Just to clear something up, Ichigo is 18 in this fic and has already graduated from High School in the human world. Demon's age differently so all of her classmates are in their 20's as first year students.

Opera is about 30 something so for all I know he's still technically not completely an adult yet.

I'm still trying to figure that out as well as possible romantic pairings.

In her rush to escape the mansion and the demons that dwelled there, Ichigo had run a fair distance away. And only stopped once it was completely out of her sight. After that, she had spent a good ten minutes or so agonizing over what had happened before she had left and had inevitably come up with one very simple truth.

Demons were weird.

And because they were weird, she'd have to be careful from now on. Which meant that she would likely not be kissing anyone again anytime soon if she could help it. Her grandpa would be so disappointed. But hopefully he would one day understand.

After that, she started moving again with the intention of reaching her school before something else could happen to her. Like being mugged by mountain trolls or something else equally ridiculous.

The trip to school was uneventful for her, so she had slightly higher than necessary hopes that her school day would be just as uneventful. However, those hopes were dashed completely when Asmodeus ambushed her and informed her that he had been waiting for her for six hours and sixty-six minutes.

Which was not only creepy and stalker-ish to her, but frigging uncool too.

She began to reevaluate many of her life decisions. Especially the ones that had led her to this point. But whatever. She'd work on Asmodeus and maybe get him to knock some of his master/servant stuff off.

Not long after that she and Asmodeus were walking through the school hallways making idle chit-chat. To be honest, she wasn't so excited about the day thus far. But Asmodeus was a different matter entirely. He was thrilled. So much so that he spilled what they would be doing today.

Making her think that if their lesson today was meant to be a secret...then Az would be a terrible secret keeper.

As it turned out, their lesson for the day wasn't a secret. It was something that all first-year students did to help their teachers gauge their abilities with magic so that they could be ranked accordingly. So, every first year had to do it regardless of their thoughts or feelings on the matter.

Which...was worrying to Ichigo since she had reishi based abilities just like a Soul Reaper, not magic. And to be honest, she hadn't had that particular talk with her grandpa yet and wasn't sure just how she was supposed to blend in with others who were all magic users.

Still, after the teacher- some guy who came across to her as the worst kind of villain Babyls had to offer- introduced himself, and practically got up in her face and threatened her, she no longer cared about blending in with the other students.

She just wanted her teacher to suffer. She didn't care how that came about just as long as it did.

So, after watching the video- and her teacher promptly destroying it- she had a much better feeling about her day as she absorbed the step necessary to summon a familiar and by the time the other students had already began to line up to summon theirs, she was ready to go.

Az had just summoned his familiar, a large white serpent that was as pretty as it was impressive.

"Whoa, Az that is one majorly stunning snake!" She said as she started to reach up to pet the serpent, but stopped herself once she realized that the animal may not appreciate having her touching it regardless of who it's summoner was. And automatically dropped her hand back to her side.

"It is rather nice," Az said happily. "But I bet that the familiar that you summon will be ten times better, master Ichigo."

She forced herself to smile at his kind words but couldn't help but feel that he would be disappointed once she made her attempt. She was about to tell him that she didn't have any magic to speak of when the teacher called her name. She sighed as Az gave her a thumbs up and gently nudged her towards the summoning circle thirty feet away.

She walked there, slowly, so that she could think over as many things as possible if anything went wrong since she had no idea what was going to happen to her if it became obvious that she had absolutely no magic at all.

And she was worried that someone may decide to attack her for some ungodly reason.

Yet, everyone fell strangely quiet aside from a few awed whispers here and there from other students as she walked to the center of the circle and took a moment to cast a curious look her teachers' way.

The man had to be a psycho, hands down because he smirked evilly at her, not bothering to hide his glee at the possibility of her failure.

"Fuck this." She muttered as she bit the pad of her thumb hard enough to draw blood and then smeared it on the small scrap of paper that she'd been given for the summoning.

After that she took a moment to hesitate and think things over a little bit more while simultaneously looking around the room and making note of the various windows that could be used to escape if she really needed to. And then once that was done, she stepped up to the candle and began to burn the paper with her blood on it.

A second went by and nothing happened. Which was normal for someone without any magic, she supposed. But then there was a sudden, startling poof of smoke around her that caused her to freak out a little bit internally because she hadn't been expecting anything to actually happen.

She stood perfectly still as she patiently waited for the smoke to clear up a bit. Her heartbeat quickened, her sharp eyes stared ahead, and she blinked when some of the smoke finally vanished revealing her familiars to her.

"Huh?" She said in surprise as her eyes widened a bit in shock at what she was seeing.

There was not only one vaguely familiar creature standing before her, but several. Three in all from the looks of it. One was a very irritated but floofy little cream colored bird thingy that was so completely adorable that she could barely stand it. Another was...Shiro? Her inner hollow?!

What the hell? She wondered as she finally spotted the last of her 'familiars' and nearly died of a heart attack right then and there when she saw that it was...Captain Ukitake?

She had just started shaking as the Soul Reaper let out a few coughs before finally straightening up to his full height, looking right at her and giving her the weirdest smile that she had ever seen grace his face as he said jovially, "Ah, young Ichigo how are you?"

She inwardly screamed as Shiro greeted the man, politely and without swinging his copy of her zanpaktou at him, she might add. As he too faced her and gave a slight wave to get her attention before grabbing and then thrusting the floofy thing into her face and instructing her, "Take the floof thingy."

She did as she was told automatically, carefully grasping the creature in her hands.

"Now hug the floof." Shiro said next.

Again, she did as he said, gently cradling the squirming creature against her chest as she realized that she was so freaked out that she was hyperventilating and dangerously close to passing out.

"Now name three things that you see." Shiro demanded, obviously well acquainted with her and her panic attacks after so many years.

She stammered through the things she saw with a shaky voice that seemed to alarm Ukitake once he heard it because the Soul Reaper closed the small distance between them and slipped an arm around her slender shoulders and used it to steady her since she probably looked as if she were about to collapse any second now.

Once she had told Shiro the things that she saw and was starting to feel just a bit less panicked, the floof thingy finally managed to escape her grasp and tried to fly- well, flutter was more like it since its wings were too damned small to actually fly anywhere- away and was struck by lightning out of nowhere. Which caused it to promptly drop to the floor, dazed.

Confusing not only her but Shiro and Ukitake to.

"That's not normal, is it?" Shiro asked her in a hushed tone, earning a nervous giggle from her since she didn't know how to answer him. But then she didn't have much of a chance to answer him anyway since Az decided to rush over.

"Master that was wonderful!" The pink haired demon exclaimed excitedly before going on to gush. "Not only have you managed to summon two mythical beings as your familiars, but there is also a tiny floofy bird thingy too. Truly master, you are magnificent!"

Ichigo looked at the demon as if he were deranged for a moment and then attempted to stop him. "Az-" But there was no stopping a gushing demon when it was singing her praises.

"I knew you were upset about our teacher singling you out and threatening to expel you from the school. Oh, I hope that this really sticks in his craw!" Az paused to look around for a second before then muttering to himself, "Just where did our teacher get off to anyway? How's he supposed to grade us if he's MIA?"

Ichigo let out another nervous giggle without meaning to. And it was mostly because she had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that she didn't know how to make disappear.

Thankfully, not long after that- she wound up in her grandpa's office.

Which was nice since he knew more about what the hell was going on than she did. Though she wasn't really sure he felt about her accidentally summoning a Soul Reaper and a Hollow as two of her familiars. As well as a small floofy thing that had a bad attitude.

For the moment, her grandpa was silent. Obviously absorbing all the information that he had been given about the situation by another teacher. The same one that another student had fetched when their evil teacher had vanished into thin air and practically abandoned their class.

So, she wasn't sure what he was thinking right then. And then he finally spoke, the amused sound of his voice startling her a bit. "Well, this is certainly unprecedented for one of our students. Not to mention interesting."

Her grandpa was staring at her, hard. And she felt the intense urge to squirm in place but didn't since squirming was a sign of weakness and she would be damned if she showed weakness even to her grandpa.

Besides, she'd never live it down if she did!

"I can't say that it's normal for a first-year student to summon a Soul Reaper or a high-level Hollow as familiars..." Both said people looked at her oddly. "Nor is it very common for a student to manage to summon one of their teachers as a familiar either."

"Huh?" Ichigo said, hoping that she had misheard him entirely even as her grandpa asked,

"Professor Kalego, how are you doing?"

"I'm dying from the indignities heaped upon my person! Break the contract at once!" The floof snarled, startling she, Ukitake, and Shiro so badly that they all jumped as her grandpa actually barked out of laugh. Apparently enjoying this bizarre turn of events even as he said,

"No." And then shifted his attention from attention from the struggling ball of Kalego in Ichigo's hands to the Soul Reaper and the Hollow. "And the two of you?" Sullivan asked kindly.

"Oh, I'm fine. Just a bit confused about this...familiar stuff but thank you for asking." Ukitake said cheerfully as he reached out and took possession of Kalego from Ichigo and began to pet him.

"Same here." Shiro replied as he zeroed in on the struggling, squirming floof in Ukitake's grasp and began to study it curiously.

"I see. I see. That's very good to hear." Her grandpa said before asking her. "And how are you doing, my dear? Any weakness? Dizziness?"

"Uh, no. I mean I was pretty freaked out earlier-"

Her grandpa nodded his head sympathetically.

"She had a panic attack." Shiro supplied helpfully as he reached out and gently took Kalego from Ukitake, earning a disappointed 'aww' of complaint from the white-haired man.

"A panic attack?" Sullivan muttered questioningly.

"It's nothing grandpa. Really." Ichigo was quick to try and reassure him when the elderly demon gave her a worried look. Shiro shot her a displeased look, similar to the one that Ukitake sent her way, but otherwise said nothing else about it.

"Hn...if you're sure that it's nothing." Sullivan said, though he sounded unconvinced by her words and would likely try to talk to her about her panic attack once they were home later.

"I am." Ichigo said as she gave the elderly demon a disarming smile.

"Alright then, you should probably undo the summoning spell and let them return to their homes now."

"Oh, sure." Ichigo said as she glanced over at Shiro and then Ukitake for a moment and then started to do just that when the two quickly stopped her.

"Just a moment, Ichigo." Ukitake said as he reached out and gently took hold of one of her hands while Shiro grabbed the other.

She was quiet, though curious about what they could want since she had thought that they would want to return back to their homes by now. But she still paid attention to the two as they took turns giving her a hug.

Ukitake went first after winning a silent game of paper, rock, scissors with Shiro, who scowled the whole time about it.

"While I don't exactly understand what's going on and hope that you will explain things to me at a less inconvenient time. I trust you to know what you're doing," Ukitake said quietly. "Just know, that I have faith in you and if you need me, do what you did before."

She nodded her head in understanding and then was dragged out of the man's grasp by Shiro who growled at him to get his own Ichigo, which made him sound like a bratty child to her ears until she heard him whisper, "Whatever happens, call me. I've got your back."

She smiled softly at the two as she started to undo the spell even as she mouthed the words, 'We'll talk later' to them both. And only paused long enough for Kalego to call out, "Just so that you know, I loathe you!" Which was followed by a loudly growled out, "I'm taking some time off!" Before the three of them disappeared in another poof of smoke.

"Well...I guess that takes care of that." Ichigo said hesitantly as she glanced over at her grandpa and then decided that her work for the day was done and made an automatic beeline for the door when the softly spoken words,

"Not so fast, Ichigo." Stopped her dead in her tracks and caused her to go totally stiff. She slowly turned her head to look at her grandpa from over her shoulder and wondered what the hell he meant by that even as he went on to explain.

"You have such an alarming amount of reishi, that I had hoped that you would know how to convert it into mana to better blend in while at school. But I guess I misjudged your abilities a bit. I'm sorry about that."

She was starting to get antsy by this point, her level of discomfort reaching new pinnacles and heights that she hadn't been aware even existed up until now as he went on to say, "It's understandable given your evolution that you would still have some very strong ties to both Soul Reapers and Hollows. I don't mind that so much. But they are dangerous to you-"

"Uh- grandpa,"

"Hn? Yes, dear?"

"I know that Ukitake and Shiro are dangerous. But...they're my friends. So, if I do wind up summoning them again, could you please be nice and not let them know that you think that they're dangerous. It'll hurt their feelings."

"I understand that, Ichigo." Sullivan said gently. "Just promise me that if you must summon them, that you will do so sparingly. And rely on Professor Kalego for everything else. Please?"

"I can't make any real promises, but I'll at least try not to summon them much."

"I guess that that's the best I'll get." Sullivan sighed, understanding deep down that she probably didn't want to make him a promise that she might not be able to keep due to certain circumstances beyond her control.

It wasn't ideal to him, but he would let the matter drop. For now.

"Go ahead and return to class."

"Uh, yeah okay." Ichigo said as she quickly scampered out of the room to do just that.