Symmetry, Elegance, and Grace [Toki, Ryouko]

While it wasn't strictly part of his work in Realm Enforcement, Toki felt like it would have been poor form of him not to familiarize himself with the other divisions, particularly the ones that he imagined he'd likely be interacting with on a fairly regular basis. One of those was Research and Development, source of most of their technological resources, and while Toki was familiar with the zankensoki and many of the traditional methods of the shinigami, much of their more involved technology was a bit new to him.

"Pardon me. Hinamori Toki, from 6th Division. I had a few questions?"

He'd simply approached the first member of the 3rd division that he'd seen. Considering it was after the typical division hours, when most would be readying to leave, he imagined anyone still here was presumably fond of their work. Well, or simply staying late to handle something unfinished, but he'd never assume that of anyone.

Who was this guy? It was one of the rare occasions around this place that Ryouko was just venturing outside for a few things and this stranger thought it was okay to just cut her off like this? Her expression was pretty dull though, it wasn't until he mentioned his division that her eyes light up and she seemed properly anxious.

"Si-sixth?"

Oh no, one of the freaks in her division had been a little too "brilliant" what if they blamed her for it? Would she be arrested even though she hasn't done anything? What if they found out that she had made herself a nice little living space in an old room that had fallen into disuse. She probably wasn't supposed to sleep here overnight was she? Oh no. Oh no.

She looked around hastily. Maybe she was being mistaken for someone else. He probably wanted or needed someone else for this business.

"The person you're looking for must be around here somewhere..."

Ryouko assured but looked a little crestfallen when she realised there was no one else around to use as an escape. This sucked, she was going to get interrorgated now and then they'll give her a record and it'll be all over. Straight to the Maggot's Nest and she knew what they did to people in there!

"Hm? I wasn't looking for anyone in particular, I just wanted to ask a few questions about some of the newer equipment. If I've come at a bad time, I can come back tomorrow."

It seemed like he'd caught this woman pretty impressively off guard, and Toki couldn't help but feel a little bit bad about that. Then again, maybe that made sense, he had showed up out of nowhere, and saying he was from 6th Division at that. He hadn't thought this through nearly long enough, had he? Oops.

"Sorry, I haven't asked your name. That's a bit rude of me."

It wasn't really apparent whether trying to be personable would make this situation better or worse, but Toki could tell he wasn't making a great impression, and scaring this girl didn't really make him feel great about these first days on the job.

"Umou- Amou. Ryouko."

She hastily said and gave a small bow. Maybe he wouldn't arrest her if she grovelled a little bit- Oh, he just wanted to inquire about equipment? At this hour? Ryouko stared at him for a little bit. He was kind of cute, he had a really soft but defined jawline and he was tall...

Wait, why was she thinking about this? These thoughts would get her into trouble and it'd never work out anyway. Best just get back to the topic at hand.

"S-sure HInamori. I can show you some new equipment."

Could she? She was just an unseated shinigami but she'd already said it and now she felt like she had to go along with it or else she'd disappoint him. Then he might look for a way to reprimand her over it because she screwed up.

"Ah, that's a lovely name, Amou."

Returning the bow quite politely, Toki simply offered the first and most natural compliment that came to mind. He'd always learned it was important to show kindness to others, after all, and so it was only natural that he simply said what came to mind if it was a positive statement.

"Thank you very much. Most of my experience in the shinigami arts came from tutors more familiar with older days in the Gotei, so I'm afraid that a lot of these more recent devices are a little bit over my head."

In truth, he felt like most of what he'd seen had been relatively easy to understand, but Toki was the sort of man who didn't like to rely only on his own understanding of things. That was shortsighted, narrow in thought, and frankly, a bit too cocky for his liking.

Lovely name? It took her a moment to recover her composure when her cheeks went a soft red. Was he trying to flirt with her? That seemed absurd. There were way more pretty women that would probably interest him than herself and she instinctively pulled her lab coat haori a bit closer to try and hide her torso in a way that she thought was subtle.

"What new devices are those?"

Did he intend to have her explain here or was he trying to go somewhere else? They were in the middle of a hallway and she felt a little self-conscious to know that anyone could appear and misunderstand the situation. There was a girl and a boy together alone and it was getting late.

This could be misconstrued in so many ways!

"Well, even the newer model of denreishinki is a little bit more complicated than I'd expected it to be, and that's to say nothing of these more modern gigai. I've made sure to study all the instruction manuals to make sure I have a basic understanding, but I thought it would be smarter to reach out to an expert like yourself."

Toki pulled his denreishinki from his pocket, still in perfectly good condition and without any signs that he'd been trying to figure out how it worked. In fact, the only thing of particular note about it was the fact that the homescreen wallpaper was a photo of himself and his mother.

"Apart from making calls and hollow tracking, I'm not quite sure of what else these newer ones are capable of, and I'd rather not accidentally make an emergency report or something like that by trying to figure out the buttons."

Laughing quietly at the idea of accidentally doing something like that, Toki held it out for Ryouko. It would be easier if she could just show him how to use it on his own denreishinki, after all.

Gi-gigai? He wanted to know about gigai, did he bring his or have it here? If he wanted a demonstration did he want to see her put one on? Ryouko didn't want to think about that when she just left it stuffed in a corner. Hopefully she could get out of that part.

"Uh huh, so um."

She looked at his device thoughtfully. Why was she staring at it like she had no idea. A sudden bout of stage fright right now of all times made her want to run away from the whole thing.

"Ph.. photos." She stammered while pointing at the button to open the camera. It was good for taking an image and verifying a hollow target or surveillance.

Clicking the button to open up the camera, Toki studied it thoughtfully. He'd done some basics with the camera already, else he wouldn't have been able to get the photo of himself and his mother, but he hadn't done anything else with it yet.

"I imagine there's probably quite a few ways to use the lens beyond just taking pictures, then?"

That made sense to him, at any rate. This technological side of things was a little bit outside his area of expertise, though it did seem like something he probably ought to get a little bit more formal experience with. At least this woman was quite helpful.

"Shshure."

Ryouko pointed her finger at the screen but from a safe distance. The third division shinigami was a bit uncertain about getting closer to him than she already was. She thought that her fully outstretched arm and being off to the side was more than sufficient for him to get what he needed off her.

"There's uh, filters so you can take a photo and view it in errr, different spectrums."

She explained and hastily went to correcting her glasses which were falling a little too far forward for her liking.