Quote Originally Posted by DDBen
I don't agree with this at all and didn't get that impression. Black Star could have had Tsubaki eat all of those souls instead of bringing them back if he decided to do so otherwise he would have not even considered killing the witch in the first place. The reason he choose not to have her eat them was simply because he was against having her eat souls when he didn't defeat the opponent it was personal honor not simply a rule.

Shinigami-sama also only takes reports at the end if the opponent is defeated and you tell him you did so and ate the soul it doesn't seem like he would so much as question it heck he said Black Star should have simply lied about it in the first place. I'm assuming the difference is if they get paid for doing the job or not as they seem to be getting assignments from a bounty board of some kind.
Well, he was monitoring the fight... and then made it a point to say to Black Star "you should've deceived me" just to see what type of reaction he'd get, while us the viewers would've known that Shinigami-sama was viewing the fight and couldn't have been deceived. So certainly there has to be some sort of restriction or code. Else, it wouldn't be so much of a struggle to get all those souls. Tsubaki could've eaten them all, but there might've been some punishment for doing so, else why would Shinigami-sama make a point of the possibility of being deceived? If it's an accepted practice, then there's no reason to deceive anyone.