The Fledgling Soul

This article, , is a side-story entry in Bleach: The Coven War, set shortly after A Giving Soul, The Watchful Soul and The Departing Soul. Michael Davis and Jenna Sheppard are the main characters.

Here she was once again doing the exact opposite of "laying low". For a moment Jenna stopped and thought, "What the hell am I doing!?"

For just a few moments ago a black-haired Shinigami with piercing red eyes and a steadily hardening expression had been leaning against the brickwork of an alleyway in Houston, Texas, quite near an abandoned factory where the man had previously trained a new Substitute Shinigami. He had listened carefully and without interruption as Jenna told him how she suspected that a certain policewoman had concealed cultist activity from him.

He'd taken it better than she thought. Aside from vowing to sort this out later and warning her to stay away from Maria, the Shinigami left. Or so she had thought. He appeared in front of her suddenly and Jenna nearly had a heart attack!

"Oh, and consider yourself drafted." The man said with a truly devilish grin. "Goodbye and thanks!"

"Wait, what!? Drafted? For what!?"

"You'll see!"

She was left standing in the mouth of the alleyway, illuminated by a nearby street lamp, shouting up at the heavens. There was a brief flash of white light, which quickly vanished, and then he was gone; she could no longer sense him, so that meant he had returned to the Soul Society.

And just like that Jenna realised that the day had ran ahead without her noticing. It was early evening already!

"Tonight has been eventful."

She caught her reflection in a puddle at her feet and her eye slowly started twitching from pure annoyance. Her long-sleeved red shirt was scuffed due to a Hollow getting just a little too close earlier, her black skirt thankfully was unblemished, but her black leggings where dotted with splashes of mud. "Well, I suppose that's what happens when you hang around alleyways," she thought angrily.

She took a moment to brush out her wavy-black hair.

Now, just what was she going to do now?

"Why did I call my brother?" She mused aloud as she walked away from the factory. "Ugh, this is all his fault!"