Monday morning, Nina woke up happy knowing that this was the day that Ulquiorra promised to go to school with her. She waited in the throne by herself with no one else in there but her. She hummed to herself and rocked back and forth from her heels to her toes with an excited vibe flowing through her. Minutes past and Ulquiorra still wasn't here. It wasn't like him to be late. Nina nervously looked around the room and all of a sudden, Gin came into the throne room.

"Oh, hi there Nina. I was told to come here and tell you that Ulquiorra isn't able to take you to school today so I will open up the portal for you." Gin said with his regular creepy grin.

"Thanks Gin." Nina said keeping a straight face. Gin couldn't open up the portal himself so he got another capable Espada near the room for him to do it.

"There you go. Have fun at school today." Gin said as Nina walked through the barrier. Nina waved at him as it closed. Nina walked to school a little worried. Ulquiorra promised that he would go to school with her today and she feared that he wouldn't be there to keep his promise. After walking the streets alone, she expectedly came to school on schedule but this time she did not go to her classroom right away, instead, she hung around outside. She leaned against the school wall close enough to the front door to see who was coming but far enough to be to herself. Many people passed that she recognized but no one that was worth talking to. Finally, the bell rang and Nina began to walk inside. By the lockers she noticed a boy with messy raven hair facing away from her. His skin was very pale so she had no doubt in her mind that this was Ulquiorra. She smiled widely. He closed his locker and turned to Nina. He looked exactly the same as he did in his normal form but he did not have his arrancar mask on and his eyes were as beautiful as ever. He dressed similar to all the other males in this school; tucked in shirt and a tie but he left a portion on his right side un-tucked. He did not have a hollow hole either that Nina had never seen so she didn't even think of that.

"You came." She said running up to him. "Why didn't you take me this morning?"

"I had to come early to inform the principal of my arrival." He said as they began to walk to the classroom.

"How long do you plan on staying?"

"One day, maybe longer." He answered. He still did not have a smile on his face. Even in a hekikon he was the same Ulquiorra. Once arriving at the classroom, Nina took a seat at her usual spot and Ulquiorra took the seat behind her in the very back where no one could pay attention to him although he really stood out with his light greyish skin. Once Shinji came in the room, he marched up to his seat with a teeth bearing grin on his face and set his bag down by his seat but his smile faded once he seen Ulquiorra sitting there. Ulquiorra stared at him with a cold glare.

"Excuse me buddy but that's my seat." Shinji pointed. Ulquiorra moved his glance to the chalk board and ignored him. "Don't make me say it again." Ulquiorra shoved his hands in his pockets and Nina swivelled in her seat to face the commotion.

"Is something wrong?" She asked.

"Nina, this jerk is taking my favourite seat behind you."

"So? Let him." Nina shrugged.

"Wha—?"

"Shinji, is there a problem?" The teacher asked upon entering the room.

"This guy thinks that he can steal my spot."

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to sit somewhere else for today Shinji."

"Huh?"

"That's right just for the day." Shinji sulked as he walked to the desk that was on Ulquiorra's left. After sitting down he stuck out his tongue at him. "We have a new student joining us today." Miss Ochi said turning her view to Ulquiorra. The rest of the class looked over giving uninterested gazes once they seen his gothic-like appearance and Ulquiorra gave an uninterested stare back. "What may we refer to you as?"

"Ulquiorra Schiffer." He said in his signature monotone voice.

"Welcome to Karakura high Ulquiorra." The teacher sang then she turned to the black board. Now for today's lecture. Nina looked back at Ulquiorra.

"Now we listen for a while and take notes." She whispered. She handed Ulquiorra a small stack of paper and a pen. "Just pretend like you're listening." Nina turned back around and started writing frantically. Ulquiorra stared at his blank paper then looked up at the other students who were madly writing trying to keep up with the teachers words. Something about chemical fusion. It was almost like a foreign language to him. There were all sorts of symbols that where the characters of the English alphabet with large numbers in front and some smaller numbers in between. What was NaCl and how would you pronounce that. H2O, what the heck. How was it possible for the human mind to be capable of understanding this chicken scratch? Ulquiorra sat up and took his pen and began to draw out some of the diagrams that the teacher sketched. He lifted his eyes every now and then to get a good vision of his drawing to make it as accurate as possible. After a while, Ulquiorra set his pen down in satisfaction with his finished masterpiece but by the time that this one had done, the teacher had done many more similar diagrams that made the original one look like child-play. He sat back in his chair and looked over at the clock. He expected the first brake to be signalled any minute; seconds later, he was right. All the students stood up and headed out the classroom but Ulquiorra took his time getting up. Nina waited for him at the door.

"Come on I want to introduce you to some people." She smiled with her hand out. Ulquiorra once again put his hands in his pockets and walked beside her. "What did you think of the first class?"

"It was incomprehensible." He said.

"I know, even I don't get it all." Nina said discouraged. "Well next one is P.E. so it should be a lot easier. You don't use your brain so much, it's all physical work." Nina said walking up a stairwell. Up at the top was a double door with windows on them. Light shone through and as soon as Nina opened it, they appeared on the roof of the school.

"Hey Nina, what's up?" Ichigo greeted.

"Hi Nina!" Orihime shouted with open arms. Renji waved and Uryuu did nothing.

"Hey Nina, who's that with you?" Rukia asked.

"Oh, this is my friend, Ulquiorra."

"Hey, I'm Ichigo."

"Renji."

"I'm Rukia."

"Hi, I'm Orihime."

"Uryuu."

"These are my friends, Ulquiorra." Nina said at the very end.

"So how do you two know each other?" Orihime asked. Nina blushed not knowing what to say.

"Um, well, Ulquiorra and I go way back. We, we, we..." Nina tried to think.

"We took a class outside of school together." Ulquiorra said covering Nina's butt.

"Yeah, that's right."

"Really, what class was it?" Ichigo asked and Nina blanked out again.

"Sword fighting." Ulquiorra simply said.

"I didn't know Nina could swordfight." Uryuu said under his breath.

"Darn it, Ulquiorra, now Ichigo's gonna think I can be his next training partner." Nina thought.

"Are you any good?" Renji asked getting interested in a little duel.

"I'd take you on any day." Ichigo interrupted Ulquiorra before he had a chance to say anything.

"Now you two, you just met this guy and already you're trying to spar with him?" Rukia jumped in. Nina giggled slightly. She had an image in her head of Ulquiorra going up against the two of them. She had no doubt in her mind that he could beat the both of them, however, she had not seen the extent of his powers or Ichigo and Renji's. She still had faith.

"P.E. class you're on." Ichigo challenged.

"Hey hold on Ichigo, we're doing badminton, not sword fights." Renji said.

"Doesn't matter. I have a feeling that our match would be interesting." Ichigo smiled confidently. "Waddya say?" Ulquiorra stood there for a moment not smiling but he appeared to be deep in thought. They all wondered in the back of his mind if he was okay because he never showed any emotions since they met him in class. Ulquiorra opened his eyes back up and looked at Ichigo.

"It's useless to fight with trash like you." Everyone gasped but Ulquiorra, Nina and Ichigo. They all took his comment seriously, Ichigo took that as a challenge.

"Alright, P.E., badminton, singles, you and me."

"Uh, Ichigo, we're doing doubles." Uryuu informed.

"Fine then. Doubles. My team vs. your team" Ichigo said just before the bell rang.

"And there ya have it. Ichigo bullies yet another innocent transfer student." Renji exaggerate as they all began walking to the gym.

"Hey I'm not bullying, I'm just trying to make conversation."

"Well that conversation sucked." Uryuu yelled. Nina and Ulquiorra walked behind everyone else.

"Ichigo's kind of an idiot. Are you going to really go up against him?" Nina whispered.

"I am not interested but it may come to that." Ulquiorra said.

"Have you ever played badminton before?" Nina asked and Ulquiorra shook his head. Nina rolled her eyes. Ulquiorra turned his head to Nina.

"You have some very strange comrades." He said.