This story has been edited and updated due to issues with my writing. There had been some sections that countered others and it irked me. Thank you again for staying with me and I hope to start with new chapters once I have all of my stories edited.

Disclaimer: I do NOT own The Time Machine nor H.G. Wells.

"Inner Hollow speaking."


Classes

"How's your brother?" Hanazono calmly asked as she slid her arms carefully into the too large jacket, leaving it to hang open. "I'm told that I'm the only person who isn't busy that can come to the Human World and yet here I find both you and Renji. So the first thing you're going to say to me is 'how's my brother?'"

"Of course I would. He's my brother and your Captain." Rukia calmly shut the door to the nurse's office and laid down on one of the beds. "We can finish this talk later on because there's a Hollow running around town right now that needs to be taken care of. Hanazono-san why are you wearing Ichigo's jacket?"

Sighing Hanazono laid down on the bed she had been sitting on. "None of your business now is it?" Closing her eyes her soul left her body.

"Hurry up you two, I'm not going to wait forever." Apparently while Rukia and Hanazono had been talking Ichigo had used his badge to separate his soul from his body. It was a risky thing to do, but without Kon here he'd have to go with it.

Rukia ate a soul candy and her normal energetic replacement soul took over. "You stay here. When the nurse comes back just say you aren't feeling well and that you want to sleep for a little while. Do not for any reason leave. If she asks what's wrong with Ichigo and Hanazono just say that you think they're sleep deprived and wanted a nap or something similar."

Ichigo opened a window leaving the pair behind him while Rukia gave instructions to the replacement soul. Hanazono was quick to follow after him and soon all three of them were jumping into the air. Ichigo led them over to the window of their class. Orihime saw them, smiled and gave a slight wave before jumping to her feet. Apparently the teacher had called on her to answer a question. Ishida saw them as well and nodded. None of the regular group would join them this time, not when three Shinigami would be able to handle a Hollow just fine on their own. He would more than likely pass the message on to Renji and Chad; neither of which were paying them any attention. "Let's go!" Ichigo used his Shunpo to get ahead, heading in the direction that he felt that the Hollow was. Rukia nodded her head and followed after, eyes on her phone just in case the Hollow moved. A few seconds of staring at the class, Hanazono joined them in the hunt.

It was a normal enough Hollow: black, tall, ugly, white mask with some weird design on it. There was really nothing special about the thing. None of them even had to use their Shikai, which led to a very quick end. "That wasn't fun at all." Hanazono wiped the blood off of Inazuma. It was the result of a bad swing that had hit the Hollow's arm instead of its head. She then re-sheathed him behind her left leg.

"You have always been just like Captain Zaraki. You really don't care who you fight so long as the battle is fun for you." Rukia muttered as she too returned her sword to its sheath. She turned and began to walk back to the school.

"That's not true! Fighting Hollows is suppose to at least entertain me. People, Bounts, all of those… well I'd rather not have to fight any of them. But of course idiots like you and Renji couldn't understand that now could you." Hanazono spat as she, as well as Ichigo, joined Rukia in her walk. Now if anyone with the ability to see spirits and Shinigami were to look up, it'd be a sight indeed to see three people just walking along in mid-air dressed the way they were.

"Hey now you two let's just calm down and relax." Ichigo walked in between them when Rukia had turned her head towards the younger Shinigami in a glare.

"I'm not a friend of Rukia's, she might be one of the few people that I will tolerate being around, but I prefer not working with other Shinigami. Then tend to annoy me and they don't ever do what has to be done." Hanazono hopped down into the room to see the nurse coming over the check on Ichigo. "You might want to hop back into your body before she finds you not breathing."

Ichigo raised an eyebrow before he too noticed the nurse. Quickly jumping back into his body Ichigo slowly sat up in the bed, pretending to yawn. "Well good morning Kurosaki-kun. I heard that you were sleep deprived, are you feeling better?"

"Much. My sister was sick last night so Hana and I stayed up all night taking care of her. I didn't get much sleep because of it." Ichigo stood from the bed and walked over the Rukia and Hanazono. They had already gotten back into their bodies and were pretending to sleep. Well, for Hanazono it wasn't so much pretending as it was trying to really get to sleep. Taking her good shoulder into his hand, Ichigo shook her out of her daze, "Hana, time to wake up."

"Ichigo I want to go back to sleep." Hanazono mumbled to herself. It had been a long night and she was kind of tired.

"Sorry, but you've got classes remember? It's your first day of school so time to wake up."

Ichigo helped Hanazono to sit up and when she looked over to where Rukia had been just moments ago it was to find that the other girl was gone. "'Bout time," Hanazono muttered. It's not that she had anything against Rukia and Renji. They were great people and good Shinigami, but it just wasn't something that she was used to, the whole making friends thing. And as she had said before, most of the Shinigami never do what needs to be done. The walk back to class was quiet. Ichigo's jacket was overly large for her, swallowing her within his scent. Ichigo entered the room first, talked to the teacher and then went to his seat. The teacher motioned for Hanazono to come stand next to her in the front of the room. She did as she was told.

"Everyone please welcome Mangetsu Hanazono. Her parents are out of the country and she will be joining us for a while." The teacher turned to Hanazono to see her glaring at two of her students, Kuchiki Rukia and Abarai Renji. "Umm Mangetsu-san, if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself?"

"Mangetsu Hanazono, don't use my last name. Don't want friends and I find people to be very annoying." Looking about Hanazono found an open seat in the middle row next to Ishida. Moving down the aisle Hanazono took the seat and reached a hand back towards Ichigo. "I'll take my bag back now."

Ichigo groaned and shook his head before passing her bag up and across the row towards Hanazono. Orihime passed the bag forward and smiled at Hanazono. "Alright then, now that we have everything settled, how about someone answer me this question: who wrote the book, The Time Machine?

"Sensei why in the world are we learning about an English author," Keigo asked as he raised a hand, the whining clear in the teen's voice.

"Well, I'm glad and very surprised that you even knew that it was an English author Asano-kun. The reason though is because we will be taking a trip to London." The teacher smiled as she started to write a few notes onto the white board. The whole class except for Ichigo's group was in cheers, suddenly the teacher turned around. "Ah, I'm sorry. I meant to say that we'll be taking a trip to London in our minds through this book."

A loud groan spread as the class went back to being calm. Hanazono looked back at Ichigo and raised an eyebrow. He merely shrugged in response. Hanazono nodded and sent one last glare towards the Shinigami pair. "H.G. Wells, an English author who wrote stories based around the future. Or in the case of The Time Machine H.G. wrote about a futuristic device that could bring the main character, Surrey, into the past."

"Very good Mangetsu…" Hanazono sent a glare at the teacher that had the woman shuddering, "Hanazono-san. Now, I'm going to pass out a copy of the book to everyone. I want you to read a chapter every other night and write me a one page essay on what you believe the chapter is about." Not much time had passed between that and the end of class. It seemed as though Hanazono, Rukia and Ichigo had been gone longer than they had thought. Math was no different then the first hour really. Fourth hour came and went when Ichigo placed a bento on Hanazono's desk.

"Yuzu made you something to eat when she saw you on the couch this morning. Lunch time we usually eat in class or up on the roof. Care to join us?" Hanazono nodded, grabbed the bento and followed Ichigo up onto the roof top. Orihime, Ishida, Rukia, Renji, and Chad were already there enjoying their meals. Rukia tossed two cans of soda at the pair before returning to her juice box. Ichigo leaned over to open Hanazono's can but she got to it first, "didn't know you knew about soda."

"Hisagi had brought some back with him once. The whole place turned into a mess because apparently, you're not supposed to shake these before you open them. Which Rukia just made counterproductive if you ask me. The dojo we were in was sticky for a week afterward. I don't think that I've ever seen Captain Ukitake so annoyed before."

Ichigo nodded his head, "You know about class... How did you know all of that? I thought you weren't taught these kinds of things at the Academy."

"What you said earlier wasn't really true. We are taught reading, writing, math, science and literature along with our normal studies of hand-to-hand, Kidou, Kendo, and such. Being in the 6th Division though, we're taught everything that Grouch-sama believes we should know and plus some. Like I said this morning though, I grew up mostly with tutors. I rarely ever spent time inside of the academy walls."

Ichigo titled his head in though, "You're different than what I thought. Most of the people I've met from Soul Society are nut cases... You're not much different, but there's something about you that I just can't place my finger on. I feel that we have something in common."

Hanazono glanced sky wards, the wind blowing hair out of her face. Ichigo glanced down at her and caught a flash of yellow go quickly through her gray eyes. Just at that moment Ichigo heard a laugh he hadn't heard in a while and wished that he would never hear again. "I'm back, King-sama!"