Black Sheep ➲ Khadija

"Don't fucking kid with me," Dee growled.

She stared with murderous intent, body quivering in pure frustration and fury. Her breathing was low and heavy, seething from behind her gritted teeth. Green locks were collapsed over her shoulders and jutting out in wild directions. Her toes curled and the nails carved into the tile below.

Someone had taken her fucking pancake mix.

Dee's eyes bore into the empty space in the corner of the refrigerator where the product of her love and affection had gone into the creation of her own special mix. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, someone had decided to claim it for themselves. Now surely she could imagine that a poor and delusional individual had resorted to theft for a quick meal in the morning. Perhaps they had no other choice, and throughout the entire escapade they had cursed themselves and cried for their sins. But of course, she didn't give two damns what the situation could have been. Whoever was feeling grandiose enough to steal from the quatra fraccion was deserving of death. And to think: she had awoken from a rare, pleasant dream and expected the rest of her day to be fortuitous. Clearly that was not the case at hand.

She slammed the door of the fridge violently, hearing the rest of its containments crash to its bottom. Someone else could clean that up. Dee could not be bothered with anything right now but revenge. And perhaps a replacement meal. She would never admit it, but a part of her felt very hurt. After all, she would never imagine she was deserving of such misfortune as this. Dee was a good girl, wasn't she? Right?

In the midst of Dee's mental marathon through her countless thoughts, she suddenly felt the wind knocked right out of her. She couldn't gasp for breath and it felt like a hammer had slammed into the side of her head. The world was spinning - no, it was really spinning. For a moment she thought she had been incapacitated until her vision rapidly recreated a new scene. As soon as she caught wind of what was happening, she felt debris whip across her face, cutting open her cheek.

Khadija stood still for several moments in disbelief and also in an attempt to understand her emotions. She had just been forced out of hueco mundo.

Slowly, steadily, she rose to her full height, and she lifted her eyes from the ground. Across from her was an orange-haired girl who was clearly reacting with hostility to Dee's appearance. Her green orbs rolled to her side, allowing her to see just a hint of a small child.

Neither of these two looked remotely powerful enough to have forced someone like her into the human world. Certainly, Khadija was startled herself, but the atmosphere about her revealed none of it.

Well... now she had an excuse to have a little fun.

And maybe a meal.

The corner of her lips tugged ever so slightly, and she could taste the blood trickling down from her cheek. "Who was it?" she said, her volume just loud enough for both of the present to hear.

She looked beyond the redhead, discreetly surveying what she could of the area without moving her sight around too conspicuously. It looked like a shanty town of sorts, but she could smell the aroma of the air with great familiarity. Noticing the burning niqab to the side of the female, she realized with a pang that she was somewhere in the middle east.

This couldn't be a coincidence.

As the girl behind her doubled over, Khadija turned around to face her. It was very unsightly, her tears and snot were running all over the place and dirt was being blown into the face and stuck there. She scrunched her nose in disgust. It was evident, however, that the girl was looking through the arrancar rather than at her. She seemed to have deduced that there was something lying there in front of her but unable to see it in its entirety. It was not too much of a surprise; Dee could barely feel any spiritual power emanating from her. But there was something else incredibly compelling about the child, and she stood there staring while her mind worked to solve just why that was.

From behind her came a voice that rudely interrupted her deep thoughts. "Why are you here, hollow?" How the fuck was Dee supposed to know? She laughed at the professional tone the girl spoke in. What was it that she was trying to do anyways, expect a civilized answer from a hollow? Or was it that she was trying to sound intimidating? Either way, she thought it was an incredibly risible thing to attempt. Without waiting for an answer, however, the girl continued on with accusatory assumptions. Suicide bomber? Jolly? She blinked multiple times. Were these modern slang terms? Agh, she was getting distracted! "Wait your turn, imbecile." God damn, she had her back to the chick for a reason. "Answer me!!"

"Excuse me?" Khadija picked up the child by her torn rags with her feet and turned around. This caused her cry even louder. "You humans are always so needy. What are you going to do if I don't answer? Are you going to kill me?" She snorted. "Can't you see I'm fucking busy?"

She leaned down to peer at the child a little closer, rotating and inspecting her like she were on a revolving platter despite her crying protests. "الرجاء حفظ الله لي"

Khadija couldn't stop from rolling her eyes dramatically. What a baby, what was the fuss? With a nail she pulled a fragile-looking necklace from around her neck. "Hm?" It looked nothing special, but at the end of it there appeared to be a relatively bulky ring hanging.

Her eyes widened when she recognized what it was. She swatted the girl to the side with her right wing and immediately grew visibly unsettled. "Who the fuck are you?"

The girl appeared to be as confused as Khadija was. The arrancar briskly pulled the discovered necklace over her own neck, glaring as she continued to speak. Nearly everything that tumbled out of her mouth seemed to be useless jargon. She was not entirely sure how she was expected to react to the girl's title, but it meant virtually nothing to her. It was merely fancy superfluity. She had hoped to waste some time playing around here, but the present playthings were proving to be quite annoying. As the girl unveiled her hidden eye and took a confident stance, Khadija could sense a considerable amount of spirit energy emanating from her person. She whistled. This bitch was serious, wasn't she?

"No time to waste on me, eh? I recall you were incredibly interested in me just moments before. Young and foolish, I see..."

Suddenly, a man appeared out of the arrancar's awareness and walked straight past her to grab a hold of the child that had been thrown to the side. Unprepared, she only watched as he brought it to the inquisitor's side. Truthfully, she wasn't entirely interested in the small girl; there was nothing about her that seemed inordinate. However, she was very concerned as to why she was in possession of the ring dangling from the necklace. It was... it was...

"I wasn't done with her." In hindsight, this was an awfully dumb utterance, since it had been Khadija who had swatted the girl to the side. She hadn't prepared for this previously unrecognized man to take her from her side, though. It was clear that he could not visibly nor physically detect her existence. If she needed, she could discard of him easily, but there was a strong resistance in her to the idea of fighting the orange-hair.

"Isn't part of your job to protect humans? It seems counterproductive to keep this male companion at your side," she criticized. Ironically, it was now the arrancar that was spouting extraneous information. But at this point this vatican-serf had completely lost her established posture and sense of intimidation, reminding Khadija that she was still just dealing with a young human. She sighed deeply, closing her eyes in silence for several moments before chuckling lightly. What the hell was she doing here, really...

"Maybe we could come to a compromise. I don't think it is in either of our best interests to engage in combat, but I still want the child."

The last thing Khadija was expecting to see was this girl fully knock out the guy with a blow to his stomach. As he slumped onto the ground like a ragdoll, and she seriously wondered if he was still alive. She let out a whistle, somewhat impressed by her decision. It was actually practical quick thinking, even if it was apparently in part caused by her annoyance. 

"Well, you can't have her, 'cause I need her to tell me who the fuck sent her to kill me."

That was no good. Couldn't she just appreciate that a hollow was willing to bargain with her? "You know, I have no intention of letting you leave this place, then." Jeez... she was getting soft. Khadija just wanted some pancakes; why did she have to get dragged in all of this? For convenience, she was just going to blame this all on that breakfast thief. They were really going to regret that. 

She crossed her wings, unsatisfied with the inquisitor's need to settle her little human dispute. In all honesty, she was unsure of what to do next, and so she watched as the girl attempted to communicate with the child. It was clearly not going so well, and she laughed when she started swearing in Persian. Huh. What a spunky kid. She glanced at the knocked over man as the redhead did, and Khadija wondered what significance he had to be present in the first place. 

"How about this then. We'll share the girl. This way you can help me find out who she works for and that person's last known location, and I can help you find out why the hell you're here... 'cause that's what you're wondering right? We're in Iran by the way."

Sharing was.. not what she had in mind, but she supposed it made the most sense. Khadija smiled a toothy grin, tucking her feet under herself in order to sit. She might as well get comfortable. "That sounds delightful." 

Iran was not the name she was most familiar with, but she knew what it referred to. The conversion of the country name happened so recently that Khadija had not grown accustomed to it yet. "You don't look like you're a native."

Damn, was this girl snappy or what? Hmph. Khadija could practically taste the sarcasm seething out of her. Fortunately, she seemed civil enough to entertain her small talk. "Pretty far from here," she commented. Of course, she hadn't a clue what the redhead was doing out here, but it was reasonable to assume it was based on spiritual work. And.. by the looks of it, it wasn't just a missionary job. It started to pique her interest; obviously the girl wasn't a shinigami, but she still smelled... so...

"You're from here aren't you? I mean.. the 'you' when you were alive and before you had overtaken your collective mass of souls and regained a conscious."

She didn't catch the last part of what she had said, but she guessed it wasn't anything good. The arrancar snorted again. Why did she have to be in this situation with such a little bitch? All these humans were becoming so self-entitled and bratty. Khadija guessed she could easily overpower the girl and kill her if she wanted to.

"Probably somewhere around here. The scenery's completely foreign to me but it still feels like a familiar place."

In normal conversation each person asked a question after the other was finished speaking, but it looked like this time the girl had more to ask. What an ugly little squirt.

"Uh." Khadija looked down at the artifact hanging around her neck.

"This was mine... a long time ago. I want to know why she has it."

As she was about to open her mouth again, she realized that there was a very slim chance the girl could hear her, since from their initial encounter she obviously couldn't see her. Well, fuck. "God damn it. Nevermind. I can't do this shit. Little cunt can't hear me."