“Shut up!” S’yne’s emotions were clear even amid her skipping voice, and she swung her scissors in a wide arc at the woman again. The tip of the chain the woman was holding proceeded to strike S’yne in the stomach, sending her flying away with a grunt.

“Dammit!” I grabbed her before she crashed into the wall, wondering exactly what power the woman had used to do that. I was lacking the protections of the shield and was low on strength myself. I had almost been sent flying right along with her.

Shit. If we could use healing magic or skills, we could have defended against this!

“I love to see you on the ground. That’s where you belong,” the woman said, laughing to herself with disgust in her eyes. “Hidemasa, darling! She’s my plaything, so even after you’ve killed these other foolish vassal weapon holders and holy weapon holders from another world, please let her go. Do you understand why I’m asking? She’s so rebellious, but I’m looking forward to the day she realizes her rebellion is pointless and she finally joins me.”

“I understand completely. It isn’t much fun just having lackeys who obey your every word. Having someone like that among your allies brings a real spice to things,” Miyaji replied. Spice? What was this, a cooking show?!

With another supremely annoying laugh, the moron woman glanced at the rest of us again.

“I’m not sure what to say. You seem too pathetic and so helpless it makes me want to spoil the method we used to do this to you,” she said. So she was just like the rest of them—just like Witch, Kyo, and Takt. She wasn’t going to say anything of value! I knew that already!

“You must have grasped that we have suppressed your holy weapons. But you don’t understand how, do you? To put it plainly, we have captured all of the holy weapons in this world and used a technique to suppress the power of any opposing holy weapons—nullifying the holy weapons and techniques from other worlds,” she patronizingly explained. She had distinctively said “our.” That suggested this wasn’t something Miyaji had come to on his own, but something he had been provided with in order to contain us.

“The medium is the dragon hourglass. It suppresses the holy weapons. This was apparently a defensive mechanism for this world, created by the spirits of the holy weapons. It was to be activated if holy weapons were ever used in an invasion. Of course, it only works on holy weapons, magic, and techniques. It wouldn’t be worth using if it stopped us as well,” she continued.