Girls' Night [Katori, Bambietta]

"Huh? Oh, hi... Kotori? Sorry, I'm not great with names."

Bambietta gave a small bow of apology at that, pretty sure she'd gotten it more or less right. She wasn't actually sure why this girl would have been coming up to her out of nowhere like this, but she wasn't one to just shut down a nice casual chat or anything like that.

"Went fine, business as usual, mostly just doing research and stuff lately. No major projects on the docket right now. You?"

Honestly, Bambietta didn't really think it was much of a minor thing at all, given her attachment to her own name. Still, if she said it wasn't a big deal, she wouldn't press the issue, though she did get a little irritated at it being repeated twice in succession like that, as if she was a child.

"Sorry, sorry. Uh, dinner..? Well, I haven't gotten anything to eat since this morning, so I could go for something, sure."

Was this...like, supposed to be a date or something? Bambietta hoped not, she wasn't exactly looking for one, and this girl didn't quite seem like her type anyway. Besides, she wasn't going to seem like she'd been slacking when her re-assessment came up, which was pretty much right around the corner.

"What's the place? I try to keep up with most of the stuff around here, or well, I did anyway. I've been a little too busy lately to actually follow up on any of my cooking but I used to be pretty intense about it."

It was getting really consistent that this girl seemed to be treating Bambietta as if she were a child, and frankly, if she weren't doing everything in her power to be a model shinigami, Bambietta probably would have already punched her. At least she was real good at keeping things cool, you got good at that in the penal legion.

"Studies haven't been going too great, really, I'm pretty disappointed with my progress. I've had a few pretty decent hybrid spells go fine, usually I like to figure out how the breakdown of reishi actually works when really volatile kido are in play. Right now a lot of the common offensive incantations are pretty inefficient, which I think's fine if you're just learning, but I'm not really satisfied with it when I'm supposed to be a specialist."

Realistically, Bambietta could have left it at that, but given this was her superior, she just naturally assumed that the woman would understand if she elaborated further. Besides, she wouldn't be in Kido if she didn't like talking about her work.

"You look at a 31 Shakkaho, and sure, it's fine on paper as an offensive spell, but it's actually a pretty terrible way to get that effect. You're pretty much just condensing the energy and tossing it off, it's not really that much different from what Arrancar are doing with Bala, right? So if they're getting those numbers, tossing out as many as they can, why aren't we doing the same thing? And if it's really that simple, couldn't we be delivering that effect through something more efficient than just a ball? A beam, even a tiny arrow. Maybe practically a wire-thin line from one fingertip. At any level of specialization, I'm really just not seeing how a lot of these kido are worth using. I want to fix that."

That all made perfect sense to Bambietta, anyway. And given her only actual metric for competence was herself, she just assumed anyone else probably knew better. Was that true? No. But she didn't know that.

Bambietta was all too glad for her focus, otherwise the fact that she was internally seething would have been abundantly clear. Yes, obviously she knew perfectly well how simple a Shakkaho was designed to be. The conversation had been about her theories on utilizing its principles beyond just that basic spell, and somehow it had been veered into this white-haired bitch rambling about her difficulties.

Was it a white hair thing? It had to be, but then again, Vice Captain Arima had been great, so it couldn't just be that.

"Nah, I think I'm alright. I figure if I've made it this far with my own smarts, I'm probably pretty close to a breakthrough."

Really, she just couldn't even begin to imagine asking this stupid bitch for help with anything. She'd probably snap within five minutes.

Frankly, the fact that this girl'd been smart enough to not open her mouth did at least earn her a few points in Bambietta's book. Her expression remained the same, the broadly positive face she always had around the Seireitei, but Bambietta's eyes were a bit more intense than they probably should have been.

"It seems like it might be nice. I like the atmosphere, it's nice and relaxing. At least, if you're into this sort of casual thing, but I don't really tend to go to the more upscale places unless I'm spending a lot on a good meal. It's worth the stuffy atmosphere."

She certainly wasn't at the same degree of cheerful or friendly that she was with her friends...well, friend. But hey, it was definitely not quite as curt as she could have been, especially given the awful start that Katori had given them.