Chapter Text
Soul and Maka found themselves huddling on the couch to peruse Psychopomps and Spirit Guides together. Within the chapters on death spirits, they found recommendations on offerings, dog-eared the page with the mortal deposition, skimmed over various anatomical diagrams. Per the book’s suggestions, they chose rabbit for the offering given the recipient’s size, so Soul drove them out to the downtown farmer’s market.
The markets usually ran early in the morning or began late in the afternoon, when the grinning sun was starting to laugh itself tired. Soul parked his bike a short walk away from a lot where a huge tent was set up to protect vendors and goods from the Nevada heat. Outside of the tent, a couple of trucks offered Mexican food and frozen snacks.
Maka had steeled her resolve after they left the apartment. She hid her lingering worry behind curt greetings and pointed inquiries of the attending farmers’ stock. She managed to locate someone who wasn’t selling rabbits at the time, but who let it slip that they raised them. All traces of the Maka who had been silenced by fear and uncertainty were replaced by the one Soul knew best: adamant and self-assured as she strong-armed the vendor for a live fryer.
Soul briefly thought he should man up and take charge of securing his own sacrifice, but Maka left no room for him to squeeze in, and the sense of obligation fell limp against his nerves. Pushing until people gave in was never his thing – it always better suited him to play it cool and say he didn’t care anyway when he was rejected. More importantly, right now Maka needed this more than he did.
Eventually, after she insisted on how desperately she needed it for a 42-piece offering, the seller sobered at the mention and was swayed to make the sale (but not without charging a hefty premium). He gave directions to his home, where his daughter would be waiting to hand them an appropriate selection for the task.
It took time driving all the way out to the suburbs of Death City and back, but they eventually made it back to the apartment with a modest sized white rabbit tucked into Maka’s bag. They let it wander the apartment as they donned their work clothing, old t-shirts and pants they were willing to get messy. Soul skimmed the book again for the slaughter process and the 42 parts the sacrifice was to be divided into, flipped back to the mortal deposition.
I declare myself a living mortal and commend my soul to the ultimate Order of life and death. Any mediators of death, in accepting this offering, shall acknowledge my declaration and affirm my place in the ultimate Order.
“It’s like a contract,” Maka said, as if considering it for the first time. She was leaning over the kitchen countertop beside him and resting her head on his shoulder to read the page.
“Did you have to recite this?” Soul asked.
“Yeah. I remember the person who performed the sacrifice said a preamble for acting on our behalf. Of course when you’re that little, you don’t really get it all.”
“Kinda weird to have kids make a pledge like that they can barely understand, don’t you think?”
“I think it’s to protect us. Getting a death spirit to acknowledge that we’re alive so we don’t lose our souls in a random alleyway.” When Soul looked at her, he found her finally able to turn a small smile his way at his expense. “But also, I think it’s to make sure we move on quickly once we die.”
“What if you’re not ready to move on? Unfinished business, and all that?”
“When you’re dead, that’s it.” Her voice left no room for argument. “There are worse things that can happen to a soul than moving on.”
“Like…?”
“Getting eaten.”
Fair point.
A scraping noise drew their attention. Maka was the first to scurry away at the sight of the rabbit nibbling at a leg of the coffee table. “Stop that!” she chided as she lifted it. It squeaked its own opinion and wriggled out of her grip. “I guess it’s about time we get started,” she said when she was sure the rabbit wasn’t going for the table leg again.
Soul flashed her a grin and retrieved a chunk of broccoli from the fridge to keep the rabbit occupied. “Damn, I see what’s gonna happen to me if I mess up any furniture,” he joked.
“Oh be quiet.” She shot him a nasty look for his unfazed expression. That was more like the Maka he was used to.
They covered the floor with a tablecloth they never got around to using, placed down a mixing bowl and baking trays, a cutting board and paring knife all for easy access. Facing each other on their knees, they prepared to begin.
Soul started by inspecting the knife. “So. Our ‘culling’ tool?”
“Not that. The killing blade’s length should be at least twice the sacrifice’s neck diameter,” Maka easily recalled from their reading.
He then transformed his arm into a blade, tapped it on the floor, and looked suggestively to her.
“Let me see it.”
He held it between them so that she could inspect along the cutting edge. Her hands remained clenching her lap, forced shut against the urge to try to touch his weapon parts. “No nicks… sharp from end to end. It looks good.”
“Rare Maka compliment.”
“Can you take this seriously?”
“I am!”
She frowned at him a moment longer. “It’s not just the blade, you know. You’ll need to–” She mimed holding the rabbit and dragging her arm across it in a rapid sweep. “You’re killing it quickly.”
He returned his arm to a proper arm. “Yeah, I get it. Confident. Here bunny.” Once he retrieved it, he settled in front of Maka again, petting it to keep it calm with his arm nestled under its neck.
“Nervous?” she asked.
“Nah. Just thinking it’s a weird warm up for hunting down kishin,” he answered as nonchalantly as he could muster.
She grabbed the book and held it up for him to read. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Hesitation wasn’t cool and neither was letting his voice shake, so he spoke from the diaphragm in reading off the deposition.
Maka placed the book aside. Looking right into Soul’s eyes rather than the page, she added, “As a living mortal, affirmed within the ultimate Order by a mediator of death, I declare myself a legitimate aide for this offering. You may begin.”
Soul cut the rabbit’s throat open with one intrepid slice. Maka had the mixing bowl at the ready for the gush of blood. The two hurried to hang it upside down from a chair to let it finish bleeding out while Soul began processing the head.
Maka provided assistance and advice, but it was up to Soul to perform the bulk of dividing the 42 parts of the offering. The smell of blood soon sat heavy around them. During a pause, Soul caught himself paying more attention to Maka than to the offering. Specifically, her shadowy, pensive eyes scrutinizing an anatomical diagram, then assessing the guts laying in front of them. Entirely consumed in their task as if it were the only thing that mattered. He may have still been relatively new to this world of soul collection and serving under Death himself, but he knew when he had something good in front of him, an unassuming blessing in striped ties and pigtails.
She noticed his stare. “What are you looking at me for?”
He wasn’t about to tell her all that sappy shit, let alone right now, so deflection was his best defense. “You got all deep in thought, I figured you were gonna tell me something important.”
“I will, when you get the lungs out.”
“Gettin’ there, gettin’ there…” It was strange. He had been griped at and pestered to perform and apply himself and get it right as long as he could remember, yet in this moment, he could only credit his steady hands to Maka’s presence as they delicately worked the knife beneath the ribcage. As a nearly lifelong performer, he knew the struggles between doubt and confidence, nervousness and comfort. Maka dispelled all of their noise and left only what mattered – getting it done.
In time, they laid out their forty-one cuts of organs and flesh and bone onto baking sheets, rounded out with a single serving of blood. At its core, the sacrifice was a food offering made to entice an animal, so along with the inedible organs, they were left with paws and a (not too shabbily preserved) pelt at the end. Maka idly plucked gooey connective tissue from inside the skin.
“Gonna make a hat for a snowy day?” Soul joked as he tucked the offering into the fridge for later.
She hummed. “I don’t know what to do with it, but it seems like a waste to throw it out. When they killed a lamb for us, they hung the pelt to dry for the next day and let us touch it. I guess the school donated it somewhere after that.”
“Well, if you come up with something, knock yourself out. I don’t have any plans for it.”
After dark, Soul placed the offering along with his favorite headband outside, making sure it was lined up below their apartment window. He went back upstairs with dread starting to loom over him. When he returned to the apartment, Maka was in the process of cleaning the blood from the tablecloth. She had already opened the window for him. Begrudgingly, Soul stood in front of it and tapped his finger on the windowsill.
“Don’t forget to whistle for the dog,” she said, still wiping.
“Yeah I know,” he grumbled. The moon was laughing tonight. He wasn’t much for astrology, but he wasn’t ruling out that it was laughing at him, either.
“Well what are you waiting for?”
He hissed quietly. “I can’t whistle.”
“Then you heard what Lord Death said.”
“He had to be joking.”
“He wouldn’t joke about something like this.”
“Maka, he threw a peace sign when we left, you think he was serious about barking out the window? Can’t I just clap or ring a bell or something?”
He heard their reference material slam shut. By the time he turned, she had half-cleared the distance to him and was closing in fast.
“Hey. Hey!” He grabbed the book before she could swing it.
“I told you you’re not allowed to die to this spell,” her voice came out severe.
“But I can die to having my brains bashed in?”
“Wanna find out?”
“For fuck’s sake, alright, just put the book down!” She only kept glaring it him, to which he pressed, “I’m not doing it until you put it down!”
Maka folded her arms, book still firmly gripped.
Soul cringed as he turned to the window. Don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it–
“RUFF-RUFF-RUFF-RUFF!”
He went rigid as soon as the noises left his mouth. Whichever way this damn dog had rearranged him, he felt the ensuing shudder down to his soul.
“Now was that so hard?”
“Ugh… I don’t know if I can get my soul back after that.”
“You will.”
What was that he was telling himself earlier about Maka and a blessing in the same sentence? Clearly his brains were already scrambled. She returned to cleaning up their work area at the same time Soul retreated, tail between his legs, to shower off the embarrassment and traces of DIY death ritual.