A burning soreness forced Mana's consciousness to snap back to the cruel reality. A reality of which she could not see all too much of. A reality in which a great number of something sharp and rough pressed against the magician's body to the extent where she almost felt her insides being forced out.

The miserable mistake of movement made Mana grunt in pain and feel the taste of blood in her mouth. A taste which she had somehow manage to forget since the last hour she's very nearly been killed by the very same creature. Even as the magician's temples twinged with blood pressure and her mind felt hazy and unresponsive, to say the least, she could recall the fact that a building decided to use Mana as its pillow.

Normally it'd have been of little issue. With enough augmentation, Mana could have shifted some debris around and freed herself, with enough stamina she could have augmented herself to survive a hundred buildings just like this one falling on top of her and with a mere feat of chakra control, Mana could have blasted all of this rubble aside with a simple ninjutsu technique. Problem was that chakra was a luxury Mana ran out of when the building so conveniently crumbled.

Just how much time has passed since Mana got taken out? This sarcophagus of concrete and exotic as they are durable steel alloys may just have saved Mana's life. Had Honda found Mana's unconscious body somewhere within his infuriated reach, he would have popped her head like a pimple. Especially without any endurance augmentations to resist his unfathomable strength. Just how many people has Honda killed by now? Just how many more specters will haunt Mana's dreams and just how many more failures will she have to face before fate finally lets her die?

It was a dark thought but Mana had just been bested twice by a monster she declared her own responsibility to stop and she had run out of any ounces of strength, leaving her effectively useless in any future attempts of stopping Honda as well. It would take hours if not an entire night for Mana to regain any scraps, anything resembling what was necessary to get out from this mausoleum of destruction she was trapped under.

It was a dark thought but everything around the magician was pitch black as well, she was trapped under what could have been dozens of floors of rubble during nighttime when the last thing on anyone's mind would have been to look for people under the rubble. The priority right now was stopping Honda, evacuating people and salvaging those that could still be saved, not turn over rocks.

Mana closed her eyes and tried taking as deep of a breath in as she could. She felt the wetness of her clothes, the cold brush of some semblances of the late spring breeze brushing against her cheeks that felt chilly. Chilly in a way that suggested that her entire face was covered in something wet – she was bleeding pretty badly. That meant that time was not a luxury Mana had either, she could not afford just rest here for weeks or months, she could most likely not afford to sit tight and wait for her chakra to return. She had to get out from this deathtrap and do it within minutes.

The kunoichi was not entirely sure where exactly she's been bleeding from. She was properly compressed and felt her muscles burn up and get proper bruised whenever she moved them by the rough debris around her. At the very least, the building on top of her had the decency to provide pressure on some of her wounds as the magician doubted if she had it in her to move any of her limbs at that moment. Any sudden or reckless moves could have caused a shift in the fickle balance that the concrete and steel rubble had settled on in their negotiation with gravity. The best choice was not to panic.

Mana breathed in and out. The air was stuffy, something was running and dripping farther off to the right but Mana was not sure if it was water. It ran from slightly above her so it could not have been her own blood – at least she was certain she was not bleeding that hard just yet. Either way, while Mana's familiarity with composure and self-mastery in both physical and mental states was sufficient to grant her serenity in this painful and humbling moment, it did not raise the rubble from above her and draw her out in the clear.

Checking for the exact nature of her injuries would have been nice. Then again, it was not like Mana had much liberty of movement to know where she's been hurt. For all she knew, her legs may have been ground into bloody mush. The eyes… They were growing accustomed to the darkness but… One side remained oblivious to vision regardless. Mana tried blinking with the right side but couldn't feel it. She decided to better leave that alone for now. She felt no rush of blood there, just the presence of it and that was enough for now.

She was not growing dizzy, there was only a mild case of shortness of breath and only because any remnants of oxygen had to work through layers on top of layers of debris before they reached Mana. She was choking up slowly due to the pressure against her back and chest limiting her intake of air, due to the limited supply of anything breathable that was not just chalk or dust but if she settled on dying this way it would be a drawn out and torturous end. She'd much more likely die of bleeding out – the more immediate worry right now.

Wriggle, wriggle. Mana moved her toes and fingers just to feel how much she could do so. She brushed handfuls of dust and small pebbles aside and found that with each stroke she managed to push more and more, move more and more. Whatever that wonder of a building was made of was completely reduced to an almost shattered to dust state by all the fighting inside of it and the crashing that the combatants were doing.

Wriggle, wriggle. Mana could move her arms up and down. Instead of worrying over not being able to see and barely feeling anything with the right side of her face and continuously feeling the chill of blood soaking her having wind gently caress it from the outside, Mana chose the simple joy of the fact she was not paralyzed completely. That would have been a miserable way to go – to awaken only to become aware of the way one would die but to be able to change nothing about it.

Eyes were growing heavy, sometimes it began to seem like time was skipping by in boundless leaps. The worst part was that there was no reliable method of telling it for sure. All Mana could do so that she did not nod off was to focus on things that kept her awake even when she wanted to embrace the slumber – responsibility.

She failed again… She knew the whole time that taking on Honda after the first time getting busted open and taken down was near-impossible. She knew little of the monsters abilities, his nature and all that she did know was absolutely terrifying. She was operating at half-efficiency even after she was healed up somewhat. She could never have done it in a hundred years and yet…

She deserved this, honestly, to die buried under a rubble that used to contain inside human greed and vanity, two things she could never have related with. Like a demon sealed inside a purified silver coffin… She failed to contain Honda initially, failed to track him down effectively and failed to get to him in time. Worst of all, she pushed away any potential help, any possible advantages that she so desperately needed.

What good was a sense of responsibility without the proper means of accomplishing them? Mana was like a devoted mother who could not be bothered to learn that an oven was a poor place to dry your baby in after his bath. Loving with all of her heart and determined to live up to her fate but ultimately a dangerous idiot.

Was this truly to be her fate? Her legacy? To be the kunoichi that placed all of her chips of foolish hopes that had little to no merit, someone who actively ruined her own odds relying on a miracle just because she had the guts to work hard at it and nothing else of substance, even more, work hard but not smart…

Mana coughed up some blood, she felt it sticking to her lips. It was tough to not wriggle around with her greatly compressed chest and aggravate her injuries further when the air was this stuffy and the irritation of blood gathering inside was this vexing. The combination was simply unbearable. Mana looked around, straining her neck until it made the bruised back of the magician burn up and the industrial materials mingling with her wounds made it feel like having one's skin peeled off with sandpaper.

"A pipe…" she spoke to herself, longing for some sort of stimulus to keep her brain active and her body awake. The girl started wriggling and struggling about like a caterpillar, digging into her own cocoon of busted concrete, dirt, and steel and creating a makeshift bubble of rubble around her, also exasperating her bruises and traumas even worse.

The countdown clock that Mana had had just skipped some beats and turned even direr but as long as the girl could reach the pipe and have just a sip of water, even dirty water at that… The pain and agony would all be worth it. Even if the magician barely ever moved from her place of entombment, it felt like she had completed a quest of a thousand miles when her lips wrapped around the sharp but dry pipe.

All that Mana's chest filled with when she drew hard on the pipe was air. With Mana dazed mind, it took her a great handful of seconds to realize that this was basically a lifetime worth of treasure. The fresh air felt just about as revitalizing in her current condition as a spring of fresh underground water would have felt during a hot summer midday. Just a pair of breaths of fresh air made Mana feel renewed to fight for her survival once more.

If this pipe had access to fresh air it could not have been too far from the surface, that meant that if Mana was to use it her voice would connect to freedom. Still, it was not like the injured kunoichi had infinite access to stamina, her life was quite literally draining from her in slow and methodical but reckless and determined droplets. It was just the sharp tip of the blade of cruel irony – to survive Mana needed to do what she was so reluctant to do up 'till now.

"Help!" Mana yelled out when she thought she heard something scribbling and scratching through the elongated pipe. Who knew how long it took for the noise to come in and out and how much strength was still left in the magician's box. The first call for help was unsuccessful. It must have been just a surviving critter wandering about or the unstable rubble shifting about.

Steps. "Mana-chan must be somewhere under this rubble!" Kouta's voice rung in the magician's ears, she couldn't believe the luck. He must have been close, almost like there was only a cardboard wall separating the two. If only Mana gathered all of her remaining strength and called out. Anything less than that would leave her buried and something told her that counting for another chance of a rescue would be exceedingly slimmer than those of the first one.

"What makes you so sure?" a familiar authoritative and masculine voice followed. Kouta's father, a de facto Sannin was here too? If Kusagoro took Little Honda on, Konoha may as well have been as good as saved. Was he not on a mission or training somewhere abroad? Mana could vaguely recall hearing about that on one of her more recent times seeing Kouta… Was Kouta not supposed to be away too, training on identifying different herbs and mushrooms to be used in improvised ointments, a part of his medical ninja training?

"She's just the kind of person to rush right into the eye of the biggest storm around," Kouta replied.

Who cared where he was earlier today? He was here right now and so was his father that meant that she was given a chance to make it all right. The only chance of moving the world-sized rock of responsibility crushing her shoulders was to have more helping hands and shoulders split its weight. Mana opened her mouth wide and stretched it over the pipe, she had to give it her best shot, now or never…

The girl's head snapped back so quickly that she hit a rough chunk above her so hard that sounds ringing echoed in her head. She had passed out at some point. Just how much had she dreamed? Just how much time had passed and how much more blood had Mana lost? She had never felt so drained and tired right after waking up. Much to her enthusiasm, the pipe was not a figment of her imagination, her boyfriend and his powerhouse of a father looking for her, however, were.

The grunt that Mana let out after hitting her head in the rubble pressing against her from above sounded so pathetic and weak. She could not have had too much time left. The magician listened in on the pipe, hearing movement and speech on the other side. It was nowhere near as clear as in her dream, she could not tell exactly what was being spoken about but she could hear a great number of voices. Mana reached out for the pipe and prepared to call for help again.

No. If she called out a few more times she would waste energy with limited success, just like before. Who knew how thick the layer of debris above her was, who knew if the pipe even went all the way out to the surface or if simply passed around echoes. Mana shoved her ankle down and deeper into the narrowing area in between two pieces of collapsing rubble. She shoved it in through as much force as she could muster until the foot could move neither forward nor back through normal means, without hurting the ankle that had sharp edges digging into it almost hard enough to draw blood without it even moving.

Then came the crude yank. Where Mana could not move or pull the leg anymore after forcing it stuck, she could certainly yank it causing the kind of pain that was absolutely paralyzing, robbing the magician of any other instinct but one that commanded her scream her lungs out in volumes beyond her normal human limits available to her normally. The very first that came to Mana's mind after she managed to take control over her instincts was fear over her own frightful voice that came out resonating through the pipe and out the other end.

The magician coughed out blood feeling the burning irritation in her throat from the strain that her dominating instinct to scream in pain uncontrollably placed. It did not take long for noises of rumbling and brief breaches of artificial light to break through, temporarily blinding Mana.

"Yeah, someone's here!"

"Move aside."

"Go to hell, I don't need muscle here, I can move the rubble around just fine. I need someone subtle to pull a broken body out."

Mana's head just slammed against the rubble beneath like she used to just collapse lifeless after a rough day in her bed. At this point, she cared very little that the rough landing cracked open the wounds covering her forehead. She was found. Just like predicted, she could barely even speak or move.

"For fuck's sake, don't tell me you went right back in after last time…" a familiar voice of the medical ninja that healed her before registered in Mana's consciousness.

Mana lacked the strength to respond, she felt like an athlete just managing to shrug her shoulders.

"Wait, this is Konoha's Sorceress? Shit, maybe the jounin made the right call ordering us to stay back and be on rescue duty…" one of the ninja in the rescue party cursed.

"Yeah, she's pretty banged up, her condition can't wait. I need multiple medical ninja on our position, Shura and Bora, go sit on watch and let us know if that bastard creeps back here." The medical ninja ordered the rest around. From before Mana could recall that the other chuunin outranked the medical ninja but right now the need for a competent medical ninja elevated the call of the medical ninja above those of his peers.

Shura and Bora nodded, looking a bit pale and in over their head but they dashed off without questioning their duty. This was no longer just a measly act of crime or even an act of terrorism within village walls. With destruction this far-spread and the victim count this high up and of this importance, the village was basically fighting for survival, this was almost a war.

"Hang on, this is not going to be pretty…" the medical ninja sighed.

"Wait." A Hyuuga with long, dark hair and an ordinary chuunin flak jacket and Konoha uniform approached the rocky platform Mana was placed on to be treated. "Your rabbit recovered the body of Kuren Hyuuga, did it not?"

Mana stared blankly, lacking the energy to even nod her head, let alone reply. The Hyuuga man handed down a wooden jar to the medical ninja before bowing half of his body to Mana.

"We Hyuuga do not harvest ocular techniques like the Uchiha but that does not mean that the Byakugan isn't worth a fortune in the black market. In many cases, it is even more desired by rogues and mercenaries alike. Kuren may have been an outcast in the clan but I am grateful that you made sure her body was not disgraced by a lowly marauder in the middle of this mess, looking to make a buck. Please soak Sorceress-san's bandages in these, Onimaru-san. It will aid her recovery." The man reported.

"This is the secret Hyuuga ointment… It is not whipped out often, even when members of the clan are injured." Onimaru, the medical ninja looked shocked to see the gooey, green substance inside the old, wooden jar.

"It is the gift of gratitude, most often. I would say that the current case fits the description well." The Hyuuga man nodded with his featureless, white eyes smiling while the man's face was stoic.