"So," she says slowly, "this wall right here, could just be... like, it put it right across the path, but the rest of the path is still there. Right?"

(Hey. Hey Kimberly. You know what I always say about walls.)

"...what if we just... went through it?"

He stops in place.

He turns and swiftly approaches the missing doorway, and presses his hand against the wall.

He slaps it, firmly, once, twice.

"Oh my God," he says.  "...I think this is just the actual shitty drywall it looks like.  We could go through this."

"Thank my roommate, she's always going on about how walls are a social construct."

"Lenore?" he says, crouching down to examine the lower levels of shitty drywall and drawing his combat knife and only a little bit trying to figure out how this is a terrible irresponsible idea that will get them both killed and/or him blacklisted for life.  "The - sheepdog?"

"That's the one!"

God, he's even heard of dungeon espers tunneling through walls - though usually the A- and S-classes - he even knows how to break through drywall with a combat knife.  He straightens up and marks off the upper corners of where his makeshift doorway should go, and starts scoring dotted lines along its future edges.  "She seems - " maybe don't pry into your rescuee's personal life on top of everything else?

...she seems...? Okay, he's busy doing more important things than gossip, fair enough.

Score score score.  - he glances back at her.  "Sorry, just - I don't mean to pry."

"I don't think it's prying? I mean, I guess I dunno what you were going to say. I think there's lots of things you could've been going to say that would be fine, though."

"Interesting, I think."

"She certainly is interesting."

"Does," quick once over to see if this is a fucked up thing to say?  He doesn't think so?  And talking helps, sometimes, to distract him from actually spiraling.  "Does Lenore have a lot of opportunities to inspire you to break down walls?"  He's scoring vertically, now, becoming gradually more stooped and bent at the knees as he progresses down the wall.

"I have never broken down a wall because Lenore told me to. ...or for other reasons. I have actually never broken down a wall. Kinda looks like you have, though!"

"Nnnot on game day," he says distantly.  "When my partner and I became dungeon espers he talked to some DRT guys and we learned how to do all sorts of miscellaneous stuff, though."

"That's pretty neat. And it's sure coming in handy."

He has scored down, and across the bottom, and he's coming up on completing the rectangle.  He's trying to keep himself teetering between I can't believe I needed my rescuee to think of this for me when I'm supposed to be the one responsible for getting her safely out of here, what's wrong with me and why the fuck shouldn't Kimberly have been able to come up with this, what exactly are you implying? without pitching fully either way and falling into a spiral.  "Wouldn't be the first time Toby's SWAT Camp turned out to be a good idea - all right, here we go."  Rectangle: completed.

She bounces slightly, beholding the rectangle. What a good rectangle.

Well.  The next step is gonna be kicking it a couple times.

He'll tell her to step back, first, but then, yeah, he's taking aim on one leg and, firmly, rhythmically, kicking the shit out of his rectangle.

The rectangle suffers in a noble cause.

That'd be really cute if he wasn't so intent on his task and if he didn't have some serious reservations at the moment about finding Kimberly cute.

Rectangle goes down.

"You were right," he says, "that's just the other side of the drywall.  We can go right through this."  Not even any shitty wiring to worry about.

"And then hopefully find the rest of the path on the other side!"

"That's the hope."  He takes another deep breath, and reacquaints his fingers with his hair after their long absence, and then shakes himself a little.  Time to start drawing another rectangle.

Kimberly stays out of his way.

"Don't the insides of walls usually have more stuff in them? Well, dungeons, I guess. I wonder if dungeon drywall is useful for anything... it sure looks pretty normal from here."