50

CHAPTER FIFTY:

The fights grew progressively more violent as the competition continued. Sansa's second round was against a Kiri genin, this one wielding the Elemental Nation's version of a mace, a chigiriki; a long, hollow metal staff with a weight attached to a chain at the top.

Sansa couldn't get close to him, the reach of the chigiriki was too long. When he brought the weight down at her, she rolled to the side, feeling the wind on the nape of her neck as she stood up again, jerking her head back and barely avoiding a backlash that could have cracked her skull.

She dodged again and when he brought the chigiriki sideways she knelt at the last moment, feeling it pass above her before darting back to her feet, desperately eyeing the heavy weight at the end of the chain; she couldn't block it, couldn't re-direct any blows from it, and both she and her opponent knew it.

Sansa cursed under her breath as he rushed her again; her hands danced through the handsigns, pulling moisture from the air to send a barrage of lethally aimed water-needles at her opponent, managing to puncture one of the genin's eyes. He screamed in pain and rage, charging at her, trying to pummel her face in and missing by a hair's breadth.

Sansa held her hands out before her, seals forming on her palms that flared with a burst of bright light. With his already-injured eye, this caused the boy to howl in pain, staggering back and Sansa took advantage of this to dart forwards and stab a kunai through his femoral artery before immediately getting back out of the reach of the chigiriki swung wildly at her.

The kunai didn't kill him, as she had left it buried deep in his thigh instead of pulling it out, but he couldn't fight, not without bleeding to death, and he was forced to yield in order to be healed– and judging by the hate in his one good eye, that was even more humiliating than a straight-up loss.

Kabuto forfeited his second round, despite winning the first against one of the Suna genin, having healed himself of their poison senbon mid-battle and severing the tendons in their ankles with his chakra scalpels. "I don't feel ready to become a chūnin," he explained to Jiraiya and Eri, "not after our experience in the second stage of the Exams."

Chiyoko looked like she believed that about as much as Sansa did, but neither of them called Kabuto out on it in front of the two adults.

Chiyoko had also made it to the second rounds and it looked like she would make it to the third when the Kiri genin she was fighting got in a lucky blow to her head and, while she was dazed, nearly hacked her in half with his sword, leaving her blood spilling across the arena as the Kiri shinobi in the stands cheered and Sansa watched on in sickened horror.

Jiraiya and Kabuto literally had to jump into the arena to grab Chiyoko before the Kiri genin could finish her off, Jiraiya catching the genin's blade as it swung down while Kabuto's hands were already glowing green as he held Chiyoko's intestines inside her with one hand, his other hand pressing over her face, abruptly cutting off her screaming.

Sansa hastened to follow after them, her heart thudding as she watched how Chiyoko stared fixedly at the sky, eyelids fluttering wildly as her whole body shook. Sansa placed a trembling hand on her teammate's neck, only to feel a sluggish, haphazard pulse under her fingers, and as Chiyoko was moved onto a stretcher, her shaking slowly eased as her eyes gradually stopped their constant movement. Sansa felt as if she had been plunged in ice and she watched with building rage as Chiyoko was carried off, Kabuto kneeling over her on the stretcher, holding her together.

When her name was called next, for the first time since the start of the exam Sansa was eager to fight, eager to shed blood. Old Gods forgive her, she felt as if she could murder every single person in the stadium with her bare hands alone. Only, to Sansa's building rage, she was told that with the uneven number of participants, she had automatically been advanced to the next round– the final round. Sansa didn't believe for a moment that the 'random selection' was at all a coincidence, but she didn't even care. Instead, she spun around and stormed out of the stadium, needing a moment to gather herself.

Wandering the grim, empty streets, trying to calm her breathing, Sansa almost wasn't surprised to run into Momochi, though she was surprised to see a child walking with him, as he didn't seem to be the paternal type. She was even more surprised to feel a spark of her own chakra carried upon the child– somewhere on their person was one of her seals.

She didn't recognise the child– and she would have, if she'd seen them before. They were waifish, appearing about Sansa's age, though with how thin they were they could easily be older. Their long hair made it difficult for Sansa to tell if they were a girl or boy and they carried themselves like a skittish animal, terrified of being beaten– if Sansa couldn't feel the adoration the child felt towards Momochi in the way their unique, icy chakra reached for Momochi's roiling, churning waves, she'd be attempting to attack the older shinobi, damn the consequences.

"Don't tell me you're out already!" Groaned Momochi, apparently having spotted her too. "Fucking shit, I bet a stack on you– I thought for sure you had this, after you practically slaughtered your way through the second stage! Reminded me of my graduation– the good old days," he leered, even as his chakra twisted in old pain-regret-loss-grief.

"To be fair," Sansa said with a calm she didn't feel, "they attacked me first." She bared her sharp teeth at Momochi in a wolf's smile; predatory, hungry, vicious. "They just bit off more than they could chew."

Momochi howled with laughter. "Damn girl!" he said, and even his little shadow was smiling slightly.

"I'm Uzumaki Fuyuko," Sansa introduced herself, bowing to the waif. They looked back at her with keen eyes, icy chakra twisting with interest– the child obviously knew of Sansa by the reputation she'd gained amongst the children of the streets, though Momochi didn't.

At least not yet.

Momochi clapped a hand on the child's shoulder, grinning at her under his bandages. "This is Haku," he introduced. "I'm Momochi Zabuza, wielder of Kubikiribōchō."

"You're one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist," Sansa realised and Momochi's chakra flared with pride.

"You bet your ass I am," he said, reaching back to fondly pat the giant sword on his back– Kubikiribōchō, she assumed. "Now, who the fuck did you lose to? I want to know how much money you fucking lost me."

"I didn't lose," Sansa said, her agitation returning at the memory of Chiyoko and her terrible injury. "I'm in the final round."

"Thank fuck," Momochi sighed and Sansa wanted to roll her eyes.

"I should probably return now," she murmured. "The match before the final should be finished soon. I wouldn't want to be late."

"It'd be funny, though," Momochi said.

"It would look like I was running away," Sansa corrected, "like I was scared." She bared her teeth. "I'm not. They should be scared of me."

"Oh, believe me, Onryō-hime," Momochi said, and there was something darkly amused in his voice now, "they are."

Momochi and Haku walked with her back to the stadium before parting ways with her; Momochi with a hearty pat on the back and Haku with a soft, murmured, "good luck, Uzu-chan," before the pair disappeared into the crowds while she left to find her team. 

Jiraiya was the only one waiting for her. There was dried blood on his green kimono and when she gave him a questioning look he only sighed. "It could go either way," he admitted. "Kabuto-kun's good– he's very good, I don't know why he hasn't been promoted before this, and there's no doubt he won't be getting a field promotion after it, but it's not looking good."

Sansa's mouth thinned as she nodded, not trusting herself to speak in this instance.

Oh, she understood why Chiyoko had been hurt. They had killed a number of Kiri genin during the exams– though always in retaliation, never as the aggressors– and the Kiri genin were never going to go easy on them. That didn't mean that Sansa wasn't coldly furious that her teammate had been injured. That Chiyoko could die.

Yagura stood suddenly and the attention of the stadium turned to him.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, and there was something smooth and captivating about his voice as he spoke, "we have all gathered here today to witness as our green genin grow from children to true shinobi. We have seen spirit, determination, courage, skill, fearlessness and more today. We are proud of our youth. We are proud of what they have become and what they will go on to be. And now we have reached the final round, the final test.

"To be a shinobi is to have the ultimate conviction," the Mizukage said, his eyes glittering as they met Sansa's across the stadium. "Without it, a shinobi is nothing but a corpse in the ground. If our final competitors wish to win the final round, they must fight with the ultimate conviction. Forfeit is not an option. Yielding is not an option. To be a shinobi is to fight and live another day, or to die. Only one will stand at the end of this final round."

Sansa looked up at Jiraiya in horror. "Can he do that?" she demanded in a hissed whisper.

Jiraiya looked furious. "Yes and no," he said through gritted teeth. "You can refuse. But–"

"It will bring disgrace," Sansa finished for him. "To Konoha– and to Uzushio, considering I have made my allegiance there quite clear."

She looked across at her competition; he was twice as tall as her, about three times thicker and wielding a sword that easily dwarfed her.

"Your life is worth more than any dishonour refusing to fight will bring," Jiraiya said firmly, but Sansa shook her head.

"I am the last Princess of the Whirlpools," she said fiercely. "I have a duty to my family, to my lost clan and to any people of Uzushio who still draw breath."

"You have a duty to die for them?" Jiraiya demanded and Sansa looked up at him with burning eyes.

"No," she said, pressing the tessen that Mamoru made her into his hand, "I have a duty to be seen– still here, still fighting."

She reached out, reaching for Jiraiya's free hand with her own and squeezing lightly. "Don't worry," she told him, "I've still got a few tricks up my sleeve."

Jiraiya, looking a bit stunned that she had willingly touched him, didn't think to stop her as she stepped forwards, making her way down into the arena of the stadium, the weight of hundreds of eyes on her back. It felt different this time then it had in the two previous fights. The weight felt heavier with the stakes now higher.

Sansa stopped on the opposite side of the arena from her opponent. She brushed her hand against her forearm, the seal there lighting up golden and Uzushio's tessen appeared. A snap of Sansa's wrist and it opened, revealing for the world the raging ocean storm it contained.

The stands went silent.

Those gathered to watch children slaughter and be slaughtered recognised what she held, the long-lost relic, the legacy of Uzushio, and she could feel how it frightened them.

"B-Begin," stammered the proctor as he practically fled the arena and Sansa let her chakra flow into the seals woven into the tessen, could feel the swell in the air as she fed more and more of her chakra into the tessen, reached for Kurama's burning chakra and started to feed that in too.

The previously grinning Kiri genin across from her had turned white.

(She would feel worse about this if he hadn't been so gleeful about cutting down what he thought was a seven-year-old child moments ago)

Sansa could feel the might of the ocean so close by, could feel its pull and urged it to come, urged it to heed her call, Uzushio's call.

Her opponent tried to flee. He wasn't fast enough.

He tried to fight. He wasn't strong enough.

Nobody could fight the might of the ocean.

Nobody could escape its hungry maw.

The tidal wave slammed into the stadium, the stands, flooding into the arena, sweeping up shinobi, spectators and her opponent alike. Sansa stood, protected, as the rage of the ocean churned and pounded, tearing apart the hated arena until she had to cut it off, had to let the tides drain back.

Her skin burned, from the inside out. Sansa felt as if she was on fire– and she had once burned alive. She knew what it felt like and Sansa wanted to scream.

She kept the pain from her face the best she could, standing tall as the people in the stands staggered their way to their feet, shaken, drenched, bruised and in some cases broken; civilians were wailing, others crying.

Across from her in the arena her opponent laid still on the ground, his eyes glassy; drowned.

Sansa felt nothing. Her eyes were on the Mizukage, the only one who had stood against the might of Uzushio, as untouched by the ocean's rage as she herself.

He stared back at her, amidst the ruins of his stadium.

Sansa felt Jiraiya's hand on her back a moment later and she almost screamed at the pain it caused.

"Let's go," he said, low and urgent.

"Wait," Yagura said, moving forwards. Jiraiya stiffened but Yagura just smiled. "Onryō-hime won. Surely she deserves a congratulations, at the very least," he said.

Jiraiya looked stiff, his eyes darted briefly around the ruined arena, but Yagura just laughed lightly.

"Oh, this was just temporary. We expected it to get damaged. Albeit, not to this extent, but still. Such an impressive performance deserves all the proper ceremony, don't you think?"

"She has to see a medic first," Jiraiya said finally and Yagura nodded.

"Of course," he said, waving a careless hand and Jiraiya didn't waste a moment to pick Sansa up and run.

Sansa bit her lip so hard to stop from screaming that she tasted blood, her sharp teeth slicing straight through, shredding the flesh.

She passed out some time between being carried and being placed in her bed at the inn.

"–scoured her chakra pathways– damage is–" she heard Kabuto saying, and she blinked blearily at him, but he saw she was awake and tapped her head with a green-glowing hand, sending her back to unconsciousness.

She woke in her mindscape.

Blinking fuzzily around, Sansa groaned. The trees around her looked charred, their pale trunks blackened, and instead of snow the ground beneath her was ash.

"What– happened?" She managed to ask.

"You," Kurama said, in a dark voice as they loomed above her in their cage of weirwood branches, "almost killed yourself, that's what happened."

"What-?" Sansa asked, confused and still bleary as she staggered forwards, somehow managing to slip between the branches so she could get into the cage. Once inside, she immediately fell into Kurama's fur. They must not have been too upset, because they allowed her to cling to them.

"It wasn't entirely your fault," they allowed. "That tessen isn't meant for children to wield, and for good reason. If it wasn't for me, you would have died of chakra exhaustion. As it is, you channelled so much of my chakra you burned your chakra pathways quite extensively."

"...oh," Sansa said, still a bit dazed and distant.

"It didn't help that you also channelled quite a bit of my chakra two days ago," Kurama said and they sounded almost guilty this time. "You were rather... enraged at the time. Stopping you accessing my chakra then was– difficult."

Sansa, remembering how Kurama's chakra had cut off suddenly during her rampage after Lady's stabbing, winced. "That was not my finest moment," she said. "Thank you, Kurama."

"...yes, well..." Kurama didn't seem to quite know what to say, just as they always did when Sansa thanked them after they'd done something genuinely nice.

"Jiraiya is going to throw a fit when I wake up," Sansa sighed. "I'll probably deserve it too."

"You couldn't have foreseen what would happen when you used the tessen," Kurama pointed out. "And once you started channelling chakra, it wasn't that you chose not to stop, you couldn't stop. It is... an old weapon. And powerful."

Kurama tilted their head. "They're ready to wake you up now," they informed her.

"Wish me luck," Sansa sighed.

"Good luck," Kurama said, darkly amused.

The godswood faded around her and Sansa blinked, finding herself back in the inn, lying in her bed there. Kabuto was leaning over her.

"Ah, good, you're awake," he said, in a pleasant sort of voice.

"Excellent," a further back voice said, "that means we can discuss what a phenomenally stupid attempt to die horribly that was!"

Jiraiya glared down at her over Kabuto's shoulder, looking particularly enraged.

"In my defence," Sansa said, feeling drained and not up to arguing, "I wasn't quite informed that it would do that."

"'That' being almost cause an international incident in a foreign country by nearly drowning half the Water Daimyō's court, the Mizukage, and Kiri's shinobi forces, and destroying part of a foreign village?" Jiraiya asked.

"I suppose 'they did it first' isn't the appropriate defence here?" Sansa mused. "Nevertheless, I would like to point out that it wasn't actually against the rules of the third stage of the Chūnin Exams. And I only killed one person– the person I was supposed to kill."

"You could have started a war," Jiraiya stressed.

"Kiri doesn't have the resources to go to war," Sansa said with a scoff, "they're hiding it well enough, but they're still in the midst of their civil war and it's drained them dry. Their killing squads are hunting bloodline clans while rebels hide in the mountains, except for when they come out to fight the killing squads and the Mizukage's forces. 

"Meanwhile, civilians are getting caught in the crossfire between the killing squads and the rebels and getting killed, and their farmland and livelihoods are being destroyed– Kiri literally cannot afford a war with another village, not with all the in-fighting. Armies can't march on empty stomachs. Kiri only hosted the Chūnin Exams because they are desperate for money."

Jiraiya stared at her. So did Kabuto. Sansa absently noticed that neither Eri or Chiyoko was in the room– she guessed Chiyoko was still bed-bound (she refused to consider any alternative) and Eri was sitting with her.

"How do you know that?" Jiraiya asked finally.

"Mostly from Danzo," Sansa said, which wasn't an entire lie– Danzo had mentioned the Kiri situation a time or two. "But also from observations–" warging– "and conversations I've had with the street kids around here– I didn't get caught, don't panic; I know how to be discrete."

"Kiri is notoriously closed off, but the Water Daimyō has publicly assured the Shogun the situation is under control and the genocides have stopped," Jiraiya said with a frown. "Everyone thought the Chūnin Exams being hosted in Kiri was a sign that he was telling the truth. You're saying they're just trying to fund their civil war."

"Believe me or don't, it doesn't matter to me," Sansa told him. "But Kiri won't be starting a war with Konoha. That, I can promise you."

~

It would be the Hokage who officially granted Sansa the rank of chūnin, but the Mizukage still congratulated her for her win and presented her with a chūnin vest as the Konoha party stood at the gates of the stone wall surrounding the village.

Chiyoko was... alive. She was alive. Kabuto had managed to heal her enough to stabilise her, but she was still in tremendous pain and there was a tired anger in her eyes. Jiraiya would be carrying her back to Konoha as they were disinclined to delay their return to their village until she was healed enough to move on her own.

Sansa felt different, standing in front of the Mizukage now then she had at the start of the Exams. She felt harder, and yet emptier. There was a faint sense of triumphant at having won, at having survived against the odds, even with Kabuto having warned her against excessive use of chakra for at least the next month to prevent her from damaging her still-healing chakra pathways, but when the price of survival was standing on the backs of the corpses of broken children, was it truly a victory?

"Congratulations, Onryō-hime," Yagura said, his purple eyes glittering, and for a moment, Sansa truly, truly hated him.

One day, she thought. One day, Ki would would free whichever of Kurama's siblings was bound within Yagura and with his rebels he would tear this man to pieces.

Until then, she could only bare her teeth in a mocking smile, straight-backed, chin-high, the ghosts of thousands at her back as she did her part for the revolution to come.

"Mizukage," she said, stepping forwards to accept the chūnin vest. As she did, she made sure her hand brushed against the back of Yagura's; when their skin met, she let her fingers burn with Kurama's chakra while her eyes flared fire-bright. "Goodbye, little brother," she said, an edge of mockery in her voice– after all, whichever Bijuu he contained, she knew Kurama had more tails. Yagura did not yank his hand back, but he did go very still, flaring Bijuu chakra in response; all corrosive, salt-water-open-wounds. 

Sansa had to work to keep the triumph from showing on her face. It was clear that her distraction had worked; while Yagura had focused on the chakra of the Nine Tailed Fox, he hadn't noticed the anchoring seal on her palm sinking below his skin, where it would stay hidden until activated.

As she stepped back, Jiraiya's closed over her shoulder and he pulled her back, as if pulling her to safety. He needn't have worried. Yagura didn't appear angry– instead, he laughed.

"Goodbye, elder sister," he said, just as mocking, still with that unsettling interest. Sansa, her eyes fire-bright, kept smiling; one predator to another.

"Let's go," Jiraiya said tersely. He waited until they were outside of Kiri's gates, waited until the stone had closed behind them, before turning on her. "What was that about?" he demanded, something just shy of panic in his voice.

"Truly the greatest of ironies," Sansa murmured, looking back at the stone gateway, protected by the seals of her people.

For it was just as Ki had said; it was the greatest of ironies that the man who had ended so many lives would be brought down by the beginning of new life.

Kabuto just sighed at her lack of a true answer, reaching to grab her hand. "Let me check you haven't damaged your chakra pathways any further with that stunt," he grumbled. Sansa let him, a smile on her face as he fussed, an exasperated but fond twist to his chakra. Chiyoko was smiling too.

"She wouldn't be Fuyuko-chan if she wasn't causing trouble," she said and Jiraiya just looked so done.

"I can't wait until we're back in Konoha," he said with feeling.

And for once, Sansa actually agreed with him.