Musings Of A Drunken Brat (Kalama, Open to 1)

Honestly, Kalama was rather pleased when the topic moved away from herself, at least for now. She’d done a good job of masking it but the Shinigami had been briefly knocked for a loop by Catherine’s previous question. If there was another path then the green haired woman just struggled to see it or maybe she was simply frightened of following where it went. Change scared her more than anything and after so long, it was borderline terrifying. Still, the cogs would whirr in her mind, refusing to let the topic go, her thoughts still dwelling on them, much to her own annoyance.

She was rather intrigued by Catherine’s response to her question and deciding to focus on that, she’d soon enough inquire. “So after spending so much time researching them, what conclusions have you come to regarding them as a race? Are they more than they appear to be?”

Damn. She wouldn't have expected a Shinigami to care about her research, or for most to really care honestly. The few times she'd ever willfully brought it up, it was met with dismissive comments and brushing offs toward the absurdity of it - Hollows were Hollows, dangerous creatures that had to be quelled or removed; apart from picking out their specific weaknesses for what's actively being dealt with, there wasn't any reason to look further. Despite her own dislikes and biases, she couldn't help but wonder if there was more that could be gleaned of them...

"It'd be impossible to quantify how much 'more' they are. They're more complicated than the average person would glean them to be, that's for sure," She'd down her final drink with a calm swig; if she drank any more then she'd be too inebriated, time to slow down...

"So... So much more."

Finishing her latest glass of booze, Kalama would pause rather than request another for the time being, beginning to finally feel the effects herself as well. Her tolerance must have been off the scale by now but even she had her limits. The bartender seemed pleased at least when she didn’t make another order and swiftly moved to serve someone else rather than risk another tongue lashing for the green haired Shinigami.

Listening keenly to Catherine as she spoke, Kalama would thoughtfully muse for a second or two, before answering. “It’s a surprise for sure to hear of them being talked about in such a way. Most people seem to either piss themselves in fear or grab their nearest weapon and smash their heads in. You clearly don’t view them in the same way as everyone else so if they’re not the monsters they appear to be, then what are they?”

"Oh, don't get me wrong, they're brainless monsters that eat people - no contest on that," She scoffed at the idea of turning away from thinking of them as such; she had little sympathy for the lot of the white faced menaces... But it wasn't like they lacked value or intrigue unlike others of the spiritual kind, and having the opportunity to present her findings was a little stroke on the ego, "But they're a complex web; no two hollows are quite alike, least not naturally."

She'd grab a notebook from the bag that was hanging off the chair, presenting multiple pages and spreads of drawings, littered with compressed notes, a growing sense of excitement as she did so, "Different shapes, sizes, abilities, levels of consciousness, potential... They're not like anything else. They could be anything, with the right persuasions..."

To hear someone speak of Hollows with such enthusiasm was most definitely new and Kalama couldn’t help but find herself looking over what Catherine was willing to show. Another day, another time, she probably would've just called the woman a nutjob and be done with it but today wasn’t that day and the redheaded researcher’s energy was rather infectious. She spoke with excitement, passion and the green haired assassin couldn’t help but respect such vigour. There were few that she came across with such feelings these days.

“To think that they are just as unique as you or I.” Kalama answered with a curious tilt of the head. “That is most definitely not what I was taught during my training but thinking about it, I wonder if anything I learned back then was true. The more time I spend in this realm, the more I feel that everything the Gotei told me was complete horse shit.”

Curious as to where the redhead was going with all of her research, she’d soon enough ask, still looking over the information. “What’s the end goal of this project of yours if you don’t mind me asking? Where is this all leading to?”