiku-kan, kick his head in, find out how he knew the things he did and make sure he never threatened my father again.

As I walked through the corridors of the maze by myself and the silence settled down on me, I began to release just how utterly alone I was in this place. True I occasionally heard the sounds of fights from Sapphire, Clint and Steve, I knew that Thor was somewhere on the outside occupied in a fight himself and the others were, hopefully, more or less safe in the jet.

Though I was confident in my abilities and wasn't afraid to be alone, I never fully realized what a comfort Steve's presence was in this place. Now I thought about it, Steve's presence was a constant source of comfort in my life.

God, the more time I spent with Steve and the more my feelings grew, the more uncertain I become of how I should act. There's no way that I can deny of my feelings for the man, not any more. I would just be flat out lying to myself to say otherwise. What the hell would I do? I had never acted on any romantic feelings I had before in my life, knowing it was pointless to get too attacked to someone considering my…. life style. But this was Steve, kind, considerate Steve who made me feel all those cliché things. He made me feel warm and happy; he made me smile and laugh.

He made me feel safe.

…

I stepped cautiously around the corner, I had heard the faint sounds of footsteps and soft mumbles only moments beforehand. A pair, I guessed, and taking into the factor of my past luck, it would be massively muscled wanna be ninjas again. I had met actual ninjas before and trust me, they were a lot cooler.

The pair of footsteps grew louder and the low mumble of voices grew clearer, yep definitely male. And they were heading this way, just my luck. The only reason why I wasn't particularly in the mood was simply because I wanted to save all my ass kicking for Kuchiku-kan.

Silently I pressed close to the corners and pulled out my gun. Okay, breathe, I instructed myself. In and out. Inhale and exhale. Or some shit like that.

I slipped through the corridor, placing the heel of my foot down first and rolling my foot slowly towards my toes onto the ground to minimize the noise of my steps. For more balance and support, I bent low at the knees and in this manner crept my way to the adjoining corridor.

The men approached, and for a second I worried that they knew I was here. They were now silent and walking slowly. Telling myself that it was too late to worry about that, I took one last deep breathe before jumping around the corner to face the pair. Gun held steady and just about to pull the trigger when a voice stopped me.

"Hey!" a familiar voice shouted, hands held up in front of them "easy!"

"Clint?" I said cautiously "Steve?" keeping my gun raised, I attempted to make out some recognisable characteristic of the men in front of me. I slowly lowered my gun, relaxing slightly.

"You alright Claire?" Clint asked stepping closer.

"Well, I'm alive, but as soon as we get out of this bloody place, the better" I said dryly. For a moment, a wave of guilt washed through as I realized how close I had been to shooting two men that I actually cared about. I pushed that aside, I would let the wave crush me later when we weren't in an underground what seemed endless maze trying to find a Japanese psychopath.

"Come on, we need to find Miss Sapphire and Kuchiku-kan" Steve said as he stepped closer to me. In a purely protective and gentlemanly- like manner he gently placed a hand at my elbow and guided me down a corridor, just like the guy did in the movies. Steve was making me fall for him more every second without even trying, god I was just digging myself a hole. Just in time to interrupt my inner monolog that seemed to be a common occurrence tonight was Sapphire's voice through the ear piece.

"Guy's I've got Kuchiku-kan!" she said, though it was easy to tell that she was worn out just like all of us, a hint of excitement could be heard in her voice.

"We're at the end of the maze I think" she informed us "just keep heading in, it's a large, lit room"

Wishing she could give us some more directions but knowing she couldn't, the three of us continued with renewed energy at the thought of finally being able to find this guy. We walked for a while suddenly something that wasn't a dull grey shadow.

"That way!" I said, pointing down a corridor to the left, there was a faint light coming from that direction so that was a good enough indication for me. The three of us started to run and the light continued to grow. The corridor came to an end and we entered a large, well lit room. Sapphire stood a few meters into the room and though her position looked relaxed I could she would be ready to transform into an animal (literally) and attack the man in front of her at any given moment.

The man, after months of fruitless searching and hours in this maze, would this finally be him? Am I finally face to face with a man calling himself Kuchiku-kan, a man threatening to destroy my father?

Just as the other man I had faced in here, he was Asiatic and his dark hair shaved closed to his head. A thick scar slashing through the lower half of his face, causing his lip to be filled into a permanent scowl. Mid 30's I guessed and judging from his posture, insanely cocking. I was growing to hate this man more and more with every passing second. At the sound of our entrance, he looked up and stared at us, a dark grin forming over his mutilated face.

"Ah, so you finally found you're way here" he said grinning at us. "You see, it feels like you're all long lost friends to me, I know so much about you." I raised an eyebrow, so we have a stalker on our hands apparently. As he had before when he spoke to us over the speakers when we had first entered his maze, he rattled off information that there was no way he should know.

"Sapphire how is your brother? In his last year of high school I believe, wanting to go medical school at Harvard" Wow, Lucas wanted to go to Harvard? That was impressive. Kuchiku-kan continued his speech of information, finishing Sapphire, then Clint, then Steve. Each of their faces slowly darkening as he relieved their secrets and past, but all of us too entranced to find out all he knew to stop him. Finally he got to me.

"And Claire" he said softly with a smile, as if we were old friends "how is it going as a mock super solider?"

Oh god! Where does time go D: I'm so sorry it took me so long to get this out! Ahhhh! I'm crazy busy -.- but on the bright side I'll completely finish this school year in 29 days, so that's nice :P

Again, I'm sorry I made you all keep waiting for so long, but with exams coming up it means most of my time is dedicated to studying :( but I set up a study timetable with writing time actually scheduled in, so hopefully I'll post a bit (lot) more.

If, like me, any of you love music, listen to Ailee's performance of Halo, it's incredible! Gah, wish I could sing.

I may have to dye my hair blue or pink because of a bet I made with a friend (my parents will kill me if I actually do it, but meh)

I WANT THE NEW ASSASSINS CREED! IT LOOKS SOOOOO GOOD!

I heard there's another Final Fantasy coming out! Woo, more of Lightning's awesomeness! :D

One of my friends is getting paid to cosplay! :O so lucky!

And I think that's all that I feel the need to tell you guys. Thanks for being so patient, I'll try my hardest to update more :3

Love, Fly.