“Y-You b̲i̲t̲c̲h̲!” As one of the glorious Eight Legions of Yamato, and as a woman, Igarashi had always gained the recognition of the people, which was why she considered herself a guardian of justice1.
Igarashi believed that the lowly demonesses who served demons deserved to get their just deserts for their actions, and that anyone who strayed from the righteous path deserved to get stripped of all of their dignity and rights. That said, Lily had strung her upside down in public using a sash that she had manifested from her parasol right now, and although someone as powerful as Igarashi would not generally blush from being strung upside down by a foe, her face was utterly flushed at the moment.
Igarashi’s efforts to break free from the binds of the sashes had been pretty much rendered ineffective because of their ability to suppress her strength, which really made her infuriated at Lily.
“Release me at once, you coward! Face me in earnest if you’ve got the guts for it!” Igarashi shook her body in an attempt to break free, but she failed.
Lily did not intend to release Igarashi despite her going a bit too far in punishing Haihime, as that alone was not enough to warrant her death.
Igarashi sensed a faint fluctuation from the punishment device, the treasure that Lily had destroyed, underneath the sakura petals on the device’s platform, when she finished saying her piece, and rejoiced when she discovered that she was still able to control it despite being partially broken.
Igarashi sneered as she thought, “Fine, b̲i̲t̲c̲h̲. I’ll show you how fearsome I am. You are not the only one who can bind others!”
She then willed her mind and made the tough, gruff ropes below the sakura petals shoot towards Lily from all directions. Igarashi’s treasure was designed to punish others in cruel ways, so the ropes were as gruff as possible to inflict pain on its victims. This was enough to tell that she had no plans to show mercy on Lily.
Igarashi had failed to factor in the fact that she was within Lily’s domain right now, though. It was pretty much impossible for Lily to miss any changes within her domain.
Igarashi smiled with her eyes when she saw that the ropes were seconds away from binding Lily. The ropes of her treasure were grade nine ropes, and it was impossible for even her to escape from its binds, let alone Lily. However, Lily just smiled at her faintly in response to the ropes shooting towards her and jumped back to dodge the ropes with ease before spinning the Sakura Parasol in her hands once again.
The illusive sakura tree hoisting Igarashi up disappeared the next moment, and made her fall towards where Lily stood originally, making her the target of her own ropes.
“What?!”
Whoosh!
“Stop kidding me!” Igarashi mustered her spirit power to control and redirect the ropes towards Lily when she saw them press towards her. However, the sashes binding her body, and Lily’s domain, suppressed her spirit power again at this moment, and the interference caused the energy within Igarashi’s broken treasure to run berserk.
Crack, crack, crack!
A few small cracks opened up on Igarashi’s treasure because of the berserk energy, and she lost command of the ropes, which resulted in them passing around her waist, armpits and thighs, binding her up thoroughly2.
“What’s going on? Has it gone berserk?!” Igarashi shouted anxiously as she continued trying to regain control of the punishment device, but it refused to follow her orders because of a malfunction within its internal workings and continued executing the last order that she had given it.
Sparks of energy shot out of the Yamatai priestess statues of the device as they stood up from underneath the illusive sakura petals. One of them pulled hard on the rope in its hand the next moment, which ended up yanking the rope binding Igarashi’s leg and forced her to kneel with a scream.
The tatami mat on the platform below Igarashi opened up and a huge wooden pillow rose up from within the device. The ropes around her neck and chest got yanked again after that, which made her panic.
“N-No!”
The sashes and the ropes prevented her from resisting, though, and forced her to lay on the wooden pillow below her.
“How could you bind your owner, you trashy treasure! Have you gone berserk?! I swear I’m going to dismantle you when I break free!” Igarashi shouted in anger, “Release me at once!”
The punishment device continued operating despite Igarashi’s screams and raised up the broken paper screens, leaving her semi-exposed behind the enclosed screens.
Lily, who was also within this enclosed space, placed her finger beside her lips as she witnessed the punishment device’s operations with a curious, astonished look on her face and said, “Oh my. This treasure sure does operate pretty kinkily…”
“Shut up, b̲i̲t̲c̲h̲! Y-You’re the one who made it malfunction like this!” Igarashi felt very furious, but there was nothing much she could do right now. However, her expression changed the moment two of the tatami mats around her opened up.
“No. I can’t let the treasure continue executing my last order…”
Two Yamatai priestess puppets rose up from the space below the opened up tatamis, and unlike the priestess statutes, these ancient puppets could move their hands pretty dexterously.
The two puppets were the worst punishment tools of the treasure, and each held a terrifying, wide and thick grade nine paddle in its hand.
Igarashi paled when she saw the paddle-holding puppets move towards her rear, and she produced a storm using her spirit power in an attempt to blow the puppets away. However, the puppets continued tottering towards her behind despite the increasing damage on their bodies. The energy flowing within their internal energy circuits also became chaotic because of the storm.
Crank, crank!
The eyes of the puppets glowed red as a response of their self-defense mechanism, turning them fully hostile towards Igarashi, who was trying to destroy them.
The puppets created creaking sounds as they arrived behind Igarashi’s a̲s̲s̲ with swift movements.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?! I-I’m your owner, you damn puppets! Stop it!” The ever-calm, mature Igarashi began shouting loudly with no regards for her image, but her pleas were to no avail as the one of the puppets tore open her kimono’s skirt section while the other applied some of fluid which it had ejected from its fingers onto her plump a̲s̲s̲.
Igarashi’s eyes filled with hollow despair at this moment, and the puppets’ eyes flashed red as they spanked her alternatively with the paddles in their hands.
She thought of enduring it at first, but these puppets were the strongest machines of the device and the fluid which had been applied to her a̲s̲s̲ possessed the effect of weakening spirit defense.
Igarashi could not help but scream in pain after just a few spanks.
Although she was powerful and had used the punishment device to humiliate all the women who had lost to her, she had never suffered its punishment until now, and just could not stop herself from screaming in pain gracelessly.
The gloomy samurai, the gunner, and the seriously wounded monk got up from the wreckage in a sorry state and rushed towards the device.
“Ms. Igarashi!”
They got welcomed by Lily, who stepped out of the device through its broken screen, though.
“Your mistress is very busy right now. She doesn’t have time for you buffoons.”
Lily waved her hand aside and forced the injured trio down to the ground with a powerful sakura petal blast and disabled them from getting up for a good while.
She then walked towards Haihime and helped her up by grabbing her hand.
Haihime shivered in trepidation when she heard the spanking and wailing from the punishment device. “W-Wh…”
“Hmph. She got her just desserts, that’s all there’s to it,” Lily said icily3.
“Let’s go, Sister Haihime.”
“Mhm…” Haihime looked at the damaged punishment device with incredulity, but then just laughed it off in the end while hiding her mouth with her sleeve.
Lily undid her domain and retrieved the silk sashes as the ropes alone were enough to restrain the red-faced, short-breathed Igarashi right now.
The ruins of the public square came into view when the domain vanished, but it took a while for the distant spectators to understand what was going on when they heard the spanking sounds and wails from the punishment device.
“J-Just wait for me, Kagami Lily! I’ll make sure you pay the price for your actions!” The chancellor of the realm pointed at Lily furiously, but the platform he was seated on collapsed with a cracking sound the next moment and toppled him down along with his subordinates.
The soldiers did not dare to block Lily’s path after witnessing the unearthly battle between Lily and Igarashi, and just watched with tied hands as she left the square along with Haihime.
The puppets within the punishment device had gone out of control by now and struck harder with each successive spank, which ended up turning Igarashi into a sobbing mess. There was no sign of dignity left on her face as a powerful guardian of justice, and she just wailed in pain like a helpless little girl.
The puppets issued creaking sounds the next moment and spitted out sparks from their cracks as the energy within them reached a point of explosion.
Boom!
The entire punishment device exploded into pieces with a loud bang the next second.
A strong wind blew away the smoke resulting from the explosion a moment later and revealed the utter mess at the center of the public square.
Igarashi hung upside down from the wreckage of the device with some of the ropes binding her in a ruptured condition, and her outfit had become tattered as well.
“Ms. Igarashi!” Her subordinates rushed towards her in haste and pulled her down from the wreckage after undoing the ropes.
The red-faced Igarashi’s eyes glistened with tears as her feeble body got rescued from the wreckage by her subordinates and she glared at the direction Lily had left with bashful anger, saliva still dripping from her lip’s corner.
“Lily, you damn b̲i̲t̲c̲h̲! I swear I will never forget the humiliation you put me under today! I will return this debt for sure!”
…
…
Lily had long arrived in front of Ayaka’s residence with Haihime in tow on the hound by this time.
“Ms. Kagami?!” The residence’s gatekeeper exclaimed in gleeful surprise after seeing Lily return.
Lily entered the residence along with Haihime and guided her to a room in the inner courtyard before giving her a life-recovery magatama for healing her injuries. She then called for a priestess to tend to the injured Haihime.
“Rest here for now, Sister Haihime,” Lily said while holding Haihime’s hand.
Haihime lied down in the room and looked at Lily with mixed emotions as she asked, “I’m sorry for landing you in trouble, Lily.”
“Don’t be silly now. It’s no trouble for me.” Lily chuckled fondly.
“I never imagined the gap between our strength has widened so much, Lily. I’m going to train harder so that I can catch up with you,” Haihime said while holding back her tears.
Haihime had her own pride as one of the world’s powerhouses, so even though she felt grateful to the younger Lily for saving her, she still felt ashamed of it. She showed a thoughtful expression suddenly, though, and turned over to lie down on her stomach the next moment.
“Is anything wrong, Sister Haihime?”
“C-Can you check if any scars were left behind, Lily?” Haihime looked pretty worried about this4.
“Hah? I already called a priestess for that, you know?”
“No. I don’t want anyone else to look at my body, especially now…” Haihime buried her head into the pillow in shame and narrowed her eyes as she panted with flushed cheeks.
