A/N: Aaaaaaaaaaaaand I'm back, folks. After four cold months of slacking and not bringing myself to start writing due to the problems of plot details, I finally managed to work it out. So Arc I begins!

But first! Shoutouts for reviews...Though I'm four months late, I hope you'll forgive me.

Heir of Schiffer : There will be more. It is OC-centric after all. I'm glad you're enjoying the story.

it's pronounced 'lowlight' : Right... The cute lil' guy. I remembered him as Yuichi. And thanks. =D

randomguy24 : I do realize it was clichéd, but it was just so tempting to throw it in =D And yeah, there was a little problem with the format, so I had to edit it a bit.

On the side note, could you guys tell me when's the best time to post up new chapters, and what time you follow? Thanks.

Thanks for the reviews so far, guys. It's helping me to keep on writing. If possible, keep reviewing xD

Opening Song: Karma - Bump of Chicken

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, Tite Kubo does. I do, however, own the OCs thus far.

Chapter 11

Oh, we kicked some ass, alright. It's been about two weeks since the entrance exam, and things had been going well. For one, I was having fun watching Yosuke tease Ayame about her newly-discovered obsession with Captain Soifon while Akiro was leaning on the wall reading something quietly. We had a regular meeting spot, which was actually a workshop provided for student use. The minimum requirement for a group workshop was three students, so we lapped up the opportunity and requested for one.

"So what if I'm a fan of Captain Soifon?" Ayame was definitely stressed about it. Just yesterday, Yosuke had conducted a thorough search of her sling bag she always carried around only to be greeted by dozens of pictures of Captain Soifon, the captain of the 2nd Division. They were everywhere, in her textbooks, her file, her notes, and even on the inner walls of the bag.

"Ayame, at this point, you don't call it fandom." Yosuke explicated cynically. "You call it obsession."

Personally, I agree with him. Not wise to say it out loud though.

Smart move.

This was the typical life we led at the academy. Early in the morning, we would get up and attend class. After that, we had a lunch break till afternoon, and back to class again. After four, we were given free time to do whatever we wanted. A majority of our time was spent in this very workshop, which Akiro had decorated. For a guy, he really had a good sense of taste. Of course, Ayame had to ruin everything and put up a huge poster of Captain Soifon on one of the walls. I only dread to imagine her room.

Obviously, the girls and guys had been placed in separate dorms of eight people each, with every room having four double-decker beds. Yosuke, Akiro and I stuck together, naturally. Yosuke chose to bunk above my bed while Akiro chose the bed on my left. The double bed on my right was unclaimed, leaving us plenty of space to dump our stuff. Surprisingly, for a guy's dorm, everything was neat and organized, with the exception of Yosuke's bed.

Anyway, back to the workshop. It was created specifically to give us room for private practices, like sparring, and it contained a stove for cooking as well. We were free to place our own decorum, but since we didn't bring much, we just took the extra bed from the guy's dorm for workshop relaxation.

"It's NOT!" Ayame shouted.

Not very relaxing now, though. Still, it's amusing, so it's worth it.

"Keep it down, guys." Akiro said, surprising everyone in the room, including myself. Interventions with the general conversation were rare for him. "We all don't want to get any detentions for disturbing the other students again, do we?"

Detention. Right. I don't even want to think about what happened.

"That was because Ayame started insulting the other students. Then they insulted her back. So I insulted them back. As a result they started insulting me as well. And-"

"Look, we all know what a happened, Yosuke. We were all there." Ayame cut in, rolling her eyes.

And the bickering began once again. Akiro just sighed and shook his head, his eyes wandering back to the book. I, on the other hand, opted to watch their quarrel, once in a while adding my two cents worth.

Such was life.

"Class, settle down!" A teacher clothed in a uniform that was similar to the instructors that facilitated our entrance exams. He was Gengoro Onabara, a towering man of uh…modest proportions… that headed the advanced class. A man of such physical stature often inspired confidence in many of the students. The confidence of fear.

More like the fear of being sat on.

Touché, elf-lady.

And it was true. Many of the students in the class were more afraid of his physical prowess than his words. I was among the few of those whom did not fear his excessive weight.

Hey, elf-lady. If you don't mind, could you take notes for me? I'm not in the mood to pay attention.

Shiro, you know it's not good for you to be daydreaming in lessons. Give me one good reason why I should help you.

I groaned outwardly. I could barely focus on the sound of his coarse voice anymore. He was lecturing something about the history of the Soul Society.

As in, come on, history? Some students would actually commit suicide in the world of the living just to avoid the subject. Oh, the joy they would feel when they find Gengoro Onabara was just as willing to teach them as the facilitators of their torture.

You know, you could just tell me about the history of the Soul Society. Considering that all zanpakuto have certain advantages, I'm pretty sure you know all about it.

That is true.

So why won't you?

I'm lazy to.

…

I had nothing to say to that. Since we are one and the same, it implied that my laziness came round the corner to bite me in the behi-

"Hey, Shiro!"

Who dares derail my train of thought…

"You're spacing out again."

I blinked. The voice came from the person seated on my right, who was none other than Yosuke. Even in class we sat together. Ayame sat to my left, separated from Yosuke since we found out from experience that the two of them should never be placed together in class. They were simply incompatible people, and tended to cause a ruckus if they were side by side. And thus, this was the sitting arrangement for whatever class we were in together.

I blinked again. The four of us were beginning to catch onto each other's quirks over the short span of time. Ayame was bored most of the time, and loved to start an argument with anyone she assumed was beneath her, which was, of course, pretty much the entire class population. The sole exceptions were Akiro, myself, and a few other girls.

Notice how Yosuke wasn't included in that list?

This gathered animosity from all the students in the advanced class, save the aforementioned girls who still dared to approach her. Even so, she didn't seem to mind it at all. In fact, she seemed to enjoy her infamy.

Yosuke, on the other hand, had earned the reputation of the class clown, exceptional, perhaps, but still a clown anyway. His antics in class made him famous school-wide, so much that I often overheard the sixth years opposite our dorm laughing at his exploits.

I wouldn't really call them exploits, though.

Point taken. The word 'prank' would be a more appropriate term. His prank on the first day of school had spread all over the school like wildfire. Everyone knew him as the trickster, and damn right they were. It was a different kind of infamy from Ayame's but one he enjoyed anyway.

Out of the corner of my left eye, I saw Akiro paying rapt attention to Instructor Onabara. He was now known as the caretaker of our band of delinquents. How I fit into the group, I had no idea.

Maybe it's because Yosuke framed you for that toilet paper prank.

Right… that stupid TP prank. He had completely toilet papered the dorm next to ours last week in about three minutes, with shunpo of course, and I got blamed for it. The reason people actually believed him? I had no idea. He must've made a convincing argument though, because I never even had the chance to protest my innocence before the teacher came in and gave me a detention slip.

Well, Akiro definitely deserved the title of caretaker. He was probably the only sane one in our quartet, not to mention the only one who actually bothers to restrict the noise to a minimum.

And the reason I exempted myself from the sane list? Simple. Instead of trying to control the two hurricanes of our group, I added oil to the fire. How oil is supposed to respond to hurricanes, I had no idea, but suffice to say, it didn't respond well. I enjoy watching those two quarrelling like little children, and thus, I egg them on so-

"Dude, you're spacing out again."

I blinked once, then once more. I've got to stop doing that.

"So why do you space out so much anyways?" Yosuke asked during our last class for the day, which was Hoho.

I immediately launched into a full-fledged explanation about the moon and its phases intervening with the elements of our soul and thoughts, spinning a story out of complete yarn and incomplete facts. Yosuke, no stranger to the little game, countered with a similarly detailed explanation that was equally bullshit.

Watch your language, Shiro.

Elf-lady still tended to do that, though it had noticeably lessened since our first encounter. Twice before, when she was in shock, I heard one or two words that wouldn't dare come out of my mouth. That feathery hypocrite.

I heard that.

It was meant to be heard.

Hoho training took place in the open field outside the building due to the fact that practicing the technique itself required a big space. Unsurprisingly, many people who were beginners fall down face first in the mud.

It is a familiar sight indeed.

Oh, quiet, you.

Fortunately, none of our group embarrassed themselves publicly like that, though I would've liked to have seen Yosuke face down in the mud. Then stuff a little mud in his mouth for the toilet paper prank. Oh yes, that would be nice.

Unfortunately, Yosuke was an expert in shunpo. He was slightly slower than Ayame, but still faster than me. But then again, what else was expected from the top scorer of the Entrance Exams?

Akiro didn't disappoint the instructors either. He had paid close attention to the theory part of it, which a majority of the class had ignored, and had performed a short but perfect shunpo on his first try. After he had gotten the hang of it, he became almost as fast as I was.

Those who already knew how to shunpo were bored out of our wits after the few splats of mud-loving people. Watching someone fall into the mud time and time again could only get old after awhile. These few people were the other top scorers in the exam. Yosuke had placed first, Funky came in second and I tied with another student for third.

That student was glaring at me now.

Ikuro Aokawa.

That guy had something to pick with me, for some reason. Ever since we met in class, he'd been practically radiating hostility towards me.

He noticed my observing him and looked away pointedly. I didn't understand him. There was no reason for him to hate me. I didn't do anything to him at all, and yet he was hostile. It reminded me of a fictional vampire story I read while I was alive.

Wrong move.

I struggled to hide an involuntary shudder. A majority of the story character was already there. He was popular among the ladies, yet he made himself unavailable. He was, admittedly, better-looking than I was, and he even had his own family, figuratively speaking.

I wonder if you could call a gang 'family'?

… Who am I kidding? I treat my own group of friends like family now.

Well, hopefully Ikuro wasn't a vampire, and he didn't swing that way. I dread to imagine the outcome of that possibility.

Wrong move indeed.

I walked along the corridor on the way to our workshop. I just had a startling revelation, courtesy of the bulletin board that I just found out about. Our exam scores had been posted at the corner of the huge piece of styrofoam. Before, the results I had were from word of mouth. Meaning, I just found a whole bunch of numerals that I didn't like.

Really, he was beginning to irritate me. I just found out that not only were our overall scores the same, but our individual scores were almost identical as well, give or take two marks.

No wonder he's rather aggravated. Now I understood how he felt…a little. I twisted the handle of the great doors as I walked into the workshop.

"Hey," I was immediately welcomed by Akiro's routine greeting.

I was also immediately taken aback. Our workshop had been redecorated, and now there were posters of Captain Soifon on two of the eight walls.

"What's going on?" I asked, remotely curious about the redecoration.

"Ayame decided on getting a new poster of her favourite Captain, and Yosuke brought in a couch. Since they were both insistent on keeping them around, I also decided to add my own touch."

And apparently, his touch was to repaint the whole workshop. The solid white stone walls were now painted red and beige.

I have to admit, he chose the colours well. My only question is how he managed to do it in one day, and with class, no less.

Two days had passed since I the workshop had been redecorated. Today was the day that every captain and lieutenant had to assist or teach a certain class. Everyone save the Head Captain, who was presumably busy with administration.

There were six compulsory classes that each student had to take, namely Zanjutsu I, Hoho I, Hakuda I, Kido I, History of the Soul Society, and General Skills. As long as they didn't clash with the other classes, students were free to select as many electives as they wanted, and we were required to submit the list of classes today.

Surprisingly, there were a whole lot of electives to choose from. Each combat discipline of the Shinigami had an intermediate and advanced class, known as II and III, not to mention there were cultural classes as well. One class renowned for its sheer number of participants was the calligraphy class, taught by the Captain of the Fifth Division, Sosuke Aizen. There were so many students that some of the class had to sit outside.

Compared to that, the rest of the classes were meagre and unfilled with the exception of Zanpakuto Meditation. If I recall correctly, that class was the one that Rangiku wanted to assist in.

Either way, after I discussed it with my zanpakuto, I decided on a total of seven electives, those being Zanjutsu III, Kido II and III, Hoho II and III, Zanpakuto Meditation and Writing, the last two for the sole purpose of contacting Rangiku and Shuhei respectively. Although I was learning valuable skills here, I was also wasting time that could be spent searching for Kairi. I needed to see if I could ask either one about leaving the Soul Society.

That is good. Keep the objective in sight.

Zanpakuto Meditation was a useless class for me. The class was filled with quiet people, half of them actually concentrating on reaching their zanpakuto, and the other half sleeping. The purpose of the class was to try and communicate with the zanpakuto in the inner world. While the instructor of the class did mention that sleeping could allow the zanpakuto to reach them in their inner mind, some took advantage of it and slept without the intent of doing so. It was a legitimate excuse, after all.

Having already awakened my zanpakuto spirit, I was miles ahead of the class. We were already communicating everyday, and I did venture into my inner mind whenever I slept. I was beginning to gradually understand which part of my soul she represented, besides the sword.

When do you think we'll get a chance to speak with her?

By her, I was referring to Rangiku. She actually managed to blackmail her way (at least, that's what I heard) into teaching this class. How, I don't even want to know.

It depends. You could stay behind after class to talk to her, since there is lunch after this.

Well, that might work.

Unsurprisingly, Rangiku didn't have to do much, although once in a while, she did have to keep the noisy ones quiet. Honestly, anyone could take the job, since having a lieutenant or captain around intimidated most people into submission. In fact, the class was probably noisier than if another person had taken the class. From what I've heard, half of the male student population chose this class because she was there.

I could hardly blame them though. I was one of them myself, though I probably had different reasons from them. But whatever it was, I had to follow the class for now. I closed my eyes and felt the inviting pull of elf-lady.

Time to visit your mind again, Shiro.

Closing Song: Saikou no Kataomoi - Tainaka Sachi

A/N: Yeah. I've been putting off this story due to the lack of fillers I could come up with, not to mention other things as well. But whatever it was, I'm back now, so yeah.

This chapter is more of a filler than anything else, but it's important anyways. Action will come soon, don't worry about that.

As usual, please review. It would be extremely appreciated. =D