Hello again, people! This is the first rewritten chapter. I will be updating at least once a week, maybe less. In the first few chapters, there won't be much difference apart from the fact that there shouldn't be any grammatical or spelling errors (and I changed the verb tense to the proper one lol), but from chapter three or so there will be changes in certain scenes, and in chapters six-seven the real divergence from the old direction will become apparent. Moving on, "..." is speech, when it's underlined it's written down, in italics it's thoughts, and "..." is something in Spanish, but written in English. Anyway, onto the story! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: You know, you wouldn't be reading this if I was the owner. It would suck if I wrote Bleach. Also, I don't own any of the real places mentioned in this story, except maybe my room.

OOO

How in the world did Yamamoto manage to rope me into this mission? As a student, again? In Spain no less, you know, that country renown for its warm climate.

I should have known something was seriously wrong when the Captain Commander actually smiled at me. Well, at least it's high school... and there isn't a uniform. I sighed as I adjusted the strap of my heavy bag on the one shoulder. Thank god I've gotten taller, there was no way I was going to be an... an elementary student.

And at least no-one even thinks about teasing me any more. Hard to when you've grown a fair few inches in less than half a decade (under a fifty years, for all you earthlings out there). I may have been... short, before, but I was 5'6 now, and I looked about fifteen or sixteen.

I was in a small town, more like village, in north-eastern Spain. There were a few villages scattered in the mountainous outskirts of Barcelona, on the main roads weaving through valleys, and hundreds of individual residences on the actual hills. This particular high school was right in-between two of these villages, on the main road. I surreptitiously sniffed, frowning in distaste. There was an almost permanent traffic queue on the main road, cause of a bypass which everyone (except from the few who would have their view worsened slightly) wanted completed. With huge trucks, vans and lorries passing through the town to cross the border into France, I couldn't blame them. But the point is, the air was thick with fumes from said large vehicles. I wistfully thought of the clean, refreshing air in Soul Society.

I had forgotten how noisy cars were. And, I thought as I watched a moped leaving a trail of smoke speed past me to the small parking lot, how contaminating.

The parking lot was down one side of the school, separated by a high wall and some pavement, with the front of the school joining to form an L-shape. To get to the front doors you had to walk almost to the end of the 'L', and all the students seemed to be waiting on this particular stretch of gravel, opposite the even smaller staff parking lot. I looked at my watch, quarter past eight. Looking back at the front gates, I saw that the doors had opened and students trickling in quickly.

I sighed as I started walking forward, glad that at least that it was a solo mission, and Matsumoto wasn't going to attract any attention by pretending to be my well-endowed sister or something equally embarrassing. She didn't help the curious, often incredulous stares I often got because of my white hair and aquamarine eyes combination. I had been sorely tempted to get a gigai which didn't look like me, seeing as few people here had even blonde hair, and even less were natural.

I got close enough to the crowds to hear the constant hum of chatter and inwardly thanked the gods ('Not you Yamamoto!') that I had learnt Spanish all those years ago in South America.

I silently went over who I was pretending to be as I was pushed about walking through the double doors, only one of which was open. I looked to the left and saw the long corridor leading to the corner of the 'L', with stairs up to the second floor right in front of me. I looked to the right and saw half of the corridor taken up by a square waist-high barrier around the receptionist's desk, and a glass door right next to it, leading to the actual office.

I walked up to the aforementioned square and say, in a flawless Spanish accent:

"Hello, I am the new student."

I had been careful to speak Spanish, noting I spoke well as the woman at the desk didn't bat an eyelid and waved me towards the glass door. I nodded politely and walked trough it, seeing on the left several computers set up at random intervals in the middle. A woman with strawberry blonde hair (fake, I might add) came up to me, documents in her hands.

"You are the new student?" She looks at the top document in her weighty pile, "Alex Lopez? Fourth year?"

I nodded, not gracing her with a verbal reply; I didn't like her already. She eyes me appreciatively for a split second before setting them down on the counter separating the computers, and her thankfully, from me. She shifts through them.

"Here, your timetable, a list of your teachers, school regulations, building plan with the classes, locker code and key... This you don't need... This you do. You must give it to your tutor, Isabelle Diaz. Fortunately for you, you have class with her now, tutorial coincidentally, in class 23... You already have your books, yes?"

She asks gruffly as she hands me several different sheets and a small envelope. I nod again as I flick through them until I find the building plan, looking for class 23. Second floor, right at the end of the 'L'. I was beginning to hate that letter.

"Well, what are you still doing here, class starts in five minutes."

Clenching my jaw slightly, I resisted the urge to send her my rather infamous death glare, but that wouldn't have been a good start to my day. Instead I didn't bother to answer and simply walked out of the office past reception and the stairs in front of the main doors, opting for the stairs further away at the corner. I looked at all the lockers and deduced that mine must also have been on the second floor, seeing as it was number 469, and the highest here is 450. I walked up the stairs, walking to the end of the hallway and stopping outside class 23. Almost as soon as I did, someone tapped me on the shoulder.

I turned around to see a woman with short curly hair and bright blue eyes smiling at me. I felt pity for her, she was barely over five feet.

"You are Alex?"

I nodded and did what I knew seemed like a slightly nervous smile. She lead me in to the classroom. Behind the closed door I heard the bell ring and felt sorry for anyone still out there. It was ear-splitting and grating even in here.

"Everyone! Be quiet and sit down!" Everyone (albeit with a few mutters and groans) found their seat and sat down in their chairs, shutting up immediately, to my relief. They then looked at me in disbelief, especially my white hair. Many of the girls were grinning at me in what they were obviously hoping was an attractive way. I felt a small surge of frustration as I also spotted guys glaring at the attention I was getting from girls they harboured crushes for. But no one uttered a word. I smirked slightly inwardly. I like this woman already. Kind, but strict and knows how to control a full class.

"This is Alex, a transfer student from England-"

Here she was cut off by a very small girl on the right saying in a loud whisper:

"Like Eva! A friend of mine!"

"Claire, shut up!"

The girl smiles in a goofy way, trying to be endearing, and claps a hand over her mouth, laughing irritatingly a bit. Isabel shakes her head, sighing.

"Anyway, Alex is from England, and I want you to make him feel welcome." She slightly turned to me then, but kept her eyes scanning the classroom. "Why don't you sit there Alex, next to Vincent. Vincent, raise your hand."

I nodded my head and saw a raised hand at the back of the class, thanking Isabel silently as I realised she had given me a seat there so people couldn't stare at me easily. I headed towards it, and soon saw the owner of the hand.

He had black hair that was deliberately brushed down, covering half his face, and he was wearing low black jeans, basketball shoes, and a dark blue and black striped jacket. As I sat down next to him, next to the window, I also noticed he wore black and white checked wristbands.

"Hey."

He greeted me quietly and with a hint of detached boredom that I suspected followed him around permanently. I merely nodded, which I was aware I was doing too much anyway. I also knew this was a fairly long-term mission, three human years. Soul Society had even gotten me a small isolated house in one of the near villages, which I had only seen briefly as I dropped off to pick up my high school necessities.

I looked toward the front of the class, glaring at anyone distracting themselves from their work to wave at me, or make other gestures. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, but as the winks and seductive smiles increased in number, I found I had to.

"Hey, if you're from England, how come your last name is Spanish and you speak Spanish? I've been told that you don't really study Spanish there."

I heard the butchered English (e-Spanish) and I looked at the guy next to me, seeing only honest curiosity in his eyes, despite the fact that he wanted to look cool and stoic. I can do it better, I thought. What an amateur.

"I lived in South America for eight years before moving to England."

He nodded his head slightly in acceptance, eyes turning away from me.

"Oh, okay."

We stayed quiet for a while, doing whatever it was we were doing, him making a bracelet, also black and white, and me, out of sheer boredom, taking mental notes on what the teacher was saying, every now and again noting who was, for lack of better words, definitely not worthy of befriending. The girls relentlessly trying to get my attention were a big no-no, and the guys glaring at me also. And people the I just knew I wouldn't get along with. That left... ah, no one. I glanced to my right slightly.

Vincent. He seemed to not really care either way, and someone who was about as interested in me as I was in them was exactly who I wanted to be around. People seeing me with him or alone would assume (and correctly) that I was of a solitary nature, and perhaps it would discourage them before they even did anything to annoy me.

I surreptitiously glanced down at the note just passed to my desk. I almost frowned at the Spanish words. Leave me alone...

Your hair... natural?

I grimaced inwardly at the ample amount of space for an answer. I sighed silently and extracted a pencil in order to reply.

Of course it's not natural.

The guy looked at my reply, and actually chuckled lowly under his breath.

Suppose. Feeling stupid now

I rolled my eyes good-humouredly and looked away from the paper. Vincent seemed to understand that conversation wasn't my favourite pastime and left it there. He grabbed the paper and ripped it up, crushing it into balls and proceeding to throw them at the guys staring at us. Or, more specifically, me. He ended up also throwing one at a particularly stubborn girl.

Of course, I was just humouring him with this facsimile of friendship. There was no way I was going to seriously get to know someone. I was leaving in three years, to disappear off the face of the Earth, quite literally in fact. Plus, this was a Hollow exterminating mission, and constantly having a beeping phone alert me, and then for me to run off or go to the toilet and come back acting differently, would just arouse suspicion. And seeing as the report was that there had been reports on unusually high concentrations of them in this area in and around Barcelona, I would be doubly occupied with my undead nuisance. And we didn't even know the cause, so who knew how long this mission might last. The concentrated levels were a fairly recent occurrence, but after a bit of investigating, I might discover the cause.

Yamamoto was considering the possibility that it was a human with high reiatsu, and if I found them, I was to notify Soul Society and train them to control it, until it was an unconscious action, and then erase their memories. If it was an individual, or several. I was inclined to believe however, that the population in general, specifically in these valleys, had slightly higher reiatsu. Not enough to be really noticeable alone, but together they raised it enough to attract more than usual Hollow amounts. And if I proved this, or just eliminated enough of the spirits for it to leave a noticeable dent, then I would be allowed to return early.

And so, the quicker I got rid of them, the sooner I would be able to leave.

I concentrated on the teacher again, finding out she was just saying we could study or do homework.

Five minutes later the bell rang, and the teacher smiled before picking up her bag and walking out of the room. I quickly glanced at my timetable, and saw that I had class in the same room, but with a different teacher. I looked up again and saw several people troop up to stand in the corridor. They obviously found who they were looking for because not a moment later there was screaming, shouting and loud laughs.

I leant back in my seat. Day One In Hell had only just started.

OOO

Just one more hour. Only an hour of physics and the scholastic day would be over. Done. Finito! But an hour happens to be synonymous with sixty minutes, which sounds like a very long time. Screw that, it is a very long time. I sighed, tuning into the conversations around me.

"They say that the new fourth year is really hot!"

"Yeah! I saw him at break!

"What did he look like?"

I shook my head despairingly. As if a fourth year was going to be interested in a stupid little girl. I turned my head slightly, listening for something else interesting.

"And then he said to me-"

"Yeah! He said something about that photo you took-"

"ANYWAY, he said to me that I, I, am a slut."

"You've got to admit, the picture did show your-"

"Don't shout!"

I groaned and let my head fall on my desk. I vaguely registered the sound of the bell. I wondered why they made it sound so horrible. Couldn't they at least change it on Monday mornings, so that we didn't all doubly wish that we'd stayed at home, in bed, sleeping? Couldn't they make it a nice sound? Maybe a song or something?

Oh, no, wait. We suggested that last year and what did they do? They completely missed the point about changing the bell, and put on a little jingle before every announcement. And then you kept feeling like you were being told the latest offer on oranges in the supermarket.

The teacher, walked in carrying several stacks of papers, a folder and her infamous calculator. I groaned again, much louder this time. Helen noticed and looked at me, leaning over and placing a hand on my shoulder.

"Don't worry, you won't be the only one to fail miserably."

"It's just to see what we remember... It's meant to be easy, and we're not meant to fail." I reminded her dryly, leaning my head on my palm.

"And?" She laughed, nudging me with her elbow. I reluctantly smiled at her good humour. I glanced up at my unfortunate classmate who had been ordered to hand out the exams. I smiled slightly and thanked him, to which he laughed and rolled his eyes. I scowled, being polite was one of my traits that I would not let these Spaniards corrupt.

Especially seeing as cusses flowed from my mouth like a waterfall these days. I sighed and shoved my desk to the right, away from Helen's, and prepared myself for the head-first immersion into the world of physics.

OOO

Ended it there because it seemed right. So, what do you think?

By the way, to avoid confusion about the school system in Spain, you do years One to Six (primary school) ending at eleven, and starting secondary school at 12 as a First Year. There are four years in total. This means Hitsugaya is posing as a fifteen year old. Also, the desks are in pairs, from the teacher's POV, with three columns and five rows, making the average class size about 25-30.

Also, I have revised and gone over all of my rewritten chapters, but if at any point you notice any discrepancies or things that don't add up, don't hesitate to tell me!

I hope you enjoyed!