"It's all been prepared. We're good to go." Shira reported by standing tall right past the doorframe to Mana's office. The magician nodded and jumped off her chair. After a quick check of her tools and weapons, she headed out.

Just like it was planned, there would be multiple carriages taking Muriya and his family as well as Thumb to the Tribunal building. Mana would travel with Thumb if only to keep the normally overly nervous woman a bit more talkative meanwhile Shira and Sora would be watching Muriya's carriage while Toiya and some of Shira's hired hands would be watching Muriya's family.

There were also multiple duds into the mix containing nothing but a handful of Security officers. Initially, Mana felt a bit nervous trusting one of the more sensitive targets – Muriya's family to a bunch of people she barely knew. After sensing their chakra and realizing that most of them were extensively physically trained individuals on the same level if not surpassing Shira and the other recruits she herself took in, the magician's heart calmed down a little.

"You ready?" Thumb grinned after Mana sat into the carriage even though it was painfully clear she was nervous behind that smile.

"We will soon find out." The magician replied.

Even if on paper it all seemed just great, get the procession on and going and then take Muriya and his family as far away from Shukuba as possible, if they get lucky, also subdue Index, Mana was still on the most edge she's been in a while. Everything was supposed to be planned erratically and spontaneously but solid enough, her sensory would let her see any incoming threats coming from a mile away but… Something still did not feel right.

"You don't look too well, slept alright?" Thumb addressed Mana, trying to bring up some small talk as the Shukuba sights shifted away through the windows beside them.

"I barely had any sleep. Too nervous I guess… Too many lives depend on this, too soon after I failed so miserably." The magician admitted.

"Isn't that half of the reason why you failed to begin with?" the burglar wondered.

"It cannot be helped. It's a circle of nightmares that come one after another. You know that you need to rest and that anxiety of knowing you cannot get any rest when you should only adds to the reasons why you cannot get any rest." Mana admitted with a slight smile. Sometimes when she was feeling underprepared, when the odds could not have weighed any more against her, a smile that defied all the odds came the easiest. It was like a bangle to emphasize and decorate the hopelessness in front of you.

Mana was impressed by how quickly Shira and the other officers put the procession together. She had not met any councilmen who partook in Tribunal sessions before but she did not expect them to be too happy about this and it could not have been an easy conversation to initiate. Judging by the looks of the people bustling around the Tribunal palace, the Security lightly underestimated and looked down on by the other law enforcement staff.

The looks following Mana, Thumb and the other processions of the officers were similar to those that inexperienced genin gave to teammates who were different. Be it genin that focused on power-based attacks looking down on their more supportive and intelligence-driven comrades or the other way around. It was only through long and oftentimes bloody experience that this attitude was beaten out of them. When those underestimating people finally understood that only through the cooperation of different kinds of people can anything get done right.

"Can you feel her?" Thumb turned at Mana as these sentimental thoughts and underestimating glares missed the burglar woman completely.

"No. It troubles me a little. I thought she would not miss an opportunity to kill her intended and hated targets all at once." Mana shook her head with unease. The longer she could pick up no traces of Index or any suspicious signatures in general, the more her anxiety snowballed.

"Maybe we rushed to fast? Maybe they don't know we're here?" Thumb wondered, stretching out almost as if she was not about to be trialed and told to leave the town she was born and grew up in.

"No. The intelligence of the Diamond Hand is formidable. I think it is only reasonable to assume that even this degree of spontaneity did not evade their attention." Mana debunked Thumb's thoughts.

"But is this not good anyways? I mean if they snooze they'll lose the chance to off us." Thumb shrugged.

"I guess… I'll only feel easy after all of this is over." Mana sighed as her already sore and damaged heart kept on pounding as if trying to claw its way outside her chest.

"Maybe, after this, I will know what it is like… Making a completely magnanimous gesture without anything for me to gain out of it. It will be a new experience." Thumb teased Mana again, trying to lighten up the magician's mood a little, which was, ironically, a little bit selfless all by itself.

"In case you don't get to. It's the best feeling in the world. Feels like every cell of your body acting upon your very nature. Your body moves all by itself and leaves nothing to any negative sides of you that can sway it aside." Mana smiled. She could see Toiya and a pair of other Security officers in the passing by procession smiling alongside her and nodding their heads wishing them and each other good luck in the tremendous trial to come.

Finally, the bunch reached the hall where the council allowed the Tribunal session a chance to be held just early this morning. There was a pair of low-ranking Tribunal workers, likely secretaries or other office-based kinds. They did not look happy, likely that frustration would have been translated on the faces of the much more intelligent and self-important Tribunal council members as well…

Mana scanned the large hall for any painfully familiar faces but she could find none. It was as if the Diamond Hand was about to ignore this session completely. A pair of officers separated Thumb from Mana and lead her to the front and sat her right beside Muriya. Mana located Muriya's family and sat right by their side. She would protect this bunch with her life.

"May all present stand up while the council members assemble." One of the secretaries raised her voice with indifference. Mana was jealous of that woman. If only she could sit with that amount of serenity in her heart things would be remarkably easier. Even death would have been preferable to this kind of infernal abyss of the unknown.

The slightly irritated Tribunal members gathered in the hall and without wasting much time started the procession. As the procession continued and the head of the Tribunal council continued to read off the number of the case, confirm the present and missing members of the case and other formalities Mana once more reached out through the hall trying to pick up traces of familiar chakra.

What if Index was here but she managed to evade Mana's sensory somehow? Something here did not make any sense… Way back when Index entered the Shukuba Security posing as a lawyer of some sort… Mana did not notice any unusual signs of her chakra being massive or in any kind unusual compared to the signatures of the Security officers. And yet… When Mana faced off against Ring Ring and Index their signatures flared up like beacons of flame and light, distinctive and present.

What if one could project their chakra signature somehow onto another frequency? After all, Yushijin managed to learn that suppression technique that made his signature impossible for Mana to tell from an average civilian. It removed not only the size and intensity difference but any distinctive features of his signature by which one would normally separate them from others as well. If his signature had a different color to it, the possessor would mask those traits as well. What if Index was just the same, what if she could mask her signature by projecting it onto another frequency by focusing on it hard so that sensors could not pick it up, it would have been as impossible to perceive as seeing the third dimension on a two-dimensional plain.

Mana turned around and started scanning the hall for familiar faces. If Index could fool her sensory, she could not fool Mana's eyes and ears and other senses the same way. After all, if Index herself was masking her appearance, she would have been actively using her chakra which would have made modulating the frequency of its projection impossible. If Index could have hidden her signature in active combat, she would have when she faced Mana…

Mana's eyes could not pick up on anything unusual. A relatively small crowd of civilians was beginning to gather in the Tribunal hall, a negative side of publicity that the Diamond Hand had acquired and yet if the ordinary civilians could find out that members of the infamous Diamond Hand were being put on trial here, the Diamond Hand definitely could have. Index or someone of her employ had to be here, even if they were, they were doing a very remarkable job at hiding from Mana's eyes and chakra sensory.

One of the Tribunal council members instructed a bunch of people to leave the hall. Some of them were troublemakers who thought that yelling obscenities at the Rings of the Diamond Hand was a good idea. Others were witnesses that were supposed to stay neutral and therefore had to leave the hall until the appropriate time. For a brief moment, the consequences forced Mana to admire the fact that the Shukuba Security managed to present the case of the Rings in such a brief time. Toiya may have had a talent at this whole speaking to the Tribunal council thing… Even so, she chose a much less rewarding and much more hated career as a Security officer instead, despite the money she could be making and supporting her family, the safety of her town was still a priority on the woman's mind.

There… Mana's eyes fell on a dark haired and tanned woman wearing shades and formal attire, moving opposite to the crowd of people leaving the hall. She was using the witnesses and other civilians to blend in visually, her attire and movements were so subtle that the visual aspect of her presence was difficult to pick up and tell apart as a suspicious detail even for someone as trained as Mana… Index may have been a massive pain in the Security's bottom and an overall nasty person but Mana had to give her credit for just the same reason – she was spectacularly efficient at being troublesome to her enemies, which made Index an amazing soldier for her cause.

It dawned on Mana that it may have been wise to initiate an illusion of some sort to subdue her enemy. For the time being, she was still unnoticed. It was quite a rare and luxurious advantage. One that could have won her this encounter but… Yushijin's warnings did not stop ringing in Mana's ears when her hands moved for hand seals. A single Sweet Lullaby genjutsu could have subdued not just Index but the entire hall at the same time. At the very least it would have quickly de-escalated the conflict efficiently if a little on the extreme side.

However just how much would such effort weigh on Mana? How much effort would be left for tomorrow or the day after, when Mana had to face Ring Ring and Yokotomo and his other schemes? No. She would need to hold back a little bit and keep something for tomorrow and the fights to come.

The magician's hands formed a single hand seal, her training in the Rabbit Caves during the Chuunin Exams helped her minimize the chakra strain and hand seals required to use most of her old techniques, even without the wand in her hands.

"Scary Trick Jutsu!" Mana chanted out, targeting Index and a pair of people surrounding her with an illusion of insects or other crawlies from the deepest parts of their subconscious and otherwise fears to come to life in excessive quantities. Seeing Index's skin pale and her lips dye blue and quiver in fear, same for a pair of civilians who fell on the ground and began scratching at their faces and hair and writhing on the floor, Mana moved in to place the "Hare" tag on the Ring.

It was then that she noticed Index's hand wrapping tightly around that of an already scared young woman. Even when completely buried in hordes upon hordes of her nightmares coming to life and covering her, Index retained enough willpower to catch a hostage. Mana did not like that one bit, the affected civilian was writhing about and the situation was just moments away from Index's blades, wherever they were, penetrating the woman from behind or slitting her throat by accident. Panic fear was a bad state for someone holding hostages to be in…

While with reluctance, Index's play forced Mana to release the illusion. It was not like the magician did not have a much more costly backup plan. Just as the traces of illusion started fading away with the faces of the affected civilians becoming overcome with glee and relief as their fears became just powder of ash before scattering away, Mana's lips began whistling a gentle tune, locking every living soul around her in another illusion.

Where before Mana had an ability to control how many people she would cast one of her earliest illusions on, due to time spent mastering the jutsu, the Sweet Lullaby technique was much more chaotic, affecting people hearing the tune was the only option. At least the effects of the illusion were somewhat tolerable if not pleasant – being overcome by pleasant sensory overloads of every sense the target had, so intense was the sensation that the affected targets were completely subdued for a good minute or so. Only then did becoming accustomed to the feeling would have helped Index recover.

Mana's hands moved down to her hip, removing the "Hare" tag from her pouch and moving in. Gently, the magician navigated around the crawling and grunting civilians and homed in on the woman who had caused this town and Mana personally so much pain. Mana's hand extended forward, reaching in, it was like all time had stopped as the paper tag moved in closer to the subdued assassin.

The magician's eyes opened wide and her hand trembled. It stopped moving for just a fraction of a moment as her eyes caught a bright glimmer of Audra alloy orb present on a wand all too familiar to Mana. Sadly, a fraction of a moment was way too much for her opponent not to simply dispel the illusion by forcing her own chakra flow to blast the affected brain centers with chakra, enough of it to completely overwhelm Mana's illusion.

Mana saw the short blade coming her way. Seeing was not the same as being quick or lively enough to dodge it. Her movements were slow and clunky, every single twitch of her muscles was accompanied with cramps and pain from her grueling battle the last day. Seeing the glimmer of light at the blade's end, Mana realized that the assassin had once again outplayed her – she utilized every advantage, played every card just right and… The most infuriating part was… Despite all of what happened, despite Yushijin giving her a second chance, Mana still failed and would end up dead.

A strong push shoved Mana out of the way. The magician rolled and recovered relatively quickly, the adrenaline-fueled by her own fear of dying helped her push through the pain but the sight she was met with upon facing the threat again was so painful that for a brief moment the magician's consciousness just phased out.

Index had completed her thrust, her movements were sluggish and the weight of the body impaled on her blade had strangely dragged the assassin underneath. It was like all of Index's strength has been sapped without even requiring the "Hare" seal but the temporary success did not matter. As the injured Security officer rolled on her back with a kodachi sticking out from her heart, Mana rushed in.

Her mind was not where it was supposed to be. Complete, unbridled rage took over as her eyes whited out. The sight was all blurred, Mana could only vaguely perceive what was going on around her but she could perfectly lock on the key figures who were colorful and distinctive as never before. It was as if her rage made anything but the enemy fade out of view. Mana's usually reserved and gentle palm strikes were transformed into curled scratches and smacks that left wide gashes and nearly severed limbs as it raked through muscle and flesh alike. With a strong kick right at Index's face, the assassin got sent flying into a supporting pillar like a ragdoll before falling down and refusing to move.

"Toiya… Why?" Mana screamed out, kneeling by the injured officer who just blankly stared at the ceiling of the Tribunal hall depicting dignified artistic depictions of staunch war heroes and samurai standing tall in the face of tremendous adversity. Sights that were supposed to inspire courage before those facing the Tribunal faced justice, reminding of the strength of the human spirit of the past.

It was not that rage somehow empowered Mana, it was just that by dispelling a B-Rank genjutsu Index had drained herself of almost all of her chakra. The woman was almost at a complete physical peak, experienced and trained enough to be able to dispel illusions but by trying her luck against an advanced illusion, she overstretched and folded like an aspen facing a hurricane.

"The… Tag…" Toiya whimpered as even those two words came through extreme difficulty.

"Why? You had a family back home. Why did you do that? You had so much more to live for!" Mana growled almost feeling angry at the Security officer for pulling what she did. Bit by bit, her mind was whiting out again before moments of clarity returned. The magician's will and sanity had never been pushed to such an extreme, she had never lost so many people she intended to protect.

"I… Acted on my nature… Had no time to… Think… Like you... Said..." Toiya worked up a smile with her bloodied cheeks. Shortly after, clarity in her eyes faded away.

Without uttering a word or lifting her chin up, Mana walked up to the defeated assassin and placed the "Hare" tag on the center of her back before wrapping her arms in steel wire. After that, she recovered the wand that was used to a great psychological effect and partly cost the life of a young Shukuba mother. Mana was a mess long before coming here and facing Index, the moment she saw Shimo's memento flashing before her eyes, she just froze...

"You won't need to try that hard to prove her guilt…" Mana mumbled out before dragging the unconscious and beaten to a pulp assassin before the Tribunal council. The magician was unsure if it was her conscious mind or if her sanity had already fleeted away. She left the hall and shuffled to the staircase outside for a breath of fresh air. The girl's hand froze by the large door leading to the outside, she could hear the rustling of the townsfolk outside and she could remember what happened the last time she revealed herself in a busy street at the day's peak of activity.

The magician slammed her back against the corridor wall before collapsing into tears. The people running about, the medical personnel and the curious bystanders floated through her senses and memory like bad dreams of even worse days.

Index was captured at last. But by the time the Diamond Hand is done, will there be anyone left to enjoy the fresh air of freedom?

Author's Note: Sorry if this Chapter seems rushed, and kind of chaotic and boring in terms of writing/structure. I did my best and rewrote it a couple of times and this is just the best I could muster up at the moment. I'm not sure if I'll be able to deliver with the usual double Christmas chapter either, mostly due to the same reasons this chapter keeps feeling really flawed and not worth posting. Sometimes I feel happy not too many people read my stuff :)

I've been going through some personal issues recently again and they got pretty bad. I don't think it'll make me miss out on my self-placed deadlines but I'm not sure I'll have it in me to do a usual extra-size chapter. Then again, this story was born due to need for me to vent some emotions and thoughts and occupy my mind on something unrelated to what's going on with my life so maybe it'll give me more motivation to write more, who knows.

Anyways, in case something goes wrong and I don't put anything up on Monday - have Happy Holidays! Best Wishes to you and your families this year, the coming year and the years to come 3