VIII. Vocation
"Father," Kid called, as he walked down the long guillotine corridor. The surface of the mirror rippled and yielded obligingly to him, and he savored the brief immersion in his father's soul before emerging into the Death Room. The circular platform was empty, and Kid took a seat in the tall-backed chair to wait. He remembered fondly the first time he'd been able to touch the floor with his toes while sitting; now his feet rested firmly on it. He might have only been young still, but he thought he'd grown up a lot.
Shinigami came gliding through the stick-like grave markers, but Kid could detect the tiredness in his movements. There had been an influx of witch activity in the last few weeks. A small community in Texas and its population of seven hundred had been under attack by a coven of witches, who were experimenting with injecting demonic energy directly into people's souls under the guise of free vaccinations. By the time Shibusen had realized what had been happening, they'd nearly lost the entire town of Agua Dulce. As it was, each soul had to be examined and the purged of the artificial taint, and the tedious and delicate process had kept Shinigami glued to his mirrors even though the on-site teams were able to work in shifts.
"Father," Kid said again as the Reaper wearily ascended the platform. "You should rest. We can continue my lessons tomorrow."
"I will soon, soon," Shinigami waved off the protest and putting as much of his usual energy into his voice as he could muster. "You've been doing so well that I don't want to distract you. Or," he said, leaning over and ruffling Kid's hair, "was that the point?"
"My point," was the emphatic reply, even as Kid made a face and tried to comb his hair back into its usual neatness, "is that you should take care of yourself."
Though Kid knew the importance of Shibusen and its tasks and respected his father's dedication to it, he also knew that he was the only one who witnessed the toll it took upon the Reaper. To be unable to leave Death City's confines, but be forced to remotely supervise the students and teams he sent out on dangerous missions... the jovial demeanor served more than one purpose. Sometimes Kid found himself resenting Shibusen, if only because it demanded more of Shinigami than he wanted to part with. To everyone else, the god was simply Lord Death, not a parent.
But he did not deny that he was looking forward to the lesson.
"Now where were we?" Shinigami pondered aloud. "Ah yes, taking souls in konso."
Ever since Kid's tendencies had escalated to the point of needing to "fix" strangers as they walked down the street, the Reaper had decided it was time to give the boy some focus. Although Kid was ingrained with certain knowledge natural to a shinigami, he still had much more to learn and it helped him to talk things out. Humans studied souls and called it phasmology - in fact it was part of Shibusen's curriculum - but for himself and for Kid it was not an abstract theory, but a practical application.
A death god's purpose was to maintain the balance and order between life and death, and he supposed it could manifest in the counting and the symmetry. Shinigami hoped that giving Kid a reasonable framework for those feelings might in turn keep them under control. And Kid, desperate to understand the compulsions that came over him and dictated his life, was finding solace in his father's explanations of judgment and balance. It calmed him, and he drank it up.
"Souls must be safeguarded at all costs," Kid recited, ticking off the tenets on his fingers. "The balance of souls, living and dead, must not overwhelm either the earth or the afterlife. All souls have a place to travel to, whether the body knows it or not. Souls which have turned into Kishin eggs have forfeited their ability to pass on."
There were more, but Kid remembered best the ones that dealt with the dangers of disproportionately allocated souls. It only made sense, he thought. When things aren't neat and even, there are problems. By the time he'd finished reciting them all and looked to his father for approval, all the tension had completely drained from Kid's form. He sat contentedly on the platform's edge, staring out over the sandy grave markers which normally caused him consternation due to their irregular placings.
And Shinigami, who had been about to interject that their business of souls was more than just keeping to the letter of those laws, merely sat down next to him, and decided not take the peace for granted.