The massive slash had split open the joint where Zank's arm met his shoulder.
Every muscle across it was severed clean, he couldn't lift that arm at all anymore!
"GAAAAAHH!"
Zank cried out in pain.
Just as he could not understand what had happened, Tatsumi was also staring at the scene in shock.
He already knew the big man was Night Raid's target this time—the culprit behind the Capital's string of murders, Zank the Beheader.
Before coming out here, he'd heard the story: a killer who'd grown bored of murdering prisoners and moved on to slaughtering people at random.
And yet against the girl in front of him, that killer was completely helpless.
The sudden, grievous wound left Zank swaying on his feet, on the verge of toppling over.
A shadow blotted out the moonlight. At some point Taeko had appeared right in front of him.
She brought her sword down, and Zank hurriedly crawled to the side. The blade landed on his leg instead.
"Tch!"
Gritting his teeth against the pain, he hurried to drag himself up.
And right then his whole leg went strangely light, and the force he'd thrown into rising sent him pitching over.
"My—my leg!!"
The cut on his leg hadn't been deep—it certainly hadn't reached bone.
But the instant Taeko sheathed her blade, blood came bursting out of the wound, and everything below it simply fell away, severed clean.
"But he dodged it!" Tatsumi cried in horror.
Zank forced himself up, twisting his body around and swinging his weapon wildly.
He had no choice but to suspect that there was a fourth person present, someone with the ability to hide themselves completely.
Not just invisibility, but sound, smell, even body heat.
Otherwise, why was he suddenly being cut?
Zank swung his weapon around desperately, trying to force back the "invisible" enemy.
Taeko looked down at the ugly sight of him thrashing around and lifted her blade.
Taeko looked down at the sorry spectacle he was making of himself, lifted her blade, and said coldly, "Not enjoying yourself anymore? That smile of yours vanished a while ago."
Step by step she closed in on him. Ready to finish it.
Watching that expressionless approach, Zank—tense and furious—threw the full power of his Teigu into motion.
Spectator, the Five Visions.
The Teigu was the band he wore around his head, like a circlet.
When it activated, the sealed "eye" set into it would open, and he could invoke any of five different powers at will.
Insight, Far Sight, See-Through, Future Sight, and Illusion—these were the five sights that gave Spectator its name.
Insight let him see into a person's heart. It was useful in a fight, but he mostly used it to read the fear in the hearts of the dying and savor it; before killing anyone, he'd drink in every thought passing through his victim's mind.
Farsight, as the name suggested, allowed him to observe distant places. Combined with See-Through, it was how he had escaped pursuit again and again.
It also made choosing targets incredibly easy.
Because of See-Through, tricks like smoke screens were completely useless against him.
On top of that, he could also see the future—not true future, but reading the faintest "signs" to work out an opponent's next move.
Combined with mind-reading, it let him pin down what a foe was thinking and about to do with ease.
He had four of the powers running at once now, and still none of it did a thing against the asura of a girl before him.
There was just one thought in her heart: cut him down.
Her movements were absurdly fast; he couldn't keep up at all. Even when he saw her next move coming, his body couldn't match his mind.
This girl was too strong.
"Fine, then—let me show you what it feels like to be killed by the person you love most!" Cornered, Zank roared and unleashed the last three of its powers.
Illusion.
This one conjured hallucinations, making an enemy see the person they treasured most standing right in front of them.
Swinging a blade at the one you loved—even knowing it was fake, it was almost impossible to do.
Having been through it himself, Tatsumi shouted a frantic warning. "Don't trust your eyes! It's not real—it's an illusion!"
Taeko stopped.
A pleased grin spread across Zank's face.
'Hahaha—it worked. She's got to be staring at the one she loves most right now, drawn right in. Now—take her out!'
Zank struggled up onto his one good leg.
His left leg was gone, his left arm dead weight—all of it was this girl's doing.
So he'd take her arm and her leg too, and then he'd butcher her, slow and cruel!
'The despair on her face before she dies is going to be so sweet.'
"Tornado."
Taeko looked at the "unfamiliar old woman" who had appeared before her, faintly puzzled.
A kindly-looking elder—but one she had no memory of whatsoever.
So naturally, there wasn't the slightest hesitation in her.
The instant she triggered Tornado—which sharply boosted her speed and explosive force for a short burst—she vanished from where she stood.
From the outside it looked as though her whole body turned into a gust of wind that blew clean through Zank and reassembled from several streaking gales behind him.
Movement too fast for the eye to follow, and a single, blistering cut.
Zank's chest was carved open in one stroke, ribcage and heart laid bare to the air.
The massive wound brought him crashing to the ground, where he lay on his back, staring up at the night sky.
"Kah—"
He spat out a mouthful of blood as his life quickly drained away.
His mind full of nothing but bewilderment.
This girl had seen the person she loved most, yet she cut them down without even the slightest hesitation?
Was she even human?
Even demons had things they cared about, but this girl was strange!
She had not shown any emotional change from beginning to end.
It was like she had casually crushed a bug, or stepped on some roadside weed by accident.
She had cut down the person she loved most and still was not affected at all?