Yea, yea, I'm not dead. xDDDD. Feels kinda weird to be back though… O_O…

Hitsugaya slid the door to his room shut behind him before sitting at his desk. He opened a drawer and dug through a pile of CDs. He couldn't find the one he wanted to listen to in the mess so he just grabbed a random one and put it into his CD player. He plugged his earphones in and listened to the songs.

'Hhhmmm… Helena by My Chemical Romance… Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge…' (AN: OMG! I LOVE THAT SONG SO MUCH!)

The white-haired teen closed his eyes as he turned the volume of the music up and tried concentrating on the lyrics.

Long ago
Just like the hearse you die to get in again
We are so far from you

Burning on just like a match you strike to incinerate
The lives of everyone you know
And what's the worst you take (worst you take)
from every heart you break (heart you break)
And like the blade you stain (blade you stain)
Well I've been holding on tonight

Toushiro raised an eyebrow when he realised the fact that he could still hear the loud-mouthed Matsumoto chirping about something downstairs. He turned the volume notch and increased the volume until his ears hurt.

What's the worst that I can say?
Things are better if I stay
So long and goodnight
So long and goodnight

However, no matter how much he concentrated on the song, the questions kept on surfacing in his mind. The boy would sometimes be doing something- anything from exams to taking a shower- and random questions on his memory loss would come up in his head. Sometimes, but very rarely, he also had a few hallucinations too. They'd be random images of people he didn't remember flashing in his mind. He never told anyone about these as he never had the chance or needed to.

'Are the memories from my past THAT important?... damn it… '

Hitsugaya then jumped when Rangiku pulled out one of his earphones and yelled in his hear, "I CAN HEAR THAT MUSIC FROM OUTSIDE THE ROOM!"

"Oi! No need to yell! I'm not deaf!" He was slightly startled at the fact that he had been so occupied that he didn't notice the buxom female entering the room but composed himself.

"No you aren't but you will be if you keep on listening to music like that!" The strawberry blonde answered back, turning the CD player off. The white-haired student sighed in annoyance and pulled out his other earphone.

"Whaddya want?"

"Aw! You're so cold! It makes my heart ache! Especially to a teacher!" Matsumoto sang in Broadway style as she clutched her chest and dramatically fell to the floor.

"I don't have the time for this, Matsumoto." Toushiro bellowed, frustration ringing throughout the tone of his voice.

"Oh, right! I nearly forgot!" Rangiku quickly picked herself up off the tatami-covered floor. "Haruka-sensei needs you to help him test Momo's pk level!"

"Isn't that something the student's teacher should do?"

"Normally, yes but you can't forget!" Matsumoto's voice went down to a whisper. "Natsuki-sensei is terminally ill."

"Ah, whatever. It's not like I don't know…" Hitsugaya retorted, getting out of his chair.

"Mou! You have no sensibility at all! You're like a lump of ice! You need to soften up! Smile more!"

The male teen stopped on his way to the door and turned around to see the big-busted lady when she exclaimed the last two words. His facial expression was dark and grim but the corners of his lips pulled upwards. It was more like a sarcastic, yet threatening and murderous smile rather than a happy, cheerful one. It somewhat reminded Rangiku of the Joker from Batman.

The female immediately freaked out and ran past the student and out of the room.

--

Momo walked down the stairs with butterflies fluttering around in her stomach. She felt like she was going to vomit any second. Pk level test? What on earth was that? More importantly, how was it run?

Did they make her take an exam? Or an audition? Out of the two, the brunette preferred the audition. She wouldn't know anything about "pk" to take an examination. Wait, was it even an examination? What if it was just an analysis? Hopefully, it would be…

"Oi."

Hinamori whipped around, knocking a vase off its stand. Hitsugaya quickly dived forward just in time to catch the object in his large hands. The two teens sighed once they saw that the item was secure.

"I wouldn't knock anything over in this house… Not if you don't want to be in debt for the rest of your life."

A blush rose to the female's cheeks. She slowly took the vase from the boy's hands and carefully propped it onto its stand again.

"Th-thanks…"

"Geez, you're such a klutz." Toushiro grumbled as he got up onto his feet and brushed his jeans. "Pk test's this way."

Momo obediently followed the boy as he quickly strode through the mansion. She eventually had to jog to catch up, causing her to bump into the white-haired male when he suddenly halted in front of a wall. She looked around to see that they were at a dead end.

'Huh?... where are we meant to go from here?...'

--

Hitsugaya inwardly winced when another sharp pain shot through his temples. He quickly ignored it and reached a nearby clock ticking on the wall. He pushed the frame of it in before twisting it three times to the right and twelve times to the left.

--

Hinamori found it a miracle from the heavens that her mouth didn't drop open when the wall in front of them slid sideways, revealing a secreted room.

Every cubic millimetre was of the purest white, from the ceiling to the floor. When the two stepped into the room, the metallic sounds of their steps on the steel floor echoed around the room. The brunette found herself wandering around the room in awe before she could control herself. But there was nothing to explore.

As much as the room was white, it was also empty. There was not a single object in the entire space.

"Eh?! You got here before me!" The pair whipped around in surprise at the arrival of a new person.

"Of course we did."

"But that just makes me look rude!" Haruka ran into the room and slid the door shut. "Sorry for making you guys wait for me!"

"Ah, no, we only just arrived." Momo smiled reassuringly at the little teacher, receiving a beaming smile in return.

"Ne, ne, Toushi-chan! We need to set up the room!"

The blue-haired child slid a stuffed bear-like backpack that he'd been wearing off his shoulders and laid it down on the floor. He unzipped the zip –which was the bear's mouth- and took out a clipboard and pen before zipping it back up again.

Toushiro pushed a panel in the wall and pulled out a table with wheels on its legs. The items on the table were covered with a white sheet, leaving the brunette curious as to what they were.

Arakawa flipped through the documents on his clipboard with a face so sincere that it was rather scary to see it on such a youthful face as his own. He rubbed his chin as his lips pouted.

"It says here that your IQ was… 147 when you took a test at your school in Grade 9?..."

The brunette's mouth dropped open.

'I seriously have to find out how they're getting all this information…'

"Y-yes…"

"Hhhmmm… okay! That's all we need to know! For now, that is."

The yellow-eyed child flipped the paperwork on his clipboard so that he was back on the first page, whipping a blue pen out of his pocket. He nodded his head at Hitsugaya, who reached over and pulled the white sheet off the table, revealing its contents.

Hinamori's eyebrows creased together. How did any of these items have anything to do with "testing" her?

"We're only going to record your current strength levels and reflexes and such…"

'Oh…'

A sense of relief immediately washed over her.

That was until a glass vase came flying towards her head. A shriek of surprise burst out of her lungs as she quickly ducked, letting the object smash on the wall behind her. Haruka sighed, shaking his head and clicking his tongue at the same time.

"That won't do… Your reflexes may have saved you but there were many flaws in that one act you did."

Momo's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Flaws?... what… flaws?..."

"Well, it depends on what kind of situation you're in… if you were trying to sneak into a guarded area, your shriek would have given away your position and the fact that you're there and now that the glass has smashed…"

The brunette's breath hitched when a large pair of calloused hands quickly twisted her arm behind her back and held a jagged piece of the vase to her throat. Her heart pace quickened but she didn't show it.

"You wouldn't…"

"Because I'm not allowed to…" Hitsugaya's hot breath on her neck sent shivers down her spine as goosebumps rose on her skin.

"EH?! That was horrible, Toushi-chan!"

The white-haired male immediately let go of the bun-haired girl and stepped back. Arakawa's yellow irises shifted to Hinamori as she got back into her normal standing position, somewhat unable to slow her breath.

"It's rush of adrenaline… it'll go soon… Momo, if this were a real scenario, you'd be dead. Butchered… after they give you a few roughies for information…"

The female chewed on her lower lip as her gaze fell to the white, tile floor. "You speak of torture… murder… and self-defence… exactly, what is it that you guys do?"

"And what difference would it make if we told you? As to if we decided to never tell you at all?" Hitsugaya quickly snapped back. Glares were exchanged.

"Well, maybe I'd know if you answered my question first."

"No."

"Why?"

"Protocol." The last word exchanged quickly veiled the atmosphere with silence. An icy pair of irises stared down the brunette in front of them as she sunk into even more confusion and curiosity.

"Then, why are you guys so uptight?"

"It's called being-"

"Oh, don't mind him!" Haruka quickly broke the ice before turning to his white-haired student. "There's no need to be so rude to her! It's not her fault! Today's her first day, jeez. What if it were your first day here? You'd think that we were a bunch of superhero-like creeps surviving in a freakishly big forest in a mansion just dumped in the middle of nowhere! Right, Momo?"

Hinamori felt a sweat drop.

"Unfortunately, I don't seem to remember what I thought of you back then." If looks could kill, Hitsugaya would have been responsible for the death of a teacher and a new-comer right at that moment.

The blue-haired child's arm quickly shot out and grabbed his student's t-shirt around the stomach and yanked. Hard. With his mouth falling open in a silent cry, the older male toppled to the tiled floor. His teacher leaned down and whispered something into his ear before helping him up.

Toushiro quickly turned to Momo. "I'm sorry."

The female would have answered but she was rendered too speechless to do so.

"Anyway, the nicer, cleaner and much gentler version of what Toushi-chan just said is that we can't tell you anything unless you pass all your tests!" The yellow-eyed teacher's bounciness quickly shot back into him.

"How do you pass them?"

"Hmmm…" The young boy chewed on the tip of his thumb in deep thought. "I guess you can't really pass them… seeming that you can't fail them… Ne? But don't worry! We're only going to ask you a few questions and get you to do a few things so the test will be a breeze!"

The reassuring was followed by a double thumbs-up as Hitsugaya moved to the table and pulled the white cloth off.

Ahaha, soz for the sudden cut-off but I'm sure that if I write any more on this chapter, it'd turn out really crappy so yea. X3333.

I sincerely apologise for my extremely late return but things haven't gotten much better (unfortunately) but I may be able to update in the next month or so. Hopefully.

Thank you!