Sorry for the non-updates! I was busy =/

Anyway, this is going to be the first chapter of 6 one shots, one chapter for each year of school Lou goes through. It'll slow down after that.

Any mistakes regarding the school are entirely my own and unintentional because . . . frankly, there are no real episodes or info about the school. Yes, I made up the curriculum and school wide alarm clock . . .

Last but not least, Lou does remember aspects of his former life, even though in the first movie, it was revealed that people forget their past lives. There is one instance in which this is not true . . . Yȗichi Shibata (the parakeet ghost thingy that Chad adopted before some evil hollow went after it) who remembered his mother's death and Chad's promise to play with him in Soul Society.

The first year for Lou was tough to say the least. It was like the police academy all over again but instead of focusing on just tactics and combat, there was math and all the core subjects as well. He got to meet several captains who taught optional classes and teachers who weren't captains but still were soul reapers.

He even bumped into Saki with regularity, she taught an optional photography class, Lou knew because he signed up for it.

Lou excelled at kidō and the sword arts, but he wasn't too keen on shunpo or hand to hand combat.

The average day went so for Lou:

At 6:30 the bell rang for every student to get up, Lou stayed in a dormitory room, he shared it with a lazy guy who wouldn't know what work was, even if it kicked him in the butt. Lou always had to force him out of bed and get to class.

Today was no different . . .

Lou heard the bell broadcasting for everyone to wake up, it was the curse of his former job to be sleeping lightly. Even a bird chirping next to the window would wake him up as if someone fired a gun next to his ear. He got up and stretched, then made his bed and grabbed his uniform that was hanging in the closet.

The hallways were abuzz with students milling about, Lou had already donned his uniform and decided to give his roommate just ten more minutes . . . he walked off to the cafeteria.

After a hasty and brief breakfast, Lou went back to his dormitory to grab his books and things for school, his companion was still sleeping . . .

"Arata!" Lou hissed as he shook his roommate's shoulder, "Arata get up!"

"Mmph, five more minutes . . ." the voice came.

Lou dead panned, he was going to be late for class in five minutes, so he took the sheet Arata was lying on and pulled it roughly. Arata came tumbling off the futon he was lying on and landed with a whump on the hard floor.

Lou didn't even have time to check if Arata was awake, he had to get to his kidō class before it was too late. He rushed off, leaving a still sleeping Arata on the floor.

Lou reached his class just in time, the bell rang right after he entered his seat. The teacher cast a slightly annoyed glance at Lou for being almost late but didn't object.

"Let's begin our lesson for today, Hadō," the teacher said, " Hadō or 'way of destruction spells' we will practice them outside."

The classroom lead to an outdoor firing range, Lou basically summed it up as such on his first day here. The class was split into two groups, one would stand back and watch as the other group stepped forward and fired a volley at the targets.

But now the class was separated into two groups and a random person, this was for what Lou thought, an obvious reason.

"Ichigo Kurosaki," the teacher called.

A tall kid with an afro of orange hair stepped forward, he looked serious. But that didn't stop the results of his attempt at kidō from being disastrous.

"Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south!" Ichigo recited the incantation perfectly, his stance was more or less acceptable for a first year.

But the spell exploded the moment it lost contact with Ichigo's hand, all the first years had backed off to respectful distances, knowing this would be the result. Ichigo was left covered in soot, blinking disoriented as he stayed in the stance, wondering what the hell just happened.

"Ahem . . ." the teacher continued, "Second group forward," he gave Ichigo a look that plainly said, "you suck".

Lou stepped forward, "Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south! Way of destruction 31, shot of red fire! "

The spell left his hand and shot forth perfectly, hitting the target straight in the bulls eye. This perfection elicited the general reaction of "oohs" and "ahhs".

The teacher nodded at Lou and he sat down. kidō was his best subject after all.

The next class was sword arts, Ichigo was really only in the school to learn kidō or at least attempt some semblance of knowledge in that area, so the inverted carrot was nowhere to be found during the second class. Again, Lou was quite good at it, not as excellent as some people in his class, but good enough to hold his own for several minutes against his peers with greater skill.

Lou dodged a blow from the bokken (1) and countered it with his own battery of blows. He and his partner had a rhythm, the fight was like a dance and the partners had to play it right or they'd fall. A misstep in an actual battle with real blades would draw blood.

Lou lasted ten minutes before his opponent wore him down and Lou was disarmed by an upwards slash. They bowed, a sign of respect for both the victor and the loser, and sat back down.

After a brief lunch, in which Arata had walked into the cafeteria, still wearing his pajamas wondering if it was breakfast, Lou went back to class. The next class he took was shunpo, or flash steps, foot work was always tough for Lou. He was a fast runner, a great sprinter, but getting from point A to point B in the least amount of steps using reiatsu was foreign to him. He didn't end up at the bottom of the class, but he was far from the top.

None of the soul reapers in training could manage shunpoing for any extended length of time, especially in their first year of training. Shunpo reminded Lou of some martial arts movie, but it was real life, the teacher could be standing in the front of the room at one moment, and reappear in the back at the next. It took weeks for Lou's eyes to train to catch the motion as he followed the movement of the teacher.

His third class was hand to hand combat, this seemed to be a class tailored with every martial art in existence and focused on the basics first. The more advanced things were promised in the years to come.

Now, Kevin "Wordy" Wordsworth, Lou's former partner in the SRU, was a martial arts expert, and Lou had often sparred with the guy. But this academy was a lot tougher, you think you've seen it all if you disarm a gun wielding maniac with your bare hands. But getting beat by people half your size and twice your skill was something that took getting used to.

Finally, in the afternoon classes, Lou worked on academics, math, grammar (Japanese because the main language in Soul Society was Japanese), world languages and of course the duties of a Soul Reaper and the history of Soul Society.

It was in the history class that Lou first learned about Aizen. He had heard a few discussions amongst classmates about the former Captain of the 5th division and how he had brought Soul Society to its knees. The teacher only really explained that Aizen was now defeated, it was unknown if he were dead, but Soul Society was in a peaceful era at the moment.

Finally, at the end of the day, Lou grabbed his camera and went down to the optional photography class. It wasn't held in a lecture hall like most of the other classes, rather, a small class room in a smaller wing of the school. The room was separated into an instructional area and a dark room.

The class was small, only around ten students, most people were interested in some of the more popular courses, like the traditional arts and (at least for the girls) fashion design. The Haiku class even got thirty or forty students, but Lou liked the quietness of the photography course, the fine click of the shutter as he pressed the button, the calm blackness of the photo room even the smell of the developing chemicals, though strong, was something he came to like.

Saki, on the other hand, was a patient, yet very cold and aloof teacher, not exactly a favorite among students. She tolerated no fooling around in class and would just about kill anyone who tried to make this a fun/study hall hour rather than an academic endeavor. Lou had a feeling this was why no one wanted to be in the class. He wondered if every captain was like this or only just her.

The class lasted around an hour, and then with night falling fast in the Seireitei, students made their way back to the dormitories and after a dinner and a few hours of feverish studying, the school went into slumber.

Lou fell asleep like he did any night but tonight was different. Usually he dreamed of things that were either totally random or of his former life and new one in the Soul Society. But tonight, he found himself in a large ocean, standing on an iron platform, surrounding him were several platforms, spiraling out from his like the shell on a nautilus. This was certainly new, he realized he seemed more awake than usual in his dream, he was alert to everything that was happening around him.

"Where am I?" he wondered out loud.

He saw a lone figure, dressed elegantly in a kimono and with a bright blue sash tied around its waist, no, not it . . . it was a she.

Lou felt rather at ease with this intruder, though he was still wary, "Who are you?"

The figure glanced up, and suddenly transformed from a woman into a large serpentine creature, it appeared before Lou and wrapped itself around his pillar, "Call for me," it commanded.

"What's your name?" Lou asked, standing his ground, 'Dragon,' he thought, seeing the wings and clawed feet of the serpent.

"I am called," the creature began, but suddenly, Lou snapped awake, the morning bell had rung. He rushed out of bed and began a new day, with no real recollection of his dream.

Okay . . . I'm basing this dragon thing off of the Chinese legend of the four Dragon Kings which were said to control the seas. Of course, I added my own feminine twist and added it as a dragon queen still, it should be fairly cool. (more detail and input will be added in future chapters about Lou's visitor).

I was thinking about putting Ichigo as Lou's roommate . . . but yeah, I don't think it would work out. But Ichigo as a student because . . . honestly, he needs to attempt to learn Kidō (not bashing him or anything . . .)

(1) A bokken is a wooden sword used for training in kenjutsu (kendo) or way of the sword.

And if you don't know what a futon is . . . that is the most epic of Japanese vocab fails I have ever seen, in the words of elle127: You fail . . . epically.