Fatuous One said:
I think a better reading for "Satsujinki" is "Death God's Tool". The Reaper's scythe made flesh, as it were.
Probably a better translation, yeah. I just used the one that creator of the Moonlit World posted up on a profile.
IIRC, the "ki" at the end of Satsujinki is the same one in Shiki's name, which is read as "mind". That's why many fans romanize "Satsujinki" as "ShiKiller" - it's a pun on Shiki's name, nothing more.
BUT... the Japanese (especially Nasu) are fond of incorporating multiple meanings into a single word or phrase. "Satsujinki" is merely a pun on Shiki's name, but it has many other homonyms with meanings so very appropriate that I can't believe it to be anything but intentional.
I've already mentioned "Death God's Tool," but here are a few others:
-??? = "satsujin" (kill + person) + "ki" (machine" = Killing Machine
-??? = "satsujin" + "ki" (oni) = Murderous Demon
-??? = "satsu" (kill) + "jinki" (god + tool) = God's Killing Tool
-same kanji, different reading: "satsu" (kill) + "jin" (god) + "ki" (tool) = Implement for Killing a God
There are tons of others that I could go on with, but those ones are the most prominent in my mind.
(continued from earlier...)
On the subject of Shiki's eyes... Now that I think about it, it's probably the case that his eyes themselves aren't any different - it's his brain that's changing. As time goes on, he'll be able to understand more "imperceptible" concepts, and better withstand the strain of understanding them. This is mostly an impression I got from playing Tsukihime, especially Arcueid's paths.
What I meant by 'destroying the concepts' is different from how Shiki's eyes work. If he stabs a "point," the reason for a concept's existence is destroyed, so the concept "dies" in a domino effect. I think that eventually, he might be able to kill a concept
directly, rather than to cut off its reason for existence; this would enable him to kill even things that didn't have a natural lifespan in the first place, like demons (and Arcueid). I also expect, though, that the backlash from this would be instantly fatal - essentially, he'd be attacking Akasha, and nothing can affect Akasha without some kind of retribution occurring.
I think it was noted on FuyukiWiki that the Slash Emperor was more powerful then Ea... or something, I can't remember that entry too well.
I just read it again.
Apparently, Slash Emperor is made of Grain, the cosmic substance from which all celestial bodies were made before they became differentiated matter. Ea is said to be representative of the way the world was before it was thus differentiated. So, I guess Ea is a Knight Arm of sorts.
Ea is called an Anti-World-class weapon, and is stated to be capable of destroying entire worlds.
Slash Emperor steals matter from Earth to increase its size and power in response to the scale of the threat it's being used against - thus why it was able to kill Type-Jupiter and Type-Saturn, and also why it was sealed away.