43

Chapter 43: Forty-Three

Chapter Text

A/N: Warning - description of Uzushio's Fall in this chapter, definitely disturbing.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE:

Sansa slept poorly, nightmares of burning red and fathomless black skies filling her dreams as Danzo's words echoed; heiress, heiress, heiress.

The violation of the Kotoamatsukami was horrifying to her; she had been sold, she had been raped, she had been cut open, and yet, for every wretched, wretched act committed upon her, for every violation of her body, she had always had the comfort of knowing that her mind was her own. Oh, she had been tested before; panic, prolonged pain, the twisted machinations of others, they had all tested her, twisted her even, but in the end her mind had still been her mind, her thoughts still her thoughts, and she had prevailed.

Not anymore. Now there was something inside her, something violating the sanctity of her mind, and Sansa wanted to scream. 

If I'm going to die, she had said, had decided, once in Westeros, and once here in Konoha, in Danzo's office, let it happen while there's still some of me left.

But how much of her was left now? How much of her mind was hers?

Naruto picked up on her nightmares, waking up to her badly-stifled sobs, alarmed and frightened. He nuzzled her even as he started to cry too, his chakra curling into hers, trying to comfort her however he could, his small arms wrapped tight around her.

In her distress, Sansa had automatically searched for Kakashi's chakra signature amongst the ANBU who hovered outside the apartment, guarding them, wanting to feel the comfort the protection of his presence brought. But he wasn't there, he still wasn't there, and stretching her senses wider, forcing herself to push through the pain to search the chakra in the village for his familiar chakra, only showed he was still missing.

Burying her face in Naruto's sunshine-bright hair, Sansa tried not to sob harder, even as she clung to her brother with tight, desperate fingers, lost and afraid and wanting nothing more than to split open her own head to claw out the invading presence there. The strength of the urge had her clutch Naruto even tighter, as she was genuinely afraid of the harm she might do herself in her state and Naruto let her, nuzzling her, whining soft and low as tears wet his cheeks.

She wasn't calm by the time Jiraiya arrived to pick her up for training, dawn painting the sky a soft, rosy pink, but at least she was no longer hovering at the edge of hysteria. Instead, she just felt hollow as she followed him out to the training grounds.

Until now, she and Jiraiya had both kept any conversations between them strictly related to training. While Sansa would usually hate to be the one who broke first, today she couldn't find it in herself to care, she felt too numb.

"When will Kakashi be back?" She asked quietly. Jiraiya didn't even have the grace to look surprised by her question.

"Not for months," the man said, and it felt like a knife to her breast, the horror bleeding through the numbess as she stared up at him, aghast. "But what did you expect?" Jiraiya continued, at least doing her the kindness of not making her beg him for more information. "He committed treason for you. He's lucky to be alive."

Sansa felt herself go ice-cold with fury at the very thought of the Hokage daring to touch Kakashi, any last trace of her earlier numbness erased, and Jiraiya nodded. "Yeah," he said. "That's why he's still alive. Dogs can be useful when they still have leashes."

It had been a long time since Sansa had felt angry enough that Kurama's chakra had risen to the surface unbidden, but it was a fight now to force the wildfire back beneath the surface of her roiling, churning oceans as her fury whipped deceptively tranquil surfaces into raging whirlpools. Jiraiya stayed silent until her chakra was under control again before continuing as if there had been no interruption. She didn't know if that was more or less frustrating– it felt as if he was treating her like a child and she suspected she might be acting like a one, which just made it worse.

"The Hokage sent him away on a long-term mission. Him and the rest of ANBU Team Ro," Jiraiya finally said, when her chakra had settled under her skin. "The deep infiltration, absolutely no-contact type of mission, on the other side of the continent. They won't be back in the village for another six months at the very earliest– and that's being optimistic."

Sansa pushed down the rage that threatened to rear its ugly head, the wolf inside her howling its fury at being torn away from her Pack. Six months. Six months. For three years she had been torn away from all she loved, from the few and far between connections she had in this village she was forced to call home, and now that she was free from Root at last, the Hokage saw fit to tear her pack from her once more?

"It could be worse," Jiraiya told her and Sansa looked back at him, ice in her eyes.

"Oh?" She asked, biting as the North's freezing winds.

"This is actually protecting Kakashi," Jiraiya explained to her, something about his chakra starting to stir uneasily. "If he isn't here, then he can't react until it's over."

"Until what is over?" Sansa asked, a sudden unease creeping over her, like winter's first frost. Jiraiya's smile was grim.

"The Chūnin Exams," he said. "They're being held in Kiri."

And Sansa–

She–

Understood.

"On," she said quietly, the softness of her voice thoroughly underwhelming even as her heart bled terror and her soul screamed rage.

Kiri. The village that had led the charge against Uzushiogakure. The village that had massacred her mother's people, that had dedicated itself to hunting down the survivors, slaughtering them all. And the Hokage intended to send her; an Uzumaki princess and Uzushio seals-mistress in-training, the epitome of all they had hated and feared, into the heart of their domain, to compete in a competition where their own people would be sanctioned to murder her.

No wonder she hadn't had to fend off any assassins in the dark. The Hokage needn't wet his hands with her blood. He simply had to wait for Kiri to tear her apart as they inevitably would.

"You're not going to die," Jiraiya said gruffly, and Sansa looked up to see how his face was set, grim. "I'm not going to let you die. You're going to be the best damn trained shinobi there."

"Even if nobody in the Exams kill me, they're not going to let me leave Kiri alive," Sansa pointed out through numb lips. She wondered how she was managing to be so calm about this. She thought she might be in shock.

She couldn't feel her face.

"You will," Jiraiya insisted, all desperation-fear-resolution. "I know you hate me. I get it. I'd hate me too. But your parents trusted me to keep you alive, and I'm going to fucking keep you alive. No matter what it takes."

Sansa shook her head, looking down at her hands.

They were trembling.

"You can't protect me," she said, the words an old echo, "nobody can protect me."

When was the last time she had been so convinced of her own mortality?

She had been so sure that Joffrey would kill her, those years she'd spent in the Red Keep. And then it had been Ramsey and his knives, which she'd been certain he would one day use to flay the skin from her bones to hang it from the gates of Winterfell. Then the terror of the Long Night and its marching dead, the Dragon Queen and her murderous, monstrous "children", the horrifying might of the Great Other–

Sansa let herself breathe.

With everything she had faced, it had taken a god to kill her, in the end. And whatever else Kiri was, their people were no gods. She was an Uzumaki of Uzushiogakure and she refused to fall for anything less.

~

Sansa went to the shrine after Jiraiya ended their training session– and at least now she knew why he trained her so hard, so mercilessly. She knelt there, on the floor she had once scrubbed until her small hands had been raw with the chemicals, her head bowed. Let me survive, she prayed. I cannot leave Naruto alone. I cannot leave Kurama and their siblings bound as they are. I cannot leave Mito's vow unfulfilled. I cannot abandon my duties to the living. Not yet.

"You always were a dutiful one, Sansa Stark– family, duty, honour."

Sansa's head jerked and she trapped the startled cry that wished to escape between her teeth at the sight of the white fox now sitting before her where she knelt. Wreathed with glowing white flame, there was no mistaking the being before her as anything less than divine and Sansa immediately bowed, pressing her forehead against the floor of the shrine in supplication. Inari-sama flicked at the back of her head with their tail.

"Enough of that, child," they scolded. "You are a Queen, are you not? You do not belong on your knees. Stand up."

Anger and indignation burned through Sansa at the god's words. How was she to know what Inari-sama demanded of their faithful? The gods she knew were mercurial, wild beings; how was she to know if Inari-sama was different?

"There you are," Inari-sama said, sounding far too satisfied as Sansa glared down at them as she pushed her weary self up to her feet. She held her chin high as she stared down the god before her and the fox-god's eyes met hers and burned with bright white lights, like stars, so bright and burning, and she was lost, she was lost amongst the bright-burning-endless-infinity–

Sansa stumbled back, gasping. Inari-sama hadn't moved, but their form filled her vision; a countless number of glittering, burning stars all at once, condensed into the form of a small fox and Sansa couldn't make herself unsee it, even as it made her eyes burn and whiten.

"Do you have faith, oh Queen?" The god asked her, their voice crashing against her like tidal waves in a storm. The force made Sansa sway in place, but she forced herself to stand firm, to hold her ground against the onslaught. Images flashed beneath the back of her eyelids; memories not her own, of Kiri warships rising dark and terrible before her, their shinobi shedding blood on her shores, in her tides, of bones bleached broken and white on an abandoned shore, jewel-bright hair left to turn brittle and faded.

She saw more bones scattered across the Elemental Nations; scorched black, crushed, cast aside and forgotten, all denied their final rest as the survivors were hunted down by those who worked relentlessly to cull all who made it off Uzushio's red-stained beaches with their lives, heartbreak and loss eddying and swelling like the tides through her veins.

She saw her ancestress; the last Uzukage, Uzumaki Kairi, filled with strength and love and fury, war-fan in hand and pale silks and jewel-bright hair whipping around her as she commanded the winds, the waves and the whirlpools to tear the invading fleets apart, letting the hungry maws of Uzushio's oceans swallow them whole, fighting until her last breath for her people, her home, until she bled out amongst the broken, bleeding bodies washed up on sands soaked crimson from carnage.

Sansa gasped, pulling air into uncooperative lungs, her limbs trembling in the aftermath of the onslaught of the heartbreak and grief, the cacophony of dying screams still echoing in her ears.

"I have faith," she choked out, forcing herself to meet the terrifying gaze of the god once more, even at the risk of losing herself, "I have faith. I have faith in my brother–" Naruto, her Naruto, with his smile like summer sunshine, his hair as golden as Uzushio's bright stretching sands, his eyes as blue as her ever-changing seas, his chakra as mighty as her whirlpools– "I have faith that I will make him the Kage of a village he can be proud to rule."

It felt as if the world shuddered around her, as if it became unmade. Sansa had to close her eyes against the unnaturalness of it all, at a sight not meant for mortal eyes, and when she finally opened them again, when the world felt still and silent and whole once more, Inari-sama had vanished– and where they had stood, now rested a folded tessen, the elegant war-fan around a foot in length, and a stunningly beautiful gold kanzashi, the hair-pin styled in a traditional Uzushio spiral embedded with pearls and tapering into two deadly points.

Carefully, Sansa lifted the tessen. It was heavier than she had expected and the reason why became clear as she opened it, revealing the war-fan's iron ribs. But it wasn't the ribs that held Sansa's attention; rather, it was the scene painted across the lacquered surface of the fan.

It was the ocean. Or rather, it was a wild ocean storm; the winds, the waves, the whirlpools raging, the hungry maws of the ocean rising and crashing down into crushing white, foamy spray; and amidst it all, amidst the strength, the fury, Sansa could see seals, could feel them too as she ran her hands reverently over the lacquered surface. The chakra sang to her; bold, strong, solid, fierce, steadfast, unyielding, wild, playful, vicious, brave, soft– and all of it felt like home; like tides and waves, like everlasting depths and peaceful currents, like winds and storms, like hurricanes and tsunamis.

She recognised the tessen, recognised it from the terrifying memories not her own; Uzumaki Kairi had wielded this during Uzushio's Fall.

Sansa didn't hesitate to press a hand against her forearm, a storage seal blazing to life against her forearm. Moments later, the tessen and kanzashi were safely hidden away and she left the shrine, returning to the apartment she shared with Naruto, intent on questioning the person she knew could tell her exactly what those items meant.

Mito did not disappoint.

"I thought them lost," she breathed reverently, as Sansa described them to her ancestress. There were tears welling in Mito's eyes, a rare sight on the proud woman's face. "I thought them taken, desecrated or destroyed as spoils of war."

"What is their importance?" Sansa asked softly. "I can see they are dear to you." And it was clear they were dear to the gods too, for Inari-sama to have brought them to her.

"What have I told you, of Uzushio's gods?" Mito asked her, instead of answering.

"Nothing," Sansa answered and Mito nodded, her gaze far away.

"The gods we worship have never had names," she murmured, "for they are nameless and many, relentless as the tides, merciless as all divinity are. Our gods are the ocean, the winds, the whirlpools; they are the storms, the tsunami, the hurricanes. We respect them and they provide for us; they protected our home and we called upon their strength in battle. But just as easily, they could turn on us, for no mortal can truly own the divine.

"That tessen," Mito said, focusing on Sansa once more, "it is a symbol of our people. It belongs to the one who rules us. It calls upon the strength of the gods, allows the wielder to channel the power of storms and the ocean's might. It is quite something to behold," she said, the faintest hint of a smile brushing across her face. "Each ruler who held the tessen added their own seals to the design, leaving a trace of their chakra imprint behind. It is a history of our people, nearly three hundred years old."

"That's over three times as old as Konoha," Sansa said, startled. Mito smiled, bitter. 

"Uzushio existed long before Konoha, and by rights should have existed long after," she said. "Before Konoha was first established, the ruler of Uzushio did not even have the title 'Uzukage'– that came later. Once, we called our ruler Empress and our lands were not confined to a single island. The Empress ruled over the islands under Uzushio's banner, separately from the Shogun and his Daimyōs– that is why Uzushio never had a Daimyō.

"But a hundred and fifty years ago, the Shogun of the time grew greedy. It resulted in an increase of violence between the noble families, as demand for land and resources amongst them grew under heavier taxation and they hired shinobi clans as mercenaries– the period became known as the Warring States Period. It also resulted in many of the islands previously under the Empress of the time, Uzumaki Nanami-kōgō's, rule to be forcefully subjugated by the Shogun for their resources. Uzushio didn't have the power to defend against the Shogun's forces. He was a military dictator and we were a peaceful island people.

"Nanami-kōgō was given a warning; she could relinquish her title, or Uzushio would be invaded and conquered too. If she gave up her title, we would keep our freedom– and an illusion of independence. So Nanami-kōgō became the last Empress of our people, and later, when Hashirama became the first Hokage, we adopted the title of Uzukage for our leader and my elder sister, Azumi, became our first Uzukage."

Mito then smiled bitterly. "It is almost ironic," she said. "The kanzashi– it was a gift, from the Shogun's father, to Nanami's mother. He was sweet on her. And then his son sought to subjugate and destroy us."

Sansa thought of Robert Baratheon and Joffrey and grimaced. "It's never the fathers who the sons make bleed for the sins paid against them," she said, just as bitter.

"Why did Inari-sama give them to you?" Mito asked; the sense of wonder had faded from her face somewhat and Sansa felt a sudden sinking sensation.

"Oh Mito," she whispered. She knew her ancestress wasn't going to take this well. There was a part of her that didn't want to tell her, not until it was all over. A part of her that thought it better that Mito remained ignorant. But she knew Mito would not thank her for that ignorance and so Sansa steeled herself and looked her ancestress in the eye. "The Chūnin Exams," she said, "they're being held in Kiri."

Mito turned white. "No," she breathed. "No."

"I have to go," Sansa said wretchedly. "I don't have a choice."

"You can't," Mito moaned, swaying in place before falling to her knees, overcome. Sansa rushed forwards, kneeling before Mito, reaching to clasp Mito's hands with her own. "Oh Sansa, you can't," Mito pleaded, "they'll kill you, Sansa, they'll kill you, just as they've killed everyone I love!"

Sansa held Mito as she collapsed forwards, her face falling to Sansa's chest, her body shaking as she wept. Her grief was a terrible thing and Sansa could feel her own tears. She knew how it felt, to have her whole family murdered, to have her home destroyed. She had been fortunate enough to have part of her family restored to her, to be given the chance to rebuild her home. Mito had never been given that chance.

Mito's tears eventually dried as she moved on from her fear and grief– and into rage. "Hiruzen is fortunate I cannot leave here," she said, with such blistering fury Sansa could almost imagine her breathing fire, "I would tear him to pieces! No– I would help you release Kurama from this accursed seal so they could destroy Konoha and then tear him to pieces!"

Kurama, a silent spectator so far, let out an amused sound here. "You never showed such rage when I was your prisoner," they said.

"Needs must," Mito said tightly, "I spent most of my life after agreeing to marry Hashirama for the sake of my village resigned to my situation. If I allowed myself to feel even a moment of rage, I doubt I would have been able to stop myself from murdering Hashirama and taking over Konoha."

"Oh, I wish you'd had less constraint," Sansa said with feeling, "Konoha would be a better place for it."

Mito managed a smile there, before it fell. "Are you planning on taking the tessen and kanzashi?" she asked quietly. "When you go to Kiri," and here, horror washed over her face, as if even speaking the words caused her unimaginable pain, "will you take them, knowing they are such recognised symbols of Uzushio?"

"Kiri tried to destroy Uzushio," Sansa said softly, "I want to prove they tried in vain. They're going to try and kill me anyway."

Mito looked like she almost wanted to argue, but apparently decided that trying to change Sansa's mind would be an exercise in futility. "You will need training in tessenjutsu," she said. "And somehow, I don't believe Jiraiya will allow you to bring a symbol of the Uzukage to Kiri when he sees you with it."

"No, I don't believe he will," Sansa said dryly. "Fortunately," she added thoughtfully, "I have an idea for that."

Mito, even with her eyes wet with tears, managed a smile. "Of course you do," she said. "You would hardly be yourself if you did not."

~

Looking at Uzumaki Fuyuko was like looking at the ghosts of all his mistakes, his failures, his shame, come to life. Jiraiya could hardly bear it most days. To see her, her small form radiating such strength and authority and defiance against all those who would see her fall, who wished for her to fail, it twisted him up inside.

She was special. She was so special. Anyone who looked into her eyes could see it, could see something sharp and old and fierce staring back at them.

Jiraiya remembered when Uzushio fell. He remembered arriving too late, remembered Tsunade's terrible screams for her lost aunts and uncles and how the oceans had bled red, there had been so much death in Uzushio's waters; thousands upon thousands slaughtered with no proper way to separate the invading Kiri and Iwa nin from the massacred Uzushio villagers, the bloated bodies in the ocean unrecognisable, the rest a mess of broken, bloody limbs in the streets.

In his memories, the days that followed had blurred into a mess of barely sleeping, barely eating, transporting body after body from where it had fallen or been washed up to be burned in massive pyres. The smell of spilled blood, of rotting flesh, of burning hair; it haunted his nightmares still. There were some memories that just couldn't be forgotten, no matter how hard he tried.

Fuyuko wasn't a perfect mirror of her ancestors; the population of Uzushio had been an island people, and it had showed in the healthy flush of their sun-tanned gold and nut-brown skin. Fuyuko was as starkly-white as the bloated corpses he'd once pulled from red-dyed waters.

Winter child, Kushina had named her daughter.

Ghost child, Jiraiya found himself thinking when he watched Fuyuko flow fluid as the seas through her katas, as she seemingly-effortlessly pulled the moisture from the air in her relentless determination to master each new water jutsu he'd taught her, as she wielded a lost art of sealing as natural as breathing; a drowned ghost of Uzushio, come to haunt them all for their failures.

Jiraiya knew why his sensei was sending Fuyuko to Kiri. Sensei could justify it however he liked, give a hundred reasons, a thousand, but in the end it came down to one simple truth– Fuyuko frightened him. This small child, with her old eyes and older anger, this ghost of their failure, she frightened him.

Sensei couldn't risk killing her outright; Fuyuko had made herself a too public figure for that, a move Jiraiya suspected had been calculated for just that reason– he wouldn't put it past her. Sending her to Kiri was a risk– while it wasn't the act of war to send a child Jinchūriki into other villages to compete in a Chūnin Exam that it would be to send an adult Jinchūriki into another village, it still edged at the line of aggression, particularly with a village they were so loosely 'at peace' with. But sensei had apparently judged the risk to be worth it.

Jiraiya couldn't do it though. He couldn't just stand back and do nothing as the child of the boy who'd been like a son to him was sent off to her death. No matter how unnerving Fuyuko was, in the end she was still a child, Minato's child. His godchild. Tsunade's kin. And he would do whatever he could to protect her, no matter how much she hated him for it, training her just as hard as they trained their shinobi in war time, cruel and cutting, no room for kindness as he drove her each day to her limits and then pushed her beyond them, left her bruised and bloodied, but stronger.

Sending Kakashi away had been his idea. Kakashi had been Minato's last surviving genin, the boy who'd been as good as a son to Minato, just as Minato had been a son to him. Jiraiya knew just how Kakashi would have reacted to Fuyuko being sent to Kiri– he knew, because he'd barely managed to stop himself from reacting with violence. Kakashi would have tried to kill sensei. He might have even succeeded, and either way he'd have been executed for treason and Jiraiya couldn't let that happen, couldn't let Fuyuko lose the boy like that, couldn't let Minato's son die like that. Better he be sent away now, better he be alive to be angry, to feel betrayed, then to be dead.

Kakashi and Fuyuko could hate him all they liked, he'd accepted that, but he would do his best to protect them, to protect Naruto; because in the end, they were all he had left of his boy, his son, and he owed it to Minato.