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Banda was telegraphing everything--and not just with his movements. His aura, his intent, they made it clear as day.

The attack was coming from his right this time. He moved out the way with more time to spare than usual. The next cluster of long, red claws came faster, but Hector avoided those, too. With a second or two to spare, even.

Which felt like a lifetime in the middle of this fight.

Good. Great, even.

But this wasn't what he needed. He'd already been able to sense Banda's movements well enough with the Scarf and his own two eyes. This added an extra layer to things, sure--gave him some breathing room--but what he really needed was to find that point of vulnerability that Melchor mentioned.

If souls gave that information away, then aura probably could, too. Souls were a component of aura, after all.

He just had to concentrate. To look. To feel.

Melchor's attack had pierced Xuan's smoke at the center. Hector was looking as hard as he could, but he couldn't see, feel, or otherwise sense anything special at the center of Banda's smoke. Hell, it was hard enough to even tell where the center was most of the time. The way Banda's form shifted constantly in its pursuit. How was he even supposed to--

No, wait.

A glimpse. A glimmer. Hector thought he saw it. For a split second amid the chaos, just before taking another huge laser beam with the Amir-10, he thought that maybe it was there. As thousands of sparks and gushing flames jumped off his shield, Hector waited for another chance to see.

Yeah.

The fire dissipated around him. Banda was coming from the left, as subtle as a train, and Hector propelled himself out of the way. By now, he could feel multiple broken bones throughout his body from all this "flight." It was more like flinging himself through the air than actually flying, but that didn't matter. It was the furthest thing from his mind, right now.

Because he saw the center. The point around which all of Banda's smoke shifted and morphed. It wasn't always the actual center. That was the tricky thing about it.

It seemed to Hector that Banda's smoke was like a rubber band, and the center--the mind, perhaps--was like a nail around which the rubber band stretched and spun itself. At times, the nail was the farthest edge; at others, it was the closest part of the smoke to him.

In fact, it was coming closer more often than not.

Which made sense, Hector realized. Because Banda wanted him to do something. Dared him to.

So he did.