Hmm. I'm trying to picture what you want.

Normal Stance -> Casting Stance (probably blank) -> Normal Stance
.....................|| .... Battle Animation Thing .......|| ....................

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Based on my experiments, when you're using a Skill, the character's "casting" animation (yours is probably blank) lasts exactly the same time as the skill's effect animation. When you attack with a weapon, the attack animations are a static 3 frames with the last frame paused until the animation is complete.

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My recommendation is to do this:

* Left/right hand doesn't matter
* Weapon's attack animation being your attack thing's Battle Animation
* Your character's animation while using that item should be a blank battle animation - the same amount of frames as your attack thing's

Keep in mind that a weapon doesn't have to always be a weapon - it can be called "Bare Hands" or something. If this is a skill, you'd set it up basically the same way..

If that doesn't work, it's probably because it's not entirely clear what you want. Is this going to be a weapon animation, or a skill animation? How many frames long is the animation? Can you get a screenshot of when the animations "collide" onscreen? (Alt+Printscreen, paste into Paint)

Of course, you could always make a GameDisk and upload it somewhere so I can see what's going on directly..