Between Two Walls [Aidan, Yugiri]

"Ee? You don't know what a flash step is? You mean you don't even know what we shinigami do?"

Yugiri leaned in and looked at him like she was baffled, didn't these kids get taught anything nowadays? She had to wonder if maybe the world had corrected itself while she was out and about for a few months. She wasn't in a gigai right now and everyone seemed to be able to see her so it must just be that she was dealing with a total dunce.

So uncool.

"It's when we move really fast. You know like I take a step and then I blur out of existence just to appear behind you and you turn around to say something menacing to me but you've already been cut in half but I was so fast that it took a moment for your body to catch up."

The young woman explained with a very unhelpful description. It sounded the best way to put it though in her head, hopefully he understood. She could just demonstrate it and there was an inkling of wounded pride when he talked about lasers like that was somehow fine but there's no way she could fly like the wind.

"...I can also shoot lasers."

Yugiri said from a sideways glance. She just had to affirm that she could do that too. She didn't need him thinking she was limited to just running around.

Aidan sure did listen to what Yugiri was saying, but the more she opened her mouth the more that he had to hold back his obvious laughing. "Y-Yeah?" He said, looking at her over his shoulder with a curiously raised eyebrow. The secondary admission that she could shoot lasers only got an amused snort out of him, definitely not helping his case.

"That's probably the most interesting way I've heard... well, about anything described to me in the past year." Shaking his head and turning back to... whatever it was that he had been doing. Aidan wasn't even sure at this point, Yugiri had distracted him. "Really..."

Boy found himself busy with more vegetables, cut into large chunks, then smaller and smaller until it was all ready to go into whatever, whenever they needed. "Look it's not that I don't believe you, it's just... It's like something you read in a manga or see in an anime or something." Explaining as he scraped off the veggies into a pot and handed that off to his boss. "I'll believe it when I see it, but it just sounds so absurd. Like, I know I could never do something like that, so trying to envision someone else doing it... it really is like fiction, or something."

"Eh? Are you dumb or have you just been living under a rock all your life?"

Yugiri looked at him like he was the idiot now. Was he like some tiny minority that couldn't see spirits? Maybe he just didn't believe that she was as cool as she insisted. How lame, she could prove it to the guy but she didn't need to blow up his little shop to show that she could do lasers.

That just wouldn't do for her.

Aidan looked at Yugiri with the most dumbfounded expression. Did she really think he was that dumb? "I mean I've seen it, I guess, it's just like... Who the hell gets close enough to these things to record them? It's not like it's all over the media..." He mumbled, fumbling for some kind of excuse until he realized that he really didn't need one. This woman was the crazy one, not him.

"You're being absurd. Fine. If you wanna prove it to me, then do it after I'm done working. And stop looking at me like that, jeez..."

"Dummy. You're definitely the kind of guy that lives under a rock, head in the pot staring at ramen all day is frying your brain!"

Yugiri declared indignantly at this guy who was clearly ignorant of simple things. Wait, she could prove it to him without even doing anything destructive. Elbow to the counter, a smug grin on her face as she leaned to rest her chin on the hand.

"Voila."

In her free hand the hollow mask appeared. It's minimalistic design and asymmetric pattern. She didn't dare don it though since it could be quite the difficult thing to keep control of, this'd be a terrible spot to lose control. Surely he knew what a hollow was though, and that they shot beams!

"So you know what this is?"

Aidan shouldn't have laughed when she called him a dummy, but the idea that him frying ramen all day was also frying his brain made him laugh anyways. "Yeah... Probably a little bit." He admitted without much thought. Now was the part where he was starting to question whether or not this chick was fucking with him. His boss seemed to think so, if the shake of his head was any indication.

But, when the boy turned around to wash his hands at a sink just barely out of sight behind the counter, he froze suddenly at the sight of something all too familiar. Like his blood ran cold and he was drained of color all at the same time just having to lay eyes on another Hollow mask so soon after the last incident.

"I... Yeah, I know what that is. Was attacked by a Hollow the other day and was saved by someone who was doing some... not nearly as grandiose kinda things as you were saying you could do." He admitted while flicking his gaze back and forth between the mask and this woman. "Who are you that you can do something like that? Or do you collect them or something?"

Oh? She wasn't expecting that kind of response from him. Then again, it's easy to forget that a lot of people aren't as capable of dealing with a hollow like she was. Even a regular shinigami from the Gotei would likely have had the same response, let alone of the other noble men or women which never left the safety of their walls in the Seireitei.

"Hey, cool down a bit kid."

Yugiri assures him and dispels the mask in her hand without a trace of it remaining. Nothing but a flick of the wrist and it was gone to the point where she paused for a moment as her brain caught up with the body's action. Too fast for her own good sometimes, she thought to herself with another grin.

"I'm a shinigami with hollow powers, not as uncommon nowadays but it's not all upsides. I'm what you call a pretty special fish in the ocean though for it if you get me? So what are you, just a human right?"

Aidan sighed and shook his head. He didn't know what it was about this woman that got him talking, but he just couldn't shut up. At least they weren't disturbing the other customers or anything. None of them even seemed to recognize the hollow mask as what it was, they were just giving both Aidan and Yugiri odd looks.

"Yeah, unfortunately. I mean, if I weren't, I would have dealt with that Hollow myself." He admitted with another, slightly more dejected sigh. "I don't even know if that's something I could do, but I'd give it a shot if the opportunity arose." Even if that got in the way of his school work, it wasn't like he was enjoying his classes or what he was going to be doing once he was done with them. And he should already be done, he just sort of... wasn't. Dropped out a few times, took a few too many breaks, and now here he was. It felt absolutely pathetic.

"You from around here? I haven't heard of you or anything, or of a hollow, shinigami, whatever you are." He couldn't help but wonder, still utterly baffled by this strange woman or her claims to be far more than she was. Summoning a Hollow mask meant she was some kind of real deal, but that didn't necessarily back up all of her earlier claims of moving across the country at breakneck speeds or shooting lazers or whatever.