"I don't think the Feudal Lords to be fools," Mana replied before she could appear too baffled by the question posed to her. One advantage of the superhuman perception was having what seemed like an eternity before the time that normal people could perceive caught up to you. Time could have transitioned to what seemed like hours, days, years even before anyone but the samurai would have noticed Mana losing her way and her cool. Luckily for the magician, those were some of the warrior souls in an iron shell that refused to speak up or accuse her until the security of the Council was actually threatened.

"I think that if ninja were just mere tools, they'd have long since been replaced. I haven't ever thought of this that way but… I guess my nindo covers this question as well, just like no life is truly useless, no man can be reduced to just a tool. Ninja wield tools, their tough lives make some of them chill and distant but that does not make them the same as a chunk of steel." Mana explained herself, seeing that the Feudal Lords, while pleased by what seemed like a compliment to their intelligence out of nowhere, were generally baffled by what it was exactly that the girl meant.

"What exactly do you think makes ninja different? If the difference between the two is as clear as you make it seem, what is the core difference people who think differently are missing?" the Fire Lord's successor wondered aloud.

"Ninja wield tools, they themselves are not tools. To reduce a ninja just to the tools they use is to reduce them to a piece of what they are. If you need someone dead, which is quite the famous need as of late, you could pick up a dagger and run at them, hoping for the best, or you could give it to someone who knows how to do it right. For that reason, ninja will never be replaced by mere tools. Their knowledge, their experience, and skill make them invaluable. When you apply pressure to a nicely crafted blade – it cracks before breaking entirely. Ninja adapt, they mold and slip into the cracks of whatever is trying to break them. They know that they cannot break before their job is finished, they fear failure similarly to how the samurai fear dishonor and that respectful fear is something mere tools will never know." Mana had to stop and take a breath. Using chakra augmentation to not have to breathe so that she could speak was less than a smart way of using that ability, sometimes it was better to succumb to the more human weaknesses.

"Before we let you go… There is something I need you to tell this Council. Please, if you could do so, tell the Council about the attack three years ago. Over the three years, we have heard plenty of the civilians' side, we have heard everyone but those who were the close enough to the monster to feel its breath picking up their hair talk." The Fire Lord requested. His tone changed from before, this topic, this attack was something that personally bothered him. How could it not? So many people he was responsible for, so much property destroyed, his precious ninja bickering with the very people they worked for… The first time ever that a Hokage was forced to resign behind closed doors because of rampant distrust in the village administration. Shit-show would have been a tame name for it to use in kids' books.

"There's not much I can say, those that did talk about it said so much that there is little space for me to squeeze anything in. I think it is best to focus on the fact that it's over, it has been for three years now." Mana bowed and excused herself, the Fire Lord's tone and the content of his words suggested heavily that this was the last topic Mana was to be asked about.

"This is exactly why the Council had to advise the Sixth to resign." A disgruntled voice came from the side of the civilian representatives. Mana did not know these men and women but they seemed like nothing more than vain people that tried to hide their lack of strength, internal and physical, with fancy hats and a public position that ultimately meant nothing. Then again, she was far too disinterested in politics to be able to tell the difference between a Feudal Lord, a Hokage and one of those politician types…

"Yes, all the secrecy, this arrogant thought that there are things that everyone else needs to be protected from. Everyone can see that nothing is being protected but the ninja themselves." Another voice, that of an aged woman reached Mana. The Tribunal started their bickering before Mana could even leave. She should have left. She made a pretty good impression with all of the questions she answered, the magician knew it, she could sniff it with every sensory chakra tendril contained inside the temple of her body…

Her body moved by its own. Mana tried fighting it but she had to appear cool, heck, she had to stay cool while turning back and spilling what was spilling over. She had to grit her teeth and keep the pot firmly in her hands while the boiling water was spilling over, while the noodles that were simmering inside were spilling all over…

"You want to know all about it? Fine. I have encountered the monster before, it managed to escape while the ninja fought their hardest to contain the cult that gave birth to it, it got lost somewhere in the village and everybody had hoped that it did its best to escape. Nobody had enough guts to think for a second what would happen if Honda resurfaced but it did. There were mistakes made before the attack and during it…" Mana could feel her body tensing up, her temperature rising as she was beginning to boil. Her voice was rising bit by bit with every slipping word.

"So you admit that ninja may even be worse than tools, that they can make mistakes?" someone from the left side, not even affiliated with the civilians spoke up.

"The only mistakes made during the Honda incident were all the lives lost trying to contain or remove Honda. Too many ninja lost their lives holding back, doing their best to move the monster instead of engaging it." Mana felt her voice trembling, for the first time since she could remember, she felt almost glad that she was getting sensitive instead of angry. All the lives lost three years ago, the things experienced that day, the immeasurable weight on her shoulders to put the stop to all of it, the unbearable thought of what her failure might bring…

All of them were welcome, all of would have made Mana's eyes tear up a little, anything that would make her too sad to turn angry enough to make Ayushi's name slip. To speak up about Ayushi would be scandalous. The man was an icon, a damned hero, people were blaming and casting their flames at Konoha ever since he left the village. Honda gave them something else to talk about for once, to bring him up here in the context Mana would have inevitably brought him up in would have been disastrous.

"Perhaps it was wrong to ask to clarify about it of a person who was responsible for ending that incident. That was all that I wanted to hear about it, a clarification from your lips that ninja were capable of amazing things – like stopping that incident. I am sorry for how off the rails it went." The Fire Lord sighed.

"What's there to apologize for? We asked the Kirigakure Voice about the episode of the postal incident, we also spoke to the Voice of Kumogakure about the Limelight incident." The Water Lord stroke his mustache.

"Yeah, but none of those guys were associated with those events." Lightning Lord leaned out of his chair to give the man a scolding look.

With synchronized gestures from the Tribunal Council, Mana was excused. None of the men and women seated in all those important chairs could restrain their babbling while the magician walked up the demonic gate and left back to the other side. Their voices drowned each other out. They turned more and more muzzled with each passing step like they were no longer there like Mana was drowning and leaving them up on the surface…

At least this part was now done…

"Saved the world yet?" Jagaimo inquired with an indifferent face, turning his attention to Mana. Seeing the Voices of Kirigakure and Kumogakure talking to one another made Mana raise an eyebrow. From what she knew, Tokui hated Jagaimo's guts but the two barely exchanged a couple of words last night, just enough for Jagaimo to acquire the basic knowledge about the man so he could impersonate him in front of Mana.

"Someone had to clean up after you," Mana replied with an equal amount of cheek to match the wit she was greeted with. "Hey, what's Limelight?" she asked turning at Tokui.

"It is a village-destroying technique," Tokui replied in the as few words as possible manner signature to him.

"It does not take that much effort to destroy a village." Mana crossed her arms over her chest.

"Yeah, any pipsqueak with a grasp of basic chakra manipulation could do it. When I was a wee bit edgelord I commonly thought of doing something like that…" Jagaimo was just happy to get to drill and bite at the Kumogakure ninja.

"Limelight is no childish caprice. It is a jutsu that is capable of obliterating an area within set boundaries. If a child tried letting lose, any ninja above that child's level would simply take in all of that technique and protect their surroundings by withstanding all that power themselves. Limelight annihilated all. Ninja included… It may not take much effort to destroy an empty, massive patch of land but killing a hundred, a thousand of even average ninja requires unmatched power that few techniques can offer. Limelight can." Tokui explained. He looked quite open to talk about this, especially for someone usually so grumpy. That was something Mana found great interest in.

"If this jutsu was this powerful, more ninja would have mastered it. I would have heard about it before." Mana pondered, dismissing the potential underlying reasons why Tokui may have been this open about talking of this Limelight technique.

"Limelight is no weapon. It is more of a… Tool of retribution." The large ninja turned serious, there it was – the usual cold and brutal face. "It requires multiple people setting up the appropriate seals, initiating the technique and maintaining it while it charges for some time. Only then can its power be unleashed."

"So it's a mean of an act of terror then…" Mana scratched her chin. "And Kumogakure has experienced its grip then?"

Tokui did not reply. This irritated Mana, she hated being teased with bits of information and then being denied it when it mattered the most when she was ready to climb mountains and cross any distance to find the answer.

"Do tell, let the record show that I told you everything!" Jagaimo raised his hand.

"That is because you are a sham and a swine," Tokui replied without needless rage, just pure, sharpened mockery, directed at the Kirigakure ninja.

"Wow, two for the price of one, I'll let this slide, just for now…" the Voice of Kirigakure made an elbow-nudging gesture, stopping his arm just an inch shy from actually touching his much more physically imposing conversant. His head would have likely gotten ripped off of his body if he did touch Tokui with as much as a hair on his arm.

"You would because you are spineless." Tokui glared at the Kirigakure ninja with disdain. How these two managed to sustain a conversation and what it went about, Mana could not tell.

"It is true that you have told me all about the "postal" incident." Mana nodded. "I would have had to play you at cards to find out about it otherwise…" she sighed.

"Cards are a tool of alcoholics and degenerates. I could teach you a thing or two about swords one day." Tokui mocked Jagaimo again.

"I would miss that training session because I am a spineless sham…" Jagaimo winked at the direction of the highly physical temporary companion of his.

"You wouldn't have spoken to Jagaimo-san for this long without needing something, Tokui-san. We can give you what you need as a trade for the information you have." Mana suggested.

"Wait… You're trading my information for something you need?" the Voice of Kirigakure squinted, his hands slabbed and hung down as his body hunched up in the disappointment of his own lacking social standing. It was hard to take this goofball as the threat to the entire ninja system that he was.

"I have it so…" Mana shrugged. "Yeah, I guess… What is it that you need?"

"Multiple things, really." Tokui tightened the lock of his arms over his chest, despite all of his physical strength, he was looking quite uncomfortable with the position he was in. "I need to know about this Honda monster that Konoha has encountered three years ago, what it was and how it was beaten…"

"Hmmm… Collecting intel if Kumogakure ever had to fight something like that again?" Jagaimo stepped up on his toes and leaned up on the giant, moving his face dangerously close to touching with that of the much taller shinobi he was pissing off continuously.

"No, Kumogakure has the world's strongest military, it would decimate any force alive within mere minutes, at best. It merely sounds like a glorious war story that I, as an initiate martial artist, am eager to hear." Tokui pounded his chest with his fist in a symbolic notion of demonstrating his toughness. It was so macho of him that Mana could not hide away her grin, almost spraying out her laughter as it cracked her negotiating façade right up.

"Oh, the world's strongest military is hilarious to you?" Tokui got offended again. This time, at Mana, the magician had only experienced that side of the man once before.

"For how long exactly are you squabbling with Iwagakure for those coltan supplies?" Jagaimo mocked the tall man again. This time he had crossed the line, he did something he should not have done – brought up Iwagakure in front of a Kumogakure patriot, as devoted as they came, no less.

Tokui's movements were fast enough to honor the name of his homeland. Had Mana not seen the violent reaction coming before it happened, had she did not have the opportunity to talk to the young man and realize just what could have tipped him over the edge, she'd have never kept up with that speed or responded with that marvelous strength. No hold Mana could have put up could have restrained this brawler when he wanted to move freely, no ninjutsu she could muster up in this split-second of time she had to prevent an international scandal and the intervention of samurai could have done anything else but get brushed off by this human-tank.

Fortunately, Mana's troubled response to the upcoming outbreak of violence was one of entirely different nature. Before Tokui would even raise his lump of an arm and swing it in a backhand slam, a flash of light erupted from Mana's direction. Tokui's pupils dilated and his entire body froze over, when the man recovered from the overwhelming flash of light, he found himself sunken in total darkness except for the rough shape of his own body – the only sign he had not gone completely blind.

Something that only the brash and trigger-happy Kumogakure ninja saw, rusted chains erupted from the darkness under his feet, one he previously thought to be floating weightlessly in. The chains wrapped around Tokui's limbs, applying pressure that would have been absolutely nothing to this strongman normally, but, for whatever reason, appeared to completely paralyze him in the prison of his own mind now.

Four, obsidian-black walls of a wooden coffin slammed shut from all four sides, locking together and molding into a black coffin with golden accessories and a gothic, golden cross on the front and a large enough hole in the center of the said cross to fit the face of the unfortunate victim through it. The chains continued to burst from underground, wrap and lock around the coffin. Then, in a split-second, about as suddenly as the nightmare started, it all ended, the chains crumbled and clanged down, the coffin collapsed into the separate four walls and rot into nothing within seconds.

The darkness faded from Tokui's eyes, the Voice of Kumogakure found himself hyperventilating and slightly hunched over in front of the Kirigakure ninja he had just intended to hurt for doubting the might of his beloved homeland. For doubting and mocking him for something that Tokui took so much pride in, for making fun of the heroes and ideals that shaped his entire life.

"I do have that kind of effect on people…" Jagaimo leaned back, resting his head on his arms in a carefree fashion, "Though, usually, it's on the ladies… But, hey, I'm fine if you swing that way…"

"I would rather not ruin our impressions in front of the samurai and the Council, not after all the hard work that went into preserving it." Mana glared at Tokui. Looking back into the magician's eyes, Mana knew, that the Voice of Kumogakure realized she had purposefully canceled the technique before its climax. It was just a tease of the mental battlefield she could have put him through, a battlefield entirely unfamiliar to the Kumogakure ninja, judging from how effective just a lick of this new illusion of Mana's was on him.

"Fine…" Tokui huffed. "As well as the ordeal Konoha has gone through with the monster attack three years ago, I need intelligence on the happenings in this very venue. Of the plot to topple the ninja order."

"Okay, I will give you all the information about that. Now just relax and do not resist my technique." Mana slowly raised her hand and placed it on Tokui's forehead.

"What are you doing!?" Tokui resisted. Before Mana could even begin her illusionary interrogation, she could feel the difficult time she would have penetrating through unless the Voice of Kumogakure slowed down. If he resisted like this, she would have been unlikely to have ever gotten any results from him, not unless she had hours to spare and a completely impractical amount of chakra to waste on the siege of his sanity.

"I'm extracting the secrets you wanted to keep safe from surrounding ears while relaying what you need to know." Mana looked at a couple of steps slow shinobi with a scolding glare. "From your reaction before, it appeared like you weren't ready to share this information with anyone at a whim, this way you will not need to say anything, nor will the two of us."

Mana dove right in. A shroud of gloomy rain clouds, occasionally lit up by crackles of lightning all wherever she could see. The magician closed her eyes and focused, an iron rod materialized from dust beneath her feet assisting her fall and helping her maneuver around the endless storm of Tokui's mind. That oaf, he was still resisting, even after he looked so unwilling to fight back before. Most likely he was not in control of his mind, not completely. He was so similar to Meiko deep inside, without proper focus training, he was just pure emotion and instinct. It was self-evident how such an individual would make an amazing martial artist as instinct and emotion were the two greatest assets to one of those but right now Mana would have preferred Tokui to be more in control.

The clouds split open, this was a shock, it was not natural. Something dark, heavy and very hard came Mana's way. Using the assistance of her flying rod, Mana spiraled around the swinging object. What size! It must have been a tentacle or a flail of some other manner but it would have dwarfed any buildings Mana had seen. Tokui, that wild bastard…

"Just calm down…" Mana whispered to herself while she rode the stream of air down the out the endless layer of storm clouds. A bright flash, searing pain all over… White… Unintelligible static mixed in with children laughing. Vaguely familiar voices saying words that Mana knew not the meaning of that seemed more like a collection of random letters into words.

The magician tightened her little fists and extended her arms and legs, her blazer and skirt extended into a makeshift, almost ethereal black shroud given birth by her own trained mind working against Tokui's natural and wild mental defenses. Her focus returned back to the world at hand, witnessing a colossal island shaped like a giant tortoise with a forest of spikes on its shell, each one at least two hundred meters tall. The tortoise was like a giant continent, bolts of lightning, not unlike the one that nicked Mana moments earlier were rampaging all over the island, electrifying the pitch black tortoise.

That information was somewhere inside this living, breathing, and heavily armored continent… If only Mana managed to find it before losing too much along the way.