The Sea of Stars [Catherine, Verdada]

The sudden grab and jerk of action caused her to drop her bowl, but she didn't panic - if anything this sort of reaction was plenty expected after everything. Past events didn't just vanish because the present existed, after all; she would have to be held accountable for it at some point. There was quite a few punches in the face she was expecting from the get go anyway. Her gaze floated to that fan, of elegant make and poise, pointed at her throat. She wouldn't. Her heart raced either way, burned with that familiar anxiety as her spiritual pressure flared and spread.

Something was strange about her signature, something familiar, something that didn't immediately come to mind. She'd felt something like that before... But that wasn't the pressing issue, that heat rising in her chest,

"...I fucked up, Verdada." Her voice was low, panting puffs of hot breath, gaze flicking over to Faust who had visibly stiffened and was slowly creeping away from the situation; smart of him honestly, "Things aren't 'all fine and dandy', this is eating me from the inside. My scars ache, I can still feel him clamping down on my leg... He's dead with an heir to his family, just like he wanted. And i'm left over with killing a monster, and not my grandfather. Because I was too slow."

Her teeth grit, a smile creeping on her lips as a hand tightly gripping Verdada's wrist - not so hard that it would injure her but enough to be a firm grasp, "All this time, all that berating and abuse he put me through, all that pushing myself... And it still took me eleven years to barely kill him at his worst. Your apparent desire of wanting to see me suffer's nothing in comparison..."

She couldn't help but let out a low, wheezing laugh, as if she was between the desire to cry and the need to laugh away her pain in a twist of lunacy, "You're right, at least partially; I kill a man at the brink of madness, I rip his fangs and scales from his corpse, I take everything he's held dear for myself, and now i'm twisting it into something beyond his wishes... I'm not that girl lying helpless beneath a monster anymore, I am the monster."

The sensation of that sharpened pinion penetrating her fingers, the icy hiss of pain on her nerves provoking a twitching eye and the notching up of her lips. Bad move, she supposed, should've thought a little harder before doing that. She'd get any fingers lost to it back in under a week, fingers normally grew back the fastest. Her gaze did not leave Verdada's own, staring back at her, watching, curious even as those digits would bleed then ache with the sensation of healing.

Her gaze danced over to whatever the Arrancar may be pulling from her cleavage, a look of mild incredulity on her face as she was presented that ominous offer - Be experimented on, have access to a lab? She wasn't going to agree on such vague terms, besides...

"You haven't seemed to consider the main reason why I called you out here," Her voice was calm, yet strangely humorous, "Though, given you seem to have a foreign energy signature on you, I ought to say something happened to you, didn't it? Or rather, someone."

A smile crept her lips as she'd gently cock her head to the side, all that thrilled exhaustion plain on her face, "You're trying to figure out what's going on with you, aren't you? Maybe even inflict me with something ugly... Well, i'm not one stupid enough to accept the first offer, so let me extend something myself; I've acquired my grandfather's company, and all the knowledge of my forefathers - This includes my grandmother's notes. She was a Fullbringer herself - though not just some Fullbringer.. An Alchemist, a spiritual scientist; albeit a young one before she left her home."

Her other hand was brought up, to point up a finger for emphasis, "So! I have an offer to throw in myself; Come work under my company. Already am getting together a small team of researchers, and phenomena like you are exactly what we're lookin' for, and we figure out your little, situation. Experiment on me, sure - I'd like to know the details and conditions of said experiment, but I also want assistance in developing and understanding my Fullbring atop that, so your 'mother's notes and your input would help out quite a bit. Especially the Hollow aspects..."

Something bubbled on that injured hand, the throb of her scars and ache of her wound accompanying it; it looked like the fine ripplings of water dancing on her fingers, wishing to manifest, but not quite forming, "A job, resources to experiment with, help with your situation, and myself to toy with - in exchange for your knowledge and assistance. Is that a deal?"