A person just died. Not just any officer determined to lay their life down for the sense of duty they felt in their heart. For the meaning of purpose that made their life feel fulfilled. What bullshit. As if life even needed justification… The person who laid their life down was a mother of a young family who probably had no reason to be in the Security Force while this conflict was going on at all.

And what did Mana know really? The magician stood back up as she wiped her tears and looked out through the window at the weak winter sunlight doing its best to melt through the lockdown of snow and ice. She never even thought that there would be a need to put the rookies on the front lines like this…

"Why? Why did you do that, Toiya-san?" Mana whispered to herself seeing the glass in front of her react to the warmth of her breath by steaming up.

Craving for the winter frost to refresh her thoughts again, the magician pressed her forehead against the window and closed her eyes. She used to be so confident and cheerful about everything. Whenever her fellow students in the Academy or her elders heard about Mana's dreams of changing the world, they always thought it was just a phase, just her immaturity, and childish nature. Was this the moment when it became clear to Mana too? Was this the moment when it was best for her to give up and change at last?

It was easy to think of changing the world when washing the dishes at Ichiraku or picking herbs was all that Team Oak had to do. When the worst that her failure would have brought was a smaller pay and a very irritated shop owner. Now it felt like it was always supposed to feel, this was the plain, which Mana had always dreamed to stand on. Hold her own against the cruel world she lived in, thinking that the act of standing in front of it would impress it enough to steer aside in the direction she chose for it.

Mana let her eyes briefly lift and narrow rays of light flood her senses that were becoming quite fond of the dark of her closed eyes. The sun was hiding behind the rainclouds and, little by little, it was becoming apparent that it would soon begin to rain.

It was so comforting returning back to the days where she could see the smiles of Shimo and Sugemi stretching out like the reverse arcs of a rainbow. When all three of them were about as young physically but much less experienced. There were times when it felt like things were much better when that experience was absent, even though the lack of experience felt like the problem at the moment. The more experienced Mana grew, the more mistakes she made and learned from, the more the gap between she was and where she wanted to go looked.

More people were flocking to the Tribunal building, a handful of Security officers rushed outside to keep them out as they were becoming braver the closer the rain got to them. Some of them gave in and decided that this Tribunal session was not important enough to get wet for, it did deserve a slow and attentive read on tomorrow's paper at best. Others only became bolder as Shukuba Security increased in presence.

This would have been a great moment for a hero to stand up and face the crowd. Talk to them and calm their fears, give them something to satisfy their curiosity and ensure them that justice will be served to those they feared. Plenty of those people craved violent penance for the Diamond Hand, even those who aided Security in uncovering their ploys and unraveling the organization, a hero would have reasoned with them as well. A hero that Mana wanted to become but could not muster up the strength to measure up to. Mana's arms and legs slipped down the windowsill, she lacked the strength to do her duty as a hero.

Would they even want to see a spoiled crybaby who couldn't even protect those closest to her? Who dropped all of her cleverly put up defenses and halted all of her strategies after just being shown a little tease of her friend's memory. She was so hopeless, a little slip of Shimo's legacy and she froze up completely.

Mana closed her eyes again, her mind began to close in and implode on itself as the magician focused on the chaotic soup of her own feelings. Meditation once brought back her will to live when her body was just about gone and ready to move on. Maybe it could help her now as well?

Nothing but emptiness followed by a singular source of drops greeted Mana. After going through so much in such a short period, Mana's heart appeared to be completely empty with nothing but a raindrop looping its primitive journey from forming to falling to its death or joining something greater than it was, depended on one's point of view. She went from feeling determined to scared, confused to grieving, absolutely furious to blank…

A wannabe hero of an empty heart. Was that all she was? The session must have resumed in the Tribunal. A pair of officers walked past Mana, carrying Index's unconscious and bloodied body, still tied up and with the sealing tag present, treating her like a sensitive weapon of mass destruction, probably for the better.

The Tribunal session must have continued if the hall was back to working, back to reason, this woman did not belong in a Tribunal session, she belonged in the hospital before being placed in a containment facility until her case could be readied to be brought in front of the Tribunal proper. The war against the Diamond Hand continued, Toiya's lifeless body was also carried away.

What should Mana do now? For the first time in a while, her mind was as empty as her heart which decided to reboot itself after being filled and spilling over the overflowing feelings that spawned inside it. Before she took action, she made mistakes sometimes, she was too weak certainly, inexperienced most likely, but she always had a plan. She was Nakotsumi Mana. Everyone she worked with always looked at her for a plan or a skeleton of one that anyone with ideas could give flesh and breathe life into.

Not anymore. It should have been Mana who was laying on that stretcher all covered up with bloody blankets. Toiya should have come back to her family tonight, she had so much more to live for. Then again, such was the cruelty of the world Mana wanted to change. Even though no one deserved death, it was often those that needed to live the most that ended up dying. At least the part of the world Mana felt disdain for stayed consistent with its rules…

The Security was clever about it, they did not move the two through the main entrance, instead choosing to carry them through the back. At least the multiple carriages that the Security came in will come in handy.

What now? Ring Ring was still at large. He was someone responsible for the violent crime that was not purely assassination or economical in nature, even though Index did describe him as a serial murderer of some kind. A local celebrity of the criminal world. That made Ring Ring not a person to be taken lightly and one that needed to be captured before Shukuba Reformation truly could be called successful.

Normally Mana's head would be swarming with ideas. She knew all about Raitoncide's abilities, she faced him once. He was truly formidable with his Lightning Release stored seals, at any given moment he could have been charging them even more so time was a concern, not to mention the time limit that Yushijin imposed on her.

Mana felt tired, both emotionally and physically. Her sores and busted bones lit up with phantom pain with even the faintest thought of facing off against Raitoncide again. She had no right to be careless again, not after Burgoniya and Toiya both lost their lives. The magician could not foolishly rush to her death like she did before, she now felt the weight of all the lives lost on her shoulders. The thought of those lives materializing as objects with finite weight and purpose to them disgusted Mana and made her nauseous.

Even if a single thought of facing against the Diamond Hand felt like an impenetrable wall, a trial of fire to a girl made of ice, Mana felt duty-bound to see this matter to the end now. Would she not even if Toiya and Burgoniya were alive? Given the impressive blows she has taken from the enemy side, probably she would have entrusted this matter to the newly reformed Security Force. Then again, this was just senseless what-ifs.

Mana closed her eyes again, listening in to the sounds of madness around her, both the boisterous quarrels of the civilians with the Security Force outside and the procession of the Tribunal session in the nearby hall. There was no doubt about it, if she faced against Raitoncide by herself he would be prepared for her. He would kill her and while the idea of dying offered an easy yet morbid way out, the duty Mana felt to do right by her fallen comrades prevailed over the highly disturbing lows that her mind wandered to when the girl ended up failing the people dear to her or falling short in any manner of speech.

If she brought the Shukuba Security with her, someone would die again. Just another dead person on Mana's already beaten and dragged through the dirt mental state. The magician felt bad before when Burgoniya's death was the only one weighing her down, now she had to actively combat the surging emotions that demanded something rash but ultimately stupid of her. Hence the magician not moving for a while off of the windowsill providing her sanctuary in a rather extreme moment of gloom.

Looking at her empty heart as the drops of rain behind the cold window Mana was pressing her back to made raindrops materialize inside her mind as well. Mana loved the rain, this state of her Ego meditational state felt so soothing and comforting in a moment when even death sounded like a welcome relief. The magician laid down and stretched her hands out, trying to absorb all of the raindrops, trying to soak in with whatever was pouring down inside her own heart. She wanted to hear every single raindrop as it hit the edge of whatever she was floating on inside her hollow mind.

Screw Raitoncide, screw Donyoku, she could have just remained like this for hours. Just laying on her back, relaxed inside her own mind and letting in only those elements of the outside world that helped her stay afloat. Just the rain. Always the rain.

Mana always liked the rain. She pushed her black locks away from her face as it almost made her nose itch for real. A ray of light in the shape of an upside arc burst from below, blinded by the light Mana sat up and realized she was in her room. Just like after one of her shows, after a good shower when she sat on her beds watching the rain pour down her home window… Sometimes she felt hopeless, sometimes her hands sank down and sadness wrapped its ugly, wrinkly and long fingers all around caging Mana like a canary.

"Move," Mana mumbled. Her eyes opened up as she took a hop off the windowsill. If she forgot how amazing the rain was if she forgot how soft the home bed she sat on felt if she forgot how much fun it was watching Kiyomi tease Meiko or Sugemi ramble about his manga was all that would be left was all the people she had failed. If this conflict with the Diamond Hand was a war, Mana was a soldier. There was more to her than the people she let down, she was not the sum of her failures, not just that anyways.

If she let these failures consume her if she sank into the sea of tears that was filling her empty heart without finding a smile to light her way she'd lose that war. She started that war so that the people of Shukuba could live freely so that the children of this town could watch the grace of raindrops running down their windows in safety. Mana was so determined to give up her own life for this freedom that she almost felt disappointed it did not come to that.

She was a soldier, she still had her experience, her unique way of viewing the world and what the Diamond Hand fired back at her would not keep her down. Soldiers covered up their wounds and kept going. Heroes were nothing else but soldiers who were really good at hiding their wounds. Step by step, Mana walked back to the hall where she had lost another friend in.

A good twenty minutes later, the door opened with Shira and another officer leading Muriya and Thumb out of the hall. The party stopped temporarily after seeing Mana, they were clearly noting how distraught she looked and Shira did not have to look back far to recall how deeply affected the magician was of losing people.

"Muriya is being sent to Eden Containment Facility for seven years," Shira spoke up as he continued his duty to lead the Pinky Ring back to the local containment facility inside the Shukuba Security HQ until he is ready to be relocated.

"What about his family?" Mana asked, looking back at Muriya's wife and kids who were scurrying behind the party. Judging from their expressions what had transpired inside that hall had left quite an effect on them but the kids were looking up at Mana with a strangely happy expression. The magician knew those eyes, she herself used to adopt them when reading greatly exaggerated stories about heroes in history books.

"Heroes are just soldiers who are really good at hiding their wounds." Mana thought to herself as she forced a smile for the pair. These two just saw a woman attempting to murder their father, someone dying while attempting to stop her and Mana losing control after multiple failures at besting the murderer and yet they were looking at her like a hero and the only thing in their mind appeared to be relief and admiration.

These two may have been the greatest heroes of them all…

"They aren't really facing any charges. It's up to them, ultimately." Shira explained.

"And I get to finish what you started." Thumb smacked Mana's shoulder in a manner that reminded greatly of how Meiko used to do it, except this time Mana did not have to worry about her shoulder being dislocated after the gesture.

"We convinced the council that the woman is essential to the investigation. She will continue to cooperate with the Security Force and the council allowed to remain in the town as long as she does so." Shira nodded with a face that suggested discontent about further cooperation with a Ring of the Diamond Hand. It was only because she was so useful this far that the man even allowed her so close to him and potentially working together with him.

"They did not specify it had to be related to the Diamond Hand too so… I'm holding my fingers!" Thumb joked, poking Shira's elbows with one of her own.

"What about you three?" Mana turned with concern at Muriya's family. Falling behind slightly so she could speak to Muriya's wife.

"We want to be there with Muriya." The woman answered without skipping a beat. It was quite evident that if the matter required it, she'd start committing crimes if that meant being placed alongside her husband.

"I've been in Eden once. I know someone working there so I can help you get accommodations there. Eden is not only a containment facility but also a sanctuary for important people that require protection. I am sure that someone related to someone who cooperated with the bringing down of the Diamond Hand will find a place there with a friendly letter explaining things." Mana assured the woman feeling quite glad that she actually did know someone on the inside. Aburame Yanagi could have helped the family getting a place there while Sugemi could have made sure that no harm came to them.

By the time that the session was over and the Security Force left the building to the relocated carriages, the crowd outside had caught wind of the relocation and followed the vehicles. Mana took a pair of deep breaths before tapping Shira's shoulder as a passing of the baton sign of trust.

"I'm going to give these people something, should give you guys enough space to roll out." Mana smiled.

"Are you sure about it?" Shira raised an eyebrow.

"The public must never stop seeing the Shukuba Security as heroes. Never." Mana nodded before seeing the carriage slowly take off and following it to the nearest turn with her eyes and facing the crowd.

The way back to Shukuba Security HQ could have been more comfortable. The cold and the slowly dying out rain did not make it simple for the magician to return to her comrades. The talk with the village officials may have gone better. They could not have missed out on how crappy Mana looked but she managed to push it off to be just a side result of the big scuffle that occurred during the Tribunal session.

"So how did it go?" Thumb raised an eyebrow, preparing her mouth for an upcoming cringe-fest as if knowing that Mana would reveal the talk has been a tremendous failure.

"Your "no comment" advice was pretty useful. Talking about the Tribunal session, the role of the few Diamond Hand Rings that aided the investigation and all that was easy. Informing them about what happened with the stolen town budget was alright, even though I did not have all the details but… Talking about the losses during the session was…" Mana stopped to swallow the massive gulp of painful feelings that crawled up her throat from somewhere deep below as she spoke up about Toiya's sacrifice.

"A no-comment type of topic…" Thumb finished Mana's sentence with calm eyes, managing to step over her indecent desire to laugh at the magician in the face of a loss. Maybe the fact that Toiya gave up her life to protect Mana's and ensure Index's capture was exactly what helped Thumb to step over her usual self and her usual instincts.

"Yeah." Mana nodded. "So… Where's everybody?"

Sora stepped up. "Muriya and his family are safely contained in their cells. They will be transferred to Eden tomorrow. Index is still tied up, tagged and knocked out. She was looked at by a medical professional who said she should make it through this night and tomorrow or in the nearest future we should transfer her to the Shukuba arrest house until she can go through proper Tribunal procedure and be moved to wherever she is sent to."

His stance may have been a bit lax and rebellious but he did pretty much nail all the details Mana hoped to hear. It appeared that this stage of the conflict was already over and things were clear to look on ahead.

"Alright, we can then move on to Ring Ring." Mana noted, making Shira, Sora, and Thumb all direct their attention to Mana. Multiple officers the magician could not recognize who were brought into the force through common experience and recommendations of one or more of the rookies also lifted their heads looking up to Mana.

"I wish I could help you guys… Even if I know for sure I can't mention his name, there's not too much I can tell about him. Apparently, he was some bigshot serial killer before he was hired to replace the last Ring Ring. There were huge feuds about taking him in, Middle Finger did not want him in charge of the roughhousing Ring Finger. Serial killers may not necessarily make fine arsonists, racketeers and the like if you catch my cold." Thumb sat down and relaxed in one of the free chairs by her side.

"And yet it appears that something convinced him otherwise…" Sora mentioned the obvious when he looked at Mana's reaction to Thumb's vague hints.

"Ring Ring was an odd guy. He acted kind of girly, his hairdo was very pompous and he was not the guy who could hide in plain view that well. He also did not like Index at all. When she picked me up to finish me off, he blasted at her back attempting to kill us both. One of the reasons his attack was so effective was because I expected the attack much later and could not react to it when it came." Mana recalled, looking down in embarrassment. Recalling the royal beating she received in the hands of both Rings was not an easy experience, especially when her self-confidence was already at an all-time low.

"Someone who targets his own companions? That certainly affirms the theory that he was the killer hired not too long before Thumb's defection." Shira nodded, scratching his chin. While the young man looked like a competent officer he did not appear to be enjoying this more thought based part of the job.

"Do the Diamond Hand make it a habit of hating their own kind?" Sora raised an eyebrow looking at Thumb. Mana could not help but notice how casually the youth accepted the criminal into his fold, he certainly took less convincing than Shira.

"It depends. Most of us are just people united under one flag. None of us were friends although for a while there was a sense of balance and cold, emotionless work-based environment. This new Ring Ring did shake things up a bit, even though not even before we would have taken a blade to the heart for one of our own…" Thumb shrugged.

Shira burnt the woman with an absolutely infuriated stare to which she responded with an apologetic gesture and a shrug. While Mana did not enjoy this comparison coming only hours after the event actually took place, she did want to hear all that the burglar had to say.

"They did not seem to wait too long before branding you and Pinky as traitors…" Sora noticed.

"Yeah. I knew almost instantly when I came to the HQ that I would not be waltzing back even with the jewels in hand. Middle Finger does not mind failure all that much but he is not overly fond of someone not following his orders." Thumb nodded without a care on her face.

"When I laid knocked out, I thought I was dying… I heard a name of sorts… Maybe I was just delirious but it could not have been, I have never heard that name before. It was… Raitoncide." Mana mentioned a very distinctive memory alongside the tons upon tons of painful and suppressed fearful and painful nightmares present whenever the magician trodden back to that period of time in her mind.

"Raitoncide, are you sure?" Shira freaked out.

"That's a name we haven't heard in a while." Sora smiled with a hint of irony on his face.

"I can neither confirm or deny that name, for I am still under the taboo seal…" Thumb shrugged with some mocking tones in her statement.

"If you can add nothing useful to the conversation you would be wise to stay quiet!" Shira growled before turning at Mana to explain. "Raitoncide was indeed a rather infamous local figure. He was a killer who operated with a perfect rate of success and did not leave anything behind to trace him with. He is a complete mystery to us and multiple people got killed when the public started a witch hunt of their own."

"When the killings matching his profile ceased, it was reported that the official version of the Security force was that the public must have accidentally executed the real Raitoncide. A bit of dark humor does not seem to evade our little pleasure town." Sora scratched his stubble.

"Knowing how corrupt the Security Force was at the time, if Raitoncide got introduced into the Diamond Hand they would have stopped the investigation and covered up any additional killings even if they were present." Mana grabbed the bull by the horns almost immediately.

"Middle Finger would not have tolerated a Ring of his off doing something messy and grim like that. The order of him stopping his streak of murders must have been a condition of him being allowed to join and his trail being covered up." Thumb spun around on the chair while looking at her finger she raised up like a little child.

"I have fought him. His style is quite flawed as he can run out of juice easily if the battle lasts a bit longer. How exactly did he evade capture so successfully?" Mana felt surprised that Raitoncide was as successful as he was given his childlike and carefree attitude as far as she remembered.

"He required two skills that are basically witchcraft: arson table and forensics to work perfectly. He charred the wounds of his victims or burnt the surrounding area up. All that arson specialists could tell the Security back then, was basically what they could have seen already – that an arson happened." Sora sighed with frustration. Mana had already experienced the distrust that the Security had for their forensics specialists – shoving all of their nosy recruits there to make them lose hope.

If only Burgoniya was still alive…

"If I faced off against him, I am sure that I could beat him. Not in my current state though. I need myself at my peak reflexes and physical condition if I am to dodge natural lightning bolts that he forms… He will be weaker now than he was when I fought him the first time." Mana scratched her own chin while she pouted her lips hard – telltales signs of her sinking deep into her thoughts.

"How so?" Thumb wondered.

"He charges his seals up himself. He did not strike me as a powerful ninjutsu user or someone with tremendous chakra resources. It is quite likely that it would take him actual years to charge his seals to where they were then, more likely than not he is using natural electricity and lightning from storms to charge up his seals." Mana snapped her fingers, it appeared that Shira had figured out Mana's point at about the same time.

"Amazing, so if we can locate a place that gets hit by lightning the most often we are likely to close up to him. From there on you can find him using your chakra sensory." He completed voicing Mana's plan before the magician did, sadly he was a little bit off.

"No. That's what I would have normally done but too many people got hurt by me doing things how I usually do them. I need to make sure that not a single officer gets hurt or has a hole blasted through them by a supercharged lightning bolt beam." Mana shook her head. "I need you guys to buy me something, do you think you can get enough of this to surround a large building?"

The Security officers observed Mana scribbling a name of a material onto a piece of paper before Shira picked it up after being offered it. The eyes of the Security officer quickly ran down the paper. Then they moved up to meet Mana's gaze.

"What is this?" he wondered.

"Lubber, a special type of rubber used on training dummies that ninja train with. They are built especially resistant to heat and lightning and are very difficult to damage by Fire or Lightning Release jutsu. They are also meant to help develop new techniques by attracting electricity and heat to them. I need an actual ton of the material." Mana explained.

Sora ran out of the room, heading into the archive room before Shira and Thumb kept looking at each other with confusion, trying to figure out where they could buy something like this.

"Black market dealers usually deal excess, stolen or defective ninja tools and materials. I may shake some old trees and see what falls out." Thumb shrugged but, from her expression, it was clear that she was not that confident in her own success.

"Take Sora and some men with you, it will be dangerous for you to approach your old contacts now," Mana advised.

"You kidding? They'll see those guys from a mile away. They don't really give a shit about criminal politics. As long as I can pay the price, they won't give a shit if I'm still aligned with the Diamond Hand or not." Thumb snickered at the very thought of it.

"I will take some men and we'll run a check across the town stores, maybe someone will deal it. It is likely that we will find some of it, or scrape it off actual training dummies, what is less likely is the quantity you are asking for." Shira nodded with a troubled face.

After voicing their honest thoughts of Mana's plan, the duo split and got to work before the night came. Then again, it was not like Shira and Thumb let something like the end of their workday interrupt their work…

Sora finally appeared from the archives with a file in his hand. He flipped through it before placing the file on the table and pointing to a line in it.

"I've checked some of the old investigation files that had things to do with Raitoncide. Most of the reports were filed by Itemi." Sora informed the magician, looking quite happy with himself that he managed to gather this information this quickly.

"Good, in that case, I'm off to the hospital. It's been entire days since Itemi-san was skewered. He may not be ready to return to action but he will definitely be awake by now. Maybe he can give me something that will help us find the location we'll need to insulate…" Mana reported to the officer despite having no obligation to do so.

"Sounds… Sound." Sora nodded before the two parted ways.

The blood on Toiya's sheet may not have dried out yet and the Shukuba Security was hard at work after the enigmatic Raitoncide.

Author's Note: Well, I guess I did put up something for Christmas :)

I always wanted to experiment with the structure of the first half of the chapter, I don't expect anyone to notice what exactly I meant by that and I don't really feel confident about my "experiment" to reveal what I tried to do (because I'm a little bit ashamed of the result) but doing something like this is part of the reason why I started writing this, to begin with.

I wondered if I could muster up the energy to write the usual extra-sized chapter for Christmas but after I realized how down and negative the first half of it was, I definitely settled on forcing myself to do it! Christmas is a time of self-reflection to some but I wanted something nice and more hopeful for the Holidays and while this chapter and story thread was always the intended course for it to go, I did not know it would come up on CHRISTMAS of all days! Talk about bad timing, then again, Mana "died" the first time on Christmas too so I guess that's just my kind of luck at this point...

Anyways, I don't know what's really wrong, just like the last time I ended up rewriting chunks upon chunks of this chapter because I just didn't feel like they ended up right and I still don't really feel like it did come out right. It's not writer's block but it is definitely something... Paranoia of some kind, most likely :P

Anyways, I hope you have Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas. Hug it out with your nearby family members and/or people you love and make sure you let them know how much you treasure them. Cheers to anyone reading this 3