Had to care after manipulating figures (9)
I believe the answer is:
octahedra
'figures' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'had to care after manipulating' is the wordplay.
'after manipulating' is an anagram indicator.
'had'+'to'+'care'='hadtocare'
'hadtocare' is an anagram of 'OCTAHEDRA'.
(Other definitions for octahedra that I've seen before include "shapes" , "things with many faces" , "Eight-sided figures" , "solid objects" , "Solid figures with eight plane faces" .)