"Here are the maps, Takuya!" Sala beamed as she thrust her arms forward toward Takuya.

Takuya, being distracted by his prolonged sentence in this hell hole, welcomed the blueprints and maps as a distraction that he sorely needed. Taking the things from Sala's arms, Takuya stood up and walked over to a clear space before organizing the blueprints and maps for the whole of the colony.

Looking at a map of the dimensions, Takuya could see what from west to east it was 2km long and 1km from north to south. They were in the middle of the colony which is in the canteen which is usually the center for most places.

The Communications Building was in the far south of the of the colony, so it was about 1000 meters away from where they were. Takuya looked at a few routes he could take on the map and looked at a map which had crosses were Xenomorph sitings were most common. As Takuya's luck would dictate quite a lot of sitings were on the quickest routes to the Communication Building.

Takuya put his bets on the Queen of the Hive figuring out that if people could get to the Building they could call for help and that wouldn't be too good for her and her hive. So she put up patrols around there to kill anyone who attempted to get to it.

Takuya doubted that Sala's parents were stupid enough to go through the routes with the most Xenomorphs, so he looked for the route which they would most likely take.

After looking for a while, looking at blueprints and maps multiple times, he'd worked out a rough route. He had thought to simply leave the colony and walk all the way around to the outside of the south side of the colony but Sala soon put an end to that thought when she educated him on the severe lack of Oxygen on the outside.

Takuya felt a bit humbled/humiliated by the fact he had to be corrected by a child on something that should've seemed like common sense but he pushed through it.

The route he decided to take was probably the longest one he could take and half of it would require him to crawl through vents. Takuya shuddered at the very thought, not because he was claustrophobic but because the vents are the Xenomorphs home grounds.

Regardless, Takuya steeled his resolve as he collected his gun off of Mikasa who had it for safekeeping after Takuya passed out. He wanted to leave the gun with the others, for protection against any wandering Xenos but Sala told him not to worry as she had a lot of stuff their parents left with them to keep the Xenomorphs at bay. Takuya wondered what this was but decided to not ask, he couldn't take it with him and leave them defenseless so he didn't exactly need to know.

Takuya started moving the benches, chairs, and tables which were used to block the entrance. He did alone for a bit before Mikasa came over to help him. The others stayed away because they knew they wouldn't be able to do it slowly like how Mikasa and Takuya were.

There was no talk between Mikasa and Takuya, mainly because Takuya was going over his plan constantly in his head and Mikasa knew this so she kept silent as well.

Moving the bare minimum of the objects was done pretty quickly, both Takuya's and Mikasa's strength making easy work of it. When Takuya was about to leave, Sala stopped him. She gave him multiple things, including a flashlight, some flares, a small fold up map and a small compass. Takuya thanked her with a pat on the head before fully leaving.

As he walked down the hallway, straining his hearing to pick up on indications there were Xenos around him. He knew he wouldn't be able to hear them from far away but he at least wanted to try. All he heard was creaks and groans, with the occasional spray of steam from the pipes around him, it was unnerving, to say the least.

Takuya slowly walked along the route he'd memorized, occasionally stopping and listening for anything around him or shining the flashlight, Sala had given him, around wherever he was.

For the most part, the journey was quite quiet, like the sitings would suggest. The hive material even got scarcer the further along the route he traveled. But all good things come to an end. Just before the part of the route where he had to switch to a vent, something was different.

There was hissing.

As soon as he heard it, Takuya stood stock still, straining his ears to hear where it came from.

*Hissss!*

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It was above him but it was slowly circling across the ceiling and to the side of the hallway next to him. He heard it's feet touch the floor, sounding like metal blades being stabbed into metal floors. Takuya wondered why it wasn't being quiet; because it didn't fear him, it didn't think he was worth the trouble.

It knew it was the predator and he was the prey.

Being trained to be the killer, Takuya was pretty unready for this feeling. As the Alien walked up to him, stretching itself into its bipedal form and towering over him with its 7ft+ height, dripping its saliva on his head.

Feeling this threat to his life, this looming hand of death...Takuya felt...

'I feel...'

*Hisssss!*

Another aggressive Hiss and the Xenomorph positioned itself behind Takuya, looking down at the crown of his head and opening its silvery jaws showing the inner jaws of death that flicker with the same metallic shine as it's outer ones.

'I feel...!'

*Hisssssss!*

The Hiss which would be it's last to Takuya was in preparation for its kill. It would usually have taken a civilian to be implanted with eggs but it felt a danger from this one and felt it needed to protect the Hive.

Takuya's heartbeat was thumping in his ear, his blood threatening to burst forth from his veins and arteries. But his breathing was steady, like the calm before the storm. Takuya hadn't noticed it yet but his eyes had unfocused and his hand reached for his belt but not for his gun.

The inner jaws of the creature sprung forth, aiming to plow through Takuya's head. The insidious little jaw made contact with his raven black hair, yearning to breach through his skull.

But it was not given what it so dearly wished for. The Xeno seemed oddly confused that it hadn't felt the human's blood on it jaws or the warmness of its flesh, looking down at it's would be prey it was shocked to find it's 'prey' had tilted its head of the way.

Not giving the Xeno another chance to think, Takuya spun around pulling something from his belt, laughing joyfully as he did so in a fluid motion.

'I feel...alive!'

*Fshhhhh*

It was a flare he'd just lit.

Using incredible finesse and speed, Takuya grabbed the Xeno's inner jaw, keeping it outside its head, and shoved the lit flare into the creature's mouth knowing that it wouldn't bite down on it's equivalent to a tongue.

A hideous scream was the result of his efforts, the alien starting to thrash about, flinging it's razor-sharp tail around its vicinity and slashing with its claws at anything it thought it saw move. The pain was blinding to the Xenomorph.

Takuya was obviously away by this time and running toward the vent he needed to get to.

He knew the Xenomorph didn't follow him because last time he looked back it was still thrashing about, the flare still burning a permanent brand into its mouth.

Seeing the vent, Takuya thanked the Gods (God) above that it was open and unobstructed. Knowing there was a chance of Xenos being in there, Takuya brought up both the Glock and the flashlight as he pretty much dived into the vent.

The vent was on a bit of a descent down, so Takuya slid down it for a while making sure to point the flashlight and the gun forward and up his vigilance even further as it didn't help him much at its current level earlier.

But luckily, other than his own heartbeat and the sound of him quietly tumbling down the vent, he heard nothing and saw even less as the metallic vents looked untouched by the Hive.

Coming to the end of the descent, Takuya turned right heading up another vent. It was a tight fit because of his broad shoulders but he managed. Climbing up the slightly traction-less vent was annoying, to say the least, but Takuya would take annoying over a run-in with a Xenomorph any day.

By now he was leaving the Unlocked Mode he never knew he entered, luckily because of his training he didn't spasm out and start frothing at the mouth like normal people do when they exit Unlocked Mode for the first few times.

Slowly crawling through the vents, Takuya slowly made his way toward his destination. Obviously, his speed was limited so it would take him about 30 minutes to get there, maybe, even more, depending on variables on the way there.

His trip to the vent and his small fight with the Xeno had taken about 10 minutes, so plus his time passed out and the time spent talking to Sala and organizing his plan he'd spent about 1 hour and 40 minutes out of his original 6 hours which was now bumped up to 24 hours. So the others had 4 hours and 20 minutes until they went back and he had the same amount of time to have what might be his last bit of human contact with people from his world.

Sighing in the vent, Takuya shook his head and just got on with his crawling and not dwelling on his possible death and loneliness.

A bit quicker than his predictions, Takuya made it to his final destination in 25 minutes instead of 30.

'What an achievement.'

Takuya looked around at where he was and sure enough, he saw a sign which pointed him toward the direction of where the Communication Building was. Walking slowly and carefully, checking the corners of the hallway whenever he could, Takuya made it to what should've been the communication tower.

Sadly, however, it looked like a massive wreck, fire and collapsed building parts everywhere. Luckily, the entrance was strangely unharmed, so Takuya could enter.

"...Great..." was all Takuya said before wandering in.